[lit-ideas] Re: Leavis on "Great" poetry
- From: Mike Geary <gearyservice@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 14:13:15 -0500
Do it do it for ya? That's my only measure of all the artsies and
thinkies . Take heed of Jeffers:
...all the arts lose virtue
Against the essential reality
Of creatures going about their business among the equally
Earnest elements of nature.
On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 10:33 PM, <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> In a message dated 9/18/2013 12:30:46 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes about 'great'.
>
>
> I am unhappy with Leavis’ use of the term “great.” It doesn’t seem to
> fit the most noted and celebrated poets of the past. Is Dryden a “great”
> poet?
>
> Yes. I agree that people should stop using, so liberally, words which have
> almost vacuous meanings -- when a standard of measure is lacking -- such as
> 'great', 'big' or 'small' for that matter.
>
> Grice plays with the implicatures of
>
> "Heidegger is the greatest living philosopher"
>
> in his "Logic and Conversation".
>
> Personally, I'm a fan of musical settings to English poetry, A. E. Housman
> being on the top of my list. And I think it was H. P. Gosse who said that
> Housman was a "minor poet" -- Gosse in fact wrote a 'defense' of Housman as
> a minor poet. Implicature: there's something very big about being a
> 'minor'
> poet.
>
> So there!
>
> But then, I guess Leavis would think that "The Minor Tradition" would
> hardly sell -- in Cambridge, if not with Oxford's Blackwell!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Speranza
>
> ps. My favourite setter of Housman seems to be Peele, but there's of course
> Butterworth and HUNDRED others... Peele was especially multifacetic and
> labeled a 'light musician', for what it's worth ("British light music").
>
>
> -----
>
> Some collocations: "Housman minor"
>
>
>
> A Shropshire Lad, AE Housman - eNotes.com
> _www.enotes.com/topics/shropshire-lad/.../shropshire-lad-e-housman_
> (http://www.enotes.com/topics/shropshire-lad/.../shropshire-lad-e-housman
> )
> Critics generally agree that what makes Housman a minor poet is his limited
> range in tone, theme, and subject matter and his uninventive use of
> traditional verse ...
> Full text of "Theme and structure in Housman's A Shropshire lad"
>
>
>
> archive.org/stream/.../themestructurein00leggrich_djvu.txt
> '^'Alfred Edward Housman" in The Poet's Defence . .... R. P. Blackmur
> concurs that Housman was not a great minor poet," for In his view of life
> and
> death "he ...
>
>
> A. E. Housman - Wikiquote
> en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A._E._Housman
> A. E. Housman ... 2 Quotes about A.E. Housman; 3 Attributed; 4 External
> links ..... so on, but and absolutely marvellous minor poet, I think, and
> a
> great scholar.
>
>
> The Poetry of A. E. Housman | Novelguide
> _www.novelguide.com_ (http://www.novelguide.com) › Literature
>
> Housman believed that people were generally evil, and that life conspired
> against ... Housman is considered a minor poet, primarily because of his
> use
> of rhyme ...
>
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