Dear listers,
Regarding the position of canonised works, such as those of the authors you
mention, it is worth considering how academic studies of literature --
notably English programmes here, there, and everywhere -- have gradually
retreated from the so-called big C-approach, viz. teaching Culture in order
to Cultivate. Therefore, we might ask what *is* the status of High C today?
To put it differently, could High C do without the state? Take, e.g., the
canonisation of Shakespeare in the 19th Century and the relation it had to
the strengthening of academic, humanistic/liberal arts programmes at that
time. Recall that this was *prior* to the rise of the disciplines, so that
philosophy, English, and so on, could still relatively unproblematically
refer to knowledge that was absolute and grounded in some transcendental
domain.
This clearly isn't the case today, resulting in language programmes'
increasing orientation towards marketable skills, etc. What then with the
literature portion -- what is its future?
It seems from this vantage point that the crusade to de-canonise literature
departments in the 1980s and 90s was misguided; particularly what was
considered the "radical critique" of the canon, namely that there wasn't
(shouldn't be) one was self-defeating and unsustainable, so that mostly we
saw implemented a more "liberal" critique: changing the order and content
of the canon, while retaining the concept *as such*.
It seems today we're grappling with two effects of this debate:
1. The canon has survived, in somewhat altered form, both on literature
curricula and in the popular media (the ten best crime fiction of the year,
and what have you);
2. The canon in its High C form has survived, but not as a part of the
State.
We sometimes hear of random, disconnected attempts at resuscitating the old
High C also in State curricula; however, it seems such attempts are mostly
doomed (and what would be the point?). This is where we agree, Lawrence:
these authors are interesting *in so far as we find their works
interesting*. This might seem obvious, but as you aptly note, the
assumption that they are the "best" products of our literary tradition
should be challenged and grounded (if they indeed are) again and again.
Reading an interesting Norwegian poet, Jon Fosse, at the moment: will try
to return with more about him soon.Take care. -tor
Mvh. / Yours sincerely,
Torgeir Fjeld
https://torgeirfjeld.com/
*rock philosophy: meditations on art and desire *is now in paperback with
30% discount: order before June 8, 2019, with coupon code VEPNFTCEA30 from
https://vernonpress.com/book/770
On Sun, 30 Jun 2019 at 21:50, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
A common explication, an explication I would call banal, sees *The Love
Song of J. Alfred Prufrock *as a character depiction of a man who lacks
self-confidence, who dithers, and can’t make up his mind. As the poem
proceeds Prufrock sinks lower and lower until he like a crab with ragged
claws is at the bottom where he hears mermaids singing, but not singing to
him. The voices he complained about earlier in the poem then wake him, get
him caught up in their concerns, and he drowns.
I see the poem differently. T. S. Eliot knew (he wrote the poem at, I
think, age 27) that he had it in him to be Prufrock, and that is what he
became, but not totally. He knew what it was to be inspired during his
writing of his poetry – the mermaids singing. And his early successes made
him an instant success with the English literati. So should he have set
his social and literary successes aside and seek the mermaids? Or should
he ignore them and settle for the fame he had already achieved, something
he valued greatly and wished to enhance. He compromised by devoting
himself to criticism, teaching and publishing. None of which activities
required his listening for mermaids.
Even though he has “heard the mermaids singing, each to each.” He does
“not think that they will sing” for him. And yet he has “lingered in the
chambers of the sea / By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown”
until “human voices” woke him [with banal responsibilities] and he drowned.
What do critics do with a poet who produced relatively few poems but is
still (or they want him to be still a) major poet? Another such poet was
Dylan Thomas. In his introduction to *A Reader’s guide to Dylan Thomas,
*William
York Tindall (in 1962) wrote,
“Thomas wrote sixteen great poems – give or take a couple. Few poets have
written so many. If I were making an anthology of the hundred best lyrics
in English, I should include two or three by Thomas along with half a dozen
or more by Yeats. To those who want to know which sixteen of Thomas’ poems
I have in mind I offer a list of seventeen: “I see the boys of summer,”
“The force that through the green fuse,” “Especially when the October
wind,” “Today, this insect,” “Hold hard, these ancient minutes,” Altarwise
by owl-light,” “We lying by seasand,” “After the funeral,” “A Refusal to
Mourn,” “Poem in October,” “Ceremony After a Fire Raid,” “Ballad of the
Long-legged Bait,” “Fern Hill,” “In Country Sleep,” “Over Sir John’s hill,”
“Lament,” “In the White Giant’s Thigh.”
Tindall goes on to justify his choice: “Value judgments of this sort,
notoriously subjective, and uncertain, are not unlike the reports of a
winetaster, which depend upon experience in tasting. Saying that Thomas
wrote sixteen great poems means that, having read his poems again and again
and having read many others through the years, I find these sixteen
agreeable. . . .”
Agreeable though they may be, my impression is that Thomas’s reputation as
a poet is not faring well. He was a “rock star” in his age. That is, he
had a beautiful reading voice. He did outrageous things. He spoke his
mind regardless of the cost, and was a drunkard and womanizer. He was an
interesting personality to a great number of people . But do many read his
poetry today? Maybe in Wales, but they aren’t totally reconciled to his
having written in English.
In T. S. Eliot’s case many still do read his poetry. I just reread *The
Love Song of J. Alfred Profrock” *and found it . . . agreeable.
Lawrence
