Very absorbed in new writing endeavor, trying to see if it will stick... hence my falling-off at the blogwheel, lately.
Also reading, again, R.S. Crane's 1953 book, The languages of criticism and the structure of poetry. Love this book, getting more out of it the 2nd time. This book should be re-issued, read, absorbed, comprehended, memorized. It's very, very rich.
http://ursprache.blogspot.com/2008/07/abstract-critical-violence.html
ReplyDeleteWe share a delight in RS Crane. Everyone else seems enraptured by things written in acient times (far off) or written within the last generation (up close). It's hard for people to recognize the good things in the 'middle distance'.
I'm reading a book about Auden by Anthony Hecht now. He quotes some of Randall Jarrell's severe criticisms of Auden. I'm thinking R.S. Crane's (& Elder Olson's) distinctions between "mimetic" and "didactic" modes of poetry miggt shed some light on this situation. Auden, methinks (along with his Restoration-era models, Dryden, Pope et al.), leans heavily toward the didactic - maybe a different "kind" of poetry than Jarrell wanted. I don't know : curious about this, want to look into it further if I can.
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