tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post3005473178545376072..comments2024-03-19T21:14:01.007-07:00Comments on The Compass Rose: On a Minor Poem of Philip LarkinCurtis Favillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-80005594013177108542009-10-20T09:19:41.186-07:002009-10-20T09:19:41.186-07:00the always cold formalism of Eliot and Pound.
TS...<i>the always cold formalism of Eliot and Pound.</i><br /><br /><br />TSE, maybe, but the Pound of the Cantos was no cold formalist--the Pound of the Cantos offers a polylingual condemnation of finance, of anglo-zionist corruption, militarists and greed, and of literary decoration as well. Dante meets, oh Browning or something via Thomas Jefferson <br /><br />Who started that chant? It was Bly methinx, poetic sunday schooler and leftist-lite. Pound's symphony may be a bit raw at times, but of greater sublimity than Larkin's dixieland (or bly's fiddle-hymns)Jhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11567400697675996283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-19342976450980974582009-10-20T08:28:25.134-07:002009-10-20T08:28:25.134-07:00Conrad:
I'm not down on the poem, or its form...Conrad:<br /><br />I'm not down on the poem, or its form. <br /><br />One must, though, acknowledge its polite resignation. It isn't by any stretch of the imagination an experiment in verse, merely an appropriation of staid form. <br /><br />That Larkin does it very well--indeed, breathes new life into it--is a tribute to his gift. I have the same feeling about Hecht and Justice. Though in their hands, it becomes a much more self-consciously ironic performance. That ironic quality is in Larkin too, though much more disguised--that's the self-deprecating aspect I was talking about, i.e., "I'm this potty librarian, embarrassed in love, modest of means, who writes photo-album verse" but then proceeds to knock your socks off with a poem like this one.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-13364791500615556532009-10-20T08:11:24.081-07:002009-10-20T08:11:24.081-07:00Not sure on bio-graphical details, but Larkin'...Not sure on bio-graphical details, but Larkin's syntax sounds right to me--tho' poetical expert I am not, unlike Herr Kirby. <br /><br />Larkin seems mature and sober in some sense, and mostly free of hipster-romantic angst. The beauty of cynicismJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11567400697675996283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-77806291810728106682009-10-16T15:31:47.564-07:002009-10-16T15:31:47.564-07:00Minor poem?
Anyone who would have been England...Minor poem?<br /><br />Anyone who would have been England's poet laureate but for a bad case of writer's block can't have ever written anything 'minor'.People waited for the next Larkin poem as eagerly as the Victorians for Dickens's next installment. He was immensely popular in his day (in a way poets Basil Bunting and Ted Hughes never could be) and perhaps the bookish and unassuming demeanor had something to do with it. But it was the language, always marvelously & elegantly suited to topic and mood.<br /><br />More interesting to me is the question of 'category': what kind of poet was he, and what type his poetry? Larkin is modernist, as much as were Lowell, Auden, and John Berryman,sharing with them with a real (almost virtuosic) penchant for rhythms (what you call "careful, stodgy versifying"), irony, allusion: in a word, a simple (accessible) language that hid a complexity and solemnity few poets ever achieve. It was this almost charming accessibility that separates him from the always cold formalism of Eliot and Pound. For all his talk of "objective correlative" Eliot never got as close as Larkin to the poem's inscrutable heart.<br /><br />In its observational and introspective reach,I would even dare to compare this 'minor' poem of Larkin's to Arnold's "Dover Beach". It is a delight just to read it aloud.<br /><br />Thanks for posting it, Curtis.Conrad DiDiodatohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18312831623791642286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-37404241768567032052009-10-16T10:42:39.851-07:002009-10-16T10:42:39.851-07:00He had lots of long affairs, some secret and some ...He had lots of long affairs, some secret and some open, and was fairly wild, in his opinions and in his life. I only know this from a review I read of a bio, but just checked this in Wiki, and it seems his life was quite wildly out of control. He was a gangster of the sheets.<br /><br />He does look homely, though.<br /><br />Maybe the women were homely, too.<br /><br />Homely is a strange word. Because homes aren't necessarily homely. so how does the word arise?<br /><br />I like Larkin's poems, too. I haven't read a lot of them, though.<br /><br />How would you rate him next to Eigner? Eigner had a fairly quiet life, at least in terms of between-the-sheets activities.<br /><br />Georges Bataille was also a professional librarian.Kirby Olsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05952289700191142943noreply@blogger.com