http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/07/frivolity/ Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:40:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/07/frivolity/#comment-658 Ange Fri, 27 Jul 2007 11:54:16 +0000 http://pf/harriet/?p=304#comment-658 Hi Kwame - Your comment about Prospero is really at the heart of Auden's inquiry in his poem "The Sea and the Mirror" as well as his lectures on Shakespeare. In them he wrestles outright with the question of whether the inventive arts of Prospero/poetry are deceitful at best -- a mirror not of truth but of nature, which is just another mirror. (He had gone back to the Anglican Church by this point.) I'm still reading this stuff myself, so I don't have a strong take on it yet, but as a Christian you might be interested in Auden's struggle. As for whether this puts me in a camp, quite probably. I take the position that poetry is an autonomous zone, but I don't necessarily object to poetry that does otherwise. There's an irrational element to poetry that can never be circumscribed by dogma. Oh, and thank you for your wonderful idea of reading a lyric poem as "adopting a memory." I love it. Ange Hi Kwame – Your comment about Prospero is really at the heart of Auden’s inquiry in his poem “The Sea and the Mirror” as well as his lectures on Shakespeare. In them he wrestles outright with the question of whether the inventive arts of Prospero/poetry are deceitful at best — a mirror not of truth but of nature, which is just another mirror. (He had gone back to the Anglican Church by this point.)
I’m still reading this stuff myself, so I don’t have a strong take on it yet, but as a Christian you might be interested in Auden’s struggle.
As for whether this puts me in a camp, quite probably. I take the position that poetry is an autonomous zone, but I don’t necessarily object to poetry that does otherwise. There’s an irrational element to poetry that can never be circumscribed by dogma.
Oh, and thank you for your wonderful idea of reading a lyric poem as “adopting a memory.” I love it.
Ange
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]]> http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/07/frivolity/#comment-657 Kwame Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:28:03 +0000 http://pf/harriet/?p=304#comment-657 Dear Ange, interesting--this business of the "function" of the poem was the subject for an intriguing debate in poetry recently, and the "purist" seemed to suggest that the very idea of function is deeply prescriptive and limiting. What I am saying is that if camps were created, your holders to the function (and not the "seriousness" of poetry) would be expected to fall into the camp of the idea of no-function poetry that spoke in the Poetry article. So I am happy to be in both camps and none. Poetry is functional because we use it. It turns out to matter little hat the purpose of the poem may have been. But let's not forget that Prospero was trying to charm everyone in ways that can only be described as diabolic--it is not the art that charmed, but the magic outside the art. Thanks for your post. KD Dear Ange, interesting–this business of the “function” of the poem was the subject for an intriguing debate in poetry recently, and the “purist” seemed to suggest that the very idea of function is deeply prescriptive and limiting. What I am saying is that if camps were created, your holders to the function (and not the “seriousness” of poetry) would be expected to fall into the camp of the idea of no-function poetry that spoke in the Poetry article. So I am happy to be in both camps and none. Poetry is functional because we use it. It turns out to matter little hat the purpose of the poem may have been. But let’s not forget that Prospero was trying to charm everyone in ways that can only be described as diabolic–it is not the art that charmed, but the magic outside the art. Thanks for your post.
KD
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