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caryne
Old Love
United Kingdom
1520 Posts |
 Posted - 05/01/2010 : 23:03:06
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quote:
Originally posted by John9
quote:
Originally posted by caryne
I really don't like Eliot at all, I remembering having to plod through 'The Wasteland' when I was at University and found it a turgid read.
The Wasteland can be heavy going. But to me it is like one of those paintings that you keep returning to always to find something new. I first came across the poem in the mid 80s when Channel Four broadcast a wonderful series entitled Six Centuries of Verse...I've still got the accompanying book. They had one part of the poem - 'A Game of Chess' acted out and it has stayed with me almost like no other poetry. Sometime in the mid 90s, Irish thespian Fiona Shaw performed the whole thing on TV as a mesmerising monologue.
"HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME"
I am very much an admirer of Fiona Shaw but I don't think even she would make 'The Wasteland' interesting for me. Very much each to his own there, I think |
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Martin Pravda
Fourth Love
United Kingdom
104 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2010 : 01:58:14
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| I recently wrote an essay on modernist work where I took a Marxist line arguing that by breaking down tradition it was in turn an attempt to break down class boundaries. The Waste Land however provided me with an interesting argument as it has been quite a battle ground between Marxist critics with writers such as Eagleton (who I very much respect) arguing that his overtly complicated style which is full of classical references was an attempt to alienate the emerging working class reader who wouldn't have had a classical back ground and thus wouldn't know the references. But others like John Cornford (a fantastic poet of the time whose Spanish Civil war poetry is some of the best war poetry I've read) took the Marxist line I was arguing in my essay, and found it to be really inspiring. One passage which really fits with this is the scene with the typist. The way she is described in her own home with her lover is so mechanical, and for me really portrays the worst sides of Capitalism when there is no escapism from economic pressures - turning the worker into a machine. I obviously sided with Cornford in the essay but to be honest I don't know where I stand on it if I'm honest. That said, I really enjoy the poem - mostly for the reasons John9 stated; whenever I read it I find something new and exciting. |
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caryne
Old Love
United Kingdom
1520 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2010 : 09:53:06
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin Pravda
I recently wrote an essay on modernist work where I took a Marxist line arguing that by breaking down tradition it was in turn an attempt to break down class boundaries. The Waste Land however provided me with an interesting argument as it has been quite a battle ground between Marxist critics with writers such as Eagleton (who I very much respect) arguing that his overtly complicated style which is full of classical references was an attempt to alienate the emerging working class reader who wouldn't have had a classical back ground and thus wouldn't know the references. But others like John Cornford (a fantastic poet of the time whose Spanish Civil war poetry is some of the best war poetry I've read) took the Marxist line I was arguing in my essay, and found it to be really inspiring. One passage which really fits with this is the scene with the typist. The way she is described in her own home with her lover is so mechanical, and for me really portrays the worst sides of Capitalism when there is no escapism from economic pressures - turning the worker into a machine. I obviously sided with Cornford in the essay but to be honest I don't know where I stand on it if I'm honest. That said, I really enjoy the poem - mostly for the reasons John9 stated; whenever I read it I find something new and exciting.
I would side with Eagleton in his view that the poem was written in a style to alienate the working class especially bearing in mind Eliot's personal politics which were, of course, those of the right, he did, after all refuse to publish 'Animal Farm' because of its 'Trotskyite' politics! An author's personal politics/views are always an issue with me and I often find it very hard to distance a writers work from them especially when the work is clearly influenced. I remember, at Uni, when a 'born-again christian' type tried to argue that there wasn't a homosexual element in 'Dorian Grey'!!!! She simply didn't want to see it but, considering Oscar Wilde's life, I found that really quite ridiculous and narrow minded.
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Edited by - caryne on 06/01/2010 09:59:24 |
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John9
Old Love
United Kingdom
2154 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2010 : 11:18:16
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Martin - thanks for the insight into the observations about the typist. I must admit that a Marxist interpretation had not occured to me before....but I do take the point. Of course, this all relates to 'The Fire Sermon' which is probably my favourite part of the entire poem. I've always felt that the typist shows an inner resourcefulness after her 'lover' has gone. And I love the way in which the music she plays on her gramophone becomes a kind of portal into an earlier time...and before long we are hearing mandolins and viewing the spectacle of Elizabeth and Leicester passing by on a magnificently decorated barge. To me it is all like some incomprehensible but extremely vivid dream. I think that art has a good chance of being 'great', if you feel that you have understood two or three themes therein....but you also sense that there are several others that have eluded you for the present. King Lear is like that to me.......as is The Waste Land.
"Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song.
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long." |
Edited by - John9 on 06/01/2010 11:24:04 |
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rocker
Old Love
USA
3606 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2010 : 14:47:40
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This is a pretty good English class...
brings me back to my undergrad days where we wnet ver Eliot's peom with the prof. I think he thought Eliot was a literary god! Which leads me to say is it true his Waste Land is the grestest poem of the century. Some critics have noted this. For me, it's a powerful poem but you've got to work hard to understand it. Pound, Eliot and Auden were smart and well read guys but I wouldn't mind the post-mod poetry people changing things so the average person can understand a poem... |
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caryne
Old Love
United Kingdom
1520 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2010 : 15:06:52
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Originally posted by rocker
Which leads me to say is it true his Waste Land is the grestest poem of the century. Some critics have noted this. For me, it's a powerful poem but you've got to work hard to understand it. Pound, Eliot and Auden were smart and well read guys but I wouldn't mind the post-mod poetry people changing things so the average person can understand a poem...
You've hit the nail on the head, I believe poetry should be for everyone not just the 'educated elite' that Eliot etc were writing for. Some critics, to put it bluntly, are so far up their own backsides that they often praise things simply because of their elitist quality (actually you see that sometimes in other areas of life, people often, for example, seem to delight in listening to the most obscure music simply for the sake of exclusivity). Eliot was obviously a profund talent but his stuff was not written for the likes of me (a working class women) and I have no interest in it. |
Edited by - caryne on 06/01/2010 15:07:42 |
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John9
Old Love
United Kingdom
2154 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2010 : 17:47:09
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| I've taught young people (in an ordinary comprehensive school) who have derived a great deal from The Waste Land...surely it cannot just be down to class. After all, Marx envisaged a utopia in which people would work hard in the fields and factories during the day....and then read Plato in the evening. |
Edited by - John9 on 06/01/2010 17:56:07 |
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caryne
Old Love
United Kingdom
1520 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2010 : 18:21:28
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quote:
Originally posted by John9
I've taught young people (in an ordinary comprehensive school) who have derived a great deal from The Waste Land...surely it cannot just be down to class. After all, Marx envisaged a utopia in which people would work hard in the fields and factories during the day....and then read Plato in the evening.
True, but that was after they had been well educated in a Marxist education system not the class ridden one of the 1930's (and today, if we are honest).
I have no idea what kind of school you taught in John(we all know comprehensives can cover all sorts of intakes/catchment areas) and certainly a good teacher can make all sorts of work worth reading but I know no school I've ever taught in had more than a handful of pupils, if that, who could have even been persuaded to look at 'The Wasteland', let alone read and enjoy it. Luckily I never had to teach it. |
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rocker
Old Love
USA
3606 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2010 : 18:43:33
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john9 ..."derived a great deal from the "Waste Land"...
I'm sure you taught them well. I myself had trouble with TWL and its almost as if I had to change my orientation to the written word espceally in understanding what I was reading and being given to mull over in my brain. i still am not so hot in going through stanzas! I'd say sometimes reading poetry is not easy. It's difficult. Should it be that way?
One contemporary author I seem to like is Billy Collins. His poems are kind of "easy" but at the same time express some things that really touch the core of our human existence. There's one called "The Dead" which intrigues me all the time when I read it. Just haunting. |
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caryne
Old Love
United Kingdom
1520 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2010 : 18:58:19
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rocker ... imo, there is so much great poetry to read why bother torturing yourself with 'The Waste Land'? It's a whole other argument over whether it's a good thing or not to read something that is 'difficult' but sometimes I think we should just draw the line between what is just 'deep' and what is 'pretentious'.
I have not heard of Billy Collins, I'll check him out. I have to admit to a fondness to much older stuff, John Donne, Andrew Marvell even Alexander Pope. |
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rocker
Old Love
USA
3606 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2010 : 14:16:14
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| Well you know what your saying gets me back to what we were discussing here about music and our "tastes". One's awesome band is just another's ho-hum group. It looks as if Eliot's WL appears to be in that vein. And the kicker here is that Eliot's work is lauded to the rafters. I don't know. Can English and literary academics be that wrong???... Anyway, I'm also going there with you to the poetry I like.....those "Romantics" sure had working imaginations!....Book out now on them.."The Age of Wonder"..looks good... |
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caryne
Old Love
United Kingdom
1520 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2010 : 14:35:12
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quote:
Originally posted by rocker
Well you know what your saying gets me back to what we were discussing here about music and our "tastes". One's awesome band is just another's ho-hum group. It looks as if Eliot's WL appears to be in that vein. And the kicker here is that Eliot's work is lauded to the rafters. I don't know. Can English and literary academics be that wrong???... Anyway, I'm also going there with you to the poetry I like.....those "Romantics" sure had working imaginations!....Book out now on them.."The Age of Wonder"..looks good...
Very true rocker though not all critics laud Eliot, as has already been mentioned here, Terry Eagleton, for example, is not a fan. I also have a tendency to believe that with quite a few critics they get a touch of the 'Emperor's New Clothes' syndrome, you know, they all go along with the accepted view as they are afraid to swim against the tide. I'm thinking about all critics here not just the literary ones.
On the subject of 'romantics', I have a fondness for Rosetti and Lord Byron... though maybe I'm just taken with the idea of them, |
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John9
Old Love
United Kingdom
2154 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2010 : 16:18:03
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To my mind, the views of critics are of less importance than the meaning that the individual finds in his or her own personal enounter with a particular work of art. A great poem, novel, painting or piece of music can illuminate one's own experience for all kinds of reasons. I think especially of Willy Russell's immortal line that he gives to Rita in Educating Rita....just after she has realised what Macbeth is all about:
"Wasn't his wife a cow!" |
Edited by - John9 on 07/01/2010 16:25:28 |
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caryne
Old Love
United Kingdom
1520 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2010 : 16:39:28
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quote:
Originally posted by John9
To my mind, the views of critics are of less importance than the meaning that the individual finds in his or her own personal enounter with a particular work of art. A great poem, novel, painting or piece of music can illuminate one's own experience for all kinds of reasons. I think especially of Willy Russell's immortal line that he gives to Rita in Educating Rita....just after she has realised what Macbeth is all about:
"Wasn't his wife a cow!"
Yes, very true |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2010 : 19:27:01
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"To Kill A Mockingbird".....an absolute favorite. Brilliant.
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Everybody's got something to hide 'cept for me and my monkey. |
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Like movies, let's share your reading......
