the ambiguity of perfection and scholarship

by ARAHH

Posted to What Are You Reading? on 2003-09-30 06:28:00

Parent message is 521062
from the blurb and recension:

“In this classic text, the distinguished poet and critic John Hollander surveys the schemes, patterns, and forms of English verse, illustrating each variation with an original and witty self-descriptive example. This substantially expanded and revised edition includes a section of examples taken from centuries of poetry that exhibits the schemes and patterns he has described.”
“..virtuoso work from a master, ..never ceasing to be funny..” (Paul Fussell)
“..He defines and ilustrates the forms and means of English verse in such a way as to teach us, also, the spirit of PLAY which animates even the gravest poem.” (R. Wilbur)

In the tradition of Alexander Pope (and others), there are sonnets about how to write sonnets, haiku about how to write haiku, and so on…-
else see the reception/critique in amazon.com…

And also here the described dilemma, some flamey debate is hinted at about Hollander’s attitude, e.g. in “The author demolishes the new fashional nonsense about rhyme being creatively passe.”, etc. “in this day and age of free verse and English classes where almost no poetry is read, much less written or memorized..”
But an amazon.com-critique about Hollander’s own poetry volume “In Time and Place” reads
“Intellect abounds, and everything works like a clock. But while there is nothing to dispute, at the same time, nothing is memorable either. Hollander brings to mind the conundrum of the unidentifiable “Rival Poet” of Shakespeare’s sonnets. In that “contest,” Shakespeare triumphed by what he called his “rude ignorance”: “I think good words whilst others write good words.” It may be that like the Rival, Hollander has too much polish, refinement and intelligence to catch our ear and to endure.” etc.

And, correspondingly, about Hollander’s The Work of Poetry (368 p.): from receptions acc. to amazon.com:

”Cautionary words about poetry from an idiosyncratic and surprising critic and poet. Hollander, usually regarded as a conservative observer of things poetic, both lives up to his reputation and defies it willingly in this essay collection. The Yale professor (and Bollingen Prize and MacArthur fellowship winner) predictably decries, for example, the dominance of creative-writing programs in contemporary America, blaming them in part for the rise of underachieving free verse and for an oversupply of poets who may not deserve the name.
“Free verse . . . is very easy to write if you don’t know how,” he comments, convinced that many self-styled poets don’t. “Good poets know how,” he notes–as if we couldn’t figure that out for ourselves. .. `Notice how a poet’s games are called his “works”–and how the “work” you do to solve a poem is really play. . . .he laments, but he also enlightens.
And while current poetic trends call for a structural looseness and emotional pitch that can be every bit as confining as formalism ever was, much of Hollander’s power seems to have ebbed. Hollander shows that the power of experience can be enhanced by the form which recasts it.
But the danger of formalism is that a poet can spend too much time just bouncing the ball off the backstop, and the peril of erudition like Hollander’s is a gradual avoidance of the unknown. (Often) form seems to have overwhelmed content, and the images are often remote from reality. “