Really interesting thread here. I especially like the argument about John Ashbery. I’m not a fan either of Ashbery, but it was really fun to read the back and forth about it.
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Like almost everyone else, I got introduced to Ashbery via Harold Bloom and never really could understand why Bloom digs Ashbery so much. He’s written many fine poems, “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” perhaps being the apex, but the work has really gone into decline recently. When I was in grad school he came to my university to give a reading from his latest book, which struck me as transparent word games and silliness. So afterwards I asked an Ashbery scholar friend if that was really as bad as I thought it was, and he said, “Yeah, it stank.”
As for his being the most legitimate heir of Stevens, yes, but often the comparison is unfortunate to Ashbery. Compare the two on the signifance of writing poetry, for instance. First Stevens,
What would we be without the sexual myth
The human reverie or poem of death?
Castratos of moon-mash — Life consists
Of propositions about life. The human
Revery is a solitude in which
We compose these propositions, torn by dreams,
By the terrible incantations of defeats
And by the fear that defeats and dreams are one.
The whole race is a poet that writes down
The eccentric propositions of its fate.
Now Ashbery:
Or, to take another example: last month
I vowed to write more. What is writing?
Well, in my case, it’s getting down on paper
Not thoughts, exactly, but ideas, maybe:
Ideas about thoughts. Thoughts is too grand a word.
Ideas is better, though not precisely what I mean.
Someday I’ll explain. Not today though.
Sheesh. I defy anyone to find anything that bad anywhere in Stevens. That’s the sort of thing that should be recited by Diane Keaton in an early Woody Allen movie.
And yet, and yet, sometimes Ashbery almost touches Stevens’ strength.
All beauty, resonance, integrity,
Exist by deprivation or logic
Of strange position.
Nothing that Stevens didn’t already tell us, but perhaps never so forcefully.
Even here though, close to Ashbery’s purest, I find myself wincing. The passage is from “La Livre est sur la table” whose title alludes to Stevens’ “The Planet on the Table”. Ashbery gives us chaos and unknowing as aesthetic good. But here is what Stevens gives us.
Ariel was glad he had written his poems.
They were of a remembered time
Or of something seen that he liked.
Other makings of the sun
Were waste and welter
And the ripe shrub writhed.
His self and the sun were one
And his poems, although makings of his self,
Were no less makings of the sun.
It was not important that they survive.
What mattered was that they should bear
Some lineament or character,
Some affluence, if only half-perceived,
In the poverty of their words,
Of the planet of which they were part.
This is both more modest and more honoring of the self.
All this has nothing to do with the Nobel Prize, of course. Just thought I’d rant for a while.
OH Bryan, what a great great comment. You’ve articulated much better than I ever could (with examples!!) why Ashbery irritates me. I’m a huge Wallace Stevens fan and thank you so much for providing examples. That was amazing.
“Castratos of moon-mash” – woah.
Oh, and I should say that people whose taste I TOTALLY respect love John Ashbery. So I’ve read him because of that, and I have some of his books – just cause he’s important, you know – but I just don’t like him.
Thanks, Sheila! :)
And yes, I know what you’re saying. I mean, I totally respect Bloom’s taste; he was probably the biggest critical influence on my own literary education. He seems to have gotten himself into a position, though, where he more or less feels himself obligated to say that every book Ashbery puts out is his best yet and worthy of late Stevens and Yeats, etc.
Well, even Dr. Johnson and Ruskin could nod in their judgment as critics sometimes.
It’s just my taste but I think Wallace Stevens is nearly perfect. Just exquisite.
There’s that great quote from Wallace Stevens – I’m sure you’ve heard it Bryan:
“I’ve read T.S. Eliot, of course, but I have to keep away from Eliot or I wouldn’t have any individuality of my own.”
Ha. Just amazing.
Heh. Stevens cracks me up whenever he talks about poetic influence. “Blake? Never heard of him. Whitman? That’s the fellow who had the tramp persona, isn’t it? Shelley? Why must you dagblasted critics keep looking for influences? Can’t a poet ever be himself?”
I’m paraphrasing, of course.
The day that my personality stops being influenced by my parents, closest friends, and former girlfriends is the day that I’ll believe that literary influence is as insignificant as Stevens needed to persuade himself that it was.
Yeah, I’m a Bloomian.
Of course, in that particular quotation, he’s actually affirming the dangerous power of influence and wanting to avoid it.
Fortunately, he was able to tell us what he really thought of Whitman in verse, even if he wasn’t able to do so in prose.
In the far South the sun of autumn is passing
Like Walt Whitman walking along a ruddy shore.
He is singing and chanting the things that are part of him,
The worlds that were and will be, death and day.
Nothing is final, he chants. No man shall see the end.
His beard is of fire and his staff is a leaping flame.
He’s absolutely affirming the dangerous power of influence, you’re right … it’s like TS Eliot saying, in regards to Ulysses, “I wish I had never read it.” hahaha
You know … how do you get away from it???
I might have asked you this before but have you read Michael Schmidt’s Lives of the Poets?
No, I haven’t read Schmidt’s book. Tell me about it.
Okay – he’s an editor of poetry, and a book collector. So the book has an enthusiastic FAN’S tone rather than a scholarly one. It’s written in a very colloquial voice – and I just adore it. not sure why.
He starts with Chaucer, I believe – no, that’s not true. He starts farther back. It’s only English-speaking poets, too that he covers – and of course he had an agonizing time choosing who to include and who to leave out.
But again: he doesn’t have too much anxiety about it because he’s a FAN of poetry, rather than a professorial type.
It goes from the earliest examples of written verse – in what is basically old English – up to Seamus Heaney. It’s massive. But it really rollicks along. He’s also a good writer (in my opinion). His biases breathe through the text – he’s not trying to be objective – he lets you know exactly how he feels about Shakespeare, Chaucer, etc.
I have posted a couple excerpts from the book before – there’s a great one on Ben Jonson – and I do have to say that Michael Schmidt’s essay on Jonathan Swift gave me goosebumps and made me pick up Swift again, after YEARS of not reading him.
I feel like I haven’t described it well. I’ll see if I can’t find some excerpts.
Funny little anecdote from the book. The book analyzes the poetry as well (in a really old-school way, too – which I appreciate – not too much lit crit psychobabble – it’s all about the LANGUAGE) –
but anyway – here’s a funny anecdote.
Here’s another excerpt I posted.
It’s a book for fans – I would say that people who want an introduction to poetry should probably stay away from this book. Because it assumes that you already KNOW a lot.
The book looks really fascinating! Thanks for letting me know about that!