tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post1506480548272320381..comments2024-01-23T18:21:17.066+00:00Comments on Surroundings: The Well Wrought UrnRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post-63544726997773712972009-03-20T22:54:00.000+00:002009-03-20T22:54:00.000+00:00The Well Wrought Urn is a really interesting book,...The Well Wrought Urn is a really interesting book, perhaps the typifying book of full-swing objective criticism. A good find! Much of it is excellent common sense -- such as what you point to here, the heresy of paraphrase -- though it does connect to some less believable ideas (cf. the affective fallacy, Wimsatt & Beardsley etc). <BR/><BR/>A poem should not mean but be! and all that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post-77328270778599912422009-03-20T14:07:00.000+00:002009-03-20T14:07:00.000+00:00Michael, I hadn't noticed that Silliman had used t...Michael, I hadn't noticed that Silliman had used the phrase, but he's clearly right that the well-crafted, complex, but dull poem doesn't deserve the plaudits it often gets. Mind you, no one has to be an post-avant poet to think that. <BR/><BR/>Brooks's methods, applied rigidly (only the poem counts, historical or cultural influences are irrelevant, paradox is the language of poetry, emotional impact on the reader must be discounted as having critical relevance, close reading is key etc), can be limiting. <BR/><BR/>However, it would be a shame if people didn't read him because his influence has been partly negative. His essay on Donne's 'The Canonization', for example, is an illuminating reading of a difficult poem.<BR/><BR/>Yes, "well-wrought um" - I bet Ron Silliman wishes he'd really thought of that one!Robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post-92093797972572216172009-03-20T12:53:00.000+00:002009-03-20T12:53:00.000+00:00"Well-wrought-um" sounds good and relevant. :)"Well-wrought-um" sounds good and relevant. :)deemikayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01421704728979191339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post-36333869985887415752009-03-20T11:32:00.000+00:002009-03-20T11:32:00.000+00:00You don't mention - possibly don't care - that Ron...You don't mention - possibly don't care - that Ron Silliman has often adopted the phrase "Well-Wrought Urn" (sarcastically) to sum up the kind of crafted, richly complex poem that close-reading specialists like Brooks tended to make a lot of - as opposed to more open-field varieties of text production that (looking at it positively) seem to require a different kind of attention, or (looking at it negatively) seem particularly unrewarding to a Brooks-style reader. Brooks is a master, as your quote demonstrates, but it is the sad fate of masters that they have just as much influence on the dull as on the dynamic, hence the subsequent fifty-year succession of well-crafted richly complex dullness that every reader has nodded over in magazines. I must say I thought Silliman's witty remarks were even more pointed so long as I believed he was writing about the Well-wought Um (UM), but this turned out to be an accident of typography.Michael Peveretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17090710369630916194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post-35375644100100864162009-03-20T00:05:00.000+00:002009-03-20T00:05:00.000+00:00Sounds an interesting book... I might have to get ...Sounds an interesting book... I might have to get a copy. :)<BR/><BR/>I agree pretty much with what's said.<BR/><BR/>The question I'd ask (and this applies to fiction as well...) is when can we stop calling things from the 20s and 30s "modern"? Did Eliot consider Byron "modern"?<BR/><BR/>Oh, that's what we invented the word "contemporary" for... ;)deemikayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01421704728979191339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post-62039171392387228712009-03-19T15:10:00.000+00:002009-03-19T15:10:00.000+00:00The tag as the product of the passage of time: yes...The tag as the product of the passage of time: yes, that does make sense.<BR/><BR/>I think it's great that you buy sixty-year-old books of criticism and then even read them!Andrew Shieldshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02804655739574694901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post-3803485568434464102009-03-19T14:37:00.000+00:002009-03-19T14:37:00.000+00:00At the end of his essay, Brooks writes:"Actually, ...At the end of his essay, Brooks writes:<BR/><BR/>"Actually, in a few years, when time has wrought its softening changes, and familiarity has subdued the modern poet's frightful mien, and when the tags have been obligingly supplied, we may even come to terms with our difficult moderns."<BR/><BR/>When I look at the names he quotes as modern in his time - Eliot, Auden, Tate - I can see what he means.Robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post-9770658064363557232009-03-19T14:17:00.000+00:002009-03-19T14:17:00.000+00:00I've posted my comment on my blog, but I'll give y...I've posted my comment on my blog, but I'll give you the short version here: modern poetry = pre-modern poetry minus tags! Hence, readers of pre-modern poetry who dislike modern poetry must dislike the absence of tags.Andrew Shieldshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02804655739574694901noreply@blogger.com