All those who love poetry should give themselves a holiday gift of John Keats’ Letters (see Brian Boyd “The American Years” ref at bottom of email I am replying to), if they don’t own a copy already. The edition edited by Robert Gittings is the best I have seen. Too bad the soft cover is such a sick blue and the cover portrait is an etching (I think) that seems to have been tinted by someone dedicated to making Keats look like Chatterton just after Chatterton swallowed the fatal dose. I had to read it twice (but enjoyed both readings) before I could adapt to the casual chat of the early 19nth century. But the bright light shone through at last and is well worth the work.

Byron’s letters are much easier to read and in some ways more enjoyable, or at any rate less taxing. A beach book for the at least slightly brainy. Almost all he talks about is the money he’s being screwed out of by publishers, all the girls he’s trying to seduce, all the weight he’s trying to lose, and all the cures for gout he’s attempted.  A very modern writer. Try reading the letters of John Wilmot, the Seventh Earl of Rochester (recently portrayed to superb effect by the excellent Johnny Depp) if you really want your eyes to pop out of your head. I think Wilmot, in his brief prime, could have sat down with any of today’s writers and sent them off screaming. All except Martin Amis, perhaps.

Happy Thanksgiving to all Yanks, and Happy November 23rd to everyone else.

Andrew

Ps. (I know I owe a good solid reply to Matthew Ross, and, Matthew, I will get it done as soon as I can. Sorry for delay.)


On 11/21/06 6:51 PM, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:

CHW offered us a list of poets VN respected ( among them Keats and Browning). In the first part of Lolita VN made a passing mention to Hopkins and often I hear of "dappled" clearings which might be related to this bespeckled alliterative rhythmic poet.
And yet, in ADA, his comment on "sprung rhythm" seemed rather mocking, but I found it difficult to judge since I cannot even imagine how Russian verse would sound in SR.  Could you, CHW, or one among our List experts clarify ?
 
ADA: Mlle E...could not be relied on to take over from lagging Ada with a breezy account of her work on a new novella of her composition (her famous Diamond Necklace was in the last polishing stage) or with memories of Van’s early boyhood such as those eminently acceptable ones concerning his beloved Russian tutor, who gently courted Mlle L., wrote ‘decadent’ Russian verse in sprung rhythm, and drank, in Russian solitude.

Also in Pale Fire, while commenting on Goethe's poem (lines 653-664), Kinbote observes that:"one cannot sufficiently admire the ingenious way in which
Shade manages to transfer something of the broken rhythm of the ballad (a trisyllabic meter at heart) into his iambic verse".
He then uses a punctuation that is vaguely suggestive of distorted Hopkins stresses ( & I hope I've been also vague enough to signal my ignorance on the subject)
                                   
662 Who rídes so láte in the níght and the wínd
663 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
664 . . . . Ít is the fáther wíth his chíld

Goethe's two lines opening the poem come out most exactly and beautifully,
with the bonus of an unexpected rhyme (also in French: vent-enfant), in my
own language:
Ret wóren ok spóz on nátt ut vétt?
Éto est vótchez ut míd ik détt.
How do you think did GMHopkins rate with VN?
Jansy
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
CHW:" By consulting the index to Brian Boyd’s indispensable VN, The American Years I was relieved to discover that Keats was that rarity, a poet and critic of poetry  who had enjoyed what seems like VN’s unqualified affection. There are four index references to Keats, four to Coleridge, two to Wordsworth, fifteen to Shakespeare in general, plus  20 comments on specific plays."
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