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Monday, January 31, 2022

Victorian Poetics

 When I was coming of age, ca. 1975, the poets looming largest were Olson, Auden, Lowell, Plath, etc... Ashbery if you leaned in that direction.  But now we are in 2022, unbelievably, and are 100 years past the modernists. Let's think of early 20s publications like Ulysses, Harmonium, Spring and All, Tulips and Chimneys. Or Lorca's Poema del cante jondo, written 100 years ago. To the Lighthouse is 1927.  

So in the 1920s, people were not debating Victorian poetics, worrying about Longfellow and Tennyson. My relation to the current moment is like that of a Victorian to a modernist. 

3 comments:

Leslie B. said...

But weirdly, it's still those people I like. I always thought I should be interested in the present but I like the 19th century, ca. 1810-1930.

Jonathan said...

I'm not making any value judgments or statement about my own preferences.

I like the romantics and the modernists, and have mixed feelings about some mid-century heroes. What is interesting is the time frame.

Leslie B. said...

Yes. If time ran in a different direction, in my life, it would not be 2022 but 1891 or something like that.