Mike Snider claims that, until the 20th century poetry, was not written for small groups. I suppose this is a trick answer?
Poetry was written within small groups: in that sense, for small groups. Jonathan is not wrong, Mike. How about one example. A small group is a small group no matter how popular they may have been. The Della Cruscans not only wrote within a small (tho' bustling and popular) group, they often wrote poems explicitly for one another. Check out Mary Robinson's DC work. Moreover, the DCs wrote poetry considered then (Wordsworth famously in his Preface) and now (by many Romantics students/scholars) to be pretentious, affected, and rhetorically ornate. --Mike, it's the kind of poetry you praise at every opportunity.
Don't look now.
Friday, January 21, 2005
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3 comments:
Nope. I praise poetry which uses the language of the time in an unaffected manner in interaction with metrical constraints. Actually, that's too small a group — I also praise much free verse. I disparage poetry written in the language of a coterie, including today's academic coteries.
And Mary Robinson, by the way, although not as highly regarded byt Wordsworth's circle as Charlotte Smith and Helen Maria Williams, was hardly a coterie poet, being an actress, a public figure, and an early feminist. Not much of a poet though.
http://www.showandtellmusic.com/mp3s/gallery_l/FlightFINAL.mp3
listen to this gary
Laura,
You don't expect me to disagree with that list, do you?
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