A poem that I read today by Mac

[Macavity]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/ ... -in-motion

[jisbell00]

Great topic for a poetry volume, and I suspect they'll find a market!

Here's a fine poem about death and annihilation: https://www.bonjourpoesie.fr/lesgrandsc ... t_du_neant

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

I suspect they will John!

It there a translation of that poem?

[jisbell00]

Here it is with three translations - I like the Roy Campbell especially: https://fleursdumal.org/poem/215
The French uses just two rhymes throughout, you'll notice.

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

Thanks John. Quite a lot of variation. The pitfalls of translation!

[jisbell00]

Very much so! One and three pale alongside two IMO. Campbell gives an idea of what makes the Baudelaire riveting.

CHeers,
John

[jisbell00]

Here randomly is my favorite Leopardi poem, that prince of the Italian Romantics, with two English versions, notably one by Jonathan Galassi:

http://commons.princeton.edu/wp-content ... opardi.pdf

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

Yes, I agree with you on the Campbell, though I like the use of relish in the first translation.

I can't access that second link John.

[jisbell00]

My favorite sentence in the english language comes in Joyce's Ulysses: "Mr Leopold Blum ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls."

I'll try to find a better link:

Galassi: https://infinito1819.wordpress.com/2011 ... linfinito/

And Leopardi's Italian: https://www.libriantichionline.com/diva ... i_infinito

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

Particularly enjoyed the first sentence John, that kind of specific that opens the door and places the reader into the poem.

Thank you for sharing

Phil

[jisbell00]

Ah! It's very weird, I think, to write a poem called The Infinite about looking at a hedgerow and not seeing beyond it. But that's Leopardi. My fave line is the last sentence: "E il naufragar m'e dolce in questo mare," And foundering is sweet to me in such a sea. Anyway, a lovely, weird, gemlike poem.

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

Perhaps it brought the moment, to the inner eye, not looking to the future (or being overwhelmed by distance/vastness). Perhaps it was a mooring. Yes, very R. that line you quote, which I like (though I prefer not to founder in reality).

[jisbell00]

I think you're right about the inner eye. The imagination will always exceed anything we can actually see with the naked eye, at least for a Romantic. And yes, that last line! Mind you, Leopardi died at 37.

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

A rather familiar reference to the 'inward eye'

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/play/77048

[jisbell00]

Great stuff! And also this: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/ ... recian-urn

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

Yes, Keats certainly thought through his aesthetic in his short life.

[jisbell00]

He certainly did! One wonders what he'd have done had he lived as long as Wordsworth. Hopefully, not become a crashing bore.

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

Blake's double vision:
"And a double vision is always with me.
With my inward eye 'tis an old man grey;
With my outward, a thistle across my way.,'Twas outward a sun, inward Los in his might."
http://www.peterbrooke.org/poetry/blake ... is%20might.

[jisbell00]

Very nice! But then, I think the concept is central to the Romantic vision.

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

Would you say Lyrical Ballads was a starting point in Britain for Romanticism? Blake an outlier? I guess you see Romanticism more in a European context John?

[jisbell00]

Hi Phil,

Blake is a bit of an outlier, i thnk - he was a pretty weird guy, and he worked in prints, not in text as the other great Romantic poets did. Also he was a bit older and moved somewhat in different circles. 1798 - the Lyrical Ballads first edition - is I think a big deal by any measure, though I tend to push Romanticism back to people like Percy and Ossian in the 1760s, or Rousseau in France. I also think the 1776 US Declaration of Independence is a key moment for the West - the people's voice - and then, France in 1789, as Wordsworth notes.
Anyhow, 1798. Prior to that, you have Chatterton, and some women poets like Charlotte Smith writing sonnets, and Blake, but what Wordsworth and Colerdige did remains both revolutionary and great art. It was by no means a best seller - really the only one who was, was Byron with Childe Harold after 1812. 1798 is also the start of the Athenaeum journal in Germany, written by the German Romantics - Novalis, Schlegel, Tieck - and so the date is as good as any for starting a short Romantic period. I once told a German colleague I was hosting a Romanticism conference and he asked me if it ran 1798-1804, which to me is a rather silly way of looking at things. Basically, if you want art focused on the people's voice, that runs from Moscow to Argentina, 1750-1850 or thereabouts will do it.
Oh - all America bar some islands and Canada gained independence in fifty years, 1776-1826. Now that is a big deal.

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

Excellent John. Much appreciated. So Blake had no influence on Keats/Shelley? Never heard of Ossian? My googling revealed a bit of a con. Thomas Percy? Not heard of him either! Or Charlotte Smith. Some reading for me William Cowper I do know, but you didn't mention him:

https://englishverse.com/poems/the_poplar_field

[Macavity]

Rather enjoyed this line by Charlotte Smith


All is black shadow, but the lucid line

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/ ... fted-shore

[jisbell00]

Hi Phil,

Blake sold, he just sold prints, so in smallish number. His immediate influence is a good question I don't know well enough. People dismiss Ossian as a con, which I find a bit pat - he's oral fragments assembled into epic, the exact case of Finland's Kalevala. He was massive across Europe. Percy is where ballads reenter English (and German). Yup, Charlotte Smith's sonnets. And Cowper. And, say, Arthur Young.

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

Have found Percy not my taste. Smith interests me. Arthur Young You are an education John

Any poems from these poets you would like to share John?