[New-Poetry] saroyan, epic, dead movements

[Alexander Dickow]

Bob Grumman wrote: "Question: has any school of poetry
ever been attacked that the
 consensus 
of informed poetry-readers eventually judged
worthless?  I genuinely 
don't know of any, though there have been schools that
receded in 
importance--but were very influential in their time,
and left a number 
of poem in the canon."

Hm, I'd say there are many -- but we don't hear about
them unless we dig quite a bit. In France, Rene Ghil's
theory of Instrumentalism, once judged very important,
has gone the way of the dinosaur since at least the
mid-twenties or so. There are literally dozens of more
or less forgotten (and potentially recuperable --?
"worthless" is a judgment always susceptible of
revision...) figures of the European avant-garde.
Anyone here heard of Canudo and his Cerebrism? (other
than you, Bob) How about the Integralists? In England,
the Spasmodics? 
What about fashionable genres or techniques that fall
out of fashion, and are never revived? Such as the
17th-century practice of bouts-rimes (but don't anyone
claim it's basically an oulipian practice, that's an
anachronism). 
Perhaps more interesting are the instances of
"canonical" figures whose techniques have essentially
no descendants, no inheritors, no further development.
Or poets whose "major" works have become "minor"
and/or vice-versa (cf. Ronsard, or more problematic
figures like St. Amant, Donne...). There's plenty of
uncanonicity in canonical works, and a fair amount of
unrecuperable (i.e., "worthless") stuff in them, too,
in my (not so humble?) opinion.
Oh, incidentally: I *love* epic. You guys and gals
should all go learn French and read Agrippa
d'Aubigne's Tragiques, it's one of the most
extraordinarily visceral works in verse I've ever
encountered. It's basically anti-Catholic, homophobic,
bloodthirsty etc. invective, almost entirely
objectionable on an ideological level -- but it still
makes my heart beat faster (ah, the seductions of
beauty...). I also love the Song of Roland, naturally
-- and the Middle Ages in general. Lesser known
Chansons de Geste like the Charroi de Nimes (the
Chariot of Nimes?) are often quite funny -- not at all
the sort of epic you're probably used to. The
narrative techniques of St-Amant's baroque "epic",
Moses Saved (Moise sauve) is fascinating, and the
combat scenes I find genuinely action-packed. 
Especially for Bob G. because of its compact nature, I
recommend the contemporary hybrid "epic" by Monique
Wittig, Les Guerilleres (can't remember the English
title), a translation of which is available somewhere
on UbuWeb.
Once again, lots of lesser known treasures remain to
be discovered by most readers (French, English or
Americain), treasures I prefer a thousand times to the
relative tedium of Virgil and Homer.
Amicalement,
Alex





www.alexdickow.net/blog/
   
  les mots! ah quel désert à la fin
  merveilleux. -- Henri Droguet