4 ms·
> "Exactly when Donne turned from Catholicism to Protestantism is the central boxing ring of Donne studies" It's pretty damning about the state of modern liter
by squidbeak 4y ago
> "Exactly when Donne turned from Catholicism to Protestantism is the central boxing ring of Donne studies"
It's pretty damning about the state of modern literary criticism that it ends up dwelling on the life more than the poetry. Perhaps cruxes exist that can only be elucidated by reference to the life, but damn it, focus on the effing poetry.
- jmeister 4y agoI guess enough has been said about the poetry over centuries, while new historical source material keeps getting unearthed with time?
- dang 4y agoThis is a popular article. Popular articles have always focused more on biography and human interest. At least there are articles about poets at all!
- nulberryfizz 4y ago
- 2devnull 4y agoAnd best of all, they regularly make the hn front page.
- bryanrasmussen 4y agowell unless you belong to a critical school that holds the opinions of the poet are unimportant in relation to understanding the poetry, which is itself a pretty modern view, then I guess you would expand a lot of time understanding the poet in order to understand the poetry.
- billfruit 4y agoBut that is not an uncommon view, for example influential critics like Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks, etc had an approach which accorded primacy to the text above any external context like authour identity or biography.
- bryanrasmussen 4y agoI didn't say it was uncommon I said it was pretty modern, and the examples you gave were from the mid last century?