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ArtSunday: Impressionism exhibit offers a lesson in tradition and rebellion
2008-03-02 22:14:00 [An artist] should copy the masters and re-copy them, and after he has given every evidence of being a good copyist, he might then reasonably be allowed to do a radish, perhaps, from Nature. - Edgar Degas I went to see the “Inspiring Impressionism” exhibit yesterday at the Denver Art Museum and came away struck by how remarkably it addressed questions of influence and originality in art, issues that have long been central to my own thinking and writing. As a poet, I’ve long been aware of the debt I owe the masters whose genius has shaped my own work, and if my efforts pale in comparison, they’re at least less meager than they would have been had I not spent so much time in the company of Donne, Shakespeare, Yeats, Hopkins, Wright, Thomas, and perhaps most especially, Eliot. Degas would no doubt be pleased with my early days, where I was a relentless copyist. Not a great one - very few of us are great at anything at that age - but a dedicated one. If you look ...
VerseDay: the poet in love
2008-02-08 17:42:00 I’ve long been convinced of two truths regarding poetry: 1: The easiest thing in the world to write is a love poem. 2: The hardest thing in the world to write is a good love poem. Accordingly, I admire the hell out of a writer who can produce a tribute to his/her eternal love without making me a little sick to the stomach. I think the problem I’ve often encountered is that great poetry - great art of any sort, really - is driven by tension. Whether it’s political rage, the fear of loss, the pain of mourning, whatever, it seems that the muse is more intrigued by that which is wrong with the world than that which is right. And love - real love, anyway - is an expression of two people’s triumph over the dark tension propelling most great artists. Most of the great love poems I can think of aren’t really love poems purely - they’re often driven by negative conditions. The love is unrequited, a lover is marching off to war, things like that. Just one m...
John Donne: A love poet
2007-12-06 21:01:00 Donne was the first English poet to challenge and break the supremacy of Petrarchan tradition. Though at times he adopts the Petrarchan devices, yet his imagery and rhythm, texture and colour of his love poetry is different. There are three distinct strains of his love poetry ? Cynical, Platonic and Conjugal love.Giving an allusion to Donne?s originality as the poet of love, Grierson makes the following observation:?His genius temperament and learning gave a certain qualities to his love poems ? which arrest our attention immediately. His love poems, for instance, do have a power which is at once realistic and distracting.?Donne?s greatness as a love-poet arises from the fact that this poetry covers a wider range of emotions than that of any previous poet. His poetry is not bookish but is rooted in his personal experiences. Is love experience were wide and varied and so is the emotional range of his love-poetry. He had love affairs with a number of women. Some of them were lasting a...
John Donne: A metaphysical poet
2007-12-06 20:43:00 Dryden once remarked: ?Donne affects metaphysics not only in his satires but in amorous verses, too, where nature only should reign.? Though Donne was influenced by the sixteenth and the seventeenth century poets, yet he did not tread on the beaten track. His concept of poetry was unconventional. In his poetry, intellect takes the form, primarily, of wit by which heterogeneous ideas are yoked together by violence. The seventeenth century poets labeled his poetry as ?strong line poetry?, mainly, on account of his concise expression and his deliberate toughness. In his life, he was never called a metaphysical poet. After his death, his poetry was re-evaluated and some other important features were found in it, which won the name of a metaphysical poet for Donne.Grierson?s defines metaphysical poetry as: ?Poetry inspired by a philosophical concept of the universe and the role assigned to human spirit in the great drama of existence?. This definition is based on the metaphysical poe...
John Donne
2007-09-01 20:14:00 John Donne, (1572 - 1631), Elizabethan and Jacobean PoetBy an unknown English artist, c.1595National Portrait GalleryLondon This portrait shows Donne as a young man dressed in a black floppy hat and open collar, playing the role of a melancholic lover. The poet is shown emerging from the shadows and an original Latin inscription translates as 'O Lady Lighten our darkness.' It seems the picture was probably painted for a lover or conceived of as part of a campaign to conquer a reluctant heart. For Donne, the mid 1590s was a period of intense creativity when he wrote many of his most celebrated love poems.Expensive lace collars are left open and untied at the neck, perhaps in a pun on the author's name (that is, 'unDonne') and as an affectation of the fashionable literary disposition of melancholy.Donne was closely involved in commissioning the composition and it has been argued that the painting 'is as much a product of Donne's creative imagination as the Satires and the early...
Shakespeares?s The Tempest and John Donne?s Holy Sonnet XIV
2007-08-29 14:07:00 This essay will consider whether the poetry and drama of the early modern period is more concerned with transgression or with order. In reaching a conclusion Shakespeares?s The Tempest and John Donne?s Holy Sonnet XIV will be considered, taking into account genre, theme, form and conventions of the period. The Tempest is probably Shakespeare’s last ... |
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