English Lit. can it put you off poets/authors for life ? Discuss:-

[Pieface]

Heh - that's also what I did.

Lord of the Rings was the first book I read after my degree - I fucking loved it

 

[bluestreak]

i seem to be able to detach quite well, to enjoy the story and analyse.

bubba, when i experimented with teaching i was worried about that too, but i decided that if didn't get out there and make that stuff work for them, someone else would who would destroy it for them.

 

[Pieface]

or just go out there and destroy it for them - someone's got to!

 

[jbob]

I've really enjoyed studying English Lit, and am sad to be nearing at the end of my course. So much so that I've applied to do a masters .

I was quite surprised how much I enjoyed medieval and renaisssance lit, and how much I grew to dislike nineteenth century texts. I tend to think with the latter it's more that I dislike English nineteenth century novels (with some exceptions); I love French, Russian, and American novels of the same period.

For me, it's the twentieth century that I find most interesting, particularly American and post-colonial lit. Really enjoy theory and the philosophical side of lit, which towards the end of my degree I've specialised in.

I was quite pleased that I managed to avoid poetry for my three years of study, and hopefully won't have to engage with it again in postgrad. So, on the whole, my degree has reinforced my interest in prose and confirmed my dislike of poetry.

 

[jbob]

I'm a literature teacher and I am constantly terrified that when we 'do' all these various novels and poems that I will crush any enjoyment that the students might otherwise get from them.

From what I know, the syllabus will do this for you anyway. I was stunned by the inability of my fellow students to have even the most basic of analytical skills, but it's hardly surprising since teachers are forced into to teaching how to pass exams, rather than how to exercise the brain and enjoy study.

 

[foo]

I was quite pleased that I managed to avoid poetry for my three years of study, and hopefully won't have to engage with it again in postgrad. So, on the whole, my degree has reinforced my interest in prose and confirmed my dislike of poetry.

i dislike poetry too - but always feel like such an ignorant dolt when i say that.

i've really tried dammit but nothing happening i'm afraid. i can even see certain poetry's beauty and rhythm yet i'm still kind of..erm...so what.

philistines - that's what we are, jbob.

 

[jbob]

i dislike poetry too - but always feel like such an ignorant dolt when i say that.

i've really tried dammit but nothing happening i'm afraid. i can even see certain poetry's beauty and rhythm yet i'm still kind of..erm...so what.

philistines - that's what we are, jbob.

I like bits of poetry, and I love Shakespeare and John Donne specifcally, but on the whole I just find it over the top and well, silly, really. I have tried to say this to a couple of my lecturers, and they just reel away in horror, as though I'd suggested we go for a spot of badger baiting.

So, yes, I'm happy being a prose loving poetry hating philistine, but I keep it quiet in front of the gatekeepers.

 

[Pingu]

henry IV prt 1
mr bastard polly
wilfred owen

even though i now like some shakespeare i still cant face henry IV

 

[jbob]

Part V's better.

 

[bluestreak]

i dislike poetry too - but always feel like such an ignorant dolt when i say that.

i've really tried dammit but nothing happening i'm afraid. i can even see certain poetry's beauty and rhythm yet i'm still kind of..erm...so what.

philistines - that's what we are, jbob.

oh foo, you break my heart

*loves poetry*

 

[foo]

sorry bluey

reading jbob's post above yours, i realise that i do like some of shakespeare's sonnets so perhaps i do like some poetry...

i think his sentence - 'over the top and well silly really' is along the lines of how i have felt when reading poetry.

i'm an ig pig ain't i.

 

[Brockway]

I always found poetry easy to deconstruct simply because it mostly comes in small chunks. I enjoyed poetry while studying it but have hardly read any since leaving. I think it's useful for developing a critical faculty and learning how to read subtext.

 

[Chairman Meow]

I'm another philistine Eng Lit grad who doesn't really like poetry. I don't mind some bits of Wilfred Owen, Shakespeare, Eliot etc., and while there is a lot of poetry that I can *see* is very good and clever, I can't really be bothered with it, and would never read it for pleasure. Its too much like hard work I reckon, and all a bit wanky.

 

[jbob]

Also, I've met a few poets and they were all scarcely credible, so-intense-it-hurts prats.

And I've always found the idiom of the big shirt wearing ponce, flouncing around the mediterrean, calling themselves a 'struggling artist' more than a little conceited.

It's lead to the likes of Pete Docherty, y'know.

 

[bluestreak]

oh dear, there are so many sweeping generalisations about poetry going on here. yeah, there's toss poetry in the same way as there's toss everything, and of course, what poetry you like depends on your tastes, values, etc etc. i just think it's a shame. mind you, i like a lot of the poetry that some people call wanky. one of my favourite poems in the world ever is 'the love song of j alfred prufrock'...

"The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. "

this is a beautifully accessible image, the wisps of fog as a cat... and it really works.

"And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— 40
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare 45
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. "

poor prufrock... but this stanza captures perfectly the indecision, the self-justification and low SE of the sad and pompous man, afraid of criticism.

oh, there are so many wonderful moments in that poem, i'm getting all sweaty and joyful just wishing i could pass on the glee and joy i get from the clever images, the sad story, the repressed gentleman's secret wishes...

 

[jbob]

Fuck Eliot, the sneering elitist, reactionary old tosspot.

I know poetry quite well. I just don't like it. What's the problem with that?

 

[bluestreak]

but i still loves yer foo, even if poetry isn't your bag

 

[bluestreak]

Fuck Eliot, the sneering elitist, reactionary old tosspot.

I know poetry quite well. I just don't like it. What's the problem with that?

yeah, you're right, it's shit because of his politics.

there isn't a problem with you not being into poetry, i'm merely saying that i like it enough that i wish i could give you some of the joy i get from it.

what i don't like is your sneering nasty reactionary post earlier attacking poets.

 

[jbob]

Eliot is representative of all that is worst in English lit. It's a reasonable position to take, considering he wouldn't like the likes of you and me to even be near his precious poems. But I get what you're saying, it is beautiful in other respects aside from that, it's whether you can compartmentalise it from its politics, though.

I also said that I liked some poetry. I should have been more specific in what I dislike - romanticism - most definately - and some modernism, like Eliot.

I love H.D., though.

 

[bluestreak]

that's something for another thread, although i dare say it's been done before. can we seperate an artist's politics from their work? i guess it depends on the artist, depends on the work, depends on the 'consumer'. i love a lot of eliot's work, i think he was a master poet who put words together beautifully. most of his work is unoffensive, even if he himself was objectionable. someone like ezra pound on the other hand, had flashes of true genius but is harder to justify due to the way he acted on his politics.

i guess the equivalent is liking speer's buildings but loathing his politics. except that perhaps the nazi ideology is more definied in speer's triumphalist work than eliot's. after all, despite being a terrible snob, prufrock demonstrates that eliot is also critical of the constraints of the class system he otherwise defends. perhaps through his poetry he allowed himself to say things that could not be spoken?

 

[jbob]

that's something for another thread, although i dare say it's been done before. can we seperate an artist's politics from their work? i guess it depends on the artist, depends on the work, depends on the 'consumer'. i love a lot of eliot's work, i think he was a master poet who put words together beautifully. most of his work is unoffensive, even if he himself was objectionable. someone like ezra pound on the other hand, had flashes of true genius but is harder to justify due to the way he acted on his politics.

i guess the equivalent is liking speer's buildings but loathing his politics. except that perhaps the nazi ideology is more definied in speer's triumphalist work than eliot's. after all, despite being a terrible snob, prufrock demonstrates that eliot is also critical of the constraints of the class system he otherwise defends. perhaps through his poetry he allowed himself to say things that could not be spoken?

It is a tricky one. When I say I dislike modernist poets, I think what I really mean is, as you imply, that I dislike their politics. I have to admit to liking some Pound, as well, despite his being a noted fascist. It's a problematic period of lit because it was so centred on a Nietzschean aristocratic revival, and yet, much of it is technically brilliant. I think, btw, Eliot was critical of the bougeois element of society, as oppose to any great dislike of the class system or its constraints. Him, Yeats and Pound, all loved the idea of the peasant, or the working class, as long as they knew their place. It was those troublesome money earners in the middle, with their garish tastes and phillistinism, that enraged them so.

In a way, I slither round the question by genuinely liking more of the prose of that time, such as Woolf, Joyce, Rhys and Barnes, which is politically oppositional to Pound, Yeats and Eliot. I think the prose of the time genuinely asks more questions, and is comparable to much of the lit we have now in its themes and concerns.

 

[quimcunx]

To Kill a Mockingbird is probably a very good book. Sounds like just the sort of thing that would get to me now. I hated it at school though. All i can remember is some teacher bellowing 'symbolism, symbolism' without ever explaining what symbolism was or why something was symbolism, or what it was symbolising. So I sat back and decided I hated the book and symbolism and didn't learn much that term.

 

[scifisam]

I think that most people revolt against their degree subject for a while after graduating, due to having a surfeit of it for at least 3 years - it's just that literature. is one of the subjects that you are more likely to come across in your everyday pastimes.

In addition, a lot of people despise the subects they were forced to learn at school - it's just that, again, 'literature' is something they're more likely to encounter in their personal life than 'geometry.'

But then, I consider Tolkein to be Eng. Lit. I also think that fantasy books and most other books can be treated in the same way as 'highbrow' books.

I hated Macbeth when I was 14, btw - but I think my teacher hated it too, and it came across in her teaching. This was at a 'tuition centre' for those who were 'school refusers,' which I went to briefly before I refused that too.

I went on to a PhD about Shakespeare - but found it hard to shake off a disliking of Macbeth.

 

[foo]

but i still loves yer foo, even if poetry isn't your bag

i loves you too bluey x

thinking on.....unlike jbob, who obviously knows his stuff, i don't, basically.

you know how it is - when you don't understand something, you might dislike it? it's kind of like that for me with poetry. it's wierd because i'm fine with Shakespeare, i love his stuff - and have never had a difficulty with the language.

this may be due to understanding the basic themes in Shakespeare - so i'm then able to relax and fully enjoy the language, and stories. in the past, when attempting to read poetry, a lot of it has made me panic a bit inside. because i have no idea what it's on about from the onset.

p'raps you or jbob could give me lessons.......?

 

[izz]

It must be totally soul-destroying to have to teach Englit, a subject which you may well be in love with yourself, to a classful of ignorant unmentionables, which is what we were. In addition to have to teach not a love of language but how to pass the exams, diabolical.

If you teach in schools, my heart goes out to you.