Miscellaneous Package of Thoughts

[liver86]

It's strange how all of my courses somehow in one way or another relate to each other. In English class (Theory and Criticism, yucky course) the professor has a strong distaste for poetry, and often uses his witty and majorly chessy remarks to cover up his arguments against it, IF ANY. I wouldn't have such a problem with it if he wasn't to

Comments

[oh_lorelei]

So are you saying that, by association, nonsense poetry is also "just a regurgitation of images, memories, ideas, desires, and vague plot created by the individual"? Because if you are... well, frankly, you might be on to something. Without meaning to sound like I'm bashing the form (because I find it highly intriguing and pleasurable, as a matter of fact), it does seem to fit that it's simply (or complexly) a matter of taking specific sounds we relate to certain ideas, for one reason or another, and using these to form a somehow coherent work of art.

As subjective as the form may be... most seem to gleam a very similar meaning.

p.s. Good call on Oldboy [one word =)]! Impressive Korean movie... quick, everybody go rent it before the Americans ruin it with the 2006 remake (which I shouldn't even be advertising)!

[liver86]

Well, I said that dreams are just a regurgitation of images, memories, ideas, desires, and vague plot created by the individual. And I suppose that surrealist art is as well (film, visual art, poetry), but not nonsense poetry. Think of nonsense poetry as the Willy Wonka of poetry and surrealist poetry as the Fear and Loathing of poetry. I was talking about the onomatopeia (sp?? pfff) of the words like vorpal and even Jabberwocky (I had a completely different image of a Jabberwocky in my head and I think that the illustration ruined the poem for me). Think of comic books or the old Batman show where they would spell out the sounds like "biff" for a punch or "shrekkt" for a ripping/shredding sound.

p.s. I looked at my Oldboy DVD (burned Chinatown version heheh Chinatown rules) and the words are slightly separated. But I guess it would make sense as one word if you know the meaning behind the word(s) Oldboy. I just heard about the remake a few days ago. What a bad idea.

[roger_kuin]

So get your prof to formulate his own ideas on poetry. Do it pleasantly and you'll probably succeed.
As for the terrible definiton, it's Wordsworth's, and I don't think he meant it as a rational definition. "All poetry," he says in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, "is the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion." But elsewhere he says that poetry is "emotion recollected in tranquillity," which modifies (to say the least) the former. I think both are insights, by a very perceptive and intelligent poet; but they were never meant as definitions.

[liver86]

Yes, you're right, it was Wordsworth (one of my favourite poets I might add). He has some very definite ideas about poetry, some of which are pretty good, but others are just: HUH. He rejects allegory in favour of symbol. He also rejects personification and cliché.

"The poet is a man speaking to men; it is true, endued with a more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, that are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the Universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not fine them."
- A little quote from Lyrical Ballads