tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014415529871703586.post3682730552611059657..comments2023-12-16T02:44:20.427-06:00Comments on Reginald Shepherd's Blog: A Few Thoughts on Yvor Winters, and Three PoemsReginald Shepherdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11965170916626482963noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014415529871703586.post-79470040580086241522007-01-23T18:03:00.000-06:002007-01-23T18:03:00.000-06:00Excellent post on Yvor Winters.Excellent post on Yvor Winters.Bloodbelterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06110795715287963703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014415529871703586.post-92218226709915447692007-01-21T19:20:00.000-06:002007-01-21T19:20:00.000-06:00I'm sorry: "here." Although my mistake echoes how ...I'm sorry: "here." Although my mistake echoes how I read the Winters poems aloud. I esp. liked the 1st & 3rd. Any cursory reading of Winters reveals an incredibly passionate mind.Lawrence LaRiviere Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00060484548455926167noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014415529871703586.post-73258606722282343622007-01-21T19:15:00.000-06:002007-01-21T19:15:00.000-06:00You've captured much that is important hear. Wheth...You've captured much that is important hear. Whether or not one agrees w/Winters, it is a bracing & mind-expanding experience to read his criticism. Few have ever thought so thoroughly about poetry. I have esp. learned a lot from him about prosody. Not that I'm an expert at it, but he seems unimpeachable when it comes to scansion.<br /><br />While I think his criticism of Romanticism & Romantic thinking in poetry is important, I have never understood his assessment of poetry as the highest form of rational thought. If making thought explicit is an essential feature of rationality (& I believe for Winters it was), there's no way that poetry can compete w/prose, & in particular philosophical prose. Philosophy has no governing principle other than such explicitness. Poetry, on the other hand, carries into account beauty (or the lack thereof). A poem cannot be tedious. Philosophy can. In fact, that's part of its virtue, the ability to divorce itself from divertissement.<br /><br />It seems to me the virtue of poetry is to carry the explicit & the implicit together, to go where rationality alone cannot go. To say both what can & can't be said, together.Lawrence LaRiviere Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00060484548455926167noreply@blogger.com