TS Heavy Hitters Poll #4: John Donne vs William Blake

really really dig the Mower poems and A Dialogue Between The Body And The Soul

I love Marvell, but c'mon...

and On A Drop Of Water

OK FINE I tried.

Blake, btw.

I wd probably end up voting Donne as il miglior fabbro but then I will probably just not vote.

Marvell >>> Donne

― acoleuthic, Monday, August 23, 2010 5:16 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol at you

it's true that Marvell connected with me more as a student - his metaphor was grander, more bombastic, more instantly ingenious - perhaps Donne's subtlety and phrasing will win me over

― acoleuthic, Monday, August 23, 2010 5:28 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

still loling

"perhaps"

I am also on the Donne bandwagon - really the shining light of poetry of his time - and blake is certainly good but man Donne is so sneakily wicked and funny.

One of the best examples being the first poem, which is the greatest poem ever written to convey the concept of "Hey you, quit making excuses and LETS BONE."

One of my favorite movie moments is Emma Thompson and Eileen Atkins' pas de deux using "Death, Be Not Proud" in Wit.

To Christ is better than The Flea

for a start it features more or less the best pun on a poet's own name in the entire history of verse

The release in the last line -- damn.

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to'another due,
Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly'I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

One of my favorite movie moments is Emma Thompson and Eileen Atkins' pas de deux using "Death, Be Not Proud" in Wit.

Was just thinking about this.

Just on Marvell: I love him, & would say his range (in some senses) is surprisingly broad: he tries a fair bit, and pulls off nearly everything he tries brilliantly. (eg He can do politics in a way Donne can't or won't (largely circumstance, maybe): the Horatian Ode on Cromwell's Return is phenomenal. And his Satires are v good, but do pale against Donne's). But yeah, he does have a slightly narrow sensibility: can't resist the inside-out, upside-down or perspective-trick images, or the short-meter couplets. I think he's one of the oddest and most brilliant writers of a great age, but partly because of these limits, and partly because he didn't write that much, I don't think he'd have a place in the HEAVY HITTERS series.

I like Marvell fine but he is rightly consigned to the 2nd tier. John Donne is life-changing.

Blake in a heartbeat. But the artwork could be swaying that vote. I've never seen a Donne painting.

― Karen D. Tregaskin, Monday, August 23, 2010 6:35 AM (9 hours agoBookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This is absolutely correct.

really appreciate the evidence here, particularly the precis of blake's worldview, abbott

The article with the picture thomp posted is a pretty satisfying intro to how challenging/rewarding it is to talk about Blake. One thing I love about him is how real everything was to him, he had absolute faith in artistic vision, his own and those he admired. Por ejemplo, on Milton: “If historical facts can be written by inspiration Miltons Paradise Lost is as true as Genesis or Exodus." All the couplets people love in "Auguries of Innocence" about seeing eternity in a grain of sand, I think that was real to him. And so was all the messy, multivalent meltdown in his long works like Jerusalem. I think Los was as real to him as Milton anyone else in his life – Milton being another character in his poetry.

Soapboxing this much about Blake...ILX has never felt so much like my real life.

I also love that Blake dethroned his idols (Swedenborg & Milton's treatment in "Marriage of Heaven & Hell"), that he never attended a church but had such a powerful (and original) relationship with Christ.

Can I show you guys how out of control the Blake Archive "image by theme" search is?

A quick question, Abbott; if you knew nothing about Blake but the text of his poems, would you derive as much pleasure from them? It seems to me you are elevating the poet, but often on grounds apart from his poetry. This is legitimate enough, but it is worth recognizing as a different thing than loving his poems through their own life as poems.

Marvell >>> Donne

― acoleuthic, Monday, August 23, 2010 5:16 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i didn't read the rest of this thread after this point, so maybe this has been covered, but you're a crazy person

haha looks like everybody already covered this; good job, guys

A quick question, Abbott; if you knew nothing about Blake but the text of his poems, would you derive as much pleasure from them? It seems to me you are elevating the poet, but often on grounds apart from his poetry. This is legitimate enough, but it is worth recognizing as a different thing than loving his poems through their own life as poems.

― Aimless, Monday, August 23, 2010 8:16 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i can speak to this, actually; i am visually kind of dumb, so that i appreciate Blake's images and work hard to incorporate them into my experience of reading his poetry, but the language alone is what first struck me and it's still the essence of my reading experience.

everything Abbott said about Blake otm

he's a hero

hi there not to be "that undergrad guy" but the visuals are as much a part of the text of (many of) blakes poems as the words! which is to say that loving the visuals is as important a component of"loving his poems through their own life as poems" as loving the (word-part) language is!

but hey i am one of those people who thinks people should pay closer attention to the length and direction of the dashes emily dickinson use[s/d]

that's totally true; sometimes undergrads know what's up

holla

i didn't read the rest of this thread after this point, so maybe this has been covered, but you're a crazy person

― horseshoe, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 01:53 (21 minutes ago)

you all know how I operate on ILX by now - it's not trolling, but it's not incontrovertible statement of opinion either - consider it a testing of the waters coupled with my own undergraduate leanings - Donne will receive more attention from me as a result of this for sure

dunno how I'd start on Blake because the dude is operating on a level of inspiration that invites an 'all or nothing' response - either I'll say 'yes, he is immutable force of human creativity' or I dive into all his works trying to find apposite signifiers and methods of expression - to briefly compromise, I'll state that the scope and loose organisation of his work is probably the most attractive aspect of his poetry - he has enormous and all-encompassing ambition but the good sense to cluster his manifestos in discrete and approachable fragments which themselves respond to focused analysis - he also isn't afraid to mix his forms - poetry, prose and art - depending upon how each part of the whole needs to be expressed

i appreciate how consistent yr taste is louis

how do you mean? is that sarcasm? or do you mean that was a very lj-esque explanation

no, no. i just like that you know what you like, and why

but the thing is that I DON'T know what I like - ILX especially has changed my mind on things SO much - read some of my early posts and compare! my tone is frequently convinced, but always open to challenge - the dogmatism is more of a throwdown than immutable tapestry

and another thing's for sure: I need to think about Blake a lot harder before giving him any close analysis

you like ambition! dont you? thats what i always got from you

well we all have our staples, and successfully expressed dialogue with the spiritual in poetry is a big thing of mine - blake's personal communion with god is breathtaking to behold, and he states it with such nuance and skill that I'm perfectly happy describing it as ambition rewarded.

so yes, I dig ambition, be it Blake's religious humanism or Donne's highly structured, ornate metaphysics - Blake's rambling and wholly idiosyncratic nature appeals in particular, but that's not to say I can't find enormous worth in both styles, and worths that the other style does not share

(although as I've said, even within that ramble, Blake manages to conjure discrete segments whose power is terrifyingly focused - which is probably my favourite kind of writing)

Dryden's the one major poet from this period whose work I barely know.

By the wayside, Dryden was the heir to a mighty heritage, but his aims, methods and means are no longer seen sympathetically, even when they are viewed understandingly. Those who love him are a vanishingly small minority.

I would count myself among those who may understand him, but cannot love him. Whatever I value most in him is the least characteristic of his work. Just the way it is.

A quick question, Abbott; if you knew nothing about Blake but the text of his poems, would you derive as much pleasure from them? It seems to me you are elevating the poet, but often on grounds apart from his poetry. This is legitimate enough, but it is worth recognizing as a different thing than loving his poems through their own life as poems.

When I read Blake it is usually from the Johnson/Grant-edited Norton Crit edition, or less often the Erdman Complete Poetry & Prose, far more often than facsimiles of his amazing & beautiful handmade books (which I do love & cherish, but sometimes you just want to be able to read black ink on a white page). I mean why I prefer the Norton, too, is it's just easier too lug around and crack open (I took the damn thing camping with me 3x this summer, the time I didn't I felt lonely w/out it).

I think his images are really important, but they are also the #1 way Blake fucks with you. He rearranged the order of his pages, of his images, changed colors, changed themes, from book to book. If you have some idea that you have it figured out, that you know what X text means based on the placement of Y image, there's such a chance he switched it around, or changed it just enough to blow your theory, in another version. (I love this too, about Blake, that you never really know where to stand with him, or where he stands – I think this is why locas like me get these sorts of feelings about the dude.)

If you mean I am reading to much into his bio, well, that's (one reason) why everyone else in my lit classes hated me. I don't know why "death of the author" has been such a forceful center of thought for so long, but I could never really swallow it. Especially with Blake! since in "Milton A Poem" he makes himself a central character, and throws in his wife & his dead brother too. If you can't think about an author's life when considering their work, especially if they make a work that sort of intimately invites you into their life...I don't know, man. I really admire the dude, as a person, as an artist, as a spirit, you know? I think that's ok. But even if he was "MYSTERY AUTHOR" of "ANONYMOUS" who juust put a guy called William Blake in a poem, just like he put a guy called Milton in a poem – if we had no images, or anything, I would still love him! Even if we just had some bonkers thing like "Four Zoas." Though I think this is kind of a silly question, because we DO have his images and we have so many delightful bios of him that are basically rorschachs of their era.

hey abbott if anyone gives you shit for bringing an authors bio into readings of his or her work i got your back

I don't know why "death of the author" has been such a forceful center of thought for so long, but I could never really swallow it.

otm. fwiw i think it's less of a center of thought these days.

By the wayside, Dryden was the heir to a mighty heritage, but his aims, methods and means are no longer seen sympathetically, even when they are viewed understandingly. Those who love him are a vanishingly small minority.

includes me. But it's complicated – I wrote my doctorate on him back in the day. Will probably ramble a little abt him once I've woken up.

So yeah, I do love Dryden, but it's a complicated relationship. I lived with him for abt 5 years, so when I go back now, it's for pleasure, but I'll likely bump into something that makes me think 'I got that wrong' or trips an academic switch in my head. Can make me a little tense.

I do love him, though - dunno if I can say why, clearly. I think the core of it is his delight in it all - in making verse, in trying things out, in building strange ornate structures or rushing along a story, and above all in arguing - love his rhetorical energy and versatility, how he bounces around flipping between reasoned argument and jokes and magpie allusiveness and mock-modesty to win a scrap.

There's all sorts of detail that I enjoy, too - his knack for a good word, the metrical command, how naturally and easily he can hit rhymes in couplets, the syntactical deftness that lets him carry you over multiple lines.

Almost all of this would apply to Donne too, but that shows up the limits of Dryden: Donne's immediate presence & emotional vitality isn't there in Dryden - where Dryden's moving, it tends to be indirect, reserved; and Dryden belongs to this world. Very little spiritual or anguished about him

Dryden was the heir to a mighty heritage, but his aims, methods and means are no longer seen sympathetically, even when they are viewed understandingly.

You can say this about Pope, Swift, Coleridge, Arnold – hell, any English poet.

I think it's more a case with Dryden than almost any of the others that you mention there, tbh. Pope has his catchy couplets, still in popular usage on occasion, but also his po-mo Dunciad (if you will - I won't, but you see what I mean), Swift has Gulliver and his 'savage indignation' (A Modest Proposal), even the madness of A Tale of a Tub sits quite nicely with the literature of doubt and uncertainty, Romantic post-Romantic stuff tends to be fairly easily swallowed, we're still living in an age which values inspiration/newness/individuality etc.

I've always found, despite recognising much of the virtues tos/woof describes, him extremely resistant to sympathetic reading. I like what he does, but I often find myself impressed rather than affectionate towards him. All the others you cite, I find more sympathetic, if not actually 'better'.

Pairing Herbert and Donne would have caused some real torment.

Remember being awe-inspired when I first read the Nocturnal Upon St Lucy's Day - love, darkness, rhythmic brilliance, brilliance of imagery in detail and in the whole, and yes, the convoluted wit, in this case reminding me slightly of some of Ben Jonson's poetry. I know it turns some off, but the way that the perspectives turn and slot into place, like an astrolabe, or the right viewing of a masque, is just utterly brilliant.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

donne by a burning bright tiger whisker. always was fond of donne. blake i don't know so well. someday!

i refused to vote in this poll it was impossible

yeah i didnt vote either

the real winner.................................................

..........................................................................................was poetry

Hilarious beatdown:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1981/12/03/there-is-no-penance-due-to-innocence/