Never before have I read a poem that rhymed that I truly liked.
This bothers me, in a way, because I know pieces of the past are important.
Maybe I'm all caught up in modern writing, but I think it's a shame if I get to the point where I can't appreciate the word pictures that authors of other times have painted. What would words be now without their history? A couple of weeks ago, however, I came across T.S. Eliot and fell in love with his lovely poems (and they even rhymed). Without further ado, this is the beginning portion of Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." You should Google it and read the entire thing, though.
"Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
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 fall from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep."
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep."
Curious snapshots of things, huh? I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes writing cheesy or not. Why would I not be drawn to rhymes? We covered this in Aesthetics, a class on the philosophy of beauty and art that I took last year, and questioned whether culture or an individual's personal preferences place stamps of tacky on prose and poetry. I ended up coming to the conclusion that it was a little of both. But isn't this how everything is in life? Style, media, slang. A reflection of the modern time that is ever changing. If you Google any word and click "Images," you will immediately get a thousand pictures of what modern society thinks of any one thing. For instance, if you Google "clowns," you'll get all sorts of horrifying images. But clowns weren't always viewed as terrifying. Horror movies made it that way.
Think about a painting of the sea. A cliff with soft, green grass looms strikingly over calm water and under a windless sky. A lighthouse, white and red, sits quaintly on a rock in the grey waves. Charming, right? But what makes this scene so lovely and old fashioned? Is it because you truly think it is? Or because culture has told you that vintage is "in" and old-fashioned things are to be treasured? I have a feeling that those who lived in the time period before lighthouses would look at that painting and think Yuck, you ruined it. It would be like someone painting a picture of a beautiful field and then sticking a 3M building in the middle of it or a dumpster or something. But, then again, maybe you would find that beautiful.
My question is, what do you think makes certain pieces of writing "good" and "literary"? Is this different from what you find attractive and appealing? Or do the two coincide? How have we come to the conclusion that certain types of writing are cheap and second-rate?
One of my pet peeves is when people feel like they *must* like a certain work just because it is considered a classic or of high literary value (similarly, that the must dislike a work for the opposite reasons). Read what you like or you'll hate to read. Hate to read and you'll hate to write. However, I think you raise a good question in asking if there is a difference between what we find attractive/appealing vs. what is good/literary. I'm not sure I have a clear-cut answer quite yet because I seem to talk myself in circles, but the discussion is always interesting!
ReplyDeleteInteresting. What is appealing to us is shaped by our culture and what we have heard. Why do we stick to what we have been told and modify our interests based on others opinions? I was thinking about this the other day. My brother lives in Hawaii. It's basically the most destination in America. Why? I was just there. It was beautiful. The white sandy beaches. The lush mountains and blooming wild foliage. But to tell you the truth, I like by back woods just as much. Paradise is seen in the eye of the critic, I suppose. And when we have heard what someone else considers it to be, we stick with that. It's like my obscure concept of what heaven will be like. But that's another discussion.
ReplyDeleteYES! to your idea on writings being "generic branded" or the real thing. We are attracted to The North Face, Coach, material labels. I hate it. I don't want to place life, or literature, in regard of a stained pair of second hand shoes that I would never buy. Good thoughts! I can see you challenging yourself.
All right, I'll admit that I had to google "clown" when I read your post because I couldn't resist checking out those scary images. So true.
ReplyDeleteI like your question about beauty and culture, but so far I haven't come to a decent answer. Beauty is incredibly subjective, although there do tend to be things that are found consistently beautiful. Likewise, tackiness is subjective--there is a surprisingly large audience for literature that we might consider "tacky," so what's to say that it isn't brilliant?
I think it's important to think twice before discounting anything absolutely, because I have found that in many cases there will be something good about an over-all tacky work that makes people come back. Like the rhyming poetry and T. S. Elliot, whose poetry rhymes but is openly brilliant at the same time. But it's definitely a challenge.
I love this discussion about beauty and what makes something literary. I like to think of books in terms of a few categories when I think about literature: is the book entertaining? is the book well written? is the book's purpose to reveal some sort of truth, to make its readers feel something?
ReplyDeleteObviously, there's no particular ratio of these things to make a work "literary" or "beautiful." But it shows what people value. Lot's of people could care less about good writing and only want to be entertained. But plenty of others (most of us capstoners included, I'm sure) want to find a mixture of all three aspects in our reading. I know I'm particularly irked when there seems to be no purpose to a story, no deeper truth about human beings or the world we live in. But to many others, I'm sure the lack of deeper meaning would be no big deal.
I think the classics give us clues about how things in the literary world turn out strange sometimes. Dickens is considered one of the greatest, most "literary" authors of all time, but back in the day, his works were largely published as serializations in periodicals. He was writing (at least partially) to entertain his audience. Ironically, ask almost any high school student how he or she feels about Great Expectations, and I'm sure the word "entertaining" will not come up. Who knows, maybe future generations of English majors will find themselves writing a literary analysis on Twilight.
Wow. In all honesty, I don't know what makes something "literary" and something "tacky." I mean, who chooses those things anyway? It's so much of culture telling us what is "in" and what's not. That's why I've struggled with the things we read in this major. The professors all love contemporary fiction, so we have to read it. After three years, I still don't like it all that much. So, then, who is right? I really don't think there is a right answer. I mean, you could go on syntax, the writing elements, the quality of the story structure. But really, what makes something literary? Personally, I think there are some YA fiction that are very literary in their approach, and in the same way, I think there are old "masterpieces" that just weren't delivered well. So there are good in bad in anything you're going to read. I think it only matters what you think of the literature. I hate it when people try to convince me that something is good or bad. Let me decide on my own.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question right away, I don't think "good" and "literary" are the same thing at all. I've read plenty of "literary" work that I consider trash, and I've read some work in genres, plot-driven stuff, etc that is far more enlightening, enriching, though-provoking, and otherwise "good."
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you don't like rhyming poetry, because it tends to be the only kind I DO like... out of curiosity, what kind of music do you like? Does it rhyme?
What are your thoughts on Noyes' "The Highwayman" or Robert Frost, who has some rhyming in many of his poems? I know they're among the things I say I enjoy about poetry.
i love these thoughts. i tend to agree with you that taste is both cultural and personal. Most of us tend to associate with one culture (the one we got hatched in), but culture is not a cookie cutter.
ReplyDeleteWhat is good and literary? Maybe it's idealistic of me, but i tend to think that there are objectively better and worse ways of doing words. One principle that seems to me to be a universally "better" is the idea of understatement—say what you mean with fewer words. i think there are good aesthetic reasons for this, but then again, are there cultures where understatement either doesn't work (they wouldn't gather what is meant) or isn't preferred? Or, perhaps, we would just find that every culture has its gushy, overstated art, its very own Hallmark cards . . .
Why do we in the West especially embrace the novel as the crowning genre?
The way i put together beauty and taste, generally, is something like this: being born in a particular culture, and as a particular fearfully-made personality in that culture, you are designed and channeled to appreciate certain kinds of beauty. That doesn't mean that other kinds of beauty are illegitimate; you just weren't made to really and deeply rejoice when your tuner strikes up some K-102. Or maybe you don't like Sinatra that much. But who am i to say that Johnny Cash doesn't strike on beauty, simply because i could go many moons without listening to "Ring of Fire"?
These are my thoughts.
I agree with Heidi; there are definitely some classics that I absolutely abhor. I always feel guilty, then, like I'm somehow not in tune with the rest of the band. It's nice to have a reminder that aesthetics aren't based entirely what the rest of society wants them to be for each person. I thought that vintage was mysterious and enchanting from when I was quite young, before it was "in." I loved touching and studying old photographs. But back to writing.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, I think "cheesy" can be a label for something cliche or overdone. Like too many adjectives. An overload of descriptors feels cheesy because NO ONE talks like that. We want the drama and beauty of life, but it doesn't have to be described with depressing sighs and extended tirades. But again, maybe that's personal aesthetic.
Those are difficult questions. What makes writing "good" or "literary"? And is that different from what we find appealing? ...Yes and no? A lot of times there are books on the shelf in Barnes & Noble that are simply not worth reading. Take the whole vampires section, for example, or the Twilight series. It's entertaining and moves quickly, but not worth reading. But there are tims when highly entertaining literature can be worth reading and have a lot of good things to say. An example is Hunger Games. Whatever anyone might say about those books, I personally like them. Nothing wrong with being popular, some books do have a deeper message or idea that they're trying to communicate (whether that's survival or politics or whatever).
ReplyDelete