After spending the best part of the day ploughing through a succession of tedious jobs and wasting most of my lunch break trying to cope with a recalcitrant IPod, I came home with a brain completely drained of any bloggable material. However, picking up the paper instead of switching the television on proved to be a good move. It reminded me that I went to see the film Bright Star  a couple of weeks ago. Since yesterday’s post was in poetic vein a quick post about it would seem to be in order, although I’ve never attempted a movie review on here before.

Directed by Jane Campion, Bright Star is a film about the life of John Keats (played by Ben Whishaw) and his passionate infatuation with the girl next door, a young lady by the name of Fanny Brawne (Abby Cornish). This romance inspired Keats to compose some of the most famous  love letters ever written in the English language. Keats’  letters were published in the 1870s (long after his death in 1821 at the aged of 25) but the other half of the correspondence – the letters written by Fanny – are lost. This is a problem for literary historians, who don’t really know what to make of her, but a boon for the dramatist, who has the chance to create a character from scratch unfettered by too many preconceptions. What emerges is a dignified, slightly eccentric and highly fashion-conscious heroine who makes stylish hats and frocks while her admirer is scribbling his verses. There’s more sewing in this film than in any other I’ve ever seen. The clothes look great, if a bit anachronistic. It’s a costume drama with a difference. Overall, in fact, the film looks gorgeous. The photography is just stunning – it has been a very long time since I last saw anything so beautiful on the big screen.

Keats once described Fanny as “beautiful, elegant, graceful, silly, fashionable and strange”. I think Abby Cornish conveys all of that. But at other times he was less flattering, calling her

ignorant – monstrous in her behaviour, flying out in all directions, calling people such names that I was forced lately to make use of the term Minx – this I think not from any innate vice but from a penchant she has for acting stylishly.  I am however tired of such style and shall decline any more of it.

Of course he did no such thing. Keats’ friend Charles Amitage Brown thought Fanny was an interfering flirt and American critic  Richard Henry Stoddard said “She made him look ridiculous in the eyes of his friends”.  There’s no way of knowing what she was really like – it’s always hard for outsiders to understand other people’s obsessions anyway - but in the movie she is definitely a bit prickly at times.

By contrast with Fanny’s perky glamour, Keats himself is a drab, introspective, almost ghostly figure. His brother dies of tuberculosis – the disease which will shortly get him too. His descent into poverty and illness is exacerbated by the terrible critical reception that greets his poetry. The only thing he really has to cling to is his relationship with “The Minx” which is beautifully portrayed, their growing intimacy only gradually revealed. Much of their dialogue is taken, word for word, directly from Keats’ letters but somehow it doesn’t sound stilted. Their passion is restrained, but keenly observed.

The title of the movie is actually taken from that of one of Keats’ poems. Written in 1819, a year after he met Fanny, this expresses a desire to withdraw from the shifting uncertain world of change and enter a world of timelessness where he can be with his beloved for all eternity.

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art–
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors–
No–yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever–or else swoon to death.

Keats himself died just a couple of years after writing this, although I doubt that his death from tuberculosis amounted to the kind of blissful rapture he suggests in the last two lines.

Walking back home afterwards, it struck me that  if you didn’t know anything about Keats and Fanny Brawne before watching the film, you would think it was Fanny who was the “Bright Star” of the title. During his lifetime there was never any suggestion that John Keats would ever – even in death – acquire a reputation as one of the greatest poets in the English language.  His work was never popular in his lifetime and was pretty universally reviled by critics too. In poetry as well as in science, it is well night impossible to know what is going to last. Only time can tell.

Today is another frustrating little piece of life. But I’ll deal with it. ‘Cause KEATS is in my hands. And he knew how I feel today. He practically wrote it:

“…And no birds sing.”

-La Belle Dame Sans Merci: XII by John Keats

…

On another note, we lost our indoor game. Even though I put Kirsten & Stephanie’s names on my arms. Bother. And Mr.GreenXBOXshirt elbowed me in the left side of my face & my nose. Even more bother. But I had a sprucey time being a KOALA BEAR and helping Dolphin Boy in goal.  And I got to wear my PUMAs♥. And then we watched Little Manhattan later that night. And I played 4 games of WAR with Jorge and lost all of them. And everything got better.

…

I need to make today happy. So I think I’ll try really hard. I’m already wearing bright colours. And sparkly, dangling green earrings. And I think I’ll go put a little DOLCE & GABBANA on–smelling nice usually makes things better. And I’ll drink some tea. And knit. And eat popcorn. And listen to Laria sing some Switchfoot. And write in love stories I’m working on. And find happy pieces of KEATS.

And then today will be good.

And the birds will sing.

Love.

-Bella

When I was 18 and began to study poetry for the first time, it was obvious to me the Romantic poets were far and away the best models for me in English, as I was not a student of languages then, and contemporary poets were prosaic enough to make a study of them no study of poetry at all.

Had I traveled back 2,000 years to study Homer or Sappho, I should no doubt have become a Greek scholar, but I wished to travel back a hundred years or so and be a poet like Shelley or Byron.

I was informed by my literature professors that poets who wrote in the 19th century were “old-fashioned” and no models for me at all.   Poets who were born in the 19th century, however, were modern—to follow them was the only way to succeed.

This seemed absurd to me.  I wanted Keats for a model.   Keats was…you know…good.  Keats was a poet.

The models my professors enforced on me seemed ridiculous.   T.S. Eliot was a banker—with 1920s slicked-back hair and big ears.  Allen Ginsberg was some guy with a beard and a bald spot.   Ezra Pound looked like a Satanist with his pointy beard.

But Keats as a model was out.

I had to pick “moderns.”

Banker.

Guy with bald spot.

Satanist.

The beautiful was out-of-bounds.    It was “old-fashioned.”

I had to marry the hag,  not the lady.

This was my fate if I decided to pursue poetry.

Beauty had nothing to do with it, my professors told me.

Poetry was now the property of science and pragmatic religion.  Protestant revolt and scientific specialization had supplanted the old poetry of beauty—poetry had to specialize, too—everything was breaking into specialized tasks—poetry was no longer about pleasing in a universal manner.   Poetry was now a tiny part of the branching into particulars which modernity was speedily carrying out.

My literature professors were not scientists themselves, but they somberly informed me science had grown up, and it no longer cared for poetry.

The art of poetry, in order not to fall into “amateurism,” had to leave science to the scientists and pursue its own path.

“Poetry now cannot attend science into its technical labyrinth,” as poet and English professor John Crowe Ransom put it in 1938.

Poetry had to grow up, too.

Business and religion and science were grappling with pragmatic matters of new complexity that required a coolness and flinty disposition—the poetic was no longer a help in these areas, but actually a hindrance.

We did not discuss business, religion, or science; literature professors, with a vague sociological authority, assured me these subjects had turned into technical, unfriendly pursuits for the poet; poetry as it had existed was no longer required by the scientist or the businessman or the priest—poetry must survive by turning into a labyrinth of its own.

Poetry had to be “difficult,” as T.S. Eliot (b. 1888)  put it.

Instead of being inspired by the Romantic poets directly, I had to study “moderns” like Allen Ginsberg.

William Blake had inspired Ginsberg, but I couldn’t be inspired by someone as “old-fashioned” as Blake.

I had to go to Allen Ginsberg.

I had to write like the “moderns.”

I had to listen to Ransom (b. 1888) to tell me what was “modern” and what was not—and how poetry existed as “modern.”

Only years later did I realize that “modern” wasn’t modern.  Only later did I realize that poetry and learning are not beholden to any idea of “modern” in the first place.

“Modern” wasn’t modern.    “Modern” was merely a code word for a clique of power brokers who had discovered a sophistry—”modernism”—to validate themselves.

It was a trick.

A trick of coteries and word-play.

A trick as old as the hills.

–Thomas Brady

The Australian release of Jane Campion’s film Bright Star is drawing near.

Let’s revisit Keats, shall we?

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

John Keats (1795 – 1821)

Concrete Canvas building-in-a-bag – just add water! “The fiber is impregnated with concrete; it only hardens when you add water…a concrete building that can be erected almost as quick as a tent. The applications abound, from food storage in disaster areas, to military barracks.” - Fast Company.

In his latest book, The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, Richard Holmes, the English biographer whose two-volume life of Coleridge is one of the great biographies of our time, reminds us in scintillating detail of the excitement taken by poets of the Romantic generation in the new science of their age (for an analogue in German studies, try Nicholas Boyle’s two-volume – so far – life of Goethe, who included among his closetful of hats those of the botanist and the optical scientist).

In our periodic absorption in the fruits of contemporary design shops (tip: openworld at TweetMeme), many of them seeded from latter-day post-industrial rediscovery of the forgotten wisdom in wild things, we feel much of that same excitement hymned for all time by Keats after his discovery of Chapman’s Homer:

Them felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He star’d at the Pacific – and all his men

Looked at each other with a wild surmise -

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolfs-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

2.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

3.

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

(john keats)

- traduzione -

No, no, non precipitarti verso il Lete; non trarre vino velenoso
Dall’aconito, torcendo le sue saldi radici, no
Non lasciare che la tua pallida fronte sia baciata
Dal rosso grappolo di Proserpina, la belladonna;
No, il tuo rosario non fare con le bacche del tasso,
Né la tua lamentosa Psiche siano lo scarabeo
O la falena della morte; non condividere
Col gufo piumato i misteri del tuo dolore,
Che troppo assonnata l’ombra verrà all’ombra
Ad annegare la vigile angoscia dell’animo.

2

Ma quando dal cielo improvviso l’attacco cadrà
Di malinconia, come una nuvola in pianto
Che tutti i fiori nutre dal languido capo
E il verde colle nasconde in un sudario d’aprile,
Sazia allora il tuo dolore con una rosa mattutina,
Sazialo con l’arcobaleno dell’onda salata di sabbia
O con la ricchezza delle tonde peonie.
E quando mostri la tua amante una ricca ira,
La sua dolce mano imprigiona; lasciala delirare
Mentre tu ti nutri e ti sazi dai suoi occhi senza pari.

3

Sì, abita con la bellezza, lei, con la bellezza che deve morire;
E con la Gioia, che sempre una mano tiene sulle labbra
Per augurare addio: e vicino alò Piacere, che fa soffrire,
E si tramuta in veleno mentre come un’ape succhia la bocca:
Sì, nel tempio stesso del Diletto
Ha il suo santuario sovrano la velata Melanconia,
Anche se nessuno la scorge se non quello la cui strenua lingua
Schiaccia il grappolo della Gioia sul palato da intenditore:
Assaggerà allora l’anima sua la tristezza di quel potere
Che la farà rimanere sospesa tra i suoi nebulosi trofei.

A great deal of 19^th century verse is wretched—exposure to poorly written rhyme will naturally push the educated poetry lover from the vales of tortured song to the stairwells of sober speech.

Verse was abandoned by educated poets in the 20^th century because the versifiers fell out of tune—not because poetry evolved into something higher.   

Frazzled, goaded and tuckered out by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, with no more heart for Bret Harte, audiences everywhere cried Geez! and So Long! to George Santayana and the other thousand rhyming and chiming poetasters, tossing the simpering, milk & water verse out the window.   (Santayana was T.S. Eliot’s professor at Harvard).  

Throwing off rhyme was not a revolution. 

It was a revulsion.

The yellowish face of Imagism’s moon was not a sign of mystical glory; it was a sign of illness and disgust.

Music coming from instruments only a little out of tune will soon convince hearers to give up all music.

Imagism was a retreat, not an advance. 

Poetry in the 20^th century did not add image—it subtracted music. 

The great poets of verse featured imagery and music, skillfully blended into a natural, pleasing speech so that neither speech, imagery, nor music was perceived as such–the elements were blended and lost in the poetry. 

Lost so that no ‘close reading’ can get it out. 

Criticism finds the elements when they are not blended; if they are, criticism cannot see them, for the work succeeds and doesn’t require criticism. 

 The close reading of the New Critics was mistaken from the start, since it confused desultory, over-elaborated praise with criticism.  New Criticism finally ends in the Prozac Criticism of the Helen Vendlers and the Stephen Burts.

Too much focus on any part—image, language, irony, etc—is a sure sign poetry is in decline.

We’re not sure why–after the renaissance of verse in English from the 16^th century sonnet mastery to the 17^th century of Milton, Donne, Marvel, to the 18^th of Pope, and then Burns, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Coleridge, with writers like Poe bringing Baconic science (with a Platonic sheen) to the art, and Tennyson carrying the flame–why the whole art sickened and died sometime during the middle or latter part of the 19^th century. 

It may have been for a very simple reason. 

In the 19^th century more people began to write and publish poetry.

There was a glut, and gluts will destroy whatever style currently exists.   

Those who complain contemporary poetry is prosy and dull usually champion the 19^th century and its rhyme.  

But the issue is not a stylistic one.  It is simpler than that.   A glut destroyed poetry as it currently existed—first in the 19^th century, when poetry rhymed, and then in the 20^th century, when poetry didn’t.  The Quarterly didn’t kill Keats.  Sidney Lanier did. 

Those who could not write like Keats eventually decided no one should write like Keats—or none should try, because one more Sidney Lanier would be the death of poetry itself.   William Carlos Williams—when he reached middle-age and stopped rhyming—suddenly became vastly preferable to Sidney Lanier, at least among educated readers. 

Poetry–the art–could not handle one more failed Keats.  William Carlos Williams did not conquer Keats.   He was simply a sobering balm to the intoxicating pain of Frederick Goddard Tuckerman.  The 20^th century stopped rhyming, not out of evolution, but from embarrassment. 

Rather than fail at Keats, it was necessary for the pride of the poet in the 20^th century to partially succeed at haiku—and the whole history of modernism is nothing but extended haiku: even modern long poems are nothing but haiku patched together and embellished with flotsam and dialogue–breaking haiku’s rules, but not the rules of poetry—in any significant way. 

Our idea is supported by the following:  From the beginnings of poetry in English to the first confirmed glut in the early 19^th century, a good poem was never a theoretical specimen; it was good in a way that was socially recognized by everyone: A 16^th century Shakespeare song, a 19^th century Keats ballad.   Then came the glut, and millions of would-be Shakespeares and Keats’s made rhyme come to seem the playing of an out-of-tune violin.  

The public gradually fled from the poem–not because the novel took them away, but because the public ran from the art of poetry holding its ears.   The modern novel was not an improvement so much as a refuge, and fortunately for that genre, poetry, by mishandling verse, was at that very moment chasing away readers as it had never done before. 

And bad rhyme did not end after Modernism–one can find it in Richard Aldington’s 1941 anthology: Allen Tate, William Carlos Williams’ only poem represented is a rhyming poem; there’s bad rhyme galore.  

Fashions die hard, but when they die, it’s sometimes not the fashion that’s at fault, but the mediocrities practicing it.

The new Jane Campion film is a period love story where the two lovers are destined to never be together and while it can be a bit slow and overly dramatic at times the three main actors are in top form and are worth the price of admission.
Following the love affair of Fanny Brawne and poet John Keats the two’s tragic tale is different and almost unbelievable in today’s day and age. Fanny comes from a well to do family with Keats coming from a lesser background and carrying on as a poor and unsuccessful poet. The two don’t hit it off from the get go with Fanny not even being a big fan of literature or his work either. The two become acquainted when Keats moves in with the Brawne’s neighbor Mr. Brown as they work together and Brown helps Keats keep a roof over his head. The two houses share a wall and are connected by a door in the foyer, so the two sides spend a lot of time together. With Fanny being the Brawne’s of age daughter, they are looking for her to find a proper suitor, Keats’ lack of wealth is not what they are looking for and she finds herself being constantly advised against falling for him as they grow closer.
The film is interesting to watch as there are a few sub plots that play into the proceedings as well odd actions of the family to keep Fanny free of unwanted men. Fanny is constantly followed by her younger brother and sisters, literally going everywhere she goes, and keeping Keats and Fanny from doing anything even as simple as holding hands. There is also an engaging plot surrounding a competition of sorts among Fanny and Mr. Brown for the attention of Keats that provides a number of laughs from the film while also creating an interesting view of society at the time and the relationships among men and women.
In fact, Paul Schneider as Mr. Brown is the real stand out in the film, though he has been one of the best young actors for years now, turning in great work in everything he does. I hope he gets to break out into more mainstream stuff sooner rather than later. Abbie Cornish is also getting quite a bit of praise for her work as Fanny in the film, and while I think she goes a bit over the top with her pain and sadness at times, she is very likeable and charming throughout and she has a great chemistry with her co-star Ben Whishaw who plays Keats. Whishaw is appropriately conflicted and a bit closed off as Keats, and when we see him break out of his shell with Fanny it is a nice surprise and touching. In fact I wish the story was a bit more centered on Keats rather than Fanny as I think he was far more interesting a character and person in this tale.
The over acting and over emotions in the films aren’t my only concerns as the film is a tad pretentious especially when celebrating the mastery of Keats. You can tell the filmmakers adore the writer, but it is a bit much at times and goes beyond being just a celebration of the man’s words. Though the story remains oddly compelling even if you find yourself rolling your eyes at the long winded Keats readings and again I think this goes to the credit of the performances.
In the end, Bright Star is an actors showcase and tragic story. While Fanny might go a little overboard with sadness the outcome of this story is rather sad. Two people in love kept apart by the times they live in is an unfortunate tale but one we have seen before. If they film would have focused a bit more on the life of Keats I think the film might have been a bit better, but with that said, the film is well made and, outside a couple minor complaints, works. The three main leads are all great in their roles and are worth checking out on their own right. Luckily there is an interesting and mostly engaging story to go along with these acting showcases, though I can’t help but feel that the film couldn’t have found a better film in this intriguing ground work. The film is still worth your time though if a fan of period romance or real life tales.
Bright Star is a B-

In a recent article, Poetry and Project Runway, on the Poetry Foundation’s Website, Stephen Burt, some guy who attended Oxford and Harvard and now is trying to be the next Helen Vendler (see Scarriet’s piece on the Dr. Phil of Criticism)  defends his rosy view that a criticism is not a criticism—that critics should ignore the bad.   Scarriet recently pointed out that this is like telling a philosopher to ignore the bad.  Put this way, Burt’s rosy view appears silly, which is proper.

In this essay, Burt uses the TV show Project Runway as a platform for his pedantry.

“Project Runway,” Burt informs us, “holds lessons for poetry critics,” but first we must learn “how the TV show works.”

Contestants design clothes.

Judges judge.

Enter Stephen Burt with ill-fitting analogy.

“Ron Silliman has examined the show at length” and “a poetry blogger from New Zealand” has blogged on the idea of “Poetry Runway,”  so Burt is ready to launch. [click here]

Ruffles, buttons, ribbons, white T-shirt, striped button-down, jacket…ready.

“Poets, like clothes designers, love technical challenges.”

Design a dress made from newspaper.  Write a poem about a red wheel barrow.  OK.

I.A. Richards, Burt informs us, encouraged his students to make “snap judgments” on “unfamiliar poems” in an exercise of “Practical Criticism.”

Judging is Fun.   Alright.   So far, so good.

But now Burt wades into deeper waters.

And is quickly in over his head.

Happily reveling in the fact that TV overlapping poetry is pretty cool, Burt reaches for his drug of choice:

The happy drug, designed by the Lilly pharmaceutical company.

Prozac.

“Aspects of the TV show,” he tells us, make him “uneasy” in terms of “how we judge poems.”

The show, Burt warns, tends to highlight “contestants who flounder.”

Oh, no!

Criticism. Not good in the world of Stephen Burt.

Burt informs us what works on TV–and “rightly so” (Burt doesn’t want to appear as a scold)–are “flagrant failures” and “life stories.”

A TV show, Burt admits, “devoted wholly to winners’ techniques—how to sew this and pleat that, how to get collars right—might not even make sense to me.”

Now Burt gets down to the nitty-gritty:

“Those truths [popular appeal of negative focus and life stories] affect, not only the judging of hurriedly-assembled cocktail dresses on television, but the reading and reviewing of new poems. The broader the audience, or potential audience, the harder it is to talk about technique, and the more tempting it is to fall back on the poet’s life: Keats’s tuberculosis, or his failed romance with Fanny Brawne; Robert Browning’s successful romance with Elizabeth; Emily Dickinson‘s isolation (so often exaggerated); William Carlos Williams‘s medical practice, and so on.”

Burt’s reasoning is fatally flawed on two counts.

1. Does he really believe reviews of “new poems” are marred by reports of medical ills and romantic intrigues?  When is the last time a review of a new book of poems came down the pike with delicious details of the poet’s love life?  Is this really an issue, today?  Note that all of Burt’s examples are poets born in the 19th century.   Is it really true that poets born in 1980 are aesthetically challenged–because reviewers and critics keep focusing on their romances?

2. Any legitimate historical, philosophical, and cultural view of Keats that flies above mere New Criticism would obviously need to pay attention to a great deal more than Keats’ “turberculosis.”  (Though someone should tell Mr. Burt it was kind of a big deal—it killed him.)  Meet Mr. Burt’s straw man.  Mr. Burt evades the responsibility of the critic who whould investigate more than “getting collars right” by categorizing biography as “failed romance” or “TB.”  Burt, the New Critic, derides biography, and thus historical scholarship, by diminishing its scope—assuming the topic is little more than sordid gossip.

Burt is most troubled, however, by “the dangerous ease of a focus on failure.”  What does this mean?  Why isn’t he worried about a “dangerous ease of a focus on” glib praise?   The latter is far more prevalent than the former, and surely Burt’s prozac approach to poetry has a lot to do with this bland and sorry state of affairs in the first place.   Burt is like someone who complains of a bean bag’s hardness.

Mr. Burt now sheds the playful attitude he had towards the TV show completely, Silliman’s appreciation be damned:

“Project Runway gets most of its suspense by punishing failures.”

Shades of Blackwoods!   Say it ‘aint so, Professor!

Unable to face even the idea of failure, Burt, seeking out more serotonin, announces: “But it’s not good for readers and critics to treat poets this way.”

Burt demands nice—or else.

Critics must be nice to poets.

Great.  The prozac is kicking in.

Burt quotes Randall Jarrell, saying we should judge poets by good poems.  Well, sure.  Judge poets accomplished by their good poems.  Sort of obvious, isn’t it?  Pope warned against fastidiously finding fault if the poem triumphs as a whole, and this is more to the point: we should protect ourselves against the pedant—but Burt wants to protect us against the truth.

Because Wordsworth wrote dreck at times and was faulted for it, Burt proclaims, “Wordsworth would have never lasted on Project Runway.”   But he did.  He’s Wordsworth.

Now Burt brings out the heavy artillery:  “Reviewers and critics and readers of poetry should consult, first and last, ourselves.”

A noble sentiment, but what if “ourselves” is a prozac buzz?

Finally, the bow-tied New Critic steps from behind the Reality TV curtain:  What is important, Burt intones, is “whether and how poets can make it work.”

The very phrasing is right off the New Criticism rack: doctrinaire, tweedy, and square-jawed, with a whiff of the musty.

A little tip for Stephen Burt (and Helen Vendler):

1. A criticism is a criticism.

2. Criticism should consider everything–the poet’s mentors, associates, politics, in short, the life.

3. Use tact and taste (this goes without saying).

Dale Carnegie: Tell me what gives a man or woman their greatest pleasure and I’ll tell you their philosophy of life.

Real Carnegie: Tell me what gives a man or woman their greatest pleasure and I’ll sell it to ‘em.

Alphonse Karr: The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Carphone Warehouse: There ain’t nuthin’ new under de sun.

Ursula Le Guin: It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters, in the end.

Urge Le Goin: If you must travel, go First Class.

Soren Kierkegaard: Life must be understood backward. But it must be lived forward.

Liam Gallagher: Don’t look back in anger; throw the first punch.

Charles Schultz: I’ve developed a new philosophy… I only dread one day at a time.

Charlie Brown: I’m a miserable git.

Lao Tzu: The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

Low Shoe: The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a flat tyre.

John Keats: Beauty is truth, truth beauty –  that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Dodge McLarty: Don’t buy no ugly truck – it’s unpatriotic.

René Descartes: I think; therefore I am.

Tilly Bud: Pig Philosophy: I’m pink; therefore I’m ham.

Beautifully shot and acted, and I found the characters and the fundaments of their situation compelling, but – and perhaps I just don’t have the soul of a Romantic, and am too ignorant about Keats – many of the scenes seemed to me overlong and overwrought. I really enjoyed the few moments of comedy and the rivalry between Brawne and Brown for Keats’ affection; and thought that maybe as a whole, the film would have benefitted from having a few more gears, instead of simply sloshing, after its build-up, into sentiment. Fanny Brawne began as refreshingly take-charge, but became almost infuriatingly drippy for the midsection (and I say this as someone with a high drippiness threshold), although it’s impossible not to be moved by her final anguish.

Kevin Maher is more cruel than I am:

Worse still, the movie is dramatically inert. In a game attempt to capture the sounds and sights of Hampstead society (a bit of butterfly collecting here, some sewing there) Campion has forgotten to tend to the central romance, and especially to Whishaw’s willowy Keats. Thus, without major tension, conflict or crisis, Brawne and Keats simply mope about, moon at each other, talk about literature and wait for the great poet to die from tuberculosis.

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket

By John Keats

The poetry of earth is never dead:

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,

And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;

That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead

In summer luxury,—he has never done

With his delights; for when tired out with fun

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

On a lone winter evening, when the frost

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills

The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,

And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,

The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

After Beau Brummell, it’s hard to go wrong — and Bright Star doesn’t.

SPOILER WARNING

This 119-minute film, directed by Jane Campion, debuted at Cannes in May and was received with great praise. Unfortunately, it’s not playing in big theatres across the country, though it is likely infinitely better than half the things out there right now. This film is has raised the bar for costume dramas, though it is more along the lines of a visual poem, than the standard period flick.

The first thing one notices is the beautiful score (which is thankfully available for purchase). Music can redeem or condemn a mediocre film, and though Bright Star is hardly mediocre, rarely does a score compliment the tone of a film so harmoniously. The cello pieces are simply breathtaking.

I went into the movie with a standard high-school education on John Keats’s works and nebulous remembrance of what I had read in previous years about him; the name of his beloved was Fanny Brawne and he died at age 25 from tuberculosis — and something about Hampstead Heath. But no prior knowledge of Keats is necessary to appreciate this film, and I would almost say those who know nothing will have a more intoxicating experience. I am anxious to discover more about the character Mr. Brown, a man who was obviously significant figure in the young poet’s life, yet of whom I remember reading nothing. Of course, this film is as much Fanny Brawne’s story as it is Keats’s, and watching this somewhat unknown woman develop is enthralling.

The acting by both Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish is spectacular. Whishaw has been criticized for being “flimsy”, or something to that effect, but I believe his ability to make Keats’s so beautifully human has simply been misinterpreted — all of the actors have mastered the Art of Humanity. Bright Star is a dynamic movie, dominated by neither comedy nor drama nor tragedy as some historical films are, but infusing all of these into an emotionally pure glimpse of the true lives of real people, separated from us by years alone. As I watched Fanny crawl onto her bed and sit cross-legged reading, I was hit by the realization that I had been blinded; costume dramas, for all their brilliance and beauty, had unconsciously elevated these people in my mind to a point of near sublimity — Bright Star brings them softly down again. The interactions between the characters are complicated and sometimes make little sense, but that’s life, is it not?

The idea that Fanny Brawn was an avid costumer surprised me. The movie makes it clear that she lived solidly in the middle class, but I suppose with decent fabrics, a hand for sewing, and an eye for design, one can look quite fashionable in entirely handmade clothes. Even today it is amazing what some people can do with old jeans and wares from Goodwill. Save for the pink ruffled thing she wears in the rain scene, Fanny looks beautiful in everything outfit and still retains, quite appropriately, that girl-next-door quality.

Perhaps that is why this movie is so touching. It’s the classic next-door-neighbor romance, and it’s all true!

There’s not a dull moment in Bright Star — and for a subject matter about poems and love, it takes a true artist to pull that off in a two-hour production. Jane Campion harmoniously blends breath-taking visuals, historical details, Keats’s stunning poetry, and honest sentiment into a dream of a film. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

Check out these Reviews:

The Independent: “Bright Star”

Telegraph: “Bright Star, review”

The Times: “Bright Star”

New York Times: “Bright Star”

As to sleep is what I would really love to do right now, here a little ode to sleep by dear John Keats, a poet I fall in and out of love with on a regular basis. “O soothest sleep”… yep, John, right there behind you.

To Sleep

>> John Keats <<

O soft embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleas’d eyes, embower’d from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes.
Or wait the Amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still hoards
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my soul.

You know you’re an English major if you think this is one of the most hilarious ideas ever…

For those of you with a life, Sylvia Plath was a poet. She lived from 1932 to 1963. Most of the time she was depressed. This is her happy face:

Sylvia Plath wasn’t really a good poet, but this was at a time when there weren’t that many women poets worth reading (I guess, although I can think of a few), and literary critics thought Sylvia Plath was okay by comparison, so that’s why we still have to read her in lit courses. She reps the gloomy sort of poet who is real deep because she thinks the world sucks and her daddy was mean to her. So she was suicidal: “Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I’ve a call.” Good poetry, eh? It’s what’s called “confessional poetry,” the kind that you basically want to answer with a loud, Oh shut up already and pull yourself together!

The best thing Sylvia Plath did in her life was marry the Poet Laureate of England, Ted Hughes:

Apparently they didn’t get on so well. It’s basically a test whether you’re a real feminist poetry critic that you have to think Ted Hughes is a bastard and poor Sylvie was whatever the opposite of a bastard is. Of course, it could just be that Ted Hughes showed poor judgment by marrying someone as unhinged as Sylvia Plath.

Sylvia Plath mostly moped about a while and wrote more bad poetry and boring books and had some children, and then one day she turned on the gas oven in her kitchen and put her head in it and gassed herself. That’s what’s called a poetic ending. And that’s the other reason we have to read her in lit courses. Lit professors like morbid things to happen to poets and writers because that means they must be at least as good as John Keats, obviously, even if they aren’t. And that rescued Sylvia Plath’s reputation and made her the poet all the people love who also paint their fingernails black.

And that’s why those mits are hilarious.

The End.

h/t L.D.

Who knew John Keats (1795-1821) had some heretical humor in his poems? Maybe I haven’t read enough of his poetry… This morning I opened up my grandfather’s Keats collection and found this little gem. xo, m

I love beautiful books.

Give me women, wine, and snuff
Untill I cry out “hold, enough!”
You may do so sans objection
Till the day of resurrection:
For, bless my beard, they aye shall be
My beloved Trinity.

The freezing north wind was blowing on her face; Marcie was shivering, naked and desperate somewhere in the Arctic Circle. There was snow everywhere and it was already covering her feet and reaching her knees. A strange noise of bulldozers and snowmobiles was becoming louder and louder. Magically she was teleported to the top of Parliament Hill, in Hampstead Heath. She was running up and down carrying a purple duvet sometimes as a gown, other times as a cape. A growing heat emanating from within her was keeping her alive. Her heart was beating fast and every beat was filling her veins with a warm blood that slowly melted all the snow and ice of the mountains. A very good feeling took her over and the image of her loved one appeared. The wind started to blow again, the sound of cars and trucks seemed to be closer. All of a sudden an irritating alarm clock started to ring.

Opening her eyes she noticed she was still in her bed. The partially opened window was allowing the chilly wind to enter the room. In a brisk movement she stood up and closed the window, the sound of cars and trucks ceased. The thick purple duvet was on the ground next to the bed. Despite this she still had a smile on her face.

Marcie stumbled into the heated bathroom and had a long shower to wake her up. Grabbing the only towel in the hanger, she dried her arms, her legs, her breasts and back. She wiped the foggy mirror and looked herself for some seconds, rolling the towel on her thin body.

Looking at the mirror, she smiled at herself and thought about the lovely man she had been going out with. For the first time in her life she was letting herself fall in love. She was 35 and never had a real relationship with someone. She decided to let it happen and suddenly it happened. Two months ago this man just showed up, coming from nowhere, to the museum she worked at and asked her out. She blushed when he said she was the best piece of art of the museum. He was an art professor.

Before turning off the lights, she scanned the bathroom as if it was not hers, seeing one towel, one toothbrush and her perfume standing alone to one side. In the shower cubicle just her shampoo and her shower gel stood in isolation.

Marcie knew her days of lonely dreams, one tooth brush by the basin and one set of towels on the hanger, were about to finish. And she couldn’t be happier about that.

The automated coffee machine which was already dripping some coffee in the container was set for one cup only. Some minutes later, already dressed up, she grabbed a couple of crackers and poured the coffee into the unpaired cup she had.

She put on her coat and turned her Ipod on. Grabbing the book that was on the coffee table she left the flat not looking behind her. Listening to violin and cello concerts she walked to the tube station. Entering in the train she sat down and opened the John Keats poem book she had bought the day before. Her boyfriend (this word was still strange to her) had bought tickets to see Bright Star, the acclaimed new movie by Jane Campion. The film was about the later days of the romantic poet John Keats and his romance with Fanny Browne. She knew nothing about Keats and she was trying to learn something before that night. Actually she didn’t know anything about poetry.

The train started to move. She opened the book and started to read:

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk*

Marcie closed the book vigorously. She couldn’t believe in the beauty of the words printed on the white paper. She slowly opening the book again, afraid of what she could find inside and continued reading…

She almost missed her stop, but she managed to get off at Holborn and walked to the museum. She couldn’t wait for her break, when she would be able to read a bit more of the poetry.

As the day ensued every now and again she opened the book, read a sentence and savoured each word, each syllable; finishing the day with her soul overflowing poetry.

When Marcie met her loved one in front of the museum, she couldn’t stop talking about Keats and his poems. He couldn’t stop staring at her and admiring her virginal exposure to the world of poetry and fell in love with her all over again.

The dinner, in a small Italian restaurant in the Museum Street was seasoned by this romantic atmosphere and they were so drowned in each other that they almost missed the film.

They ran to the cinema theatre and sat in the dark holding hands while on the big screen the beautiful Abbie Cornish (in the role of Fanny Browne) was sewing. The needle going up and down, leaving the thread in the fabric was purely Keats poetry. Even before the couple met, the movie was showing that one was the thread, the other was the fabric and they were meant to be stitched together.

The movie continued in a very poetic way. Keats’s poems were the soundtrack and both Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw (John Keats) interpretations were purely poetry. In a very English way, slowly, using flattery, and being strangely distant their romance evolved and became true love. Without noticing and planning they lived a big love story.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night*

Marcie’s heart and mind flew away with the movie and the poems. She was there with her love but was far away in another century, in another world. Marcie couldn’t believe her life was being shown on the screen. It was another person, another name, another time, but it was her story. All love stories are the same, are universal. Every word Fanny Browne was listening and reading was entering through her ears as if it was her loved one speaking to her. Marcie looked at her boyfriend and saw he was immersed in the movie. She grabbed his hand and held it tight, diving with him into that sea of ancient words.  

She knew John Keats would die – it was announced that the movie was about his last 3 years, but she didn’t want the movie to arrive at that tragic part, wishing she could pause the movie and rewind it… but she couldn’t and the dark and cold moment arrived when Keats was in Rome. Why did he go? She would ask all night…

The movie ended and instead of a beautiful music with the final credits, The Ode to the Nightingale was recited, making this time the rest of the sensible souls in the audience to cry.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

 Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn*

She couldn’t believe a man was complaining about the movie in the foyer, saying it was too long and boring. “Insensible, dull, cold hearted, not loved, poor man.” – She thought.

They left the cinema in silence and went out into what felt like the coldest night of the year, it was below freezing. It rained and the streets were slippery. The beautiful couple kissed romantically and hugged good bye, promising each other love and fidelity for ever. He walked down the street to catch the train in Charing Cross; while she went to Piccadilly Circus to take the bus home. She found her Keats poems’ book on her bag and held it close to her heart, preparing to read it as soon as she entered the bus. Her mobile vibrated, she was about to cross the road, it was a message from her love. She smiled. “I am not a poet, I don’t know how to write beautiful words, but I love you Marcie. Kisses.”

She looked both sides of the road. No sign of cars. She stepped on the road without noticing there was a thin layer of ice. Losing her balance to the floor she went. Opening her eyes she saw a bright star in the sky. The star became brighter and brighter until she couldn’t see anything more, a terrible pain on the head, the head had hit the curb. The blood started to flow over the ice and reached the book that was opened beside her dead body. The white pages became to turn red…

           Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

           To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

           Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

           As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.

           Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

           Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

           Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep

           In the next valley-glades:

           Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

           Fled is that music:–Do I wake or sleep?

 * Extracts from “Ode to a Nightingale”, John Keats

O frio vento do norte soprava em seu rosto; Marcie tremia de frio, nua e desesperada em algum lugar do Círculo Polar Ártico. Neve pra todo lado, era tanta neve que cobria seus pés e chegava aos seus joelhos. Um estrondoso barulho de escavadeiras e caminhões tornava-se mais alto e mais próximo. Magicamente ela foi teletransportada para o topo de Parliament Hill, em Hampstead Heath, ao norte de Londres. Ela corria pelo morro carregando um edredom roxo, às vezes vestindo-o como se um traje fosse, as vezes usando-o como capa. Um calor crescia de dentro dela, mantendo-a viva. O coração batia forte e a cada batida seu sangue fervendo levava calor para suas veias, aquecendo-a por completo. Um sentimento bom tomou conta dela e a imagem do seu amado surgiu. O vento começou a soprar novamente, o barulho dos carros e caminhões ficou mais forte ainda, e um irritante despertador começou a tocar.

Abrindo os olhos ela notou que ainda estava em sua cama. A janela parcialmente aberta deixava o gélido vento entrar no quarto. Rapidamente ela levantou-se e fechou a janela, o som dos carros e caminhões cessou. O grosso edredom roxo estava no chão ao lado da cama. Ela ainda tinha um belo sorriso no rosto.

Marcie arrastou-se até o banheiro aquecido e teve um longo e restaurador banho. Alcançando a única toalha que estava pendurada ela secou lentamente os braços, as pernas, os seios e as costas. Com a mesma toalha ela desembaçou o espelho e olhou a si mesma por alguns segundos terminando por enrolar-se com a toalha.

Ela sorriu e pensou no gracioso homem com quem ela estava saindo. Pela primeira vez em sua vida ela permitiu-se apaixonar-se. Ela já tinha 35 anos e nunca havia tido uma relação realmente sólida com ninguém. Ela decidiu deixar acontecer e aconteceu. Dois meses atrás este homem surgiu do nada, e no museu onde ela trabalhava, convidou-a para sair. Ela enrubreceu quando ele disse que ela era a mais bela obra de arte daquele museu, e ele era um professor de arte.

Antes the apagar a luz, ela deu uma olhada no banheiro como se não fosse o dela, uma toalha, uma escova de dentes, um perfume solitário no canto, no box do chuveiro, somente seu xampu e seu gel de banho.

Marcie sabia que seus dias de sonhos solitários, escova de dente sozinha na pia e apenas um conjunto de toalhas no cabide estavam para acabar. E ela não poderia estar mais feliz.

A cafeteira elétrica estava já pingando o café na jarra. Estava programada para uma xícara apenas, alguns minutos depois, já vestida, ela pegou um par de biscoitos e derramou o café na xícara sem par que ela tinha.

Colocou o casaco, ligou o Ipod. Pegando o livro que estava na mesinha de centro ela saiu do apartamento sem olhar para trás. Ouvindo concertos de violino e violoncelo ela andou até a estação de metrô. Entrando no trem, sentou-se e desembrulhou o livro de poesias de John Keats que havia comprado no dia anterior. Seu namorado (essa palavra ainda era estranha pra ela) havia comprado ingressos para assistirem ao filme Estrela Brilhante (Bright Star), a aclamada nova obra de Jane Campion. O filme era sobre os últimos dias do poeta romântico John Keats e seu romance com Fanny Bowne. Ela não conhecia nada de Keats e estava tentando aprender algo antes do filme. Na verdade ela não sabia nada sobre poesia.

O trem começou a mover-se. Ela abriu o livro e começou a ler:

Meu peito dói; um sono insano sobre mim

Pesa, como se eu me tivesse intoxicado

De ópio ou veneno que eu sorvesse até o fim,

Há um só minuto, e após no Letes me abismado*

Marcie fechou o livro como quem se assustara. Ela não podia acreditar na beleza das palavras impressas nas páginas brancas do papel. Vagarosamente abriu novamente o livro com medo do que pudesse encontrar.

Ela quase perdeu sua estação, mas conseguiu sair do metrô em Holborn e andou até o museu. Ela não podia esperar pelo seu intervalo, quando poderia ler um pouco mais dos poemas.

O dia passou e a todo momento ela abria o livro e lia uma frase, saboreando cada palavra, cada sílaba. Terminou o dia com sua alma transbordando poesia.

Marcie encontrou seu amado em frente ao museu, ela não parava de falar sobre Keats e sua poesia, ele não podia parar de fitá-la e adimirar a viagem virginal que ela fazia ao mundo da poesia. Mais uma vez se apaixonou por ela.

O jantar em uma pequena cantina italiana, na Museum Street foi temperado por esta atmosfera romântica e eles estavam tão imersos em si mesmos que quase perderam o horário do filme.

Correram até o cinema, entraram na sala escura e sentaram em um canto. Logo na tela apareceu a bela Abbie Cornish (no papel de Fanny Browne) costurando. A agulha passeando pra cima e pra baixo, deixava um traço no linho, e aquilo era pura poesia de Keats. Mesmo antes de encontrarem-se, o filme já mostrava que um era a linha e o outro o linho, e que haviam sido feitos para serem bordados juntos.

O filme continuou de uma forma muito poética. Os poemas de Keat eram a trilha sonora e tanto a interpretação de Abbie Cornish quanto a de Ben Whishaw (John Keats) eram pura poesia. De uma maneira muito inglesa, vagarosa, charmosa e distante, o romance evoluiu e tornou-se amor verdadeiro. Sem notarem e sem planejarem viveram uma história de amor.

Eu sigo em breve a tua via,

Não em carro de Baco e guarda de leopardos,

Antes, nas asas invisíveis da Poesia,

Vencendo a hesitação da mente e os seus retardos;

Já estou contigo! suave é a noite Linda*

O coração e a mente de Marcie voou junto com o filme e com os poemas. Ela estava lá com seu amado, mas estava também longe, em outro século, em outro mundo. Marcie custava a acreditar que a história de sua vida estava na tela, talvez  com outro nome, em outra época, em situações diferentes, mas era sua história, afinal toda história de amor é a mesma. É universal. Cada palavra que Fanny Browne escutava ou lia era como se o amado de Marcie quem falava. Marcie olhou para seu namorado no cinema, segurou fortemente sua mão e juntos mergulharam naquele mar de palavras antigas.

Ela sabia qeu John Keats morreria – foi anunciado que o filme era sobre os últimos 3 anos de vida do poeta, mas ela não queria que o filme chegasse naquele trágico momento, se ao menos ela pudesse parar a fita… Mas ela nao o pode fazer e o trágico episódio chegou. Keats morreu em Roma, sozinho. Por que ele foi para lá? Ela se perguntaria a noite toda…

Ao final do filme, ao invés de uma bela música junto aos créditos, a Ode ao Rouxinol (Ode to a Nightngale) foi recitada, fazendo com que desta vez, as outras almas sensíveis no cinema derramassem suas lágrimas.

Tu não nasceste para a morte, ave imortal!

Não te pisaram pés de ávidas gerações;

A voz que ouço cantar neste momento é igual

À que outrora encantou príncipes e aldeões:

Talvez a mesma voz com que foi consolado

O coração de Rute, quando, em meio ao pranto,

Ela colhia em terra alheia o alheio trigo;

Quem sabe o mesmo canto

Que abriu janelas encantandas ao perigo

Dos mares maus, em longes solos, desolado*

Ela mal pode acreditar quando ouviu um homem reclamando do filme no foyer do cinema. Ele dizia que o filme era muito longo e cansativo. “Insensível, grosso, frio, mal amado, pobre coitado.” – Pensou ela.

Saíram do cinema em silêncio, encontram lá fora a mais fria das noites, estava abaixo de zero. Havia chovido e as ruas estavam escorregadias. O belo casal se beijou apaixonadamente e após um longo abraço despediram-se com juras de amor eterno. Ele desceu rua, rumo à Charing Cross onde pegaria o metrô, ela subiu para Piccadilly Circus, onde pegaria o ônibus. Tirando seu livro de poesia da bolsa, segurou-o perto do coração, para ler assim que entrasse no ônibus. O celular vibrou, ela estava prestes a atravessar a rua, era uma mensagem do seu amado. Ela sorriu. “Eu não sou um poeta, não sei usar palavras bonitas, mas eu te amo Marcie. Beijos”.

Ainda sorrindo ela olhou para os dois lados da rua, nenhum sinal de carros. Ela pisou na rua sem notar a fina camada de gelo que havia. Perdeu o equilíbrio e ao chão ela foi jogada. Abrindo os olhos ela viu uma estrela brilhante, e o brilho ficava cada vez mais intenso. Sua cabeça doia muito. A cabeça havia atingido o meio-fio, o sangue começava a verter, escorrendo por sobre o frio gelo, chegou até o livro que estava aberto ao lado do corpo. As páginas foram aos poucos cobrindo-se de vermelho.

Desolado! a palavra soa como um dobre,

Tangendo-me de ti de volta à solidão!

Adeus! A fantasia é véu que não encobre

Tanto como se diz, duende da ilusão.

Adeus! Adeus! Teu salmo agora tristemente

Vai-se perder no campo, e além, no rio silente,

Nas faldas da montanha, até ser sepultado

Sob o vale deserto:

Foi só uma visão ou um sonho acordado?

A música se foi – durmo ou estou desperto?*

* Trechos em itálico extraídos de Ode a um Rouxinol (“Ode to a Nightingale”), John Keats, tradução Augusto de Campos, Vialinguagem. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras 1987

Joan Shelley Rubin, author of Songs of Ourselves: The Uses of Poetry in America, said the 1920s belonged as much to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as it did to Thomas Stearns Eliot—and this is true.

The anti-Victorian, Imagism revolution of Bloomsbury, which gradually changed poetry from an art of song to an art of image through the ’trickle-down’ effort of its elites, gained the overwhelming momentum of  great numbers when its ‘trickle-down’ effort became  normalized and taught in the academy–both in English departments and Creative Writing Workshops–during the second half of the 20th century.

Are there any prominent musicians who bother to set contemporary poetry to music?

The image in poetry became associated with art, while the music of poetry became associated with vulgarity.

Two brief examples, from last century, will suffice:

First: these lines from J.V. Cunningham, the anti-modernist poet, who is largely forgotten:

Second:  Bloomsbury author Aldous Huxley’s infamous slam against Poe’s verse as “vulgar.”  The prim Englishman’s distaste for musical Poe was quoted approvingly in Brooks & Penn Warren’s well-placed textbook, Understanding Poetry (first edition, 1938) which also solidified the reputations of Imagist classics, ‘At A Station In the Metro’ (Pound) and ‘The Red Wheel Barrow’ (Williams) in its unalloyed praise for these two works.

Could poetry change radically today?  And, if it did, would the public even notice?    The answer to both quesitons is, ‘no,’ and the reason the first answer is ’no,’ is because the second answer is ‘no.’

How did poetry change so radically in the early part of the 20th century?

First, it did have a public, but not a particularly large or enthusiastic one, and secondly, poetry was understood by the public to have a certain definite identity: it looked like work by Longfellow and Tennyson.

An art whose practioners are disunited, who have no common expertise, will not be seen as an art at all.  Poetry had a common expertise: the ability to compose memorable music with mere words, like Longfellow and Tennsyon.

“Verse is not easy,” Cunningham wrote.    But the skill of verse is no longer a part of poetry; poetry no longer has a specific “skill.”

The Imagists never got beyond a very minor, little magazine existence, but they believed what they were offering would be very popular, like a portable camera; now you can just point and shoot!  Anyone can appreciate images–and put them into simple poems–like haiku.  Poetry for democracy!  Poetry that was selfless and natural!  It will be a phenomenon!  But the public didn’t buy it–they still wanted their Tennyson and their Longfellow with their gadgets and their telephones and their cars.  Imagism, like Futurism, Cubism and 12-Tone Music, failed to inspire anyone except the core of elites who were pushing them.  Imagism was a flop.

Or, was it?

People ‘on the street’ today define poetry as vaguely expressive, and the public’s perception of something, we have learned, should not be underestimated.  ‘Vaguely’ is the chief term here.  No longer does the public think of poetry as Longfellow.  They think of it as vaguely expressive.

100 years ago the American public had a more sharply defined view of poetry.  It was like what those fellows, Mr. Alfred Lord Tennyson and Mr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote.  That was what poetry was.

The zen joke of ‘The Red Wheel Barrow’ and ‘The women come and go/talking of Michelangelo’ resonated once, but these jokes are no longer funny.  But Longfellow is gone, too.

Image truly belongs to other arts: painting, photography, and film;  further, these arts do not need to look to poetry at all as they wrestle with the image.

Song belongs to songwriters, and songwriters, the good ones, are poets, but they are known to the world as songwriters; poetry’s identity carries on in the sister art of songwriting, and unlike the filmmakers, photographers and painters, songwriters do consult poetry, not contemporary poetry, but old poetry, the art, for inspiration.

Since poetry has given up song for image as its current identity, poetry manifests no contemporary attachment with any other art.  No glory belongs to poetry, or is even reflected back on poetry.  Poetry is in the dark.

Poetry, with no public identity, is stuck: it has nowhere to go.

History affords countless examples of  technical changes which have improved music’s expressive qualities as a whole even as music, the art, remains, in its simplicity, recongizable to everyone.   When the piano replaced the harpsichord, all composers took notice, not just some.

The modernist revolution changed poetry so that everyone took notice,  but unfortunately in a way that made poetry no longer recognizable to everyone.  Nor is it easy to say if expressive qualities have increased–certainly not in the public’s perception.  As far as prose and how it perhaps opens things up, the problem poetry has, is that in prose, one would naturally think poetry could express itself with greater variety, but fiction owns prose, and poetry is expected to do something different than fiction; poetry as art has been developed in different ways than prose.   Yes, poetry should be as good as good prose, and all that, but how does poetry keep from disappearing into it?  And so poetry–sans the music that separates it from prose, as the art which the public knows as poetry–has been at sea for 100 years.

T.S. Eliot, an honorary Bloomsbury member, and the most respected critic of the 20th century, recommended minor poetry 300 years old as superior to major poetry composed  250, 200, 150, 100, and 50 years before his day.  This, in some ways, was counter to the whole modernist revolution.  John Donne?  Andrew Marvell?  Henry King, Bishop of Chichester?  What was Eliot thinking?  Eliot was thinking this: If my friends and I are to effect this modernist revolution of ours, we must not seem like mere brick-throwers; we need erudition, scholarship, appreciation of certain aspects of the past, and if we are to become professors and editors of modernist verse, it will be well to be able to make the past our clay, for revolutions must feed off the past; no revolution lives in the present day; Eliot knew he and Pound were not Bach, the master, at the keyboard, re-inventing music itself; he knew they were merely sullying a grand tradition with a little sleight-of-hand: Goodbye, Milton, Shelley, Poe, Shakespeare, Keats.  Hello, Kyd, King, Corbiere.  Eliot knew that when a revolution happens, the past will not disappear; a certain respect for the past must not only be feigned, but enthusiastically pursued, for every manifesto needs food; actual ’new’ material (Waste Lands, cantos, wheel barrow haiku,) will run out in a week, so the past has to be transformed.  Every revolution needs a professor; Mary Ann and Ginger alone will not do.

The image is free-standing and pre-verbal; it is not necessary for image to fit, or be coherent–it simply is. Why should such a thing be the essence of poetry?  Ask that Bloomsbury elite.  After a snort and a sigh and a sip of their very expensive wine, they will tell you.

David Lehman uses half his introduction to Best American Poetry 2009 to attack William Logan.

Now we know things are really out of hand.

Lehman creeps up on his prey by first alluding to negative criticism in general:

“The notion that the job of the critic is to find fault with the poetry — that the aims of criticism and of poetry are opposed — is still with us or, rather, has returned after a hiatus.”

But who would argue against the idea that one of the functions of criticism is to find fault with poetry?  Lehman implies that this “hiatus” was a good thing.   No finding fault with poetry!  Ever!

Even if Lehman is speaking of criticism rather than reviewing, why shouldn’t criticism be able to find fault?

“The critical essays of T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden are continuous with their poems and teach us that criticism is a matter not of enforcing the “laws of aesthetics” or meting out sentences as a judge might pronounce them in court. Rather, the poet as critic engages with works of literature and enriches our understanding and enjoyment of them. Yet today more than a few commentators seem intent on punishing the authors they review. It has grown into a phenomenon.”

Lehman has obviously never read T.S. Eliot’s criticism of Edgar Poe (From Poe to Valery, 1949) in which Eliot “punishes” Poe severely.  Poe alone has been attacked by any number of critics: Yvor Winters, Aldous Huxley, Harold Bloom, T.S Eliot, Joseph Wood Krutch, and earlier this year in the New Yorker by a history professor at Harvard.  In fact, there has been no “hiatus” when the target is America’s greatest writer.   Negative reviewing was, of course, practiced by Poe, among other things, and Poe said it very explicitly: “A criticism is just that—a criticism.”

When Lehman says, “A critic engages with works of literature and enriches our understanding and enjoyment of them” he sounds like a person who wants to eat without chewing.   When did “enjoyment” of literature preclude honest opinion about it?    Does Lehman seriously believe that being “nice” to a poem is how we “enjoy” it?   What does he think we are?   Little kids?

Lehman, like Camille Paglia, is dismissive of ‘French Theory:’

“The characteristic badness of literary criticism in the 1980s was that it was heavily driven by theory and saddled with an unlovely vocabulary. T. S. Eliot, in “The Function of Criticism” (1923), says he “presumes” that “no exponent of criticism” has “ever made the preposterous assumption that criticism is an autotelic activity” — that is, an activity to be undertaken as an end in itself without connection to a work of literature. Eliot did not figure on post-structuralism and the critic’s declaration of independence from the text. If you wanted criticism “constantly to be confronted with examples of poetry,” as R. P. Blackmur recommends in “A Critic’s Job of Work,” you were in for a bad time in the 1980s.”

But even worse than critics off in a world of their own, according to Lehman, are critics who review poetry without being nice:

“Every critic knows it is easier (and more fun) to write a ruthless review rather than a measured one. As a reviewer, you’re not human if you don’t give vent to your outrage once or twice — if only to get the impulse out of you. If you have too good a time writing hostile reviews, you’ll injure not only your sensibility but your soul. Frank O’Hara felt he had no responsibility to respond to a bad poem. It’ll “slip into oblivion without my help,” he would say.”

Actually, it’s not “easier” to write a “ruthless” review–erudition and patience go into “ruthless” reviews all the time.  It’s easier to be funny, perhaps, when being ruthless; this, I will grant, but ruthless without humor falls flat; ruthless and humorous is devastating–the review every poet fears.

As for O’Hara’s remark–echoed by contemporary critic Stephen Burt: Isn’t the critic a philosopher?  And when would you ever tell a philosopher: ‘only write about the good stuff?’

Now Lehman goes after his real target–William Logan.

“William Logan typifies the bilious reviewer of our day. He has attacked, viciously, a great many American poets; I, too, have been the object of his scorn. Logan is the critic as O’Hara defined the species: “the assassin of my orchards.” You can rely on him to go for the most wounding gesture. Michael Palmer writes a “Baudelaire Series” of poems, for example, and Logan comments, “Baudelaire would have eaten Mr. Palmer for breakfast, with salt.” The poems of Australian poet Les Murray seem “badly translated out of Old Church Slavonic with only a Russian phrase book at hand.” Reviewing a book by Adrienne Rich is a task that Logan feels he could almost undertake in his sleep. Reading C. K. Williams is “like watching a dog eat its own vomit.”

For many years, Logan reserved his barbs for the poets of our time. More recently he has sneered at Emily Dickinson (“a bloodless recluse”) and condescended to Emerson (“a mediocre poet”).”

Oh Lehman, stop being such a big baby.  Emerson was a mediocre poet.  Logan has praised Dickinson’s work–calling her a ‘bloodless recluse’ is well…kinda…true.   Should there really be a law against giving Frank O’Hara or C.K. Williams or Hart Crane a bad review?

Far better poets have been far more vilified–and for political reasons, too.

Logan is merely expressing his taste.

Lehman, you shouldn’t take this so personally.

One person finds the weather too cold and goes indoors; another remains outside because they find the weather pleasant.

‘But,’ Lehman might reply, ‘ poets are not the weather, they create in order to please.’

All the more reason why there should be a wider divergence of opinion on poems than the weather.

Poems ask us to love them, and in ways far more nuanced than a breezy, foggy evening balanced between warm and cold.

There is nothing worse for poetry in general than telling people they have to like it.  Critics like Poe and Logan actually help the cake to rise.

Don’t you remember what Keats said about the talking primrose?  It tells us to like it.  So we don’t.

It goes without saying that I don’t agree with all of Logan’s judgments, but simple common sense impels this question:

Which statement is crazier?

I don’t like Hart Crane’s poetry.

or

Everyone has to like Hart Crane’s poetry.

Jane Campion says she made a movie about John Keats because she “was terrified of poetry”. A tricky poem was like a spider in a high corner of her brain; making meaning hard to reach; staining her enjoyment. But Keats proved a good teacher. As he says in the movie: “A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore; it’s to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out. It is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery.” Bright Star is about a love of verse.

An impoverished Keats is a lodger at the Brawne household in 1818. His poetry has not sold well. He shares a bachelor parlour with his friend Charles Brown and spends his days, like most writers, staring at a blank page the way a sniper watches an open window. Then one day his landlady’s daughter takes an interest in his poems. Her name is Fanny Brawne and she dresses like a rare orchid. She speaks to Keats with a directness he finds intriguing. She wants to understand his work. Since Keats lacks funds, she agrees to pay him to be her poetry tutor. She will become Keats’s muse, and the “Bright Star” of his most rapturous sonnet.

“Bright star, would I were as steadfast as thou art/ Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night…No – yet still steadfast, still unchangeable/ Pillowed upon my fair love’s ripening breast…” In those lines – that mixture of headiness and eroticism – Jane Campion finds her movie. The love between John Keats and Fanny Brawne is chaste, unyielding and tragic. Like Keats’s poem, it conjures a feeling like taking your last breath; that special awareness that comes with sensing mortality. There is no sex in the movie, but the physical connection between the two leads is palpable. Their every kiss is like a resuscitation. Their every touch pierces skin.

Ben Whishaw plays Keats as a bookish man with a roaring heart. There’s an intensity about him, but nothing threatening. He’s a man who could look right through you if he were reading. But he’s also present – the way people are when they have experienced death at a young age. He isn’t sentimental, or mawkish. Rather, he’s someone who has a passion in life, and who is loved because of that passion. When Jane Campion films Whishaw sitting, musing, by a tree, another actor might look fey or ridiculous. Whishaw looks real, as if he really were receiving inspiration. Even his consumptive coughing fits avoid the ominous-cough cliché.

Abbie Cornish, faced with the more difficult task of embodying a muse, goes the practical route. Fanny Brawne isn’t an inscrutable beauty, or a tantalising enigma, she’s a young woman who understands John Keats. Cornish smiles too knowingly for a waif; she smiles like a card sharp. Again, there’s no trace of sentimentality. Her feelings for Keats strike her like a hammer striking an anvil. When he dies, her tears are searing. Cornish looks at Whishaw throughout as if, when she was around him, she could see the blood moving through his body. When he’s sick, it’s as if she can see the sickness. The final meeting between the two, when Fanny begs John to take her with him to Italy, is heart-breaking because they both know it’s their final meeting. It’s mutual awareness that makes them kin.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever/ Its loveliness increases, it will never/ Pass into nothingness… What Bight Star captures is the ecstasy of love: the part that’s like a great poem. There are easier things in life than love and poetry – accepting mystery is hard – but the rewards are ample. Keats’s metaphor of “diving in a lake” is apt because it’s dangerous. If you refuse to swim for shore, you could drown. But that’s only if you give up. What Jane Campion celebrates in Bright Star is the urge to grasp intangibles: whether you’re struck by a face or a verse, if you pursue that impulse, you discover life.

Full Name:- John Keats

Date of Birth:- 31 October 1795

Place of Birth:- London, England.

Date of Death:- 23 February 1821.

Famous:- As an English poet, was part of the second generation of the romantic movement of poetry.

BIOGRAPHY:-

Early Life

John Keats was born on 31 October 1795 to Thomas and Frances Jennings Keats. He was the oldest of their four surviving children, and his siblings were George (1797-1841), Thomas (1799-1818), and Frances Mary, a.k.a. “Fanny” (1803-1889). John was born in central London, though exact location of his birth remains a mystery. His father Thomas Keats served as a stable boy at the time of his birth at the hoop and swan pub, an establishment he was made in charge of at a later date and which is supposed to be located near Moorgate Station (present station).

Education

John Keats was sent to a local elementary school as an infant and in 1803, he was sent to a boarding school along with brother George at the Clark School, located near his grandparents house in Ponder’s End. Thomas, father of John Keats died on 15 April 1804, only 9 months after he started at Clarke School due to fractured skull, as a result of falling from horse. Frances, John’s mother, remarried two months afterwards, but quickly left the new husband and, with her four children, went to live with the children’s grandmother, Alice Jennings, in the village of Edmonton, London. She too died in March 1810, leaving the children in custody of their grandmother. In autumn 1810, Keats was removed from Clarke’s school to become a surgeon’s apprentice at Thomas Hammond’s apothecary shop in Edmonton. This was the most painful time of Keats’ life as he lodged with Hammond and slept in the attic above the apothecary.

A Young Poet

His first surviving poem – An Imitation of Spenser – comes in 1814, when Keats was nineteen. On 1 October 1815, Keats registered to become a student at Guy’s Hospital (now part of King’s College London) where he would study for five years. Within a month of starting, he was accepted for a ‘dressership’ position within the hospital – a significant promotion, which he took up in March the following year. During his time at Guys, he lived in various rooms near London Bridge.

On 5 May 1816, Leigh Hunt, a poet and critic greatly admired by Keats, agreed to publish the sonnet “O Solitude” in  “Hunt’s Examiner” which was a leading liberal magazine of that day. It was the first appearance of Keats’s poems in print, and proved that his ambitions as an artist aren’t ridiculous. In summer, same year he went down to the coastal town of Margate with Clarke to write. Here he began Calidore and initiated the era of his great letter writing.

Cockney School of Poetry

In October, Clarke personally introduced Keats to Leigh Hunt and five months later, on 3 March 1817, “Poems”, his first volume of verse, was published, which was a critical failure. Hunt, then introduced Keats to many influential men in his circle, and went on to publish an essay on Three Young Poets (Shelley, Keats and Reynolds), along with the sonnet on Chapman’s Homer, promising great things to come. This was a decisive turning point for Keats as he was now established in the eyes of the world as a member of, what Hunt called, ‘a new school of poetry’, which was condemned by the critics and given the defamatory name of Cockney School of poetry.

It was Lockhart at Blackwoods who coined the term and included the Hunt, Keats and his circle of poets. The condemnation was political as well as literal as these poets did not belong rich and famous schools or families.

Life at Hampstead

In June 1818, Keats began a walking journey around Scotland, Ireland and the lake district with his friend Charles Armitage Brown. In July the same year, around the area of Mull, Keats caught a bad cold and by August was all frail and weak. Some people argue that it was during that journey that Keats contracted the than fatal disease of tuberculosis and his short life started to end however, others argue that since Keats nursed his ailing brother Tom for a year during 1817, and even after his return from the Journey, he may have contracted the disease at a later date.

After death of Tom Keats on 1 December 1818, John moved in to live with his friend Charles Brown in his newly built house, known as Wentworth Place, on the edge of Hampstead Heath. It was here that Keats wrote the poems Fancy and Bards of passion and of mirth which were inspired by the gardens. Keats also composed five of his six great odes in April and May and, although it is debated in which order they were written however, Ode to Psyche starts the series. According to Brown, the most famous Ode to a Nightingale was composed under their mulberry tree. The Wentworth Place today houses Keats House Museum.

During this time John met Frances Brawne, who was living next door to Wentworth Place with her mother. They quickly fell in love and were engaged a year later, however the engagement was called off due to his worsening health. In 1819, during his time at Wentworth, he also wrote “The Eve of St. Agnes, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Hyperion Otho and Lamia”, which in september when he was short of money he tried to get published but were rejected. The last volume that Keats lived to see —Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems – was eventually published in July 1820.

He also wrote “To Autumn” here, and the poem went to become the most praised poem in English Literature, long after his death.

Death

During 1820 Keats began showing increasingly serious signs of tuberculosis and suffered two lung hemorrhages in the first few days of February. He lost large amounts of blood in the attacks and was then bled further by his attending physician. At the suggestion of his doctors, he agreed to leave London and move to Italy with his friend Joseph Severn. On 13th September, he left for Gravesend and four days later Keats and Severn boarded the sailing brig The Maria Crowther. Keats wrote his final version of “Bright Star” aboard the ship.

On arrival in Italy, he moved into a villa on the Spanish Steps in Rome, (now the Keats-Shelley Memorial House, a museum dedicated to their life and work) in November 1820. Despite attentive care from Severn and Dr. John Clark, the poet’s health rapidly deteriorated.

John Keats died on 23 February 1821 and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome. His last request was to be buried under a tombstone reading: Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.

His name was not to appear on the stone. Despite these requests, however, Severn and Brown added an image of a lyre with broken strings and the epitaph:

“This Grave
contains all that was mortal
of a YOUNG ENGLISH POET,
who
on his Death Bed
in the Bitterness of his heart
at the Malicious Power of his enemies
desired
these words
to be Engraven on his Tomb Stone:
(Here lies One
Whose Name was writ in Water.)“

List of Poems

Odes

* Ode to a Nightingale
* Ode on a Grecian Urn
* Ode to Psyche
* To Autumn
* Ode on Melancholy
* Ode on Indolence
* Ode to Fancy
* Ode – (Bards of Passion and of Mirth)
* Lines on the Mermaid Tavern
* Robin Hood – To a Friend
* Ode to Apollo

Other poems by John Keats

* I stood tiptoe upon a little hill
* Specimen of an induction to a poem
* Calidore – a fragment
* To Some Ladies
* On Receiving a Curious Shell, and a Copy of Verses from the Same Ladies
* To – Georgiana Augusta Wylie, afterwards Mrs. George Keats
* To Hope
* Imitation of Spenser
* Three Sonnets on Woman
* Sleep and Poetry
* On Death
* Women, Wine, and Snuff
* Fill For Me a Brimming Bowl
* Isabella or The Pot of Basil
* To a Young Lady who Sent Me a Laurel Crown
* On Receiving a Laurel Crown from Leigh Hunt
* To the Ladies who Saw me Crown’d
* Hymn to Apollo
* The Eve of St. Agnes

Epistles

* To George Felton Mathew
* To My Brother George
* To Charles Cowden Clarke

Sonnets

* To My Brother George
* To – [Had I a man's fair form, then might my sighs]
* Written on the Day that Mr. Leigh Hunt left Prison
* How many bards gild the lapses of time!
* To a Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses
* To G. A. W. [Georgiana Augusta Wylie]
* O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell
* To My Brothers
* Keen, fitful gusts are whisp’ring here and there
* To one who has been long in city pent
* On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer
* On Leaving Some Friends at an Early Hour
* Addressed to Haydon
* On the Grasshopper and Cricket
* To Koscuisko
* Happy is England! I could be content
* Sonnet on Peace
* Sonnet to Byron
* Sonnet to Chatterton
* Sonnet to Spenser

Endymion

(A Poetic Romance)

* Book I
* Book II
* Book III
* Book IV

Lamia

* Lamia – part 1
* Lamia – part 2

Hyperion – A Fragment

* Hyperion – Book I
* Hyperion – Book II
* Hyperion – Book III