One thinks of Pound's, MAKE IT NEW, and wonders how Lear fits. I suppose Alice might have liked the ODD cat.
P
On 1 Aug 2015 5:20 pm, James Loucks <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> P, -- Thanks very much for sending the information and newspaper account to me. The Lear topic was one he used very often in his US lectures in 1932-33, and it cannot have been among his more popular subjects.
> -- Jim
>
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Fri, 7/31/15, P <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: Attention Jim, Eliot's whereabouts on January 26, 1933
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Friday, July 31, 2015, 12:06 PM
>
> I'm glad he disposed
> of the essay.
> P.
>
> On 31
> Jul 2015 4:25 am, "Rickard A. Parker" <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> > The
> following are two cut and pastes from the web page at
> > http://libweb.lib.buffalo.edu/blog/?cat=24
>
> >
> >
> > This first one tells of his visit at the
> University of Buffalo:
> >
> > On January 26, 1933, T.S. Eliot, poet and
> critic, was in Buffalo, N.Y. to appear before an audience
> for a Fenton Foundation lecture held under the auspices of
> the University of Buffalo in the Twentieth Century Club at
> 595 Delaware Avenue. (see “Meaningful, Sonic Poetry Termed
> Best” Buffalo Courier-Express, 27 January 1933)
> >
> > Between 1932 and
> 1933, T.S. Eliot wrote and presented a series of lectures
> while touring U.S. universities. His topic while in Buffalo
> was Edward Lear and Modern Poetry.
> >
> > Apparently Eliot was not happy with the
> Lear lecture. T.S. Eliot was once asked why it was absent in
> his “Collected Essays.” He replied, “I am flattered
> that you should retain any interest in the lecture I gave on
> Edward Lear, and am therefore sorry to say that I destroyed
> the script of this and of a number of occasional lectures
> which I delivered in the United States in 1932-33.”
> >
> > For more information
> on poetry, visit the Poetry Collection, a part of the
> University at Buffalo Libraries Special Collections.
> >
> >
> >
> > This second cut and
> paste is the text of a newspaper article written about that
> visit:
> >
> >
> MEANINGFUL,
> > SONIC POETRY
> > TERMED BEST
> >
> > —
> >
> > T. S. Eliot, poet and critic,
> > contrasts style of various
> > writers
> >
> > —
> >
> > There are two types of poetry, one in
> which the words are used simply to give meaning, the other
> in which the words are used for their sonic effect, but in
> great poetry the words do both. T. S. Eliot, English poet
> and critic, told an audience last night in his Fenton
> Foundation lecture held under auspices of the University of
> Buffalo at the Twentieth Century Club.
> >
> > Mr. Eliot’s subject
> was Edward Lear and Modern Poetry, and one of his themes was
> that modern “unintelligible” poetry derives from Lear as
> one of its sources. Lear, a contemporary of Lewis Carroll,
> the author of Alice in Wonderland, was a writer of light
> verse, in which there was more nonsense than sense, and in
> which the words were chosen not to convey ideas, but
> emotional effects—the emotion being of the whimsical sort.
>
> >
> > Compares Carroll,
> Lear
> >
> > Mr. Eliot
> drew this contrast between Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear:
> Carroll’s whimsy, with its detective story elements, its
> logical procedure, appeals to the adult element in children,
> whereas Lear’s poetry, which is more “poetic” and
> less, logical, appeals to the childish side of adults.
> >
> > Quoting Walter
> Pater’s essay which makes the point that all the other
> arts only approach music which stands above them, Mr. Eliot
> made a defense for this sonic, musical, somewhat
> unintelligible poetry, which makes no pretense at sense, but
> pleases the ear, or creates an emotional effect.
> >
> > Swinburne, another
> contemporary of Lear, also was held up for comparison to
> this effect: that Swinburne was an adolescent who pretended
> to be writing poetry with much meaning, though it was really
> meaningless, whereas Lehr didn’t even pretend to be making
> sense.
> >
> > Following
> the lecture, Mr. Eliot, author of The Sacred Wood, and The
> Waste Land, read from his own poems.
> >
> > — Buffalo
> Courier-Express, January 27, 1933
>
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