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Ok, Rick, fair enough - I'm being too TSE focussed. A. > Octavio Paz in "The Other Voice: Essays on Modern Poetry" gives a > interesting history of the development of modern poetry from a > viewpoint not > French or English. > > Rick Seddon > McIntosh, NM, USA > -----Original Message----- > From: Arwin van Arum <[log in to unmask]> > To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Sunday, June 10, 2001 2:22 PM > Subject: RE: A Mighty Syllogism Our god (was Re: poetry collections > > > > > >> Now hold on there. > >> > >> Not wanting to distract from the thesis that all good things > proceed from > >> French and the French, a fact not debatable to the French but some > >> (admirably non-French) might claim otherwise. > > > >I wouldn't have bothered asking you why you brought it up if, in > fact, that > >had been my thesis. (now there's a sentence to think about - it > makes even > >me dizzy but that could be my flue as well). > > > >However, I just said that modernism originated in French poetry. > > > >> BUT > >> > >> One might debate that the French Impressionists were Moderns at all. > That > >> they were influential upon the Moderns is true but so were the > >> Georgians and > >> the Symbolists and the Romantics and the neoclassicists and the ... . > > > >One might, but that would perhaps betray not having read them? > Either that, > >or we disagree on which work by Eliot is actually modernist. Now > there's an > >interesting discussion. I've read, among others, both Eliot's Spleen and > >three other versions, all in French, and, more importantly, by French > poets. > >That the influence of the French poets on Eliot's modernist > poetic diction > >and even subject matter was very important was discussed by Eliot himself > on > >several occasions; haven't you read some of these in fragments > cited at the > >end of The March Hare? And yes, you can find traces of every kind of > >movement everywhere in history, but one trace doesn't make the > movement. It > >is, instead, the movement which allows all those traces to be > picked up and > >be given a name. Picking up traces was something, incidentally, typically > >modernist, it seems to me anyway. > > > >A. > > > >> I can recommend a book ; "Properitius: Modernist Poet of Antiquity" by > >> D.Thomas Benediktson. Whatever he was, Propertius was not > >> French. I guess > >> he might have been inspired by some Gaelic slave and that this > is how the > >> French managed to exert their lingusistic genius upon the > development of > >> Modernism > >> > >> Rick Seddon > >> McIntosh, NM, USA > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: Arwin van Arum <[log in to unmask]> > >> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> > >> Date: Sunday, June 10, 2001 11:37 AM > >> Subject: RE: A Mighty Syllogism Our god (was Re: poetry collections > >> > >> > >> > >> , but because French poets invented modernism (with a slight bit of > >> >help from Poe, admittedly). > >> > > >> >Arwin > >> > > >> >> Regards, > >> >> Rick Parker > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> > > >> > > >> > > > > > >