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Oct. 9th, 2003 09:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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mrthursday says it's National Poetry Day, and thenyxie believes him. Well, who am I to argue with that? I can celebrate the UK's national poetry day. I'll say it's a cultural ancestry thing.
I'm also choosing a poem by William Blake. This is a good Spuffy poem, I think. In as much as any poem can be Spuffy that wasn't written for them. In case you all haven't noticed, I'm on a Spuffy high today. A big one.
The Clod & the Pebble
Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.
So sang a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet;
But a Pebble of the brook,
Warbled out these metres meet:
Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to Its delight:
Joys in anothers loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite.
That is one of my all-time favorite poems. I love the skillful reversal of the language. And hell, the statments about love are darned good too.
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Re: I read it here first...
Date: 2003-10-10 12:36 am (UTC)Not sure the word "romantic" does Blake justuce!!
Re: I read it here first...
Date: 2003-10-10 12:39 am (UTC)Re: I read it here first...
Date: 2003-10-10 08:10 am (UTC)He was one of the most important visionaries, in a spiritual, theological and mystical sense. He created whole symbolic systems and pretty much produced the single most eloquent work of "hersey" in the history of Crhistain England. Most of his poems are about love in the "religious" sense rather than the romantic sense, and man's relations with the divine.
I'm not saying he isn't romantic, just that he's far deeper than the rest of the romantic poets (the Byrons, Shelleys, Keats, that lot, who I also love). He contains maganitudes that the word "romantic" dosn't begin to cover...
Re: I read it here first...
Date: 2003-10-10 10:04 am (UTC)Re: I read it here first...
Date: 2003-10-11 03:59 pm (UTC)Hmm.
I was also using it i it'sliterary sense, and god bless Byron, Shelly, Keats, Taylor-Colridge and wordsworth (ok, not Wordsworth, 'cos he sucks), who I have always been taught compromise the romantic poets but I don't think they can be said to be in the same "school" as Blake.
Most of there poetry is as much political as it is "metaphysical", concerns Blake never lets get in the way of his (sometimes pretty dense) theology. I don't think he is thinking the same way Byron and co, and I don't think they are thinking the same way Blake is.
Blake is a school on his own, though I guess Manley Hopkins comes close. Hence why I don't use the term romantic to describe him.
I think if Blake is close to any school of poetry he is closer to the Metaphysical poets of the 17th century than the romantics.
Re: I read it here first...
Date: 2003-10-11 07:52 pm (UTC)Re: I read it here first...
Date: 2003-10-12 02:30 am (UTC)English Lit was sort of my major