Richard Dawson wrote:

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USM Sympathizer wrote: Richard Dawson wrote: I am quite sure that Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Chopin, et. al., would be listed in a 100-person survey of "top composers." My statement was that Donne wouldn't make the list of "top poets." As such, Tone Deaf, your statement is irrelevant -- you are not even making a parallel comparison. As for Donne's significance, I find it interesting that Donne is being focused on now, many years after so many of his contemporaries have achieved status. You Donnites are the academic equivalent of USM football fans -- keep telling yourself that your particular favorite is top quality and pretty soon you start believing it. Dick, Any informed person would place Donne WAY high up among the top English poets.  He is in EVERY major anthology; he is taught in ANY survey course that pretends to be even remotely respectable; he is actually deeply loved by almost anyone who has ever bothered to read him (as I suspect you have not).  The only reason there is a need for a Donne variorium edition is PRECISELY because Donne is so widely read and so widely studied.  Have you ever looked at one of the DV volumes?  They are huge, and they are filled with the detailed responses that many highly intelligent (i.e., non-Dick) readers over the centuries have offered to Donne.  Literally millions of dollars have been allocated to produce the DV -- which would be a pretty dumb thing to do if Donne were considered an insignificant poet.  People in his own day regarded him as one of the very best writers of their era, and major writers in the 20th century have been greatly influenced by him (e.g., T.S. Eliot).  In short, Dick, you have no idea what you are talking about (but why am I not surprised?).  So, jack, give me your top 10 poets. Show me your all-time list.

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Dick,

Take a look at William Harmon's Classic One Hundred Poems, which is a highly respected distillation of the poems regarded as "best" by the experts and by general readers.  Seven of the hundred are by Donne.

Take a look at ANY -- and I mean ANY -- comprehensive anthology of English poetry and tell me which one does NOT give very prominent coverage to Donne.

Take a look at the MLA bibliography and tell me which poet is more widely written about than Donne.

Take a look at the syllabus of any decent college survey course covering the first half of English literature and tell me which ones do not include Donne.

Dick, you just can't admit that you are shooting blanks.  You are incompetent.  No WONDER you admire Shelby!

Hey Dick,

I just checked the Library of Congress catalogue, which lists 117 books of criticism on Donne's work (this does not include bibliographies, biographies, etc).  Not bad for a poet nobody cares about, right, Dick?

Hey Dick,

I just checked the computerized MLA bibliography, which goes back only to 1963.  There were 2310 items listed for Donne.  This total does not include encyclopedia articles, dictionary articles, etc., etc., nor does it include the hundreds of other items published before 1963.  Again -- not bad for a poet nobody cares about, right, Dick?

Dick, I now expect that you, like many of the other trolls who visit this board, will drop from sight, having no evidence with which to support your lame attempts at argument.

By the way, you dishonor a good man when you choose "Richard Dawkins" as your nom de plume.  The REAL Richard Dawkins knows how to respect evidence and how to marshall it to support an argument.  Unlike you, Dick.

USM Sympathizer wrote:

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Hey Dick,
I just checked the computerized MLA bibliography, which goes back only to 1963.  There were 2310 items listed for Donne.  This total does not include encyclopedia articles, dictionary articles, etc., etc., nor does it include the hundreds of other items published before 1963.  Again -- not bad for a poet nobody cares about, right, Dick?
Dick, I now expect that you, like many of the other trolls who visit this board, will drop from sight, having no evidence with which to support your lame attempts at argument.
By the way, you dishonor a good man when you choose "Richard Dawkins" as your nom de plume.  The REAL Richard Dawkins knows how to respect evidence and how to marshall it to support an argument.  Unlike you, Dick.

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Ah, yes. I should just accept the arguments from an individual who obviously cannot even read my name correctly.

Oops, Symp. Saw that one coming, sorry to say.

Question for the audience: does USM-S's screwing up the name thereby invalidate his other arguments?

Who ever said Donne was unpopular?

As a side note to the trolls who claim this is a USM-specific academic interest, I went to high school in Mississippil and I read Donne in my 10th grade literature class. As a side note, that year we also read Wycliff, Spenser, Kyd, Dryden, Bunyan, Keats, Yeats, Byron, Milton, Shelley, Chaucer, Marlowe, Jonson, Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Tennyson, the Brownings, Conrad (yes I know he's Russian but for some reason they also include Heart of Darkness in Brit Lit stuff--that being said, I did NOT enjoy his book, although I do think I'm in a minority), Eliot, Lawrence, Auden, etc. (The Norton Brit Lit Anthology was one of our texts, so there's a lot of good stuff in there).

So for those trolls who think this stuff is "not important," high schools in MS (or at least mine) think it's "important enough" to teach! Or at least my teacher did!

My only regret about the whole situation was that I didn't fully appreciate these authors/poets as a 15 year old! (I do remember being very angry that I had to memorize the prelude to the Canterbury Tales in Old English however. When a classmate of mine asked our teacher why we had to do this assignment, he retorted, "Because when you're 25 and at a cocktail party in Manhattan, you'll be able to recite it for all of your friends..." Not sure if that was a good answer, but we all memorized it). Now at 21 I wish I could re-learn all this stuff all over again.

I think I understand what this Donne stuff is really about. Gary Stringer was supposed to have been punished and he was supposed to stay punished. He was designated for the crusher, to be ground up and obliterated for his crime of daring to question a Thames hiring decision. Too bad, he went on to bigger and better things, and what's worse, he did it without T's divine permission and IN SECRET. T. was publicly embarrassed by the big Gary Goes to TAMU headlines and furious that Gary got out of his clutches. When T. destroys you, by God, you're supposed to stay destroyed. So it's not enough to hate Gary Stringer, you have to hate his work and everything about it too.
At least that's what it looks like from over here.

Richard Dawson wrote:

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So, jack, give me your top 10 poets. Show me your all-time list.

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I wanted to respond to this post on two levels.

I'm in college out of state (hence the name) where I'm minoring in English. As such, I know that there's some really exciting new neuropsych/linguistics/English research going on that's trying to understand how poetry is read/processed in the brain and why people are attracted to certain poems. I know there are at least a few scholars out there that argue most people are attracted to poetry that takes a certain structural shape that mimicks the poetry or songs we are acclimated to as children (i.e. nursery rhymes, for example). So really, the "top ten poets of all time" may simply be a regurgitation of the poets who write in structural patterns familiar to us from our childhoods, not "the best."

If you meant in terms of popularity, I'd imagine the poets that are most frequently taught in high schools would be the most common answer. Most Americans, I'd venture, don't actively pursue poetry outside of forced scholarly endeavors.

As for my own top-10 list?

It's too hard to rank them, but I'd put Plath, Stein, Eliot, Komunyakaa, Yeats, Whitman, Dickinson, Shelley, Rich, and Joyce on my list....at least for this moment :P

Wow, my favorite poet (Keats) and favorite poem (To Autumn) made the list. Thanks student. Interesting how different your "favorites" list is from mine (I cannot stand Sylvia Plath. Not that she's a bad poet, it's just that my neuro-linguistic whatever is engaged in a very negative way when I read her. Likewise I have never appreciated Eliot as much as I'm supposed to.

Dickie--let's make a deal: you quit talking about things you don't understand here and we won't go over to Eagletalk and talk about tight ends and wideouts and Xs and Os and all that stuff that YOU think is important.

I would really like for Mr. Dawson to tell us who his favorite poet is, and why. I don't think telling people to go away is the right approach. Let's hear what he has to say, if he does have something positive to say. He knows how to access the Library of Congress catalog which not every troll does. But if he's going to dimiss John Donne, let's see some critical and literary reasoning, something better than "hack" and some alternatives.

ram wrote:

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I love this thread . . . and even "Richard Dawson" 's comments.   Who'd a thought an argument  about the relative merits of various poets could continue so long?  I'm glad my favorite, Frost, made the cut, but what about e.e. cummings and "lightweights" Ogden Nash and Don Marquis? 
I googled a few "best poets" lists and have been pleasantly surprised to see that Gerard Manley Hopkins enjoys greater regard now than he did thirty years ago. I'd bet he still wouldn't make Family Feud's top ten answers.  Snoop Dogg probably would, however.  And that's okay, but I'm not sure what exactly we think is measured by (assumed) inclusion on a game show list.

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OK, let me reveal a bit about my motives here. First, my original post had a "Family Feud" reference, which is why I called myself "Richard Dawson." Just a little homage to the man who made kissing unfamiliar women (and, for that matter, men) cool on daytime TV.

I think it's humorous that you have let me tie you up all day by making such ridiculous arguments. You are (within the confines of your own opinion) correct, with the exception of the post in which my pseudonym was misstated. However, John Donne is just another poet. If you read peotry according to the "J. Evans Pritchett" scale from "Dead Poets Society," then you can go along assigning greatness to poems according to their objective merits, etc., etc., etc. What about how the poems make the reader feel? If you read a William Carlos Williams poem, an e.e. cummings poem, a Walt Whitman poem, or even a Snoop Dogg rap, do those forms of poetry carry less weight than Shakespeare? Ironically, the topicality of many "great" poems is extremely similar to the topic matter in more modern poetry, except that the imagery has changed along with the meter and rhyme (due to the changes in language over time).

My mother taught literature in the 1970s, and she used a variety of sources to engage students' imaginations regarding poetry, including excerpts from "Jesus Christ Superstar," "Hair," and other popular musical outlets. These contemporary works were compared and contrasted (on the basis of theme, etc.) to "classic" works. Students seemed to like the setup of that and seemed to like poetry more as a consequence.

My only real gripe with Donne is that USM seems "eat up" with Donne because of Stringer. What else is anyone in the English Department working on? Is there even another focus for scholarship in the department?

By the way, USM Sympathizer, I think you took a cheap shot at Robert Frost. Yes, he wrote in a more understandable style, but saying that Frost is baby food compared to Donne is like saying that nothing ever written in English is as good as anything written in Egyptian heiroglyphics because heiroglyphics are harder to read.

Richard Dawson wrote:

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ram wrote: I love this thread . . . and even "Richard Dawson" 's comments.   Who'd a thought an argument  about the relative merits of various poets could continue so long?  I'm glad my favorite, Frost, made the cut, but what about e.e. cummings and "lightweights" Ogden Nash and Don Marquis?  I googled a few "best poets" lists and have been pleasantly surprised to see that Gerard Manley Hopkins enjoys greater regard now than he did thirty years ago. I'd bet he still wouldn't make Family Feud's top ten answers.  Snoop Dogg probably would, however.  And that's okay, but I'm not sure what exactly we think is measured by (assumed) inclusion on a game show list. OK, let me reveal a bit about my motives here. First, my original post had a "Family Feud" reference, which is why I called myself "Richard Dawson." Just a little homage to the man who made kissing unfamiliar women (and, for that matter, men) cool on daytime TV. I think it's humorous that you have let me tie you up all day by making such ridiculous arguments. You are (within the confines of your own opinion) correct, with the exception of the post in which my pseudonym was misstated. However, John Donne is just another poet. If you read peotry according to the "J. Evans Pritchett" scale from "Dead Poets Society," then you can go along assigning greatness to poems according to their objective merits, etc., etc., etc. What about how the poems make the reader feel? If you read a William Carlos Williams poem, an e.e. cummings poem, a Walt Whitman poem, or even a Snoop Dogg rap, do those forms of poetry carry less weight than Shakespeare? Ironically, the topicality of many "great" poems is extremely similar to the topic matter in more modern poetry, except that the imagery has changed along with the meter and rhyme (due to the changes in language over time). My mother taught literature in the 1970s, and she used a variety of sources to engage students' imaginations regarding poetry, including excerpts from "Jesus Christ Superstar," "Hair," and other popular musical outlets. These contemporary works were compared and contrasted (on the basis of theme, etc.) to "classic" works. Students seemed to like the setup of that and seemed to like poetry more as a consequence. My only real gripe with Donne is that USM seems "eat up" with Donne because of Stringer. What else is anyone in the English Department working on? Is there even another focus for scholarship in the department? By the way, USM Sympathizer, I think you took a cheap shot at Robert Frost. Yes, he wrote in a more understandable style, but saying that Frost is baby food compared to Donne is like saying that nothing ever written in English is as good as anything written in Egyptian heiroglyphics because heiroglyphics are harder to read.

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Dick, Dick, Dick: where to begin?

First of all, you haven't taken up my whole day at all.  I've actually gotten quite a bit of work done (I'm working on a nineteenth-century American woman writer just now, just to show you that I'm not Donne-obsessed).  I just sit here at my computer, working away, and then, when I need a break, I look over here, see what latest dumb thing you've said, and then type a reply.  I've always typed quickly (if not always accurately), so you've taken up very little of my time.  In fact, I went out for a couple of hours and did some shopping and went to a restaurant.  You are just the dessert.

Donne is a wonderful poet, Dick, if you'd ever give him a chance.  He's funny, moving, bawdy, thoughtful, clever, engaging, probing, etc., etc. etc. -- and sometimes all in the same poem.  It's true that he requires a bit of intelligence to read sometimes, but the best things in life sometimes require a little work to grasp fully. 

Nice story about your Mom.  Somehow, though, I don't think that a hundred years from now anyone will care about "Hair" or "JCS" (or Snoop Dog).  If reading those things helped your mom's students to appreciate good poetry, though, more power to her.  Apparently she had a wider range of tastes than you have.

You show your complete ignorance of the USM English department in your final comments.  In fact, a very fine Frost scholar is on the faculty at USM (and is not fan of Shelby, from what I can tell).  USM once had an English department that was objectively ranked among the top 10% in the country.  It was a department about which I had only heard good things, and I knew by their sterling reputuation the work of a number of its scholars (including Noel Polk, whom Shelby also ran off).  I am afraid that thanks to your boy Shelby, the English department today is a shadow of its former self.  Maybe that was the plan all along.  After all, we don't need Donne, or Faulkner, or even Dickinson and Frost.  All we really need, Dick, is stinkless paint.

 

 

 

Third Witch wrote:

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I think I understand what this Donne stuff is really about. Gary Stringer was supposed to have been punished and he was supposed to stay punished. He was designated for the crusher, to be ground up and obliterated for his crime of daring to question a Thames hiring decision. Too bad, he went on to bigger and better things, and what's worse, he did it without T's divine permission and IN SECRET. T. was publicly embarrassed by the big Gary Goes to TAMU headlines and furious that Gary got out of his clutches. When T. destroys you, by God, you're supposed to stay destroyed. So it's not enough to hate Gary Stringer, you have to hate his work and everything about it too. At least that's what it looks like from over here.

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By the way, TW, you (as usual) hit the nail right on the head.  This is exactly it.

Gary Stringer will retire from TAMU as a highly valued professor -- loved by his students, respected by his colleagues, and honored by literary scholars the world over.  A hundred years from now, people will still be consulting the Donne Variorum.

Shelby will slink back to his lab and hope that most people, a few decades from now, will have forgotten the debacle that was his presidency.  A hundred years from now he will be completely forgotten except by the few readers of the sequel to Exit 13.