Poetry
This quotation from Billy Collins and Garrison Keillor was on The Writer's Almanac last week. It amused me, so I thought it would be an interesting departure from politics.
Darn those Romantics anyway.
He thinks that too much modern poetry lacks humor. He said, "It's the fault of the Romantics, who eliminated humor from poetry. Shakespeare's hilarious, Chaucer's hilarious. [Then] the Romantics killed off humor, and they also eliminated sex, things which were replaced by landscape. I thought that was a pretty bad trade-off, so I'm trying to write about humor and landscape, and occasionally sex."
Darn those Romantics anyway.
posted by Victoria at 11:11 AM
9 Comments:
I miss you guys! :o(
That post was absolutely amazing! Three cheers for the Three (out of the four) Muskateers! I miss you all so very much! Victoria, I was told by Dr. N, after a successful C13 NMR run, that I would make it in grad school. I wish you could have been there. It would have been more specialer. (PS I do feel like I am five right now...)
"I'll need your truck and your shirt..."
lots of love!
Um...can you really write ABOUT humor and have it be good? It sounds like when you tell a story that was really funny at the time and then you realize how lame it sounds in the retelling and you're like, "I guess you had to be there..." Er...not that this has ever happened to me. Ever. ;)
Also: Abby, you should totally do chemistry grad school at ND. We have a new science building. It's pretty. Clearly the most important feature of any science building. Also, any scientist has to love a Catholic university, because we have more mass around here than you can even imagine.
"I'm handsome Rob..."
That movie was on this week and I thought of you both. I don't think that I'll continue the quotation though.
Abby, of course you would make it in grad school. It's really mostly about having the determination to stick around long enough. :-)
Joni, I actually can't ever recall that happening with any of your stories. You generally do a very thorough job of amusing me.
LOL for a long time at Joni's comment about mass...
I would definitely agree with you Jay; although, it must be said that mass, while important, should not be the final deciding factor for grad schools. I mean, really, the deciding question should be how big is their NMR? That's what I want to know.
The mass comment made its way to the quote book. That was amazing. Props to Joni. :o)
As a semi-expert [although not as expert as Keillor or Collins] on poetry and possibly the Romantics, I just want to say that I think the quote is way off base. The Romantics might be guilty of killing off humor, but they certainly didn't eliminate sex. I love Billy Collins dearly, but has the man read any Keats or Rosetti???? The Romantics were just a lot more cerebral and subtle about their sensuality than most moderns.
Maybe Collins just doesn't get subtlety. Some people don't. Hurray for Heather's expertness! :)
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