(no subject)

[proximoception]

From Moore's Life of Lord Byron:

Another proof of the ductility with which he fell into his new friend's tastes and predilections, appears in the tinge, if not something deeper, of the manner and cast of thinking of Mr. Wordsworth, which is traceable through so many of his most beautiful stanzas. Being naturally, from his love of the abstract and imaginative, an admirer of the great poet of the Lakes, Mr. Shelley omitted no opportunity of bringing the beauties of his favourite writer under the notice of Lord Byron; and it is not surprising that, once persuaded into a fair perusal, the mind of the noble poet should — in spite of some personal and political prejudices which unluckily survived this short access of admiration — not only feel the influence but, in some degree, even reflect the hues of one of the very few real and original poets that this age (fertile as it is in rhymers quales ego et Cluvienus) has had the glory of producing.

This was the period of Byron's Childe Harold 3 and Manfred, "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" and "Mont Blanc" for Shelley, and of course the not very Wordsworthian horror story night. "Cluvienus" is a poet Juvenal lumps together with himself in a moment of self-deprecation. Poor Moore. Who's the favorite writer of your favorite writer? (I should read The Excursion.)

Comments

[grashupfer.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to read what a poet says of his own work.

http://www.bartelby.org/145/ww397.html

Who's your favorite? PBS?

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Yeah, PBS. It's fascinating how well they were able to see the real, younger Wordsworth through all the Christian revisions and excisions he put into his 1814 books--responsible for the "personal and political prejudices" Moore speaks of Byron having. The Lake Poets were the major target of his satire and scorn throughout his whole writing career. Shelley attacks Wordsworth in several poems also, but more out of a sense of his master's betrayal of what he'd stood for than his essential silliness. If you squint you can see late Wordsworth popping up here and there in early. Even when he had it, he barely had it. But what he barely had was a secular understanding of transcendence (one necessarily restoring certain aspects of the deity to the world itself, of course). This was the biggest possible deal for art and life during the Christian dryrot we still make our homes in. Summer 1816 must have felt like a '60s that made sense.

[grashupfer.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Christian dryrot is quite a phrase.