H050547 NOVELS VERSUS POEMS 6/15/05 - HARDY FORUM ARCHIVES ____________________________________________________________________________
From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: A passing note -- novels versus poems.
Date: June 15, 2005 9:26:42 AM PDT
A passing note:
-- I was chatting about Hardy, lightheartedly, with a friend the other day who seemed to feel that the novel was/is inferior, as an art form, to the poem.
I wasn't quick enough on the draw to point out that Elizabethans felt the same way about plays and that a certain playwright struggling to make a living with such plays as *Hamlet* and *Othello* never really knew who the less-than-inferior "Shakespeare" was.
Cheers,
Rosemarie
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From: hardycor@owl.csusm.edu
Subject: Re: A passing note -- novels versus poems.
Date: June 15, 2005 10:00:34 AM PDT
Rosemarie, I think the Elizabethan attitude toward drama had more of a
religious basis than an esthetic one. Before the great outburst of
playwriting in Shakespeare's day the only plays being performed were
biblical dramas, miracle plays, performed in the streets or on the front
steps of churches. Then, as soon as the Puritans came into power under
Cromwell they promptly shut down the theaters as too worldly by half. The
Restoration plays that were popular after Charles II's return were really a
defiant backlash to this Puritan censorship.
Best,
Betty
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From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: RE: A passing note -- novels versus poems.
Date: June 15, 2005 10:01:19 AM PDT
Perhaps a more cogent argument is that the novel is a more recent art form
than the poem, and as such, it takes people longer to come to terms with it.
Maybe your friend is just a slow learner in the appreciation of new art
forms!
Jacky
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From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: RE: A passing note -- novels versus poems.
Date: June 15, 2005 11:45:52 AM PDT
It was not unusual for the theatres to be closed under Elizabeth,
particularly if any play whiffed of insurrection. The performance of Richard
II led to theatres being closely monitored and even closed, as Elizabeth
thought that the playwright of Richard II was in favour of Essex's
rebellion. In fact this was one of the main reasons for theatres being
closed under Cromwell, the reasons given were religious, but in actual fact
it is much more likely that they were political, a reaction of court
patronage of the arts; the Parliamentarians were afraid that the theatres
would spread insurrection.
Jacky
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From: hardycor@owl.csusm.edu
Subject: RE: A passing note -- novels versus poems.
Date: June 15, 2005 12:07:11 PM PDT
To: HARDY-L@csusm.edu
Reply-To: HARDY-L@csusm.edu
Jacky, they were also closed during the plague years, but those occasional
closures did not take away from the fact that the limited duration of the
unique flowering of the theater occurring during the Elizabethan period was
marked before and after by religious fervor, and especially during the
latter period by intolerance of the humanism spawned during the
Renaissance, which encouraged the secular arts, dramatic and otherwise.
Having been raised in a fundamentalist religion, I am painfully aware of
the fact that the theater is still frowned upon by religious extremists
today.
Betty
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: Re: A passing note -- novels versus poems.
Date: June 15, 2005 1:28:14 PM PDT
The idea is not so much a repudiation of drama or its ideological background. Indeed, Elizabethan drama was highly popular (as is the novel) and may even highlight the advent of popular culture. There were two types of Elizabethan theatre-- private and public and the Globe (1599) testifies to the sucesss of the latter (well, there were three types if you include the Jacobean masque which straddled private & public). My point bears upon popular culture and, as Jacqueline indicates, the process of cultural "evolution."
Cheers,
Rosemarie
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: A passing note -- novels versus poems.
Date: June 15, 2005 1:52:55 PM PDT
I tend to agree with Jacky. If and when the church steps outside its role of spiritual leadership and into the public domain of, say, the morality of the arts or the dissidence of artists, it is entering the political arena. The boundaries are porous of course. Especially where there is no separation of church and state/"polis" (as in Shakespeare's time and clime). But it takes no cynic to perceive that under the "religious" umbrella of the Elizabethans, Tudors et al, a whole host of political schemers were scheming political schemes..
Hardy probably has a poem on this theme ..? but right now I can't think of one.
Cheers,
Rosemarie
PS I doubt one can ascribe to the Elizabethan theatre a "limited...flowering."
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From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: RE: A passing note -- novels versus poems.
Date: June 15, 2005 1:59:40 PM PDT
Sorry, Betty, I didn't mean to imply that religious fervour didn't play a
part, but that that wasn't the only reason for closures, and, yes, indeed,
they closed during plague years. In either case, I think it is almost
impossible during those times to separate religion and politics in either
England or Scotland, or in fact, mainland Europe.
Returning to the novel theme, Hardy himself, I believe, referred to the
novel form as being in its infancy when he was writing. One of the books I
have particularly enjoyed during my MA course was 'Moll Flanders', in that
it was fascinating to see the novel form emerging, like a butterfly from a
chrysalis, and then to compare the progression from Defoe to Austin to
Hardy. I find this refining process absolutely fascinating, especially when
you follow the path further to Virginia Wolfe, D.H.Lawrence and James Joyce.
It is such a wonderful 'becoming' form (referring back to Bakhtin and
carnival). Perhaps that is the difference as I see it between the novel and
poetry, one is a 'becoming' form, whereas the other is a diversifying form.
Jacky
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: Not such A passing note
Date: June 15, 2005 2:19:17 PM PDT
Jacky -- Lawrence would have loved this!
Rosemarie -
________
one is a 'becoming' form, whereas the other is a diversifying form.
Jacky
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From: hardycor@owl.csusm.edu
Subject: RE: A passing note -- novels versus poems.
Date: June 15, 2005 2:40:28 PM PDT
I meant limited in time Rosemarie. From the date of the date of the
opening of the first theater specifically built for the purpose of staging
plays, 1576, to the closing of the theaters in 1642 was a matter of only 66
years. I would argue that the kind of drama that preceded and
followed this "flowering" as I call it, was of a different nature--the
religious mystery plays before it, and after it the Restoration plays,
which have scarcely stood the test of time in the way the works of
Shakespeare, Jonson, and a few others have done.
Betty
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From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: RE: A passing note -- novels versus poems.
Date: June 15, 2005 3:06:21 PM PDT
But, surely, am I not right in thinking that the street theatres and
strolling players, carnivals, etc. lengthen this period considerably.
Shakespeare's plays were born from this 'theatre' - witness the rustics in
'A Midsummer night's Dream' and in 'Hamlet'. The mystery plays were only one
aspect of public 'performances' .
Jacky
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From: jww543@hotmail.com
Subject: Theatre
Date: June 15, 2005 3:26:13 PM PDT
Dear Friends,
Let us not forget the "closet drama" that played a major part in keeping drama (and dramatists!) alive after 1642.
All best wishes,
Julian
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From: hardycor@owl.csusm.edu
Subject: RE: A passing note -- novels versus poems.
Date: June 15, 2005 3:39:34 PM PDT
You are correct Jackie that there was a certain amount of secular
entertainment beforehand, but medieval drama was overwhelmingly
religion-based, with The Corpus Christi Cycle, The Saints Plays, or
Conversion Plays, and The Morality Plays, preceding and even outlasting the
Humanist Drama. The "low" characters in Shakespeare's plays can equally
be traced back to Roman drama which was one of his most important
influences. He did, of course, draw on medieval as well as classical
performance techniques, and was one of the first to blend the
two--ditching, for example the Aristotlean concept of the three unities,
which had no part in early English performances.
Betty
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From: NHardyboy@aol.com
Subject: Re: A passing note -- novels versus poems.
Date: June 15, 2005 4:10:39 PM PDT
I've been enjoying this particular discussion--both because I'm a Hardy scholar (at least that's what I had printed on my business cards) and because this week I began teaching a course in Shakespeare. To return a bit to Rosemarie's original point, I think that the reason the Elizabethan theater and the Victorian novel were held in such low esteem is for one simple reason:
Both made money.
I had a lot of fun this week telling my students that Shakespeare probably never wrote a play in tranquility, scratching his noble pate as he came up with deathless poetry that would torture university students in 2005. No; he borrowed plots from other plays that had been proven hits; filled the plays with plenty of action, gore, and bawdy humor since he was competing not only with other theaters but with bear-bating and the occasional public drawing-and-quartering; and when he crafted his magnificent soliloquies he was probably thinking less of the literary scholars who would study them than the way they'd sound coming out of Dick Burbage's mouth--and of all the gold-bearing patrons who'd rush to hear Burbage speak those words! The popular appeal--and profitability--of Shakespeare's plays more than anything else kept them from being viewed as literature.
Likewise, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the novel was seen less as a literary work than as a means for publishers, libraries, and the occasional writer to make quick money. While at this time poets were often seen as artists who struggled for a pure means of expression--the poverty of Shelley and anonymity of Keats were considered proofs of their committment to art--novelists were often thought of as people who fed the middle class's constant need to read something--ANYTHING. Most novels first appeared as magazine serials and later as triple-decker volumes that circulated in Mudie's (for-profit) lending library, proving they were meant for quick mass consumption. That Anthony Trollope included a list of his profits from his novels in his Autobiography confirmed to many that novel-writing was just a cheap money-making enterprise.
Whether he meant it or not, Hardy claimed that he turned to novel-writing just to make money, and that he viewed poetry as a far greater calling. I suspect that many critics felt the same way, since Hardy's poetry is often as outrageous as his novels, featuring as it does successful ruined maids, a befuddled God, and deep, profound bleakness; yet his contemporaries seemed more forgiving of these views expressed in his poems than in his novels. Why Mrs. Grundy--not to mention Mrs. Oliphant--might have been relatively quiet about the poems is because they had a much smaller audience and were less likely to end up in the hands of impressionable middle-class folk whose delicate sensibilities couldn't handle such passion.
Anyway, just my views on this situation. Back to Hamlet. . .
Regards,
Paul Niemeyer
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From: harrybatt@mn.rr.com
Subject: Re: A passing note -- novels versus poems.
Date: June 15, 2005 4:48:36 PM PDT
Hello on the same point: novels vs poetry. Paul, you get the blue ribbon for exposing the Elizabethian and Victorian Shakespeare theater. As played in the Park today I would wager they are cloaked in a legitimate literature mantle now. Right up there on the charts with poetry that nobody in the audience understands.
John Bridell, Minneapolis
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: Re: A passing note -- novels versus poems.
Date: June 15, 2005 8:21:38 PM PDT
Now we're getting to it, Paul -- thank you!
I hoped someone would follow up on this maverick thing called "Popular appeal." It's anomalous, isn't it, that the material value placed upon a work of art reflects nothing of its intrinsic value (unlike buying good cheese) and bears little relation to its cultural value which may vanish altogether (stolen paintings) with pricelessness or may never materialise at all at the moment of creation. I'm thinking now of Beethoven's 9th . I don't know how much he was paid for it but it was unplayable when first produced. It was deemed beyond performance. "Popular appeal" came with futurity (and instrument technology). Hardy's *The Dynasts,* -- the work he valued above all else and spent a lifetime creating (1870-1907 -- ish), received mixed acclaim in his time and features little nowadays in the university canon -- will *The Dynasts* one day become Hardy's Beethoven-9th? .
I hadn't intended to sidetrack the issue when I mentioned Shakespeare. Nor am I particularly interested in periodisation - it tends to oversimply the situation and hence obfuscates meaning and understanding. There was drama in Chaucer's public readings as there was in Boccaccio's -- there was drama in the oral story since time began. The novel, though, has its own unique history and is equally complex. I suppose I'm drifting now toward your statement about Hardy's claim that poetry was his true calling. A case of trust the tale and not the teller I think. I mean, it doesn't much matter what he said for the fact is he worked hard, morning noon and night for 20 years, in an attempt to create imaginative prose works of the kind he really wanted to write (PML reified, refined, and artistically re-invented?) and made a good living from them. Enough to live on for the rest of his days writing poetry.
No doubt the "money-making" aspect helped the "claim" along but one thing is plain: the blood, sweat and tears, not to mention near suicides, that attended the life of the novelist never once touched the life of the poet. Money-making may have furrowed psychological pathways toward abhorring the "novel" deed, and the popular-culture aspect of the novels might have added to the sense of blight -- such gross commodification of poetic talent -- but the soul of the man, the germ of his art, is scored across every single page.
I am wittering on here --I will stop. I think it may take a scholar of filmology to pick up my drift. After all, films are still derided as light entertainment, popular culture at low-brow level, and have only recently entered the hallowed halls of "classical" studies. In this respect we are back in the 1870s with Hardy and novel.
Cheers,
Rosemarie
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From: hardycor@owl.csusm.edu
Subject: RE: Novels versus Poems.
Date: June 16, 2005 6:28:26 AM PDT
To: HARDY-L@csusm.edu
Reply-To: HARDY-L@csusm.edu
Well, I never thought I would be quoting George Carlin on this list, but
those of you who prefer novels to poetry will no doubt agree with his
statement:
"More people write poetry than read it."
Betty
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: Novels versus Poems.
Date: June 16, 2005 7:45:34 AM PDT
True --have any of you witnessed this thing on TV called Poetry Bash? (I think that's what it's called). It's an arena for "poets" to read their "poems" (just make sure you keep those inverted commas around those two barefaced nouns).
Rosemarie
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From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: RE: Novels versus Poems.
Date: June 16, 2005 7:02:21 AM PDT
.edu
Isn't it great to be referring to Hardy and Shakespeare in the same breath
as it were - up there where he belongs!
Jacky
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From: fsiedow@omniglobal.net
Subject: Re: Novels versus Poems.
Date: June 16, 2005 11:04:59 AM PDT
Betty Cortus wrote:
Well, I never thought I would be quoting George Carlin....
"More people write poetry than read it."
Betty
Ho, Ho, Ho, hahahaha; nice job, Betty! That was always my feeling toward poetry until I read some of Hardy's poems. I actually liked them, I suppose because I so strongly identified with his emotional traits, philisophical traits, etc. I also really like (mostly) his use of words.
-- Fred Siedow
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From: fsiedow@omniglobal.net
Subject: Re: Novels versus Poems.
Date: June 16, 2005 11:11:37 AM PDT
Rosemarie Morgan wrote:
...... for "poets" to read their "poems" (just make sure you keep those inverted commas around those two barefaced nouns).
Rosemarie
______________
"More people write poetry than read it."
Betty
True, Rosemarie: My take on all the modern stuff is that it's just a pile of words arranged randomly without meter, rhyming, or anything, and has no meaning which is decipherable! 'Course I thought that of most poetry as a kid, too!
Fred Siedow
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From: jww543@hotmail.com
Subject: Prose presented as poetry
Date: June 16, 2005 4:45:42 PM PDT
Thanks, Fred, for writing what I keep advancing to my students and colleagues (most of the latter think I am far too enthralled with Hardy). Far too much of prose, rearranged on the page and presented as poetry, is accepted these days. I often refer my combatants to "In My Craft or Sullen Art" (Dylan Thomas) and "Adam's Curse" (W. B. Yeats). Enough proselytizing!
Julian
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