Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Why Do People Hate James Wood?

Steven Beattie weighs in with a post about a post about people loving and hating poetry.

For the record, I agree with Wood that poetry doesn't need to justify itself in the terms of another discourse, be it evolutionary psychology's or neuro-aesthetics'. I'm just saying that the leading figures speaking those discourses aren't saying what Wood says they're saying. I'm saying that everything's connected and poetry isn't some special thing that floats above the world on a magenta cloud.

1 comment:

NigelBeale said...

Wordsworth might beg to differ:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

and Shelley:

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.