Camille Paglia schools contemporary poetics

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Or tries to. She's got a new book out in which she performs readings of canonical, English-language poetry, described here:

http://www.arts.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/03/10/bocam10.xml&sSheet=/arts/2005/03/10/bomain.html

(I hope that link works.) Sounds to me like she's on to something by denouncing the influence of post-structuralism (itself not necessarily a horrible thing) on poetry, which led to some of the worst abominations of the l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e school, and the current inability of jargoneering and condescending professors to instill a love of poetry qua poetry into their innocent students.

Many assumptions jumped to in the above. Anyways, I know next to nothing about Paglia. Is there merit to her project? Or is she just milking an anti-academic niche? Or what?

― Mayor Maynot, Saturday, 23 April 2005 20:01 (twenty-one years ago)

she is anti-theory, but she is not anti-academic. she is an academic. i want to read it. i'm not big on theory either. and her chapter on emily dickinson in sexual personae was one of the coolest fucking things i've ever read.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 23 April 2005 20:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I wants to read it too. I question her including the "poem" Woodstock (by Joni Mitchell) and also Plath's Daddy, but a lot of people like that last one. She convinced me of the merits of de Sade, so maybe she'll change my mind about Joni

― donald, Saturday, 23 April 2005 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)

the Daddy section is supposed to be one of the best parts. hi, donald, yoo dirty booklurker!

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 23 April 2005 22:01 (twenty-one years ago)

she should've included "surfin' bird."

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Saturday, 23 April 2005 22:31 (twenty-one years ago)

and the current inability of jargoneering and condescending professors to instill a love of poetry qua poetry into their innocent students.

Is that really a professor's job?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 24 April 2005 04:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I heard her on the radio and just had to wonder, WHAT influence of post-structuralism? On who, exactly? A bunch of grad students? Isn't that stuff more than half-way on its way out, anyway? But my education was so spotty, I probably wouldn't know. Just seems like theory is a pretty easy target, and is hardly the main reason most people don't read poetry. But I still haven't read her book

― Donald, Sunday, 24 April 2005 14:04 (twenty-one years ago)

donald, did you read that long slam of Jorie Graham in today's NYT book review yet? I don't really know much about her, but OUCH! And the stuff of hers that they quoted: double OUCH!

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 24 April 2005 14:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Just to play these two off each other, as they seem pretty complementary.

Jorie Graham, Superstar (OUCH!)

― Mayor Maynot, Sunday, 24 April 2005 14:50 (twenty-one years ago)

i read and blogged it, loss of wind in her sails this has...bad book in many ways, has rare paul blackburn though--and thats awesome, and a decent wanda coleman

― anthony, Monday, 25 April 2005 02:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Seems quite the fashion lately for left types and academics to denounce all that post-modernism stuff.

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 00:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Not that I'm entirely against that.

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 00:03 (twenty-one years ago)

eleven months pass...

[spam]

― spazzammer, Thursday, 20 April 2006 04:50 (twenty years ago)

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