Skip to main content

Eagleton On Blake

This is the 250th birthday of William Blake. Terry Eagleton, so good at spotting literary bigots, is also good at noticing literary visionaries. His Guardian article is worth reading, though I am not sure why he's selected Craig Raine as the contemporary exemplar of the sort of apolitical poet who wouldn't trouble the current state. As a matter of fact, poets in 2003, and beyond, wrote a number of poems which "troubled" the state of affairs, literary and political. Don Paterson chose the platform of his Introduction to his anthology of new British poetry to criticise the "poets against the war" poetry as mostly badly-written, and useless; and Stephen Fry apparently criticised it, too, as did David Wheatley, among other supporters of belles lettres.

And, then, of course, the Nobel went to sometime-poet Harold Pinter, a troublesome enough figure. Did any of this shake Blair, Bush, Brown, or other political figures? Did the nation states of the West tremble? Maybe not, but decorum was rattled, and some thought was provoked. Blake remains a troubling figure - and one who continues to sponsor the kind of poetry that gets written by Ginsbergs of the new century - often performance poets, or rappers - work that speaks out, expressing radical, sometimes hyper-sexual and/or political feelings.

What I think critics of such writing most deplore is the lack of formal control evidenced by this kind of writing, and a sort of agnostic (Humean) mistrust of the religious inspiration of the work. I'll leave that for another post, but religion, even fervently held to, has instigated the creation of remarkable poetic work, from Herbert to Hopkins, and beyond. In this secular age, what might most trouble people, in fact, is work of deeply-held religious, or political, conviction. This sort of thing resists commodification quite as much as more "avant-garde" strategies.

At bottom of much radical thought are some very basic observations. May I make a few here? No state should profit from the construction of weapons, or sell them to other states. Otherwise, the system of international trade will, by its own internal logic, generate a demand, and supply for such weapons, and lead to greater levels of violence and war. Further, any state leader who claims to want peace, but promotes such a trade in arms, is a hypocrite. Peace is not an ideal to be gestured at with helpless hands. It is very simply a series of practical steps, beginning with the dismantling of the military-industrial complex at the heart of Western capitalism. I am not here advocating that nations not manufacture or equip their own armies, though, in time, the idea of armies, and nations, might need to wither away. Yet, while nations and armies continue, so too will wars.

Comments

Ben Wilkinson said…
Hey Todd,

On the subject of Blake's birth, this post I made over the summer might interest you:

http://deconstructivewasteland.blogspot.com/2007/08/william-blake-poet-visionary-printmaker.html

cheers

Ben

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".