Muscular lit crit
In the intro to his (mostly interesting) War against
Cliche, Martin Amis writes:
"Gallingly … there is no means for distinguishing the excellent from the less excellent. The most muscular literary critics on earth have no equipment for establishing that
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears
is a better line than
When all at once I saw a crowd
– and, if they did, they would have to begin by saying that the former contains a dead expletive (‘do’) brought in to sustain the metre."
Now what do we all think about that? I think he's just plain wrong. I think the difference is easy to hear, and easy to explain.
I won't say more just yet, because I want to hear your thoughts first, but I will say that the second line form Wordsworth is (IMHO) as pedestrian and dull as far too much of his writing. But let's get stuck in. Can we explain why the first line is excellent and the second one is anywhere from dull to OK? Let's give it a Word Cloudy go ...
"Gallingly … there is no means for distinguishing the excellent from the less excellent. The most muscular literary critics on earth have no equipment for establishing that
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears
is a better line than
When all at once I saw a crowd
– and, if they did, they would have to begin by saying that the former contains a dead expletive (‘do’) brought in to sustain the metre."
Now what do we all think about that? I think he's just plain wrong. I think the difference is easy to hear, and easy to explain.
I won't say more just yet, because I want to hear your thoughts first, but I will say that the second line form Wordsworth is (IMHO) as pedestrian and dull as far too much of his writing. But let's get stuck in. Can we explain why the first line is excellent and the second one is anywhere from dull to OK? Let's give it a Word Cloudy go ...
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4 Comments
"When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;"
At this stage of the poem he is setting up the situation (it's only the first stanza) and this allows him such lines in the final stanza as:
"They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;"
Note also the lines in Daffodils are octosyllabic and hence have less space to say something individually than the decasyllabic line in the first quotation ("Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears").
That line comes from the end of the Immortality Ode (line 208) and has therefore had a lot more build up to support it.
Harry – Wordsworth pedestrian and dull? Well, yes in his later years, but earlier poems such as the Immortality Ode (and Daffodils!) are amongst the finest in the language (arguably). When I went hitch hiking in Europe in 1968 I took Palgrave’s Golden Treasury with me and no preconceptions. Wordsworth easily came out as top poet, although I could see that up and coming Shakespeare chappie had a nice line in lyrics (“When icicles hang by the wall” etc)
that floats on high o'er dales and hills
when all at once I thought
'Fuck it, I'm going down the pub!' "
"When all at once I saw a crowd" is the set-up to a poetic punchline.
Terrible examples to choose for comparison.
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