from Rowan Williams, "Why Poetry Matters" (A Review of John Burnside, The Music of Time: Poetry in the Twentieth Century), New Statesman, October 23, 2019:
Burnside is a consistent champion of difficulty in poetry, the quality that liberates the reader (and writer) from a “prefabricated world” in which nothing is ever new and disorienting. On this basis he has some pretty sharp things to say about how poetry is often taught in schools – as illustrative of subject matter rather than as something that has to be wrestled with first and foremost as speech. Pupils, he says, are likely to go away thinking more about this subject matter than about what has been happening in the words they hear or read. Pushing students into prematurely writing their own poems on the subject further shrinks the challenge of staying with the difficulty and valuing it in its own terms. Yet he also has astringent things to say about “lazy” difficulty. Verbose, self-indulgent poetry, drawing attention to its own ingenuity, labours for surface effect rather than transparency to what the poem directs us to – which is not themes or ideas but the “music” of the givenness of a moment, or a juxtaposition of words, or a collision of sensations.
[...]
Burnside mischievously suggests that our passion to “understand” poetry may derive from “a middle-school confusion of literature and theology”, rooted in the abiding problem of making sense of an opaque scriptural text. But if there is a proper overlap between the two it is surely here, in the way poetry affirms the material, finite world but is always conscious of an unimaginable backdrop, never trying to occupy or contain that elusive perspective.
Tr. E. P. Coleridge:
Theseus:
Full often have I argued out this subject with others. For there are those who say, there is more bad than good in human nature; but I hold a contrary view, that good over bad predominates in man, for if it were not so, we should not exist. He has my praise, whichever god brought us to live by rule from chaos and from brutishness, first by implanting reason, and next by giving us a tongue to declare our thoughts, so as to know the meaning of what is said, and bestowing fruitful crops, and drops of rain from heaven to make them grow, with which to nourish earth's fruits and to water her lap; and more than this, protection from the wintry storm, and means to ward from us the sun-god's scorching heat; the art of sailing over the sea, so that we might exchange with one another whatever our countries lack. And where sight fails us and our knowledge is not sure, the seer foretells by gazing on the flame, by reading signs in folds of entrails, or by divination from the flight of birds. Are we not then too proud, when heaven has made such preparation for our life, not to be content with it? But our presumption seeks to lord it over heaven, and in the pride of our hearts we think we are wiser than the gods.
[...]
There are three ranks of citizens; the rich, a useless set, that ever
crave for more; the poor and destitute, fearful folk, that cherish envy more than is
right, and shoot out grievous stings against the men who have anything,
beguiled as they are by the eloquence of vicious leaders; while the
class that is midmost of the three preserves cities, observing such order as the state ordains.
Hecuba
Ah! there is not in the world a single man free; for he is a slave either to money or to fortune, or else the people
in their thousands or the fear of public prosecution prevents him from
following the dictates of his heart.
Polyxena
Farewell, my mother! farewell, Cassandra!
Hecuba
“Fare well!” others do, but not your mother, no!
Πολυξένη
χαῖρ᾽, ὦ τεκοῦσα, χαῖρε Κασάνδρα τ᾽ ἐμοί,
Ἑκάβη
χαίρουσιν ἄλλοι, μητρὶ δ᾽ οὐκ ἔστιν τόδε.
Tr. E. P. Coleridge:
Polyxena:
Here I close my eyes upon the light, free as yet, and dedicate myself to
Hades. Lead me away, Odysseus, and do your worst,
for I see nothing within my reach to make me hope or expect with any
confidence that I am ever again to be happy. Mother, do not seek to
hinder me by word or deed, but join in my wish for death before I meet
with shameful treatment undeserved.
For whoever is not used to taste of sorrows, though he bears it, yet
it galls him when he puts his neck within the yoke; far happier would he
be dead than alive, for life bereft of honor is toil and trouble.
Talthybius (recounting Polyxena's last words):
O Argives, who have sacked my city! of my free will I die; let no one lay hand on me; for bravely will I yield my neck. By the gods, leave me free; so slay me, that death may find me free; for to be called a slave among the dead fills my royal heart with shame.
Hecuba
Do you know when you came to spy on Ilium, disguised in rags and tatters, while down your cheek ran drops of blood?
Odysseus
I do; for it was no slight impression it made upon my heart.
Hecuba
Did Helen recognize you and tell me only?
Odysseus
I well remember the great risk I ran.
Hecuba
Did you embrace my knees in all humility?
Odysseus
Yes, so that my hand grew dead and cold upon your robe.
Hecuba
Was it I that saved and sent you forth again?
Odysseus
You did, and so I still behold the light of day.
Hecuba
What did you say then, when in my power?
Odysseus
Doubtless I found plenty to say, to save my life.
Dear Cumberland,
I have been very near the gates of death & have returned very weak & an Old Man feeble & tottering, but not in Spirit & Life not in the Real Man The Imagination which Liveth for Ever. In that I am stronger& stronger as this Foolish Body decays. I thank you for the Pains you have taken with Poor Job. I know too well that a great majority of Englishmen are fond of The Indefinite which they Measure by Newtons Doctrine of the Fluxions of an Atom. A Thing that does not Exist. These are Politicians & think that Republican Art is Inimical to their Atom. For a Line or Lineament is not formed by Chance a Line is a Line in its Minutest Subdivision[s] Strait or Crooked It is Itself & Not Intermeasurable with or by any Thing Else Such is Job but since the French Revolution Englishmen are all Intermeasurable One by Another Certainly a happy state of Agreement to which I for One do not Agree. God keep me from the Divinity of Yes & No too The Yea Nay Creeping Jesus from supposing Up& Down to be the same Thing as all Experimentalists must suppose.
[...]
Flaxman is Gone & we must All soon follow every one to his Own Eternal House Leaving the Delusive Goddess Nature & her Laws to get into Freedom from all Law of the Members into The Mind in which every one is King& Priest in his own House God Send it so on Earth as it is in Heaven
I am Dear Sir Yours Affectionately
WILLIAM BLAKE
