C. E. M. Joad quote

[Rumo]

In every matter we must be reasonable, yes? Do you need to have access to the Zimbabwean language to say whether it is likely they have their Virgils and their Miltons or they don't? Obviously they may have some poetic-minded individuals, but within the European poetic framework of meters, possibly rhyme etc, it is quite safe to dismiss the possibility of a Milton in a country far from cultural influence and development. The same, I'm sorry to say, applies to Eastern Europe post 1500. As Europe has been freeing itself from feudalism and getting ever more advanced, Eastern Europe volitionally shackled itself with feudalism and continued on its slide downward, until the Marxist revolutions and takeovers in the 20th century, which have destroyed the countries completely. Thus I don't need a crystal ball to say that there is no Milton in Romania. A person with pretensions for poetry does not automatically a Milton make. The same has been the case for these last several centuries when European critics have been making their evaluations of European literature; they quite consciously excluded Eastern European and Nordic poetry. Only countries which had direct access to Classical culture: that is Spain, France, Italy, England, Germany to some degree, have been allowed to be in the pool of candidates with highest poetry. Along with the social conditions which made Eastern Europe continually more and more impoverished, it was also a fact that, aside from Poland, countries therein had little to no knowledge or awareness of Classical culture. It has been this contact and contest with the ancient poetry which produced modern European epics and drama. It was the attempts to overcome Virgil and Homer which produced the Milton, the Goethe or the Ariosto, or in drama the Corneille, the Moliere and the Marlowe. Western European literature has long held a predominance, and with no lack for a good reason.

I'm not sure how much reason there is in ignorance, because you know little to nothing about Central and Eastern European history and literature.

Your reply is marred by fallacies. My discourse was about languages (Romanian, Estonian, Albanian, Basque, etc - see also below my reply on "ethnic poetry"), not about states (Zimbabwe is a state, not a language). Your insistence to put Romania outside modern Europe is outright insulting, and mutatis mutandis you insult most Other Europeans.
There's no "European poetic framework of meters", as Christian beautifully illustrated with Jim Morrison. Actually much of modern poetry is more flexible in meters and rhyme (begging the question how much you know about it). Your selection of poets and critics seems to be rather obsolete for modern Europe, we're living in the 21st century! Great poets need not to imitate Milton and poetry is much more than epic poetry. Perhaps this is the only thing you know or the only thing you appreciate, but modern European poetry is much more than this caricature you stubbornly promote.

Your "historical analysis" is entirely inadequate. First and foremost in Eastern Europe there was no Western type of feudalism (since you seem stuck on Romania, in the Wallachian Principalities neither under the local lords, nor under the Ottoman sultans). It's ludicrous to claim Eastern European feudalism (whatever that means) was overthrown by Marxism in the 20th century (to me it looks like some sort of Western urban myth based on the death of the last Russian czar) or that Marxism destroyed those countries completely or that this alleged event would be that catastrophic as you're suggesting (some of the most praised Romanian authors and also poets are from the Communist era, as the aforementioned Nichita St?nescu; in a way it's a dimension of human language and spirituality: to get free when you're constrained and censored!)

However the evolution of literature has little to do with feudalism. Contrary to your claims, especially after 1500 much of Central and Eastern Europe was in touch with Classical culture, both in Latin (e.g. in Hungary, the library of Matthias Corvinus in 15th century, and in later centuries also imitation of the Classical epics which you seem to value so much) and in Byzantine-Slavonic forms.
True, there was a traditionalist society and the progress was slow in many respects. I will illustrate it with an anecdotal excursus. In 18th century Wallachian and Moldavian Royal Academies (some rather exclusive schools, where teaching was performed in Greek), the physics which was taught was Aristotle's 8 books. Towards the end of the 18th century, the teaching was revolutionized with the work of Christian Wolff (a German book first published in 1713; it was translated first into Latin - in Transylvania in 1773, and later into Greek). The traditionalism of these intellectuals meant, ironically, a higher attachment to Classical culture, while the modern revisions of it were only slowly permeating.

By 19th century, however, Romanian literature is good enough to be a worthy companion of its western counterparts. The reasons for this cultural boom are multiple, it's also the creation of a written culture in Romanian language (and not in Slavonic and Greek), also the intellectual effervescence of the era, the advent of nationalism, etc. If by 19th century imitation was still strong (of both ancient but also modern European models), in the 20th century we can no longer speak of a Western European predominance. The apparent predominance is only Western Europeans being ignorant of Other European literature. They don't know the languages, they haven't read the works. There might be poets which you'd like more than any English poet you know, you simply won't know it because you don't care to learn.

As for Milton, epic poetry is not really that appreciated in Romanian literature (and I guess by many other contemporary readers, European or not, see below on Milton vs Baudelaire). The modern history of Romanian written epic poetry (oral epic poetry has a much richer history, but I guess that's a different topic) unfolds between Ion Budai-Deleanu's ?iganiada (early 19th century, imitating Classical epics) and Mircea C?rt?rescu's Levantul (late 20th century, a postmodern epic poem).

I'm sure several things I've said of Romanian literature and poetry are also true for the literature of other modern European languages which are not English or French.

Now what I'm saying in the context of Virgil is that all these Western Europeans, men at the pinnacle of culture and learning, still voiced a numerical approval of Classic poets in preference to authors from their own native countries.

This "numerical approval" is just a joke. There have been literally tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of such men (in your Western Europe alone), you at most will quote a handful, which is an insignificant number any way you'll put it.
Your claim is moreover suspicious, as this thread begins with the quote "Classical literature is good but not half as good as ours". You'd be right to point out that anyone supporting such a view will unavoidably bring also only a handful of quotes, but my position here was entirely different - that we have no criteria to compare. There are many decent intellectuals not being obsessed and highly opinionated on what literature or poetry is better and guess what, I can't quote them because they don't say it, do they?

Sure you can cite a quote of approval for Baudelaire, but how many people even know of Baudelaire now, let alone read him? I can find plenty of instances of praise for modern poets, and Joseph Addison had written a long series of essays in praise of Milton as early as 1714. Sure, this raised Milton's estimate in people's eyes, but they still didn't endeavor to go all the way and rank him above the Classical authors.

At least in the corner of the world I live in, people read more Baudelaire than Virgil (I guess Milton stands a bit better, though), Baudelaire is more often republished and sometimes retranslated by contemporary poets (while the Classicists usually complain about the lack of interest for ancient literature). I guess it would be more relevant to say that probably more people read (for example) symbolist poetry than epic poetry. Epic poetry is often boring for a modern audience, and much of the meter, emotions, but also the world described in the ancient epics is strange to modern man. If someone wants something epic, I guess he'd rather read Tolkien or rent a movie with nice visual effects.
At the same time symbolism, existentialism and other modern movements are closer to our hearts. We're people living in modern cities, not in military camps and our manhood doesn't have to be proven on the battlefield, nor do we fear the revenge of the gods.

The same story repeats for all modern poets. Coleridge, for instance, experienced a flight of tremendous popularity in the early 1800s, and now is almost completely forgotten. None of the modern poets have experienced the numerical approval, the approval of longevity, that the Classical poets have.

Useless criteria, good poetry is no popularity contest. On a slightly different note, Bible alone trumps the entire Classical Latin literature (poetry and prose) in both "numerical approval" and "longevity".

As for "pinnacle of culture and learning", my native language is neither English, nor French, yet I've read poetry by both Baudelaire and Coleridge. What kind of authoritarian voices are you invoking if they are mostly forgetful of these great names?

I didn't go in depth into the principles of literary criticism. My only point was that we have to decide if those principles universally apply. Jona has already made a few relevant observations. If poetic excellence lies in mastering the meter of the human language, then all poets, yes even from Romania or Zimbabwe would have to be judged by that standard. Similarly the unity of theme, for precision and perspecuity of language, for elevation of thought, for intensity of feeling, may all be offered as other standards. All I'm saying is: either universal measurement of all poetry is possible, or it isn't. I gather that you would suggest that all ethnic poetry is intrinsically valuable, solely because it is ethnic and prone to its own standards or structures.

You don't understand my suggestions at all!! I was not talking about "ethnic poetry", I actually never used such word (but I did mention cultures and languages) - this only a jingoist imagination at work! I was merely arguing about languages you don't know: you don't understand the words, you don't know the pronunciation, how to break words in syllables, how to utter them, how to construct or judge the meter or even the rhyme, and certainly you'll miss a lot of assonances, consonances and other literary devices. Even equipped with dictionaries and grammar guides, there will be a lot missed (it's poetry, right?). In other words, the beauty of that language and the skill of that poet is simply invisible to the ignorant outer observer who only sees a meaningless and perhaps ugly text. Neither you, nor most of the authorities you invoked know enough Albanian, Estonian or Romanian, therefore you are incompetent when it comes to poetry written in those languages. Let me prove it to you with four verses from an epic fragment from Letter III by Mihai Eminescu (late 19th century):

Un sultan dintre aceia ce domnesc peste vro limb?,
Ce cu-a turmelor p??une, a ei patrie ?-o schimb?,
La p?mînt dormea ?inîndu-?i c?p?tîi mîna cea dreapt?;
Dar? ochiu-nchis afar?, înl?untru se de?teapt?.

It's a rather traditional poetic form, but I won't give you any translation, nor any literary hints whatsoever. I want you to utter the verses (break all words in syllables, place the accents, etc) and then show these four verses are inferior in quality to some other four from Virgil, Milton or any poet you choose. You're free to quote authoritative voices, as long as you bring arguments and not groundless claims. I expect a full literary analysis and an unequivocal system of scoring, by which these four verses will be proved inferior to some other "greater" ones.

Be sure poetry in other languages can have a good metric, as good as those languages can have. However the emphasis on meter will get rather obsolete if you'd read more modern poetry. Other than that, there's no standard measure for unity of theme, elevation of thought (in meters? :roll: ), intensity of feeling (in candelas? or in watts per steradian? :roll: ). There is no universal system of measurement for poetry!

Critics who have numerically elevated Classical poets above others believed that there was one standard for poetry, and in it the Latin and the Greek poets excelled.

"Believe" is a good word, because there's no evidence at all :wink:

Just to keep it simple let's focus on epic poetry; you will not find find many epic poems in Coleridge's repertoir, and Shakespeare doesn't belong even close to the discussion of Virgil or epics.

Saying I won't find many epic poems in Coleridge's repertoire is ludicrous, what do you know of romantic poetry anyway? I hope you don't expect me also to find epic sonnets! hock: :lol: