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Difficult Chrestomathies

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 4 months ago

Difficult Chrestomathies*

 


 

Examples of Difficult Poetry

 

If we're going to communicate on the subject of difficult poetry, my feeling is we need to have some examples -- one person's tough nut to crack is another's dish of flan. Please feel free to rearrange this page as appropriate, and add your selection below with a comment as to why you find this piece is difficult.

 

At present, I can't think of anything myself, other than long-form works by John Ashbery, such as "Flow Chart." More on this later.

 

Examples from the Pinsky Essay

 

James Joyce, ULYSSES

 

Examples from the Burt Essay

 

 
Rae Armantrout, Veil
 
Forrest Gander, Torn Awake
 
Thylias Moss, Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler
 
Jennifer Moxley, The Sense Record
 
Lytle Shaw, The Lobe
 
Liz Waldner, Dark Would (the missing person)

 

 

Difficult Poetics in Antiquity

 

One of the most difficult poets I've ever read is Persius — beautiful, crazy stuff. 

 

                                                             No wonder you think

The gods’ faces ought to be gilded; you assume they’d

Be proud of it. You say, “Let’s set at the head of this

Bronze brotherhood the one who sends us the nicest

Dreams, and none of the sticky kind. Let’s give him

A gold beard.” So much for Numa’s earthenware, and

The bronze vessels of Saturn; so much for

Crockery. They’ve all been replaced by gold.

 

More here. The difficulty I see in Persius is scholastic, just like the work of Eliot and Pond: the text is so peppered with mythic and topical imagery, seemingly with no set program, that you can't figure out what Persius is getting at. If you aren't a scholar, you might want to back away slowly and shut the door before anyone notices you.

 

 

 

Sources

 

  1. Robert Pinsky's essay... http://www.slate.com/id/2164823/pagenum/all/#page_start
  2. Stephen Burt's essay... http://www.believermag.com/issues/200405/?read=article_burt
  3. Source 3
  4. Source 4

 

Source Name Page # Quote
Encyclopedia of Stars 44, 46 "The stars are the heavens"

 

 


 

* Chrestomathy (kr{ope}{sm}st{rfa}m{schwa}{vdftheta}{shti}): A collection of choice passages from an author or authors, esp. one compiled to assist in the acquirement of a language.  1832 Fraser's Mag. V. 171 The chrestomathy and diamond edition of that living polygot book of man.  1847 DORN (title) Chrestomathy of the Pushtu or Afghan Language.  1854 KEIGHTLEY Mythol. Anc. Gr. & Italy (ed. 3) 439 Fragments of the Chrestomathy of Proclus.  1881 Academy No. 452. 14 The texts..have been augmented, and now form a genuine Béarnais chrestomathy.  1883 American VI. 10 Omitting some pieces, adding others, and constructing what we may call a Browning chrestomathy.  (OED OnLine: http://dictionary.oed.com/)

Comments (1)

Anonymous said

at 11:29 am on Aug 31, 2007

I'm currently reading Ulysses (started up in June for Bloomsday, but only got to ch. 6 - Hades!) -- will look for examples of the text that are particularly "difficult" and present them here.

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