tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post5952091674854954277..comments2024-03-29T14:45:32.326+13:00Comments on The Imaginary Museum: In Auden's Shadow: Geoffrey GrigsonDr Jack Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-82705526416266197442023-10-24T21:29:21.669+13:002023-10-24T21:29:21.669+13:00Yes, everyone is guilty of not reading the 'pr...Yes, everyone is guilty of not reading the 'primary texts'. And Grigson wrote a lot. It is like someone said of Bach (I think it was the biologist Lewis Thomas, (who was a kind of philosopher also...especially in his short piece re the humble wart!) who was quoted when they were lauding Bach at a Centenary or something, that he would like all his works...but then on second thoughts it would be intimidating. Where to start? Still Grigson's biography would be interesting. I will look out for it. Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10272507198753290435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-51799314493253135942023-10-20T07:15:37.780+13:002023-10-20T07:15:37.780+13:00Certainly I take your point about reading more of ...Certainly I take your point about reading more of his poetry before pronouncing on it. I'd certainly be most interested to read your critical biography when it appears. For the most part, though, I think most of the adverse judgements quoted above come from other people rather than me. Grigson did, after all, write a colossal number of books, and only a specialist can hope to have examined them all. I am in that position when it comes to Auden, but not (alas) Grigson himself.Dr Jack Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-79909172936703919952023-10-20T02:50:52.048+13:002023-10-20T02:50:52.048+13:00If Mr Ross owned or at least had read, Grigson'...If Mr Ross owned or at least had read, Grigson's first three poetry collections, he, and indeed others who have contributed to this Imaginary Museum website, might have a more balanced assessment of Grigson's stature as a poet. And if he had read the verdicts of many of Grigson's fellow poets of a younger generation, as I have done while co-editing My Rebellious and Imperfect Eye, he may have reason to revise his views on the poet he appears to damn with faint praise. Yes, Grigson may not have been the most scrupulous of craftsman, but even some of his enemies ( and he had a few) would admit that the critical standards and significant influence he exerted during a literary career of over fifty years, were noteworthy.<br />Start with My Rebellious and Imperfect Eye and follow up some of the biographical and critical leads in it and you will be a better position to pronounce on Grigson. Incidentally, I have been researching a critical biography for many years while my short introduction to Grigson's work ( in the Writers and their Work series)will soon appear from Liverpool University Press.<br /><br /> R.M.Healeynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-262519371809286562021-09-21T15:27:30.467+12:002021-09-21T15:27:30.467+12:00Yes, it almost seems that Grigson was 'hoist w...<br />Yes, it almost seems that Grigson was 'hoist with his own petard'. Is is right to dish it out to poor old Edith Sitwell? Of course she had vanity...but. Nevertheless he looks to have had wide interests. I think I read that book of Clare's madness. It seems that it is not clear that either Smart or Clare were actually "mad". I suppose that is de facto unknowable. Clare is good and indeed he can be compared to Shelley as the more 'grounded' poet (as in your lecture) and of course Shelley, while he could be great and just, only just, seems to get away with those long silvery works and there is his Prometheus Unbound and his political approach and so on -- but yes, Clare would possibly be more fashionable nowadays. Grigson's range of interests is wide. Palmer, G M Hopkins, birds in Britain even Wyndham Lewis...and I think he lived in a Cave-House, I had never heard of them; and he had a strong interest in British modern artists. <br /><br />I have also got his journal or day book 'The Private Art' which starts well, so all of about two pages of it are good! I'll read it and report on it.<br /><br />A biography might be quite interesting. Especially considering indeed his relationship with Auden. <br /><br />I was thinking about the use of 'dropsical' as I read Donahue's 'dropsical' comment. Grigson may have been a good poet but not as good as say Christopher Middleton or some of the more radical writers. But he looks interesting. Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10272507198753290435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-7216644234541396532020-07-31T23:58:29.291+12:002020-07-31T23:58:29.291+12:00Interesting. I cant say I have seen any anthologie...Interesting. I cant say I have seen any anthologies by Grigson that I can see. I have that note book of enigmatic entries. He wrote a lot for sure. <br /><br />I think I read his book on or of Clare's mad poems, or was that Holderlin? I've read both as well as Smart's long one. <br /><br />The one edition of The Penguin Modern Poets I am missing is no 23. That would at lest give me a sample of some of his poems.<br /><br />'The Cold Spring' is a good poem. Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10272507198753290435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-24434711037964713852020-07-20T07:37:25.308+12:002020-07-20T07:37:25.308+12:00Yes, some very good points there. I agree about dr...Yes, some very good points there. I agree about dropsy. I also, however, am forced to agree with Donoghue that Grigson was a bit careless in his own phrasing at times, while being hypercritical of others'.<br /><br />I too have benefited from Grigson's grounbreaking anthologies. It's true to say that his pioneering Poems of <i>John Clare's Madness</i> has been greatly criticised by some of those subsequent editors you mention for textual unreliability, though. He made some excellent signposts, but his own selections of such poets as Cotton, Vaughan, Clare and others can no longer really be regarded as trustworthy.<br /><br />His interest in pastoral, however, so seemingly perverse at the time, has now swung back into favour as the genre has become a vital part of the environmental movement.Dr Jack Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-82784644763324171112020-07-19T15:58:45.547+12:002020-07-19T15:58:45.547+12:00'...by those dropsical infections poetry is dr...'...by those dropsical infections poetry is drowned." Drowned by infections?'<br />Well, yes, Denis Donoghue reveals his own ignorance there. Dropsy - oedema - is fluid retention. If people had a dropsical infection of the lungs, they could drown.<br /><br />Grigson wasn't much as a poet, I'd agree, but he was a very good anthologist. I came across some very good poems and poets in his anthologies as a poem-hunting teenager. He had excellent taste in his heroes, if not in his own poetry: his praise is one reason John Clare is being published in full at last and Henry Vaughan is regarded as more than a mere eccentric hanger-on of Herbert.<br />He wae also interesting because both his wife and his daughter wrote very good books on food and cooking. As I get older, I get more interested in food and cooking than poetry, i'm afraid.<br />Roger Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11012987757094423896noreply@blogger.com