Re: CAS in The Netherlands
Posted by:
Kyberean (IP Logged)
Date: 20 December, 2002 08:18PM
Jezetha:
Your perspective on the relative merits of CAS's poetry and tales is very interesting; however, I couldn't possibly disagree with you more.
In general, the only stylistic element that weakens CAS's poetry, in my view, is his insistence upon clinging to archaic vocabulary ("thee", "thou", and the like). The notion that his poetry is merely derivative, however, is simply wrong. For instance, I defy anyone to unearth in the Romantic canon a work remotely akin to The Hashish-Eater (which, by the way, is a narrative poem). "Nero" may be a dramatic monologue, but I daresay that Browning would have choked if he had read it. Further, one would search in vain to find such metaphors as "drawn voidward by the vampire-lips of sleep" among the English classics (with, perhaps, the exception of Beddoes, of whom there is more than merely a "whiff" in Smith's work. The Dead Will Cuckold You positively reeks of Beddoes, I think.)
In a similar vein, if one were to research painstakingly the sources of inspiration for such poets as Shakespeare, Milton, and Keats, one might find them equally "derivative". Originality is always relative, and it never arises in a vacuum. That said, Smith's most original contribution to his chosen form is his cosmic persective, a quality that you seem either to overlook or undervalue. To be sure, Smith's cosmicism derived much inspiration from the work of George Sterling, but it far outstripped that of his mentor. Part of what makes The Star-Treader and Other Poems so extraordinary is its utter lack of human relationships as its subject matter. Add to that Smith's colorful vocabulary, his extraordinary gift for metaphor and imagery, and his use of horrific images to convey a sense of wonder and numinosity (in this sense, he differs very much from Beddoes), and we have, in my view, one of the two or three greatest poets of the Twentieth Century, and far and away the greatest American poet of that period. To add my own critical opinion, I do feel that, once the young CAS discovered the potent allure that his good looks and poete maudit persona held for the bored housewives of Auburn, many of his verses became more amatory in nature, and, at that stage, he did begin to add a little water to his wine (Lovecraft was of the same view). However, Smith ultimately remained true to his unique vision for his entire life. He rightly saw himself foremost as a poet, and not as a pulp tale-spinner, an activity that he undertook purely for financial motives. Once the novelty evaporated, and he became fed up with the strictures of pulp magazine editors, he all but abandoned fiction-writing (which, in any case, took but a decade, at most, of his creative life), and that fact should tell us something about how he himself wished to be remembered.
I'll conclude this rambling defense of CAS's poetry with two observations. First, I cannot help finding utterly absurd your use of Shakespeare as an example with which to belabor Smith's diction. If Shakespeare is the standard against which our efforts are to be judged, then we ALL may as well quit writing immediately! Second, despite your overt claims to be an admirer of Smith's, I really cannot help wondering how much genuine appreciation or understanding of Smith's work you have when you, with apparent seriousness, make such statements as the following: "[Smith's] style has an inner tendency towards the static and the cloying". No artist is above criticism, I'll grant you--even if all such criticisms are ultimately mere value-judgments--but this generalization seems to me as harsh as it is hasty.