I completely disagree with your characterization of Keats' poetry, it has for quite a long time been recognized for the power and explicitness of its sensual imagery. Note the "pleasure thermometer" in "Endymion", the "silver snarling trumpets" in "The Eve of St. Agnes", the "burst Joy's grape against his palate" in "Ode to Melancholy", the many clear, concrete details given even in such a short poem as "La Belle Dame sans Merci", as well as countless other examples. The ethereal is indeed present, but Keats' later poetry carefully ties this to what can be seen, tasted, felt, smelt, and heard. The letters, on the other hand, tend to describe his intentions in more nebulous terms.

Jim

I agree with Jim. Given that Keats is well-known for his sensuous imagination, I was quite surprised to see Knygatin's characterization of Keats's works as seeming more abstract and tenuous. Indeed, Keats's sensuality is in part what made his poetry controversial during the poet's lifetime (See, for instance, Byron's caustic remark that Keats was "frigging his imagination"). Knygatin's remarks apply much more to Shelley's poetry than to Keats's, I think.

I have only read parts of Keats' poetry, and I am not sure from what time periods.

"Pleasure thermometer" sounds very abstract to me, although amusing and an interesting conceptual thought. "Silver snarling trumpets" is hardly a sharp objective observation, but more of a subjective and very personal interpretation, and evocative and energetic at that. "Burst Joy's grape against his palate" is not an observation of manifested reality either. It is an imaginative and sensual description of a certain sensation. And I have read La Belle Dame sans Merci; it is true that he mentions concrete objects, but they are only "mentioned", hardly described in realistically observed details, except for his own sensual valuation of them... and what is "She took me to her elfin grot,.."? "Elfin grot" doesn't give me defined and colored visuals of the place; only a vague dreamy notion.

I agree that he is a sensual describer and interpretator of imagery.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 18 Jun 09 | 02:25PM by Knygatin.

Of all the romantics, Keats is probably the one, to my mind, who most closely resembles CAS in his imagination -much in the same way that so much of Wm. Blake seems to prefigure/anticipate Jack Kirby. (Wasn't CAS in his youth called "The Keats of the West Coast", or some such thing?)

True, CAS has his Byronic poses. But it's hard, for example, to think of anything more Ashtonian than Keats's depiction of the Gigantocmachy in "The Fall of Hyperion", which reminds me greatly of CAS's own later poem about the Titans:

"Builded so high, it seem'd that filmed clouds
Might spread beneath, as o'er the stars of heaven;
So old the place was, I remember'd none
The like upon the earth: what I had seen
Of grey cathedrals, buttress'd walls, rent towers,
The superannuations of sunk realms,
Or Nature's rocks toil'd hard in waves and winds,
Seem'd but the failure of decrepit things
To that eternal domed monument."
(...)
"Turning from these with awe, once more I rais'd
My eyes to fathom the space every way;
The embossed roof, the silent massy range
Of columns north and south, ending in mist
Of nothing, then to eastward, where black gates
Were shut against the sunrise evermore.
Then to the west I look'd, and saw far off
An image, huge of feature as a cloud,
At level of whose feet an altar slept,
To be approach'd on either side by steps,
And marble balustrade, and patient travail
To count with toil the innumerable degrees."
(...)
".......'This temple, sad and lone,
'Is all spar'd from the thunder of a war
'Foughten long since by giant hierarchy
'Against rebellion: this old image here,
'Whose carved features wrinkled as he fell,
'Is Saturn's; I Moneta, left supreme
'Sole priestess of this desolation.'"
(...)
"..................Then Moneta's voice
Came brief upon mine ear: 'So Saturn sat
When he had lost his realms.' Whereon there grew
A power within me of enormous ken
To see as a god sees, and take the depth
Of things as nimbly as the outward eye
Can size and shape pervade."
(...)
".........His palace bright,
'Bastion'd with pyramids of glowing gold,
'And touch'd with shade of bronzed obelisks,
'Glares a blood red through all the thousand courts,
'Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries:
'And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds
'Flush angerly; when he would taste the wreaths
'Of incense breath'd aloft from sacred hills,
'Instead of sweets his ample palate takes
'Savour of poisonous brass and metals sick."
(...)
"..........................Mnemosyne
Was sitting on a square edg'd polish'd stone,
That in its lucid depth reflected pure
Her priestess garments. My quick eyes ran on
From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault,
Through bow'rs of fragrant and enwreathed light
And diamond paved lustrous long arcades."

Is The Players of Null-A by A.E. Van Vogt a good book? Colorful?
I have never read anything by Van Vogt.

There's nothing terribly original or surprising here in Gavin's mentioning of Keats, since Keats is the major Romantic poet whom CAS himself acknowledges most often in his published letters. Shelley would be a distant second in influence, I'd say.

For the rest, I don't see Blake as having had much of an effect on CAS, not even via his "prophetic books" (I doubt that the early 20th-Century American canon even included Blake among the major Romantics). Byronic influences would likely come primarily from what I'd call the "gnostic" poems (Manfred; Cain). Wordsworth wouldn't even enter the picture, I think, and Coleridge would do so only for a few of his "fantastic" works (e.g., "Kubla Khan" and "Christabel").

I'd add Thomas Lovell Beddoes as a primary source of inspiration from among the Romantic poets, even though Beddoes is considered a "minor" Romantic (due more to his fragmentary and erratic output, I should think, than to the quality of his work at its best). Beddoes's morbid imagination comes closer to CAS's than Keats's does, in my view.

As to van Vogt, all I have read of his work is Slans, which was dreary and superficial hackwork, in my opinion. It certainly did not inspire me to read anything else of his, so I'm sorry that I can't help with regard to the other title that you mention.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 4 Jul 09 | 04:27PM by Kyberean.

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As to van Vogt, all I have read of his work is
> Slans, which was dreary and superficial hackwork,
> in my opinion.

I think you mean SLAN. While it is certainly hackwork, it is highly eccentric, inspired, visionary hackwork! I also have a suspicion the novel's theme---persecuted supermen!---would appeal mightily to Knygatin. I have tried some other things by Van Vogt, but so far have found nothing as entertaining as SLAN.

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> I think you mean SLAN. While it is certainly
> hackwork, it is highly eccentric, inspired,
> visionary hackwork! I also have a suspicion the
> novel's theme---persecuted supermen!---would
> appeal mightily to Knygatin. I have tried some
> other things by Van Vogt, but so far have found
> nothing as entertaining as SLAN.

I have heard something similar about The Players of Null-A. The main character is some kind of demigod who can manipulate reality.

Yes, I meant Slan. I am glad that the extra "s" did not cause too much confusion.

As for that book's merits, we'll have to agree to disagree, as I found it insipid and conventional, with an over-emphasis on "ekshun", and generally not worthy of anyone who is interested in the theme of the Superhuman on a deeper level. I agree that it is capable of providing light entertainment, though.

I can't tell whether Knygatin would prefer this, or not, but Stapeldon's Odd John is a far superior treatment of the Superhuman theme, and Beresford's Hampdenshire Wonder is itself a wonder. In no book that I have ever read is the sheer otherness of the Superhuman mutation so hauntingly evoked.

Anyway, though, de gustibus; I certainly see little point in arguing matters of taste!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 4 Jul 09 | 03:14PM by Kyberean.

I enjoy a supehuman theme, if it concerns manipulation of reality towards ecstasy and beauty or the bizarre. But not shallow ekshun.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 4 Jul 09 | 12:16PM by Knygatin.

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I enjoy a supehuman theme, if it concerns
> manipulation of reality towards ecstasy and beauty
> or the bizarre. But not shallow ekshun.

For example, (if you allow me to dissolve the line between writing, and the written) as the superhuman Clark Ashton Smith shapes reality in The Red World of Polaris.

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
[snippage] I don't see Blake as
> having had much of an effect on CAS, not even via
> his "prophetic books" (I doubt that the early
> 20th-Century American canon even included Blake
> among the major Romantics). [snippage]

CAS did own a copy of the Oxford Edition of The Poetical Works of William Blake, edited by John Sampson, and published in 1913; his copy is dated "June 19th, 1915," so he received it after THE STAR-TREADER had been published. But I don't see a lot of Blake's influence on CAS either.

Scott

Knygatin:

The Hampdenshire Wonder definitely has very little of the "fantastic" in it, aside from the Superhuman title character, although the enigmatic drawing of the character, his oracular utterances, and others' reactions to him, I find quite fascinating.

Odd John's fantastic elements derive mainly from the variety of the Superhuman characters, as well as from the new technologies and new forms of art they explore in their "colony".


Scott:

Thanks for the additional information. I have no doubt that CAS appreciated Blake's visual artistry and visionary imagination, though I am guessing he may not have seen a lot of the former until somewhat later in life. It's interesting, however, that CAS read Blake relatively early, although, as you indicate, likely too late for Blake to have been a formative influence. I cannot, however, see Blake's Christianity--however heterodox--or the King James style of the prophetic books as having left much of a mark on CAS.

Likewise, I see Wordsworth as being in many ways the "anti-CAS" of the English Romantics, although I'd be very curious to know whether CAS ever read The Prelude, and, if so, then when.

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Likewise, I see Wordsworth as being in many ways
> the "anti-CAS" of the English Romantics, although
> I'd be very curious to know whether CAS ever read
> The Prelude, and, if so, then when.

I like Wordsworth. He has basic foundation wisdom, and directs a stray mind towards beauty.
I have a thick 800 page collection of his poetical works, but can't find one of his most celebrated poems, The Ruined Cottage in it! I understand it was later included in The Excursion, but that it is not the same as the original.

This is a reply to several of the above - Please remember that Clark did not ever have a large personal library, and those he was able to acquire was usual by gift from people like the Sully's, or the Count's wife and her friends. He was a great admirer of Byron, in particular the satirical aspects of "epics" like "Don Juan" (pronounced "Joo-an" for Byron's purposes) and "Thoughts on a College Examination" - above all remember that Clark, by the time he was 14 or 15, had read the entire Carnegie library including the Brittanica, Americana, and the "Hernia Edition" of Webster - I can assure you he had read all of Wordsworth - He liked Blake well enough, and could usually quote almost anything he had ever read with little effort -- he liked Swift better, again, for the satire, as in the section of Gulliver where he meets the highly advanced Horse civilization who have to put up with the nasty "Yahoos" (people") who swing from the branches throwing excrement about (this section is largely expurgated from the children's versions of Gulliver -

Little gift to you all - a poem I learned years ago which I think is Henry Reid if memory serves -

"My aged Aunt,
Miss Wilkinson
(whose mother was a Lamb)
Met Wordsworth once, and Coleridge too
One morning in her pram.
Birdlike the bard stooped over her,
Like fledgling in a nest --
And Wordsworth said,"Thou Harmless Babe!"
(and Coleridge was impressed!)
The little thing looked up at them,
And softly murmured -- cooo
William was then aged sixty-four,
And Samuel, sixty-tw0.