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WESTERN Poetry: What and How | ||
Tags: Poetry | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Paco Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 4280 days ago 145 posts - 251 votes  Speaks: Cantonese* | Message 1 of 3 22 June 2014 at 12:08am | IP Logged |
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Please recommend good books about Western poetry: their structures, values, and place
among the many genres; if possible, specifically for foreigners. (I speak Chinese.) I like the sort of Outline/"Story" in the age of Will Durant and John Macy, van Loon and Wells, but I am not aware of any yet. More rigorous academic books which explain poetry are welcome; those help people appreciate them per se are also fine. One of the things which stop me from claiming fluency without feeling ashamed is that I am not able to appreciate poetry in European languages (for now: English, German, French and Latin). I really mean I "cannot", rather than "do not". I do not know whether I will like them, but at the moment I do not get them, the thunderous applause they receive. However, many people I admire and respect think poetry, in a certain sense, is the highest form of art, higher than prose, exploits a language to the fullest, which I agree in the case of Chinese. So I think I must have missed something. Thank you. Edited by Paco on 22 June 2014 at 12:20am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 3 22 June 2014 at 12:38am | IP Logged |
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There are many native speakers who don't care about poetry, don't understand it or don't like it. I'd not consider it a criterion of fluency at all. Also, even more people like or dislike poetry without knowing all the technical details.
If you're interested, it's best to pick a specific language to start with, as there's no such a general thing as "Western poetry". Either go for English or for what seems to make most sense to you when you read it. Also, afaiu the golden age of modern traditional poetry was the 18-19 century in most cultures, or early 20th cent. After that there has been much more experimenting, which is best to explore when you've gained some overall understanding already. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4641 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 3 of 3 22 June 2014 at 2:21am | IP Logged |
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I think your best bet is to find an individual poet who you get, and branch out from there. Read more of the
poet's work, read some critical literature on them, find out who their biggest influences were. Bilingual anthologies generally start with a nice overview of the translated tradition for newcomers. The "Penguin Book of - Verse/Poetry" is a realiable series of bilingual anthologies in English. The Poem Itself, edited by Stanley Burnshaw is a wonderful book on modernist poetry in French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. It presents poems in their original language, then provides a page or so of English language analysis, including a literal translation. It's not a book but the Open Yale University course on modern poetry is an enjoyable and informative introduction to English language 20th century poetry. Their Milton course is also good. Milton wrote in a rather pan European tradition (looking to Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, Petrarch, Spenser) so he might be just the sort of poet you want to study. Edited by AlexTG on 22 June 2014 at 2:27am 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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