[lbo-talk] spam poetry

[Carrol Cox]

Northrop Frye, having to my satisfaction utterly trashed attempts to
incorporate evaluation into artistic criticism, goes on to point out an
empirical point: most scholars find out that they return more often to and
find more interesting things to say about some  texts than others. This is
true, of course, even after the selection is narrowed to writers popularly
labeled "great': That is, even among the (alleged) "great" writers,
different scholars find themselves returning more often to some than to
others. I add this to point out that the empirical fact Frye mentions is not
a merely a way to sneak in evaluation by the back door. In the 1950s I was
giving as much time to Donne as to Jonson; by 1970 I found that I had
returned quite often to Jonson's poetry, less often to Donne. By (say) 1990
I had practically ceased to reach for Donne, still almost weekly reached for
the Jonson volume. That is not, it is clear, a formal judgment that Jonson
is "better." That is absurd, and would be absurd if the names were reversed.
There simply is no way that judgments of art can be supported.

Now I haven't read the spam that Doug & Catherine are  referring to, and I
probably won't. I seldom read anything now unless there is a pressing need
to: I read too slowly and painfully. But if it is a consciously constructed
text, it has as much "right" to be called "art" as Lear or Dante's Comedy.

"Art" is not and cannot be intelligibly made to be a judgment of value.

Carrol