When you are pushing against so much truth - inherent goodness of nature as opposed to original sin, self-reliance as opposed to providence, human independence as opposed to creatureliness - it takes an incredible amount of money and dare I say privilege to be a transcendentalist. The luxury beliefs of the day. Hence the pool of potential poets is rather shallow.
Here's a modern take on it: "I slept and dreamt that life was joy. / I woke and saw that life was duty. / I acted and behold, duty was joy." by Rabindranath Tagore
I agree with your assessment of the Hooper poem, which would apply to Tagore's as well, though sometimes a moralistic way of speaking is helpful. I used to give the Tagore quote to my freshmen at the beginning of the term and ask them to explain it. It utterly amazed me how many of them couldn't do so . . .
I like that part about particles of God not writing good poetry. When I was younger, I didn't realize how ridiculous the transparent eyeball idea was, his poetry was treated with such reverence.
Hadn't read Hooper's name for some 50 years. The beauty/duty rhyme is indeed off-putting. On the bright side, I bought a copy of the Willis Cooke anthology; perhaps the gleaning will be fruitful. :-)
It would be quite a challenge to make good poetry out of conclusory abstractions such as Duty and Beauty without concrete support in observation and experience. Whitman and Dickinson, by contrast, give us lived ideas.
Before coming to man's estate, in high school, I read the "transparent eyeball" text and laughed aloud, thus prematurely ending my acquaintance with the Transcendentalists before it really began. I suppose I could have reacted similarly to Yeats' mystic system, but the poetry was too good to forego.
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When you are pushing against so much truth - inherent goodness of nature as opposed to original sin, self-reliance as opposed to providence, human independence as opposed to creatureliness - it takes an incredible amount of money and dare I say privilege to be a transcendentalist. The luxury beliefs of the day. Hence the pool of potential poets is rather shallow.
Here's a modern take on it: "I slept and dreamt that life was joy. / I woke and saw that life was duty. / I acted and behold, duty was joy." by Rabindranath Tagore
I agree with your assessment of the Hooper poem, which would apply to Tagore's as well, though sometimes a moralistic way of speaking is helpful. I used to give the Tagore quote to my freshmen at the beginning of the term and ask them to explain it. It utterly amazed me how many of them couldn't do so . . .
I like that part about particles of God not writing good poetry. When I was younger, I didn't realize how ridiculous the transparent eyeball idea was, his poetry was treated with such reverence.
Being a particle of God should not stop one from just breezing along with the breeze.
But Thoreau's prose is pretty good. And grounded in bean rows and other down to earth stuff.
Hadn't read Hooper's name for some 50 years. The beauty/duty rhyme is indeed off-putting. On the bright side, I bought a copy of the Willis Cooke anthology; perhaps the gleaning will be fruitful. :-)
Surely, the poet was 'deep in the counsels of...'; I didn't get beyond councils. Now I will return to the post.
Fixed! Thanks.
It would be quite a challenge to make good poetry out of conclusory abstractions such as Duty and Beauty without concrete support in observation and experience. Whitman and Dickinson, by contrast, give us lived ideas.
Before coming to man's estate, in high school, I read the "transparent eyeball" text and laughed aloud, thus prematurely ending my acquaintance with the Transcendentalists before it really began. I suppose I could have reacted similarly to Yeats' mystic system, but the poetry was too good to forego.
A sense of good taste prevented a waste of time, other than some laughter.