Thanks first for the introduction to Strindberg as a painter. I know him as a writer indirectly, through Elias Canetti's description of his mother's passionate devotion to his works, but I didn't know that he was a painter.
I find the language in Thomson's nature scenes, like the one excerpted here, a bit tedious in its Miltonic inversions. Is "oppress'd" meant to modify "noon" or "sun"? If the Stanley Fish of "Surprised by Sin" were to take a look, he might say both, but that seems to give an easy out to the writer. I've noticed this problem in free verse (including mine, alas), so it's not simply a product of Thomson's aesthetic.
In a line from "Autumn" not included here, Thomson writes, "Strowed bibulous above I see the sands, / The pebbly gravel next...." He's writing about water as it works it way through soil strata down to "hardened chalk / Of stiff compacted clay." He can't just write, "I see strowed above the bibulous [absorbent] sands"--the meter's not right and the lack of inversion reveals an "unpoetic," straightforward statement, but at least a sensible one. I don't know exactly how a bibulous poet could be strowed about a landscape, but I'm willing to entertain the idea.
To the extent Thomson's descriptions are well observed, I can appreciate them.
Thomson sure deserves to be read more.
I read The Seasons years ago, in a volume that also included The Castle of Indolence, his poem in Spenserian stanzas.
Thanks first for the introduction to Strindberg as a painter. I know him as a writer indirectly, through Elias Canetti's description of his mother's passionate devotion to his works, but I didn't know that he was a painter.
I find the language in Thomson's nature scenes, like the one excerpted here, a bit tedious in its Miltonic inversions. Is "oppress'd" meant to modify "noon" or "sun"? If the Stanley Fish of "Surprised by Sin" were to take a look, he might say both, but that seems to give an easy out to the writer. I've noticed this problem in free verse (including mine, alas), so it's not simply a product of Thomson's aesthetic.
In a line from "Autumn" not included here, Thomson writes, "Strowed bibulous above I see the sands, / The pebbly gravel next...." He's writing about water as it works it way through soil strata down to "hardened chalk / Of stiff compacted clay." He can't just write, "I see strowed above the bibulous [absorbent] sands"--the meter's not right and the lack of inversion reveals an "unpoetic," straightforward statement, but at least a sensible one. I don't know exactly how a bibulous poet could be strowed about a landscape, but I'm willing to entertain the idea.
To the extent Thomson's descriptions are well observed, I can appreciate them.