Ah, now comes the mellow season,
Marks its time with jackdaws caws.
Autumn with its rusty reason
Offers forth its season’s laws.
Now no more the pretty laces,
Florals found along the way.
Brackish forms in darker traces,
Longer shadows, shorter day.
Autumn wears its gown of orange
Trampling out the summer’s green.
Skunks and jays and squirrels forage,
Welcome soon a wintry scene.
Carole Mertz, a professional musician, turned to writing ten years ago. She has recent poems at Indiana Voice Journal, Rockford Review, Kind of a Hurricane Press, Pyrokinection, The Write Place at the Write Time, and in forthcoming anthologies. Her poems won several Wilda Morris Poetry Challenges in 2015. Carole resides with her husband in Parma, OH.
This is just too much.
The only formal prose that Shakespeare wrote was his will, the prologue to his poem “The Rape of Lucrece,” and his short dedication of “Venus and Adonis” to Henry Wriothesley. When Eliot refers to Shakepeare’s “prose” he means those non-metrical passages scattered here and there in the plays in places where blank verse is inappropriate or not required — usually stichomythic dialogue. Milton and Dryden, other the other hand, did in fact produce a great deal of sophisticated and polished prose in the strict sense of the word. I love Milton’s muscular Latinate prose style, even though he was a vicious anti-Catholic.
As for Bruce Wise’s taste in prose, well… de gustibus non est disputandum, I suppose. But Clive James? Really? That posturing yuk-yuk journalism with a gag-line in every third sentence? This is to be compared with T.S. Eliot? You gotta be kidding, Bruce.
And Winston Churchill and Will Durant? Those churners-out of monumental potboilers on the installment plan? Good grief!
Wittgenstein, the Austro-British logician of theoretical complexities, and Russell, the mathematician turned left-liberal propagandist? You’re comparing these guys with writers who can produce exquisite and pellucid English prose? Thanks, but no thanks.
And one final thing: Yes, I consider my opinion on these matters to be objectively correct. That is true for anyone who holds an opinion on anything. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be his opinion.
1.Though Mr. Salemi disagrees with T. S. Eliot on the quality of William Shakespeare’s prose, I do not. Here are a couple of examples. The first is from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In Act II, scene ii, when Hamlet says,
“I have of late – but wherefore I know not – lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercise; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory. This most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire – why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.”
the immediacy of Hamlet’s feelings are brought forth in remarkable prose.
2. And though this piece, and the prose throughout Hamlet, is worthy of greater discussion, let me proceed to Macbeth, Act V, scene i, Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene. There is too much prose in this scene to analyze more in a brief comment, like this, however, notice Lady Macbeth’s first lengthier piece.
“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.”
Lady Macbeth is unconsciouly upset. In the first sentence she is attempting to wash her hands, physically, and spiritually. Her second sentence, an emotional command, shows the helplessness of royal power. The phrase “One-two” echoes throughout the play, but one place is when the bell is rung in preparation for the murder of King Duncan. Her comment on hell shades the entire play, but particularly her life at this moment. Next she is arguing with her husband. Why is the brave Scottish warrior so frightened? Next, in confidentiality, she whispers to her husband about their ability to hide the deed. But then that horrid, perhaps also ironic, last sentence, at least a reference to King Duncan, shows her internal terror of the actions she and her husband have taken.
This prose is not only indicative of her mental derangement, but it remarkably echoes the motifs of the entire play. Shakespeare does so much in his prose. This is certainly not stichomythia. This demonstrates one of the capacities of great prose, its ability to reverberate throughout an entire verbal structure.
3. From Macbeth, I could also choose the porter’s doubly and trebly rich prose, from which our modern “knock-knock” jokes arise. In fact, there are dozens of examples of brilliance prose passages throughout the plays. The Merry Wives of Windsor, in fact, is about 5/6 prose.
4. Moving on. I don’t know if Mr. Salemi noticed this, but I did not compare T. S. Eliot’s prose to that of Clive James; I compared John Simon’s prose to that of Clive James. I’m not even sure but that I might suggest that even Mr. Salemi’s own prose may be better than that of John Simon’s. I would rather read Van Wyck Brooks than John Simon, even Tom Wolfe, [who wrote in the same vein as Liza Minelli looks likes a beagle…], and the names just go on.
5. I just chose two Modernist historians at random, implying there are others in contention. But I find the prose of the great orator and statesman Winston Churchill noteworthy, because he was in the midst of history, and I chose the Francophile “monumental potboiler on the installment plan” [nice phrase] of Will Durant partly because of his large view of history, which unfortunately only got to Napoleon, and the clearness of his writing.
6. Again, I just chose two Modernist philosophers at random. I do like Russell’s prose, despite his insipid politics [I agree with Mr. Salemi here.]; but his accomplishments, particularly in logic, add to his prose a real strength, a power Eliot’s prose never attained. In the philosophic realm, Russell’s is the most limpid prose I can think of; Eliot’s prose doesn’t come anywhere near it, if we are talking “pellucid”. Wittgenstein’s prose is not pellucid, but it is remarkable. My main point is that T. S. Eliot did not write history, or philosophy; his prose did not achieve those arenas, as well as many others.
7. By Mr. Salemi’s “reasoning,” if I really do think Mr. Salemi’s views are bombastic, then my view that Mr. Salemi’s views are bombastic must be objectively correct. Hmm.
Am I dealing with undergraduates here?
Non-metrical speech in a dramatic situation IS NOT FORMAL PROSE. It is simply speech put into the mouth of a fictional character.
The value of any formal prose is NOT BASED ON ITS SUBJECT MATTER. World War II doesn’t make Churchill”s prose any better, and “a large view of history” doesn’t make Durant’s prose any better. I’m amazed that I have to explain this.
Eliot was a literary critic, not a historian or a philosopher (though he did do a scholarly dissertation on Bradley at Harvard). Wise assumes that your prose has to deal with big windy subjects if it is to be really good. That’s absurd. But as a matter of fact, Eliot’s prose writings contain a great many important political, social, cultural, and religious judgments.
If you prefer Clive James to John Simon, that’s fine. We can agree to disagree. But I don’t think I would let you make up the reading list for my Advanced Composition class.
You think (as everyone else thinks) that your personal opinions are objectively correct. That doesn’t mean that they actually are. Don’t try to pull that dime-store relativism here.
1. Ad hominum.
2. Eliot never mentioned “formal” prose.
3. I am not amazed I must point out that content matters.
4. Yes, that is the point.
5. More ad hominum.
6. Mr. Salemi: “I consider my opinion on these matters to be objective fact.”
7. Done.
You mean “ad hominem,” with an e.
Dear Bruce–
1. Rhetoric is not Ad hominum, especially in this case.
2. Why should Eliot have any need to mention “formal” prose? Surely, he expected educated folk to know the difference. (see: Hemingway)
3. Philosophy buffs bloviate on all kinds of subjects. Content matters in context only, wouldn’t you say?
4. Point taken, but not made.
You can’t be serious comparing James to Simon. That would be like comparing apples to avocados.
5. The gulf between Ad hom and rhetoric is fairly vast. I vote for rhetoric.
6. Well, Bruce, he is a professor trusted in the realm, no matter what you personally think of him.
7. That relativism thingy keeps popping its ugly head up. It’s why we play: Whack-a-Mole.
An appeal against the man, or his character, is an “argumentum ad hominem”. It is a corruption of thought, one that Mr. Salemi, the so-called “professor trusted in the realm”, frequently indulges in. It is neither good, nor thoughtful.
Personally, I would be ecstatic for Dr. Salemi to call me an Undergraduate.
Secondly, opinions are like **sholes, everybody has one. Some opinions are more thoughtful than others. However, educated opinions aren’t merely opinions to be dismissed out of hand because they are aimed at someone who takes offense at them. Dr. Salemi’s apparent frustration was rich in rhetoric. He could have made it really personal and called someone a dumb-ass. In his response, he teaches and is chiding because what he said shouldn’t have to have been said.
I know a good plastic surgeon, if you need a skin graft.
Yes, Mr. Case’s Latin is off. Mr. Salemi got the misspelling: ad hominem, third declension, nominative, homo.
Though I find Mr. Southerland’s poetry more interesting than most at this benighted moment in history, and I can see he is working on his prose; statements, like he would be “ecstatic” at Mr. Salemi calling him an undergraduate, reminds me of the excesses of the __________ (fill in the blank).
Mr. Southerland points out that some opinions are more thoughtful than others. Now that is rich…and deep… But I would not say that Mr. Salemi’s rhetoric matches that of, say, Pomponius Mela, in his “De Chorographia”.
As for a needing a skin graft, I do not need a skin graft, I have never needed a skin graft, and I have no intention of needing a skin graft any time soon, or as a matter of fact, ever. I have decided skin grafts are right out.