I’ve never warmed to Shelley as a man, and when I’ve tried reading his poetry in bulk I’ve found the process curiously unsatisfying. This is odd: his writing shows staggering verbal power, and he clearly was a man of great intelligence as well as of what seem to me inspiring general principles. Let the psychologist, novelist or biographer explore relations between his genius and what seem like his emotional deficiencies. I want to glance at one tiny splinter illustrating his enormous gifts: not for the moment the superb ‘Ozymandias’, but a line from ‘Ode to the West Wind’ in which … Continue Reading

Like chemical weed killers, critical principles become destructive when they spread too widely. Take the idea that wherever possible the writer should show and not tell. It’s an excellent editing tool when applied appropriately, and any number of fine poems seem to draw much of their strength from how completely they embody it. We looked at an example in a very good class I went to last week, Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”. But a few seconds’ thought will show how much the field of possible utterance would be narrowed for poetry if “show, don’t tell” were adopted as a … Continue Reading