I think he's often associated with the New Criticism school, although his theories are clearly more nuanced than that. He does share in common with them the idea of the imitative fallacy, which the New Critics like Tate and Ransom did talk about.
Really! I wonder why he is associated with the New Critics? His first criterion, the necessity of biography and history, goes against their principles.
"Winters...participated in the major poetic and critical movements of the 20th century—imagism, the expatriate transition scene, and new criticism—from afar..."
"He may also be remembered as a special kind of new critic, one who believed the text was integral, but who also argued that understanding its context was morally and philosophically necessary."
I'd agree too, although there are certainly poets who played with form that I enjoy. But you're right it's where it's lead to... an obsession with breaking and playing with form instead of using it at all. An abandonment of rationale and motive, of any sense of objectivity.
I think he'd call much of Stevens ornate. He prefers the poems with more sense in them, like Sunday Morning, to the highly fanciful ones, which he sees as self-parody.
There's an afterward in one of his essays regarding Stevens The Necessary Angel, which hadn't come out when Winters was writing. He says the book only proved his point about the sort of corner Stevens had painted himself into by focusing exclusively on the imagination as the source of all reality. Or something like that.
Good for you, Robert, for keeping the likes of Winters alive today. After reading a few of his poems today, I found them less formal than expected, an observation which is an observation, not a criticism.
Thanks Marcus. His earlier work was very much the imagistic, fragmentary style of the modernists of the time (Eliot and Pound) but after 1930 he switched his style to traditional verse. He was particularly found of heroic couplets, which he writes about in one of his essays as the form with the most versatility and potential.
Winters is right to call confused expressions to express confusion sophistry. So much better to have a speaker sound sure and have the read/audience know better.
Winters is right that confused writing about confused is sophistry (or just more confusion). So much better to have a speaker sound sure while the reader/audience knows that is not the case.
My first observation is that he is contrary to Formalism and New Criticism, and closer to Historicism—which I like.
I think he's often associated with the New Criticism school, although his theories are clearly more nuanced than that. He does share in common with them the idea of the imitative fallacy, which the New Critics like Tate and Ransom did talk about.
Really! I wonder why he is associated with the New Critics? His first criterion, the necessity of biography and history, goes against their principles.
Yeah. I think he's just grouped with them because he was of that time and knew those people.
The poetryfoundation.org entry has these two comments:
"Winters...participated in the major poetic and critical movements of the 20th century—imagism, the expatriate transition scene, and new criticism—from afar..."
"He may also be remembered as a special kind of new critic, one who believed the text was integral, but who also argued that understanding its context was morally and philosophically necessary."
That seems like a pretty fair assessment.
That is unacceptable
'His conclusion is that a poetry that tends toward the formless is a mistake.'
I'm inclined to agree, but then I would...
I would say the greatest criticism of the tendency towards formlessness - necessary though that experiment was - is where it has got us today.
Ironic though (and very telling) that the poets he singles out (e.g. Stevens, who I love) look positively *ornate* by today's standards!
I'd agree too, although there are certainly poets who played with form that I enjoy. But you're right it's where it's lead to... an obsession with breaking and playing with form instead of using it at all. An abandonment of rationale and motive, of any sense of objectivity.
I think he'd call much of Stevens ornate. He prefers the poems with more sense in them, like Sunday Morning, to the highly fanciful ones, which he sees as self-parody.
Agree about Stevens. Surprised Winters thought this man of poetic theory was not rational enough.
There's an afterward in one of his essays regarding Stevens The Necessary Angel, which hadn't come out when Winters was writing. He says the book only proved his point about the sort of corner Stevens had painted himself into by focusing exclusively on the imagination as the source of all reality. Or something like that.
Good for you, Robert, for keeping the likes of Winters alive today. After reading a few of his poems today, I found them less formal than expected, an observation which is an observation, not a criticism.
Thanks Marcus. His earlier work was very much the imagistic, fragmentary style of the modernists of the time (Eliot and Pound) but after 1930 he switched his style to traditional verse. He was particularly found of heroic couplets, which he writes about in one of his essays as the form with the most versatility and potential.
Winters is right to call confused expressions to express confusion sophistry. So much better to have a speaker sound sure and have the read/audience know better.
Winters is right that confused writing about confused is sophistry (or just more confusion). So much better to have a speaker sound sure while the reader/audience knows that is not the case.