<<You are wise to restrict this position to prose.>>
Actually, nihil, I restrict it to expository prose. As I noted in later posts, when you get to imaginative prose (novels, plays, etc.), let alone poetry, there are different standards of excellence. And so you get the Ezra Pound controversy, to take only the most notorious example.
But -- are you telling me that you are moved by the words of the Marseillaise, when they are lying cold on the page, without the melody? Pretty awful stuff, I would say -- in style as well as content. Same goes for "Dixie."
I'm not that keen on the "Recessional" either, although it is of another order altogether, and does have some good lines. I am really not sure whether I personally can separate style from substance, even in poetry.
Joan |
