[Bill Ferny]

All simplicity aside, I would rather be called long winded than simple minded. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

There is no such thing as an objective artistic opinion, because art is the creation of beauty and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To say otherwise is to indulge a fallacy.

That’s a rather touchy issue for me, from a philosophical stand point. I remember way back in my infancy debating whether beauty was a transcendental in my sophomore year metaphysics class. The debate was so intense that it usurped two of poor Fr. Gonzales’ lectures. When we finally moved on to subsistence, no one, I think, was satisfied with the mixed opinions that was the fruit of the debate, at least among us who took the debate seriously… I distinctly remember my best friend snoozing in the back row.

At the time I sided with the group that claimed beauty was a transcendental, and beauty was not recognized and lack of beauty was mistaken for beauty, because of ignorance, fallen nature, and poor breeding (tongue-in-cheek). In other words, beauty is objective. Over the years, during post-graduate work (that included medieval aesthetics) and beyond into the real world of job and family life, my stand on the issue has fluctuated erratically, but I have always been inclined in the end to fall back on the objectivity of beauty. Perhaps this is because of the influences stemming from studying Romanesque and Gothic art and architecture with its emphasis on mathematical proportion, harmony and symmetry, and an obsessive interest in Saint Augustine’s De Musica.

Whether you agree that beauty is objective or not, doesn’t mean that the notion that beauty is objective is a fallacy, especially since there have been some very intelligent and prominent thinkers out there who would beg to differ with such a claim, or at least challenge it (i.e. Plato, Augustine, Fichte, Schelling, Lonergan, etc.).

This attitude is plainly evident in my taste regarding poetry. I’m much more inclined toward the sonnet than toward Walt Whitman or ee cumings, for example. However, in moments of wanton rebellion, I can be found browsing a book of poetry by Jewel. I guess, then what I’m saying, is that even though I accept that beauty is essentially an objective reality, the Dasein, the individual human intellect, is able, according to its operation, to distinguish lower and higher desires in diverse ways, sometimes in contradiction with other individual human intellects. This mystery of the Dasein, however, does not change the nature of beauty, itself, that is it’s transcendental nature.

What does this have to do with literary criticism? Well, this, actually… all critics, no matter the media, must admit certain criteria by which they criticize. That criteria has to be objective in order to be a relevant tool for criticism. I’m not a literary critic, so I’m not going to attempt to catalog this objective criteria. But I have had enough literature classes to know there definitely is such a criteria (much to my school boy chagrin). These are the standards by which poetry is judged. Granted these standards have a tendency to change often, usually due to revolutions initiated by the poets, themselves. However, they still remain standards that distinguish the Man from Nantucket poems from Shakespearean sonnets (that often contain rather similar subject matter). I think if we seriously approach Tolkien’s poetry employing such criteria, then I doubt his poetry will be judged as good as Yeats or Hopkins. That’s not to say his poetry by the same criteria is horrible, just not as good. There’s no insult in that. At any rate, what an honor to be compared to Yeats in the first place!

I am very concerned that some people are posting opinions in this thread about Tolkien's poetry and its quality relative to that of other poets, and freely admitting in the same post that they do not read poetry. Surely this completely invalidates any opinion they might have, due to the absence of any background knowledge of the subject.

I may be guilty of this. Fact of the matter is, is that while I have my favorites that I re-read often, I really don’t read that much poetry. I am trying, however, to speak from my experience, namely from my reading of those favorites (Hopkins, Tennyson, Browning, Byron, and yes, Jewel), and my vague remembrance of certain poets (Yeats and Frost) that for some reason I was forced to practically memorize in both high school and under-graduate days. If the truth be known, I would rather read a collection of essays regarding the sociological impact inspired by the invention of the wheeled plow than an anthology of poetry. Can you find it your heart to forgive me, Squatter?