18th century opera is packed with emotion, but contains not a trace of kitsch. Only with the 'thees' and 'thous' of Victorian poetry does the disease begin to grow in our poetic tradition.
Robert Browning - I like his dramatic revelations, his allegorical form.
All of Victorian verse is pentameter.
Tennyson seems to be the patron saint of the wishy washies, which is perhaps why I admire him so much, not only as a poet, but as a man.
The kind of poetry to avoid in the pretty-pretty kind that pleased our grandmothers, the kind that Longfellow and Tennyson, good poets at their best, wrote at their worst.
Do you know, a horrible thing has happened to me. I have begun to doubt Tennyson.
Half a league Half a league Half a league onward With a hey-nonny-nonny And a hot cha-cha.
Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind, That loved his learning better than mankind, Though courteous to the worst; much falling he Brooded upon sanctity.
