This chapter looks at how, since the millennium, certain trends in Anglophone poetry have echoed ... more This chapter looks at how, since the millennium, certain trends in Anglophone poetry have echoed the ‘turn’ in Western art music away from what we might think of as mid-century ‘scholasticism’ towards such conventional musical rewards as readily detectable patterning, or euphony. Artistic credibility and a response by non-specialist audiences no longer appear inimical. It has once again become possible to develop serious original work using traditional verse forms such as the ballad, or musical tropes as familiar as the rising or falling scale on which Arvo Pärt's famous Fratres is built. This shift, from the complex and unfamiliar to material that is distilled and empirically accessible, makes us ask whether it is cultural conditioning, or some innate human capacity, that lets us experience certain tropes as more accessible than others.
This chapter examines the uses of chromaticism in music and poetry. Chromaticism is a concept dra... more This chapter examines the uses of chromaticism in music and poetry. Chromaticism is a concept drawn from Western Classical music, and refers to the tonal or harmonic variations in terms of colour. Chromaticism is guilty of revealing how porous the boundaries are between a work of art and the social conditions under which that work was produced. But it also reveals something about the musical project itself. But the concept goes much further than that. In the context of Western music and poetry, ‘chromatic’ can mean not merely what is formally disobedient, but more broadly whatever is put in the poem for sensory, rather than grammatical or denotative, reasons. Chromaticism represents a principle of ‘give’ — of flavour, or even of deviation — within poetic language, and this principle has a number of aspects.
<p>This chapter considers the <italic>Gesamtkunstwerk</italic>, which English m... more <p>This chapter considers the <italic>Gesamtkunstwerk</italic>, which English musicologists translate as 'total artwork'. Richard Wagner had used the expression to characterise his operas, though he had only ever used the term in two essays, both published in 1849: 'Art and Revolution' and 'The Artwork of the Future'. Moreover, the term did not originate from Wagner himself, and he did not even spell it in the conventional way. Since the late twentieth century '<italic>Gesamtkunstwerk</italic>' has been applied to other artforms, particularly architecture, which like opera can unite a number of elements. (Architecture, for example, marries engineering, landscaping and interior decoration, among others.) But the term's origins are in the late eighteenth-century notion that all the arts could be unified in poetry.</p>
This chapter explores the abstract form in poetry. For a poet, the notion that abstract form — no... more This chapter explores the abstract form in poetry. For a poet, the notion that abstract form — not ‘meaning’, but pure shape — can play a key role in what they write is seductive. On the one hand, it implies the possibility of developing and experimenting with the kinds of sophisticated formal patterning that we traditionally associate with verse, such as the way stanzas ‘chunk’ a ballad's story, or a rhyme scheme creates a network of meanings that crisscross and link up within a poem. On the other hand, it also appeals to something more primitive. For it suggests that poets can — and perhaps even should — do what could best be described as ‘play’. It implies that they might ‘go by feel’, making judgements — for example about where to end a piece — that are not based purely on semantic logic but pay attention to what ‘feels right for’, or ‘works for’, the poem.
The "European Atlas of Lyrics Award" for the year 2017 goes to Russian poet Vyacheslav Kupriyanov... more The "European Atlas of Lyrics Award" for the year 2017 goes to Russian poet Vyacheslav Kupriyanov for his entire literary output. The Jury took into account the quality of his poetic opus and the poet's enormous contribution to the development of free verse in Russia. The Jury was comprised of the following members: Ms Fiona Sampson, poet, essayist, professor, and translator from London; Ms Tanja Kragujevic, poet, essayist, and translator from Belgrade; Mr Milenko Stojicǐc, poet, prose writer, essayist, and anthologist; and Mr Zdravko Kecman, poet, prose writer, essayist, and translator from Banja Luka. The Jury came to their decision unanimously. If the reader is a kind of travellera traveller of the mindthen the writers we encounter on the page must be the places we travel to. Some of these places are
Poured water flexes and twists a body is poured over itself skin over ribs and muscle creamy bloo... more Poured water flexes and twists a body is poured over itself skin over ribs and muscle creamy bloom rising up through the skin bone-milk * My name is water says the ghost of water pooling as sweat in the dent of your shoulder laying a net of salt on the tongue...
... Salman Rushdie, who so famously explored his Islamic cultural roots, is a British citizen. ..... more ... Salman Rushdie, who so famously explored his Islamic cultural roots, is a British citizen. ... al 2003) produced a special poster series of poems from within the existing European Union with Foreign Office support in 2003, the Arts Council-funded Poems in Waiting Rooms (Alvi et al ...
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 2006
... Heidegger and the Aporia: Translation and Cultural Authenticity. ... View all references). ..... more ... Heidegger and the Aporia: Translation and Cultural Authenticity. ... View all references). ... Their identity – however actual in terms of, for example, territorial division – is always created by ways of thinking both within and about the group. ...
Frankenstein, whose bicentenary falls in the present year (2018), was published at first anonymou... more Frankenstein, whose bicentenary falls in the present year (2018), was published at first anonymously. Perhaps, then, a biography of its author, Mary Shelley, speaks more loudly to the significance of this bicentennial anniversary than any commemoration of the novel itself. And part of what makes Fiona Sampson's In Search of Mary Shelley such an astoundingly compelling read is that the attitude and voice that guide the reader-through what is very much a work of archaeology, a speculative but still highly definitive reconstruction of a life-are so aptly searching, inquisitive. Even if in her 'Introduction' Sampson seems to disparage the notion of (fictionalising) 'reconstruction' as the way to go, warning us, readers, that we'll be able to go straight to the source (using sources, as she does, with real dexterity)-I would still venture that for all its realism, Sampson's biography leaves the reader with the same colourful, brilliant imaginative impression more typically associated with poetry or drama. Tallying with much of her oeuvre to date-whether as editor of eminent poetry outlets, such as Poetry Review and, now, Routledge's POEM (as well as of a slim edition of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poetry, published by Faber in 2011), or as poet and critic-Sampson is effortlessly empathic in her approach to Mary Shelley's life. She wants, as always, to understand from the inside, without ever losing focus on her subject's gripping biographical trajectory. Indeed, part of what makes this biography so unique, is that it out-romanticises in some ways 'Romanticism'. Which is to say, looking, searching for the inner-truths of her subject, Sampson's biography does not stay unduly riveted on the romantic movement, on which there is of course much extant fare; her approach is more centred on the individuality of Mary Shelley, both as intellectual and creative artist and as a woman in the early nineteenth century. Much like the Mary Shelley whose Frankenstein was part of a modernising 'turn to the subject', emphasising the meanings of motives and intentions more than the scaffolding of dramatic plot or events, Sampson inhabits the personae of her tale, and her empathy, like Mary Shelley's for her own characters, becomes ours, seamlessly. Indeed, one of the most telling literary devices, however implicitly deployed, in this at times highly filmic biography involves the signal dovetailing of alternating focalisation of public events and of personal ones-whether Sampson is going from historical, political or cultural contexts (such as the rise of the Gothic, or the Napoleonic wars) to personal journal entries or letter citations; or, simply moving from the topography of a home, the play of light in a room, say, to the topography of the mind of one of her found characters. For instance, that the chiaroscuro of the Godwin (Shelley's father's) home might have subliminal reach into Mary's Gothic masterpiece, is indeed a fresh insight for a biographer to broach. Like the Frankenstein of her biographical subject, Sampson's tale moves between frames, meant both serially and structurally. And this deft movement is a manumission, allowing us into, or perhaps better, through lives, especially Mary Shelley's-in what is a rigorous attempt to eschew teleologically-closed narrative. As in much of her critical work (such as Beyond the Lyric, Chatto & Windus, 2012, a detailed reconnaissance of the different 'schools' on the contemporary British poetry scene,
This chapter looks at how, since the millennium, certain trends in Anglophone poetry have echoed ... more This chapter looks at how, since the millennium, certain trends in Anglophone poetry have echoed the ‘turn’ in Western art music away from what we might think of as mid-century ‘scholasticism’ towards such conventional musical rewards as readily detectable patterning, or euphony. Artistic credibility and a response by non-specialist audiences no longer appear inimical. It has once again become possible to develop serious original work using traditional verse forms such as the ballad, or musical tropes as familiar as the rising or falling scale on which Arvo Pärt's famous Fratres is built. This shift, from the complex and unfamiliar to material that is distilled and empirically accessible, makes us ask whether it is cultural conditioning, or some innate human capacity, that lets us experience certain tropes as more accessible than others.
This chapter examines the uses of chromaticism in music and poetry. Chromaticism is a concept dra... more This chapter examines the uses of chromaticism in music and poetry. Chromaticism is a concept drawn from Western Classical music, and refers to the tonal or harmonic variations in terms of colour. Chromaticism is guilty of revealing how porous the boundaries are between a work of art and the social conditions under which that work was produced. But it also reveals something about the musical project itself. But the concept goes much further than that. In the context of Western music and poetry, ‘chromatic’ can mean not merely what is formally disobedient, but more broadly whatever is put in the poem for sensory, rather than grammatical or denotative, reasons. Chromaticism represents a principle of ‘give’ — of flavour, or even of deviation — within poetic language, and this principle has a number of aspects.
<p>This chapter considers the <italic>Gesamtkunstwerk</italic>, which English m... more <p>This chapter considers the <italic>Gesamtkunstwerk</italic>, which English musicologists translate as 'total artwork'. Richard Wagner had used the expression to characterise his operas, though he had only ever used the term in two essays, both published in 1849: 'Art and Revolution' and 'The Artwork of the Future'. Moreover, the term did not originate from Wagner himself, and he did not even spell it in the conventional way. Since the late twentieth century '<italic>Gesamtkunstwerk</italic>' has been applied to other artforms, particularly architecture, which like opera can unite a number of elements. (Architecture, for example, marries engineering, landscaping and interior decoration, among others.) But the term's origins are in the late eighteenth-century notion that all the arts could be unified in poetry.</p>
This chapter explores the abstract form in poetry. For a poet, the notion that abstract form — no... more This chapter explores the abstract form in poetry. For a poet, the notion that abstract form — not ‘meaning’, but pure shape — can play a key role in what they write is seductive. On the one hand, it implies the possibility of developing and experimenting with the kinds of sophisticated formal patterning that we traditionally associate with verse, such as the way stanzas ‘chunk’ a ballad's story, or a rhyme scheme creates a network of meanings that crisscross and link up within a poem. On the other hand, it also appeals to something more primitive. For it suggests that poets can — and perhaps even should — do what could best be described as ‘play’. It implies that they might ‘go by feel’, making judgements — for example about where to end a piece — that are not based purely on semantic logic but pay attention to what ‘feels right for’, or ‘works for’, the poem.
The "European Atlas of Lyrics Award" for the year 2017 goes to Russian poet Vyacheslav Kupriyanov... more The "European Atlas of Lyrics Award" for the year 2017 goes to Russian poet Vyacheslav Kupriyanov for his entire literary output. The Jury took into account the quality of his poetic opus and the poet's enormous contribution to the development of free verse in Russia. The Jury was comprised of the following members: Ms Fiona Sampson, poet, essayist, professor, and translator from London; Ms Tanja Kragujevic, poet, essayist, and translator from Belgrade; Mr Milenko Stojicǐc, poet, prose writer, essayist, and anthologist; and Mr Zdravko Kecman, poet, prose writer, essayist, and translator from Banja Luka. The Jury came to their decision unanimously. If the reader is a kind of travellera traveller of the mindthen the writers we encounter on the page must be the places we travel to. Some of these places are
Poured water flexes and twists a body is poured over itself skin over ribs and muscle creamy bloo... more Poured water flexes and twists a body is poured over itself skin over ribs and muscle creamy bloom rising up through the skin bone-milk * My name is water says the ghost of water pooling as sweat in the dent of your shoulder laying a net of salt on the tongue...
... Salman Rushdie, who so famously explored his Islamic cultural roots, is a British citizen. ..... more ... Salman Rushdie, who so famously explored his Islamic cultural roots, is a British citizen. ... al 2003) produced a special poster series of poems from within the existing European Union with Foreign Office support in 2003, the Arts Council-funded Poems in Waiting Rooms (Alvi et al ...
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 2006
... Heidegger and the Aporia: Translation and Cultural Authenticity. ... View all references). ..... more ... Heidegger and the Aporia: Translation and Cultural Authenticity. ... View all references). ... Their identity – however actual in terms of, for example, territorial division – is always created by ways of thinking both within and about the group. ...
Frankenstein, whose bicentenary falls in the present year (2018), was published at first anonymou... more Frankenstein, whose bicentenary falls in the present year (2018), was published at first anonymously. Perhaps, then, a biography of its author, Mary Shelley, speaks more loudly to the significance of this bicentennial anniversary than any commemoration of the novel itself. And part of what makes Fiona Sampson's In Search of Mary Shelley such an astoundingly compelling read is that the attitude and voice that guide the reader-through what is very much a work of archaeology, a speculative but still highly definitive reconstruction of a life-are so aptly searching, inquisitive. Even if in her 'Introduction' Sampson seems to disparage the notion of (fictionalising) 'reconstruction' as the way to go, warning us, readers, that we'll be able to go straight to the source (using sources, as she does, with real dexterity)-I would still venture that for all its realism, Sampson's biography leaves the reader with the same colourful, brilliant imaginative impression more typically associated with poetry or drama. Tallying with much of her oeuvre to date-whether as editor of eminent poetry outlets, such as Poetry Review and, now, Routledge's POEM (as well as of a slim edition of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poetry, published by Faber in 2011), or as poet and critic-Sampson is effortlessly empathic in her approach to Mary Shelley's life. She wants, as always, to understand from the inside, without ever losing focus on her subject's gripping biographical trajectory. Indeed, part of what makes this biography so unique, is that it out-romanticises in some ways 'Romanticism'. Which is to say, looking, searching for the inner-truths of her subject, Sampson's biography does not stay unduly riveted on the romantic movement, on which there is of course much extant fare; her approach is more centred on the individuality of Mary Shelley, both as intellectual and creative artist and as a woman in the early nineteenth century. Much like the Mary Shelley whose Frankenstein was part of a modernising 'turn to the subject', emphasising the meanings of motives and intentions more than the scaffolding of dramatic plot or events, Sampson inhabits the personae of her tale, and her empathy, like Mary Shelley's for her own characters, becomes ours, seamlessly. Indeed, one of the most telling literary devices, however implicitly deployed, in this at times highly filmic biography involves the signal dovetailing of alternating focalisation of public events and of personal ones-whether Sampson is going from historical, political or cultural contexts (such as the rise of the Gothic, or the Napoleonic wars) to personal journal entries or letter citations; or, simply moving from the topography of a home, the play of light in a room, say, to the topography of the mind of one of her found characters. For instance, that the chiaroscuro of the Godwin (Shelley's father's) home might have subliminal reach into Mary's Gothic masterpiece, is indeed a fresh insight for a biographer to broach. Like the Frankenstein of her biographical subject, Sampson's tale moves between frames, meant both serially and structurally. And this deft movement is a manumission, allowing us into, or perhaps better, through lives, especially Mary Shelley's-in what is a rigorous attempt to eschew teleologically-closed narrative. As in much of her critical work (such as Beyond the Lyric, Chatto & Windus, 2012, a detailed reconnaissance of the different 'schools' on the contemporary British poetry scene,
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