On Context
Been picking away since December at a volume of Anna Akhmatova's poetry in translation (this new blog takes its name from the publisher of just this volume) and had, this morning, a thought about context and poetry -- I think specifically poetry, though I haven't sorted the matter through entirely -- my intention for this space is that it be used for the sorting-through of thoughts on books I'm reading. This space is doomed, on the evidence of all my previous Blogspot beginnings. And yet! For a long time the New Critics held sway -- I don't think they've ever entirely gone away, nor do I really think they should be relegated completely; "what, without its context, is this?" remains a good question to ask, sometimes. (I'd even make a case, if this were a music page instead of a book one, that the New Critics retain their strongest hold on discourse in music crit, where subjective critique without reference to theory is certainly the dominant mode as far...