Spectra |
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In the early years of the 20th Century, the European and American world
of arts and letters was a swarm of competing "schools," each with its
manifesto and its elaborate æsthetic theory. Some of these schools
were serious put-ons, others were serious and didn't consider
themselves put-ons, and others, like the Disumbrationist school of painting
and the Spectric school of poetry, were deliberate hoaxes poking fun at
the new artistic zoölogy.
"Our intent," wrote Spectrist "Emanuel Morgan" some time later, "was to satirize fussy pretence; and if we have in any degree focussed laughter on pomp and circumstance among poets we shall have had enough satisfaction in our fun." In 1916, the poets Witter Bynner and Arthur Davison Ficke invented the Spectric school of poetry and its main practitioners - Emanuel Morgan and Anne Knish. Their intent was to mock the pretensions of those who flocked to the avant-garde, but they immediately became so carried away in their enthusiasm for the invented school that, as Ficke put it, they risked "perishing at the hands of the monster which we had created." Some critics later said that the Spectral poems were of better quality than that of Bynner & Ficke's serious work. Bynner once remarked: "Once in a while we think so ourselves." One critic, trying to explain why critics appreciated such deliberately bad poetry, wrote that the authors had freed their poetic muse from the "conscious censor" and had thereby unintentionally made good poetry: "by conventional standards their serious verse is good - good but conscious, while their burlesques are the gleeful outpourings of their unrestrained, boyish selves." Some highlights along the way:
After the hoax had been exposed and the world of poetry had an opportunity to reflect on the affair, Carl Sandburg gave his opinion that "Spectra" (by which I think he meant the hoax as a whole rather than just the poetry) "is a piece of creative art." William Carlos Williams wrote: "I was completely taken in by the hoax and while not subscribing in every case to the excellence of the poems admired them as a whole quite sincerely." If there is today any firm boundary remaining between art and parody, be sure that somewhere there is a jester dancing along that line, writing verses first on one side and then the other, wondering which side you'll read them from. See also: |
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Emanuel Morgan
DESPAIR comes when all comedy
Anne Knish
I WOULD not in the early morning
Emanuel Morgan
I ONLY know that you are given me
Anne Knish
HE'S the remnant of a suit that has been drowned;
Emanuel Morgan
BESIDE the brink of dream |
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