Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site proper.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!qantel!intelca!proper!judith
From: judith@proper.UUCP (Judith Abrahms)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Good First SF stories
Message-ID: <350@proper.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 10-Oct-85 05:11:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: proper.350
Posted: Thu Oct 10 05:11:10 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 15-Oct-85 20:35:32 EDT
References: <274@dspo.UUCP> <>
Reply-To: judith@proper.UUCP (judith)
Distribution: net
Organization: Proper UNIX, Oakland CA
Lines: 32

In article <> brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) writes:
>> I had an English teacher who was felt that that
>> no great English literature had been written since the
>> time of Milton.  She didn't mean that  nothing worth 
>> reading had been written, just nothing exceptionally good.
>> Her opinion of science fiction was extremely low.  
>> 							-Castor Fu
>> 							ihnp4!lanl!dspo!fu
>
>Interesting.  I know someone who has taught English.  She
>has an MA, with a Shakespear specialty.  She also feels
>that no great literature has been written since, approxamatly,
>Milton.  She feels the exceptions are mostly found in Science Fiction,
>Mysteries, and children's books.
>
>			-- SKZB

One of the most interesting remarks in the critical works of T.S. Eliot is that
John Milton did greater harm to English poetry than any poet who ever lived.
His tortured fake-Latin syntax was considered terrifically Classical by some
influential people, and was emulated by poets who might have written great
straightforward work in English, which (as many of you know) is a Germanic
language with a lot of borrowings from Latin.  This headlong rush into spurious
linguistic elegance lasted for centuries, was deflected for a while by the
strenuous efforts of Pound, Eliot, Joyce, and various other modernists, began
once again to gather steam as these three (each with his own peculiar brand of
difficult classicism, in fact) lost followers.  Then classicism collapsed for
good, for obvious reasons, when we lost Western civilization and general
literacy.  But I digress.

Judith Abrahms
{ucbvax,ihnp4}!dual!proper!judith