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bookwomble's review
I enjoyed some of Marvell's early pastoral verse, pushed through ten verses about his aristocratic patron's house and garden, and balked at the prospect of another 90 panegyric verses about m'lord's other, presumably nine-times-more-splendid, gaff. With more prospect-balking in consideration of poems extolling Cromwell's genocidal campaigns in Ireland, I gave it up in default of having world enough, and time.
torts's review against another edition
3.0
The beautiful little book seemed to call to me from the library shelf. Less than 6 inches tall, its blue fabric would seem nakedly dustjacketless if it weren't for the golden title and accompanying little swirly design on the spine. Thick yellowing pages, with thread peeping through and the imprints of the typeface showing through even with those thick pages...And then there's the preface, written over a century ago, in which Aitken refers to being "a scholar at the old Grammar School at Hull" in 1872. And the introduction, detailing Marvell's life, which speaks to a time before the New Critics' insistence that we ignore authorial intent and biographical information had caught on...I think. Though the emphasis on Marvell's satirical writing, and on the importance of understanding context for correcting the work that was clearly written to be read in that context and which had been improperly preserved, makes this emphasis valid even in a more New Critical light.
Notes on the specific edition aside, I'm not a huge fan of Marvell's actual poetry. The simple rhyme scheme doesn't seem to hold complex or compelling content. The imagery is bland, and the messages are kind of what you'd expect reading the poetry of an old dead white guy. Not the clever, crude, funny, or otherwise surprising old writing you might find with Shakespeare, or Donne, or Jonson, or Herrick...just to name a few.
That said, I did like "A Dialogue Between the Soul and Body." Probably because it broke up the tired rhyme schemes and skim-over-able metrical regularity to say something pious in a new and somewhat unexpected way. And "Royal Resolutions" seemed like an interesting piece of satire.
Notes on the specific edition aside, I'm not a huge fan of Marvell's actual poetry. The simple rhyme scheme doesn't seem to hold complex or compelling content. The imagery is bland, and the messages are kind of what you'd expect reading the poetry of an old dead white guy. Not the clever, crude, funny, or otherwise surprising old writing you might find with Shakespeare, or Donne, or Jonson, or Herrick...just to name a few.
That said, I did like "A Dialogue Between the Soul and Body." Probably because it broke up the tired rhyme schemes and skim-over-able metrical regularity to say something pious in a new and somewhat unexpected way. And "Royal Resolutions" seemed like an interesting piece of satire.
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