Muse poetry is composed at the back of the mind: an unaccountable product of a trance in which the emotions of love, fear, anger, or grief are profoundly engaged, though at the same time powerfully disciplined; in which intuitive thought reigns supralogically, and personal rhythm subdues metre to its purposes. The effect on the readers of Muse poetry, which its opposite poles of ecstasy and melancholia, is what the French call a frisson, and the Scots call a ‘grue’—meaning the shudder provoked by fearful or supernatural experiences.
—Robert Graves, “The Dedicated Poet,” Oxford Addresses on Poetry (Doubleday & Co., 1962)
1 comment:
"intuitive thought reigns supralogically, and personal rhythm subdues metre to its purposes"
That would explain some of the 'inconsistencies' that silly critics insist on pointing out in that most amazing of all literary works: Hamlet. And that 'grue' (new word to me; thanks), I experience it throughout Hamlet.
I experience a similar shudder at certain parts of Brideshead Revisited and Till We Have Faces. Both highly poetic, though not quite poetry. But I will bare Graves' words in mind next time I read them.
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