I hate the fact that I can't talk about poetry (at GCSE's) the way I want to talk about poetry. Like, in Extract from The Prelude, I CAN'T TALK ABOUT THE FACT THAT THE WHOLE POEM IS ONE BIG METAPHOR FOR HIM HAVING HIS FIRST WANK. ITS SO BLATANTLY OBVIOUS, BUT NO. WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THE SUBLIME, WHAT UTTER BULLSHIT. MANS WAS TRYING TO CONVEY HIS MESSAGE TO THE PEOPLE (the prelude being his sorta biography of poetry) JUST TO GET TURNED DOWN BY 21ST CENTURY ENGLISH TEACHERS BC THAT'S TOO SENSITIVE OF A TOPIC, WE CAN'T TEACH THE KIDS THAT. WELL TOO BAD, BC I CAN'T READ THIS FREAKING POEM WITHOUT CRASHING OUT BC I. WANT. TO. USE. THE. PROPER. CONTEXT.
The sublime is a load of crap in this scenario, I mean, "it was an act of stealth, and troubled pleasure", "a huge peak, black and huge", "upreared it's head. I struck and struck again, and growing still in staturethe grim shape towered between me and the stars still, for so it seemed, with purpose of its own, and measured motion like a living thing" LIKE, COME ON!! "That spectacle, for many days, my brain worked with a dim and underdetermined sense of unknown modes of being"
I hate this poem, not just because of how long and boring it is, but also because I would get so many more marks if I could just talk about the other context of the poem.
Maybe this is a unique experience? Anyone else pissed off/at least mildly bothered by this too?
