I, on the other hand, don't mind talking about John Donne.         Does Marek seriously believe that Donne's value is of an         autobiographical nature? Or that Freud, who _base_d his         theories on observations of his own dreams and fantasies,         is merely an egocentric old gossip of a fortune-teller?         I disrespectfully submit, Marek, that your logical disability         causes you to utter much pernicious nonsense. Have you         considered the difference between a _meta_physical conceit         and the miles of dirty laundry posted on r.a.poems? Mikhail said not to mix life and writing.  Marek pointed out most of what we call poetry fails by this standard.  He is right.  You are trying to cloud the issue by refuting statements never made.  No one has suggested that Donne's value (or the value of any poetry) is of an autobiographical nature .  However, Donne did mix life and writing , and many would argue that his poetry is the better for it. If you seriously think that the real-life incidents in Donne's poetry are a _meta_physical conceit , you need to go back and read Donne and about Donne.  This idea can be justified only insofar as Donne pretty much invented _meta_physical poetry, so nearly anything he did could be called a conceit of the _style_.  Or perhaps you are referring to the ubiquitous use of the first person in his _Songs and Sonnets_, which some critics consider a stylistic convention influenced by the court poetry of an earlier age.  If so, you should be aware that Donne incorporated his personal experiences and explored his feelings in *all* his poetry.  Edwin Honig, in his introduction to _The Major _meta_physical Poets of the Seventeenth Century_, writes:         In Donne we have the fullest conceivable use made of         personal event and _style_.  His poetry gives as much of         a biographical sense of his life and character as we         can get, not only because Donne uses the actual details         and events of his life, but also because he treats         erotic and devotional themes with psychological accuracy,         not merely exploiting them because they are popular.  We         know, therefore, what he thought, how he felt about love,         marriage, and religion, and we know what troubled him. Here are the comments of several other authors on Donne (references omitted to avoid boring everyone to tears):         The appeal of Donne since the 1920's has been partly _base_d         on his honesty as a writer, the candid reporting of his         emotions...         When the bonds between men seem to have been broken or         to have become inimical to the integrity of private         personality, a private response is the most valuable.  We         shall see that just such an impulse underlies Donne's         early poetry and indeed continues to define _meta_physical         poetry.  We can readily appreciate how natural it was that         the immediate experience of an individual, especially the         transactions of his private heart, should have come to be         the major concern of poetry for several crucial decades.         This is sufficiently clear, even obvious, to any reader         of Donne.         In the religious poetry Donne explores his feelings towards         God just as, in the secular poetry, he explored his feelings         toward the beloved....In the religious poetry, as in the         secular, profound emotion works upon Donne's intellect not         as a narcotic but as a stimulant. The presence of the author's personal life is *not* the problem with poetry, whether on rap or elsewhere.  In suggesting that it is, Mikhail is pointing toward a dead end.  Instead of eschewing the mixing of life and writing, we should be *fostering* this mixing

Philip Nikolayev This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it cordially, mikhail This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes.

in itself; but as soon as a poem, through an intellectual effort, attains _object_ive value, its personal context becomes quite irrelevant to its meaning.    me saca canas verdes...    John G'alt

Phil, why do you think the douchebags would be more amenable to your instructive reading of Donne than my explanation of Miller and Balzac? An empirical question, forsooth, one that demands Lockian analysis.  But then, we would need to venture to Cambridge's local Stop and Go's, the aisles which harbor the douches, the feminine napkins and the tampons, for this is the audience that the Harvard boys explicitly deem suitable to address with their scholarly and AC (Absolutely Correct) diatribes.  So, indeed, Phil, do you think the Eve Gently Scented will be more amenable to your instructive reading of Donne than Mike's explanation of Miller and Balzac?  Methinks so.  On the other hand, Tampax Extra Slim are bound to prefer Balzac.  I also would guess that the Kotex Minipads are awaiting more expaunding on the Bengali poetry of the 20th century. Be sure to tell us what the action is when you two move to household goods. wodka wyborowally,