Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Hmm …

… I'll never vote for learning poetry by rote | Mail Online. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I see nothing wrong with learning poems by heart. On the other, forcing people to do is something else altogether.

1 comment:

  1. As best I remember it, Robert Graves's take was

    You learned Lear's nonsense poems by heart, not rote;
    You learned Pops's Iliad by rote, not heart.
    Remember these distinctions when you quote
    My verses children: keep them poles apart,
    And call the man a liar who says I wrote
    All that I wrote in love for love of art.

    (Punctuation guaranteed to be wrong here and there.)

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