#like i have considered! commentary on my own poem that is commentary on lucan

[catilinas]

JOHN FLIPPIN HENDERSON. unfortunately a HUGE part of my dissertation is inspired by "Lucan/The Word at War" and it's been tremendously influential to me, and every time I look at it and the way that it is written I get so angry about that fact. Are you writing an article to communicate your thoughts to others or are you writing your own Lucan-inspired poem of some kind. I need a commentary on Henderson so I can understand Henderson's comments on Lucan

I LOVEEEEEEE LUCAN/THE WORD AT WAR!!!!!! do i understand most of it? NO!!!!!! but every time i reread it i get something new out of it, much as i do with lucan. i think henderson borrowing the style of lucan's like. allusive impenetrability and layers and wordplays and sententiae means that by reading henderson you gain some of the skills to read lucan. i also think a lot of it is very silly. UNLESS??? like it is not the typical way of writing an academic article and also it would be bad if all academic articles were like this. ALSO TRUE OF THE PHARSALIA THOUGH!!! also i think poetry as scholarship is based and there should be more of it. AND i dont think a text being poetry necessarily prevents the author from communicating their thoughts with others! my friend fate was talking recently about poetry often being able to communicate what is otherwise incommunicable, and that is true!!!!!! but on a smaller scale a poem is often a weird sideways way into a thing. a beautiful crowbar. anne carson's singular paragraph on herodotus has affected my core analysis of herodotus as much as the sum total of all herodotus scholarship i have read :") anywayyyyyy lucan/the word at war you will be famous to me foreverrrrrr