Dark's Dare

Joshua Clover (aka Jane Dark*) dares us to show him "[some poetry that doesn't] express the poet's linguistic consciousness within its particular social circumstance and historical moment." Of course, we can't show him a poem that fits this bill; but I wonder what that is supposed to prove.

Consider one of Shakespeare's sonnets. It does, of course, express Shakespeare's consciousness of English within its particular social circumstance and historical moment (the Elizabethan age). But is that all it does or even the most important thing it does? Is the most important thing about it what it expresses at all? That is, when does delineating "the poet's linguistic consciousness within its particular social circumstance and historical moment" become an interesting task, whether for the ordinary reader or the critic of the poem?

Surely all we need to do is to find a poem that, in addition to expressing this consciousness, i.e., in addition to representing one or another "style of mind" (socially and historically conditioned, to be sure), is a good or apt poem in some more immediate sense. And here any of the Sonnets will do.

I guess I'm not sure that anyone is making the claim that commits them to taking this dare.

*Please correct me if I'm wrong about this identity issue.