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Parsifal1882
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« Reply #135 on: 11:02:51, 10-05-2007 » |
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Hello all! I'm disappointed that the Dryden and Browning poems I mention above are obscure at my home university, even amongst my colleagues, who seem to include nothing on their syllabi but the 'Duchess' and Dryden's 'Oldham', most certainly because of their length. I greatly admire long neoclassical poems (Absalom being my favourite, together with Pope's 'Arbuthnot'), and Browning's Duchess-less (!) works, though I'm still struggling with his 'Caliban'! I guess my admiration for Wagner's 'long' operas goes hand in hand with my passion for such 'long' poems, though the latter are (of course) far from being romantic in the Wagnerian manner.
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Il duolo della terra nel chiostro ancor ci segue, solo del cor la guerra in ciel si calmera! E la voce di Carlo! E Carlo Quinto! Mio padre! O ciel!
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time_is_now
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« Reply #136 on: 11:11:19, 10-05-2007 » |
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Hello all! I'm disappointed that the Dryden and Browning poems I mention above are obscure at my home university, even amongst my colleagues, who seem to include nothing on their syllabi but the 'Duchess' and Dryden's 'Oldham', most certainly because of their length. I greatly admire long neoclassical poems (Absalom being my favourite, together with Pope's 'Arbuthnot'), and Browning's Duchess-less (!) works, though I'm still struggling with his 'Caliban'! I guess my admiration for Wagner's 'long' operas goes hand in hand with my passion for such 'long' poems, though the latter are (of course) far from being romantic in the Wagnerian manner.
I've never even heard of Dryden's 'Oldham', and I'm from Oldham! Can you enlighten? Or maybe Mr Google can - I'll go and ask him now. You still haven't said what you don't like about 'My Last Duchess'? I'm intrigued ... |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #137 on: 11:30:28, 10-05-2007 » |
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Gosh, these young ones, think you have to Google everything.
I have just got off my bookshelves, where it has lain undisturbed for years, Dryden's Poetical Works and find To the Memory of Mr Oldham, opening couplet:
Farewell too little and too lately known
Whom I began to think and call my own.
It is very short, only about 20 lines, which is why it is probably in the syllabus to cover the point in the module specification:
At the end of this module the student will be able to
A Name one poem by John Dryden
B Quote the opening line.
Samuel Johnson preferred Dryden's versification to Pope's.
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« Last Edit: 11:59:09, 10-05-2007 by Don Basilio »
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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time_is_now
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« Reply #138 on: 11:37:52, 10-05-2007 » |
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Gosh, these young ones, think you have to Google everything. That's cos we're at work, innit? No Dryden on the bookshelves here, I'm afraid. At the end of this module the student will be able to
A Name one poem by John Dryden
B Quote the opening line. Dear God. What happened to understanding the b****y thing? |
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« Last Edit: 12:11:11, 10-05-2007 by time_is_now »
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #139 on: 12:05:05, 10-05-2007 » |
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Thank you, tin.
I worked in a university, former poly, and as I was the only person who understood the software, it was my job to enter the details of module specifications. I parody a bit, but it does seem education is assessed on tick-box criteria rather than imagination.
I admit you'd be lucky to find the poems of Dryden on the shelves of Waterstones, let alone anywhere else.
All the best.
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« Last Edit: 12:26:11, 10-05-2007 by Don Basilio »
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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time_is_now
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« Reply #140 on: 12:19:17, 10-05-2007 » |
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I was only jesting (as another contributor might say  ), and of course one of the themes of the poem is the contrast of youth and (relative) age. I have to say, though, it's not great poetry, in time_is_now's humble opinion. There's a couple of good lines - 'The last set out the soonest did arrive' says what it means quite poignantly, and 'O early ripe!' has a pleasingly elliptical ring - but the rhyming scheme and structure are really quite pedestrian. This bit sounds like Thom Gunn on a particularly bad day: [T]o thy abundant store
What could advancing age have added more?
It might (what nature never gives the young)
Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue.
But satire needs not those, and wit will shine
Thro' the harsh cadence of a rugged line:
A noble error, and but seldom made,
When poets are by too much force betray'd. The hexameter in the last line (which I haven't quoted here) is weirdly effective, though I'm not sure whether the insertion of an extra line into the third couplet from the end adds to or dulls the effect. |
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« Last Edit: 12:21:28, 10-05-2007 by time_is_now »
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Parsifal1882
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« Reply #141 on: 12:21:13, 10-05-2007 » |
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This is the third I post my message (don't know what went wrong before). Anway, the only thing wrong about the DUCHESS is its popularity, which is seriously obscuring and even undermining Browning's other monologues, as if he wrote nothing but this. I hold the same view of undeservedly-ignored and unpopular Shakespeare, which contains lines and scenes that rival any of his popular works.
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Il duolo della terra nel chiostro ancor ci segue, solo del cor la guerra in ciel si calmera! E la voce di Carlo! E Carlo Quinto! Mio padre! O ciel!
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time_is_now
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« Reply #142 on: 12:28:34, 10-05-2007 » |
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This is the third I post my message (don't know what went wrong before). Anway, the only thing wrong about the DUCHESS is its popularity, which is seriously obscuring and even undermining Browning's other monologues I can agree with that - although I'd add that it doesn't do the 'Duchess' any favours either. I wonder what tiny percentage of the schoolboys and -girls who read that poem actually think about it enough to put the stress in the first line on 'last' rather than 'duchess'! |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Peter Grimes
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« Reply #143 on: 14:47:03, 10-05-2007 » |
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I love this one of Akhmatova's:
I wrung my hands beneath my veil...
"Why are you so pale today?"
- Because I forced him to get drunk
On sorrow's sour wine.
How can I forget? He lurched outside,
His mouth was twisted up in pain...
Not touching the banister, I ran down,
I ran after him to the gate.
Gasping, I cried: "It was but a joke
All of it. If you should leave, I'd die."
He smiled a calm and horrible smile
And said: "Don't stand out in the wind."
(8 January 1911, Kiev)
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"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."
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Woodbine
Posts: 56
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« Reply #144 on: 16:30:17, 10-05-2007 » |
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Hope this is not be thought too sentimental but any one who remembers being a new Dad will empathize.
Poem for Jane by Vernon Scannell
So many catalogues have been
Compiled by poets, good and bad,
Of qualities that they would wish
To see their infant daughters wear
Or lacking children they have clad
Others' daughters in the bright
Imagined garments of the flesh,
Prayed for jet or golden hair
Or for the inconspicuous
Homespun of the character
That no one ever whistles after.
Dear Jane, whatever I may say
I'm sure approving whistles will
Send you like an admiral on
Ships of welcome in a bay
Of tender waters where the fish
Will surface longing to be meshed
Among the treasure of your hair.
And as for other qualities
There's only one I really wish
To see you amply manifest
And that's a deep capacity
For loving; and I long for this
Not for any luckly one
Who chances under your love's sun
But because, without it, you
Would never know competely joy
As I know joy through loving you.
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #145 on: 07:22:32, 11-05-2007 » |
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Somehow I did not take to Achmatova's poetry as to Tsvetaeva. May be I was too young then, or may be Tsvetaeva is closer to my psyche.
Here is Achmatova
I don't like flowers - they do remind me often
Of funerals, of weddings and of balls;
Their presence on tables for a dinner calls.
But sub-eternal roses' ever simple charm
Which was my solace when I was a child,
Has stayed - my heritage - a set of years behind,
Like Mozart's ever-living music's hum.
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #146 on: 07:25:16, 11-05-2007 » |
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Here is Tsvetaeva, the poem is called Grey hair
These are ashes of treasures:
Of hurt and loss.
These are ashes in face of which
Granite is dross.
Dove, naked and brilliant,
It has no mate.
Solomon's ashes
Over vanity that's great.
Time's menacing chalkmark,
Not to be overthrown.
Means God knocks at the door
-- Once the house has burned down!
Not choked yet by refuse,
Days' and dreams' conqueror.
Like a thunderbolt -- Spirit
Of early grey hair.
It's not you who've betrayed me
On the home front, years.
This grey is the triumph
Of immortal powers.
27 September 1922
Translated by David McDuff, 1987
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #147 on: 18:26:47, 12-05-2007 » |
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I thought since we have Achmatova here may be it is good to put Gumilev here too.
Don Juan
My own dream is lofty, simple thing:
To seize the oar, put feet into the stirrups,
And to deceive the time, that slow tries to stir us,
By kissing lips, forever new and pink;
When getting old, to keep the law of Christ,
Cast down looks, put on sackcloth and ashes,
Put on the chest, as heavy obligations,
The iron Cross, that He died on for us.
And only when, amidst the orgy’s madness,
I get my senses – a sleepwalker aimless,
Just frightened in the silence of his ways –
Then I recall: the worst of many others –
I had no children from a woman in my years
And never called a man a brother.
Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
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BobbyZ
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« Reply #148 on: 21:58:52, 15-05-2007 » |
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Here is Tsvetaeva, the poem is called Grey hair
t-p The Radio 3 programme Words and Music on Sunday night ( May 20th ) is called Russian Dreams and will include the poetry by Marina Tsvetaeva, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Lermontov and Osip Mandelstam. |
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Dreams, schemes and themes
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Sydney Grew
Guest
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« Reply #149 on: 14:38:12, 18-05-2007 » |
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Here are three poems from the ancient world. The first, written as long as two and a half thousand years ago, is by Simonides, and reminds us that the power of music is nothing new. THE POWER OF MUSIC MUSIC giveth men to drink
Of the joy of coming things,
Hovering o'er the secret brink
Of all sweet imaginings.
Yet she doth not only dwell
In the swiftly-passing hour;
Nay, but hath a far-off spell,
Hath a backward-glancing power.
She doth reap and garner up
Fruits of strange experience,
These she mingles in her cup
With the dews of innocence.
What hath been and what shall be!--
Linger not, nor stay thine hand,
Music, till I hear and see,
And a little understand.
This translation and the two in the following message were made by Arthur Benson; they come from his 1922 collection entitled " The Reed of Pan."  Benson was the twentieth-century's greatest writer in English, and it is a continuing scandal that the Pepys librarian at Magdalene College Cambridge still stubbornly refuses to permit the complete publication of his 179-volume Diary. |
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