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Don Basilio
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« Reply #405 on: 19:34:56, 26-01-2008 » |
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well what do you think of William Blake,
Pretty amazing, and far more radical than Wordsworth. He can count as working class, if that gives him kudos in your eyes. In my Berlitz guide to Eng Lit I said Wordsworth changed English poetry because he was such an influence on succeeding poets. After him nobody could get away with imitating Pope again. (Except George Crabbe, who I will jolly well give an outing to in due course, and Lord Byron.) Blake by contrast was such a one off that I can't think of him as an influence. (George - you gently reprove my dismissive attitude. I stand rightly reproved, but I can't really imagine anyone really liking him. Those soppy Daffodils.) |
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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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Don Basilio
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« Reply #406 on: 19:48:33, 26-01-2008 » |
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And here is my favourite Wordsworth parody, by someone called J K Stephens. The opening line is from a genuine Wordsworth sonnet:
Two voices are there – one is of the deep;
It learns the storm-cloud’s thund'rous melody,
Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea,
Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep:
And one is of an old half-witted sheep
Which bleats articulate monotony,
And indicates that two and one are three,
That grass is green, lakes damp and mountains steep;
And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times
Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes,
The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst:
At other times – good Lord! I’d rather be
Quite unacquainted with the ABC
Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst.
(W's sonnet on the subjugation of Switzerland begins
"Two Voices are there; one is of the Sea,
One of the Mountains;")
Corrections thanks to a particularly eminent member.
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« Last Edit: 08:30:41, 27-01-2008 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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trained-pianist
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« Reply #407 on: 21:18:04, 26-01-2008 » |
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Hello Susan Doris,
I am trying to follow this thread. It takes a lot of concentration for me to understand. However, it is really worth it to understand poetry.
First it helps me a lot in my playing. I feel inspired by images and beautiful words. Poetry and poets are good antidote against mundane earthly concerns that takes too much space in one's brain.
That parody on Wordsworth by Stephens is beautiful and honest. One really has two voices, at times things please us, and at times we are fed up.
I love Blake. He is amazing. There is noone like Blake.
I like Byron.
Don Basilio, Do you like Byron? Or is he too simple for you?
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Antheil
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« Reply #408 on: 22:09:17, 26-01-2008 » |
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well what do you think of William Blake,
Pretty amazing, and far more radical than Wordsworth. He can count as working class, if that gives him kudos in your eyes. Blake by contrast was such a one off that I can't think of him as an influence. Don B, whether the fact that Blake was working class is neither here nor there I think.  After Blake's death Wordsworth said "There was no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott"  "Having spent the Vigour of my Youth and Genius under the Oppression of Sir Joshua and his Gang of Cunning Hired Knaves Without Employment and as much as could possibly be Without Bread, the Reader must expect to Read in all my Remarks on these Books Nothing but Indignation and Resentment." Blake saw himself as one of a group of underground artists dedicated to history and vision, whose careers in late-18th-century London were blighted by the marketplace and its cult of the most anodyne, insipid, anti-intellectual, utilitarian branch of art: portraiture. (He was referring to Joshua Reynolds of course) |
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Reality, sa molesworth 2, is so sordid it makes me shudder
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richard barrett
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« Reply #409 on: 22:27:47, 26-01-2008 » |
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Blake seems to have been one of the first artists in any discipline to follow his own vision irrespective of what the public thought of it (not much) or whether it made him a living (which it didn't - he lived most of his life off making engravings of other artists' work). Peter Ackroyd's biography is an interesting read.
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Antheil
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« Reply #410 on: 22:48:16, 26-01-2008 » |
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richard, I have long been fascinated by Blake, thanks for the head up about the book, I think I will get it.
The poem that really got to me as a child, about 10 or 11 I think, was The Little Black Boy, I won't take up page space posting it all but the beginning is:
My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O my soul is white!
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black, as if bereaved of light.
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Reality, sa molesworth 2, is so sordid it makes me shudder
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time_is_now
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« Reply #411 on: 23:33:04, 26-01-2008 » |
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Blake saw himself as one of a group of underground artists dedicated to history and vision I'd mentally emended that to 'resistance and vision' even before scrolling down far enough to see that the next post was yours, Richard. (And I thought you didn't read this thread!) |
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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 #412 on: 00:06:44, 27-01-2008 » |
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Don Basilio, Do you like Byron? Or is he too simple for you?
Byron is odd - he seems to be much admired by non-English speakers. In fact when I had flu for a few days before Christmas I read most of his comic epic, Don Juan. I get the impression Byron was an arrogant public school boy, and his nihilism and contempt for society do not ring quite true. He can be too clever by half, as in 'T is pity learnéd virgins ever wed With persons of no sort of education, Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred, Grow tired of scientific conversation: I don't choose to say much upon this head, I'm a plain man, and in a single station, But--Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-pecked you all? This passage may have been inspired by Byron's mother. |
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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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richard barrett
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« Reply #413 on: 01:07:08, 27-01-2008 » |
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(And I thought you didn't read this thread!)
Since I've now been discovered as a poetry-thread lurker, here are a few not entirely unBlakeian lines from Henry Vaughan's "The World": I saw Eternity the other night Like a great Ring of pure and endless light All calm as it was bright; And round beneath it, Time, in hours, days, years, Driven by the spheres, Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world And all her train were hurled. |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #414 on: 01:53:54, 27-01-2008 » |
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There's a slightly amusing story about a musical setting of that poem which I may tell you some time, Richard.
I must admit that although I was involved in the story I hadn't until now noticed that I was name-checked in the fourth line.
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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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richard barrett
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« Reply #415 on: 01:59:22, 27-01-2008 » |
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There's a slightly amusing story about a musical setting of that poem which I may tell you some time, Richard.
I must admit that although I was involved in the story I hadn't until now noticed that I was name-checked in the fourth line.
I can't wait. Do you know this rather effusive ode to you, by Paul Fleming (1609-40)? Gedancken / über der Zeit.Ihr lebet in der Zeit / und kennt doch keine Zeit / So wisst Ihr Menschen nicht von / und in was Ihr seyd. Diß wisst Ihr / daß ihr seyd in einer Zeit gebohren. Und daß ihr werdet auch in einer Zeit verlohren. Was aber war die Zeit / die euch in sich gebracht? Und was wird diese seyn / die euch zu nichts mehr macht? Die Zeit ist was / und nichts. Der Mensch in gleichem Falle. Doch was dasselbe was / und nichts sey / zweifeln alle. Die Zeit die stirbt in sich / und zeucht sich auch aus sich. Diß kommt aus mir und dir / von dem du bist und ich. Der Mensch ist in der Zeit; sie ist in ihm ingleichen. Doch aber muß der Mensch / wenn sie noch bleibet / weichen. Die Zeit ist / was ihr seyd / und ihr seyd / was die Zeit / Nur daß ihr Wenger noch / als was die Zeit ist / seyd. Ach daß doch jene Zeit / die ohne Zeit ist kähme / Und uns aus dieser Zeit in ihre Zeiten nähme. Und aus uns selbsten uns / daß wir gleich köndten seyn / Wie der itzt / jener Zeit / die keine Zeit geht ein! |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #416 on: 02:16:58, 27-01-2008 » |
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I didn't know it, no. Not as immediately striking as Brecht's angel-sex poem, I feel bound to say, although I notice the current Arsenal manager makes a cameo appearance towards the end.
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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 #417 on: 09:04:06, 27-01-2008 » |
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Here's a scary bit of Blake:
O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy;
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
If you look back all the way to #19 you will see my previous Blake choice.
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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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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #418 on: 09:18:21, 27-01-2008 » |
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Do you know the wonderfully scary setting of The Sick Rose from Britten's Serenade?
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #419 on: 09:58:10, 27-01-2008 » |
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May be Don Basilio knows the setting, I don't. I wish I could hear it. I love Blake's poetry.
I found this poem by Pope and I like it too, but Blake is very special for me.
“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his mind and body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks to little, or too much;
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself, abus'd or disabus'd;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all,
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;
The glory, jest and riddle of the world.”
I love the Rose by Blake and Don Basilio post 19.
Henry Vaughan's "The World" by Richard is beautiful. When I read the whole poem somethings are difficult to understand, but some verses make a big impact.
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« Last Edit: 10:13:39, 27-01-2008 by trained-pianist »
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