01-19-2005, 01:02 PM | #21 | |
The Lovely Hobbit-Lass
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When my sister was first learning how to drive, my mother quoted Tennyson a lot. Mostly going around corners; she would suddenly come out with "Break! Break! Break!"
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It's New Years Day, just like the day before; Same old skies of grey, same empty bottles on the floor. Another year's gone by, and I was thinking once again, How can I take this losing hand and somehow win? Just give me One Good Year To get my feet back on the ground. I've been chasing grace; Grace ain't so easily found One bad hand can devil a man, chase him and carry him down. I've got to get out of here, just give me One Good Year! |
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01-19-2005, 03:09 PM | #22 | ||
Fëanorophobic
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01-19-2005, 03:39 PM | #23 |
Elf Lord
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Hey, Beren3000, what about #17 in the thread?
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
01-20-2005, 03:30 AM | #24 | ||
Fëanorophobic
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Btw, why do you keep calling me Beren3000? Everyone around here calls me just Beren. Save yourself a few keystrokes |
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01-20-2005, 12:21 PM | #25 |
Elf Lord
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Sure, Beren. I just figured the 3000 was significant for you. But as Fen Branklin is falsely reputed to have said, a keystroke saved is a keystroke not done.
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
01-20-2005, 03:58 PM | #26 | ||
Fëanorophobic
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01-22-2005, 09:42 AM | #27 |
Lady of Letters
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How about this one...
The Poet’s Mind I. Vex not thou the poet’s mind With thy shallow wit; Vex not thou the poet’s mind, For thou canst not fathom it. Clear and bright it should be ever, Flowing like a crystal river, Bright as light, and clear as wind. II. Dark-brow’d sophist, come not anear; All the place is holy ground; Hollow smile and frozen sneer Come not here. Holy water will I pour Into every spicy flower Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around. The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer. In your eye there is death, There is frost in your breath Which would blight the plants. Where you stand you cannot hear From the groves within The wild-bird’s din. In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants. It would fall to the ground if you came in. In the middle leaps a fountain Like sheet lightning, Ever brightening With a low melodious thunder; All day and all night it is ever drawn From the brain of the purple mountain Which stands in the distance yonder. It springs on a level of bowery lawn, And the mountain draws it from heaven above, And it sings a song of undying love; And yet, tho’ its voice be so clear and full, You never would hear it, your ears are so dull; So keep where you are; you are foul with sin; It would shrink to the earth if you came in. Do you agree with him? Do we ruin poetry by analysing it? |
01-22-2005, 10:43 AM | #28 | |
The Lovely Hobbit-Lass
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I think his warnings not to enter the garden of the poet's mind convey well the feeling one gets when one's writing is dissected. Take Tolkien, for example, with LotR. Many people have attempted to 'figure out' his work- was it allegory? does any of it have a hidden meaning? was he attacking the society of the day? was he prediciting the future?- but what those people do not realize is that he wrote a book. It was a bit imaginative, being set in a different world and all that, but it was, pure and simple, a book. To analyse and compare and dissect is to make a living thing dead. The minute you say you have figured out all that a poem means is the minute you are furthest from what it means. And so it is well for us, the reader, to stand aside and let the poet say what he wishes, to appreciate it for the impression it leaves on us, and to not think that our impression is the only one the poet meant to give.
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It's New Years Day, just like the day before; Same old skies of grey, same empty bottles on the floor. Another year's gone by, and I was thinking once again, How can I take this losing hand and somehow win? Just give me One Good Year To get my feet back on the ground. I've been chasing grace; Grace ain't so easily found One bad hand can devil a man, chase him and carry him down. I've got to get out of here, just give me One Good Year! Last edited by Rosie Gamgee : 01-22-2005 at 10:44 AM. |
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01-22-2005, 11:30 AM | #29 | |
Fëanorophobic
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02-01-2005, 03:54 PM | #30 |
Fëanorophobic
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Hey, RG, what about Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue? How do you interpret it? I couldn't understand it. Is it about how destructive criticism smohters artists in general (or poets in particular)? What is your interpretation?
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02-02-2005, 10:49 AM | #31 |
The Lovely Hobbit-Lass
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Well, I believe that T states at the beginning of the poem (WWLM) that he was sitting in a pub as he wrote it. And the whole thing strikes me as random thoughts strung together on that theme (pub). I've not read the whole thing for sometime now- I suppose I'll find a copy and then give a more detailed report.
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It's New Years Day, just like the day before; Same old skies of grey, same empty bottles on the floor. Another year's gone by, and I was thinking once again, How can I take this losing hand and somehow win? Just give me One Good Year To get my feet back on the ground. I've been chasing grace; Grace ain't so easily found One bad hand can devil a man, chase him and carry him down. I've got to get out of here, just give me One Good Year! |
02-02-2005, 12:52 PM | #32 |
Elf Lord
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If we cannot figure out what a poet meant by a poem, why bother reading it?
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
02-02-2005, 01:18 PM | #33 |
The Lovely Hobbit-Lass
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It's not nessicarily about figuring out what the poet meant. Sometimes that is obvious, other times it isn't. It is good to try and figure out what a poem means, but if you think too highly of your own interpretation, you are practically plagerizing the poem (ooo, that would make a good tongue-twister- if only I could spell 'plagerize'). Not to say that you can't have an opinion- everyone's entitled to one of those. But- especially if the poet is unavailable for comment- I think that keeping an open mind about the original intent of the work is a healthy thing.
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It's New Years Day, just like the day before; Same old skies of grey, same empty bottles on the floor. Another year's gone by, and I was thinking once again, How can I take this losing hand and somehow win? Just give me One Good Year To get my feet back on the ground. I've been chasing grace; Grace ain't so easily found One bad hand can devil a man, chase him and carry him down. I've got to get out of here, just give me One Good Year! |
02-02-2005, 02:09 PM | #34 | |
Lady of Letters
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That said, I can't make head nor tale of Will Waterproof. I don't think it was meant to be taken that seriously, as Rosie said...
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And all the time the waves, the waves, the waves Chase, intersect and flatten on the sand As they have done for centuries, as they will For centuries to come, when not a soul Is left to picnic on the blazing rocks, When England is not England, when mankind Has blown himself to pieces. Still the sea, Consolingly disastrous, will return While the strange starfish, hugely magnified, Waits in the jewelled basin of a pool. |
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02-03-2005, 12:07 PM | #35 |
Elf Lord
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I disavow completely the non sequiter that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive. In fact, there is no better statement of bovine feces by another name in the English language save that which attributes such drivel to male members of the species! If your own experience has not yet taught you this, take an international flight of 19 hours or so and then evaluate it.
If we cannot discern a poet's meaning, there is not reason to invest the most precious commodity we have on the process. This view of poetry is untenable. The mere mellifluity and harmony of sound is known as music. The words are intended to convey meaning. If they do not, or if all they convey is the receptive interpretation of the reader with no basis in objective experience between the poet and reader, bash cymbals and clang gongs. It will mean as much. Did RG's poem communicate about the nature of words under the emblem of cutlery or not?
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
02-03-2005, 12:27 PM | #36 | ||
Lady of Letters
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But if you don't find the process of analysing poetry enjoyable, I can see how this would be a foreign concept to you. Quote:
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And all the time the waves, the waves, the waves Chase, intersect and flatten on the sand As they have done for centuries, as they will For centuries to come, when not a soul Is left to picnic on the blazing rocks, When England is not England, when mankind Has blown himself to pieces. Still the sea, Consolingly disastrous, will return While the strange starfish, hugely magnified, Waits in the jewelled basin of a pool. |
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02-03-2005, 12:42 PM | #37 |
Elf Lord
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Sun-star,
Clearly we share a joint understanding of the concept of bovine feces which is delineated by series of letters in sequence to which meaning is attributed. That joint conceptualization allows us to communicate. It may be that our particular "accidents" of association differ when the term is used but the "substance" is understood between us. I for instance have a childhood farm memory of barefooting it through the feces blissfully unaware that it was poop UNTIL the odour and ordure became unbearable. Your experience may be similar or not. But it is NOT the lens of personal adumbration of the concept that allows us to communicate, it is the concept. And my contention is that the author of a poem intends to convey an experience which is delineable and discoverable by the reader. It may be true that the nuances of the concept conveyed is coloured by the individual's personal adumbration of the concept, BUT THE POET CAN CONVEY THE CONCEPT (the meaning) and the reader grasp it. This is an intellectual feat. Once that concept has been communicated it is true that there may nuances which escape us due in part to personal adumbrations of the concept, but if the poet is effective in communication, we may add his adumbrations to ours and enlarge the concept. I find the process of analyzing poetry very useful and enjoyable BUT that is because there is discernable communication and meaning. Now, "Did RG's poem communicate about the nature of words under the emblem of cutlery or not?"
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
02-04-2005, 06:07 AM | #38 | |
Lady of Letters
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So, because I choose not to give up, despite your failure to 'convey the concept' in a way the reader can grasp, I assume you're talking about something RG posted in another thread. I don't know this for sure, and if you were dead (like Tennyson) I couldn't ask you. Your meaning is almost entirely obscure, and it is not possible for me ever to say definitively what that meaning is. That does not suggest that what you said has no meaning or value.
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And all the time the waves, the waves, the waves Chase, intersect and flatten on the sand As they have done for centuries, as they will For centuries to come, when not a soul Is left to picnic on the blazing rocks, When England is not England, when mankind Has blown himself to pieces. Still the sea, Consolingly disastrous, will return While the strange starfish, hugely magnified, Waits in the jewelled basin of a pool. |
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02-04-2005, 12:26 PM | #39 |
Elf Lord
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Sun-star,
I beg your pardon for not realizing that Rosie's poem was elsewhere on the site. It is at:http://www.entmoot.com/showthread.ph...2&page=3&pp=20 and the post number is 55, IIRC. That shall perhaps make sense of what I wrote earlier since you will have the reference.
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
02-09-2005, 10:58 AM | #40 | |
The Lovely Hobbit-Lass
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Well, I went back and read WWLM. It seems to me that the first part deals almost exclusively with the exultation of liquor and its effects on the brain. The second part, concocted, it would seem, largely under the influence of said drink, is a fantastical monolouge concerning the origins of the headwaiter. The last part seems to me to be a series of thoughts on the lamentable state of the hangover. The final stanza is a blessing on the headwaiter, made in gratitude for the hour of happiness and inspiration his beverage effected upon the poet. The poem seems then, in short, to be a series of thoughts had while sitting in a public house put down in verse and rhyme for the purpose of killing a few spare moments that would have otherwise been spent in boredom.
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It's New Years Day, just like the day before; Same old skies of grey, same empty bottles on the floor. Another year's gone by, and I was thinking once again, How can I take this losing hand and somehow win? Just give me One Good Year To get my feet back on the ground. I've been chasing grace; Grace ain't so easily found One bad hand can devil a man, chase him and carry him down. I've got to get out of here, just give me One Good Year! |
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