Is that really where it ends? Startling. (I assume it's the poem suddenly
giving up on its attempt to reconcile these themes.)
I can't place the Dryden poem, but they association between death and orgasm
was conventional and, I think, goes back further.
Best wishes
Matthew Francis
[mailto:[log in to unmask]
01443 482856
-----Original Message-----
From: Viv Kitson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 18 April 2000 12:10
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Conceit
Mathew - You're right once again! in associating "conceit" with the
Metaphysical poets. Indeed, my 17 year old son is studying John Donne for
his Higher School Certificate and we've engaged in some (minimal) discussion
on Donne's work. Needless to say, he prefers the secular (sexual?) earlier
works to the later, religious offerings.
In a late night (was it approaching midnight?) response on the Beatrice
Alighieri thread, I had in mind a poem I wrote in 1973 - addressed to a
former lover - and so slightly bitter/sweet (i.e., the poem of a male of the
time in his mid-20s), which includes a reference to a Dryden "conceit" -
where he equates orgasm with dying. Over a quarter of a century "down the
track", I can't recall the Dryden poem; although I'm sure the erudite and
well-read members of this list will provide me with the appropriate
citation. Here's the poem (which provided the title for my first
collection):
Life, Death, and some Words about Them
The owl disintegrated, mashed
in the car's fine-meshed grille.
My words absolved you from any blame:
Death is some kind of necessity...
the bird was blinded by the headlights...
But you shallow sighs and gulps of sorrow,
guilt near weeping - welling from some
core of your being? of your true self?
Dryden called it dying, in a fine conceit;
and we made love in this dying life -
should I call it? - or life in death?
(I paraphrase now Saint Augustine.)
Anyway, I felt you die later that night,
coiled and clamped in my thick embrace,
in some symbolic act of reparation,
or creation, or something like that.
And now that you too are crushed and broken,
dead and dying in a hundred minor ways...
No, those are glib, conceited analogies,
for I clothe that event in a grab-bag
of inadequate metaphors and myths: shielded
by our culture, traditions, inadequacies
from the raw rankness of that emotion,
and
October, 1973.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Francis M (HaSS)" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 12:16 AM
Subject: Conceit
> I'm surprised you associate the conceit with Dryden and Pope, Viv. I've
> always thought of it in connection with the Metaphysicals. It also seems
> quite a popular device in contemporary poetry. For example, Craig Raine,
> writing of the mysteries of middle-class life from the point of view of a
> working-class woman, refers to 'the bidet and its cousin the avocado'.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Matthew Francis
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]
> 01443 482856
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Viv Kitson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 17 April 2000 15:06
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: subsidy culture/Divine Comedy
>
>
> Thanks to Mathew, Martin and "Beatrice Alighieri" for their contributions
to
> this "mini-thread". However, failing "Beatrice Alighieri" revealing
his/her
> true identity, the conceit is now finished. For true, realised conceit in
> poetry, I believe you cannot surpass Pope and Dryden. And, as I have not
> read either in years, I intend to "disengage" in order to read the Masters
> of the genre. (Any Mistresses of this genre? Candice, do you have any
> suggestions? Edna St. Vincent Millay, perhaps?)
>
> Cheers,
> Viv
>
>
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