Yes, it's about what 'we' don't know, the limit of all of us, which I take
to be death. And the use of pronouns in the poem to that point could hardly
be subtler or more complex: he, I, you, very occasionally we, are all
represented. I reread the poem today; ever since I first read it about five
years ago, it has haunted and fascinated me more than any other, but for
some reason I have not yet *studied* it. I haven't even looked up Bloodaxe,
let alone any of the critics. There is so much for me still to find out
about it. I do know that Rawthey is the name of a river, and that
Briggflatts is a place, presumably in Northumberland, but that's about it. I
was rather horrified to come across a critical piece recently that referred
to the protagonist of the poem as Briggflatts. Maybe this is what Bunting
intended, but it seemed to me to diminish the poem by making the protagonist
a 'character' of the Dickensian kind. Still, it's high time I found out
more.
Best wishes
Matthew
-----Original Message-----
From: Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 09 April 2001 14:10
Subject: Re: Briggflats' concluding 'we'
>Asidew from the fact that Bunting has a mastery of the line 'we' could all
>wish for, Matthew, (I mean, 'I' admire like all get out), that 'we' of his
>work partly because it's couched in a series of questions, & the
>questioning, finally, takes on even the 'we' spoken for. Yes? It's
>putative, as I hear it...
>
>Doug
>
>Douglas Barbour
>Department of English
>University of Alberta
>Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
>(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
>http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
>
> The forest is the perpetual, internal twilight
> of dream. I am the fisher king of my
> unconscious.
> Christopher Dewdney
>
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