Perhaps Frye's "funny noises" include not just examples of imitative
harmony, but the odd attention to moments of anxious or subjective hearing
in the poem -- noises described or sometimes only implied -- the leaves
trembling in the wind in Fradubio's grove, the "laughing blossoms" on the
boughs in the Garden of Adonis, the noises each of which "did seem to be
the same" that haunt Florimell in her flight, the barely audible sound of
Malecasta sliding into Britmart's bed, the murmurings and whistlings and
chimings of the Bower, the whoosh of Orgoglio's club as its mere air
throws down Redcrosse -- not to mention the noises one can imagine in a
place like the Cave of Mammon. Noises both intimate and externalized,
rumors of the mind and the noises, tales, bruits and slanders of the
world both human and natural.
There's an absorbing essay by James Mirollo entitled "The significant
acoustics of Spenser's Noisy Poem" in MLN 103 (1988) that might offer
useful points of connection.
Ken Gross
R. P. Blackmur's also good on imitative sound in verse, the essay called,
as I recall, "Lord Tennyson's Scissors." I think HE may be responsible
for "The murdering of innumberable beeves," but perhaps he was quoting some
other wit.
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