As far as I remember it, admittedly from a good many years back, the 'Come
into the garden, Maud' bit is the song or what-have-you the bloke
sings/recites while waiting 'by the gate alone' for her to come out. Then he
gets found by her brother and kills him, hence the guilt that haunts the
dreadful hollow.
best joanna
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rebecca Seiferle" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 2:17 PM
Subject: Re: Something (was Re: The suckability of contemporary American
poetry)
> Ah, that's very funny, Alison, that 'thousand years of Tennyson' and that
"we all
> thought he was a golfer."
>
> Well, there are 7 stanzas in "Mariana" all ending with the 'a-weary,
a-weary
> lament' and perhaps at the age of 12 that would seem a near-infinitude of
> wearisomeness.
>
> Though I wonder this morning if it may be not just two poems that were
> confused but three? For the Maud of "Come into the Garden, Maud," isn't
> neurasthenic; she just never shows up, being in the house, dancing with
all the
> guests, we never see her in the poem, though the speaker conversing with
the
> flowers may be neurasthenic. So perhaps the neurasthenic you were
thinking of
> is in Tennyson's "Maud: A Monodrama" that long sequence in three parts
which
> begins
>
> I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood,
> Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath,
> The red-ribb’d ledges drip with a silent horror of blood,
> And Echo there, whatever is ask’d her, answers ‘Death.’.
>
> Enough to convey what follows, haha, well, perhaps it is very difficult to
keep
> these Victorian ladies and poems straight, a thousand years of blur,
>
> Best,
>
> Rebecca
>
> ---- Original message ----
> >Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 20:44:18 +1100
> >From: Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>
> >Subject: Something (was Re: The suckability of contemporary American
poetry)
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >
> >Thanks for complementing my laziness, Rebecca, and actually looking them
> up:
> >yes, I remember now: Maude and Mariana, exemplary neurasthenic Victorian
> >ladies...no wonder I confused them. Interesting how my memory drew out
> >those weary weary laments, but they're still fairly wearisome.
> >
> >While I'm rummaging through my dusty attic, I remember also a poem by
> Adrian
> >Mitchell (?), The Oxford History of English Poetry or somesuch, in which
the
> >verse on Tennyson goes something like
> >
> >And then there were about a thousand years of Tennyson.
> >Funny, really.
> >We all thought he was a golfer.
> >
> >Best
> >
> >A
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >Alison Croggon
> >
> >Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> >Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
> >Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
>
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