>>This is very idle. If they do not meddle with the
>>allegory, the allegory will not meddle with them."
Not to wrangle, but according to my post-Hazlittian mentors, it does
meddle. It gropes, it seizes, it obsesses, it ruins. I've been
tangled in, strangled by, painted dragons. When a small boy; when an
old man. It was both terrifying and yummy.
>Belatedly -- the Dylan quote about being tangled in the allegory makes me
>think of a favorite passage from Hazlitt's "Lectures on the English
>Poets," when he's been commending to his readers the beauties of various
>passages in The Faerie Queene (including the caves of Mammon and Despair,
>the Gardens and the Bower, the Mask of Cupid and Arlo Hill):
>
>"But some people will say that all this may be very fine, but that they
>cannot undertake it on account of the allegory. They are afraid of the
>allegory, as if they thought it would bite them: they look at it as a
>child looks at a painted dragon, and think it will strangle them in its
>shining folds. This is very idle. If they do not meddle with the
>allegory, the allegory will not meddle with them."
>
>
>
>Ken
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