the translators of Catullus say that lesbia is the muse of catullus
which is a subtly different thing...
for me, the "modern" sense of the muse begins with Petrarch then
declines until it's killed, quite rightly, by feminism. the stink of
the locker room had become too strong by then.
roger
On 1/15/06, Robin Hamilton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: "Jon Corelis" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > >On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 14:25:40 -0800, Robin Hamilton wrote:
> >
> >>Then resolve me, tell me aright
> >> If Waller sang or Dowland played,
> >>
> >> Your eyen two wol sleye me sodenly
> >> I may the beaute of hem nat susteyne
> >
> >>And for 180 years almost nothing.
> >
> > It's not clear to me what critical implications are being attributed
> > by Robin to the Pound passage. My own interpretation is that by
> > "nothing" Pound means that after the last flowering of medieval lyric,
> > poetry lost its intrinsic relationship with song until the connection
> > was reestablished by the Elizabethans as symbolized by Dowland, who
> > set many of their poems to music.
>
> I wonder too. Taking 1385 as a possible start for Chaucer, we get to 1565.
> Hm.
>
> The references to Waller and Dowland suggest to me that Pound is restarting
> the line *after* Sidney. I can't think of anywhere he mentions him.
>
> > (And I wonder if the "almost" is
> > meant to allow Dunbar and Wyatt to sneak in.) Under this
> > interpretation Pound is comparing the early Elizabethans to Chaucer
> > not to bury them but to praise them.
>
> Interesting. Pound mentions Gavin Douglas favourably in +The ABC of
> Reading+, but not (I think) either the more obvious Middle Scots poets
> Dunbar and (my favourite now I'm [almost] growed up) Robert Henryson.
>
> But is there a Pound scholar in the house could illuminate this?
>
> > Though it's not exactly linked, I wonder if Shakespeare was parodying
> > this sort of thing in Hamlet (Polonius is speaking:)
> >
> > "And he, repulsed—a short tale to make—
> > Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
> > Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
> > Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
> > Into the madness wherein now he raves,
> > And all we wail for."
>
> It's a list, but not a linked list, nah? I'd agree it's a parody of
> something, but maybe not this.
>
> > On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 11:25:43 +0000, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> >>there's almost a defiance here: i'm talking about the muse, quite
> >>possibly a politically contentious issue, and i just don't care if it
> >>does offend you. as if i'm doing something naughty... you're right,
> >>daveb, debate is cut short
> >
> > Please note that I'm being misquoted here: what I said quite clearly
> > and specifically was that I would decline to respond to claims that
> > the poetry of the past and its sources were of no great interest, not
> > that I would decline to engage in a discussion on the nature of the
> > Muse, which would indeed have been an odd thing for me to say, since
> > that's exactly what I've been doing. It seems to me equally odd to
> > complain that "debate is cut short" on this issue when at least half a
> > dozen list members are in the middle of a vigorous debate on it.
>
> The Muse thing is tricky once we start to historicise it. I wondered about
> dave bircumshaw's suggestion that Lesbia/Claudia was Catullus' muse. I
> think it's a different thing at issue there. My own sense is that the
> "modern" sense of the Muse begins with the dolce stile nuovo, then Dante,
> Petrarch, and onwards -- an unattainable *human* figure who is both
> inspiration of and material for the poems. Perarch as the locus classicus
> here (and obviously onwards to Sidney's "use"/treatment of Stella/Penelope
> Rich).
>
> Dead wives, in this context, make useful muse-figures -- we have this even
> today with Douglas Dunn in his +Elegies+ and Peter Porter in +The Cost of
> Seriousness+ and +The Wether Level+.
>
> Robin
>
> (Jon -- could you elucidate something you said in an earlier post:
>
> "Philologists tell us her name is derived from the Indo-European root mna,
> found in e-grade as Latin mens (cf English mental,) zero-grade in Greek
> mnemosyne (cf. amnesia, mnemonic,) and a postulated o-grade (IE or early
> Greek?"
>
> e-grade, zero-grade and o-grade go past me. Splits from an Indo-European
> original?
>
> R.)
>
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