And I hope I'm right in concluding that there is no poet who might
offer praises to 'King' GW, or TB, or some provincial & federal leaders
in my own country. No one willing to fall that far.
Please.
Doug
On 8-Nov-06, at 9:01 AM, Jon Corelis wrote:
> The danger is in interpreting the poet's praise of the patron as
> flattery, something merely of personal gratification to the king. The
> structure and values of the society in question made it something much
> more important. Emphasis should be placed on the phrase "the king's
> livelihood depended on the poet's singing his praises." Indeed, it
> might not be too much to say that the king's existence depended on the
> poet's singing his praises. Also relevant is the same source's
> comment on the root kleu-, "to hear":
>
> "The most ancient texts in Indo-European languages, such as the Vedic
> hymns of ancient India, the Homeric epics, the Germanic sagas, and Old
> Irish praise-poetry, all demonstrate that the perpetuation of the fame
> of a warrior or king was of critical importance to early Indo-European
> society. The preservation of their fame was in the hands of poets,
> highly skilled and highly paid professionals, who acted both as the
> repositiors and the transmitters of the society's oral culture."
>
> --
> Watkins op. cit.
>
> One clear implication of this is that a king *could not rule* without
> poets.
>
> We can't get back there. Would we want to?
>
> --
> ===================================
>
> Jon Corelis www.geocities.com/jgcorelis/
>
> ===================================
>
>
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
You may allow me moments
not monuments, I being
content. It is little,
but it is little enough.
John Newlove
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