Hi Dave - I'm English too, officially speaking - I've never got around
to becoming Australian - so I'm allowed to say I like it.
And you can simply delete the fitts, if you find them tedious. As can
anyone else. I have no desire to trespass on anyone's patience.
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 7:41 AM, David Bircumshaw
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Alison
>
> Beowulf has an awful lot of formal organization in its lines, not so
> much in its structure, it still does not excuse the fact that it is a
> boring poem, why you want to write mediocre but competent rewrites of
> of a piece of utter tediousness defeats me, I'm allowed to say Beowulf
> is crap because I'm English so it's part of my heritage (ha ha) and I
> think it sucks.
>
> So does fantasy.
>
> Best
>
> Dave
>
> 2008/11/24 Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>:
>> As Hal Duncan (no mean fantasist himself) put it, the first instance
>> of music criticism ever recorded...! I've seen the novel but haven't
>> read it. Thanks for the tip, it sounds like some good Christmas
>> reading.
>>
>> If nobody minds, I might post a fitt every couple of days. There's
>> rather a lot of them, even in its unfinished state. I'd like to finish
>> it, or at least get through the second third, and it might be a way of
>> diving into the poem again.
>>
>> I can't pretend to any deep knowledge of AS, I fear. I only know what
>> I've gleaned from reading the standard texts. One thing has made me
>> curious - I can't work out any formal reason for the fitts (which I am
>> preserving because, like all the poem's lumpiness, I kind of like
>> them). They're not any standard length, and can break abruptly, almost
>> in the middle of a sentence. Can you throw any light on what the
>> formal organisation, if any, might have been?
>>
>> xA
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 6:09 AM, MC Ward <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> Hi Alison,
>>>
>>> You mentioned the lack of a modern-day equivalent of *Beowulf", and I wanted to recommend John Gardner's novel *Grendel* (if you don't already know it). Not only is it frequently hilarious, but is also very insightful about the culture, Gardner himself having been a medievalist, though far better known as a novelist. His overiding insight into Grendel himself is that what drove him mad and caused him to breakfast on a couple of Danish every day was the *singing*, especially as it emanated from a place of light and <<gladness>>, as you put it so well in your second fitt, from which he was forever barred.
>>>
>>> Candice
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
>> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>>
>
>
>
> --
> David Bircumshaw
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>
--
Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
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