Hi Ric
>>>- full fathom five thy father lies (Shakespeare)
>>>
>>>- bird thou never wert (Shelley)
>>>
>>>- beauty is truth truth beauty that is all ye know on earth and all ye
>>>need to know (Keats)
>>
>>Serious question - how are these not true?
>
>Without commenting on the figurative or metaphysical accuracy of these
>lines, and certainly without dismissing their evident quality, it
>seems to me that:
>
>- Ferdinand's father is alive, and enters next scene;
>
>- a skylark, I can say fairly confidently, is a bird;
>
>- whilst the knowledge contained in Keats' Statement of Urnings is
>important, I've found, on a "need-to-know" basis, that in my daily
>life other little things are important too...
>
>Hope this helps. To me poetry's strict, literal accuracy is seldom its
>prime asset.
No: but strict literal accuracy might not be the same thing as being
true. There are those other senses of true, as when something runs true,
or one is true to something - and some other sense of true that links
with an idea of freedom which I feel too full of sleep to look up ...
Shakespeare's quote is dramatically untrue, and therefore ironic: but is
"those are pearls that were his eyes" untrue in the Wasteland, for
example?
Cheers
Alison
Home Page: http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/bronte/338
Masthead online: http://www.geocities.com/soho/studios/5662
PO Box 186
Newport VIC 3015
Australia
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