Dear all,
at the risk of spoiling or leading a lovely and improving
correspondence astray, I find Ric's analogy between a poem and a
cathedral fascinating. Do cathedrals really grow towards some
perfection of form? For example, when the west end of the Norman
nave of St Alban's collapsed and was rebuilt in an incompatible
pointed arch style, did this really reveal a natural trend
towards better things? When in the 17th century many a parish church
was expanded by adding aisles and demolishing most of the medieval
nave walls and shoving in makeshift pseudo-gothic pillars to keep the
thing up, did improvement of composition play a part?
Down with history, practicality is important too. What about the
impact of the offset litho machine on verse forms? Did the
typewriter open the field? Has the computer - with the option of
instant new editions on a website - ended the concept of a complete
and finished poem or book?
I recently came across a chant of Billy Childish/Sexton Ming that is
not strictly gothic but made a nice play on popular technology (I
thought). The first line runs <The motorbike is nice and fast fo>
while the second line is <Themotorbikeis nice andfastforme.> Does
anyone else remember having to count the number of letters you could
fit in? (Never mind the number of feet.)
apologies
Bill
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