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Can I speak?
There are poets beyond the see - they are
in touch with you and can read all your mail.
This is legimitate.
We have wide-opened ears.
Please, be communicative!

Bibi

--- Viv Kitson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Martin - You're right, of course, about "fatuous
> ecstasies anent Beatrice
> Alighieri"...although I would have postulated my
> position as "simulated
> ecstasies". As other members of this list have
> frequently commented, irony
> does not - quite obviously - translate to email
> communication. Or, to quote
> Iggy Pop, "I'm bored, I'm the Chairman of the
> Bored". Just trying to
> stimulate a little "erudite" (??) fun on the list.
>
> And you are correct, quoting from memory: Beatrice
> Portinari it is. I've
> found on the bookshelves the volume of "The Divine
> Comedy" I bought when I
> was 15 or 16. "Oxford Editions of Standard Authors",
> translated by H.F.Cary,
> with 109 illustrations by John Flaxman (no
> publication date). I obviously
> bought it on sale: the price on the flyleaf is a
> crossed out 15/6 to 5/-.
> Circa 1961. five shillings was a lot for an
> adolecsent to spend on a volume
> of poetry. Particularly when I read Cary's Preface
> and note that it is dated
> February 1844! (that is, 100 years before I was
> born).
>
> I haven't seen the Blake illustrations to the Divine
> Comedy, but the Flaxman
> illustrations are decidedly in the Blake style. I
> can make this comment
> because I've also taken from the bookshelves my
> Viking Press 1960 edition of
> "The Portable Blake" - probably purchased
> contemporaneously with the Divine
> Comedy.
>
> Yes, Martin, I do not - to use a favourite word of
> contemporary
> politicians - resile from my adolescent fantasies
> and interests. They formed
> me (for better or worse). But I would have thought
> that my comment in my
> last response to "Beatrice Alighieri" - about
> playing with identities etc. -
> was a "dead give away" as to the position...
>
> FUN, Martin. Fun, GOOD FUN (but perhaps not
> erudite).
>
> Cheers,
> Viv Kitson
>
> Martin J. Walker wrote:
> > Excuse me if I interrupt the fatuous ecstasies
> anent "Beatrice Alighieri"
> > (sic), but it seems to me that you, Viv, and
> others perchance, have fallen
> > for a gross deception, an instance of what certain
> neo-gnostic
> commentators,
> > later unfortunately suppressed, have designated
> the "false Beatrice"
> > syndrome (so well known to Blake, vide his
> illustrations for the
> > _Commedia_ ). Who knows what subtle fairy has
> foisted this deceit on you,
> > ladies and gentlemen, but it is not, repeat NOT,
> the Beatrice Portinari (I
> > am open to correction to the spelling of her
> family name, not having the
> > relevant literature to hand in my sylvan retreat)
> of literary renown and
> > august anima of both Dante Alighieri and the
> adolescent Viv Kitson, known
> to
> > us as otherwise sharp-witted and adult contributor
> to this poetry list.
> > Another estimable contributor, Mairead by name,
> has suggested that
> > "Beatrice" is "Henry" - but who is Henry? Henry
> Pussycat is no longer with
> > us r.i.p. The dark wood grows curiouser and
> curiouser. Could the list have
> > been infected by a very intelligent virus, perish
> the thought, albeit one
> > that commits solecisms of the above-indicated kind
> and attempts to pull
> the
> > wool over our eyes with such patently fabricated
> misspellings as "hights"
> > and "wispering"?
> > Yours etc. Martin
> >
> >
>
>

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