I'd say there was not only the illusion of chronology, because certain
datable events take place in the later numbered ones, like Delmore
Schwartz's death in July 1966 ("Delmore, Delmore"), whereas the original
77 were published in '64 and copyrighted 1959, 1962, 1963, 1964 in my
Faber edition. Though Berryman claimed that the protagonist was "not
me", events in the real J.B.'s life are easily identifiable. I was blown
away by the original 77 at the time. As with Dylan, I desperately wanted
the later ones to be as good or better, but they rarely were. There are
40+ published in 2 later volumes after *His Toy...* - does the new
complete edition give many additions to the numbered 385 - how many are
there now, Dom?
mj
Joseph Duemer wrote:
> I still own the copy of 77 Dream Songs I bought as an undergraduate &
> I had
> always assumed they were the first 77, partly because higher numbered
> ones
> continued to appear, giving at least the illusion of chronology.
>
> jd.
>
> On 5/4/07, Dominic Fox <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>
>> "He did his almost perfect best with what he had" - Dream Song 205.
>>
>> The new complete edition of the Dream Songs has arrived. I am sorry to
>> say that it is printed on rather thin paper, but then it was a quite
>> inexpensive purchase.
>>
>> I'm struck - from the angle of my own interests - by the adherence to
>> form, and the way the "long poem" accumulates as dreamwork, work of
>> mourning, running commentary on inner and outer life. By the tangle of
>> registers, the play of wildness and restraint (no problem, here,
>> locating "the bloody horse"). The phrase-making, which takes away the
>> breath.
>>
>> The original 77 that were published together - were they simply the
>> first 77 in the sequence, or selected from among a larger set?
>>
>> Dominic
>>
>> --
>> Shall we be pure or impure? Today
>> we shall be very pure. It must always
>> be possible to contain
>> impurities in a pure way.
>> --Tarmo Uustalu and Varmo Vene
>>
>
>
>
--
Il ne faut pas toujours conter,
Citer,
Dater,
Mais écouter.
Il faut éviter l'emploi
Du moi, du moi,
Voici pourquoi:
Il est tyrannique,
Trop académique;
L'ennui, l'ennui
Marche avec lui.
Marie-Françoise-Catherine de Beauveau, Marquise de Boufflets
