Drat you, Dominic, I'll be singing it all night now.
joanna
Which Sullivan? or all of it? Gilbert on his own's rather interesting too.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dominic Fox" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 9:53 PM
Subject: Re: Muse
The line, as I recall, is "what do I think of Stainer's crucifixion? I
think it's a very good idea!". Ditto Gandhi's line about "Western
Civilisation" - e.g., it's high time something of the sort was brought
about.
I used Stainer, of all people, to talk about Katrina, of all things:
CHANGE MANAGEMENT a capital idea,
as variously said of Stainer's
crucifixion, Western civilisation;
as plaintively incised into the bath-
house walls of cities drowned
and choked, alongside MENTULAM CACO, there
where one delivers one's opinion
of his supreme beneficence. Chalk up your names,
you passers-by, fresh out of lamentations.
(Stainer took the line "is it nothing to you, all you that pass by?"
from the book of Lamentations, and turned it into Christ's lament from
the cross, in a particularly fruity recitative). MENTULAM CACO is I
think from Martial, but it's the sort of thing one might have found
graffitoed at Pompeii. The line about the place "where one delivers
one's opinion / of his supreme benificence" refers to something Nagy
Rashwan once told me about his friends and family in Egypt - that when
visiting the lavatory, they sometimes said things like "I'm just going
to give my opinion of the government".
No, Stainer's not up there with Tennyson - but he has in my view the
inestimable virtue of not being Maunder. And you can have my Arthur
Sullivan when you prise it from my shaking, fever-stricken hands...
Dominic
On 1/12/06, Joanna Boulter <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Oh lor! Fling wide the gates!! You *can't be equating Tennyson and Stainer
> in terms of importance. I totally agree with you about Tennyson; but as my
> ex used to say about Stainer, it's past time someone crucified him.
>
> joanna
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dominic Fox" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 9:18 PM
> Subject: Re: Muse
>
>
> Tennyson does *not* get enough love around here, or pretty much
> anywhere these days.
>
> Without Tennyson, no Yeats.
>
> Oh, and there's this: http://www.bartleby.com/229/5008.html
>
> Tennyson is sick, of course, with all the sickness of the Victorians -
> overbrimming with it. _Maud_ is just about the most deranged thing any
> civilised (I used the word advisedly) person ever wrote. I can quite
> understand finding him repulsive; but that's no excuse for not
> recognising his importance.
>
> Now, who's for a quick run-through of Stainer's _Crucifixion_?
>
> Dominic
>
> On 1/12/06, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > The locus classicus I should think would be Hesiod's Theogony.
> >
> > A nice article, as far as it goes, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse.
> >
> > As to Graves, he gets better and better the less you read him. For a
> > start,
> > I can think of a few other reasons why people fortunate enough not to
> > die
> > of wars and disease stop writing poetry, and no great loss, usually.
> >
> > And he seems to have missed the boat on In Memoriam.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> >
> > At 08:49 PM 1/12/2006 +0000, you wrote:
> > >A reminder for those interested that the locus classicus for much of
> > >what's
> > >being discussed under this heading remains Robert Graves' The White
> > >Goddess,
> > >especially chapters 22ff. In hopes of encouraging the company to read
> > >or
> > >reread these chapters, I give below an excerpt which I am sure each of
> > >you
> > >who reads it will cherish as a source of either insight or aggravation:
> > >
> > >===
> > >
> > >The reason why so remarkably few young poets continue nowadays to
> > >publish
> > >poetry after their early twenties is...that something dies in the poet.
> > >Perhaps he has compromised his poetic integrity by valuing some range
> > >of
> > >experience or other - literary, religious, philosophical, dramatic,
> > >political, or social - above the poetic. But perhaps also he has lost
> > >his
> > >sense of the White Goddess: the woman whom he took to be a Muse, or who
> > >was
> > >a Muse, turns into a domestic woman and would have him turn similarly
> > >into a
> > >domesticated man. Loyalty prevents him from parting company with her,
> > >especially if she is the mother of his children ... and as the Muse
> > >fades
> > >out, so does the poet. The English poets of the early nineteenth
> > >century
> > >... were uncomfortably aware of this problem and many of them, such as
> > >Southey and Patmore, tried to lyricize domesticity, though none of them
> > >with
> > >poetic success. The White Goddess is anti-domestic; she is the
> > >perpetual
> > >'other woman', and her part is difficult indeed for a woman of
> > >sensibility
> > >to play for more than a few years, because the temptation to commit
> > >suicide
> > >in simple domesticity lurks in every mænad's and muse's heart.
> > >
> > >===
> > >
> > >Also relevant is the comment Graves makes somewhere about Tennyson's In
> > >Memoriam, which Graves considered was doomed to failure as a poem
> > >because
> > >"a
> > >Muse does not wear whiskers."
> >
>
>
> --
> 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
>
--
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
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