I'm a lonely englisher in the harsh american wilderness meself. so have
been busy inventing a glorious arcadian past which i believe in furiously.
Recently teaching Bunting and Jones was thinking about how Bunting
portrays a very northern dialect in Briggflatts, mentions a bit of London
and Italy, but really plays up the northern poet bit, despite what must
have been a plethora of other linguistic influences. It strikes one as a
construction, and an agression to the southrons, which he may well have
felt justified in constructing when one remembers the way the Times
treated him.
Anyway, in the recordings of Briggflatts he rolls his r's like a
pantomime northerner. and I really don't mean any disrespect by this,
I am just intersted in his studied allegiance. Jones of course does this
welsh thing, mixed with a bit of
Latin--which he confesses not to know--it is almost as if he throws
himself
into the languages that most hold him at arms length. i am talking about
the Anathemata rather than In Parenthesis.
I have found myself reaching back to Piers Plowman and the Harley Lyrics
because of there geographical proximity to my own provenance. It isn't
simple an intellectual process either. i think i have some residual tribal
affiliation, or fantasize that I do. MacDiarmid was a dictionary hopper as
well. An odd Modernist tendency, this constructing of a marginalized self.
Glad that Doug mentioned William Barnes. I think there must be pockets of
dorsetshire modernists busily learning the dialect so they can proudly
attack the zoddin Lunden bazturds.
Martin de la Worcester
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|