[lit-ideas] Re: Chillianwallah
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 08:32:48 -0800
Northrop Frye in his "Antique Drum" wrote about Milton that "His rhetoric is
that of 'the greatest of all eccentrics,' valid only for Milton himself, an
apotheosis of the ego. It is full of tricks like 'the facile use of resonant
names' which Marlowe outgrew . . . ." And Milton apparently did not. I don't
know whether Meredith did or not. :-)
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 4:52 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Chillianwallah
In a message dated 11/17/2014 9:43:11 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Chillianwallah, Chillianwallah!
Where our brothers fought and bled,
O thy name is natural music
And a dirge above the dead!
Though we have not been defeated,
Though we can't be overcome,
Still, whene'er thou art repeated,
I would fain that grief were dumb.
[Meredith, George (2011-03-24). Poems — Volume 1 (Kindle Locations 1-4).
. Kindle Edition.]
Meredith goes on to sing Chillianwallah in subsequent stanzas. Maybe Speranza
can see the “natural music” in this name. I can’t. The Battle of
Chillianwallah was fought against the Sikh’s in 1849.
---
Actually, I think it's a beautiful word, Chillianwallah. Oddly, I was reading a
strange poem recently, too. It is quoted by an author I'm coming to love,
Marhall Sprague. The title of the book, rather pretentious, and not fair to
Coloradans (really): "Newport in the Rockies: the life and good times of
Colorado Springs". The poem he quotes is one that Canon ('a church
dignitary') Kingsley wrote while staying in Manitou (thus called after
Longfellow):
Let me see if I find the page. Must be in the earlier chapters of the book.
Indeed, p. 81:
Are you ready for your steeple-chase,
Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorree?
Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree.
The naming of Manitou was due to Blackemore, the brother of the author of Lorna
Doone. He thought the name, which names an Algonguin spirit mentioned by
Longfellow in "The song of Hiawatha" (lot of natural music there) would be
appropriate. Sprague comments that Blackemore was doubly confused:
-- he thought the water from the springs was used by the local native Americans
for ceremonial purposes. Sprague comments: "As far as [we know they didn't.
They] used [it] to ease their indigestion."
-- And in any case, "being ... Aztec" in origin, "[the local native Americans]
certainly didn't care two pins about Longfellow's Algonquin deity" (p.
35).
Cheers,
Speranza
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