Well, you’re right. Dante seems synonymous with his Inferno. He did write the
Purgatorio and Paradiso, but who reads and talks about, or criticizes those?
Not many. The same is true of Milton. Probably a lot of people don’t even
know he wrote Paradise Regained. Poets know a lot about human faults,
frailties and evils but not so much about God’s province. Milton knew this and
seemed to have doubts about the worth of Paradise Regained, or it seems to me
so because he attached his Samson Agonistes to its first publication.
Lawrence
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of John McCreery
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2019 11:30 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Torgeir Fjeld <t.fjeld1@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: On the road
Sources can be interesting. But sometimes destinations are more so. Lawrence
points us up, to a sky filled with stars. Dante points us down, to hell.
John
Sent from my iPad
On Mar 28, 2019, at 15:25, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > wrote:
Torgeir,
I definitely wasn’t thinking about Dante when I wrote that, but I’ve read so
much over the years, and presumably it is all back there some place and
accessible under hypnosis – or without my direct knowledge when writing a poem
-- but who knows? Not me. :)
Lawrence
From: Torgeir Fjeld [mailto:t.fjeld1@xxxxxxxxx] ;
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2019 11:05 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> ; Lawrence Helm
<lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> >
Subject: Re: [lit-ideas] On the road
Interesting and thoughtful. It makes us reflect on the sources of our poetic
tradition, such as
"MIDWAY upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear."
From https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/inferno/inferno-1/
Best
On Thu, 28 Mar 2019, 02:40 Lawrence Helm, <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > wrote:
I’ve been on this road a
Seldom understood long time
And have never managed
To catch its name: The signs
Wink by so quickly. I must
Do my best to watch for
Directions: “Gas and Lodging”
From time to time or
“Rest Stop” which I
Pull in to and seeing no one
To complain, let my dogs
Out off-leash to run.
I look about but see no
Explanation of where this is.
My sense of direction, always
Poor seems to have gotten worse:
The sky in this unpeopled place with
Its immeasurable number of stars,
Each one with a name
I never learned, aches
As I cross over a crest
Away from the rest-stop’s lights.
The night is full of explanation,
But I am limited by the
Energy I still possess –
The dogs come near and wait
To see where I will go – on out
To infinity – or back to the car.