[lit-ideas] Sextoniana
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 07:47:52 -0500
In a message dated 11/24/2014 10:53:44 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
“Menstruation at Forty”
“The Celebration of my Uterus”
“The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator”
“Angel of Fire and Genitals”
“The Fury of Cocks”
Have you ever read a poem and shook your head at it the whole time you
were reading? A lot of her poetry was like that for me, but some of it was
surprisingly good – especially stuff she wrote while she was
institutionalized. In the end I got rid of her books, but then recently I
read something
indicating that her reputation has been rehabilitated. Who am I to say
that can’t happen after discovering that Billy Harkness was fictitious? So I’
ll read some and try to avoid poetry with titles like the above, but
sometimes the titles are misleading.
---
I would think that titles are USUALLY if not always misleading.
I think we discussed with Geary if the title of a poem SHOULD count. My
specialty: title of a song.
Consider "Home, Sweet Home".
The singer says, "I shall sing "Home Sweet Home". One expects that the
phrase "Home Sweet Home" will occur in the singing, but it doesn't. What he
sings, rather is
Home, Home, Sweet, Sweet, Home.
But surely THAT would be a clumsy title. Dodgson made fun of this,
especially as Gardner annotated it.
`You are sad,' the Knight said in an anxious tone: `let me sing you a song
to comfort you.'
`Is it very long?'
Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.
`It's long,' said the Knight, `but very, very beautiful.
Everybody that hears me sing it -- either it brings the tears into their
eyes, or else -- '
`Or else what?' said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
`Or else it doesn't, you know.
The name of the song is called "Haddocks' Eyes."'
`Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?'
Alice said, trying to feel interested.
`No, you don't understand,' the Knight said, looking a little vexed.
`That's what the name is called.
The name really is "The Aged Aged Man."'
`Then I ought to have said
"That's what the song is called"?'
Alice corrected herself.
`No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing!
The song is called "Ways and Means": but that's only what it's called, you
know!'
`Well, what is the song, then?'
said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
`I was coming to that,' the Knight said. `The song really is "A-sitting On
A Gate": and the tune's my own invention.'
So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck: then,
slowly beating time with one hand, and with a faint smile lighting up his
gentle foolish face, as if he enjoyed the music of his song, he began.
She listened, in a half dream, to the melancholy music of the song.
`But the tune isn't his own invention,' she said to herself: `it's "I give
thee all, I can no more."'
She stood and listened very attentively, but no tears came into her eyes.
`I'll tell thee everything I can;
There's little to relate...
.. Who snorted like a buffalo --
That summer evening, long ago,
A-sitting on a gate.'
------
Alice is right that the song is Dodgson's parody of "I give thee all, I can
no more" -- a charming little ditty. But the White Knight is ALSO right in
that since "A-sitting on a gate" DOES occur in the text of his song, he
has a right to say that is the title of the song. Oddly, they never discuss
'titles'.
Cheers,
Speranza
'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain;
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again!
The birds singing gayly, that come at my call --
Give me them -- and the peace of mind, dearer than all!
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
I gaze on the moon as I tread the drear wild,
And feel that my mother now thinks of her child,
As she looks on that moon from our own cottage door
Thro' the woodbine, whose fragrance shall cheer me no more.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile,
And the caress of a mother to soothe and beguile!
Let others delight mid new pleasures to roam,
But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
To thee I'll return, overburdened with care;
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there;
No more from that cottage again will I roam;
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet, home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
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