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Post by westender on Mar 30, 2012 13:28:22 GMT -1
The Waste Land, read by Jeremy Irons, is on R4 this afternoon.
Quite apart from the effect of the poem itself, one is saddened by all the wider ideas that occur at this older & wiser age, during this unexpected opportunity to revisit it.
Given what has happened to education since I was at school, I find myself wondering: am I the last generation that will grow up with (what were at the time meaningless) fragments and lines of great poetry and great literature bubbling through my head, all through my life?
I was an English student. It was taught properly, thoroughly and conscientiously to my generation, by a redoubtable and wise generation of Scottish teachers and later at uni, by even more redoubtable, renowned and venerable sorts. I loved it.
From very early on at school, certain writings stuck in my head; things that I thought were significant, things that sounded portentous and magnificent (though I'd no idea of their context or what they meant), things that I liked, and things that I perceived that others with older, wiser and better minds than mine thought were significant.
There are so many phrases and lines from great literature that are threaded tightly into the warp & weft of the mind of the English students of my generation, and of many properly educated generations before me.
Will we be the last? I think so. All that makes us civilised, all that we bring with us from the civilisations of the past, all that was considered valuable and meritorious when I was growing up, is dying. As is decent education - and the insistence by society on decent education.
There are many such lines in The Waste Land. I knew many of these lines before I'd ever heard of the poem. I remember well the sensation, when finally or unexpectedly encountering the well known lines in their proper context.
The contextless lines appeared all over the place, over and over again, in the literary landscapes in which I wandered.
Well known lines from The Waste Land:
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
I will show you fear in a handful of dust
On Margate sands
Consider Phlebas
towers tolling reminiscent bells
Then spoke the thunder
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Post by celyn on Mar 30, 2012 14:16:03 GMT -1
Oh, I think you've been short-changed there. Didn't they let you read anything properly intellectual, like Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats?
<see me lighting blue touchpaper and standing well back> ;D
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Post by bormes on Mar 30, 2012 15:59:58 GMT -1
My grandson has been reciting my personal favourite, Burns. His class are doing To a mouse. I think it his best poem, yet I also love his song Ae fond kiss.
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Post by peony on Mar 30, 2012 18:08:36 GMT -1
I had a wonderful, wonderful English teacher when I was a freshman in high school (14 yrs. old).
One poem I will never forget: Tichborne's Elegy.
I was able to get her for three of my four years in high school and I think that is why I majored in English when I finally made it to college.
Tichborne's Elegy
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain;
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
My tale was heard and yet it was not told,
My fruit is fallen, and yet my leaves are green,
My youth is spent and yet I am not old,
I saw the world and yet I was not seen;
My thread is cut and yet it is not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
I sought my death and found it in my womb,
I looked for life and saw it was a shade,
I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I was but made;
My glass is full, and now my glass is run,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
The last line has always come to me at every funeral or wake, shiva or mourning I've attended.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2012 19:47:40 GMT -1
I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb, And now I die, and now I was but made; My glass is full, and now my glass is run, And now I live, and now my life is done. The last line has always come to me at every funeral or wake, shiva or mourning I've attended. You can see in their writing the love of language both Westie and Peony have. It just shines out ;D and a pleasure to read. English Lit was wasted on me aged 19, I'm ashamed to say I dropped it after first year. I think I would get much more from it now. Anyways, these are the words that echo with me on the loss of loved ones; Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good. (W H Auden) People say time heals after such times of raw grief. I'm afraid I don't agree. We are never the same. Talking of remembered fragments, Westie, this one recurs more frequently with me as time passes, cheerfully so ;D "I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach." (T S Eliot) And finally I've never forgotten the first time I saw this at school as a teenager in the 60s; Night Mail is a 30 minute documentary made in the 30s, the end of which featured a poem by W H Auden, with music by Benjamin Britten. Kicks in a 3.00 in this clip. www.youtube.com/watch?v=902G8widi00 |
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Post by ozneil on Mar 30, 2012 19:59:39 GMT -1
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Post by ozneil on Mar 30, 2012 20:01:55 GMT -1
Pounded into me at school
My Country
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!
The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze ...
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
Dorothea MacKellar
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Post by bormes on Mar 30, 2012 21:00:39 GMT -1
Lovely mate.
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Post by ozneil on Mar 30, 2012 21:02:06 GMT -1
see the 2 little film clips I added above?
That film about Tom Kruse was made in 1954 By Shell Oil. Tom owed tme £3,500.00 in unpaid fuel bills. Shell agreed to waive the bill if Tom agreed to do the docu. It won many prizes but I doubt if it would have a following in the UK . It was called the Back of Beyond.
The Birdsville Track is now a graded dirt road but is still liable to flooding and can be closed for long periods
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2012 21:22:07 GMT -1
Yeah, thanks ;D
Tom Kruse, what a guy!
More worthy of the 'hero' tag than his namesake IMHO ;D
These old clips are priceless, aren't they?
Our Scottish Screen Archive is about to move into the Kelvin Hall next year and the public will be able to visit and view clips of their choosing.
Meanwhile me and my team are grafting on digitising our Scottish music archive in its entirety. Like our colleagues over at SSA, we're in danger of losing historical items on film and tape that degenerate in storage over time.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2012 22:23:48 GMT -1
My grandson has been reciting my personal favourite, Burns. His class are doing To a mouse. I think it his best poem, yet I also love his song Ae fond kiss. Slightly off-topic but since you mentioned Ae Fond Kiss, Bormes, here's a wee clip I hope you enjoy. From Celtic Connections at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. Westender Eddi Reader with fellow Westender Donald Shaw (Capercaillie) on piano, Phil Cunningham on accordion, Michael McGoldrick on pipes, Ewen Vernal (Deacon Blue, Capercaillie) on double bass, John McCusker on mandolin and, very probably, James McIntosh on drums. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMmtBgMaF5ISheer poetry. ;D They're over your way just now, Oz. |
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Post by ozneil on Mar 30, 2012 23:18:21 GMT -1
Lovely!!!
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Post by ozneil on Mar 31, 2012 2:49:00 GMT -1
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Post by notanimby on Mar 31, 2012 7:30:16 GMT -1
Yeah, thanks ;D Tom Kruse, what a guy! More worthy of the 'hero' tag than his namesake IMHO ;D These old clips are priceless, aren't they? Our Scottish Screen Archive is about to move into the Kelvin Hall next year and the public will be able to visit and view clips of their choosing. Meanwhile me and my team are grafting on digitising our Scottish music archive in its entirety. Like our colleagues over at SSA, we're in danger of losing historical items on film and tape that degenerate in storage over time. I agree Tom done well in the mission impossible filums he's a scientologist you know...... |
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Post by bormes on Mar 31, 2012 7:42:34 GMT -1
Thanks rolo, fantastic.
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