Archive for the ‘Literature’ Category

26
Mar

The Highwayman - “… the trigger at last was hers.”

   Posted by: Reely Tags: ,

We’ve got an audio of Alfred Noyes’ The Highwayman , although our version is a little different than you will find on most sites. We got it out of a book from 1912.

Honestly, I am not really looking for these little differences, it’s more like they jump out at me when I’m reading a poem. Some poems I know or recall in a different way in the first place. Some just don’t make sense to me so I investigate further to see if I’m right. Such was the case with The Highwayman.

Reading it on Wikipedia, I get to the part where Bess, the landlord’s daughter, the landlord’s black-eyed, red-lipped daughter (some online versions leave out her red lips), gets her finger on the musket’s trigger. After the struggle she went through to get hold of the musket’s trigger, it just didn’t make sense for the line to say “… The trigger at least was hers.” I thought it should be “at last.”

‘At least’ conveys something entirely different - a sense of resignation - when the next part makes it clear that just getting hold of the trigger was in fact Bess’s intention. If the red-coats heard Bess, she must’ve strongly doubted they’d shoot her. She surely knew they fully meant for her to watch them kill her lover. No, they would not be the ones to fire a shot and only a shot would warn the highwayman away.

The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;

Off I went to investigate and I found it in a digitized book, The Home Book of Verse, American and English (1580-1912).

I’d like to say “I was right, I was right,” but who knows, maybe it’s in another book the other way. So allow us to present to you the version of The Highwayman from The Home Book of Verse:

http://www.reelyredd.com/english-0308thehighwayman.htm

We are of course very interested to know whether “least” or “last” makes more sense to you and why.

Reely

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22
Mar

Latest Poems

   Posted by: Reely Tags:

Added at least half a dozen poems in the last week that struck my fancy, two have audio readings:

Why So Pale and Wan. First learned this poem in high school in English lit and I’ve always liked its very amusing and practical observations on the topic of unrequited love. “Will when looking well won’t win her, looking ill prevail?” Good point!

English author, Sir John Suckling, died when he was only 33 years old and no one really knows how, although it is generally accepted that he ended his own life by ingesting poison. Another theory goes that a servant put a razor in his boot!

The Deacon’s Masterpiece tells the story of the “wonderful one-hoss shay” that lasted one hundred years. Another Oliver Wendell Holmes poem, “Old Ironsides”, contributed to the preservation of the frigate USS Constitution. It was saved from being decommissioned, and is now the oldest commissioned warship in the world still afloat. We don’t have that one yet.

We hope to get an audio on Little Breeches by John Hay, a quaint and appealing account of the survival of Little Gabe in a sudden blizzard. According to his entry on wikipedia, Hay knew Sarah Helen Whitman, who was later a romantic interest of Edgar Allan Poe. Hay worked as a secretary during the Lincoln administration and went on serve as Ambassador to Great Britain and Secretary of State.

Author and poet, Bret Harte, well known for his accounts of pioneering life in California, was often given credit for “Little Breeches.” A fan of the poem approached Harte one day, declaring: “My dear Mr. Harte, I am so delighted to meet you. I want to tell you how much I loved reading ‘Little Breeches.’”

“Thank you, madam,” Harte replied, “but I have to tell you that you have put the little breeches on the wrong man!”
Read the rest of this entry »

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15
Mar

A-Roving by Lord Byron

   Posted by: Reely Tags: ,

So we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart still be as loving,
And the moon still be as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul outwears the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we’ll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.

~ George Gordon, Lord Byron

Lord Byron at Age 19 and older

Seems at least one woman came close to losing her marbles because Lord Byron didn’t want to go a-roving with her anymore.

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know
Lady Caroline’s description of Lord Byron has often been turned upon her. Learn more about her life and career as a writer here.

More Links: Kris Delmhorst on YouTube

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25
Feb

Victor Hugo

   Posted by: Reely Tags:

Reading some stuff on Victor Hugo today - tomorrow is his birthday. Here’s one very interesting article I was reading online today, from a 1952 issue of IMAGE, Journal of Photography of the George Eastman House, which I reproduce for you here only to make it easier to read. You still might want to click on the link since one of the photos in the collection is shown.)


October, 1952 Vol. 1, No. 7
THE VICTOR HUGO ALBUM

In the Gabriel Cromer Collection in the George Eastman House there is an album of photographs of Victor Hugo and his circle.

Bound in morocco leather, it contains forty photographs made between 1852 and 1854, while Hugo was in exile on the Isle of Jersey. An ardent supporter of the new and struggling Republic, he had fled France after the coup d’etat of Napoleon III, when a reward of 25,000 francs was placed on his head for publicly denouncing the policies of the Emperor. The photographs were taken by the poet’s son Charles and Auguste Vacquerie, who went with the patriot to his Jersey refuge at Marine Terrace. The album was composed by Victor Hugo, and his wife, Adele Hugo, to be sent to Euphemie Barbier, whose initials are embossed in gold on the cover. She was the daughter of Dr. Barbier who, with his wife, was also at Jersey and lived in the Hugo home.

It forms a touching document to the life of Victor Hugo during that tragic time. It also provides an extraordinary example of early photography as the aesthetic expression of a great personality. Victor Hugo himself did not touch the equipment which was used in making the collection of pictures in this album, but he supervised the procedures and posed for a number of the photographs. Through the crude mechanics of the apparatus then available; through the chemistry of the early albumen and collodion processes, through the inexperienced work of Charles Hugo and August Vacquerie who were sensitive and obedient to his instructions, Hugo’s poetic artistry is unmistakenly revealed. One finds in these prints the same “light against dark,” the same tragic humor and much the same type of feeling for landscape and figures which appear in the Victor Hugo paintings and drawings. The talented Hugo family had led a life in France full of social and patriotic activity, as well as intensive work in the fields of art and literature. Victor Hugo was able to use much of his energy while in exile writing, but Charles Hugo and Vacquerie found time hanging heavily on their hands. Photography offered a diversion in which everyone could participate. Charles journeyed to Caen where he studied with experts, and returned with some knowledge of the albumen process. Vacquerie mastered the techniques involved in using collodion. They were delighted with the simplicity of these processes compared with the complexities of making daguerreotypes. Friends sent the necessary materials. The two “operators” became proficient in handling their tools, and Hugo’s imagination leaped quickly to the potentialities of this new “sun painting.” The album contains several portraits of him, and a number of landscape studies for which he posed as the tragic exile on the rocks of the wild
Jersey coast.

In the volume is the famous photograph of Hugo’s hand, and another of the beautiful hand of his wife. There are many pictures of companions in exile and their children. These are done with dignity and tenderness, and the discerning eye perhaps can see in them the influence of the artist Hugo most admired, “O Durer, master mind, painter old and pensive!”, whose work is reflected in the poet’s own paintings.

A picture of the Hugo home at Marine Terrace is included, and a detail of the house shows Hugo at an upstairs window, with Charles at another, looking out over the greenhouse where Madame Hugo rested when the family returned from the afternoon walks. In a letter which accompanied the “souvenir” Madame Hugo regrets that Vacquerie was unable to find a print of Madame Barbier to add to the collection. Apparently the filing problems of amateurs were the same a hundred years ago.

Later Vacquerie used some of the photographs in making up a more pretentious volume called Profiles et Grimaces, which was sent to Madame Paul Meurice, the wife of one of Hugo’s closest friends. Victor Hugo is well known as a novelist, poet, essayist play-wright and patriot. A few are aware of his ability as an artist.

The pictures in this album reveal him as a versatile genius who intuitively grasped the potentialities of photography as an art expression. It is fortunate that these beautiful prints of the simple scenes around his home at Marine Terrace and the faces of those in exile dear to him, are preserved in this volume. The Victor Hugo Album is indeed a rare photographic treasure.

You might want to take a virtual tour of the George Eastman House too.

Another thing I saw was a painting of Auguste Vacquerie that I think was actually painted by Hugo. I thought it looked a little like Hugo himself. I wasn’t really looking for Victor Hugo paintings when I saw it - I was looking for art by his great-grandson, Jean Hugo.

In the web mistakes category, I also saw a picture of Hugo with a little boy that is titled Victor Hugo and Auguste Vacquerie. The boy is actually one of Hugo’s sons — Francois, I believe. Auguste Vacquerie was born when Hugo was 17 years old.

Well, gotta go.

I’ll post those pics tomorrow.

1 Comment
8
Feb

Elizabeth Bishop

   Posted by: Reely Tags: ,

Yesterday was the poet, Elizabeth Bishop’s birthday and while I wanted to write something about it, I simply didn’t have time. Still, I was reading an article about how amusing her poems are and was astounded at the writer’s take on what Bishop’s poems say.

Shaya One says:

“The writings of Elizabeth Bishop are more humorous than anything else. Not a single one of her poems reflect poetry, love, sadness, anger or any emotion. Here’s a breakdown of each and every one of her pieces. You’ll find yourself much amused and insulted, maybe something she was aiming for, but they don’t follow the lines of poetry. There is no emotion that really takes you away other than laughter if that counts. You’ll be amused anyway. ….” (continued here)

Perhaps we sometimes get out of poetry what is in our own hearts and souls and miss what the poet really meant, unless of course, we have a similar mindset ourselves. In any event, I did not get the same thing from Miracle at Breakfast as Shaya at all.

Actually, the beginning of the poem reminded me of Jesus feeding the hungry.

A Miracle for Breakfast

At six o’clock we were waiting for coffee,
waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb
that was going to be served from a certain balcony
–like kings of old, or like a miracle.
It was still dark. One foot of the sun
steadied itself on a long ripple in the river.

The first ferry of the day had just crossed the river.
It was so cold we hoped that the coffee
would be very hot, seeing that the sun
was not going to warm us; and that the crumb
would be a loaf each, buttered, by a miracle.
At seven a man stepped out on the balcony.

He stood for a minute alone on the balcony
looking over our heads toward the river.
A servant handed him the makings of a miracle,
consisting of one lone cup of coffee
and one roll, which he proceeded to crumb,
his head, so to speak, in the clouds–along with the sun.

Was the man crazy? What under the sun
was he trying to do, up there on his balcony!
Each man received one rather hard crumb,
which some flicked scornfully into the river,
and, in a cup, one drop of the coffee.
Some of us stood around, waiting for the miracle.

I can tell what I saw next; it was not a miracle.
A beautiful villa stood in the sun
and from its doors came the smell of hot coffee.
In front, a baroque white plaster balcony
added by birds, who nest along the river,
–I saw it with one eye close to the crumb–

and galleries and marble chambers. My crumb
my mansion, made for me by a miracle,
through ages, by insects, birds, and the river
working the stone. Every day, in the sun,
at breakfast time I sit on my balcony
with my feet up, and drink gallons of coffee.

We licked up the crumb and swallowed the coffee.
A window across the river caught the sun
as if the miracle were working, on the wrong balcony.

I see emotions in this poem. I see hungry people hoping for a meal and getting a crumb, experiencing different emotions. There is hope, contempt, disappointment and disbelief in this poem and all expressed within a rather difficult form of poetry, the sestina.

I don’t see anything really amusing in it, do you?

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