Hiatus: The Peregrine & Miscellany

Still plugging through Blake's poetical logorrhea on my off-time, although a storm-stricken AT&T network has slowed my progress (and prevented updates). Returned to ye olde printed paper to read J.A. Baker's The Peregrine. Unformulated thoughtsplosion:

The reverse cover describes it as "elegiac." Wrong. This is not "elegiac." The phonetics are wrong. The Peregrine is a DIRGE. It is also fantastic. Bizarre even "unpretty" words recreate nature in the reader's mind: a combination of quirky, Serling-esque metaphors, bent grammar, and lyrical, kaleidoscopic descriptions makes the book so "weird" (in a more etymological wyrd sense) that it brings nature to life in a more "real" sense than I've encountered on a written page. Closest thing I've encountered on a written page to the distorted, unreal, wonky, vertigo-inducing and tragically beautiful reality of nature itself. Impressionistic naturalism? Naturalistic impressionism? Either way, even more important for him b/c of eco-situation in the 60s in re Peregrines. Doubly awesome for us, since we get a). this b). not extinct peregrines. Acc. to Wikipedia died '86 probs too soon to see, sadsad. Full stop.

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Fun phrase for the day (ironisch): Wir haben es hier offenbar mit Genies zu tun.

Tolkien's Beowulf and the "Ubi Sunt?" of Anglo-Saxon Literature

Taking a break from Langsdorff to read the recently-published translation of Beowulf written by J.R.R. Tolkien in the mid 1920s. I bought the book for the extensive (300-odd pages worth) commentaries on the original poem, assuming that the prose translation itself was a school exercise and wouldn't provide much in the way of literary insight or artistic enjoyment. However, I found the translation immensely gratifying. Writing from beyond the grave, Tolkien provides a little glimpse into that infinite well of "time-feeling" and über-"ubi sunt?" that characterizes Beowulf, and imbues the prose with that rhythmic, tempestuous, thunder-and-lightning, glittering tone of pride and sadness that is Anglo-Saxon literature.

Hu seo þrag gewat,
genap under nihthelm,
swa heo no wære.

How that time has passed away,
dark under the cover of night,
as if it had never been. (The Wanderer)

Spem in Alium

Interesting synchronicity of the day #1, a passage from Fitzie's This Side of Paradise:

So he wrote one day, when he pondered how coldly we thought of the "Dark Lady of the Sonnets," and how little we remembered her as the great man wanted her remembered. For what Shakespeare must have desired, to have been able to write with such divine despair, was that the lady should live ... and now we have no real interest in her ... The irony of it is that if he had cared more for the poem than for the lady the sonnet would be only obvious, imitative rhetoric and no one would ever have read it after twenty years...

Synchronous, I say, because I had just been arguing that the best literature is grounded in something other than itself, and the author accepts the fact that he is reworking material rather than producing art out of thin air (i.e. Michelangelo cutting down from a block of clay, rather than lumping it together.) Creation (technically, "sub-creation") necessarily entails deletion, since it requires delineation and exclusion of that which is not ("sub-")created. To be expounded in the literary criticism section of my Hegelian knock-off literometaphilolinguoreligiosophical magnum opus "Spem in Alium,"* publication TBA. Anyway, above quotation anecdote.

*Extrinsicism v solipsism, love is all, meaning as connection / connection as meaning.

Metamorphoseon: Plectrum

I've been picking my way through Ovid's Metamorphoses for the better part of two months now. The Latin's a bit beyond my ability, so I'm basically translating line-by-line with the help of lots and lots of dictionary searches. One interesting word that I should already know is the imposing-sounding "plectrum" (English pl. plectra), better known as the "pick" used to play guitars (as well as harpsichords).

I will wax lyrical on the splendiferous Metamorphoses as a whole once I finish it (at X.149 at the moment).

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In other news, Fitzgerald's 1920 début This Side of Paradise, is a witty, rather début-novel-ish showcase of literary ability for the young Francis Scott Key Fitz. Shares a number of things in common with Gatsby, e.g. fatal car-crashes, explorations of intimate relationships, and a brooding, unclear concern with WWI. Random poetical interpolations also give it an odd, off-kilter quality that enhances the 1920 it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world feeling. Haven't finished it though, so I will try to reserve judgment until then. Fitzgerald's way of talking (rather not talking) about the war reminds me of Mann's Der Zauberberg. Also, PURPLE ZEBRAS. [Bear in mind, most of this comes from "Book I: The Romantic Egoist." I have yet to delve into "Book II: The Education of a Personage."

Orgie der Vernichtung

Reading the 1922 edition of Ernst Jünger's In Stahlgewittern. I think it's quite good; compares favorably to Der Weg zurück (Remarque), although they're about very different aspects of the war (Im Westen nicht Neues would probably be a better comparison, but I haven't read it.) Jünger's definitely a man's man, and not as much of a pout as Remarque &co. Speaking of certain comrades, he says "Hier war ein Element lebendig, das die Wüstheit des Krieges unterstrich und doch vergeistigte, das man bei den Leuten, mit denen man zusammen in den Trichtern lag, so selten fand, di sportsmäßige Freude an der Gefahr, der ritterliche Drang zum Bestehen eines Kampfes." Not really anything more than what an Allied soldier might say, but "der ritterliche Drang zum Bestehen eines Kampfes" has a more ominous ring to it in light of future events. Also fond of the (telling?) phrase "Orgie der Vernichtung," and likes to refer to modern war as Maschinerie quite a bit too.

Poetry's Swansong: T.S. Eliot reciting the Four Quartets

Thanks youtube!