May 7, 2024, was the 200th anniversary of the premiere of Beethoven’s 9th symphony. I’d be willing to make a time capsule bet that come May 7, 2224, people will still be listening to the 9th, while at the same time Musk, Zuckerberg, and yes, even Trump, are barely footnotes. So I’m down with Arnold on culture.
When we consider degree of difficulty and quality of the output, Beethoven writing that symphony while completely deaf remains the greatest artistic thing ever accomplished, and I don't know that it will ever be topped. Ode to Joy, indeed!
Wow, you did it again. Love the way you make the poem as relevant to today as a flashing headline. I was never familiar with Matthew Arnold, despite having some awesome literature teachers. This is a keeper that I’ll remember as the idiotic armies destroy each other. Despite his “eternal sadness,” he nailed the crux of our discontent. The equality alluded to in our founding documents has stirred more hatred and vitriol than any other promise laid out there. Food for thought as the tides flow in and out.
Thanks, JD. We are not all equal, and should not be -- we want Lamar Jackson running the offense, and Beethoven writing the symphonies, and etc -- but the idea of everyone being equal *under the law* should not be, as you point out, as controversial as it is.
Damn dude, that was an enjoyable read, not to mention literary lesson so very cleverly presented weaving in our present political dilemma coupled with a fix of sort — thank you!
As we all too soon are to face cutureless, classless, crassness only a few days away the grotesque orangeness blurs our view of Calais. A couple of simple lines come to my mind:
“tomorrow may rain so I’ll follow the sun..”
and,
“come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody come together try to love one another right now, right now…”
Thanks, Dock. Love both of those songs. But I will add that, as I point out in my first novel, Kurt Cobain mockingly singing the chorus of the second song as an intro to, I think, "Territorial Pissing," is the single most emblematic Gen X moment in all of art. Gen X was raised to be cynical and not trust anything, and even WE are stunned...
I hear you. And, when I heard Novoselic lead into Territorial Pissings with those words, that also caught my peace-loving-surfer-turned-Navy-SEAL-morphed-lawyer-gone-surfing-still-peace-loving ear. It made me wonder.
Cobain (RIP) and crew’s insertion of those words didn’t really come across to me so much as sarcasm (or, laughing derisively at your hypocritical idealism), but more a plea to get back on track much like Joni’s sweet crooning about getting “back to the garden.” But, I certainly hear you now.
I read Dirty Rubles and read every SubStack piece I see from/by you. Now, I am inspired to snag a copy of that first novel of yours and devour that. Your cleverly presented finely honed edge seems to me a particularly important voice in the precarious times. Again, thx for sharing — shine on!
Gosh, this is a stunning piece Greg. I couldn't help but think about the last line of The Great Gatsby "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.". Cheers!
Reading you has become my Sunday treat. Thank you Greg, for reflecting my feelings so perfectly. Yes, here’s to art and solidarity in the face of it all.
So true. I'm so exhausted, I approach almost everything reluctance these days, but Greg does lure me along. Same with the Five 8. I couldn't bring myself to watch live Friday night, but watched it last night, and it was worth the effort.
Although I do not religiously read your Sunday Prevail columns, I invariably enjoy them when I do. The descriptions of your subjects uncannily match their visual photographs; in the case of today’s “avuncular” Matthew Arnold, your literary portrait actually speaks louder than his photograph. Not only have you engagingly introduced me to many authors I hardly knew much about, but your poetic writing style and rhythmic voice sooth the mind. As Deepak Chopra has said, reading poetry reduces stress—and how we need this today, given the anxiety that 47 is swiftly precipitating (you’re so right: that fourth stanza could have been written today!). Thanks, Greg, for soldiering on with your weekly armament of gratifying, journalistic prose.
Reading you columns makes me smile and occasionally even laugh. Today, the paragraph below did the latter job:
In his twenties, Arnold… waxed as libertine…; hung out with… George Sand; followed… Rachel Félix around Paris…; … fell madly in love with… Marguerite…. When he came home… he got a job…, got married…, settled down, had six children, and wrote about high-minded things until he died of a sudden heart attack at age 65. All of this informs his poetry, which teems with melancholy, loss, frustrated love, sentimentality, nostalgia…
After a second reading, I now understand that his muses inspired Arnold’s poetry before he died. Nevertheless, the placement of the determiner phrase “All of this” led my first reading to interpret his own death as a postmortem muse. This reading added a morbid but amusing twist to the themes of melancholy, loss and nostalgia you indicate imbued his poetry. And this further explained how Arnold’s “eternal note of sadness” still echoes in your mind to this day.
Happy Sunday, Greg! May the world see peace and more love this new year.
I was going to use the photograph as the image for the piece, but I decided describing him without the picture would be more fun.
Arnold died suddenly, of a heart attack. Who knows if he had hypertension or what, but the poet in me likes to think he died of a broken heart. Speaking of which: I echo your wish for more peace and more love in 2025. Lord knows, we need it.
Given that Hitler's genocidal conquest of Eastern Europe, and thus the mass displacement that led to the Final Solution, was inspired by and modeled on how the United States dealt with the Native Americans, I don't know that that's strictly true. Between genocide and slavery, America has seen plenty of brutality and horror.
Not that any of that matters, especially to the people who lived through it. Atrocity is not a contest, and I share in your prayers that we are spared a return to the truly heinous crimes of the past, in Nazi Germany, and here at home. That I have to even write that sentence, or that we have to look back at these horrors, will boggle my mind until my dying day.
I did say, Or not in the century past, because I'm addressing ourselves and referring to us & our proximate forebears, thinking like you of slavery & the North American holocaust for starters.
Thank you for another delicious Sunday offering. Of course I had to pull up what we know of his horoscope, expecting there to be patterns reflecting the description of him being prone to fantasy, yet also somber, possibly repressed. He's a Capricorn, with four other planets in Capricorn, including Venus and Neptune. Venus-Neptune together suggests idealism, possibly escapist, and in contact with his Capricorn Sun reflects vision, imagination and possible bewildered sense of identity (and possibly suppressed, as Neptune tends to dissolve whatever it touches). He is driven by Moon in Taurus, suggesting a need for material comfort/security, and preservation of the status quo that would drive everything ever did. Looks like Saturn may be on his Moon, a sober, potentially sorrowful pattern, born of isolation. In mid-1851, Arnold was experiencing his first Saturn Return, like everyone else at roughly age 29. This is an extremely maturing period, when those experiencing it are inclined to get established in life -- e.g., get married, buy a house, go to grad school, start a career, as opposed to a McJob. Arnold got married in 1851, so check that box..,and also note that Arnold's Saturn Return was more extreme and maddening -- possibly anguished -- by the transits of Pluto and Uranus joining Saturn in early Taurus. And speaking of extremes, note that his Mercury (how he needed to think and communicate) is in righteously frank Sagittarius, amplified by contact with Pluto (extremes). https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Arnold,_Matthew
Thanks for this, Elisabeth! From what you've laid out, Arnold's natal chart is especially bang-on. He's such an earth sign, and such a Capricorn specifically. I wonder if he was also a Capricorn Rising...
He would if he was born within two hours of sunrise on December 24. 1822. He does have a long, lean face and body type -- doesn't look like a typical build and face for someone with Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius. So...Capricorn is in the running!
May 7, 2024, was the 200th anniversary of the premiere of Beethoven’s 9th symphony. I’d be willing to make a time capsule bet that come May 7, 2224, people will still be listening to the 9th, while at the same time Musk, Zuckerberg, and yes, even Trump, are barely footnotes. So I’m down with Arnold on culture.
When we consider degree of difficulty and quality of the output, Beethoven writing that symphony while completely deaf remains the greatest artistic thing ever accomplished, and I don't know that it will ever be topped. Ode to Joy, indeed!
‘the news: everything is bad.
poets: okay, but what if everything is bad and we still fall in love with the moon and learn something from the flowers.’
Thank goodness for the poets ❤️
Beautifully put, Kim. Thank you.
Wow, you did it again. Love the way you make the poem as relevant to today as a flashing headline. I was never familiar with Matthew Arnold, despite having some awesome literature teachers. This is a keeper that I’ll remember as the idiotic armies destroy each other. Despite his “eternal sadness,” he nailed the crux of our discontent. The equality alluded to in our founding documents has stirred more hatred and vitriol than any other promise laid out there. Food for thought as the tides flow in and out.
Thanks, JD. We are not all equal, and should not be -- we want Lamar Jackson running the offense, and Beethoven writing the symphonies, and etc -- but the idea of everyone being equal *under the law* should not be, as you point out, as controversial as it is.
Damn dude, that was an enjoyable read, not to mention literary lesson so very cleverly presented weaving in our present political dilemma coupled with a fix of sort — thank you!
As we all too soon are to face cutureless, classless, crassness only a few days away the grotesque orangeness blurs our view of Calais. A couple of simple lines come to my mind:
“tomorrow may rain so I’ll follow the sun..”
and,
“come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody come together try to love one another right now, right now…”
Thanks, Dock. Love both of those songs. But I will add that, as I point out in my first novel, Kurt Cobain mockingly singing the chorus of the second song as an intro to, I think, "Territorial Pissing," is the single most emblematic Gen X moment in all of art. Gen X was raised to be cynical and not trust anything, and even WE are stunned...
I hear you. And, when I heard Novoselic lead into Territorial Pissings with those words, that also caught my peace-loving-surfer-turned-Navy-SEAL-morphed-lawyer-gone-surfing-still-peace-loving ear. It made me wonder.
Cobain (RIP) and crew’s insertion of those words didn’t really come across to me so much as sarcasm (or, laughing derisively at your hypocritical idealism), but more a plea to get back on track much like Joni’s sweet crooning about getting “back to the garden.” But, I certainly hear you now.
I read Dirty Rubles and read every SubStack piece I see from/by you. Now, I am inspired to snag a copy of that first novel of yours and devour that. Your cleverly presented finely honed edge seems to me a particularly important voice in the precarious times. Again, thx for sharing — shine on!
Gosh, this is a stunning piece Greg. I couldn't help but think about the last line of The Great Gatsby "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.". Cheers!
Helenbirdart.com
Thanks, Helen. I think about Gatsby all the time. Especially the end, because Tom Buchanan never loses, just like in the real world.
Reading you has become my Sunday treat. Thank you Greg, for reflecting my feelings so perfectly. Yes, here’s to art and solidarity in the face of it all.
Thanks so much, Mitzi. Yes, to art and solidarity!
Thanks, love this one.
Thanks, Nina!
Hats off again. Here’s a bit from ’Light Songs We Breathe.’
Please don't cover your ears
And give in to your silly fears.
Things will always work out right
Whether or not we strive and fight.
The final score's not ours to see.
Actuaries of Heavenly scope
Will let us know what's to be
Whilst we wring our hands and hope.
The earth, the stars and constellations
Are just giant hallucinations.
This is, as it should be, of course,
And won't be changed by any
force.
Billserle.com
Lovely, Bill. Thanks for sharing!
Methinks you are my fave writer Mr Olear. That's all. Thanks for your thinking, your distillations. Love your Sunday Pages. Cheers.
Thanks so much, Julie. I am honored!
So good. This lured me along word by word.
"lured me along word by word"
So true. I'm so exhausted, I approach almost everything reluctance these days, but Greg does lure me along. Same with the Five 8. I couldn't bring myself to watch live Friday night, but watched it last night, and it was worth the effort.
Thanks, Sharon.
I returned from my trip to my Fabled Labels shorts!
Thanks, Susan!
Good morning, Greg!
Although I do not religiously read your Sunday Prevail columns, I invariably enjoy them when I do. The descriptions of your subjects uncannily match their visual photographs; in the case of today’s “avuncular” Matthew Arnold, your literary portrait actually speaks louder than his photograph. Not only have you engagingly introduced me to many authors I hardly knew much about, but your poetic writing style and rhythmic voice sooth the mind. As Deepak Chopra has said, reading poetry reduces stress—and how we need this today, given the anxiety that 47 is swiftly precipitating (you’re so right: that fourth stanza could have been written today!). Thanks, Greg, for soldiering on with your weekly armament of gratifying, journalistic prose.
Reading you columns makes me smile and occasionally even laugh. Today, the paragraph below did the latter job:
In his twenties, Arnold… waxed as libertine…; hung out with… George Sand; followed… Rachel Félix around Paris…; … fell madly in love with… Marguerite…. When he came home… he got a job…, got married…, settled down, had six children, and wrote about high-minded things until he died of a sudden heart attack at age 65. All of this informs his poetry, which teems with melancholy, loss, frustrated love, sentimentality, nostalgia…
After a second reading, I now understand that his muses inspired Arnold’s poetry before he died. Nevertheless, the placement of the determiner phrase “All of this” led my first reading to interpret his own death as a postmortem muse. This reading added a morbid but amusing twist to the themes of melancholy, loss and nostalgia you indicate imbued his poetry. And this further explained how Arnold’s “eternal note of sadness” still echoes in your mind to this day.
Happy Sunday, Greg! May the world see peace and more love this new year.
Rose
Thanks so much, Rose, for, ahem, all of that.
I was going to use the photograph as the image for the piece, but I decided describing him without the picture would be more fun.
Arnold died suddenly, of a heart attack. Who knows if he had hypertension or what, but the poet in me likes to think he died of a broken heart. Speaking of which: I echo your wish for more peace and more love in 2025. Lord knows, we need it.
Thanks again!
What a heartwarming explication of Arnold's poem and this group's responses. I am grateful for all of you.
Thanks, Judy. I share in your gratitude for this wonderful community.
You're in my heart as well, dear Greg.
[heart emoji]
Apologies, truly, from a son of holocaust survivors.
America ain't seen nothing yet, or not in the century past,
Of man-made brutality and horror
And pray, if for the first time, that we don't.
Given that Hitler's genocidal conquest of Eastern Europe, and thus the mass displacement that led to the Final Solution, was inspired by and modeled on how the United States dealt with the Native Americans, I don't know that that's strictly true. Between genocide and slavery, America has seen plenty of brutality and horror.
Not that any of that matters, especially to the people who lived through it. Atrocity is not a contest, and I share in your prayers that we are spared a return to the truly heinous crimes of the past, in Nazi Germany, and here at home. That I have to even write that sentence, or that we have to look back at these horrors, will boggle my mind until my dying day.
Thanks, Richard.
I did say, Or not in the century past, because I'm addressing ourselves and referring to us & our proximate forebears, thinking like you of slavery & the North American holocaust for starters.
Daughter off Holocaust victims here and I share your feelings.
Great stuff, uplifting but realistic. Thanks.
Thanks, Wayne!
Thank you for another delicious Sunday offering. Of course I had to pull up what we know of his horoscope, expecting there to be patterns reflecting the description of him being prone to fantasy, yet also somber, possibly repressed. He's a Capricorn, with four other planets in Capricorn, including Venus and Neptune. Venus-Neptune together suggests idealism, possibly escapist, and in contact with his Capricorn Sun reflects vision, imagination and possible bewildered sense of identity (and possibly suppressed, as Neptune tends to dissolve whatever it touches). He is driven by Moon in Taurus, suggesting a need for material comfort/security, and preservation of the status quo that would drive everything ever did. Looks like Saturn may be on his Moon, a sober, potentially sorrowful pattern, born of isolation. In mid-1851, Arnold was experiencing his first Saturn Return, like everyone else at roughly age 29. This is an extremely maturing period, when those experiencing it are inclined to get established in life -- e.g., get married, buy a house, go to grad school, start a career, as opposed to a McJob. Arnold got married in 1851, so check that box..,and also note that Arnold's Saturn Return was more extreme and maddening -- possibly anguished -- by the transits of Pluto and Uranus joining Saturn in early Taurus. And speaking of extremes, note that his Mercury (how he needed to think and communicate) is in righteously frank Sagittarius, amplified by contact with Pluto (extremes). https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Arnold,_Matthew
Thanks for this, Elisabeth! From what you've laid out, Arnold's natal chart is especially bang-on. He's such an earth sign, and such a Capricorn specifically. I wonder if he was also a Capricorn Rising...
He would if he was born within two hours of sunrise on December 24. 1822. He does have a long, lean face and body type -- doesn't look like a typical build and face for someone with Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius. So...Capricorn is in the running!