Today is the birthday of a dear friend of mine. She would be 81 if she was still with us. I still miss her & her sunny presence. She lives on in my heart.
Those Victorians still have a lot to teach us about love, duty, and honor—lessons completely lost in this post-modern dystopia. What they were most right about is that society must relearn those lessons in every generation in the face of incredible surges in technology and science. Victorian England created railroads, postal service, police, public sanitation, fundamental new laws of physics and science, modern education (instead of preparing every student for a life in the ministry), they explored the world’s darkest places, and wrote wonderful literature. My PhD is a study of the works of Tennyson, who I love still after all these decades. I may be one of only three or four living people who has read his plays, and yet at his death the public was certain he would be remembered as a playwright equal to Shakespeare. Your brilliant essay awakens in me this Sunday morning a broad range of emotions and reminds me of how much I loved being immersed in the literature of great minds. Matthew Arnold, Wordsworth, Keats, Browning, Swinburne (who leapt on the Victorian stage like a satyr at a tea party), Tennyson, and all the rest. Thomas Carlisle gave the lectures that today have become TED talks. Maxwell gave us the laws of thermodynamics. John Henry Newman has been canonized more for his miraculous writing than for any miracles of faith. It was a fascinating age, akin to our own in the way advances in STEM overturned all the old orders. About Rossetti, yes yes yes. Thank you. Thank you.
My romantic literature professor, James Butler, PhD, was also a well-known Wordsworth scholar. I remember the tissue thin airmail letters when he was in the UK researching. RIP, Jim. And thank you for the reminder, Greg.
Timely. The hap hit me this week, losing my comfortable executive job Friday morning, after 14 years of loyalty and contributions and being discarded in a surprise re-org. Life is indeed a crapshoot.
Another perspective that teaches, elucidates, and applies to situations beyond the obvious. I guess poetry is such in a form to delight and start wheels turning. Thank you.
I appreciate British poetry (In general, British literature) not only because I enjoy romanticism and melancholy, but mostly because it takes me to places, different countries, regions, and cultures. Poems from anywhere in the British world are welcome whether in the British Isles, the British Empire, or the UK. :)
Wow, I poem I actually know! I was one of those freaky fourteen-year-olds that ran home from school to make sure I didn't miss "Dark Shadows," the gothic soap opera which ran on ABC for quite a few years in the late '60s and early '70s. They put out an "Original Soundtrack Album," and Jonathan Frid, the until-then obscure Canadian actor, voiced this poem on the album. Of course, it's on YouTube (with visuals!). We learn and gather when and where we can.
Today is the birthday of a dear friend of mine. She would be 81 if she was still with us. I still miss her & her sunny presence. She lives on in my heart.
Those Victorians still have a lot to teach us about love, duty, and honor—lessons completely lost in this post-modern dystopia. What they were most right about is that society must relearn those lessons in every generation in the face of incredible surges in technology and science. Victorian England created railroads, postal service, police, public sanitation, fundamental new laws of physics and science, modern education (instead of preparing every student for a life in the ministry), they explored the world’s darkest places, and wrote wonderful literature. My PhD is a study of the works of Tennyson, who I love still after all these decades. I may be one of only three or four living people who has read his plays, and yet at his death the public was certain he would be remembered as a playwright equal to Shakespeare. Your brilliant essay awakens in me this Sunday morning a broad range of emotions and reminds me of how much I loved being immersed in the literature of great minds. Matthew Arnold, Wordsworth, Keats, Browning, Swinburne (who leapt on the Victorian stage like a satyr at a tea party), Tennyson, and all the rest. Thomas Carlisle gave the lectures that today have become TED talks. Maxwell gave us the laws of thermodynamics. John Henry Newman has been canonized more for his miraculous writing than for any miracles of faith. It was a fascinating age, akin to our own in the way advances in STEM overturned all the old orders. About Rossetti, yes yes yes. Thank you. Thank you.
My romantic literature professor, James Butler, PhD, was also a well-known Wordsworth scholar. I remember the tissue thin airmail letters when he was in the UK researching. RIP, Jim. And thank you for the reminder, Greg.
Timely. The hap hit me this week, losing my comfortable executive job Friday morning, after 14 years of loyalty and contributions and being discarded in a surprise re-org. Life is indeed a crapshoot.
Lovely
"Sweet hereafter" anticipate some HAP.
You write often about English scribblers.
Most of whom i am not familiar.
But then i lack the University that comes here.
Hardy is new to me as is Rossetti.
Her poem here has a feel of creeping melancholia.
Under dirt burial is not something i prefer.
I prefer placement high up in a tree for the feasting of birds and insects.
Might i suggest a non European artist such as poet Joy Harjo or Vine Deloria Jr.
Today's Sonoran brings my favorite times.
The heat of summer.
The weak and noisy leave.
The reptiles and i stay seeking
only shade and water.
The big quiet is upon us.
In anticipation of late summer Monsoons.
Another perspective that teaches, elucidates, and applies to situations beyond the obvious. I guess poetry is such in a form to delight and start wheels turning. Thank you.
Denada Greg.
Sonoran (desert) rambling came to me as i sipped my coffee and watched a variety of birds eagerly indulge on the divine manna i prepared for them
❤
She's a good egg -- liking very much 👍
I appreciate British poetry (In general, British literature) not only because I enjoy romanticism and melancholy, but mostly because it takes me to places, different countries, regions, and cultures. Poems from anywhere in the British world are welcome whether in the British Isles, the British Empire, or the UK. :)
Russias hidden asset?
In between poetry sessions maybe you can help the Feds uncover The Fourth Man.
Wow, I poem I actually know! I was one of those freaky fourteen-year-olds that ran home from school to make sure I didn't miss "Dark Shadows," the gothic soap opera which ran on ABC for quite a few years in the late '60s and early '70s. They put out an "Original Soundtrack Album," and Jonathan Frid, the until-then obscure Canadian actor, voiced this poem on the album. Of course, it's on YouTube (with visuals!). We learn and gather when and where we can.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdsQOoFDEXc
On my nightstand, all of Bukowski.
How about some Ishmael Reed?
And for the Brits, some Betrand Russell
as to T.S. and Vivienne Haigh Wood?