W.H. Auden on Reading

To read is to translate, for no two persons' experiences are the same. A bad reader is like a bad translator: he interprets literally when he ought to paraphrase and paraphrases when he ought to interpret literally.

-W.H. Auden, poet (1907-1973)

So who decides on the "ought"? Surely this statement implies that there is a single "correct" way of interpreting a text... You're letting the postmodern side down W.H., pull yourself together!


I find myself agreeing with the sentiment though.

Postmodernism is overrated.

most this amazing

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
wich is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

- ee cummings 

 

Random Quote for Monday

"When I'm a veteran with only one eye,

I shall do nothing but look at the sky" 

incredible artwork from...

George Herbert through the centuries

I STRUCK the board, and cry’d, No more ;
                                I will abroad.

 -George Herbert, "The Collar"

Have you ever felt like that? I certainly have...

What's fascinating about this very famous poem is that it was written by a humble clergyman (i.e. minister/priest) who also happened to be a very brilliant poet. George Herbert gave up a very lucrative political/academic career to follow his religious convictions... and the poetry he wrote about this and other opinions and decisions is still with us today.

Personally, I find it enormously comforting to know that even such a morally upstanding gentleman occasionally experienced such (unfortunately familiar) frustration.

If you're interested, the rest of the poem (which is well worth reading) can be found here:

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/collar.htm

Cunning Passages

History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors and issues.

T.S. ELIOT, Gerontion

TS Eliot's poetry is difficult (to say the least). Difficult to follow that is - I have no information as to whether or not it was also difficult to write. If you're unfamiliar with his work, then you should be able to have a look at some of his poems via this link:Black Cat Poems - TS Eliot.

A wise lecturer once explained to me that the chief difficulty with discerning what is going on in Eliot's poetry is that he has removed all the scaffolding with which we usually find our way around a poem. The window frames have been removed, leaving the glass floating mysteriously in mid-air. 

Difficult old reprobate. It's also been said that he did this quite deliberately, to prevent the "plebs" from understanding his "oh so sophisticated" work...

Yet the poems themselves are still enormously powerful. 

I guess jealousy makes me nasty.

***

I have heard the key 
Turn in the door once and turn once only 
We think of the key, each in his prison 
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison

TS Eliot; What the Thunder Said