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larryhammerThe start of Part I, Canto 1, Section ii of Owen Meredith's best-selling 1860 verse-novel Lucile:
The joker in this pack being that "Owen Meredith" is better known as Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton, 1st earl of Lytton, son of the more famous Bulwer-Lytton of the contest. Yes, dear readers, in addition to being an even more disasterous imperialist politician than his father, he was an even worse (but just as best-selling) poet.
Clearly, I need to read this. And, indeed, I now own a copy (one of this publisher's editions) -- 379 12mo. pages (gilt edged) of anapestic tetrameter couplets, in twelve cantos.
My question to you -- any interest in my live-blogging reading it? By way of forcing me to actually ride all the way through (as judging by the extract in The Stuffed Owl, describing the financial implications of a bank failure, the terrain is heavy going in stretches). Or would you prefer to receive a final report of the damage?
---L.
Now in May Fair, of course,--in the fair month of May--and so on -- I'll be merciful and stop here. Even more merciful, that is: the actual opening is worse, though not for the same reasons. The brave can read it here.
When life is abundant, and busy, and gay:
When the markets of London are noisy about
Young ladies, and strawberries,--"only just out;"
Fresh strawberries sold under all the house-eaves,
And young ladies on sale for the strawberry-leaves: ...
The joker in this pack being that "Owen Meredith" is better known as Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton, 1st earl of Lytton, son of the more famous Bulwer-Lytton of the contest. Yes, dear readers, in addition to being an even more disasterous imperialist politician than his father, he was an even worse (but just as best-selling) poet.
Clearly, I need to read this. And, indeed, I now own a copy (one of this publisher's editions) -- 379 12mo. pages (gilt edged) of anapestic tetrameter couplets, in twelve cantos.
My question to you -- any interest in my live-blogging reading it? By way of forcing me to actually ride all the way through (as judging by the extract in The Stuffed Owl, describing the financial implications of a bank failure, the terrain is heavy going in stretches). Or would you prefer to receive a final report of the damage?
---L.
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Date: 2 November 2010 04:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2 November 2010 05:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2 November 2010 05:40 pm (UTC)This one's an epigone of Bulwer-Lytton, for added delight.
---L.
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Date: 2 November 2010 05:40 pm (UTC)---L.
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Date: 2 November 2010 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4 November 2010 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4 November 2010 11:01 pm (UTC)---L.
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Date: 4 November 2010 11:08 pm (UTC)I'm entirely too fond of Regency romances to protest putting maidens on the marriage mart, though I wouldn't like it much in practice.
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Date: 4 November 2010 11:35 pm (UTC)---L.
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Date: 4 November 2010 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 5 November 2010 12:42 am (UTC)---L.
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Date: 5 November 2010 12:50 am (UTC)But haughty Hunferth, Ecgláf’s Son
Who sat at royal Hróthgár’s Feet
To bind up Words of Strife begun
And to address the noble Geat.
The entire thing is available in Google Books. (http://books.google.com/books?id=TK6gkxrjR-YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=wackerbarth+beowulf&source=bl&ots=81WweWowuA&sig=b_AXufYmXb-yN4DNbuICqJb3jow&hl=en&ei=zlPTTIDOFMP-nAfdlcTXBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false)
(P.S. My most recent journal entry is a translated riddle, which may amuse.)
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Date: 5 November 2010 03:53 am (UTC)Or not.
That is indeed exceedingly odd. I can sort of see what the translator was thinking -- it is, after all, a heroic lay. And yet. And yet.
---L.
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Date: 5 November 2010 04:08 am (UTC)In the poor man's defense, I think it was the first full verse translation ever.
Sharon Turner did some verse translation, but I don't think he got the whole thing. It's not quite as...inappropriate, but it isn't exactly good.
ETA: Missed a word.
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Date: 5 November 2010 02:26 pm (UTC)---L.