"And o'er the misty river and the meadows / Creep slowly, slowly, the long, sombre shadows."

[larryhammer]

Reading, reading. Not much, but some anyway.

In Tales of a Wayside Inn, in a discussion of whether artists should stick to local material or mine other cultures, which in 19th century America generally meant European subjects, one character says:

Poets—the best of them—are birds
Of passage; where their instinct leads
They range abroad for thoughts and words,
And from all climes bring home the seeds
That germinate in flowers or weeds.

Over his lifetime, Longfellow published five collections (called "flights") of poems under the general title Birds of Passage -- the second of which was tacked onto the end of the first installment of Tales. As suggested by the association, the subjects mostly range widely from the local, both in place and time. They also betray persistent anxiety over the purpose and power of poetry. Overall, the quality is good -- there are, in fact, a few anthology classics here, including "My Lost Youth" (which gave Frost the title for A Boy's Will), "Snow-Flakes," and my favorite, "The Children's Hour." I don't necessarily recommend reading all the collections, as I did, unless you already want to read more Longfellow. But I don't regret doing so.

In fiction, reread Earthlight by Arthur C. Clarke, which I haven't done since I was a teen -- when I read it a couple times a year (it was part of the handful of SF at our usual summer vacation place). It's a very white male future, without any women in sight (though a few are mentioned), and several aspects of how astronomy is done has been overtaken by technological progress. The story proper is sound, though, and I want to see a good writer (one who knows how to represent) to steal the plot revise it as a contemporary skiffy yarn of political intrigue. Possibly, along the way, adding some actual sense of tension to what is ostensibly a thriller.

In nonfiction, finished The Art of Fugue by Joseph Kerman, got only a little way into The Garden of Cyrus, and read ¾ of Books and Characters by Lytton Strachey, which is literary criticism in what I think of as the Woolfean Common Reader mode -- I got sucked into this because I was pointed to the essay on Beddoes. (I confess I end up skimming the French essays, as they include a lot of untranslated quotations.)

---L.

Subject quote from "The Kennebec," Anonymous.

Comments

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Do you think THE ART OF FUGUE would be entertaining for someone who doesn't play keyboards?

[larryhammer]

As a listener of Bach, yes. Reading music helps, but listening along is more important.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

Like I need more TBR....

[larryhammer]

*glances at TBD's piles*

Oh, wait, TBR. Er, yeah, that's also a problem here.

[negothick.livejournal.com]

It's been wonderful watching an educated reader take Longfellow "straight," reading him closely, without ironic intent. How quickly his reputation fell from Master to figure of ironic fun. How few of those who idolized Frost would recognize the allusion you cite (A boy's will is the wind's will. . .). And now Frost himself has suffered that decline in reputation--though not either as quickly nor as steep.

[larryhammer]

I can safely say Longfellow is my favorite Antebellum poet. (Not that he didn't write good poems after the Civil War, but we also get more choices of voices.) It's instructive to compare and contrast with Tennyson, in craft and artistry.

Of course, I'm personally biased in favor of narrative poets ...