![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larryhammerA bit of bonus content for Story Lines.
In the Introduction, I mention several poems that AREN'T in the anthology -- ones that didn't make the final cut. As I put it there, “These were all dropped because of size, incompleteness, or similarity to another selection, rather than quality, and I encourage seeking them out if you want more of this sort of stuff.”
Length was actually a big thing, despite the expansive space of an ebook -- I wanted to include only a handful of poems over 1200 lines, which is roughly how much I can readily read in a single sitting, and eventually settled on an upper limit of 3000. So longer poems had a higher bar to clear, especially when they had style or content similar to something solidly in.
So in more detail, why each of these poems landed on the cutting-room floor:
A little something about what went into creating the anthology.
Oh, and one criteria I haven't mentioned: “The Lady of the Lake” also didn't make the cut because I deliberately excluded poems that valorize warfare or violent conflict. (“Sohrab and Rustum” is an arguable exception, but I read it as depicting a toxic consequence of the warrior ethos.) There's more than enough good stuff to read without 'em.
---L.
Subject quote from The Daisy, Alfred the Tennyson.
In the Introduction, I mention several poems that AREN'T in the anthology -- ones that didn't make the final cut. As I put it there, “These were all dropped because of size, incompleteness, or similarity to another selection, rather than quality, and I encourage seeking them out if you want more of this sort of stuff.”
Length was actually a big thing, despite the expansive space of an ebook -- I wanted to include only a handful of poems over 1200 lines, which is roughly how much I can readily read in a single sitting, and eventually settled on an upper limit of 3000. So longer poems had a higher bar to clear, especially when they had style or content similar to something solidly in.
So in more detail, why each of these poems landed on the cutting-room floor:
- Specimen of an Intended Rational Work by William and Robert Whistlecraft, John Hookham Frere - incomplete, length (though it would have been fun to include it as the inspiration for “Beppo”'s manner)
- Peter Grimes, George Crabbe - too many other other domestic tragedies
- The Witches of Fife, James Hogg - similarity to “The Witch’s Last Ride,” plus otherwise too much Hogg
- The Lady of the Lake, Walter Scott - length, similarity to “Mador of the Moor” (which, no, isn't exactly fair given Hogg was imitating it), plus is readily available
- Psyche, Mary Tighe - length
- Anster Fair, William Tennant - length, similarity to “Mador of the Moor,” “Beppo,” and “Tam o’ Shanter” (it was such a near thing to include it anyway, given it provided the epigraph to “The Culprit Fay”)
- The Charivari, George Longmore - similarity to “Beppo” (which again isn't exactly fair, given this is explicitly influenced by that -- but between this and “Godiva,” the latter got the nod)
- The Two Broken Hearts, Catherine Gore - similarity to “Jacqueline” and “The Fairy of the Fountain”
- The Three Wells, Letitia Landon - similarity to “The Fairy of the Fountain” and “Paradise and the Peri”
- Evangeline, Henry Longfellow - length, plus is readily available
- Prince Adeb, George Boker - skeevy orientalism (admittedly not one of the reasons listed in the intro) (so why did I mention it at all?) (good question)
- The Rhyme of the Lady of the Rock and How it Grew, Emily Pfeiffer - length, form (it's mixed prose and verse)
- At the Cedars, Duncan Campbell Scott - similarity to an episode in “Malcolm's Katie” (while not being as good)
- Snow, Robert Frost - similarity to “Home Burial”
A little something about what went into creating the anthology.
Oh, and one criteria I haven't mentioned: “The Lady of the Lake” also didn't make the cut because I deliberately excluded poems that valorize warfare or violent conflict. (“Sohrab and Rustum” is an arguable exception, but I read it as depicting a toxic consequence of the warrior ethos.) There's more than enough good stuff to read without 'em.
---L.
Subject quote from The Daisy, Alfred the Tennyson.