Thanks for focusing on Keats, Joe. He’s one of my favorites. I included “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” in my Poetry Thursday last week. I’m a big fan of the Romantics. Interesting story about this sonnet: I first read it in college about a thousand years ago, and at that time, there was always a footnote from the anthology editor after the poem stating that Keats was “obviously mistaken”because he attributed the discovery of the Pacific to “stout Cortez” instead of to Balboa. I remember thinking that the editor had, in fact, been the mistaken one. The poem is about the absolute state of wonder inspired in Keats when he read Chapman’s translation of Homer for the first time. It’s about the wonder we can feel upon discovering a new author for ourselves. Keats was not the first to read Chapman’s translation, just as Cortez and his men were not the first humans to see the Pacific. The sense of wonder and awe was no less significant. It’s about discovering a new world for oneself. This is one of my favorite sonnets. Thanks so much for focusing on Keats and for including this sonnet in your reading. Hope you’re doing well!
Loved the way you recite Keat's poetry - so simple and with a good sense of the mood and state of the piece, so that you managed to deliver it through the screen I also think that the painting chosen for the cover brilliantly conveys and sets the nature of his writing
@@JoeSpivey02 Your turn of phrase is phenomenal. "There are three Burmese prostitutes purring and stewing in the next room..." is part of the best opening salvo to a video on this website in recent memory. You have an enthralling natural charisma and a boiling wit that ought to bring you to the attention of many more viewers than you have yet collected.
Just some random associations that the video brought up: On the term "hysterical realism": during an interview with Jack Nicholson -- who was talking about being directed by Stanley Kubrick in "The Shining" -- Nicholson said, "I was getting really caught up in realism; in trying to make my performance as real as possible, and Stanley said to me, 'It's real, Jack, but it's boring.'" I laughed when you used the phrase "Churchillian intentionality." It made me think of a vignette Orson Welles would tell. He was in the West End, directing and staring in "Othello," and Churchill came in, unnoticed, and sat in the front row. Welles said, "The whole time I was on stage I kept hearing this low muttering. At one point I looked into the audience and saw Churchill and realized he had memorized all the dialogue and was repeating it with me, including the cuts I'd made!" LOL I like that story. It seems to me obvious why you chose to read to us the sonnet "Written In Disgust ..." It pairs well with your rant on religion which you were kind enough to share with us last video. The poem is nice, but not one of Keats' best. It's almost too strident, and just about manages to save itself from didacticism. I agree with the sentiment of the poem (Keats throws himself into the camp of "becoming" rather than "being") but I believe others have done better with the theme. Here's an example (written by e.e. cummings): O sweet spontaneous earth how often have the doting
fingers of prurient philosophers pinched and poked
thee ,has the naughty thumb of science prodded thy
beauty how often have religions taken thee upon their scraggy knees squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive gods (but true
to the incomparable couch of death thy rhythmic lover
NOTHING about metric verse is patriarchal. Because a few successful men rightly though of poetry as a highly wrought urn, the clicktivists in the academies politicize it to their own grotty gain. You're right to be confused hehe!
While I’m quite familiar with the gambit of Modernist poetry’s liberation from strict rhyme and meter, and the justifications for free verse-no serious poet I know broadly condemns rhyme as patriarchal, and if any did, I think I’d say, You’re not grown-up enough for this. Heck, even Gertrude Stein, who *wrote* a poem called “Patriarchal Poetry,” still *read* plenty of formal poetry.
Thanks for focusing on Keats, Joe. He’s one of my favorites. I included “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” in my Poetry Thursday last week. I’m a big fan of the Romantics. Interesting story about this sonnet: I first read it in college about a thousand years ago, and at that time, there was always a footnote from the anthology editor after the poem stating that Keats was “obviously mistaken”because he attributed the discovery of the Pacific to “stout Cortez” instead of to Balboa. I remember thinking that the editor had, in fact, been the mistaken one. The poem is about the absolute state of wonder inspired in Keats when he read Chapman’s translation of Homer for the first time. It’s about the wonder we can feel upon discovering a new author for ourselves. Keats was not the first to read Chapman’s translation, just as Cortez and his men were not the first humans to see the Pacific. The sense of wonder and awe was no less significant. It’s about discovering a new world for oneself. This is one of my favorite sonnets. Thanks so much for focusing on Keats and for including this sonnet in your reading. Hope you’re doing well!
Thanks Pat! I think we both ought to thank the maundering miscreant himself for penning these lines originally!
@@JoeSpivey02absolutely!😊
Loved the way you recite Keat's poetry - so simple and with a good sense of the mood and state of the piece, so that you managed to deliver it through the screen
I also think that the painting chosen for the cover brilliantly conveys and sets the nature of his writing
Thank you for such kind words!
Keatsssss!
Subscribed for "elasticised dusk". You're great.
There's plenty more where that came from hehe! Mine the back catalogue and pick up some of my branded phrases!
Well ahead of you. Many marvelous videos
@@JoeSpivey02
Your turn of phrase is phenomenal.
"There are three Burmese prostitutes purring and stewing in the next room..."
is part of the best opening salvo to a video on this website in recent memory. You have an enthralling natural charisma and a boiling wit that ought to bring you to the attention of many more viewers than you have yet collected.
It reminds me: I should find actors reading poetry/dramatize books...
Different video that really provokes discussion. Good work
I love Keats. I hope you’ve read his letters.
I shall grab a copy of them if they should one day barge into my path!🤣
Just some random associations that the video brought up: On the term "hysterical realism": during an interview with Jack Nicholson -- who was talking about being directed by Stanley Kubrick in "The Shining" -- Nicholson said, "I was getting really caught up in realism; in trying to make my performance as real as possible, and Stanley said to me, 'It's real, Jack, but it's boring.'"
I laughed when you used the phrase "Churchillian intentionality." It made me think of a vignette Orson Welles would tell. He was in the West End, directing and staring in "Othello," and Churchill came in, unnoticed, and sat in the front row. Welles said, "The whole time I was on stage I kept hearing this low muttering. At one point I looked into the audience and saw Churchill and realized he had memorized all the dialogue and was repeating it with me, including the cuts I'd made!" LOL I like that story.
It seems to me obvious why you chose to read to us the sonnet "Written In Disgust ..." It pairs well with your rant on religion which you were kind enough to share with us last video. The poem is nice, but not one of Keats' best. It's almost too strident, and just about manages to save itself from didacticism. I agree with the sentiment of the poem (Keats throws himself into the camp of "becoming" rather than "being") but I believe others have done better with the theme. Here's an example (written by e.e. cummings):
O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked
thee
,has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy
beauty how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest
them only with
spring)
Churchill muttering Hamlet's lines is indeed a heartwarming image!
genuine question, but what about metric verse is patriarchal? pretty sure aurora leigh is written in iambs lol i don't get it
NOTHING about metric verse is patriarchal. Because a few successful men rightly though of poetry as a highly wrought urn, the clicktivists in the academies politicize it to their own grotty gain. You're right to be confused hehe!
While I’m quite familiar with the gambit of Modernist poetry’s liberation from strict rhyme and meter, and the justifications for free verse-no serious poet I know broadly condemns rhyme as patriarchal, and if any did, I think I’d say, You’re not grown-up enough for this.
Heck, even Gertrude Stein, who *wrote* a poem called “Patriarchal Poetry,” still *read* plenty of formal poetry.