I listened to Purcell's "Hail, Bright Cecilia" yesterday, as I always do on November 22nd, and then my favorite modern work for St. Cecilia's Day, Gerald Finzi's "For St. Cecilia" (1947, poem by Edmund Blunden, with whom Finzi collaborated; Finzi was a great poetry lover, collecting a superb collection of 3,000 volumes, and a great writer of songs):
Nice. I didn't know the Blunden poem. I was listening to the Handel setting of Dryden — here's the first stanza. Was there ever a more Handel-esque Handel passage? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lGgcGksruc
Have thought for awhile, that where the Bible writes: "And God spake, Let There Be Light", was written so for the likes of me, that cannot carry a tune. Instead he sang from the lowest depth, to the highest note, at which Light broke free. Why speak if one can sing? Having lived with people, who had wonderful voices, it is a gift beyond compare.
I find it brilliant the way his verse emulates the sound of each instrument. The beginning and ending stanzas are simply glorious, as the events they display. Thank you so much for this poem. I am loving discovering so many poems and poets I haven't encountered in my many year of studying and teaching literature.
Johnson's remark is curious. I guess it could be taken as an emblem of the reasons the Romantics were unhappy with the 18th c poets and critics.
Great poem. I think I've heard certain bits quoted but never read the whole thing. I have a vague idea that I've run across "untune the sky" as a book title, so I searched for it and find more references than I expected, including several pop music titles. The only book that turned up (on the first page) is a poetry collection that I'm fairly certain I'd never heard of before:
Possibly you were thinking of John Hollander's "The Untuning of the Sky: Ideas of music in English poetry, 1500-1700." I used to own the book but never did more than skim a few pages at random.
I remember, when reading Boswell's accounts of Johnson's conversation, that he (Johnson) could sometimes be a bit sophistical, a bit contrary, making arguments that might squash his opponent but didn't necessarily bear up under close examination. Maybe there's a trace of that here, too.
The rhyme scheme of the opening stanza has a grand symmetry. The only tricky part is identifying the quatrain sandwich!
Lines 5-8 are in an alternating rhyme scheme (just like a single quatrain of a Shakespearean sonnet).
There is a pair of lines immediately before that quatrain (heap/lay), and another pair of lines immediately after that quatrain (leap/obey). So those lines are also in alternating rhyme. The whole 8-line rhyme scheme is:
ABCDCDAB
It’s an alternating rhyme quatrain sandwiched *within* an alternating rhyme quatrain!
And all eight lines combined are enclosed by a repetition of the opening two lines.
And then you have those final three lines with more immediate repetition of words (“harmony…harmony” separated by only one word), and rhyme (“ran…man” as a closing couplet).
Personally, I love it. Even if you don’t immediately consciously identify the rhyme scheme, it’s grand symmetrical scope works it’s magic! A simple rhyme scheme wouldn’t have had the scope or grandeur to capture a “universal frame”.
I ran out of space to take up much about the rhyme scheme — but, yeah, I like your point about the cleverness of the rhyming Dryden does. It's curious how much his work is undervalued these days. I once heard an English professor from a distinguished university dismiss him as a mere writer of drab heroic couplets.
William Empson quotes the strophe about the trumpet's loud clangor and adds: "It is curious on the face of it that one should represent, in a mood of such heroic simplicity, a reckless excitement, a feverish and exalted eagerness for battle, by saying (in the most prominent part of the stanza from the point of view of final effect) that we can’t get out of the battle now and must go through with
Hmm. I guess I see his point but it doesn't strike me as especially curious. Does "too late to retreat" necessarily imply that one would have preferred to do so? Which I take to be what Empson means. It doesn't strike me that way. I hear it more as a sort of defiant "damn the torpedoes." or ""Come on, you sons-o'-bitches, do you want to live forever?"
I didn't know that line had a somewhat definite source:
I love St Cecilia trumping Orpheus in this poem.
I listened to Purcell's "Hail, Bright Cecilia" yesterday, as I always do on November 22nd, and then my favorite modern work for St. Cecilia's Day, Gerald Finzi's "For St. Cecilia" (1947, poem by Edmund Blunden, with whom Finzi collaborated; Finzi was a great poetry lover, collecting a superb collection of 3,000 volumes, and a great writer of songs):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NkIFlGo1NA
Nice. I didn't know the Blunden poem. I was listening to the Handel setting of Dryden — here's the first stanza. Was there ever a more Handel-esque Handel passage? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lGgcGksruc
Wonderful Poem!!!
Have thought for awhile, that where the Bible writes: "And God spake, Let There Be Light", was written so for the likes of me, that cannot carry a tune. Instead he sang from the lowest depth, to the highest note, at which Light broke free. Why speak if one can sing? Having lived with people, who had wonderful voices, it is a gift beyond compare.
I find it brilliant the way his verse emulates the sound of each instrument. The beginning and ending stanzas are simply glorious, as the events they display. Thank you so much for this poem. I am loving discovering so many poems and poets I haven't encountered in my many year of studying and teaching literature.
Johnson's remark is curious. I guess it could be taken as an emblem of the reasons the Romantics were unhappy with the 18th c poets and critics.
Great poem. I think I've heard certain bits quoted but never read the whole thing. I have a vague idea that I've run across "untune the sky" as a book title, so I searched for it and find more references than I expected, including several pop music titles. The only book that turned up (on the first page) is a poetry collection that I'm fairly certain I'd never heard of before:
https://canonpress.com/products/untune-the-sky-occasional-stammering-verse
Possibly you were thinking of John Hollander's "The Untuning of the Sky: Ideas of music in English poetry, 1500-1700." I used to own the book but never did more than skim a few pages at random.
Yes, that's it, thank you.
Johnson also objects that the word "diapason" is too obscure and the rhymes are sometimes too far apart.
I remember, when reading Boswell's accounts of Johnson's conversation, that he (Johnson) could sometimes be a bit sophistical, a bit contrary, making arguments that might squash his opponent but didn't necessarily bear up under close examination. Maybe there's a trace of that here, too.
Man, they really are too far apart. I gave up looking.
The rhyme scheme of the opening stanza has a grand symmetry. The only tricky part is identifying the quatrain sandwich!
Lines 5-8 are in an alternating rhyme scheme (just like a single quatrain of a Shakespearean sonnet).
There is a pair of lines immediately before that quatrain (heap/lay), and another pair of lines immediately after that quatrain (leap/obey). So those lines are also in alternating rhyme. The whole 8-line rhyme scheme is:
ABCDCDAB
It’s an alternating rhyme quatrain sandwiched *within* an alternating rhyme quatrain!
And all eight lines combined are enclosed by a repetition of the opening two lines.
And then you have those final three lines with more immediate repetition of words (“harmony…harmony” separated by only one word), and rhyme (“ran…man” as a closing couplet).
Personally, I love it. Even if you don’t immediately consciously identify the rhyme scheme, it’s grand symmetrical scope works it’s magic! A simple rhyme scheme wouldn’t have had the scope or grandeur to capture a “universal frame”.
I ran out of space to take up much about the rhyme scheme — but, yeah, I like your point about the cleverness of the rhyming Dryden does. It's curious how much his work is undervalued these days. I once heard an English professor from a distinguished university dismiss him as a mere writer of drab heroic couplets.
William Empson quotes the strophe about the trumpet's loud clangor and adds: "It is curious on the face of it that one should represent, in a mood of such heroic simplicity, a reckless excitement, a feverish and exalted eagerness for battle, by saying (in the most prominent part of the stanza from the point of view of final effect) that we can’t get out of the battle now and must go through with
it as best we can."
Hmm. I guess I see his point but it doesn't strike me as especially curious. Does "too late to retreat" necessarily imply that one would have preferred to do so? Which I take to be what Empson means. It doesn't strike me that way. I hear it more as a sort of defiant "damn the torpedoes." or ""Come on, you sons-o'-bitches, do you want to live forever?"
I didn't know that line had a somewhat definite source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Daly#Legacy
But then who am I to disagree with William Empson?
But then it’s ambiguous. Heh.
That has to be one of the greatest final lines ever! Freaking awesome!