Date: 6 June 2005
I finished this two days later, and my archiving finishes just as I run out of decimals.
Expect a wrap up this week.
11a I have not yet tested by theory that all numbered sections are governed by the corresponding concept and analysis in part 2. It makes sense to me b/c of the overlapping content. In part 2, section 11 is devoted to “Content” of two anonymous folk ballads. This one might be covered by the comment I quoted “There is no use in modern sophistication trying to get back to folk art.” It’s too logical, there’s no outrunning oddity to it. Though it’s pretty nice, B+ (Wyatt, so I think my comment is right)
11b. This though has that inexplicable element, of an abandoned “may” suddenly seized by her old lover. Quite musical through, A (anon, 16th c song book)
12a Ben Jonson, “his best piece of poetry” A
12b. Speech from Shax. Very good emotional depiction of bereaved (Emotion as section head follows my theory in both cases) A (Webster, The White Devil)
13a+b Follows the template exactly: the Inevitability of the music 13a: “a song that will sing to a tune” 13b “a lyric that will not sing to music, but must be declaimed or intoned.” A, B- (Shax, Henry VIII, Richard Crashaw)
14a Donne’s “Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” was one of the first poems I was guided through with any intellectual rigor by my Freshman honors prof Tom Moore. It’s obviously a great poem built on interlocking conceits:
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be tow, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.
A
14b. This I don’t recognize, though it could be Donne as well. Maybe not though, there’s a little more iambic rhythm, less recourse to intellectual object matter for conceits
For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close;
Their union would her ruin be,
And here tyrannic power depose.
And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as distant poles have place,
(Though Love’s whole world on us doth dwell)
Not by themselves to be embraced.
It’s got that Metaphysical vigor. A
(It’s Andrew Marvell, who I simply must read more of)
15a Must be Chaucer. I’ll say again he’s a narrative master, who might prove a great complement to study of the postmodern tradition, but I don’t feel much from his lyrics. I’m sure they’re good, but I just don’t have a medieval mind
15b. This is Elizabethan, and quite good. An aubade to Aurora “Ere thou rise, stars teach seamen where to saile/But when thou comest, they of their courses fail.” (Ovid by Marlowe)
16a. This might be Herrick. If it is, I’ve learned something from the Test. It’s got a refrain, varied rhythm, clear but not simple love song. A (damn, it’s Campion)
16b. I’ll double down re: Herrick. Not quite as fresh, A- (Sir Frances Kynaston?)
17a. Satire on Truth’s absence from ladies chambers, law courts, church A (Anon 15th C)
17b. Similar moral, though a bit more pronouncedly moralistic B (Samuel Butler, Hudibras)
18a. George Crabbe, lamenting the taverns where working men “taste their coarse delight.” Since, you know, “The gayest place has its sinks and sewers.” Comprehensive eye, and I think the proletarian in Z would like it. It’s just for me, yo: B-
18b. Another lament for the poor. Don’t recognize this though. It’s about the same as above (Philip Ayres)
