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From: Al G.
Date: 10 Mar 2004
Time: 02:44:10 -0600
Remote Name: 216.192.35.15
Frances ~ have not read the book, but did read the review. (Gee, this feels like a Cliff Notes moment!) Anyway, interesting stuff about Yeats. I have to say that I do not get his pooetry. (or anyone elses for that matter, except for ee cummings. Gotta like a guy who avoids the capitals.) Back to Yeats. Did not know anything about him, so it was a good review (literary criticism x 3) that covered a lot of ground. The re-inventing part seems an interesting twist and I very much get his linking of the personal and everyday experiences of his environment with the cyclic universality of history. It is said that those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it - which to me implies that there is a cyclic nature to . . .well Nature. Human, animal and other wise. I think Nostradamus (?) and a few others also caught on to that fact. We do live in a cyclic solar system. So, if indeed the stars and planets do affect us, then they do it in cycles as they swirl about in repeating patterns of aspects. (a distance relationship to Einsteins bicycle, I believe) Linear time versus curved space. Maybe a spiral that combines both aspects and is the natural pattern of galaxies? . . . . . Back to Yeats. The metaphor of lighting one cigarette with (the end of the) other strikes me (not the Lucky ones, mind you, of WWI or II fame). Reading the poems here, I see the trouble I have with it. You have to have all this back story to understand what his poems are all about. If you do not know the work of Nietzsche (which I dont), who Helen is (I am guessing Troy, and if so I bet the "launched a 1000 ships" is the 9 second sound byte which doesnt do justice to her literary arc), the symbolism of the swan (it was about time it showed up somewhere besides Hans Christian Anderson), Irish history (is there more to it than potatoes, famine, whiskey and green shamrocks and German hats?), that Shakespeare had an on-going thing with tragic storms (hes the sonnet guy, right?), and what an Argo is (ahhh - a ship someone (probably a bunch of guys) sailed on a while ago??) and where Maud went. So, unless you understand all the nuances you can not appreciate the craftsmanship and admire the brilliance of the work much less get what he is talking about. Which leads me to wonder how good is it really if it does not touch the heart of the average man? Most often quoted, but by whom? And for what purpose? Does it ease the working mans burdens or lighten his load? (btw a pack of cigs doesnt cut it, rock, scissors, paper, yeats) . . . . . . . Opps Back to Yeats. If Yeats was brilliant but can only be understood by an in crowd, does that lessen his brilliance? Is being understood intuitively important? Do words only take us so far and do we like where Yeats strands us in the dessert with birds circling overhead - always a bad sign in the desert? The image of Earth floating in the vastness of space resonates world wide and needs no caption. Beethoven and Santana do not need an encyclopedia (no relation to Einsteins or cosmic) for people to get them (although I hear music theory helps you appreciate their work moore). And with that, we are back to dancing and the dancer. Do we really care as long as everyone is having a good time at the party? Or is that the whole point, that when we can no longer tell the difference . . . some "thing" happens and the least of our worries becomes the beast of our worries brought to us by the furmented Yeast of our imaginations. (soory - its the algae, defineitly the algae.) After midnight. Must go.