tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post2451809683649015102..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Shattered Glass (Joseph Ceravolo: "Dark inside me every day...")Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-47488923750737552002016-07-03T15:15:47.878-07:002016-07-03T15:15:47.878-07:00... talking of which:
John Donne: The Expiration...... talking of which: <br /><br />John Donne: The Expiration (as appearing in Alfonso Ferrabosco: "Ayres", 1609)<br /><br />So, so breake off this last lamenting kisse,<br /> Which sucks two soules, and vapours Both away,<br />Turne thou ghost that way, and let mee turne this,<br /> And let our selves benight our happiest day,<br />We ask’d none leave to love; nor will we owe<br /> Any, so cheape a death, as saying, Goe;<br /><br />Goe; and if that word have not quite kil’d thee,<br /> Ease mee with death, by bidding mee goe too.<br />Oh, if it have, let my word worke on mee,<br /> And a just office on a murderer doe.<br />Except it be too late, to kill me so,<br /> Being double dead, going, and bidding, goe.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-12018101749555916662016-07-03T15:05:33.460-07:002016-07-03T15:05:33.460-07:00It's a stunning little poem, and/but I have a ...It's a stunning little poem, and/but I have a difficult time not thinking about the trying circumstances of its composition.<br /><br />The "riddling" quality puts me in mind of John Donne and his fascination with scholastic paradox, in particular paradoxes of Nothing, Negation and Infinity.<br /><br />"If I an ordinary nothing were,/ As shadow, a light, and body must be here./ But I am none..."<br /><br />In Donne's case, too, there is a personal burden, a weight of suffering, that make this interest something more than purely literary. <br /><br />I am nothing to be<br />or see, or hear, compared<br />to what I am not here.<br />Because what I am, I am not,<br />and what I am not I disappear...<br /><br />Terry, your own musical expertise would allow you to appreciate the songlike elements here.<br /><br />To my knowledge no one has ever quite grasped how deep the lyric strain runs in Joe's poetry. And after all, according to the New Mechanical Canon, "lyric" is a dirty word, never to be applied to writers on the Approved List.<br /><br />In the time when the influence of Donne and Jonson was being effaced by the proliferation of songbooks, Donne's poems were generally thought too complex for singing. But he certainly did understand the relation between vowel expansion and singability, and in fact a few of his lyrics did appear in the songbooks, most notably, for me, "The Expiration", which was set to music in Alfonso Ferrabosco's "Ayres" (1609).TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-13212317351961310382016-07-03T08:09:05.331-07:002016-07-03T08:09:05.331-07:00That's a beautiful, sad little poem. It could ...That's a beautiful, sad little poem. It could be set to music.tpwhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05909239000589253931noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-89306239347029338472016-06-30T10:27:39.330-07:002016-06-30T10:27:39.330-07:00Ceravolo´s sounds like a pun !!Ceravolo´s sounds like a pun !!Sandrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15053707892868584990noreply@blogger.com