From nauplion@charm.net Sun Dec 3 09:15:43 2000 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id JAA25338 for ; Sun, 3 Dec 2000 09:15:43 -0800 Received: from fellspt.charm.net (root@fellspt.charm.net [199.0.70.29]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id JAA10575 for ; Sun, 3 Dec 2000 09:15:42 -0800 Received: from charm.net (coretel-116-118.charm.net [209.143.116.118]) by fellspt.charm.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA23503 for ; Sun, 3 Dec 2000 12:15:40 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <3A2A7E65.5A9F309A@charm.net> Date: Sun, 03 Dec 2000 12:10:04 -0500 From: Diana Wright X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) X-Accept-Language: en,el,tr MIME-Version: 1.0 To: classics@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: John Davies References: <3A2A75C6.6090308@mediaone.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Patrick T. Rourke" wrote: > > Is the Brooks-Davies' edition a later (or an earlier) > > version of this Everyman collection? > > Yes it is (1992, rather than 1947). I thought I had a copy of Nosce Teipsum > somewhere, but I couldn't find it (I thought I had the '47 Silver Poets > somewhere, too, but . . . ). Anyway, *Nosce Teipsum* has been displaced in > the 1992 edition by Mary Sidney Herbert's version of *The Triumph of Death* > and Drayton's *Endymion and Phoebe* (as well as *Astraea*). Nice, cheap > paperback. > > > Ah, but Stanley Kunitz, my favorite living American poet, who has just > > been appointed, at age 95, our Poet Laureate, called "Orchestra" an > > "Elizabethan treasure" ("Interviews and Encounters with Stanley Kunitz," > > ed. by Stanley Moss, Sheep Meadow Press, 1993, p. 9). Kunitz and > > Theodore Roethke used to play a game into the wee hours, knocking > > back drinks and trying to stump each other by reading bits of > out-of-the-way > > poems. > > I can't think of a twentieth century poet who would have been better > prepared to appreciate *Orchestra* than the author of "My Papa's > Waltz." But "My Papa's Waltz," being a lyric (and a damned good one), > lies much more gently on the ear than the long *Orchestra.* Don't get > me wrong, *Orchestra* is a good poem; I just find it grating after > about 10 stanzas. > > But I note that Roethke didn't use the same stanza form in "Four for > John Davies" (a medium-sized sequence, and a good one, that I hand't > noticed before, so I'm glad that DL brought it up) that Davies used in > *Orchestra*: > > Davies: > > Lo, this is Dancing's true nobility, > Dancing, the child of Music and of Love; > Dancing itself, both love and harmony, > Where all agree and all in order move; > Dancing, the art that all arts do approve: > The fair character of the world's consent, > The heaven's true figure, and the Earth's ornament. I love the Roethke and am grateful to anyone who provides an excuse for me to pull him off the shelf and read again. I suspect this Davies lies behind one of the ruling metaphors in Charles Williams novel "The Greater Trumps." It also brings to mind several passages from TS Eliot, from the Four Quartets: At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. . . Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. "Burnt Norton" In that open field If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close, On a Summer midnight, you can hear the music Of the weak pipe and the little drum And see them dancing around the bonfire, The association of man and woman In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie - - ................ Keeping time, Keeping the rhythm in their dancing As in their living in the living seasons the time of the seasons and the constellations ............. The dancers are all gone under the hill "East Coker" You know, it doesn't get any better on line than finding Roethke & Coleridge here. DW > > > Roethke: > > Is that dance slowing in the mind of man > That made him think the universe could hum? > The great wheel turns its axle when it can; > I need a place to sing, and dancing-room, > And I have made a promise to my ears > I'll sing and whistle romping with the bears. > > (As DL said, Yeats's influence is obvious here, in the language as well > as the movement of the lines.) > > Interestingly, this (final) stanza reminds me of Coleridge: > > Davies: > > O that I might that singing swallow hear, > To whom I owe my service and my love: > His sugared tunes would so enchant mine ear > And in my mind such sacred fury move > As I should knock at heaven's great gate above > With my proud rhymes, while of this heavenly state > I do aspire the shadow to relate. > > Coleridge, obviously: > > Could I revive within me > Her symphony and song, > To such a deep delight 'twould win me, > That with music loud and long > I would build that dome in air, > That sunny dome! those caves of ice! > And all who heard should see them there, > And all should cry, Beware! Beware! > His flashing eyes, his floating hair! . . . > > Probably not a mark of influence (and I'm sure that at least half of the > folks reading have no idea what I'm talking about: the meter is quite > different, and the imagery seems different, too), but an interesting > contrast. > > [Classical content: the John Davies poems all have significant classical > allusions and themes, as does the Drayton epyllion.] > > Patrick Rourke > ptrourke@mediaone.net .