The critics who found the poem overly idyllic ignored the menace underneath the loveliness. The speaker (assuming non-idiocy) is not endorsing the bees' ideas about warm days never ceasing. The "last oozings" are not a comfort. A dying day is still dying even if it's doing so softly. The "mourn[ing]" of the gnats makes them sound cannier than the bees. Spring lambs are ready for slaughter in the fall. It's a gorgeous scene, yes, but the robed figure standing in the background has a scythe in his hand.
Harrison got a lot of late-in-life love from the classical reception crowd, led by Edith Hall who arranged several events and books. But I know what you mean about feeling that he never really got the more mainstream, poetry world respect that he ought to have done -- he seemed to move almost directly from "controversy" (V etc) to "somewhat overlooked".
Yes exactly - I was a little wary writing it because perhaps it says more about me and what I read... but he never seemed to be name-checked or argued over in the way the other Hs were (Heaney, Hughes, Hill).
I don't want to fully commit to any schedule (cuz it's play and not work, and I don't want to turn it into work), but 9 times out of ten I post the digest by 23:00 UTC on Monday night (7 pm EDT)
Does it not seem ridiculous to try to raise the “local agricultural economy” as a theme when Keats’ aesthetic was entirely concerned with excess and abundance (Ode to a Nightingale) and he had recently watched his brother waste away with consumption, while knowing that it was soon to be his own fate?
Granted, but Keats was a Romantic, meaning his concern, which was then a new concern in poetry, was the expression of individual passion and experience. Couldn’t the poem be an outrageous experiment in ‘negative capability’? The more accurate and nuanced he yields a description of the “mellow fruitfulness” and the topography, the more precisely he renders his own subjective state of mind.
The critics who found the poem overly idyllic ignored the menace underneath the loveliness. The speaker (assuming non-idiocy) is not endorsing the bees' ideas about warm days never ceasing. The "last oozings" are not a comfort. A dying day is still dying even if it's doing so softly. The "mourn[ing]" of the gnats makes them sound cannier than the bees. Spring lambs are ready for slaughter in the fall. It's a gorgeous scene, yes, but the robed figure standing in the background has a scythe in his hand.
Enjoyed this.
This is excellent, but 18 people were killed at Peterloo, not 1800 (although hundreds more were injured).
Thanks Jonathan - I'll put it down to a typo, now corrected.
This is a really lovely piece. Practically an ode to an ode.
Harrison got a lot of late-in-life love from the classical reception crowd, led by Edith Hall who arranged several events and books. But I know what you mean about feeling that he never really got the more mainstream, poetry world respect that he ought to have done -- he seemed to move almost directly from "controversy" (V etc) to "somewhat overlooked".
Yes exactly - I was a little wary writing it because perhaps it says more about me and what I read... but he never seemed to be name-checked or argued over in the way the other Hs were (Heaney, Hughes, Hill).
goddamnit man, why do you have to post such great stuff mere hours after the blog digest is done and dusted?! oh well. I'll catch it next week.
Thanks Dave. We need to compare diaries.
I don't want to fully commit to any schedule (cuz it's play and not work, and I don't want to turn it into work), but 9 times out of ten I post the digest by 23:00 UTC on Monday night (7 pm EDT)
Quite right! I have no schedule here but am trying to get into the habit of doing more (though if I had any sense I would do less).
Well, you’re doinng great work, so that’s good for the rest of us! As long as you can avoid burnout.
Does it not seem ridiculous to try to raise the “local agricultural economy” as a theme when Keats’ aesthetic was entirely concerned with excess and abundance (Ode to a Nightingale) and he had recently watched his brother waste away with consumption, while knowing that it was soon to be his own fate?
I agree it seems besides the spirit. But, to be fair, abundance has something to do with agriculture!
Granted, but Keats was a Romantic, meaning his concern, which was then a new concern in poetry, was the expression of individual passion and experience. Couldn’t the poem be an outrageous experiment in ‘negative capability’? The more accurate and nuanced he yields a description of the “mellow fruitfulness” and the topography, the more precisely he renders his own subjective state of mind.
Quite possibly - but I think the poem - like Romanticism - can be more than one thing. Keats was Keats - Romanticism is something we made up later...