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Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3498 Pale Fire Commentary
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----- Original Message -----
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 12:00 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3498
>
> pynchon-l-digest Thursday, August 21 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3498
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 10:02:20 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: NPPF: C.12: Angus MacDiarmid
>
> "_Finnigan's [sic] Wake_ as a monstrous extension of Angus MacDiarmid's
> 'incoherent transactions'" (p 76) suggests James MacPherson (1736-1796), a
> Scottish poet and historian, who published fake verse translations of
Ossian
> (_Fingal and Temora_ or _The Poems of Ossian_ or just _Ossian_), whom he
> claimed was a third century Gaelic bard.
>
> "[...] he perhaps saw himself as reconstituting epics from fragmentary
> remains. Yet much of the poetry is his own, and his 'learned' commentaries
> are disingenuous."
>
> http://www.slainte.org.uk/Scotauth/macphdsw.htm
>
> While his counterfeit was finally determined by David Hume and Edward
> Gibbon, MacPherson's early detractors included Samuel Johnson, who wrote
> (according to Boswell):
>
> "Mr. James Macpherson, ---
>
> I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I
shall
> do my best to repel and what I cannot do for myself, the law shall do for
> me. I hope I shall not be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by
> the menaces of a ruffian.
>
> What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture; I think
it
> an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the
public,
> which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since
> your Homer, are not so formidable: and what I hear of your morals inclines
> me to pay regard, not to what you shall say, but to what you shall prove.
> You may print this if you will.
>
> SAM. JOHNSON"
>
> Nonetheless, MacPherson had a great influence on Goethe and the German
> Romantics, as well as on Russian literature and theater:
>
> "Russian readers of the poems of 'Bard Ossian', published in 'Moskovsky
> zhurnal' (Pt. 2. M., 1791) in the 1790s, were thrilled to discover a
> wonderful and distant northern land, so like their own country and yet so
> full of secret charm and mystery."
>
> http://ideashistory.org.ru/almanacs/alm15/scherbak.htm
>
> Macpherson is thus another literary bridge across Europe: Scotland and
> Russia linked (as with Boswell and Botkin).
>
> http://www.bartleby.com/220/1010.html
> http://www.exclassics.com/ossian/ossconts.htm
> http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/Scotlit/ASLS/NoFrames/THubbard2.html
>
> From MacPherson's_Fragments of Ancient Poetry_:
>
> "Son of the noble Fingal, Oscian, Prince of men! what tears run down the
> cheeks of age? what shades thy mighty soul?
>
> Memory, son of Alpin, memory wounds the aged. Of former times are my
> thoughts; my thoughts are of the noble Fingal. The race of the king return
> into my mind, and wound me with remembrance."
>
>
http://www.ed.ac.uk/englit/studying/undergrd/english_lit_2/Handouts/ri_ossia
> n.htm
>
>
> From MacPherson's "On the Death of a Young Lady":
>
> Lamented shade! thy fate demands a tear,
> An offering due to thy untimely bier;
> Accept then, early tenant of the skies,
> The genuine drops that flow from friendship's eyes!
> Those eyes which raptured hung on thee before,
> Those eyes which never shall behold thee more:
> So early hast thou to the tomb retired,
> And left us mourning what we once admired.
>
> [...]
>
> Peace, gentle shade, attend thy balmy rest,
> And earth sit lightly on thy snowy breast;
> Let guardian angels gently hover round,
> And downy silence haunt the hallowed ground:
> There let the Spring its sweetest offspring rear,
> And sad Aurora shed her earliest tear.
>
> http://www.litgothic.com/Texts/death_young_lady.html
>
> ***
>
> See also Yeats' "The Song of Wandering Angus":
>
> I went out to the hazel wood
> Because a fire was in my head,
> And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
> And hooked a berry to a thread;
> And when white moths were on the wing,
> And moth-like stars were flickering out,
> I dropped the berry in a stream
> And caught a little silver trout.
>
> When I had laid it on the floor
> I turned to blow the fire aflame,
> But something rustled on the floor,
> And some one called me by my name:
> It had become a glimmering girl
> With apple blossom in her hair
> Who called me by my name and ran
> And faded through the brightening air.
>
> Though I am old with wandering
> Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
> I will find out where she has gone,
> And kiss her lips and take her hands;
> And walk among long dappled grass,
> And pluck till time and times are done
> The silver apples of the moon,
> The golden apples of the sun.
>
> ***
>
> See also Hugh MacDiarmid (1892-1978), pseudonym for Christopher Murray
> Grieve, a Scottish poet and political radical who often used a fake Scots
> dialect in his work. His poem "First hymn to Lenin" (1931) caused some
> English poets to sympathize with Communism, and his book-length poem _A
> Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle_ (1926), about Scotland from the point of
> view of a man drunk on whiskey, is usually considered his great work.
>
> http://www.slainte.org.uk/Scotauth/macdidsw.htm
> http://www.yfinnie.demon.co.uk/contents4/thistle1.html
>
>
> ptrJasperFidget
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
> - ---------------------------------
> Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 07:26:20 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: NPPF (Commentary)
>
> Thanks to Gasper Widget for stoking the fire. I have been knocked out of
> transmission due to unexpected job requirements. Will be back September 2
> after cruising the skies with PF, ADA, and Transparent Things.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 10:44:59 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF (Commentary)
>
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of s~Z
> >
> > Thanks to Gasper Widget for stoking the fire. I have been knocked out of
> > transmission due to unexpected job requirements. Will be back September
2
> > after cruising the skies with PF, ADA, and Transparent Things.
>
> My pleasure - I have some more notes I'll try to get posted before the end
> of the week.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 10:58:40 -0400
> From: "cfalbert" <calbert@hslboxmaster.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF (Commentary)
>
> If this is "down time" I've got something I failed to get done
> before........
>
>
> love,
> cfa
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2003 10:44 AM
> Subject: RE: NPPF (Commentary)
>
>
> > > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > > Behalf Of s~Z
> > >
> > > Thanks to Gasper Widget for stoking the fire. I have been knocked out
of
> > > transmission due to unexpected job requirements. Will be back
September
> 2
> > > after cruising the skies with PF, ADA, and Transparent Things.
> >
> > My pleasure - I have some more notes I'll try to get posted before the
end
> > of the week.
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
>
>
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 12:00 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3498
>
> pynchon-l-digest Thursday, August 21 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3498
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 10:02:20 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: NPPF: C.12: Angus MacDiarmid
>
> "_Finnigan's [sic] Wake_ as a monstrous extension of Angus MacDiarmid's
> 'incoherent transactions'" (p 76) suggests James MacPherson (1736-1796), a
> Scottish poet and historian, who published fake verse translations of
Ossian
> (_Fingal and Temora_ or _The Poems of Ossian_ or just _Ossian_), whom he
> claimed was a third century Gaelic bard.
>
> "[...] he perhaps saw himself as reconstituting epics from fragmentary
> remains. Yet much of the poetry is his own, and his 'learned' commentaries
> are disingenuous."
>
> http://www.slainte.org.uk/Scotauth/macphdsw.htm
>
> While his counterfeit was finally determined by David Hume and Edward
> Gibbon, MacPherson's early detractors included Samuel Johnson, who wrote
> (according to Boswell):
>
> "Mr. James Macpherson, ---
>
> I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I
shall
> do my best to repel and what I cannot do for myself, the law shall do for
> me. I hope I shall not be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by
> the menaces of a ruffian.
>
> What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture; I think
it
> an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the
public,
> which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since
> your Homer, are not so formidable: and what I hear of your morals inclines
> me to pay regard, not to what you shall say, but to what you shall prove.
> You may print this if you will.
>
> SAM. JOHNSON"
>
> Nonetheless, MacPherson had a great influence on Goethe and the German
> Romantics, as well as on Russian literature and theater:
>
> "Russian readers of the poems of 'Bard Ossian', published in 'Moskovsky
> zhurnal' (Pt. 2. M., 1791) in the 1790s, were thrilled to discover a
> wonderful and distant northern land, so like their own country and yet so
> full of secret charm and mystery."
>
> http://ideashistory.org.ru/almanacs/alm15/scherbak.htm
>
> Macpherson is thus another literary bridge across Europe: Scotland and
> Russia linked (as with Boswell and Botkin).
>
> http://www.bartleby.com/220/1010.html
> http://www.exclassics.com/ossian/ossconts.htm
> http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/Scotlit/ASLS/NoFrames/THubbard2.html
>
> From MacPherson's_Fragments of Ancient Poetry_:
>
> "Son of the noble Fingal, Oscian, Prince of men! what tears run down the
> cheeks of age? what shades thy mighty soul?
>
> Memory, son of Alpin, memory wounds the aged. Of former times are my
> thoughts; my thoughts are of the noble Fingal. The race of the king return
> into my mind, and wound me with remembrance."
>
>
http://www.ed.ac.uk/englit/studying/undergrd/english_lit_2/Handouts/ri_ossia
> n.htm
>
>
> From MacPherson's "On the Death of a Young Lady":
>
> Lamented shade! thy fate demands a tear,
> An offering due to thy untimely bier;
> Accept then, early tenant of the skies,
> The genuine drops that flow from friendship's eyes!
> Those eyes which raptured hung on thee before,
> Those eyes which never shall behold thee more:
> So early hast thou to the tomb retired,
> And left us mourning what we once admired.
>
> [...]
>
> Peace, gentle shade, attend thy balmy rest,
> And earth sit lightly on thy snowy breast;
> Let guardian angels gently hover round,
> And downy silence haunt the hallowed ground:
> There let the Spring its sweetest offspring rear,
> And sad Aurora shed her earliest tear.
>
> http://www.litgothic.com/Texts/death_young_lady.html
>
> ***
>
> See also Yeats' "The Song of Wandering Angus":
>
> I went out to the hazel wood
> Because a fire was in my head,
> And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
> And hooked a berry to a thread;
> And when white moths were on the wing,
> And moth-like stars were flickering out,
> I dropped the berry in a stream
> And caught a little silver trout.
>
> When I had laid it on the floor
> I turned to blow the fire aflame,
> But something rustled on the floor,
> And some one called me by my name:
> It had become a glimmering girl
> With apple blossom in her hair
> Who called me by my name and ran
> And faded through the brightening air.
>
> Though I am old with wandering
> Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
> I will find out where she has gone,
> And kiss her lips and take her hands;
> And walk among long dappled grass,
> And pluck till time and times are done
> The silver apples of the moon,
> The golden apples of the sun.
>
> ***
>
> See also Hugh MacDiarmid (1892-1978), pseudonym for Christopher Murray
> Grieve, a Scottish poet and political radical who often used a fake Scots
> dialect in his work. His poem "First hymn to Lenin" (1931) caused some
> English poets to sympathize with Communism, and his book-length poem _A
> Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle_ (1926), about Scotland from the point of
> view of a man drunk on whiskey, is usually considered his great work.
>
> http://www.slainte.org.uk/Scotauth/macdidsw.htm
> http://www.yfinnie.demon.co.uk/contents4/thistle1.html
>
>
> ptrJasperFidget
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
> - ---------------------------------
> Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 07:26:20 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: NPPF (Commentary)
>
> Thanks to Gasper Widget for stoking the fire. I have been knocked out of
> transmission due to unexpected job requirements. Will be back September 2
> after cruising the skies with PF, ADA, and Transparent Things.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 10:44:59 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF (Commentary)
>
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of s~Z
> >
> > Thanks to Gasper Widget for stoking the fire. I have been knocked out of
> > transmission due to unexpected job requirements. Will be back September
2
> > after cruising the skies with PF, ADA, and Transparent Things.
>
> My pleasure - I have some more notes I'll try to get posted before the end
> of the week.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 10:58:40 -0400
> From: "cfalbert" <calbert@hslboxmaster.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF (Commentary)
>
> If this is "down time" I've got something I failed to get done
> before........
>
>
> love,
> cfa
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2003 10:44 AM
> Subject: RE: NPPF (Commentary)
>
>
> > > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > > Behalf Of s~Z
> > >
> > > Thanks to Gasper Widget for stoking the fire. I have been knocked out
of
> > > transmission due to unexpected job requirements. Will be back
September
> 2
> > > after cruising the skies with PF, ADA, and Transparent Things.
> >
> > My pleasure - I have some more notes I'll try to get posted before the
end
> > of the week.
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
>
>