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April 30, 2004
The sedge has withered by the lake
Professor Cleese is showing a steely determination to drill an appreciation for Keats into us. Up until now my only contact with Keats was in Hagar's class, when we were assigned to groups and forced to give oral presentations of his (Keats', not Hagar's) poetry. Kim and Michele (and Katie?) and I wound up with "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," and all through the oral report Kim kept muttering "it doesn't scan. 'And no birds sing' does not scan. This is bullshit."
So far I tend to agree with Kim; Keats is not my guy. Despite having the metaphors behind every word in every line in "Ode on a Grecian Urn" explained to me last night, I still cannot escape the feeling that I'm just reading a poem about a vase. The only Keats I really have warmed to so far is this, from "Ode to Melancholy":
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
As poetry it is swoony and ridiculous but as advice it's pretty good, and I herein offer it to the Lad as a how-to manual for weathering my emotional storms.
Posted by didofoot at April 30, 2004 09:21 AM
Comments
i love keats. but not as much as i love the shelleys.
Posted by: michele at April 30, 2004 09:34 AM
okay, wait. does that mean handcuff her and let her yell at you, so she gets all the aggression out without being physically violent? and what does that have to do with the vase?
god damn slam poets. i fucking hate slam poetry.
Posted by: holohan at April 30, 2004 10:14 AM
yes. it means tie her up and eat her eyeballs.
Posted by: didofoot at April 30, 2004 10:16 AM
Why contest an emotional rant and risk opening the floodgates of misdirected anger and hormonal rage when some simple hand-holding and doe-eyed staring might just to the trick?
This must be Keats' version of the smile-&-nod technique that's been getting guys out of sticky girl jams since time began.
Well done then, Keats, for trying to pass this knowledge on to your unwitting brethren and save them lots of trouble down the line.
But if ever that fails, then go for the eyeballs. That's foolproof.
Posted by: kati at May 1, 2004 12:53 AM
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