18 April 2020

"After Long Silence" (W. B. Yeats, 1932)

Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.
Last night while sorting through old memorabilia I found an essay I had written about this poem during my senior year of college.   As a 22-year-old English major, I had dissected and parsed and analysed it, but now 50+ years later I find I have a much better understanding of its meaning (Yeats was 67 years old when he composed it).

7 comments:

  1. So . . . I don't suppose you are going to share the essay with us? :)

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    Replies
    1. Correct. It was sophomoric (literally and figuratively). Nor the one on the "theme of unity in John Donne's poetry" (boring). Or the one on moral philosophy in Billy Budd, or Martin Luther's effect on Thoreau's philosophy. It's hard to believe I wrote all this stuff back then.

      I might find something worth sharing, but most of them are going into the shredder. A more enterprising person would probably sell them to one of those plagarism services that students subscribe to nowadays.

      Delete
  2. As a citizen of Lansing I call shenanigans on no comments on the post above.
    PLUS help ViHart go viral with Her post "How We Reopen"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. https://ethics.harvard.edu/files/center-for-ethics/files/roadmaptopandemicresilience_updated_4.20.20_0.pdf

      Delete
    2. Vi Hart's video is an illustrated distillation of the presentation you've mentioned

      Delete
  3. Might be the wrong place to ask ,but why can't we comment on those RWNJs stories above ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I close posts to comments when the topic seems controversial enough to elicit an outpouring of emotional responses. Those topics are typically political or religious. I review and curate all the comments for this blog, and I have better things to do than wade through a shitstorm of angry comments. Even your acronym for right-wing nut jobs would be enough to trigger some readers.

      Delete

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