from my back files, in memory of this terrible day --
Shakespeare: Soul of an Age
(1967) 55 Min. Color. Neo-Aristotelian Professor Austin Wright argues for fairness in evaluating literature. Key speeches from Shakespeare's chronicles, comedies and tragedies are recited by Sir Michael Redgrave as the camera moves from landmark to landmark in Shakespeare's life and times.
Contrapuntally, throughout the house clocks began to chime. Cats scattered as time rolled in waves from the first floor to the second, like ship’s bells
driven mad by moonlight to dispute the hour and the course of stars. I paused beside a nineteenth-century whaling ship, meticulously carved
using only original blueprints and a piece of wood. No wonder my professor of Shakespeare was going blind. He lectured from his staunch
New England rocker on the folly of trying to live a virtuous life. Shakespeare, he claimed, knew all the virtues were merely one face
of a coin that also contained its vice: those who valued thrift would be seen as tightwads; those who always told the truth would be accused of tactless cruelty.
Not even the Puritans could have believed from a state of fallen grace would come American Edenic innocence, buried chestnut in a rich pasture and nourished
by the blood (unacknowledged) of tribes compromised out of the constitution. Somehow Shakespeare had become the white whale awaiting his riven blindness,
while we, children of the sixties, insisted that the coin of the realm be purified by fire and our lives be redeemed from the guilt of unfair advantages. With the university
closed down by riots, Shakespearean paradox could reside only in the privacy of a home where each bell marked a different time and innocence was the opposite of murder.
I always find your photos so intriguing. It makes me think that you travel nowhere without a camera or cell phone. You lurk down blind alleys in search of the arcane and mysterious.
Your prose and poetry by itself is reason enough to visit your blog, but with the addition of the photos, it's always an exquisite experience.
RT: Thanks for the notes on the photos. I don't take my camera everwhere, but when I do get it out, I tend to shoot a lot. (But I figure that's pretty obvious.)
One of the things I like about taking pictures is the framing. I like to see what happens when I put a frame around something and isolate it and look at it by itself -- or better, in juxtaposition with something else.
Needless to say (but I will anyway), I add the photos to the blog to give people another reason to show up and read. Call it eye candy, I guess.
Thanks again for reading and for all of your positive comments.
from my back files, in memory of this terrible day --
ReplyDeleteShakespeare: Soul of an Age
(1967) 55 Min. Color. Neo-Aristotelian Professor Austin Wright argues for fairness in evaluating literature. Key speeches from Shakespeare's chronicles, comedies and tragedies are recited by Sir Michael Redgrave as the camera moves from landmark to landmark in Shakespeare's life and times.
Contrapuntally, throughout the house
clocks began to chime. Cats scattered
as time rolled in waves from the first
floor to the second, like ship’s bells
driven mad by moonlight to dispute
the hour and the course of stars.
I paused beside a nineteenth-century
whaling ship, meticulously carved
using only original blueprints
and a piece of wood. No wonder
my professor of Shakespeare was going
blind. He lectured from his staunch
New England rocker on the folly
of trying to live a virtuous life.
Shakespeare, he claimed, knew
all the virtues were merely one face
of a coin that also contained its vice:
those who valued thrift would be seen
as tightwads; those who always told the truth
would be accused of tactless cruelty.
Not even the Puritans could have believed
from a state of fallen grace would come
American Edenic innocence, buried
chestnut in a rich pasture and nourished
by the blood (unacknowledged) of tribes
compromised out of the constitution.
Somehow Shakespeare had become the white
whale awaiting his riven blindness,
while we, children of the sixties, insisted
that the coin of the realm be purified by fire
and our lives be redeemed from the guilt
of unfair advantages. With the university
closed down by riots, Shakespearean paradox
could reside only in the privacy of a home
where each bell marked a different time
and innocence was the opposite of murder.
I always find your photos so intriguing. It makes me think that you travel nowhere without a camera or cell phone. You lurk down blind alleys in search of the arcane and mysterious.
ReplyDeleteYour prose and poetry by itself is reason enough to visit your blog, but with the addition of the photos, it's always an exquisite experience.
Dr. M: I love the last verse. Keep writing.
ReplyDeleteRT: Thanks for the notes on the photos. I don't take my camera everwhere, but when I do get it out, I tend to shoot a lot. (But I figure that's pretty obvious.)
One of the things I like about taking pictures is the framing. I like to see what happens when I put a frame around something and isolate it and look at it by itself -- or better, in juxtaposition with something else.
Needless to say (but I will anyway), I add the photos to the blog to give people another reason to show up and read. Call it eye candy, I guess.
Thanks again for reading and for all of your positive comments.
H. K.