Sunday, March 27, 2016

Dan Godston multimediates

Mixing Memory & Desire



2 comments:

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  2. Dan used the opening lines of T. S. Eliot's
    monumental poem, "The Waste Land":
    April is the cruellest month, breeding
    Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
    Memory and desire, stirring
    Dull roots with spring rain.

    Eliot's crafts envisoned a poem nearly twice as long as its final version, but Ezra Pound suggested severe cuts. For example, the famous opening lines (above) didn't appear until the typescript's 2nd page; the 1st page contained 54 lines that resembled what became the end of the poem's 2nd section. When the manuscript finally met Pound's approval he sent Eliot a letter that included "Sage Homme," a 48-line poem that began:
    These are the poems of Eliot
    By the Uranian Muse begot;
    A Man their Mother was,
    A Muse their Sire.
    How did the printed Infancies result
    From Nuptials thus doubly difficult?
    If you must needs enquire
    Know diligent Reader
    That on each Occasion
    Ezra performed the Caesarean Operation.

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