tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post6440765674722315329..comments2024-03-28T19:17:01.550+13:00Comments on The Imaginary Museum: The Literature of the Civil WarDr Jack Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-83207210963353538132012-04-17T06:52:37.961+12:002012-04-17T06:52:37.961+12:00So you did! Sorry about that. Yes, the beards in t...So you did! Sorry about that. Yes, the beards in that movie were outstanding. They needed more adhesive, I think. Jeff Daniels looked like a schnauzer.Katherine Dolanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01831799082347506550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-37529423410163557362012-04-16T12:07:24.585+12:002012-04-16T12:07:24.585+12:00I do have to specify that I don't myself make ...I do have to specify that I don't myself make "musket noises out of the side of my mouth" -- my own engagement with the cause is generally limited to sniffing back a tear when Lee or Lincoln says something particularly moving (which is, admittedly, a lot of the time ...): "Now, henceforward, and forever free" -- that sort of thing.<br /><br />You're wrong about the Gettysburg movie, though (as well as its even more execrable prequel <i>Gods and Generals</i>) -- I do mention it above, under Shaara's <i>Killer Angels</i>, though confining my own criticism to the quality of the prop beards in use by the cast (I'd actually pick Jeff Daniels as Joshua Chamberlain as even less convincing than Sheen as Lee or Tom Berenger as Longstreet).<br /><br /><i>We Can Build You</i> is a brilliant addition to the canon, though -- thanks for that.Dr Jack Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-5090820201153104032012-04-16T10:30:20.739+12:002012-04-16T10:30:20.739+12:00I must say I sympathize with Bronwyn here. The res...I must say I sympathize with Bronwyn here. The resident Civil War buff in our house can frequently be found reading contemporary diaries from the period and making musket noises out the side of his mouth. Also, I noticed that you omitted the Gettysburg film, in which Robert E. Lee is played by a duck (Martin Sheen) and the dialogue is really, really bad. On the other hand, there is Lowell's poem, PK Dick's We Can Build You, and South Park's reenactment episode, so oh well.<br />Great poem by the way.Katherine Dolanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01831799082347506550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-30212427024160509762012-04-11T23:59:45.378+12:002012-04-11T23:59:45.378+12:00I re-read that poem of Lowell's. It is indeed ...I re-read that poem of Lowell's. It is indeed one of the great poems. Things I missed in it when I read it last about 1990 I think.<br /><br />Lowell (who was you know by that time was appalled at the Vietnam war and refused to take part in war) is ambiguous about the ideas of his (ancestor, also a poet, Lowell - who wrote poem at the time praising the Union Dead - and Lowell's is also replying to Aitken's poem on the Confederate dead. But it is more than that, as the images at the start of the fish in the aquarium (which is now gone) link us to the "new world" (and he describes an advert for safe that is shown to be god as it survives a nuclear blast! ..but Lowell also has admiration (not unmixed) for Shaw and his "niggers" ... but during the poem new monsters (dinosaur* cranes and bulldozers) are destroying history (good and bad) and the ending is worthy of the best written by Pound:<br /><br />The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere,<br />giant finned cars nose forward like fish;<br />a savage servility<br />slides by on grease<br /><br /><br />*And I am just finishing V by Pynchon published round the same time and there is a sense of the animate or the total world moving to some atavistic or chaotic state ...although this is put a bit simplistically, but this sense is also in the poem (entropy). And the callous indifference is echoed here. And also at the time the US was in the midst of the Civil Rights events so he echoes the bubbles of the fishes (which he saw as child) with:<br /><br />When I crouch to my television set.<br />the drained faces of Negro school-children rise like balloons.<br /><br />I think he is referring to those actually murdered (churches were burnt down, I recall Kruschev taking the wind out of J.R. Kennedy's sails once when he referred to how churches weren't burnt down (in the USSR) and people burnt to death in reply to the accusation that there was little freedom in the USSR. My father was not very left wing at all but enjoyed that counter by K! Takes me back...I recall the assassination(s) vividly. I know this was before Lowell's poem but there were still a lot of murder and riots and violence taking place at the time of Lowell's poem.)<br /><br />So the lines about the churches ring true. There was rebellion against slavery and also the flow of time and the destructiveness (and "forgetfulness", but perhaps even if one isn't a Christan represent something stable also they have a "sparse" or limited rebellion against (the South - the bad World or indeed just The World (Word?) or the pervasive and relentless All?) itself and what it represented represents, as well as perhaps Puritanism ("good" and "bad" aspects of...);(another issue or thread in the poem)) the huge juggernaut of the vast materialistic march, but whether they beat Pynchon's Entropy / Codes or Big Mystery Not - is another question and I think this is another thing going on here...) also of Man (humanity) and nature (and all that jazz)...<br /><br />It is a subtle poem. The is lot going on it it and it is brilliantly structured. One of the great poems. You were thus right to draw attention to biographies of Lowell (in a previous post recently). And it is relevant to US and world history and is very relevant today. And as poem it will last despite or because of any historical changes, wars or events.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10272507198753290435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-61298790167753526602012-04-11T08:18:01.591+12:002012-04-11T08:18:01.591+12:00Dear Richard,
I must confess I've often wonde...Dear Richard,<br /><br />I must confess I've often wondered myself about that "rebellion" line -- I guess he means it metaphorically: that they're rebelling against the status quo that accepts slavery and other political compromises as the price of peace.<br /><br />There certainly is (or was) a Dutch queen: one of my teachers at school told us a story about how he'd said hello to her one morning as he wandered along the beach, and was subsequently embarrassed because he was too young to realise that he'd used the familiar form instead of the formal one more appropriate to royalty ...Dr Jack Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-81220643676570103402012-04-11T00:06:53.553+12:002012-04-11T00:06:53.553+12:00Jack why do the New England churches have an air o...Jack why do the New England churches have an air of rebellion? Didn't the South rebel against the North?<br /><br />And why "sparse"?<br /><br />I must concede I keep losing track of US history though.<br /><br />Your poems are typically interesting and enigmatic! Maybe the dream connects to great historical events or you were reading about the Civil War when you felt the need or desire to write your poem?<br /><br />Is there a Dutch Queen? I wrote a poem inspired by the funeral and proceedings, ceremonies, regalias etc when Princess Diana died. It is rather "disguised" and quite long...but I was surprised how the ceremony of the funeral etc moved me and also maybe aspects of her life and death. But I am no Royalist although I'm not strongly anti-Royalist either. I actually like the fact that there is a Royal family in England!<br /><br />So these strange connections (via dreams or musings through side burns!) go into our creative side?!Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10272507198753290435noreply@blogger.com