tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post7094536182066015880..comments2024-03-16T16:28:06.374+13:00Comments on The Imaginary Museum: Montale's EelDr Jack Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-65564568110671346272012-06-02T08:45:09.268+12:002012-06-02T08:45:09.268+12:00Yes, that's certainly a good point. In any cas...Yes, that's certainly a good point. In any case, I'm always happy to give Lowell the benefit of the doubt, given the long campaign of depreciation his work has had to endure over the past few decades ...<br /><br />It still remains, as you admit, a curious procedure, though.Dr Jack Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-86266174018164200092012-06-02T03:50:46.304+12:002012-06-02T03:50:46.304+12:00Interesting about Lowell's version. Is the con...Interesting about Lowell's version. Is the confusion you claim a simple literary myth. My 1961 (admittedly fourth)edition of Imitations clearly ascribes the Eel to the two separate Montale poems L'anguilla, and Se t'hanno. Fusing the two poems together while a willful adaptation as usual by Lowell, and therefore morally and artistically questionable (I wouldn't have been pleased if I were Montale)has a certain validity as a dual portrait of the female life-spirit - and tunes in to Lowell's personal themes.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-80703089064633048502009-06-09T20:16:05.204+12:002009-06-09T20:16:05.204+12:00yes your photo is greatyes your photo is greatRichardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10272507198753290435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-72711318297080230532009-06-09T20:15:25.898+12:002009-06-09T20:15:25.898+12:00I ate an eel once - we boiled it - great meal.I ate an eel once - we boiled it - great meal.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10272507198753290435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-59479382052175927762009-06-09T20:14:22.935+12:002009-06-09T20:14:22.935+12:00Jack as it ever occurred to anyone that the poem i...Jack as it ever occurred to anyone that the poem is about - well - it is about an eel? <br /><br />Would we see it as anything else - except maybe some sort of life force - if we hadn't read scholarly works about works or read Freud and others - I find it hard to think of things as being anything than what they are? <br /><br />Whatever what they are is of course... I just don't assume that they are symbolic of anything other than themselves.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10272507198753290435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-12546903243408528572008-05-03T08:52:00.000+12:002008-05-03T08:52:00.000+12:00Hmmm. I seem to have started something with this e...Hmmm. I seem to have started something with this eel business. I still prefer my version to either of these, though there are things I really like in both: your "irresistible girl" is quite sexy, I think, KD, & I like the "sparks her wick" and the whole process of writhing into the bank in your, Michael (whoops, almost gave away your secret identity there). It's a surprisingly difficult poem to <EM>disentangle</EM> on the page, I think.<BR/><BR/>I also like the fact that all of us can think simultaneously that we've outdone the others ... room for many mansions in this house, obviously.Dr Jack Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-5432930084647592322008-05-02T12:46:00.000+12:002008-05-02T12:46:00.000+12:00The eel, the irresistible girlof the cold Baltic l...The eel, the irresistible girl<BR/>of the cold Baltic leaves<BR/>and lands in our seas,<BR/>in our estuaries, in streams,<BR/>reprises the deep,<BR/>strains beneath the flood<BR/>from artery into artery, from<BR/>vein into vein, whittling<BR/>the gut more deeply, more grimly<BR/>straining trickles of muck until<BR/>one day sun beams off a chestnut<BR/>lighting a flash in the scum,<BR/>down scores in the Appenine cliffs <BR/>to Romagna; <BR/><BR/> Eel, torch, whip, <BR/>love's dart on earth alone leads <BR/>the cracked beds of the Pyrenees <BR/>back to developing heavens of sex; <BR/>that soul that wants green life <BR/>in the teeth of burning and waste,<BR/>that spark that says,"It all starts <BR/>just when all of it's charred,<BR/>with even the branch being buried";<BR/><BR/>thatsmall iris twinned in your head<BR/>shining inviolably bright among men -- <BR/>though plunged in your mud, <BR/>how can you think you aren't blood?by kdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08627314289311821265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-49271579991568771922008-05-02T12:39:00.000+12:002008-05-02T12:39:00.000+12:00EelThe eel, the irresistible girlof the cold Balti...Eel<BR/><BR/><BR/>The eel, the irresistible girl<BR/>of the cold Baltic leaves<BR/>and lands in our seas,<BR/>in our estuaries, in streams,<BR/>reprises the deep, <BR/>strains beneath the flood<BR/>from artery into artery, from<BR/>vein into vein, whittling<BR/>the gut more deeply, more grimly<BR/>straining trickles of muck until <BR/>one day sun beams off a chestnut<BR/>lighting a flash in the scum,<BR/>down scores in the Appenine cliffs <BR/>to Romagna; <BR/> the eel, torch, whip, <BR/>love's dart on earth, alone leads <BR/>the cracked beds of the Pyrenees <BR/>back to developing heavens of sex; <BR/>that soul that wants green life <BR/>in the teeth of burning and waste,<BR/>that spark saying, "It all starts <BR/>just when it's all burnt black,<BR/>when the branch has been buried";<BR/><BR/>thatlittle eye twinned in your head<BR/>shining inviolably on all of us -- <BR/>though plunged in your mud, <BR/>can you think you aren't blood?by kdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08627314289311821265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-89173715844260593452008-05-02T11:44:00.000+12:002008-05-02T11:44:00.000+12:00If we're talking eels, how about Curnow's'The eel'...If we're talking eels, how about Curnow's<BR/><BR/>'The eel's fluent silence in the pool'<BR/><BR/>from a 'Dialogue with Three Rocks'?<BR/><BR/>Gives me the shivers every time I recite it.mapshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18209906216745532870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-61236684325114533572008-05-01T13:03:00.000+12:002008-05-01T13:03:00.000+12:00The Eel1.Sirenof ice-hemmedwaters, who quit the Ba...The Eel<BR/><BR/>1.<BR/><BR/>Siren<BR/>of ice-hemmed<BR/>waters, who quit the Baltic<BR/>to trawl our seas,<BR/>our rivers<BR/>& our estuaries<BR/><BR/>rising from the deep<BR/>through a downstream rip<BR/>branch upon branch, capillary<BR/>into capillary, smaller<BR/>now she squirms<BR/>deeper<BR/><BR/>& deeper<BR/>into the muddy banks,<BR/>infiltrating the rock heart,<BR/>until one day<BR/><BR/> (light<BR/><BR/>chancing off the chestnuts,<BR/>sparks her wick in a stagnant pool-- <BR/><BR/>flanked by <BR/>alluvial mutterings.<BR/><BR/><BR/>2.<BR/><BR/>Eel!<BR/><BR/>Carnal light!<BR/><BR/>Manuka-wrought,<BR/>arrow of earthly Love!<BR/><BR/>Led back<BR/>through gullies<BR/>& streams, in search<BR/>of the perfect conception. Led back <BR/>through droughts & hermetic dust: <BR/><BR/>a spark that says: <BR/>'Everything starts when everything<BR/>seems burnt to a cinder.'<BR/><BR/>Led back<BR/>to the brief iris recognition,<BR/>the double your eyelids<BR/>frame as their own,<BR/><BR/>immersed in mud,<BR/>do you believe her sister?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-32604452457501942832008-05-01T12:49:00.000+12:002008-05-01T12:49:00.000+12:00I guess you associate burnt toast with domesticity...I guess you associate burnt toast with domesticity, and see it as non-apocalyptic as a consequence. To be honest, I'm a little suspicious of the idea of the apocalyptic as being necessarily <EM>dignified</EM> -- the "fango" [mud] at the end, which I've rendered "mired in this life", inevitably (I think) recalls the marsh of the gluttons in Dante's <EM>Inferno</EM> (Canto VI) to Italian readers. What I like about it is the <EM>in</EM>dignity with whch Dante protrays the damned gnawing at each other. It makes it worse, somehow, that it's grotesque rather than noble and Miltonic ... I suppose I do read Montale's poem as more playful than you do. What girl ever relished being compared to an eel? Clizia of the lashes must have felt it a somewhat backhanded compliment, surely?Dr Jack Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-20085456281575139892008-05-01T12:24:00.000+12:002008-05-01T12:24:00.000+12:00Sure. I'll have a go (then I'll be sorry...).I had...Sure. I'll have a go (then I'll be sorry...).<BR/><BR/>I had another read and I think I see what you mean about ubiquity. It's surprisingly easy to call up the taste of burnt toast. Also it's the right carbon/coal texture and, if one may say so, icky.<BR/><BR/>The problem is that toast isn't apocalyptic. The choice of word betrays a carefree outlook on life entirely out of keeping with the original tone.by kdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08627314289311821265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-84048081874876965622008-05-01T12:14:00.000+12:002008-05-01T12:14:00.000+12:00Sure. I'll have a go. (Then I'll be sorry...)yes b...Sure. I'll have a go. (Then I'll be sorry...)<BR/>yes burnt toast is ubiquitous, sort of depressing and also easy to bring to the senses, so I think I see what you mean<BR/>even so, it's not apocalyptic enough. Frankly, the choice betrays a much too cheerful outlook on life.by kdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08627314289311821265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-46119798611239187422008-04-30T13:31:00.000+12:002008-04-30T13:31:00.000+12:00Touche. It's funny, though, that just as I read yo...Touche. It's funny, though, that just as I read your comment the odour of burnt toast is wafting along the Massey corridors ... Maybe the universe is intervening, once again! Though I'm not sure if it means to reinforce your point or mine. I just found the stump image a bit intractable -- burnt toast is awfully <EM>ubiquitous</EM> and inescapable, don't you think?<BR/><BR/>I think Montale knows eels a lot better than I do. They used to swim around in the creek in the bvottom of our garden when I was a kid, but I was always a bit scared of them, to be honest.<BR/><BR/>You're sure you don't want to give it a go yourself? All those internal rhymes and complex rhythms might be right up your street ...Dr Jack Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-29809627446053118252008-04-30T11:33:00.000+12:002008-04-30T11:33:00.000+12:00Wow, thanks for that. What a great poem + photo.Yo...Wow, thanks for that. What a great poem + photo.<BR/>Your translation is an interesting piece in its own right. However I am bound to point out that it is not as slimy and tongue-ey as the real thing and I'm not sure about the burnt toast liberty. Burnt toast is dissimilar to stumps.by kdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08627314289311821265noreply@blogger.com