The Circus, and Other Essays and Fugitive PiecesKilmer, Joyce
History
The Circus, and Other Essays and Fugitive Pieces
Kilmer, Joyce
American essays; Literature -- History and criticism
Be shelled, eyes, with double dark,
And find the uncreated light:
This ruck and reel which you remark
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.
Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the crust
So fresh that come in fasts divine!
Nostrils, your careless breath that spend
Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side!
O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the yield of plushy sward,
But you shall walk the golden street,
And you unhouse and house the Lord.
And, Poverty, be thou the bride
And now the marriage feast begun,
And lily-colored clothes provide
Your spouse, not labored-at, nor spun.
Walter Pater, Gerard Hopkins' tutor at Balliol, had no keener
sensitivity to the color and music of language. Gerard Hopkins'
purpose--a purpose impossible of fulfillment but not therefore less
worth the effort--was "to arrange words like so many separate gems to
compose a whole expression of thought, in which the force of grammar and
the beauty of rhythm absolutely correspond."
There will always be those who dislike the wealth of imagery which
characterizes Gerard Hopkins' poetry, because they do not understand his
mental and spiritual attitude. Perhaps for some critics an altar cloth
may be too richly embroidered and a chalice too golden. Ointment of
spikenard is "very costly."
PHILOSOPHICAL TENDENCIES IN ENGLISH LITERATURE
Why do people write poems, stories and plays? The obvious and cynical
answer is that people write because they are paid for their writing; the
poet makes a poem for the same reason that the carpenter makes a bench,
and the dramatist has no motive other than that of the bootmaker. There
is some truth in this; if people do not begin to write because they
consider writing a means of livelihood they often continue to write for
that reason. Certainly it is easy to think of contemporary authors of
whom it may safely be said that they have no inspiration save the desire
for money.
But the existence of literature is not thus easily to be explained.
There are so many trades and professions easier and more profitable than
that of letters that he would be a very stupid person indeed who
selected it with nothing to influence him in that direction but the
desire to make money. There is something else beside the perfectly
legitimate desire to make a livelihood in the mind of the writer; there
is something that makes him undergo poverty and other tribulations for
the sake of his craft.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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