Showing posts with label reconstructions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reconstructions. Show all posts

Friday, July 8, 2011

Dept of "other observations"

1. As an appendix to the previous post, Harold Bloom reportedly could read "Lycidas" backwards from memory; this is how it would end:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Compels me to disturb your season due:
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
And with forc'd fingers rude,
I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude,
Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never-sear,
Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more.

Which makes sense, sounds properly wistful, and is about as good as the way the poem actually ends! (I cheated by starting where I did, of course; two lines further and you have "Who would not weep for Lycidas? He knew / Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer," which is intelligible but irrelevant.)

2. I was surprised to discover that "No ideas but in thongs" (cf.) hasn't yet been done according to google.