(Jane Eye)
(Wuthering Eights)____________________
(These, of course, are "Lost Consonants" after the fashion of the excellent Graham Rawle, whose website lies here.)
Friday, 29 October 2010
Novels of the Rontë Sisters
(Jane Eye)(Wuthering Eights)____________________
(These, of course, are "Lost Consonants" after the fashion of the excellent Graham Rawle, whose website lies here.)
Friday, 22 October 2010
Wisdom of Hawker's Pot #7
What one man finds impossible to swallow in earnest, another can easily in jest.
[cf. Hamlet, III.2, "No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest, no offence i'th'world."]
[cf. Hamlet, III.2, "No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest, no offence i'th'world."]
What is’t with Puns and Graves?
“The dreary grave! – O, when I think
How close we stand upon its brink ....”
(Thomas Hood)
In Shakespeare’s well-known play, The Tragedy of Hamlet, the graveyard is the scene of a protracted bout of punning, as the gravedigger equivocates and Hamlet meditates on the skulls he unearths. It is enough to make one wonder what the link can be between puns and mortality ... John Donne famously chose a punning epitaph, and Thomas Hood carried the blazing baton into the nineteenth century with his poem “Death in the Kitchen”, in which the inevitability of the concealed puns mirrors the inevitability of the fate to come to all the household servants:
"The groom will die, like all his kind;
And even the stable boy will find
This life no stable thing."
Christian Morgenstern (that bright and secret star that burns forever above the house of Hawker’s Pot) makes the connection even more tangible in that incomparable collection of puns and corpses, ravens and skulls, The Gallows Songs. “It is exactly the inevitable/ that draws our special scorn,” the leader of the Gallows Gang proclaims, continuing (in Max Knight’s translation):
"Call it infantile vendetta
On life’s deeply serious aim --
You will know existence better
Once you understand our game."
In search of answers, Hawker’s Pot took a stroll around our local graveyard. We had observed the sexton to be a studious type, always with his nose in a book between digging out graves, and we hoped to find in him a man -- a philosopher, even -- who had delved deeply into the matter and could shed some light on our enquiries. So imagine our disappointment when we drew closer and saw that the book he read was merely a cheap paperback thriller. On being asked about his taste in thrillers, he said he liked them for the plots.
How close we stand upon its brink ....”
(Thomas Hood)
In Shakespeare’s well-known play, The Tragedy of Hamlet, the graveyard is the scene of a protracted bout of punning, as the gravedigger equivocates and Hamlet meditates on the skulls he unearths. It is enough to make one wonder what the link can be between puns and mortality ... John Donne famously chose a punning epitaph, and Thomas Hood carried the blazing baton into the nineteenth century with his poem “Death in the Kitchen”, in which the inevitability of the concealed puns mirrors the inevitability of the fate to come to all the household servants:
"The groom will die, like all his kind;
And even the stable boy will find
This life no stable thing."
Christian Morgenstern (that bright and secret star that burns forever above the house of Hawker’s Pot) makes the connection even more tangible in that incomparable collection of puns and corpses, ravens and skulls, The Gallows Songs. “It is exactly the inevitable/ that draws our special scorn,” the leader of the Gallows Gang proclaims, continuing (in Max Knight’s translation):
"Call it infantile vendetta
On life’s deeply serious aim --
You will know existence better
Once you understand our game."
In search of answers, Hawker’s Pot took a stroll around our local graveyard. We had observed the sexton to be a studious type, always with his nose in a book between digging out graves, and we hoped to find in him a man -- a philosopher, even -- who had delved deeply into the matter and could shed some light on our enquiries. So imagine our disappointment when we drew closer and saw that the book he read was merely a cheap paperback thriller. On being asked about his taste in thrillers, he said he liked them for the plots.
Thursday, 7 October 2010
The Crooked Straight
In Handel’s otherwise laudable The Messiah the tenor sings the words “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low”.
However, I beg pause to consider what the world would really look like after such a change.
Before:
After:
Probably better to leave things as they are.
____________________
(The author of the text, Charles Jennens, is quoting Isaiah 40:4, and it may not reflect the personal opinion of George Frideric Handel. With this in mind, we were initially going to call this post The Isaiah National Certificate in Landscape Management.)
However, I beg pause to consider what the world would really look like after such a change.
Before:
After:
Probably better to leave things as they are.
____________________
(The author of the text, Charles Jennens, is quoting Isaiah 40:4, and it may not reflect the personal opinion of George Frideric Handel. With this in mind, we were initially going to call this post The Isaiah National Certificate in Landscape Management.)
Thursday, 30 September 2010
A Very Close Relationship
nne and Matthew are very close. In fact they barely speak.
One time, Anne said she wished their relationship was more open. Matthew nodded enthusiastically. Then he realised what she meant.
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Oh no!
The toy Indian is secured to the roof of the toy car.
The car is at the top of a steep incline!
A finger approaches, clearly about to give the car a nudge ...
(Go figure.)
The car is at the top of a steep incline!
A finger approaches, clearly about to give the car a nudge ...
(Go figure.)
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Saturday, 18 September 2010
Crashaw’s Diary (part ix)
The story so far: Philip Crashaw is the Curate to the Rev. Arthur Jenkins in a Country Parish in Dorset. The year is 1871.
Friday 25th August
Today may be the most important day of my life, for today I invented a new kind of joke. It happened like this. This morning Mr and Mrs Jenkins and I, along with several of the young people from the village, set out for a picnic on Golden Cap. Mrs Jenkins had packed a large hamper for us, with plenty of meat and drink, cold chicken, ham and tongue, all the usual things, pies, salads, jam, gooseberry tarts, and bread and cheese.
After we had admired the view along the coast we spread out the feast on the rug. However, the large size of the company meant that we were all a little squeezed for space on the rug and I found myself squashed between Mrs Jenkins and the hamper. “Is the hamper a little in your way?” the lady asked kindly. Of course, I knew that there was a joke to be made, something about the hamper hampering me. But no! instead, I replied:
“Mrs Jenkins, the hamper is not restricting my movements at all!”
I made the joke, as it were, without actually making the joke at all. But, then, oh wonder! I felt that “sudden glory” that comes upon one when one has made a joke. And yet my comment had passed quite unnoticed! (And without censure!) How delighted I felt by my new discovery! What untold possibilities await!
Presently I heard Mr Jenkins say:
“Do you think Mr Crashaw is quite all right?”
To which Mrs Jenkins replied:
“It is hot. Perhaps he should loosen his coat a little.”
Saturday 26th August
I shall call my new kind of joke an “Under-Pun”
Because it is a Pun that underpins the sense of what is said, without ever coming up to the surface!
Monday 28th August
Oh, glory piled upon glory! Tonight I made another of my new kind of joke! At supper, Margaret brought in a large trifle for dessert (a particular favourite of mine). I immediately felt that electrical prickling on my skin, which is so familiar to me and which signifies that a joke can be made. However, I said nothing. When it came around my turn to be served, I declined. Mr Jenkins was most surprised, and asked if I was well. But, instead of replying “There is no cause for concern, it is a mere trifle,” I replied:
“There is no cause for concern, it is a thing of little importance!”
Oh, how glorious I felt! (My joke, once again, went undetected!) In fact, the glorious sensation that I experienced quite made up for missing out on my favourite dessert, and having to sit and watch Mr and Mrs Jenkins enjoy theirs.
Friday 25th August
Today may be the most important day of my life, for today I invented a new kind of joke. It happened like this. This morning Mr and Mrs Jenkins and I, along with several of the young people from the village, set out for a picnic on Golden Cap. Mrs Jenkins had packed a large hamper for us, with plenty of meat and drink, cold chicken, ham and tongue, all the usual things, pies, salads, jam, gooseberry tarts, and bread and cheese.
After we had admired the view along the coast we spread out the feast on the rug. However, the large size of the company meant that we were all a little squeezed for space on the rug and I found myself squashed between Mrs Jenkins and the hamper. “Is the hamper a little in your way?” the lady asked kindly. Of course, I knew that there was a joke to be made, something about the hamper hampering me. But no! instead, I replied:
“Mrs Jenkins, the hamper is not restricting my movements at all!”
I made the joke, as it were, without actually making the joke at all. But, then, oh wonder! I felt that “sudden glory” that comes upon one when one has made a joke. And yet my comment had passed quite unnoticed! (And without censure!) How delighted I felt by my new discovery! What untold possibilities await!
Presently I heard Mr Jenkins say:
“Do you think Mr Crashaw is quite all right?”
To which Mrs Jenkins replied:
“It is hot. Perhaps he should loosen his coat a little.”
Saturday 26th August
I shall call my new kind of joke an “Under-Pun”
Because it is a Pun that underpins the sense of what is said, without ever coming up to the surface!
Monday 28th August
Oh, glory piled upon glory! Tonight I made another of my new kind of joke! At supper, Margaret brought in a large trifle for dessert (a particular favourite of mine). I immediately felt that electrical prickling on my skin, which is so familiar to me and which signifies that a joke can be made. However, I said nothing. When it came around my turn to be served, I declined. Mr Jenkins was most surprised, and asked if I was well. But, instead of replying “There is no cause for concern, it is a mere trifle,” I replied:
“There is no cause for concern, it is a thing of little importance!”
Oh, how glorious I felt! (My joke, once again, went undetected!) In fact, the glorious sensation that I experienced quite made up for missing out on my favourite dessert, and having to sit and watch Mr and Mrs Jenkins enjoy theirs.
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
News from Hawker's Pot
Our move to Gloucestershire has invigorated us. We follow a strict physical regime, rising early, doing press-ups and handstands, and making up several jokes before breakfast. It has stopped raining. Reverend Hawker spends much of his time alone, developing his electronic “Keyboard to All Mythologies” which, I have no doubt, will in time prove a very useful poetic tool.* I am busy editing the voluminous diaries of Philip Crashaw, which we have brought with us. (I forget: have I yet recounted the remarkable series of events that led to their discovery in an abandoned attic of our old abode?) We will continue to publish excerpts from this surprising relic of the Victorian age, and are currently approaching experts in the hope they might say: “One of the most extraordinary survivals of the Victorian Age,” “Kilvert and Woodforde and My Secret Life have nothing on this”, “Undoubtedly genuine”, and such like. Henry the Raven, meanwhile, prods the cheap patterned curtains aside and peers hesitantly through the window at the glassy world outside, where shadows creep down hillsides and the ash trees stir restlessly in the sunshine and wind. (As I mentioned before, it has stopped raining.) And it is into this glassy world that Algernon disappears for long hours, working on his new side project, available here, a countryside journal completely devoid of puns.
(*When it is finished Reverend Hawker says he is going to call it the Casio Casaubon, but I have no idea why.)
(*When it is finished Reverend Hawker says he is going to call it the Casio Casaubon, but I have no idea why.)
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Wisdom of Hawker’s Pot #6
It is commonly held that lunacy is caused by changes in the moon, but a fixation with the moon is merely a side effect of the real cause: the worst lunatics are obsessed with the stars, and are, in fact, star-craving mad.
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