tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post2147127163929245851..comments2024-01-24T06:50:01.683-06:00Comments on Samizdat Blog: The Equine Sublime: Edwin Muir's "Horses"Archambeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-69497780067304915652014-03-07T13:28:35.254-06:002014-03-07T13:28:35.254-06:00Grave Stone
Here lies Sigurd the fisherman
Dead o...Grave Stone<br /><br />Here lies Sigurd the fisherman<br />Dead of hooves<br /><br /><br />George Mackay Browndougienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-90612351049559524032013-03-09T19:29:33.787-06:002013-03-09T19:29:33.787-06:00great analysis, however i feel there is significan...great analysis, however i feel there is significance in the rhyme Muir uses. Perhaps the couplet pairs reflect the laboring of the horses being of a methodical beat or the fact the horse plough in pairs. Also it is a shame you did not go further to connect Muir's spiritual reference to the creature inner "apocalyptic" drive/fire. but great essay overall thank you. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-59384060543501300122012-08-17T13:20:36.932-05:002012-08-17T13:20:36.932-05:00Thank you all for these comments. I'm glad yo...Thank you all for these comments. I'm glad you liked my little essay.<br /><br />R.A.Archambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-1328002680706868142012-08-17T11:18:16.653-05:002012-08-17T11:18:16.653-05:00We really liked the poem and the analysis that Mr...We really liked the poem and the analysis that Mr. Archambeau made. First of all, we agree with it because we also think that his personal experience includes different phases of socio-economic development, and his sense of personal developmental time and civilizational time are often conflated. We arrived at the same conclusion with our Literature teacher. He compares the past with the present.belen I anto Pablonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-68721066496735382042012-08-17T11:15:18.683-05:002012-08-17T11:15:18.683-05:00I really liked this poem and your analysis is grea...I really liked this poem and your analysis is great. I totally agree with what you say about the language used, and I feel very identify with some of your ideas. Also I think that is very important the fact that you had included the life of Muir so that we can understand in deep the poem.<br />Paka, Nacho and MeriAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-61273420564660025002012-08-17T11:14:21.103-05:002012-08-17T11:14:21.103-05:00We think it is a great essay, because it involves ...We think it is a great essay, because it involves great ideas and we love the poem. We like all the interesting adjectives he used to describe the poet´s or the principal characters feelings. We liked the part of the poem when he starts talking about his memories of the past.<br /><br />"More immediate perception can be recovered only in the memory of our earlier selves, and the best way to trigger that earlier memory is to see something — an old ruined Abbey, a lumbering horse — that punctures the distance between past and present, and allows for the spontaneous overflow of a powerful feeling."<br /><br />Here we loved the way you explained the memories of the past and what they represent.Joaquín Diaz Walker and Justo Gabriel Fernandez Vidalnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-45476023696615422372012-08-17T11:05:46.237-05:002012-08-17T11:05:46.237-05:00In our opinion, Archambeau has a very interesting ...In our opinion, Archambeau has a very interesting refletion about the poem and what the writer wants to transmit through the poem. He has a really accurate interpretation of the role of horses in different eras of our history. We really like this poem. We are students of literature in a school from Argentina and we are analyzing the passing of time in poems and movies. Your essay about Muir helped us a lot.<br /> Juan Cruz Gomez Roca, Milagros Brasco and Nicolas Araya.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-59711433875101110562011-03-10T10:33:57.592-06:002011-03-10T10:33:57.592-06:00Oh! While we're taking woodcuts, I should plug...Oh! While we're taking woodcuts, I should plug some very cool images by Sarah Conner (not woodcuts -- lithographs I think) that go with my "Kafka Sutra" prose poems. You can find them here:<br /><br />http://www.culturalsociety.org/texts/prose/the-kafka-sutra/Archambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-36296529271964266362011-03-10T10:31:30.006-06:002011-03-10T10:31:30.006-06:00I'm fond of that woodcut too -- it's by Ly...I'm fond of that woodcut too -- it's by Lynd Ward, who did a few "novels without words" in woodcuts. They have a strange melancholy and menace to them, I think. Ward and Frans Masereel are my favorite woodcut artists. I'm sure people still do woodcuts, but the art world (so called -- a few prominent galleries, museums, journals, and art departments, and a small number of rich buyers) isn't much interested. But the official art world is almost never where the interesting things are going on, is it? <br /><br />Best,<br /><br />BobArchambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-33713238175627243612011-03-10T10:23:39.561-06:002011-03-10T10:23:39.561-06:00I loved the poem and was equally taken by the wood...I loved the poem and was equally taken by the woodcut: sometimes the possibility of woodcuts for my work crosses my mind. I wonder if anyone does them any more.For some reason, the elegiac tone of the horses poem underlined my sense of time passing (and loss) with the Wisconsin attack on/defense of union workers. Don't know why.Shelleyhttp://dustbowlpoetry.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-66755521982315893452011-03-09T12:16:36.890-06:002011-03-09T12:16:36.890-06:00Thanks for that!
That's the edition I thought...Thanks for that!<br /><br />That's the edition I thought I was ordering, but I've got the 1957 one instead, which is a bit dodgy in that it lists an "index of first lines" in the table of contents, but no such index appears. I'll order the later version you mention.<br /><br />Horses play a big role in his imagery, and often seem connected with apocalypse, sublimity, and the like -- "The Toy Horse" (included in the 1957 edition) also comes to mind.<br /><br />BobArchambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-55525472852082277842011-03-09T08:46:55.688-06:002011-03-09T08:46:55.688-06:00A later, larger Collected was published in 1965 (O...A later, larger Collected was published in 1965 (Oxford U. Press)—<br /><br />with a preface by Eliot, which ends by noting<br /><br />'that great, that terrifying poem of the 'atomic age'—"The Horses." '<br /><br />The 'atomic age' seems quaint, but the Times Book Review this past Sunday quotes a new book claiming that even a limited nuclear war in the mideast would cause the famine death of hundreds of millions of people around the globe. I wonder if Colonel Ghaddafi is reading Muir.<br /><br />Midway between the bookend horse poems is:<br /><br />THE RIDER VICTORY<br /><br />The rider Victory reins his horse<br />Midway across the empty bridge<br />As if head-tall he had met a wall.<br />Yet there was nothing there at all,<br />No bodiless barrier, ghostly ridge<br />To check the charger in his course<br />So suddenly, you'd think he'd fall.<br /><br />Suspended, horse and rider stare<br />Leaping on air and legendary.<br />In front the waiting kingdom lies,<br />The bridge and all the roads are free;<br />But halted in implacable air<br />Rider and horse with stony eyes<br />Uprear their motionless statuary.<br /><br />//Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10848525067425082815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-30346459355436523542011-03-09T08:30:11.777-06:002011-03-09T08:30:11.777-06:00The real point of picking a ridiculous friendly fi...The real point of picking a ridiculous friendly fight like the one John and I had ("Most under-appreciated Orcadian poet") is, I suppose, to launch an exchange like this one. And to discover that the poets are less unread than I thought!Archambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-23391895181673565192011-03-09T01:32:29.155-06:002011-03-09T01:32:29.155-06:00A very good essay about Muir, thanks.
I am defin...A very good essay about Muir, thanks. <br /><br />I am definitely in the George Mackay Brown camp, as he has been one of my favorite poets for going on 30 years now. And time after time I've introduced him to people who'd never heard of him.<br /><br />But Muir was Brown's mentor, and in his few brief autobiographical writings, Brown heavily credits Muir (and Muir's wife) for saving him, helping him become the writer he became, and much more. So trying to decide between them is somewhat impossible, and perhaps irrelevant.<br /><br />So, I champion Brown all the time, still. HIs work has certainly directly influenced my own; I've even got a couple of poems that are open homages. One thing about Brown's poetry that I have always loved is his sense of deep time—deep time in the sense of geologic and archaelogic truth. Some of his poems and stories about the Viking settlers and ancestors of contemporary Orkney bring those ancient people to life again; for example, his novel "Magnus." And his poems about the old unknown people who put up the standing stones and first ploughed the islands are stunningly powerful. Of course, Muir has a sense of deep time, as well; I wonder if this is a general Orkney cultural trope, as I've also seen it turn up in other Orkney-based artists' work, such as in Gunnie Moberg's photography.<br /><br />I like Muir. I respect him deeply. And I love Brown, and all his writings. I guess, for me, that's the chief comparison.Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.com