He sang it like that, which is much the best way of singing it, and when he had finished, he waited for Piglet to say that, of all the outdoor hums for Snowy weather he had ever heard, this was the best. And after thinking the matter out carefully, Piglet said:
“Pooh,” he said solemnly, ”It isn’t the toes so much as the ears”.
----
Pooh began to feel a little more comfortable, because when you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and other people look at it.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The Legend begins
The VCH states that the earliest surviving version of the story of the ride occurs in the Chronicle of Roger of Wendover (who died in 1237).
It’s written in Latin, by a Monk, and the time lapse is important. Because it’s written in Latin, I have to rely on someone else’s translation. So this is taken from the VCH Warwickshire which I compared with Donoghue, who quotes other early versions.
If you compare these with Tennyson’s 1842 poem, then there are some significant differences. There is no Peeping Tom and far from doing a deal with the Townspeople to stay indoors, Leofric stipulates that she has to ride “through the market place of the town, from one side right to the other while the people are congregated and when you return you shall gain what you desire.”
Accompanied by two “soldiers” “the Countess mounted her horse naked, loosed her hair from its bands, so veiled the whole of her body except for her brilliantly white legs, passed through the market place unseen by anybody.”
The key to the whole story, I think, is not the fact that her name has been Latinized, or she’s been given a title, or the impracticalities of covering yourself with hair while riding a horse (on a day when obviously there was no wind).
It’s the assumptions that Wendover and Tennyson share that are revealing. In six hundred years, what doesn’t change in the story is the power imbalance between Godiva and Leofric.
She has none, except her ability to nag him, while he has the right to impose or to remit taxes and tolls on the people of Coventry.
It’s written in Latin, by a Monk, and the time lapse is important. Because it’s written in Latin, I have to rely on someone else’s translation. So this is taken from the VCH Warwickshire which I compared with Donoghue, who quotes other early versions.
If you compare these with Tennyson’s 1842 poem, then there are some significant differences. There is no Peeping Tom and far from doing a deal with the Townspeople to stay indoors, Leofric stipulates that she has to ride “through the market place of the town, from one side right to the other while the people are congregated and when you return you shall gain what you desire.”
Accompanied by two “soldiers” “the Countess mounted her horse naked, loosed her hair from its bands, so veiled the whole of her body except for her brilliantly white legs, passed through the market place unseen by anybody.”
The key to the whole story, I think, is not the fact that her name has been Latinized, or she’s been given a title, or the impracticalities of covering yourself with hair while riding a horse (on a day when obviously there was no wind).
It’s the assumptions that Wendover and Tennyson share that are revealing. In six hundred years, what doesn’t change in the story is the power imbalance between Godiva and Leofric.
She has none, except her ability to nag him, while he has the right to impose or to remit taxes and tolls on the people of Coventry.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The History
Godiva is the Latin form of Godgifu. Women’s names in Old English do not end in A in the nominative. That simple act of renaming, which ignores cultural and linguistic conventions, is the real clue to the process by which an historical character came to be associated with something that probably never happened.
Godgiefu, or Godgifu, God’s gift, did exist and she did play an important role in the development of Coventry and late Anglo-Saxon England. She was the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia.
Not much is known about her except her connection to Coventry and the fact that by 1067 she was one of the wealthiest women in England.
She and her husband founded, or reestablished, a religious institution where Coventry now is, in about 1043, dedicating it to St Mary, St Osberg and All Saints.
There had already been a convent there which had been sacked by the Danes in or about 1016. Its Abbess, Osberg, had been martyred. Little is known about the early foundation or its abbess, except that she died and courtesy of Godiva and Leofric her head ended up on the alter in a jewel spangled box.
The couple were noted benefactors, and amongst the things that they were supposed to have donated to their new establishment was a reliquary holding the arm of Saint Augustine of Hippo.
Stumbling over such little gems of information is what makes doing research for a project like Lady Godiva and me so enthralling. But while it sent me spinning off on a productive sidetrack for now the digressions can wait.
Although her dates are sketchy, she outlived Leofric.
Before he died there is some evidence that that Coventry may have become their chief residence if not their permanent home.
Their granddaughter was twice a Queen. First of Wales, then married to the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, probably in a move designed to appease her bothers, whose activities in 1066 probably didn’t make Grandma proud. She was alive after the conquest, recorded as one of the richest women in England, and was buried by Leofric’s side in Coventry.
And the ride?
Remember that mistranslation.
Godgiefu, or Godgifu, God’s gift, did exist and she did play an important role in the development of Coventry and late Anglo-Saxon England. She was the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia.
Not much is known about her except her connection to Coventry and the fact that by 1067 she was one of the wealthiest women in England.
She and her husband founded, or reestablished, a religious institution where Coventry now is, in about 1043, dedicating it to St Mary, St Osberg and All Saints.
There had already been a convent there which had been sacked by the Danes in or about 1016. Its Abbess, Osberg, had been martyred. Little is known about the early foundation or its abbess, except that she died and courtesy of Godiva and Leofric her head ended up on the alter in a jewel spangled box.
The couple were noted benefactors, and amongst the things that they were supposed to have donated to their new establishment was a reliquary holding the arm of Saint Augustine of Hippo.
Stumbling over such little gems of information is what makes doing research for a project like Lady Godiva and me so enthralling. But while it sent me spinning off on a productive sidetrack for now the digressions can wait.
Although her dates are sketchy, she outlived Leofric.
Before he died there is some evidence that that Coventry may have become their chief residence if not their permanent home.
Their granddaughter was twice a Queen. First of Wales, then married to the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, probably in a move designed to appease her bothers, whose activities in 1066 probably didn’t make Grandma proud. She was alive after the conquest, recorded as one of the richest women in England, and was buried by Leofric’s side in Coventry.
And the ride?
Remember that mistranslation.
The Legend
The Legend.
The story most people know is the one Tennyson tells in his poem of 1842. (I’ll return to the poem, and its own peculiar version).
The poor of Coventry complain to Lady G that they are starving. Moved by pity, she asks her grim and heartless husband, Earl Leofric, to lift the taxes. He refuses. She nags him. Exasperated he says “I’ll lift the taxes if you ride naked round the city”.
Before she does this, she does a deal with the townsfolk. They will stay off the street and keep the windows shut while she rides round, clad in nothing but her hair.
One dastardly individual, a tailor called Tom, tries to bore a peep hole so he can watch her riding past but his eyes are blasted, in Tennyson’s version by “the powers”, and fall out before he gets to see her.
She rides round the city, returns, and Leofric lifts the taxes.
Did she do it?
Monday, October 13, 2008
Narratives#2
(I've just realised I can still do the Shooting of Dan Mcgrew from memory.) Two things before mapping territory.
1) Some of the most interesting modern narratives seem to be in Asian Cinema. Even a not so great film like "The Grudge" repays attention in this respect.
If you imagine a narrative as ten events. Strung out in chronological order they'd obviously go 1-10. In something weak like a Friday 13th sequel, 1 is usually wasted in filling in the background. "The Grudge' is far more ambitious. It starts at 5, with no explanation at all, progresses to six, then flashes back to four, and so on til the hopefully terrifying climax manages to be simultaneously the exposition and the climax.
5,6,4,7,3,8,2,1/10
2) At the heart of "Old Boy", "Audition", "Retribution" is an essential ambiguity lacking in many films. Who to sympathise with? It’s something our Will would have loved.
The speaking /I/ of the poem: think Chaucer's games, Browning's performative dissonance. Add examples.
1) Some of the most interesting modern narratives seem to be in Asian Cinema. Even a not so great film like "The Grudge" repays attention in this respect.
If you imagine a narrative as ten events. Strung out in chronological order they'd obviously go 1-10. In something weak like a Friday 13th sequel, 1 is usually wasted in filling in the background. "The Grudge' is far more ambitious. It starts at 5, with no explanation at all, progresses to six, then flashes back to four, and so on til the hopefully terrifying climax manages to be simultaneously the exposition and the climax.
5,6,4,7,3,8,2,1/10
2) At the heart of "Old Boy", "Audition", "Retribution" is an essential ambiguity lacking in many films. Who to sympathise with? It’s something our Will would have loved.
The speaking /I/ of the poem: think Chaucer's games, Browning's performative dissonance. Add examples.
Narratives
I assume that people will go on composing single lyric poems until the sun goes nova. But whether the collection of single lyrics has much of a future is a different matter. I don’t mean I won’t wait for my favourite poets to produce their next collection which I will buy and enjoy, I’m just wondering about all the other collections, staggering under the weight of their overwritten blurbs, endorsed by this or that famous name no one out side the small precious circle has heard of, which I read once and never reread.
As a reader, my test of a poem is whether or not I’m willing to write it out, in long hand, into the book in which I keep poems I like or which interest me. And this twelve months there have been few new entries by living poets.
Especially in Australian journals, I’ve started noticing the little tricks everyone (inc me) is using that makes their piece of writing “poetry”. And it's starting to make writing a single poem almost impossible. Which isn't a bad thing as that's not what this project is about.
In terms of money spent and value gained (for a reader), the narrative seem the way to go. And since that’s what I’m working on, it seems that right about now I should be thinking about how a narrative, told in “poetry” would differ from a narrative told as prose.
So map the territory. (And don’t forget Lawman and the 'roman a tiroirs' or however you spell it.
As a reader, my test of a poem is whether or not I’m willing to write it out, in long hand, into the book in which I keep poems I like or which interest me. And this twelve months there have been few new entries by living poets.
Especially in Australian journals, I’ve started noticing the little tricks everyone (inc me) is using that makes their piece of writing “poetry”. And it's starting to make writing a single poem almost impossible. Which isn't a bad thing as that's not what this project is about.
In terms of money spent and value gained (for a reader), the narrative seem the way to go. And since that’s what I’m working on, it seems that right about now I should be thinking about how a narrative, told in “poetry” would differ from a narrative told as prose.
So map the territory. (And don’t forget Lawman and the 'roman a tiroirs' or however you spell it.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The Devil in Love
Thinking of ambiguity and seduction.
Jacques Cazotte was executed during the French revolution. Nothing ambiguous about that. His literary output was slight, a few tales read today by specialists in 18th century French Literature, and Le Diable Amoureux, The Devil in Love.
The latter haunts the spaces between the medieval fable or narrative, the folk tale or fairy story proper, and a modern short story. It’s one of those pieces, like a good fairy story or a bad horror movie, which escapes itself and becomes something far greater than it should be.
Alvaro, a young nobleman, raises the Devil, who (eventually) takes the form of a beautiful girl who calls herself Biondetta. The Devil seems to have fallen in love with Alvaro, and does everything she can to make him reciprocate. Alvaro is caught between his affection and desire for Biondetta and the nagging feeling that he can’t trust the devil to tell the truth. Is she really so in love with him, or is this just a ruse to win his soul? The story turns on the tension between Biondetta’s attempts to seduce Alvaro, and Alvaro’s attempt to get his mother’s blessing for their marriage before succumbing to his desire.
In purely narrative terms the ending is not good. The story crashes into bathos. Cazotte may have planned and discarded a sequel, and he certainly changed the original ending at the suggestions of friends. However, becuase the ending doesn't provide the usual neatly wrapped bunch of answers, the ambiguity of the story is only strengthened.
Since this isn't an attempt at a logically rendered opinion, I don’t feel I need to defend my interest in the story. The intro to the Dedalus European classics is sniffy, describing it as “pale and hesitant” in comparison with later tales of diabolical bargains. But what sets this one aside is the ambiguity at its core. We know Faust is screwed. We know the usual fictional devil is out for his soul at all costs. But what happens, if for once, the devil is genuinely in love?
Neither reader nor Alvaro can know if Biondetta is genuine in her passion. As in Carmilla, there is no way of resolving the issue.
Jacques Cazotte was executed during the French revolution. Nothing ambiguous about that. His literary output was slight, a few tales read today by specialists in 18th century French Literature, and Le Diable Amoureux, The Devil in Love.
The latter haunts the spaces between the medieval fable or narrative, the folk tale or fairy story proper, and a modern short story. It’s one of those pieces, like a good fairy story or a bad horror movie, which escapes itself and becomes something far greater than it should be.
Alvaro, a young nobleman, raises the Devil, who (eventually) takes the form of a beautiful girl who calls herself Biondetta. The Devil seems to have fallen in love with Alvaro, and does everything she can to make him reciprocate. Alvaro is caught between his affection and desire for Biondetta and the nagging feeling that he can’t trust the devil to tell the truth. Is she really so in love with him, or is this just a ruse to win his soul? The story turns on the tension between Biondetta’s attempts to seduce Alvaro, and Alvaro’s attempt to get his mother’s blessing for their marriage before succumbing to his desire.
In purely narrative terms the ending is not good. The story crashes into bathos. Cazotte may have planned and discarded a sequel, and he certainly changed the original ending at the suggestions of friends. However, becuase the ending doesn't provide the usual neatly wrapped bunch of answers, the ambiguity of the story is only strengthened.
Since this isn't an attempt at a logically rendered opinion, I don’t feel I need to defend my interest in the story. The intro to the Dedalus European classics is sniffy, describing it as “pale and hesitant” in comparison with later tales of diabolical bargains. But what sets this one aside is the ambiguity at its core. We know Faust is screwed. We know the usual fictional devil is out for his soul at all costs. But what happens, if for once, the devil is genuinely in love?
Neither reader nor Alvaro can know if Biondetta is genuine in her passion. As in Carmilla, there is no way of resolving the issue.
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