tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post8248809161801337851..comments2024-03-27T11:02:20.107-07:00Comments on the prowling Bee: No Romance sold untoSusan Kornfeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-47044315273512317512023-12-16T16:49:28.115-08:002023-12-16T16:49:28.115-08:00"Candor, my preceptor, is the only wile. Did ..."Candor, my preceptor, is the only wile. Did you not teach me that yourself in the 'prelude' to 'Malbone'?"<br /><br />(L450, February 1876, To T.W. Higginson)<br /><br />The passage she cites from Higginson’s 1869 “Prelude to Malbone”:<br /><br />“One learns, in growing older, that no fiction can be so strange nor appear so improbable as would the simple truth.... For no man of middle age can dare trust himself to portray life in its full intensity, as he has studied or shared it; he must resolutely set aside as indescribable the things most worth describing, and must expect to be charged with exaggeration, even when he tells the rest.”<br /><br />Does Higginson channel ED’s Stanza 2, ‘No Romance sold unto’? Is she the teacher, he the student?<br /><br />“'Tis Fiction's — to dilute to plausibility<br />Our – Novel. When 'tis small eno'<br />To credit — 'Tis'nt true –”<br />Larry Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02810899482852120751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-50208534834672141942023-12-15T07:32:19.102-08:002023-12-15T07:32:19.102-08:00Stanza 1 posits an agreeable proposition, no probl...Stanza 1 posits an agreeable proposition, no problems there.<br />ED struggled with Stanza 2, inserted four alternatives [brackets] in three short lines:<br /><br />“ 'Tis Fiction's — to dilute [contract] to plausibility [credibility]<br />Our – Novel [Romance]. When 'tis small eno'<br />To credit [compass] — 'Tis'nt true —”<br /><br />Variant A, without insertions, she sent signed to Sue. Tentative Variant B she copied into Fascicle 26.<br /><br />Why did ED pen this poem (??) (aphorism??). What “Romance” had she read? Clearly, Stanza 2 was a breech birth.<br />Larry Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02810899482852120751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-26760824750746500832023-12-14T17:24:49.516-08:002023-12-14T17:24:49.516-08:00Susan, once again your way with words astonishes t...Susan, once again your way with words astonishes this reader of your explications. No wonder you want to make a novel happen. It’s a privilege to read paragraphs that trip off your pen as if they were easy, a true sign of talent. Thank you for sharing TPB with us denizens.Larry Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02810899482852120751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-60812660614809247982023-10-28T22:00:07.888-07:002023-10-28T22:00:07.888-07:00It's hard to overstate how good Middlemarch is...It's hard to overstate how good Middlemarch is. I forget which great writer or critic claimed it to be a perfect novel. It's a great read, a greater re-read, and wonderful for dipping and delving. I just finished my first re-read of Silas Marner (assigned for highschool freshmen [freshpeople?] back in the day). I didn't particularly care for it way back then, but fully enjoyed it this time. The sentences!!!<br />Susan Kornfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-360725236717264102023-10-28T20:17:20.171-07:002023-10-28T20:17:20.171-07:00Because of this post I decided to start reading Mi...Because of this post I decided to start reading Middlemarch. Emily's feeling that Eliot had put on "immortality" gives us a clue as to just what immortality meant to Emily. She also wrote something similar about Emerson, that he came closest to immortality with his bee (referring to Emerson's great poem "The Humble Bee".)<br /><br />The thing that is trip though is that I don't think Emily meant fame here. You can achieve immortality (Glory) in a poem even if nobody else but yourself ever reads it. Perhaps that's why she didn't care so much about publishing I think. It was the poem that mattered.<br /><br />I wanted to read Middlemarch anyway because it is also Proust's favorite novel. With Proust and Dickinson, the greatest of writers, giving it their highest recommendation, how could I not read it?<br /><br />Anway, this is all to say that in the first paragraph of the novel there is a passage that seems to resonate with this poem,<br /><br />"Her passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to her? Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel; and, fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self."d scribehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08242682202760522439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-88884662979842460952023-10-28T19:35:14.210-07:002023-10-28T19:35:14.210-07:00Your line "It often turns out as implausibly ...Your line "It often turns out as implausibly as the daughter of a straight-laced Calvinist lawyer becoming a reclusive and explosive poet" is a terrific example of the kind of implausibility ED is talking about, the kind one finds in a "Novel" life. <br /><br />I also appreciate how you show the inversion from "fiction is bigger than life" to "life is bigger than fiction". I can now see that is what ED is doing here rhetorically, but I don't think I would have seen it without your help. <br /><br />I also love the acknowledgment in this poem that "credit" is suspect. The complexities of life, of the "mineral matrix" as you put it, render credit a bit ridiculous. <br /><br />"I'm nobody/ who are you? Are you nobody too?" <br /><br />d scribehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08242682202760522439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-35444546353887909042015-06-30T05:42:37.421-07:002015-06-30T05:42:37.421-07:00And even this small pithy poem, being made of word...And even this small pithy poem, being made of words, "Tis'nt true-Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-41493330792444425342015-02-27T07:45:53.956-08:002015-02-27T07:45:53.956-08:00And perhaps as a poet she has a deeper sense of tr...And perhaps as a poet she has a deeper sense of truth than that of many a Romance writer (particularly, as you suggest, of her day -- Eliot excepted!)Susan Kornfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-29698590119901476742015-02-27T06:53:37.875-08:002015-02-27T06:53:37.875-08:00Nice. Fiction waters life down, "To dilute to...Nice. Fiction waters life down, "To dilute to Plausibility," and then goes on to contrast an "Individual" life. The poem may as well be stating ED's opinion about commercialized literature at that time. That is to say, by saying "Romance sold," she is stating her refusal to put a price tag to her poetry.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08961001706149019039noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-80983496279589842852015-02-26T09:49:51.942-08:002015-02-26T09:49:51.942-08:00 This is an excellent analysis of a difficult p... This is an excellent analysis of a difficult poem.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com