Walls Falling & the Drive Inward

2021 ◽  
pp. 223-231
Author(s):  
Susan McCabe
Keyword(s):  
Sick Leave ◽  
Psychical Research ◽  
Narrative Poem

T. S. Eliot’s “East Cooker” in 1940 encouraged H.D. as she wrote a vatic and communal antiwar poem, The Walls Do Not Fall. This volume of Trilogy explores survival and “ancient rubrics,” provoking her readers to practice “spiritual realism,” addressing those who need to do their “worm-cycle.” Bryher left Lowndes on jaunts to Trenoweth or Eckington, always inviting H.D., who visited Cornwall twice. Her first “escape” led H.D. to “R.A.F.,” an unusual narrative poem for her, pivoting upon sitting next to a pilot on sick leave on the train from Cornwall to London. She envisioned him at her writing desk. This experience led her to the Institute for Psychical Research; Air Marshall Dowding was himself a member. She met Arthur Bhaduri, a “seer” who would conduct séances for H.D. and Bryher. Perdita worked at Bletchley Park unscrambling codes.

Psychical Research

1957 ◽  
Vol 2 (11) ◽  
pp. 276-276
Author(s):  
Calvin S. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Psychical Research

Public Sector Workplace Expansion and Long Term Sick Leave

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Westerlund ◽  
J. Ferrie ◽  
J. Hagberg ◽  
K. Jeding ◽  
G. Oxenstierna ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Sick Leave

“Christ’s mighty shrine above His martyr’s tomb”: Byron and Liszt’s Journey to Rome

2014 ◽  
Vol 55 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 17-26
Author(s):  
Paul W. Merrick
Keyword(s):  
Literary Works ◽  
The Real ◽  
English Poet ◽  
Byronic Hero ◽  
Public Enemy ◽  
The Face ◽  
Narrative Poem ◽  
Positive Force

The influence of Byron on Liszt was enormous, as is generally acknowledged. In particular the First Book of the Années de pèlerinage shows the poet’s influence in its choice of Byron epigraphs in English for four of the set of nine pieces. In his years of travel as a virtuoso pianist Liszt often referred to “mon byronisme.” The work by Byron that most affected Liszt is the long narrative poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage which was translated into many languages, including French. The word “pèlerinage” that replaced “voyageur” is a Byronic identity in Liszt’s thinking. The Byronic hero as Liszt saw him and imitated him in for example Mazeppa and Tasso is a figure who represented a positive force, suffering and perhaps a revolutionary, but definitely not a public enemy. Liszt’s life, viewed as a musical pilgrimage, led of course to Rome. Is it possible that Byron even influenced him in this direction? In this paper I try to give a portrait of the real Byron that hides behind the poseur of his literary works, and suggest that what drew Liszt to the English poet was precisely the man whom he sensed behind the artistic mask. Byron was not musical, but he was religious — as emerges from his life and his letters, a life which caused scandal to his English contemporaries. But today we can see that part of the youthful genius of the rebel Byron was his boldness in the face of hypocrisy and compromise — his heroism was simply to be true. In this we can see a parallel with the Liszt who left the piano and composed Christus. What look like incompatibilities are simply the connection between action and contemplation — between the journey and the goal. Byron, in fact, can help us follow the ligne intérieure which Liszt talked about in the 1830s.

Parables of Freedom and Necessity

1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-58
Author(s):  
Abdelwahab M. Elmessiri
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Modern Time ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Thematic Relations ◽  
Narrative Poem

EpilogueGeoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Frankeleyn’s Tale” and Bertold Brecht’sThe Exception and the Rule seem to have very little in common. Chaucer’smedieval narrative poem tries to follow the norms of its genre andfulfiil the reader’s expectations, whereas Brecht’s modernist experimentalplay violates many of the rules of drama laid down by Aristotle and otherclassical critics. It deliberately shocks the reader out of any facile identificationwith the characters as well as any willing suspension of disbelief.But despite their many obvious differences, this study argues that theirsimilarities are quite relevant and significant. Both works deal with thethemes of human freedom, moral responsibility, and ability to transcend.These are among the major themes of literature throughout time-butthey have acquired particular poignancy in our modern time with the riseand gradual unfolding of what I term the “Paradigmatic sequence of secularization.”Since the terms “paradigm” and “secularism” are alreadyquite problematic, and to talk of “a paradigmatic sequence of secularization”is even more so, some kind of clarification and even redefinition isin order.ParadigmsWhen a critic singles out two literary works for comparison, thechoice is not guided by some universally established objective rules, butrather dictated by a certain set of assumptions, norms, criteria, biases, andso on. When he/she engages in the critical act itself, pointing out structuraland thematic relations (of similarity and dissimilarity), he/she does ...

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