Okay, so most of my poetry books are already in boxes, and as I didn't want to burden you with a Shakespeare sonnet, I had to go with Wilde...

Camma
(to Ellen Terry)

As one who poring on a Grecian urn
scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made,
God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid,
And for their beauty's sake is loth to turn
And face the obvious day, must I not yearn
For many a secret moon of indolent bliss,
When in midmost shrine of Artemis
I see thee standing, antique-limbed, and stern?

And yet - methinks I'd rather see thee play
That serpent of old Nile, whose witchery
Made Emperors drunken - come, great Egypt, shake
Our stage with all thy mimic pageants! Nay,
I am grown sick of unreal passions, make
The world thine Actium, me thine Anthony!



This post has been edited by ii: 02 August 2009 - 01:20 PM


Reason for edit: typo in the title, the only thing I DIDN'T check twice!

Clever - the reference to Keats's "Ode to a Grecian Urn" is so obvious it becomes subtle again, one could say, and very well handled.
I particularly like the second stanza though, I'm not sure if there's any actual direct quotage (I read "Antony and Cleopatra" only once, three years ago) but what with the mentioning of stages and pageants I doubt the Shakespeare allusion is just in my mind - especially as the power that theatre has to immortalise love is so often found in Wilde's appraisals of Shakespeare (see: "The Portrait of Mr. W.H.").
Very powerful last two lines, to the poet the recreation of a love affair historical but immortalised in fiction seems more real than the parody of emotions so often expressed by men.

Kate said:I've always struggled with poetry and have to say, I agree with you ii when you say it is too much - too much to think about and many references, some of which are lost on me

I love the 'classic' feel to this poem, both in it's structure and it's points of refernce.

In many ways it reads as a glowing homage to Ellen Terry, the commentray evoking images of Gods, Godesses and all manner of goodly people, yet he completes the first verse with,

' I see thee standing, antique-limbed and stern.'

Antique-limbed suggests advanced age, despite the reference to Artemis, a Goddess associated with vitality and fertility.

The second verse appears to refer to Cleopatra with,

'That serpent of old Nile,'

Wilde concludes the poem with no / 'Nay', I don't want all this acting / 'I am growing sick with unreal passions' .

Let me be your faithful servant, willing to fight for you, and lose if it be so. /
'Make the world thine Actium, me thine Anthony'. Withthis final line speaking of the battle of Actium where, spurred on by Cleopatra, Mark Anthony was defeated and later commited suicide.

Overall it is a strong poem, and you get a sense of Wilde's admiration for his strong minded and able actress friend.



This post has been edited by Chrissy: 26 August 2009 - 02:37 PM

ii said:Okay, so most of my poetry books are already in boxes, and as I didn't want to burden you with a Shakespeare sonnet, I had to go with Wilde...

Camma
(to Ellen Terry)

As one who poring on a Grecian urn
scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made,
God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid,
And for their beauty's sake is loth to turn
And face the obvious day, must I not yearn
For many a secret moon of indolent bliss,
When in midmost shrine of Artemis
I see thee standing, antique-limbed, and stern?

And yet - methinks I'd rather see thee play
That serpent of old Nile, whose witchery
Made Emperors drunken - come, great Egypt, shake
Our stage with all thy mimic pageants! Nay,
I am grown sick of unreal passions, make
The world thine Actium, me thine Anthony!

Caption said:Great poem. First I've heard of it. I'd love to analyze it further. I'll think more about it, learn more about the historic and literary references, and post a response later on.

So, I read the Wikipedia description of Oscar Wilde, and read the Ellen Terry's bio. Very interesting stories. The reference to Keat's Ode on a Grecian Urn as great. http://www.eecs.harv.../poems/urn.html

I also read Tennyson's short tragedy The Cup on which Camma is based. Very easy read but interesting story. It gave a good background to this piece. http://telelib.com/w.../cup/index.html

Found Plutarch's On the Bravery of Women: XX which describes Camma. http://penelope.uchi...omen*/B.html#XX



This post has been edited by Capture: 19 January 2010 - 11:17 PM

Ah, I've just trawled back through the forum and found the first Poetry Circle thread, so that answers my questions.

If you are going to have a separate thread every month, might not an explantion of the purpose of Circle in the first post each time be useful, especially a year or two down the line?

Well as you can see, there were only two of these, and they were both last year, so it's probably safe to say that the idea didn't really take off. Plus, the explanation post is only one page back.

Ah, hadn't spotted the year.
What a shame it wasn't popular, but to be truthful, I'm not keen on analysing or critiquing poetry myself. My attitude is more "I don't know much about it, but I know what I like"!