A digression

[John Carvill]

Oh Yeah, I was aware Bob may well have, ahem, pinched the phrase 'toil
and blood', probably from Shelly. And of course Pynchon may have been
influenced by one of the various alternative sources, including a
Winston Churchill speech:


"The phrase 'toil and blood' may be a tip of the hat to Bob Dylan (the
same words occur in 'Shelter From the Storm'), or it may simply be a
reference to Winston Churchill's famous WW II speech."

http://www.mindspring.com/~shadow88/chapter6.htm


But others have noted this possible Dylan refernce, as I did when I
first read Vineland, having heard the song hundreds of times. I also
think the contexts in which the phrase is used are quite close, Dylan's
'other lifetime' of toil and blood, and Pynchon's 'world of toil and
blood'. 

See also the following google groups post, a little fanciful in its
attempt to claim Vineland as a novelisation of Dylan's 'Blood on the
Tracks' album, but interesting nonetheless:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.music.dylan/browse_frm/thread/58e24
cbd52b1f07f/da73f5a67bdbf8bb?tvc=1&q=dylanl=en#da73f5a67bdbf8bb

Cheers
JC



<<
>From John Adams' letter to his wife on the eve of American Indepence in
1776:

You will think me transported with enthusiasm but I am not. I am well
aware of the toil and blood and treasure, that it will cost us to
maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these states. . . . I
can see that the end is more than worth all the means. And that
posterity will triumph in that day's transaction . . .

>From "Hail, Columbia" (the first American national anthem, music
composed in 1789, lyrics added in 1798):

Immortal patriots, rise once more,
Defend your rights, defend your shore!
Let no rude foe, with impious hand,
Let no rude foe, with impious hand,
Invade the shrine where sacred lies
Of toil and blood, the well-earned prize, While off'ring peace, sincere
and just, In Heaven's we place a manly trust, That truth and justice
will prevail, And every scheme of bondage fail.

>From "The Mask of Anarchy" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1819):

What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood?
It availed, Oh, Liberty,
To dim, but not extinguish thee.
>>





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