Very nice on M & D....

[alice wellintown]

Yes, one may argue the autobiographical nature of lots of works:
Joyce's Portrait, Kafka's Metamorphosis, Melville's Typee,  & Co.,
however, to confuse a parody such as IV with an Autobiography doesn't
argue the autobiographical nature of the work.

In any event, we were discussing what it is that makes P's works great
and I think those of the aesthic crew here know that it is his poetry.
Tom wanted to be a poet. I guess all great authors aspire to music or
something like that.

The last light wanes and drifts across the land,
The low, long land, the sunny land of spires.
The ghosts of evening tune again their lyres
And wander singing, in a plaintive band
Down the long corridors of trees. Pale fires
Echo the night from tower top to tower.
Oh sleep that dreams and dream that never tires,
Press from the petals of the lotus-flower
Something of this to keep, the essence of an hour!

No more to wait the twilight of the moon
In this sequestrated vale of star and spire;
For one, eternal morning of desire
Passes to time and earthy afternoon.
Here, Heracletus, did you build of fire
And changing stuffs your prophecy far hurled
Down the dead years; this midnight I aspire
To see, mirrored among the embers, curled
In flame, the splendor and the sadness of the world.



 http://www.caxtonclub.org/reading/2001/August2001/scottFitz.htm


On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Alex Colter <recoignishon at gmail.com> wrote:
> Alice, you may never make sense of a Critical Mind if you do not practice
> the art of Strongly Misreading...?
> As for a novel or parody of a novel not being the same as Autobiography see
> Mark Twain's which may as well be a novel or a parody of one
>  (tho' I believe his Autobiography Proper was published recently).
> One may also argue the autobiographical nature of many great Novels...?