Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Sarah Sarai's Second Coming: tale of a penitent swift and willful

If it weren't for a quick catch by Dan Coffey, Associate Professor & Subject Librarian, Social Sciences & Humanities, Iowa State University, I'd be skulking in the blogosphere as we speak.

A simple typo isn't typically cause for recrimination, of course, and even a complex typo is forgivable now and then. Alas, yestereday I was writing about "idiocy," at least in part, and confused a poet born in London in 1757 with one born in Dublin in 1865. (See below for link.)


As I wrote I remembered slamming shut T.S. Eliot's The Sacred Wood some years ago on reading his comparison of Blake  ("only a poet of genius") with Dante ("a classic"). How could Eliot consider the alleged author of "The Second Coming" mere genius?  And why was a little voice crying "Yeats! Sarah, Yeats!"?

"Wake up, Sarah," the little voice urged, gripping my hand even as it slipped from the railing; and so I pressed Publish Post for "Blake's The Second Coming: the submorons haven't won." My saving grace and/or stunt cushion is having smart friends who stem rebellions of my wayward fingers, swift and willful; and since I admit of and correct same, and since this is my blog, I maintain (and hereby certify) I am not a submoron. Just a bad wizard who minutes later disappeared her mistake.

By the way, even years ago, I knew Eliot might not be wrong, but then again, who can ever be sure of such things. In high school I memorized Blake on my own. I've always felt that affection.

To read Eliot's essay on Blake, on Bartleby, click on this sentence.

To read yesterday's posting, now titled Yeats' The Second Coming: the submorons haven't won, click this sentence.

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