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#112198 09/16/03 08:31 PM
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Glad you finally got your hands on it, bonz, and thank you for letting us know!


#112199 09/16/03 09:51 PM
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>I really love the word fritillaries - not a patch on butterfly

I think that you are probably right about the word fritillaries. I would have assumed these:
http://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/Fritillaria1.html but they would not be released in the same way.


#112200 09/16/03 09:52 PM
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Words are my instruments but not my servants,
by the white pillars of a prince I lie in wait
for them. In what the hour or the minute invents,
in a web formally meshed or inchoate,


An early prediction of the world wide web perhaps?


#112201 09/17/03 11:29 AM
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I wonder how much Douglas knew about Edward Thomas.


#112202 09/17/03 01:42 PM
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Is there some specific reason you ask, Anna? I'll copy the other poem for quick ref.:
Words

Out of us all
That makes rhymes,
Will you choose
Sometimes --
As the winds use
A crack in a wall
Or a drain.
Their joy or their pain
To whistle through --
Choose me,
You English words?

I know you:
You are light as dreams,
Tough as oak,
Precious as gold,
As poppies and corn
Or as an old cloak:
Sweet as our birds
To the ear,
As the burnett rose
In the heat
Of Midsummer:
Strange as the races
Of dead and unborn:
Strange and sweet
Equally,
And familiar,
To the eye,
As the dearest faces
That a man knows,
And as lost homes are:
But though older far
Than oldest yew, --
As our hills are, old, --
Worn new
Again and again,
Young as our streams
After rain:
And as dear
As the earth which you prove
That we love.

Make me content
With some sweetness
From Wales
Whose nightingales
Have no wings, --
From Wiltshire and Kent
And Herefordshire,
And the villages there, --
From the names, and the things
No less.
Let me sometimes dance
With you,
Or climb
Or stand perchance
In ecstacy,
Fixed and free
In a rhyme,
As poets do.

Edward Thomas (1878-1917)




#112203 09/17/03 02:09 PM
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Without having done any compare/contrast analysis, Jackie, I was just wondering if maybe Douglas was influenced by Thomas. Both died in world wars.


#112204 09/17/03 05:50 PM
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>I think that you are probably right about the word fritillaries. I would have assumed these:
http://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/Fritillaria1.html but they would not be released in the same way.


Oh, I was told they were a type of butterfly... maybe there's some kinda link, or more than one meaning, perhaps?


#112205 09/17/03 06:08 PM
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They are butterflies too:
http://www.naba.org/chapters/nabambc/construct-group-page.asp?gr=Heliconiinae

I wonder which came first? Perhaps the flowers look like butterflies. Some do have very distinctive markings.


#112206 09/18/03 02:41 AM
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In reply to:

I was just wondering if maybe Douglas was influenced by Thomas. Both died in world wars.


Somehow, I'm reminded of my mother saying, "And if they jumped off Beachy Head, would you do it too?

Note for non UK residents. Beachy Head is a high cliff on the S. coast of England, popular with suicides.


Bingley



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#112207 09/18/03 05:26 PM
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[aside]my cousin fell off Beachy Head last month. no deathwish, she wuz just sat on the bench and the whole cliff face came down. amazingly, she survived, but she has broken her back.[/aside]

It seems probable that Douglas was influenced by your man there. In my opinion, the Great War poets were and are a massive influence on the way we (we meaning English folk) think about war. They were part of the propaganda explosion of the early twentieth century and so had a very visible, or easily identifiable impact, not just on poets but on our whole society. I'm not qualified to give you anything more than my opinion but it is worth reading up on, it's fascinating. Chomsky has waxed lyrical about this subject in about a million books, and, of course, everyone should read Edward de Bernays 'Propaganda'.




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