Christopher Ricks | On John Keats's "To Autumn"

Professor Christopher Ricks's "fireside chat" on the subject of spelling in "To Autumn."

[@andrewquintanawrites]

Thanks for posting this!

[@iestynovich]

This is total joy. Thank you!

[@karierickson7581]

What a fascinating lecture; my mind is blown! I have a feeling Jungians would have a field day.! I have so many thoughts. Was illness working already upon his mind as he wrote, perhaps opening an aspect of his subconscious wider? Is there something inherent in medical training, even centuries ago, that makes the hand a bit careless with the pen? Was there a simple feeling of time pressure, urgency rupturing the steady flow of thought and creating these permutations? How incredible to reframe such mistakes as portals into other readings, other sensations of the body or turnings of the mind. Unintentional and intensity - two words to ponder. Thank you so much for posting this. Makes me want to go back through all my own numerous spelling errors with a more generous (and interrogating) eye!

[@closereadingpoetry]

It's wonderful...gives a new meaning to "the magic hand of chance." I've been overanalyzing my spelling mistakes ever since!

[@reaganwiles_art]

I would love to see the song lyrics of John Squire and Ian George Brown added to the next Oxford Book of English Verse or of Lyric Poetry. Look up "Waterfall" for instance (or any song's lyrics from among the earliest songs before The Stone Roses' first disbanding) and read, then listen; wonder what they mean and marvel at the open inconclusivity of their mysteries-so much in so little. Real magic there, not mere verse but poetry. So much more jouissance there than in the profduce of our withering academic vineyards.