Allen Grossman - Lecture #3 [Part 1] Shakespeare's "Phoenix and the Turtle"

[@sansumida]

Poem starts at 15:28 ends at 19:33😊

[@johnstewart7025]

Let the bird of loudest lay On the sole Arabian tree Herald sad and trumpet be, To whose sound chaste wings obey. But thou shrieking harbinger, Foul precurrer of the fiend, Augur of the fever's end, To this troop come thou not near. From this session interdict Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save the eagle, feather'd king; Keep the obsequy so strict. Let the priest in surplice white, That defunctive music can, Be the death-divining swan, Lest the requiem lack his right. And thou treble-dated crow, That thy sable gender mak'st With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st, 'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go. Here the anthem doth commence: Love and constancy is dead; Phoenix and the Turtle fled In a mutual flame from hence. So they lov'd, as love in twain Had the essence but in one; Two distincts, division none: Number there in love was slain. Hearts remote, yet not asunder; Distance and no space was seen 'Twixt this Turtle and his queen: But in them it were a wonder. So between them love did shine That the Turtle saw his right Flaming in the Phoenix' sight: Either was the other's mine. Property was thus appalled That the self was not the same; Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was called. Reason, in itself confounded, Saw division grow together, To themselves yet either neither, Simple were so well compounded; That it cried, "How true a twain Seemeth this concordant one! Love has reason, reason none, If what parts can so remain." Whereupon it made this threne To the Phoenix and the Dove, Co-supremes and stars of love, As chorus to their tragic scene: threnos Beauty, truth, and rarity, Grace in all simplicity, Here enclos'd, in cinders lie. Death is now the Phoenix' nest, And the Turtle's loyal breast To eternity doth rest, Leaving no posterity: 'Twas not their infirmity, It was married chastity. Truth may seem but cannot be; Beauty brag but 'tis not she; Truth and beauty buried be. To this urn let those repair That are either true or fair; For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

[@toddboothbee1361]

Where's Grossman's The Long Schoolroom: Lessons in the Bitter Logic of the Poetic Principle (Poets on Poetry)?

[@jamesdean6660]

It's probably on a different post. This one is about Phoenix and the Turtle.

[@colinellesmere]

I read a lot of literature and research wgat the literature is saying. 5min in he has not said anything yet that is of any substance. "Speech of another kind", "Virtuous man is not virtue itself". It sounds clever but says nothing. Talk about beating around the bush. Finally 5min 30s he starts to describe something of substance. So skip to that point but he is waffling and could say what he has to say on a fifth of the time. Me thinks said an loves the sound of his voice.

[@nativevirginian8344]

GOD what a load of pretentious crap. Did he think bellowing it would make it anymore understandable or interesting?

[@1naveedkhalid]

Native Virginian what in the hell is this guy saying . Yet another pseudo intellectual Using big words to confuse the masses.

[@peterjonas4971]

@@1naveedkhalid How many MacArthur Fellows do you know who are also "pseudo intellectual(s)"? "Big words" are in a dictionary. Look them up.

[@hellooman2193]

[@judithbg5588]

You had to be there.