Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse by D. B. Wyndham Lewis, Charles Lee, Billy Collins ISBN: 1-59017-038-5 Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: March, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: 'Criticise as some have done/Hitherto herebefore'
Comment: This is not just a collection of any old bad verse. McGonagall for one is not represented. Nor are the forgotten poetasters '...the semi-literate, the nature-loving contributor to the county newspaper...the hearty but ill-equipped patriot, the pudibond but urgent Sapphos...' to take a sample of the disregarded from the anthologists' preface. The main qualifying factor for inclusion in The Stuffed Owl is solemnity. It may be that now and again Wyndham Lewis and Lee deviate slightly from this criterion, and I wonder whether in Boston churches they still sing
'Ye monsters of the bubbling deep/Your Maker's praises shout/Up from the sands, ye codlings, leap/And wag your tails about'
but a fairer sample of the 'target' style would be e.g. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's
'Will you oftly/Murmur softly?' or 'Our Euripides the human/With his droppings of warm tears'; or Crabbe's 'Brother, there dwell, yon northern hill below,/Two favourite maidens, whom 'tis good to know,/Young, but experienced'.
The very greatest can be found here at their less-than-greatest. The title of the book is itself a quotation from Wordsworth. Toweringly great poet though he was, he lacked, as everyone knows, any sense of the ridiculous whatsoever. He really did cite
'...the umbrella spread/To weather-fend the Celtic herdsman's head' as an instance of spreading decadence. One inclusion that seems to me marginal is from Resolution and Independence, the celebrated question to the old leech-gatherer, betraying that William had not been listening to a word the old fellow said
'My question eagerly did I renew/How is it that you live, and what is it you do?' Say what you like, I still find nothing absurd in it and I still think this is one of his greatest poems. How this got into The Stuffed Owl is obvious - the whole scenario was more than Lewis Carroll could take, and it inspired him to perhaps the most hilarious parody (along with Housman's Fragment of a Greek Tragedy) I have ever read, the White Knight's tale of the aged aged man a-sitting on a gate.
The funniest things in the book are not so much the poems themselves as the commentaries. These are mainly the work of Wyndham Lewis and Lee, but there is some Olympian demolition by Macaulay of a certain Robert Montgomery (1807-1855) who specialised in obsequious piety. The anthologists themselves contribute a wonderful preface, the captions over the extracts, and, maybe best of all, the index. From this you can easily access, say, 'Leeds, poetical aspects of'; or 'Oysters, reason why they cannot be crossed in love'; or 'Trains, rapture of catching'.
How they must have enjoyed doing it all! It appeals quite inordinately to my sense of humour, and perhaps it will to yours.
Rating: 5
Summary: This book is indispensable!
Comment: This collection is much more interesting *and* funny than a more recent anthology of bad poetry, because it draws so heavily on great poets--Wordsworth, Byron, Poe et al. Laughing at semiliterate amateurs is a cheap shot. The wonder is the follies of the talented, and Stuffed Owl displays these. The introductory matter and editorial comments are also brilliantly funny, and the index--yes, the index--is a scream. THIS TITLE SHOULD BE READILY AVAILABLE (publisher please note.)
 |
Title: Very Bad Poetry by Ross Petras, Kathryn Petras ISBN: 0679776222 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 25 March, 1997 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
 |
Title: The Towers of Trebizond (New York Review Books Classics) by Rose MacAulay, Jan Morris ISBN: 159017058X Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: January, 2004 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
 |
Title: Jenny and the Cat Club: A Collection of Favorite Stories About Jenny Linsky (New York Review Children's Collection) by Esther Averill ISBN: 1590170474 Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: December, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
 |
Title: Fancies and Goodnights (New York Review Books) by John Collier, Ray Bradbury ISBN: 1590170512 Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: Witch Grass by Raymond Queneau, Barbara Wright ISBN: 1590170318 Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: February, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
