Love this: "Art is the bride, and she’s worth looking at. But sometimes it’s worth stealing a peek at the groom, whose face is radiant beholding her. That’s good literary criticism, and it’s a joy to see it."
And looking forward to the play when it is released!
I would say there are two sources for poetry, the song and the dream-image. And for poetry-as-song, drama can certainly be a subset of poetry. The perfect turn of phrase, the couplet yelled out in agony, stuck in our minds for years afterwards. Or even better, the incomplete rhyme, the dangling sentence of a dying character that is never quite complete, burrowing under our skin.
I think of Hamlet's "the rest is silence" interjecting the flow of his final words, or Hotspur'a death in Henry IV. I suppose it's conjecture to assume there was a rhyme intended, but given Shakespeare's tendency toward memorable couplets for on-stage deaths, that's always how I've heard them.
I also think of Cyrano de Bergerac, the flow of the ongoing alexandrines nearly interrupted by his dying breath, with 'mon panache' only squeezed out at the end.
Love this: "Art is the bride, and she’s worth looking at. But sometimes it’s worth stealing a peek at the groom, whose face is radiant beholding her. That’s good literary criticism, and it’s a joy to see it."
And looking forward to the play when it is released!
I would say there are two sources for poetry, the song and the dream-image. And for poetry-as-song, drama can certainly be a subset of poetry. The perfect turn of phrase, the couplet yelled out in agony, stuck in our minds for years afterwards. Or even better, the incomplete rhyme, the dangling sentence of a dying character that is never quite complete, burrowing under our skin.
Mm yes. Can you share your favorites from that last category(the incomplete rhyme)?
I think of Hamlet's "the rest is silence" interjecting the flow of his final words, or Hotspur'a death in Henry IV. I suppose it's conjecture to assume there was a rhyme intended, but given Shakespeare's tendency toward memorable couplets for on-stage deaths, that's always how I've heard them.
I also think of Cyrano de Bergerac, the flow of the ongoing alexandrines nearly interrupted by his dying breath, with 'mon panache' only squeezed out at the end.
Oh the Cyrano example is perfect.
Finnicky discussions of categories likened to caviar? I'm sold! 🤣
I've only stumbled across you today, but I love this snippet of your play and your reflections on literary criticism.
Thank you, Katie! That means so much! The play will be out in October.