Back in 2013, with a remnant of a cold, I read T. S. Eliot’s Ash Wednesday.
It’s interesting to go back to that post and see the comments. For example, Supertradmum is no longer with us. Say a prayer for the repose of her soul. There are names of some commentators we haven’t see around for a while.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
on Daily Rome Shot 1016: nap time: “In a course on the Nichomachean Ethics I once took, it occurred to me that if pleasure were the telos…”
on Omnium gatherum: “Regarding the wedding, isn’t the priest in question excommunicated automatically for simulating a sacrament? What about the poor souls who…”
on Fr John Hunwicke – R.I.P.: “I’ve been surprised at just how hard I’ve taken the news of his death. We only met once, and that…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1015: Quaeritur and “blind mind”: “Father, Nice breakfast! Is that a deep bowl? ;-)”
on Omnium gatherum: “Father Anderson’s discussion of the royal passion bearers is here: https://instituteofcatholicculture.org/events/st-nicholas-the-passion-bearers”
on Daily Rome Shot 1015: Quaeritur and “blind mind”: “Kimchi is simple to make at home. And lasts a long time in the refrigerator.” on Omnium gatherum: “Thanks for pointing us to the very interesting article at NOR, Father. Among many interesting features is simply the turn…”
on The shift toward “the old ways” is really a step forward into the future.: “No children = no future.”
on Daily Rome Shot 1014 – My View For Awhile – The last leg: “My son is married to a Chinese woman, whose parents invited us to visit. We spent 4 days in Foshan…”
on Daily Rome Shot 10112 – Brooklyn 24/4– Day 3 – A visit to the seminary: “I once had the privilege of serving in “The Largest Sacristy in the Diocese” which featured a framed prayer for…” on Daily Rome Shot 1014 – My View For Awhile – The last leg: “I grew up loving Chinese food, but gradually learned that this unique California cuisine bore little resemblance to what Chinese…”
on Fr John Hunwicke – R.I.P.: “I’ve been away and only catching up now, and I had no idea he had died, although as a very…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1014 – My View For Awhile – The last leg: “1. Qg8+ Kg8 2. Be6+ Kh8 (f8 can’t bi-locate) 3. Rg8#”
on Fr John Hunwicke – R.I.P.: “Building on what @iamlucky13 mentioned, it looks like Archive.org does have most of the site indexed – over 10k urls…”
on Your Sunday Sermon Notes: 5th Sunday after Easter (N.O. 6th of Easter) 2024: “NO Mass. Love is not a feeling, it is an action towards others, as Jesus act of dying on the…”
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since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
From “Chard Whitlow: Mr Eliot’s Sunday Evening Postscript”:
“Oh, listeners,
And you especially who have turned off the wireless,
And sit in Stoke or Basingstoke listening appreciatively to the silence,
(Which is also the silence of hell) pray not for your selves but your souls.
And pray for me also under the draughty stair.
As we get older we do not get any younger.”
PostCatholic,
There’s an enjoyable recording of Dylan Thomas reading this poem by Henry Reed – and I remember an anecdote to the effect that Eliot autographed a copy in Thomas’s handwriting after he died in case that could be of value one way or another to Thomas’s widow. Searching for that, I find instead a 1994 New Criterion article by John Gross saying it was “much admired by Eliot himself”.
As I remember, the BBC recording of Thomas reading Reed actually gets the laughs on the right lines, letting some of the copious stuffing out of Eliot’s metaphorical shirt.
Henry Reed was an interesting character. I think his cycle “Lessons of the War” is underrated as a piece of WW2 literature.
I should have checked Henry Reed’s Wikipedia article before commenting! It includes part of a quotation from Dwight Macdonald’s splendid Parodies: an anthology from Chaucer to Beerbohm–and after (Random House 1960, Faber 1961). The full text there is: “‘Most parodies of one’s own work strike one as very poor,’ Mr. Eliot writes. ‘In fact one is apt to think one could parody oneself much better. (As a matter of fact some critics have said that I have done so.) But there is one which deserves the success it has had, Henry Reed’s Chard Whitlow.'”
I think I have only ever read the much-anthologized first part of ‘Lessons of the War’, ‘The naming of parts’ – but looking up the contents of Maps of Verona (1946) I am keen to read more of him – there’s a whole little Arthurian section under the heading ‘ Tintagel’!
As someone remarks on YouTube, it sounds like Dylan Thomas has heard Eliot recite and plays with his intonation, too.