Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.
A. L. Tennyson ~ “The Charge of the Light Brigade” circa 1870
Rivers noticed that Prior’s face lit up as he quoted the poem.
P. Barker Regeneration 1991 pg 66
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
B. Dylan “The Times They are a-changing” 1961
And now, we, who though we were going to live after all look back and with the cynical postmodern eye we grin at the times that are a-changing. Rivers quotes Tennyson in the hospital, and claims that he was once in love with the poem. I do not know if this is in the historical record, or if this is a fiction created by Barker, but this is the part of this novel that I focused on primarily.
For me, the character of Prior comes across as a very intelligent man. He is presented as learned and erudite. In some ways he is the most sympathetic character in the book, and I would make an argument of his being the protagonist in the novel, if it weren’t so balanced between Sassoon and Rivers. In my mind he represents the old guard. He is in the hospital with two very good poets, and he is the one that seems to be holding onto the old ideals. Tennyson’s poem romanticizes the warfare and the sacrifice that is inherent in such things. The poets that are living in the hospital with Prior have ceased to romanticize the work. Prior says that he love the poem once, but no more. I can imagine myself in his shoes and understand such a position.
This is a position that is not born wholly of cowardice. Fear of death is a logical man’s exemption from war, but there are times when the ruling classed suspend logic and reason in favor of sloganeering and appeals to patriotism. The ruling classes send the lambs to the slaughter and fight a war of bad ideas that they are mostly immune from the horrors. This has been seen time and time again throughout history. Even the commanders lie back and watch the young die for their causes. Napoleon rode into Russia with an army of half a million men. His army took heavy casualties, of cold, starvation, and wounds, but he himself was able to ride back to France.
But I digress. I think that this particular scene is a nod to the fact that the literary times were changing too. This war helped shake the yoke of Victorian sensibility and give rise to the moderns. Without it, our poets would still be romanticizing, and the young would be dying at the whims of the ruling elite.
July 8, 2009
Gin with Jane
Gin with Jane
The bottle of Bombay
Sapphire I bought
because I wanted
to impress you, sits
waiting to be finished.
You left early that night,
earlier than I wished
you would have.
You left before I could
stare intently into your
deep brown eyes, and
find the secrets of this
world. No, you left,
abrubtly, after reading
a poem I wrote about you.
In it, you were a small,
scared bird. I think
I had some parts right.
Maybe you are scared.
After all, this is a big world,
with lots to fear. Maybe I
cannot stop all that is
bad in this world, but
we still have the Bombay.
The bottle of Bombay
Sapphire I bought
because I wanted
to impress you, sits
waiting to be finished.
You left early that night,
earlier than I wished
you would have.
You left before I could
stare intently into your
deep brown eyes, and
find the secrets of this
world. No, you left,
abrubtly, after reading
a poem I wrote about you.
In it, you were a small,
scared bird. I think
I had some parts right.
Maybe you are scared.
After all, this is a big world,
with lots to fear. Maybe I
cannot stop all that is
bad in this world, but
we still have the Bombay.
Edgar Finds His Purpose
A General Introduction: Edgar Finds His Purpose
And this is the year that fate has chosen to thrust me into the world, which those older than me cleverly call "the real world." It is as if I had not been paying attention for the last four years. No, I have been paying attention. The world has its weaknesses. Men have lamented since the dawn of thought about the innate failings of men and the possible resolutions that could be brought forth. However, how smart the man, the perfect world is seemingly unattainable. As proof, I find that I am not running into philosopher kings on every corner.
There is a reason that Sir Thomas Moore chose the name of Utopia. In translation, it means "no place." That was written hundreds of years ago, in a time where great discoveries happened on an almost daily basis, and if you read the literature, a time when men were more enlightened than any time that had been before and had come since. If hundreds of years ago men were cynical about the fate of the world, how is it that a man in this day and age can make some sort of difference in the fate of the world?
We look up at the sky, and gesture at the futility of such an action. We shake our fists at the cosmos and lament. "I am just one man," you find yourself screaming at the sky, "what can I possibly do?" I know that I am too young, too inexperienced to know the answers to these debates that have been raging since the great minds of Athens were preserved as marble likenesses. However, I am old enough to recognize that I do not know these things. I think attorney general John Ashcroft put it best when he said, "There are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. There are things we know we know, there are things we know we don't know, and then there are things we don't know we know. The things that we don't know we know are the most dangerous."
And that, Hopefully, is the point where I come in. A writer's duty is to expose Truth and Beauty in the world, paying careful attention to the proper noun status of these things. If I can, in my time on the Earth, make some of those unknown unknowns into the known unknowns, the world will be a better place. However, I feel that I need to learn more, and be guided by those who have walked the same path, but are slightly ahead of me. The experience of life is a wonderful education. Men who dropped out of school at sixteen know some things that I might never even fathom to think about. I need to learn more. My heart and my soul yearn for it, and my rational mind would be highly offended if I did not utilize all its powers. I was granted with some great gifts that I never asked for, and it is my duty to humanity to use them.
And use them I will. I feel that I have all the tools; it is just that their uses are alien to me. I fumble around like a child with the tools of my craft, and the guidance that someone older than me can offer is much appreciated. As the flower cannot blossom without the rain, a mind needs cultivation through the process of education. Graduate school is the logical choice for me. I can be no autodidact.
Although I can be no autodidact, I can hope for greatness. This is an abstract, untenable thing, this greatness, but it is what I truly hope for. Someday, I want promising scholars and writers to read my work, and be moved. Maybe they will want to study it, applying it to the theory of the day. More likely, I would hope that some young reader, somewhere, is emboldened to take up the pen and dream lofty dreams as I do today. Graduate school will help me on my way. Someday, some English Department’s headquarters will bear my name. Now, will you open the door for me, in this same building?
And this is the year that fate has chosen to thrust me into the world, which those older than me cleverly call "the real world." It is as if I had not been paying attention for the last four years. No, I have been paying attention. The world has its weaknesses. Men have lamented since the dawn of thought about the innate failings of men and the possible resolutions that could be brought forth. However, how smart the man, the perfect world is seemingly unattainable. As proof, I find that I am not running into philosopher kings on every corner.
There is a reason that Sir Thomas Moore chose the name of Utopia. In translation, it means "no place." That was written hundreds of years ago, in a time where great discoveries happened on an almost daily basis, and if you read the literature, a time when men were more enlightened than any time that had been before and had come since. If hundreds of years ago men were cynical about the fate of the world, how is it that a man in this day and age can make some sort of difference in the fate of the world?
We look up at the sky, and gesture at the futility of such an action. We shake our fists at the cosmos and lament. "I am just one man," you find yourself screaming at the sky, "what can I possibly do?" I know that I am too young, too inexperienced to know the answers to these debates that have been raging since the great minds of Athens were preserved as marble likenesses. However, I am old enough to recognize that I do not know these things. I think attorney general John Ashcroft put it best when he said, "There are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. There are things we know we know, there are things we know we don't know, and then there are things we don't know we know. The things that we don't know we know are the most dangerous."
And that, Hopefully, is the point where I come in. A writer's duty is to expose Truth and Beauty in the world, paying careful attention to the proper noun status of these things. If I can, in my time on the Earth, make some of those unknown unknowns into the known unknowns, the world will be a better place. However, I feel that I need to learn more, and be guided by those who have walked the same path, but are slightly ahead of me. The experience of life is a wonderful education. Men who dropped out of school at sixteen know some things that I might never even fathom to think about. I need to learn more. My heart and my soul yearn for it, and my rational mind would be highly offended if I did not utilize all its powers. I was granted with some great gifts that I never asked for, and it is my duty to humanity to use them.
And use them I will. I feel that I have all the tools; it is just that their uses are alien to me. I fumble around like a child with the tools of my craft, and the guidance that someone older than me can offer is much appreciated. As the flower cannot blossom without the rain, a mind needs cultivation through the process of education. Graduate school is the logical choice for me. I can be no autodidact.
Although I can be no autodidact, I can hope for greatness. This is an abstract, untenable thing, this greatness, but it is what I truly hope for. Someday, I want promising scholars and writers to read my work, and be moved. Maybe they will want to study it, applying it to the theory of the day. More likely, I would hope that some young reader, somewhere, is emboldened to take up the pen and dream lofty dreams as I do today. Graduate school will help me on my way. Someday, some English Department’s headquarters will bear my name. Now, will you open the door for me, in this same building?
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