tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post2398291094519004369..comments2024-02-05T09:17:53.322-08:00Comments on Adrian Barlow's blog: A ‘frail travelling coincidence’: Domodossola and The Whitsun Weddings.Adrian Barlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04526714501872493961noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post-17237052143598333502020-06-12T06:30:48.501-07:002020-06-12T06:30:48.501-07:00Dear Adrian,
It is probably some twenty five year...Dear Adrian,<br /><br />It is probably some twenty five years ago, but you may recall me from Monmouth days! I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog and was delighted to see that you have recently revived it. It never fails to stimulate. <br /><br />The Whitsun Weddings is a poem I recall with fondness from A-level. I remember looking into the significance of Whitsun at the time and discovered that the Wilson government temporarily moved the bank holiday to the end of May, made permanent by its Conservative successor in the early 70s. All of which meant that the final 'proper' Whitsun bank holiday was in 1964, the year in which the poem was published.<br /><br />Best wishes,<br />Tim BennettTim Bennetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08991411791142316790noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post-54088012641068328112020-06-08T12:56:52.488-07:002020-06-08T12:56:52.488-07:00Dear Adrian
Thank you very much for this -- anothe...Dear Adrian<br />Thank you very much for this -- another glimpse of the deeper network of relations across time. Strangely mesmeric.<br />Best wishes<br />John Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07544548102921162106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post-87713343628501845222020-06-03T12:50:17.174-07:002020-06-03T12:50:17.174-07:00e.g.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mr-Pastry-s-Annua...e.g.<br /><br />https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mr-Pastry-s-Annual-Richard-Hearne-/293446537237tomdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03766237341387024779noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post-88853406483448506362020-06-01T10:23:11.893-07:002020-06-01T10:23:11.893-07:00Dear Tom,
Many thanks for these comments. I am gl...Dear Tom,<br /><br />Many thanks for these comments. I am glad to hear of those contexts in which the idea of Whitsuntide still echoes. In other parts of the North of England (particularly, I think) it was the season of carnivals and news dresses.<br /><br />I love the idea of Larkin as Mr Pancake - though the name suddenly recalls a childhood favourite of mine: Mr Pastry. 'Eheu, fugues, Postume, Postume’!Adrian Barlowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04526714501872493961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post-41853648413282198292020-05-31T23:50:01.452-07:002020-05-31T23:50:01.452-07:00That is a truly enjoyable and interesting way to b...That is a truly enjoyable and interesting way to begin my June reading. Thank you, as ever!<br /><br />There was quite a discussion about the Larkin poem yesterday with friends on Facebook, and about the various usages and understandings of 'Whitsun' and 'Pentecost' in different generations and societies.<br /><br />It completely baffled me when we were taught about it at [non-religious] primary school. Speaking with tongues sounded good fun, if it meant you could talk to foreigners without having to learn their language, but the Holy Ghost just meant someone in a spooky white sheet with a halo. But we were only seven. <br /><br />M and her brother still say e.g. 'I'll try to visit just after Whit'.<br />And througout my childhood and beyond the cricket fixtures Middlesex v Sussex, Yorkshire v Lancashire, Surrey v Notts were 'the Whitsun matches'.<br /><br /> A few years ago we were at a very good evening at the British Academy devoted to the work of Czesław Miłosz and his impact on British, Irish and American poetry.<br /><br />One section was devoted to the hostile feelings Miłosz had for Philip Larkin; he thought and wrote passionately that Larkin's attitude to death [in a poem like Aubade] was unforgivable in both a literary and a moral sense.<br /><br />But what really surprised me was to learn about the existence of various translations of Larkin into Polish and the large amount of debate they have provoked among Polish writers.<br /><br />On the bus coming home I was trying to imagine how phrases like these would go into Polish: 'someone running up to bowl', 'an uncle shouting smut', 'randy for antique', 'losels, loblolly-men, louts', 'all those family hols', 'stretched outside the Oval', 'searched the sand for Famous Cricketers', 'who's read nothing but Which', 'ate an awful pie' and so on. Even harder maybe: 'kept on plugging at the four aways' and 'the Frinton folk'.<br /><br />Those last two made me think of the title of the poem from which they come. To me, Mr Bleaney has associations of 'bleak' and 'meanie'. But I wonder if, to a reader in, say, Lithuania [where Miłosz was born] it might have the much jollier sense of Mr Pancakes.tomdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03766237341387024779noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post-41178513434669213702020-05-31T14:11:21.276-07:002020-05-31T14:11:21.276-07:00Most interesting, Adrian! A delightful linkage. Se...Most interesting, Adrian! A delightful linkage. See my follow up on TheSandysStory blog: http://www.thesandysstory.uk/blog/whitsuntide-and-the -unexpectedMartin Davishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16344701460514387990noreply@blogger.com