10-16-2016, 11:37 AM
Thanks for the feedback. Trying to be political is hard -- spitting this out, all I got is inconsistencies. I think the skeleton of the poem works, it's just misapplied and misarranged, as you two have dutifully pointed out. Thus, I've rearranged and deleted some sections, added a few others, ultimately tweaked the message. I hope this version is a lot clearer and more consistent. Now responses:
L1 -- @Achebe, exactly. But the point is that the times are changing, so that the assertion is grounded in the reality of the poem.
L2 -- @Achebe, actually the line ran "DID HE smile his work to see?", ie Blake kept that ambiguous. But anyways, I have changed that, to (hopefully) add another layer of criticism.
L3 -- @Achebe, it doesn't. The first draft was meant to be the Bard's warning to the lamb/artist that finds himself straying from the flock, but eh, I was unsuccessful. Thus, I've removed it.
L4 -- @kolemath, I suppose the point of the original is that when tigers are drawn to lonely lambs, they're not drawn to just said lambs -- in the changed world of the poem, they're ultimately just using those lambs as bait. But yes, that was very inconsistently developed, so I've done a bit of rearranging, deleting, etc -- I hope those change clarify that point.
L9 -- @Achebe, precisely. Things always change, the statement, taken on its own, points out ---- but taken as the allusion to Yeats that it is, changes now are spiralling out of control. And with the sustained allusion with "slouching pride", as well as all this talk of "lions waiting for death" and "tigers gathering in flocks", I don't think I need to spell out the whole thing, in-poem.
L10 -- @Achebe, @kolemath, thus the whole thing is rewritten, to state a slightly modified version of my actual point -- where the unstated (or at least clumsily stated) point of the previous was that those lambs of clearer vision split from the flock because whatever, now it's the wethers among the sheep splitting them because, well, thither. I hope it works.
L11 -- @Achebe, again, it's meant to be a sustaining of the allusion to The Second Coming -- I have no idea how that relates to Islam. @kolemath, yes, although the revision now muddies that idea, hopefully for the benefit of other, more relevant ones.
L14 -- @Achebe, it could also be Trump, too. I don't think with this piece I have to be so direct, I'm working on this more as an exercise on imagery than something to get hearts and minds going -- though now I've switched that couplet for another, hoping the plainer one to be, if not timelier or more specific, at least pointier, more direct.
On y'all's conclusions -- @Achebe, I mean, in terms of false analogies and misleading allusions, I think you've misread it, but generally, you got the gist of it, and as for highfalutin, I think it's definitely pompous, but not so high up its ass, I think, that its bones can't speak to the modern reader. @kolemath, although if you got confused, then may it is so high up -- or was, with the new edit hopefully mitigating that. Again, thanks for the feedback!
L1 -- @Achebe, exactly. But the point is that the times are changing, so that the assertion is grounded in the reality of the poem.
L2 -- @Achebe, actually the line ran "DID HE smile his work to see?", ie Blake kept that ambiguous. But anyways, I have changed that, to (hopefully) add another layer of criticism.
L3 -- @Achebe, it doesn't. The first draft was meant to be the Bard's warning to the lamb/artist that finds himself straying from the flock, but eh, I was unsuccessful. Thus, I've removed it.
L4 -- @kolemath, I suppose the point of the original is that when tigers are drawn to lonely lambs, they're not drawn to just said lambs -- in the changed world of the poem, they're ultimately just using those lambs as bait. But yes, that was very inconsistently developed, so I've done a bit of rearranging, deleting, etc -- I hope those change clarify that point.
L9 -- @Achebe, precisely. Things always change, the statement, taken on its own, points out ---- but taken as the allusion to Yeats that it is, changes now are spiralling out of control. And with the sustained allusion with "slouching pride", as well as all this talk of "lions waiting for death" and "tigers gathering in flocks", I don't think I need to spell out the whole thing, in-poem.
L10 -- @Achebe, @kolemath, thus the whole thing is rewritten, to state a slightly modified version of my actual point -- where the unstated (or at least clumsily stated) point of the previous was that those lambs of clearer vision split from the flock because whatever, now it's the wethers among the sheep splitting them because, well, thither. I hope it works.
L11 -- @Achebe, again, it's meant to be a sustaining of the allusion to The Second Coming -- I have no idea how that relates to Islam. @kolemath, yes, although the revision now muddies that idea, hopefully for the benefit of other, more relevant ones.
L14 -- @Achebe, it could also be Trump, too. I don't think with this piece I have to be so direct, I'm working on this more as an exercise on imagery than something to get hearts and minds going -- though now I've switched that couplet for another, hoping the plainer one to be, if not timelier or more specific, at least pointier, more direct.
On y'all's conclusions -- @Achebe, I mean, in terms of false analogies and misleading allusions, I think you've misread it, but generally, you got the gist of it, and as for highfalutin, I think it's definitely pompous, but not so high up its ass, I think, that its bones can't speak to the modern reader. @kolemath, although if you got confused, then may it is so high up -- or was, with the new edit hopefully mitigating that. Again, thanks for the feedback!