10-19-2016, 11:57 PM
Thanks for the feedback! Responses:
I read "old Teiresian" as "old-tie-rees-yan", but it seems the standard for Teiresias is "tie-ree-see-as", instead, so I've tried and cut "old", as you suggested, though to me it reads kinda 50/50.
At the moment, I couldn't think of anything to fit the meter, but now I've thought of a better (and simpler, lol) one, than "beget".
I didn't compose this with politics in mind, so the "immigrant" thing, at least as I intended, isn't a comment on anything -- "virtue's banner" is those standards of virtue as defined by the imperial folks of Byzantium, and the idea of the whole "love" statement is that the love one can get in the city is all ideal, all "turned touchless, tasteless, by allegory", a response to "Once out of nature I shall never take / My bodily form for any natural thing."
And for the 'closed' parts, essentially it's all allusion. "Crazy salad", the idea behind "muse's dance", both come from Michael Robartes and the Dancer; "Cathleen ni Houlihan", "lusty dancer of the Sheban court", both are Yeat's muses (to be descriptive, the first is Maud, the second is George) in their idealized forms, forms that again are "touchless, tasteless". The speaker doesn't like being a lone young piece of flesh in that house of old spirits. I've tried and returned the line leading into such density to its shorter form, on the hope that the blow is softened, though maybe a slightly more thorough revision is needed, considering "lusty dancer" and "muse's dance" essentially talk of the same thing. I'll see.
But reading this politically is a darn interesting suggestion....hmm....I'm struggling. Anyway, thanks for the feedback; small edit posted above.
I read "old Teiresian" as "old-tie-rees-yan", but it seems the standard for Teiresias is "tie-ree-see-as", instead, so I've tried and cut "old", as you suggested, though to me it reads kinda 50/50.
At the moment, I couldn't think of anything to fit the meter, but now I've thought of a better (and simpler, lol) one, than "beget".
I didn't compose this with politics in mind, so the "immigrant" thing, at least as I intended, isn't a comment on anything -- "virtue's banner" is those standards of virtue as defined by the imperial folks of Byzantium, and the idea of the whole "love" statement is that the love one can get in the city is all ideal, all "turned touchless, tasteless, by allegory", a response to "Once out of nature I shall never take / My bodily form for any natural thing."
And for the 'closed' parts, essentially it's all allusion. "Crazy salad", the idea behind "muse's dance", both come from Michael Robartes and the Dancer; "Cathleen ni Houlihan", "lusty dancer of the Sheban court", both are Yeat's muses (to be descriptive, the first is Maud, the second is George) in their idealized forms, forms that again are "touchless, tasteless". The speaker doesn't like being a lone young piece of flesh in that house of old spirits. I've tried and returned the line leading into such density to its shorter form, on the hope that the blow is softened, though maybe a slightly more thorough revision is needed, considering "lusty dancer" and "muse's dance" essentially talk of the same thing. I'll see.
But reading this politically is a darn interesting suggestion....hmm....I'm struggling. Anyway, thanks for the feedback; small edit posted above.