It's a nicely sketched autobiographic moment. And it has an engagingly honest ring to it, which softens my heart to it.
A number of songs from that music era had some emotional power, both folk and rock--Simon and Garfunkel's songs, for one of the topmost examples, were exquisite and could stir up feeling. I couldn't help wondering which song it was that wrung some tears from the poem's author. The only clue is 1969, when it "last left the charts." No idea if that would rule out Orbison, whose "Only The Lonely" I've always had a feeling for. Am now asking myself if Simon and G's recordings first came out in the 60s or 70s.
Baez, Nelson, well, too many to mention. A lot of the music from those couple decades was strong.
Enjoyed the poem, no hardship at all to read. Didn't need to force my way through it. It carried me.
For most of us, maybe all of us, a melody, or even the briefest melodic fragment, can strike like lightning. Popular music has pride of place in such events because we paid so much attention to it in our youth. As Mr. Gioia so beautifully invokes in this piece, it can resurrect a long-forgotten past, not a memory exactly, but the upwelling of an emotional complex, of yearnings that belonged to another time, and to someone else entirely, the person we once were. These elusive moments arriving as if out of the blue, as Proust so famously describes, are accompanied by both exultation and sorrow. Sorrow for what we've lost, and the startling realization of the persistence (insistence) of a past that is never entirely past. How present, indeed, is our past. Many thanks, Mr. Gioia!
The way the poem combines the subject of nostalgic longing and a pop song, of all things, makes for a delightfully original poem. Ironically, the emotion it generates is nothing like nostalgia or pop music per se, but something transcendent and self-reflexive. The typical Romantic move would be to have tears of self-pity, heartbreak, or some similar quality of emotion. Instead, this poem pulls a fast one and essentially flips the whole thing on its head, creating a surprisingly transcendent effect.
We are freed from our tears of self-pity, which surprisingly, brings great joy and relief, and almost tears!
You gotta be an artist to pull something off like that.
In the circumstances, everyone is equally pitiable, since torture and execution are Nature's universal bequest. Nature clothes itself in irresistibly beguiling forms, to keep the generality forever at its mercy. "No one is ever spared here."
"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean..." They mean Nature is a happy tyrant: to date still invincible--but it too shall pass.
I am all too aware of mankind's being part of it. Nature and it numberless species of offspring are all one, certainly in purpose, if some fail to execute that purpose.
Many thinkers have observed that Nature has liberally provided means of self-dispatch, which many throughout history have succeeded in carrying off. "the voluntary death is the most noble," observes Montaigne, which is perfectly in accrd with my own independent view.
It's a nicely sketched autobiographic moment. And it has an engagingly honest ring to it, which softens my heart to it.
A number of songs from that music era had some emotional power, both folk and rock--Simon and Garfunkel's songs, for one of the topmost examples, were exquisite and could stir up feeling. I couldn't help wondering which song it was that wrung some tears from the poem's author. The only clue is 1969, when it "last left the charts." No idea if that would rule out Orbison, whose "Only The Lonely" I've always had a feeling for. Am now asking myself if Simon and G's recordings first came out in the 60s or 70s.
Baez, Nelson, well, too many to mention. A lot of the music from those couple decades was strong.
Enjoyed the poem, no hardship at all to read. Didn't need to force my way through it. It carried me.
For most of us, maybe all of us, a melody, or even the briefest melodic fragment, can strike like lightning. Popular music has pride of place in such events because we paid so much attention to it in our youth. As Mr. Gioia so beautifully invokes in this piece, it can resurrect a long-forgotten past, not a memory exactly, but the upwelling of an emotional complex, of yearnings that belonged to another time, and to someone else entirely, the person we once were. These elusive moments arriving as if out of the blue, as Proust so famously describes, are accompanied by both exultation and sorrow. Sorrow for what we've lost, and the startling realization of the persistence (insistence) of a past that is never entirely past. How present, indeed, is our past. Many thanks, Mr. Gioia!
Nostalgia and classical form colliding in a brilliant and delightfully surprising way.
A real singularity!
I particularly notice the way that Dana Gioia puts an almost prosaic rendition of truth first and yet still manages to achieve beauty.
The way the poem combines the subject of nostalgic longing and a pop song, of all things, makes for a delightfully original poem. Ironically, the emotion it generates is nothing like nostalgia or pop music per se, but something transcendent and self-reflexive. The typical Romantic move would be to have tears of self-pity, heartbreak, or some similar quality of emotion. Instead, this poem pulls a fast one and essentially flips the whole thing on its head, creating a surprisingly transcendent effect.
We are freed from our tears of self-pity, which surprisingly, brings great joy and relief, and almost tears!
You gotta be an artist to pull something off like that.
In the circumstances, everyone is equally pitiable, since torture and execution are Nature's universal bequest. Nature clothes itself in irresistibly beguiling forms, to keep the generality forever at its mercy. "No one is ever spared here."
"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean..." They mean Nature is a happy tyrant: to date still invincible--but it too shall pass.
We are part of Nature, Tom.
One should be wary of falling for these radical Gnostic dualities.
This world is not a prison.
I am all too aware of mankind's being part of it. Nature and it numberless species of offspring are all one, certainly in purpose, if some fail to execute that purpose.
Many thinkers have observed that Nature has liberally provided means of self-dispatch, which many throughout history have succeeded in carrying off. "the voluntary death is the most noble," observes Montaigne, which is perfectly in accrd with my own independent view.