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01/09/2012 01:54:54 PM · #1 |
Proposed Best of 2011 Expert Editing Challenge
Background: To be run entirely separately from the regular Advanced Editing "Best of 2011" Challenge.
Special Rules: You may use any images made by you in 2011 except images already entered in DPC challenges. Expert Editing rules. Two- or four-week submission period.
Theme: Illustrate some aspect of W. B. Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium" with your entry.
Synopsis: Written in 1926 (when Yeats was 60 or 61), “Sailing to Byzantium” is Yeats’s definitive statement about the agony of old age and the imaginative and spiritual work required to remain a vital individual even when the heart is “fastened to a dying animal” (the body). Yeats’s solution is to leave the country of the young and travel to Byzantium, where the sages in the city’s famous gold mosaics could become the “singing-masters” of his soul. He hopes the sages will appear in fire and take him away from his body into an existence outside time, where, like a great work of art, he could exist in “the artifice of eternity.” In the final stanza of the poem, he declares that once he is out of his body he will never again appear in the form of a natural thing; rather, he will become a golden bird, sitting on a golden tree, singing of the past (“what is past”), the present (that which is “passing”), and the future (that which is “to come”).
(Something in there for everyone...)
Poem:
Sailing To Byzantium
William Butler Yeats
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
Message edited by author 2012-01-09 16:25:23.
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01/09/2012 02:00:03 PM · #2 |
A splendid proposal, Bear.
P.S. 60 or 61 is not old. |
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01/09/2012 02:03:22 PM · #3 |
| Sailing to Byzantium, a masterpiece written at least 3 years *after* he received his Nobel prize for literature. The man had a truly extraordinary career. He roared into the 20th century (aged 35 when it started) and became its greatest poet in the English language, casting a shadow on all those Modernists that they could never shake. |
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01/09/2012 02:05:22 PM · #4 |
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01/09/2012 02:23:26 PM · #5 |
Ireland recently had a "40 greatest Irish persons" poll, and nonsensically Yeates did not feature at all in the list.
Stephen Gately, formerly of that band BoyZone featured in the top ten purely because he died from a drug/drink binge shortly before the results were announced, so was naturally declared a hero. He didn't even headline the band. Pathetic. Gets me very angry when I think about it.
So yes. Yes to this.
Message edited by author 2012-01-09 14:24:03.
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01/09/2012 02:32:20 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by ubique:
A splendid proposal, Bear.
P.S. 60 or 61 is not old. |
In 1926, in Ireland, it was DEFINITELY old...
R.
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01/09/2012 02:53:23 PM · #7 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by ubique:
A splendid proposal, Bear.
P.S. 60 or 61 is not old. |
In 1926, in Ireland, it was DEFINITELY old...
R. |
I read his father lived until he was in his 80s, although they would have been of the more favourable creed for long life, truth to say.
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01/09/2012 03:04:45 PM · #8 |
| While I am all fully for the challenge the topic scares me. But if I could find a way to express that fear it would be a very successful challenge for me. It would be great if this challenge would run concurrently with the old boring Advanced Editing version ;) |
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01/09/2012 03:07:40 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by NiallOTuama:
I read his father lived until he was in his 80s, although they would have been of the more favourable creed for long life, truth to say. |
His father was in New York. :) |
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01/09/2012 03:11:11 PM · #10 |
| This sounds like a very nice idea for a Challenge Robert :) I know when you were originally floating the idea of making a "best of 2011" available for members who prefer Expert editing you mentioned a longer duration for the challenge as a possibility (one month I think?). Unless I missed something I didn't see any time frame mentioned in your proposal here. I'm thinking it might be nice to have longer than a week (maybe even just two) in order to complete this one- so more people can participate without being pressed for free time to complete the project. Wondering what others think about that? |
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01/09/2012 03:14:54 PM · #11 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
Originally posted by NiallOTuama:
I read his father lived until he was in his 80s, although they would have been of the more favourable creed for long life, truth to say. |
His father was in New York. :) |
:-) there goes my theory!
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01/09/2012 03:24:42 PM · #12 |
| Keep in mind there will be no shooting for this one. Only digging through the archives and editing. |
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01/09/2012 03:26:33 PM · #13 |
Originally posted by NiallOTuama:
Stephen Gately, formerly of that band BoyZone featured in the top ten purely because he died from a drug/drink binge shortly before the results were announced, so was naturally declared a hero. He didn't even headline the band. Pathetic. |
Stephen Gately did not have drugs in his system when he died, there was no binge or overdose; he died of natural causes due to a congenial heart condition. It pays to know the facts before slandering someone; when the news of his death first hit, crappy rag magazines declared it to be drug-fuelled with no evidence and no medical word, that was their typical assumption.
Anyway, I like the Yeats inspired idea, I think it'll bring out some really creative images; voting on that challenge will be very enjoyable. :-)
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01/09/2012 03:39:18 PM · #14 |
Man, my participation in this thread is nearly entirely inaccurate!
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01/09/2012 04:01:31 PM · #15 |
Originally posted by NiallOTuama:
Man, my participation in this thread is nearly entirely inaccurate! |
Yes, but you have a congenial heart. Just don't let it kill you. |
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01/09/2012 04:05:59 PM · #16 |
| good idea, but let's make it any Yeats |
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01/09/2012 04:23:46 PM · #17 |
Originally posted by skewsme:
good idea, but let's make it any Yeats |
I second that. |
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01/09/2012 04:26:41 PM · #18 |
Originally posted by Brent_S:
This sounds like a very nice idea for a Challenge Robert :) I know when you were originally floating the idea of making a "best of 2011" available for members who prefer Expert editing you mentioned a longer duration for the challenge as a possibility (one month I think?). Unless I missed something I didn't see any time frame mentioned in your proposal here. I'm thinking it might be nice to have longer than a week (maybe even just two) in order to complete this one- so more people can participate without being pressed for free time to complete the project. Wondering what others think about that? |
My bad. I included a mention of a 2- or 4-week submission period in the ticket alerting Langdon to this thread, but forgot to put it in here. OP amended. Thanks for the heads-up.
R.
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01/09/2012 04:31:58 PM · #19 |
Originally posted by tnun:
Originally posted by skewsme:
good idea, but let's make it any Yeats |
I second that. |
Personally, I think the one poem's big enough to include everyone, it kind of has all the bases covered, from sex to death as it were. And I like the idea that we'd all be focused on the same task, which is not usually the case. I think we could reasonably hope that if we make it ONE poem, a majority of the voters might READ the poem and think about it, and then the voting might actually be sensitive to the themes articulated in the original work. I worry that if we make it "any Yeats" then from his hundreds of poems people will cherry-pick superficial resonances to suit, and the voters won't be compare apples to apples, be they silver or golden or both :-)
Come to think, give us "Yeats" as a theme and see how many cabins-on-lakeshores and gilded/silvered fruits we come up with... THIS poem has substantial meat on it, don'tcha' know?
R.
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01/09/2012 04:37:25 PM · #20 |
I love a poetry themed challenge, was just considering titling a recent entry with a Yeats quote.
But seriously Bear, I am certain you have at least two shots for almost every line of that poem! |
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01/09/2012 04:37:33 PM · #21 |
| your reasoning is good, but I'm not sure there is enough in Sailing to appeal too broadly, never mind that it is not my favourite Yeats. |
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01/09/2012 05:29:44 PM · #22 |
Not my favorite Yeats either, but it's perhaps the best Yeats for this specific purpose, as it's painted with a broad brush, it's intensely allegorical, and it's quite visual as well...
This would work well also:
Among School Children
I
I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and histories,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way -- the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.
II
I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire, a tale that she
Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
That changed some childish day to tragedy --
Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent
Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,
Or else, to alter Plato's parable,
Into the yolk and white of the one shell.
III
And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
I look upon one child or t'other there
And wonder if she stood so at that age --
For even daughters of the swan can share
Something of every paddler's heritage --
And had that colour upon cheek or hair,
And thereupon my heart is driven wild:
She stands before me as a living child.
IV
Her present image floats into the mind --
Did Quattrocento finger fashion it
Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind
And took a mess of shadows for its meat?
And I though never of Ledaean kind
Had pretty plumage once -- enough of that,
Better to smile on all that smile, and show
There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.
V
What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap
Honey of generation had betrayed,
And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape
As recollection or the drug decide,
Would think her Son, did she but see that shape
With sixty or more winters on its head,
A compensation for the pang of his birth,
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?
VI
Plato thought nature but a spume that plays
Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;
Solider Aristotle played the taws
Upon the bottom of a king of kings;
World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras
Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings
What a star sang and careless Muses heard:
Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.
VII
Both nuns and mothers worship images,
But those the candles light are not as those
That animate a mother's reveries,
But keep a marble or a bronze repose.
And yet they too break hearts -- O presences
That passion, piety or affection knows,
And that all heavenly glory symbolise --
O self-born mockers of man's enterprise;
VIII
Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
-- William Butler Yeats
.... But I think "Sailing" is more accessible, generally, for all that "Schoolchildren" may be the greater, and certainly is the more human, poem.
R..
Message edited by author 2012-01-10 00:43:33.
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01/09/2012 10:38:06 PM · #23 |
I dunno, Bear. If I couldn't get Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" into a challenge,
and I have tried mightily, what chance is there for poetry? |
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01/09/2012 11:01:57 PM · #24 |
Poetry translates so well into subject matter for photos, and Yeats is great, the poems you picked fantastic as well.
I'd love to see what people come up with for these poems. |
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01/10/2012 12:16:52 AM · #25 |
| Great suggestion Robert, I vote for Among School Children. |
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