Strange kind of day, satisfying in an unintentional way; it just happened. I'm on holiday but as always takes a few days to get out of thinking about work mode. So we had a walk at Lochwinnoch as far as the Castle Semple Collegiate Church. Sun blazing one minute, and then cool and cloudy the next, and for most of our walk we weren't sure if the tee shirt without the rain jacket was a mistake. But the sun shone sufficiently long on the righteous. The Collegiate Church is just over 400 years old, and if you use the link below you can read about its history, and connection with the battle of Flodden - one of the key dates for those still trying to understand why the Scottish temperament has a persistent note of melancholy. The loss of so many significant political and influential figures, and the sheer misery of the aftermath, makes Flodden as defining for Scottish identity as Bannockburn or Culloden. http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/lochwinnoch/castlesemplechurch/index.html
Spent the afternoon chasing stuff for my paper on the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy. Loadsa stuff, but not always easily accessed - and much of it focused on her feminist credentials, and vaudeville style, rather than the specific aspects of her work I'm interested in. Browsing further afield I discovered Glasgow University Library has the new Cambridge Edition of the English Poems of George Herbert, edited and with a rich harvest of notes from Helen Wilcox. I've known about this book since it was announced, and looked at it often enough on the CUP website - but £85! Never mind the credit crunch - at that kind of cost it might need a mortgage. That said - the definitive edition of one of the finest poets in the language - with scholarly notes - and made to last. No paperback announced so won't be around for a few years I suppose. How much should anyone pay for a new book? At what point is cost unreasonably beyond perceived benefit? A meal for four at a modest restaurant would knock you back as much as £85 - and a book lasts longer.......
Speaking of Herbert - I discovered Vikram Seth, the Indian novelist, bought Herbert's house in 2003, and has recently written six poems as a tribute to Herbert. He includes in his piece, some lines of Herbert carved in stone on the north wall of the rectory:
If thou chance for to find
A new house to thy mind
And built without thy cost
Be good to the poor
As God gives thee store
And then my labour’s not lost.
Wonder if those lines are in the Cambridge definitive edition? Typical of Herbert - a default setting of holiness dressed as compassion!
Late evening sun, so spent an hour in the garden reading some of Classics for Pleasure. (on the sidebar) Dirda's enthusiasm for books I've never heard of, or vaguely remember some obscure reference to, and some that, yes, I do know and have even read - but whichever he reviews, he's interesting because interested, a critic who knows what critical appreciation means in practice. I've decided what it is I like about Dirdan: it's the pervasive affection he has for those whose writing he has read and enjoyed. There isn't a sarcastic or cutting sentence in the 200 pages I've read so far, but much praise tempered by honest recognition of genius and its limitations.
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