Wednesday, 3 December 2008

Parodying

Following the discussions about language and retelling the classics, I thought I might put the marvellous Wendy Cope's limericks parodying the Waste Land on the blog, since we studied T.S.Eliot a couple of weeks ago. So funny and mordant, especially the end of the third...


Waste Land Limericks
I

In April one seldom feels cheerful;
Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;
Clairvoyantes distress me,
Commuters depress me--
Met Stetson and gave him an earful.

II

She sat on a mighty fine chair,
Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;
She asks many questions,
I make few suggestions--
Bad as Albert and Lil--what a pair!

III

The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep--
A typist is laid,
A record is played--
Wei la la. After this it gets deep.

IV

A Phoenician named Phlebas forgot
About birds and his business--the lot,
Which is no surprise,
Since he'd met his demise
And been left in the ocean to rot.

V

No water. Dry rocks and dry throats,
Then thunder, a shower of quotes
From the Sanskrit and Dante.
Da. Damyata. Shantih.
I hope you'll make sense of the notes.

-- Wendy Cope


Challenged as I am computerwise, I couldn't find the real thing on the blog anymore. It's linked here.

Also, here's a link to an article which continues on the Rothko-Art-Money discussion. It's the Times Literary Supplement, so prepare for a dash of ponciness, but anyway, it touches upon those topics here and there. And the author used the word 'perfidious', which is a brilliant word that I didn't know existed in English.

2 comments:

Sian said...

'Perfidious' is one of my favourite words. I use it a lot in my head at the moment.

Sian said...

Sorry, I meant to add that the phrase 'perfidious Albion' is one often used historically to speak of the English (but mostly by the French): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfidious_Albion