Posted by John Lambert on January 20, 2007 at 17:19:23 from 24.80.105.135 user John.
In Reply to: Re: Casabianca Parodies posted by Jenny Berki on January 20, 2007 at 16:12:49:
Yes, Jenny, I think so. As a boy, I was made to memorize dozens of verses by Coleridge, Wordsworth, Arnold, Keats,Shelley, Tennyson and Browning. I can still remember them. The mere act of memorization gave me an appreciation of metre, rhyme, imagery, onomatapaea and all the other ingredients of good poetry. I also had to learn large sections of Shakespeare that I can still recite. When I was struggling with these poems and texts I hated them, but as time went my I began to understand them in a much deeper way. I don't know if I could have learned the beauty of English literature any other way. My Canadian contempories simply look blank when I quote Shelley or the Bard. But then they never had the great privilege of having to make them part of their souls. Anyone ever heard a Canadian politian making a speech? Memorable, they are not. One mark of an educated person is to identify literary and biblical references and use them occasionally in his own speech and writing. This can only come from having to learn them by rote as a child so they crop up as second nature. The sum of a2 and b2 always seemed irrelevant to me, but my heart would sing when I read "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." I could understand it then, and I understand it now. The point of a2 and b2 still remains a mystery.