I found that funny and wanted to share. That's all.
Goodnight.
viernes, 28 de noviembre de 2014
miércoles, 26 de noviembre de 2014
City of Dreadful Night
As Reme
says, reading makes you a better writer. With this in mind, I started looking
for some Victorian poetry and I found something marvellous. I love poetry as
long as it is highly demanding, and shows the author’s control of the language.
When I was a child it didn’t use to like it because I found it pretentious –
and I didn’t like children’s poems because they were stupid- but when I was
about 14, I read a poem called La última lamentación de Lord Byron, by Gaspar
Núñez de Arce, that attracted me to poetry. I would quote some verses, but it
is an Spanish poem and it is quite long, so it wouldn’t be very useful…- anyway, if you want to read it, I'll leave a link down bellow.
Therefore,
I started reading Lord Byron, William Blake and some more, and now I can say
poetry thrills me, it really does. The important thing is that today I
discovered a Victorian poem named City of Dreadful Night, written by a Scottish
poet whose name was James B. V. Thompson. It is about the author’s loss of
faith. The city of dreadful night is supposed to be London, seen by a
despairing atheist. I find these verses hopeless, pessimistic and melancholic,
the lack of eagerness is evident. However, I like that style; I find it so
desperate that moves me. I guess I like that sort of gothic stuff.
O melancholy Brothers, dark, dark, dark! 25
O battling in black floods without an ark!
O spectral wanderers of unholy Night!
My soul hath bled for you these sunless years,
With bitter blood-drops running down like tears:
Oh dark, dark, dark, withdrawn from joy and light! 30
My heart is sick with anguish for your bale;
Your woe hath been my anguish; yea, I quail
And perish in your perishing unblest.
And I have searched the highths and depths, the scope
Of all our universe, with desperate hope 35
To find some solace for your wild unrest.
And now at last authentic word I bring,
Witnessed by every dead and living thing;
Good tidings of great joy for you, for all:
There is no God; no Fiend with names divine 40
Made us and tortures us; if we must pine,
It is to satiate no Being's gall.
It was the dark delusion of a dream,
That living Person conscious and supreme,
Whom we must curse for cursing us with life; 45
Whom we must curse because the life he gave
Could not be buried in the quiet grave,
Could not be killed by poison or the knife.
This little life is all we must endure,
The grave's most holy peace is ever sure, 50
We fall asleep and never wake again;
Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh,
Whose elements dissolve and merge afresh
In earth, air, water, plants, and other men.
We finish thus; and all our wretched race 55
Shall finish with its cycle, and give place
To other beings with their own time-doom:
Infinite aeons ere our kind began;
Infinite aeons after the last man
Has joined the mammoth in earth's tomb and womb. 60
We bow down to the universal laws,
Which never had for man a special clause
Of cruelty or kindness, love or hate:
If toads and vultures are obscene to sight,
If tigers burn with beauty and with might, 65
Is it by favour or by wrath of Fate?
Enjoy it and goodnight!
LINK to the entire poem: http://emotionalliteracyeducation.com/classic_books_online/ctdnt10.htm
LINK to "La última lamentación de Lord Byron":
http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/ultima-lamentacion-de-lord-byron-poema--0/html/ff1fc088-82b1-11df-acc7-002185ce6064_2.html#I_2_martes, 25 de noviembre de 2014
Devil's Trill Sonata
It's been a
while since the last time I posted anything, I know and I apologize, but I had
a terrible lack of inspiration.
Today I'm writing about baroque music, more
specifically about Tartini and it's wonderful Sonata "Devil's Trill",
which I leave you right here.
I hardly
recommend you opening the video and listening the video while reading this, as
I am doing while writing.
The
official name of this song is Violin Sonata in G minor, and it is
a solo violin piece with figured bass accompaniment, most known because of it
is extremely hard to play, and it requires a great technique.
But the interesting thing about this sonata it’s
its story. As the most enchanting stories do, this one begins with a dream. One
night, Tartini dreamt that the Devil appeared to him and proposed to be his
servant. Without any doubt, he accepted, and he couldn’t be more pleased as
long as all his wishes were satisfied by the Devil. Among other things, Tartini
gave the Devil his violin to prove he could play. In Tartini’s own words: “How great was my
astonishment on hearing a sonata so wonderful and so beautiful, played with
such great art and intelligence, as I had never even conceived in my boldest
flights of fantasy. I felt enraptured, transported, enchanted: my breath failed
me, and - I awoke”.
He picked up his violin and tried to reproduce that marvelous melody. “The
music which I at this time composed is indeed the best that I ever wrote, and I
still call it the "Devil's Trill", but the difference between it and
that which so moved me is so great that I would have destroyed my instrument
and have said farewell to music forever if it had been possible for me to live
without the enjoyment it affords me.”
Nice, isn't it? I love that kind of stories.
Good night.
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