The Mad Philosopher -- Ambrose Bierce

Not quite hate poetry, but a delightful brand of misanthropy nonetheless...

APHORISM, n.: Predigested wisdom

(Poem #879) The Mad Philosopher The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. -- Ambrose Bierce

        (from "The Devil's Dictionary")

Note: abysm (n): an old spelling of 'abyss' ( the word has had five
variants, abime, abysm, abysmus, abyssus, abyss; of which abyss remains
asthe ordinary form, and abysm as archaic or poetic. -- OED )

While Bierce was an all-round misanthrope and cynic, he appears to have
reserved his greatest scorn for those he considered pretentious - the self
proclaimedly artistic, philosophic and/or spiritual. Today's poem is an
excellent example; there is not even an attempt at wit, just pure vitriol.

The poem is, nonetheless, memorable for several reasons. Invective is always
impressive if done well, of course, but there is more to it than that - the
central image is very well chosen, with its picture of aphorisms dribbling
out of a flabby wineskin, and the attendant suggestion of bibulousness on
the philosopher's part. The whole has a wonderfully epigrammatic quality
that makes up in large measure for its lack of wit.

martin.

Links:

  Biography of Bierce: poem #148

  The Devil's Dictionary:
    [broken link] http://rabi.phys.columbia.edu/~matmat/html/devils.html

Frustration -- Dorothy Parker

Guest poem submitted by David Wright, as part of our
ongoing theme, hate rhymes:

(Poem #878) Frustration If I had a shiny gun, I could have a world of fun Speeding bullets through the brains Of the folk who give me pains; Or had I some poison gas, I could make the moments pass Bumping off a number of People whom I do not love. But I have no lethal weapon- Thus does Fate our pleasure step on! So they still are quick and well Who should be, by rights, in hell. -- Dorothy Parker

This poem from Dorothy Parker is exactly the sort of thing we worry about
the kids reading. My open question is, what do we get from a poem like this,
what kind of pleasure does it give us? I'm not suggesting any answers. I'm
just curious to how we respond to such poems. The first time I read these
things I'm impressed with the vigor and force of the poet's wrath, and a bit
bemusedly shocked, and vicariously pleased.  The second and third readings
are somewhat more disturbing...

David.

[Minstrels Links]

Dorothy Parker:
Poem #150, Resume
Poem #192, Comment
Poem #486, Epitaph for a Darling Lady
Poem #560, Chant for Dark Hours
Poem #638, Song of Perfect Propriety
Poem #697, A Well Worn Story
Poem #878, Frustration

Hate Rhymes:
Poem #185, A Glass of Beer  -- David O'Bruadair
Poem #266, The Litany for Doneraile  -- Patrick O'Kelly
Poem #876, I Wish My Tongue were a Quiver -- Louis McKay
Poem #877, I Do Not Love Thee, Dr Fell -- Tom Brown
Poem #635, Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister -- Robert Browning

I Do Not Love Thee, Dr Fell -- Tom Brown

Following up yesterday's "hate rhyme" with a rhyme of, well, mild dislike, I
suppose:

(Poem #877) I Do Not Love Thee, Dr Fell I do not love thee, Dr Fell, The reason why I cannot tell; But this I know, and know full well, I do not love thee, Dr Fell. -- Tom Brown

Written circa 1680.

Tradition has it that Brown, while a student at Christ Church, got into some
sort of trouble and was taken to the dean, Dr John Fell.  Brown was set to
be sent down from Oxford, but Dr. Fell decided to waive the expulsion if
Brown could translate, extempore, a Martial epigram. The above poem is the
result; unfortunately, history does not record whether or not Brown's
creativity was sufficient to stay the dean's wrath.

The original Martial epigram follows:

 Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
 Hoc tantum posso dicere, non amo te.
        -- Martial

Brown's translation is an excellent one, succinct and faithful to the
original (which reads something like this in English: "I don't like you,
Sabidius, and I can't say why; all I can say is I don't like you"). More to
the point, it's uncannily catchy; what ought by rights to be a snatch of
doggerel has achieved immortality in a thousand and one compilations of
quotable quotes. I wish I knew how he did it...

thomas.

[Minstrels Links]

Poem #876, I Wish My Tongue were a Quiver -- Louis McKay
Poem #856, Epigram -- Martial

[Biographies]

John Fell: 1625-86, English clergyman. He was dean of Christ Church, Oxford,
and bishop of Oxford. While at Oxford, he initiated an extensive building
program and promoted the development of the Oxford Univ. Press. His chief
literary work was his critical edition (1682) of St. Cyprian. He is probably
best remembered today as the subject of Tom Brown's jingle "I do not love
thee, Dr. Fell, The reason why I cannot tell; But this alone I know full
well, I do not love thee, Dr. Fell."
        -- The Columbia Encyclopaedia, at www.bartleby.com

Martial: See the epigram above.

Tom Brown: Couldn't find anything, sorry.

I Wish My Tongue were a Quiver -- Louis Alexander MacKay

Guest poem submitted by David Wright:

(Poem #876) I Wish My Tongue were a Quiver I wish my tongue were a quiver the size of a huge cask Packed and crammed with long black venomous rankling darts. I'd fling you more full of them, and joy in the task, Than ever Sebastian was, or Caesar, with thirty-three swords in his heart. I'd make a porcupine out of you, or a pincushion, say; The shafts should stand so thick you'd look like a headless hen Hung up by the heels, with the long bare red neck stretching, curving, and dripping away From the soiled floppy ball of ruffled feathers standing on end. You should bristle like those cylindrical brushes they use to scrub out bottles Not even to reach the kindly earth with the soles of you prickled feet, And I would stand by and watch you wriggle and writhe, gurgling through the barbs in your throttle Like a woolly caterpillar pinned on its back - man, that would be sweet. -- Louis Alexander MacKay

'Hate Rhymes'

    I'm a pretty mild-mannered guy, so when a colleague confided in me that
she felt the degeneration of Western civilization was epitomized by the pop
stardom of rapper Mashall Mathers, better known as Eminem, she was rather
shocked when I replied that I have both of his CDs and I enjoy him a lot -
at his best he burns with magnificent and often hilarious rage.  "That's
just it.. all that HATE..."  Okay, no arguing with taste.  That night I came
home and a magazine had a leader something like "Will Grammy reward Eminem's
Hate Rhymes?" making a punning equation of Mathers' music with cross-burning
and the like.
     Aside from a tiresome Free Speech response to this which I will spare
you, this got me thinking about the great hate poems of Anon, Homer,
Catullus, Juvenal, Dante, Shakespeare, Donne, Swift, Plath, Doroty Parker,
Browning, W.D. Snodgrass, etc. etc. and I resolved to dig out the most
hate-filled poem I could find.
     So here's one that's right up there.  I know very little about L. A.
MacKay, a Canadian poet, educator and translator from Ontario with such
suitable titles as "The Ill-tempered lover," "Viper's Bugloss" and "The
Wrath of Homer" to his name, or to his psuedonym, John Smalacombe.  But he
really takes his hate beyond the bilious savor that many poets stop at -
certainly Eminem pales in comparison.  This is a huge and warlike,
annihilating hatred; a lascivious, detailed, determined hatred, like
something out of Titus Andronicus.  I'm not sure I've ever experienced quite
such a hatred.

David.

221B -- Vincent Starrett

Guest poem submitted by M. E. Lasseter:

(Poem #875) 221B Here dwell together still two men of note Who never lived and so can never die: How very near they seem, yet how remote That age before the world went all awry. But still the game's afoot for those with ears Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo: England is England yet, for all our fears-- Only those things the heart believes are true. A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane As night descends upon this fabled street: A lonely hansom splashes through the rain, The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet. Here, though the world explode, these two survive, And it is always eighteen ninety-five. -- Vincent Starrett

[Commentary]

Ah, Sherlock Holmes poetry. Perhaps the meter is off, but the imagery in it
makes it worthwhile. That and the fact that it makes things nice for the
closet romantic. All warm-fuzzy and all that.

Rather, it's not warm-fuzzy, but instead gives a feeling of security in this
rapidly changing world of ours. "...though the world explode, these two
[Holmes and Watson] survive", forsooth. Being stuck in a certain era isn't
necessarily a bad thing.

[Short Biography]

Vincent Starrett was the author of the renowned pastiche the Adventure of
the Unique Hamlet, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes and other writings.
The pastiche [high-class fan fiction] is widely considered one of the finest
ever written and is listed in The Diogenes Club Required Readings.  Mr
Starrett was a prolific Sherlockian author and critic, friend of many highly
acclaimed authors and writers, including such luminaries as August Derleth
(of the Solar Pons series fame) and  H. P. Lovecraft, and a much admired
journalist with American Newspapers.
        -- [broken link] http://www.marietta.edu/~cislerd/diogenese/starrett.htm:

Extensive biography and bibliography:
[broken link] http://www.caxtonclub.org/reading/May2001/starrett.htm

-Mel.