H.G. Wells writes to Joyce

H.G. Wells writes a letter to James Joyce

From Letters of Note 

Lou Pidou,
Saint Mathieu,
Grasse, A.M.

November 23, 1928

My dear Joyce:

I’ve been studying you and thinking over you a lot. The outcome is that I don’t think I can do anything for the propaganda of your work. I have enormous respect for your genius dating from your earliest books and I feel now a great personal liking for you but you and I are set upon absolutely different courses. Your training has been Catholic, Irish, insurrectionary; mine, such as it was, was scientific, constructive and, I suppose, English. The frame of my mind is a world wherein a big unifying and concentrating process is possible (increase of power and range by economy and concentration of effort), a progress not inevitable but interesting and possible. That game attracted and holds me. For it, I want a language and statement as simple and clear as possible. You began Catholic, that is to say you began with a system of values in stark opposition to reality. Your mental existence is obsessed by a monstrous system of contradictions. You may believe in chastity, purity and the personal God and that is why you are always breaking out into cries of cunt, shit and hell. As I don’t believe in these things except as quite personal values my mind has never been shocked to outcries by the existence of water closets and menstrual bandages — and undeserved misfortunes. And while you were brought up under the delusion of political suppression I was brought up under the delusion of political responsibility. It seems a fine thing for you to defy and break up. To me not in the least.

Now with regard to this literary experiment of yours. It’s a considerable thing because you are a very considerable man and you have in your crowded composition a mighty genius for expression which has escaped discipline. But I don’t think it gets anywhere. You have turned your back on common men — on their elementary needs and their restricted time and intelligence, and you have elaborated. What is the result? Vast riddles. Your last two works have been more amusing and exciting to write than they will ever be to read. Take me as a typical common reader. Do I get much pleasure from this work? No. Do I feel I am getting something new and illuminating as I do when I read Anrep’s dreadful translation of Pavlov’s badly written book on Conditioned Reflexes? No. So I ask: Who the hell is this Joyce who demands so many waking hours of the few thousand I have still to live for a proper appreciation of his quirks and fancies and flashes of rendering?

All this from my point of view. Perhaps you are right and I am all wrong. Your work is an extraordinary experiment and I would go out of my way to save it from destructive or restrictive interruption. It has its believers and its following. Let them rejoice in it. To me it is a dead end.

My warmest wishes to you Joyce. I can’t follow your banner any more than you can follow mine. But the world is wide and there is room for both of us to be wrong.

Yours,
H.G. Wells

Aru Firinne: Música Celta

Aru Fírinne es una banda  de músicos argentinos que comenzó a fines del 2011, mediante la unión de las bandas de música tradicional irlandesa Tuan y Derwydd.

Este grupo está compuesta por:

-Maximiliano Villalba: Bouzouki irlandés, Mandola, Mandolina, Guitarra acústica.

-Pamela Schweblin: Gaita irlandesa, Tin/ Low Whistlse.

-Silvio Volpe: Bodhran, Bones y Spoons.

-Alfredo Fariña: Violín, Banjo tenor y Mandolina.

-Victor Naranjo: Gaita irlandesa, Tin/ Low Whistles y Violín.

Su repertorio abarca canciones y danzas instrumentales de Irlanda arregladas y versionadas por la banda, así como también composiciones propias; que intentan respetar el espíritu y la esencia de esta música en cuanto al lenguaje y las formas que componen su ética. 

Seamus Deane: Raíces

De joven,
sentí a los muertos
arrastrarse a mis pies
como raíces
y a cada paso
los escuchaba
gritar
alto.

Ya mayor,
escucho quebrarse
las raíces. Los gritos
cesaron. Desde entonces
he estado
muriendo
lentamente
desde la copa.


Seamus Deane (1940-

Versión: Gerardo Gambolini, Poesía Irlandesa Contemporánea, Tierra Firme



Younger,
I felt the dead
drag at my feet
like roots
and at every step
I heard them
crying

Older,
I hear the roots
snap. The crying
stopped. Ever since
I have been
dying
slowly
from the top.

Samuel Beckett: Relatos, El Acantilado

Ventana entre cielo y tierra no se sabe dónde. Da sobre un acantilado incoloro. la cresta escapa al ojo dondequiera que se pose. La base también. Dos trozos de cielo para siempre blanco lo bordean. ¿Deja el cielo intuir un final de tierra? ¿El éter intermediario? De ave de mar ni huella. O demasiado clara para parecerlo. En fin ¿qué prueba de un rostro? El ojo no encuentra ninguna dondequiera que se pose. Desiste y la imaginación se pone a trabajar. Surge por fin primero la sombra de una comisa. Paciencia. Se animará con restos mortales. Una calavera entera sobresale para acabar. Sólo una entre las que proporcionan tales vestigios. Con el coronal intenta aún volver a la roca. Las órbitas dejan entrever la antigua mirada. Por momentos el acantilado desaparece. Entonces el ojo vuela hacia los blancos lejanos. O se aparta de lo que tiene delante.


Samuel Beckett, Relatos, 1975
Traducción: Félix de Azúa, Ana M.a Moix y Jenaro Talens

John Keats: La Belle Dame sans Merci

Varias pinturas inspiradas en la balada de  John Keats:  La Belle Dame sans Merci (1819)

La Belle Dame sans Merci,  Arthur Hughes

La Belle Dame sans Merci, Frank Cadogan Cowper

La Belle Dame sans Merci, John William Waterhouse

La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Sir Frank Dicksee

 La Belle dame sans Merci, Waleter Crane

Lamia, John William Waterhouse

John Keats, poeta irlandés, escribió  La Bella dama Sin Piedad, un poema  basado en una balada bretona sobre hadas , y lo tituló en francés: La Belle Dame Sans Merci. 

Si bien la métrica del poema dista mucho de ser una balada, conserva sin embargo su esencia, esa cualidad onírica y repetitiva, donde el asalto de lo sobrenatural no sorprende, sino que es en sí mismo un efecto deseado.

En un principio el poema fue descartado por Keats, quien lo consideró inconsistente. Su conservación se debe a su hermano George; que lo alentó a reescribirlo. Hoy se considera a este poema como uno de los clásicos de John Keats. 

Hay, entonces,  dos versiones de esta famosa balada. la primera es la del manuscrito original ( una carta de Keats a su hermano George, 1819) y la segunda, es la forma de la primera publicación. Se considera a la primera la mejor.

---

Original version of La Belle Dame Sans Merci, 1819

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
    Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
    And no birds sing.Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
    So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
    And the harvest's done.I see a lily on thy brow,
    With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
    Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
    Full beautiful - a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
    And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
    And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
    And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
    And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
    A faery's song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
    And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said -
    'I love thee true'.
She took me to her elfin grot,
    And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
    With kisses four.
And there she lulled me asleep
    And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide! -
The latest dream I ever dreamt
    On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
    Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci
    Hath thee in thrall!'
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
    With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
    On the cold hill's side.And this is why I sojourn here
    Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
    And no birds sing.

---

Published version of La Belle Dame Sans Merci, 1820

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
    Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
    And no birds sing.
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
    So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
    And the harvest's done.
I see a lily on thy brow,
    With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose
    Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads
    Full beautiful, a faery's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
    And her eyes were wild.
I set her on my pacing steed,
    And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
    A faery's song.
I made a garland for her head,
    And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
    And made sweet moan.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
    And honey wild, and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
    I love thee true.
She took me to her elfin grot,
    And there she gaz'd and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes--
    So kiss'd to sleep.
And there we slumber'd on the moss,
    And there I dream'd, ah woe betide,
The latest dream I ever dream'd
    On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings, and princes too,
    Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry'd--"La belle Dame sans merci
    Hath thee in thrall!"
I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
    With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
    On the cold hill side.
And this is why I sojourn here
    Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
    And no birds sing.

  

La Bella Dama Sin Piedad

Oh, ¿Qué es lo que te aflige, caballero de armas

Solitario y deambulando débilmente?

El junco se marchita en el lago

Y ningún pájaro canta.

Oh, ¿Qué es lo que te aflige, caballero,

Tan demacrado y tan lleno de dolor?

El granero de la ardilla está lleno

Y la cosecha ya ha sido recogida.

Veo un lirio en tu frente

Con la  agonía de las gotas de febril rocío

Y en tu mejilla una rosa que rápida,
se desvanece al marchitarse

Conocí a una dama en los prados

 de  completa belleza, una niña de las hadas;

Su pelo era largo, su caminar ligero

Y sus ojos salvajes

Hice una guirnalda para su cabeza

Brazaletes también, que la llenaron de fragancias;

Ella me miró al hacerme  el amor

Con dulces suspiros.

La senté en mi corcel 

Y nada más vi durante el resto del día

A mi lado ella se recostó, y cantó

Una canción de las hadas.

Ella me encontró raíces de dulce sabor

Miel salvaje y maná del rocío

Y en un lenguaje ciertamente extraño dijo-

‘Te amo’

Ella me llevó a su cueva encantada

Y allí lloró, y suspiró dolorida,

Y allí con cuatro besos

cerré sus ojos salvajes..

Y allí me cantó hasta dormirme

Y allí soñé – ¡Oh! ¡Maldito sea!

El último sueño que  tuve

En la pendiente de la fría colina.

Vi pálidos reyes, y princesas también,

Pálidos guerreros, todos con la palidez de la muerte;

Ellos gritaban – ‘¡La bella dama sin piedad

Te ha esclavizado!’

Vi sus hambrientos labios en la penumbra
Bien abiertos, adviertiendo

Y desperté, y me encontré  aquí,

En la pendiente de la fría colina.

Por eso  me encuentro aquí

Solitario, deambulando débilmente,

Aunque el junco se marchite en el lago

Y ningún pájaro cante.

Versión del original:  Marina Kohon