Thanks for this beautifully measured and, as ever, polemically conceived sonnet, with a refreshingly different rhyme scheme, Andy. I agree with its every sentiment - except that the title will have Cicero turning in his grave, together with generations of departed British Latin teachers. Even Billy Bunter would have done better! 🤣
@mycroftlectures
2 жыл бұрын
You should read the comments on my pronunciation of "Dulce" in the "Dulce Et Decorum Est," lecture video. It's apparently not that I get it wrong, it's that I mange to get it wrong about three different ways. I'll make sure to correct it to Avis in the final manuscript. Thanks.
@mikeingham772
2 жыл бұрын
@@mycroftlectures With Avian for Avis, it’s a bit difficult to argue that you’re right! However, regarding your pronunciation of Dulce, you could have brazened it out by arguing that yours is the correct pronunciation during the Imperial Roman era of what had been a dialect pronunciation during the Republic era. Chutzpah - that’s how you get away with it! 😂
@mycroftlectures
2 жыл бұрын
@@mikeingham772 That might have worked, if I'd kept it consistent. Dulsay, Dulchay, Dulschee. It sounds like I'm going for all of them in the hope one of them might be right. Which I may well have been. The lecture itself is brilliant of course, but one should always acknowledge one's defects. (Especially when one has no bloody choice in the matter.)
@mikeingham772
2 жыл бұрын
@@mycroftlectures Latin as the lingua franca of the ancient and medieval worlds was like English today. So many varieties of the ‘world language’ and so many variations among native and non-native speakers. You were trying out all such variations with your idiomatic Latin, as opposed to the Tory tossers’ ‘refined’ public school Latin. You probably hit on a more accurate one than theirs by pure accident. Just try to say the name of the university where you work correctly. If I were you I’d be more concerned about that! 😉 repeat it three times daily until you get it right :)
@szeshingfung7527
Жыл бұрын
Fung Sze Shing, Terry This sonnet is interesting because the poet is pointing out William Blake’s “ridiculous hyperbole” not because the poet disagrees with him, but because the poet is not only raging at the act of locking a bird in a cage, but also raging at the fact that it seems like he is the one being bothered the most compared to anyone else. William Blake’s wrote the act “puts all heavens in a rage”, but the question remains who “all heavens” represent? Obviously, Blake does not have the authority to speak for everyone and the fact is that someone simply is not bothered by this act, unlike “children raped by priest, cot-death, old-age, or AIDS”, which more people are concerned about. The poet goes on to connect Blake’s quote to the Broken Windows Theory, meaning if we let ourselves not care about these animals, this could eventually lead to something worse that all of us would rage at. Moreover, the poet supports his argument by debunking the delusion that the birds are singing and “she prefers it there”. In fact, they are screaming, waiting “to be released”. Lastly, the couplet, in which “walked in circled cage” indicates the passivity of the birds, is critical of diminishing the value of lives. Birds, which evolved from dinosaurs, are sadly symbolised as voluntary and happy creatures when they are in a cage.
@mycroftlectures
Жыл бұрын
A well put together reply. Rereading this sonnet, that thing with birds in cages still annoys me.
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