On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 5:23 AM, Arthur Maisel <arthurmaisel at gmail.com> wrote:
> Music and lyrics, both bad. But I'm not sure how talented you have to be to
> use the word *slaves* to refer to slaves. Seems in fact like the kind of
> "cleverness" that might appeal to a deeply untalented versifier.
>
> By the way, I much enjoyed your very nicely written "rant." Not sure why
> the Turducken is "overcooked," but the word does help the rhythm, so
> nevermind. "Congenial as cuddling a water moccasin" made my day.
>
> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 11:41 AM, Michael Smith <mjs at smithbowen.net>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > On Wed, May 20, 2015 10:11 am, Arthur Maisel wrote:
> > > Michael Smith has a point. But that the trope was ready-to-hand doesn't
> > > preclude its application to a situation in which some of those thus
> > labled
> > > literally were slaves. To ignore that the language preceded the
> situation
> > > is anachronistic; to notice that it might have been evoked because of
> the
> > > facts isn't.
> >
> >
> > Getting at a writer's intent is always a tricky business. But as a
> general
> > canon of method, I'd suggest that a conventional locution should
> > ordinarily be taken in its conventional sense unless there's some clear
> > reason, apart from the reader's desire, to take it in some more specific
> > or pointed way.
> >
> > In this context it might be noted that Scott Key's lyric is almost
> > stupefying bad, dull, tone-deaf, erratic in scansion, and so stuffed with
> > cliche it resembles an overcooked Turducken. Conventional tropes were
> > clearly the breath of life to this execrable provincial poetaster, for
> > whom entertaining an original thought or using an original image would
> > have been about as congenial as cuddling a water moccasin. One might
> > suggest that he stands in the same relation to English Augustan verse as
> > Marse Tom Jefferson does to English Palladianism.
> >
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com