Thursday 19 June 2014
On Travel and Tourism: For What Good End? Weymouth Poet, Spirit-Rapper
From "For What Good End?", a poem by Thomas Love Peacock:
Spirit-Rapper:
'Men are become as birds', and skim like swallows
The surface of the world.
Gryllus: For what good end?
Spirit-Rapper:
The end is in itself - the end of skimming
The surface of the world.
******
Note: I thought for a moment that Weymouth-born Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866), a friend of Shelley, was well ahead of his time with his "spirit-rapper".
Then I found out that a "Spirit-Rapper" referred to a medium who “conversed” with spirits who replied by knocking on a table. The spirit-rappers were apparently easily exposed as the ones doing the knocking...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment