Unfounded assertions re: combat skills of popular bards
In the song “Cemetary Gates” by jangly 80’s Mancunian beat-combo The Smiths, Morrisey asserts that
Keats and Yeats are on your side
But you lose
‘Cause weird lover Wilde is on mine
Is Morrisey right? Or would Keats + Yeats be a match for Oscar “Weird Lover” Wilde? It’s tempting to entirely discount Keats, the consumptive weakling’s weakling, leaving a straight match-up between the bitter guile of Yeats and the bruising roughhouse tactics of Wilde. I think it would be a pretty close call - certainly not the mismatch envisioned by Mozzer - but if I had to pick a winner it would be Wilde. Unless Keats was armed with some heavy, blunt object - an Urn, say. A thing of battery is a joy forever.
What about other poetic dust-ups - who would carry the following bouts?
Sidney v. Shelley (cage match, no holds barred)
Peter Reading and Gavin Ewart vs. Ted Hughes and Thom Gunn (tag team)
Dylan Thomas vs. R.S. Thomas (sumo)
Alfred Lord Tennyson vs. The Imagists (Tennyson handcuffed to a lamppost, permitted only to glare and declaim)
Who would you want on your side if Moz and Wilde were waiting for you at the cemetary gates?
[Incidentally, poet-fighting was once a common sight in the rougher areas of London Town. Baying crowds would surround a pair of hapless versifiers and goad them into bloody combat. The practice is still legal, but fell into obscurity around 1902, with the launch of the TLS.]
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2005 at 2:45 AM and filed under Old stuff. Trackbacks are closed.
I’d pay good money to see someone punch Robert Browning right smack in the kisser.
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Posted on 21-Aug-05 at 10:03 am | PermalinkWell, menace you’re a bit of a wordsmith yourself so I think I could do worse than having you on my side - especially with posts like this.
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Posted on 21-Aug-05 at 6:05 pm | PermalinkIf I had to involve myself in a poetry cage match the only metrist I’d want in my corner is Pam “Big Momma” Ayres.
.
She has a punch like an anvil
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Posted on 22-Aug-05 at 3:02 pm | PermalinkPam Ayres v W McGonagal … oh lord ….
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Posted on 22-Aug-05 at 6:03 pm | Permalinkit’s got to be a ‘metaliterary’ one for me - rimbaud vs rambo. you would think rambo would win easily, but that is to dismiss the devastating power of the arch french jibe. and rimbaud wouldn’t be someone you’d want to corner down a dark alley. HE’d want you to, but that’s not the same thing. i am referring, of course, to the fact that he tended to get into gunfights with lovers. well, once. with verlaine. and he got shot in the hand, as opposed to shooting anyone himself.
which other poets have died in duels etc?
john wilmot, earl of rochester would be a sure contender. i know he wasbanished from court for failing to attend a duel. he was also banished for smashing all the king’s clocks and for mistakenly (while drunk) giving the king a satire on the king himself (The Cabin Boy) as opposed to a satire on the popularity of a certain toy amongst the ladies of the court (Signor Dildo).
Once when he was banished he set himself up as a quack doctor dispensing love remedies (for syphilis etc) and killed someone with his obviously terrible charlatan-ry. Another time he wasn’t banished - but he had to ride home to his country estate since his syphilis made him temporarily blind.
THEY DO NOT MAKE THEM LIKE THEY USED TO. CF SIMON ARMITAGE - a nice man, a great poet. but where’s the syphilis?
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Posted on 22-Aug-05 at 6:04 pm | PermalinkYou should bear in mind that with the K/Yeats v.s. Wilde one that you’d also get C.S. Lewis joining in as well- he was apparently always trying to duel people when he felt they disparaged Yeats.How about:
Edward Lear v.s. Edgar Allan Poe
or
Anon. v.s. Trad.
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Posted on 23-Aug-05 at 10:03 pm | PermalinkHeaney. Anyone who knows poetry for a pragmatic edge that allows consciousness “a chance to recognize its predicaments, foreknow its capacities and rehearse its comebacks in all kinds of venturesome ways” would be a fair man to have by your side. Obviously a street fighter. And JM Coetzee (pre-Elizabeth Costello) in case Lewis showed up.
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Posted on 24-Aug-05 at 6:05 am | PermalinkHeaney? C’mon. If you want hard-ass Irish poets, surely Brendan Behan’s yer man.
Incidentally menis, Morrissey asked me to tell you that you spelt his name wrong.
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Posted on 25-Aug-05 at 7:05 pm | PermalinkNot at all. Too likely to be drunk. Or digging up a Moss Bros suit that’s been buried in the garden for six months.
No; it would have to be Heaney. He’s big, broad and has a shrewd eye for the moment. ;-)
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Posted on 25-Aug-05 at 8:00 pm | PermalinkAway with yer Heaney, man. You’ll Seamus all.
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Posted on 28-Aug-05 at 1:02 pm | PermalinkNo need to lewis it over something like that, menace.
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Posted on 28-Aug-05 at 7:02 pm | PermalinkhahahahahahahAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
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Posted on 07-Oct-05 at 10:03 pm | Permalink