tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post8069955086777652942..comments2024-03-21T07:00:29.129-07:00Comments on basmanroselaw: Raglan Road, Interpretations and Poetry Itselfitzik basmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04819878847328122792noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-84971427106365989162024-03-21T07:00:29.129-07:002024-03-21T07:00:29.129-07:00Were it not for unrequited love romantics would ha...Were it not for unrequited love romantics would have no fine griefs to mourn.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-55298663559439838432021-11-19T13:46:59.785-08:002021-11-19T13:46:59.785-08:00This man, who sees himself as an angel seduced by ...This man, who sees himself as an angel seduced by a lower being, has thrown this lady out the window or off the ledge at dawn, and now bemoans his fate. Misogynist poem that men love. Poor lady.Junehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15900168322559749521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-66776997771734433942020-12-10T15:06:50.728-08:002020-12-10T15:06:50.728-08:00I also enjoy the fact the author clearly intended ...I also enjoy the fact the author clearly intended for this poem to be put to music. The frequent reference of 'Dawning of the day' is a reference to the tune Kelly (and others) later put the poem too, and the cadence and rhythms of the poem are clearly intended to fit the melody as well. Indeed Kavanagh asked Kelly to put the poem to music - now its not clear to me if that was always the intent but it certainly feels that way! Adelphiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16094992516863165122noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-27156212308188169952020-10-05T09:03:39.536-07:002020-10-05T09:03:39.536-07:00To fully understand and correctly interpret this p...To fully understand and correctly interpret this poem one needs to consider the actual circumstances of the two parties. First there was the age difference, the poet Kavanagh having been born in 1904 and the object of his fascination, Hilda Moriarty, in 1922. Then there are the social circumstances whereby Kavanagh was a well-known Dublin eccentric from a rural background earning a living in the city from his skill with words, while Hilda was a young medical student, a position which in those years of the early-forties presaged an exceptionally promising life in the upper strata of Irish society. (And indeed she did go on to marry a future Cabinet Minister who, but for an untimely death, may well have become Prime Minister.)<br />So, the reality is that poor Patrick never stood a chance, and he knew it. She obviously led him on in a friendship for a while, not for the romantic reasons that he wished for, but perhaps in recognition of his growing fame as a writer and maybe a genuine interest in literature. And apparently when this older man became too obsessed with a romantic relationship she would reasonably have had to push back.<br />The poem is consistent with the above. It is beautifully written, and utterly truthful with no attempt to hide the painful reality. He had placed her on a pedestal and groveled to no avail. The words and the flow and the rhyming and the imagery are exquisite and do not receive full justice from the sung version.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15150208800503110810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-46362908032687809252015-12-05T13:30:12.131-08:002015-12-05T13:30:12.131-08:00To clarify a bit, I think the danger the poet sees...To clarify a bit, I think the danger the poet sees in the first stanza, is not the danger that gets him in the end. Thus the poem describes a real tragedy, and not a simple broken heart. The pretentiousness of his description of their affair can also be read as highlighting his fatal flaw, while ostensibly merely being a recounting of how it went.<br />anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08007982880812239529noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-63453183440895810312015-12-05T12:07:22.424-08:002015-12-05T12:07:22.424-08:00I just discovered this poem and song, and I'd ...I just discovered this poem and song, and I'd like to contribute a couple musings of my own, without tying them to what's been said before or even trying to totally align my various thoughts with one another. I like to view these things multiple ways, and discover all that a poem *might* be said to contain, even if they are inconsistent with one another or were no part of the artists original, conscious, intentions.<br /><br />(1) The poet is grieving the loss of his artistic powers more than losing the woman he pursued. She's off making tarts, probably still. When he sees her walking away most hurriedly, the grief he feels is for the loss of his wings.<br /><br />(2) He makes up a pretty story to rationalize said loss to himself. In it we find a bit of self-elevation or pretentiousness, and a very one-sided point of view. <br />One begins to feel a bit turned off to the writer, but....<br /><br />(3) The fact that its not the world's greatest poem is in fact the reason for writing it in the first place, which gives a kind of twist and a big surprise when and if you first think that thought. The poem makes its own apology for itself, which then immediately elevates it my opinion, a sort of "aha!" that made me reevaluate the whole intent and come up with the thought expressed in (1).<br /><br />(4) However, I don't think the grief he feels about loss of his wings is the grief he mentions in the first stanza -- there he is expecting or at least allowing for the grief of a broken heart. So the grief at the end is a surprise both to us and to the artist himself. Now this is getting interesting -- the poem allows us to discover by surprise that same thing that surprised the poet. Well done! The poem goes up another notch. <br /><br />(5) The sweetness of the angel metaphor is right on. It calls to mind many other stories such as in the movies "The Bishop's Wife" in which Cary Grant almost shares the same fate as our friend the poet here. In "It's a Wonderful Life" the opposite is described - how an angel gets its wings in the first place. That every child knows these basic facts about angels and their wings makes the poet's forgetting of these rules early in the poem all the more human and frail. We begin to mourn and sympathize with him. He's pathetic, but we feel for him now. And along with that sympathy, comes sympathy for the poem itself -- frail, human, flawed, but now we love it like we love other frail, human, flawed things.<br /><br />Thanks for reading.<br />I haven't put all these down anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08007982880812239529noreply@blogger.com