I’ve been obsessed with poetry and music nearly all my life. Yet American Country Music and The American Elegy are two genres that interest me the least from the Western Cannon and the American music tradition. I suspect that proximity is a factor, since I’m American and the community I was reared in is still richly informed with American poetry and country music. I’ve always gravitated more towards The Classics, Medieval literature, and British Romantic verse. Yet this video was enthralling-one of your best. It reminded me of artists I’ve long overlooked or taken for granted. I again hear the continuity. I cannot help but feel gratitude for the richness of the poetry and music mentioned in the video, and for the masterful way you’ve communicated it. Wonderful and well done!
Thank you for your wonderful cultural literary channel mr Adam . I gathered main information about topic you mentioned briefly here it’s first of all definition of elegy is form of poetry in which poet or speaker expresses grief , sadness, loss . Elegy began as Ancient Greek metrical form and traditionally written in response to death of person . There are three types of elegy pastoral , impersonal, personal elegy . Most popular elegy such as poem. By Emily Dickinson because I couldn’t stop for death main theme is exploration of both inevitably of death that surround what happens when people actually die . In this poem woman takes ride with personified death in his carriage all likelihood healing into ward her place afterlife. George jones ( 1931- 2013 ) he was American musician, singer , songwriter. He won notable awards national denfense service medal, known as rolls Royce of country music , genre country , gospel. His song country church time is elegy written in country churchyard as elegy , mourns death of great people famous people of common men. Country churchyard at sunset , which impels him to mediate on nature of human morality. Best wishes for you your dearest one.
Re: Craig Morgan's Almost Home...I went to a Baptist funeral where they referred to "going home" as death. A funeral is a home coming. The poem about the homeless man going home reminds me of the scene from the movie Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray's character tries over and over to save the homeless man's life, but he cannot. God's plan is stronger than what we can do. I love how you compare modern songs to the great poets. You also did it in your Taylor Swift video. Please do more of that. It gives people an inroad into great literature of the past and shows how contemporary songs are really poetry worthy of close study.
This was a fantastic episode. Interestingly, this is how I got into poetry in the first place. I had a high school teacher who used country music as a bridge to get students interested in poetry. I have a question. Alan Jackson’s song, “where were you when the world stopped turning?“ how would that song be classified? It seems to have elements of an elegy (I suppose because of the themes of death and the loss of innocence) but it doesn’t seem exactly the same as the examples you just gave. I remember when that song came out. I heard it the first time it was played because I was watching the award show. I remember that’s so many people had tried to explain or communicate what they were feeling but it felt like Alan Jackson was the only one who actually succeeded in encapsulating the nation’s grief, our shock, and our confusion.
I really enjoyed this topic. Would love to hear more on it, especially delving into bluegrass music. There's so much heartbreak, history, culture, and even political strife to be found in it.
Another tour de force! I got into Country and Dickinson later in my life. It went together with a deepening of my love for the American language. Pray we don't lose my friends!!
John Clare’s village of Helpston is actually in Cambridgeshire. It used to be in Northamptonshire back in Clare’s day and although the village obviously has not physically moved, the boundaries of the shires have been redrawn. How ironic that the idea of boundaries he so objected to in the English landscape (the ‘enclosures’) would ultimately claim the nominal identity of his village…. And my second observation is about the idea of using a list of nouns to create a narrative that you allude to in your final comments on country music. It reminded me of a poetic form by Anna Akhmatova known as a ‘sevenling’. The form uses a tercet to list a set of items, a second set of items are listed in the second tercet. At the end a verb appears in a single line to unite the disparate sets of nouns into a cohesive narrative. Although the form is not a feature of country music, the notion of listing nouns and resolving those lists into a narrative with a final ‘envoi’ seems to be a common approach. And it ties in with two poetic theories rather well. ‘No ideas but in things’ by William Carlos Williams, and the ‘objective correlative’ of T S Eliot.
I’ve been obsessed with poetry and music nearly all my life. Yet American Country Music and The American Elegy are two genres that interest me the least from the Western Cannon and the American music tradition. I suspect that proximity is a factor, since I’m American and the community I was reared in is still richly informed with American poetry and country music. I’ve always gravitated more towards The Classics, Medieval literature, and British Romantic verse.
Yet this video was enthralling-one of your best. It reminded me of artists I’ve long overlooked or taken for granted. I again hear the continuity. I cannot help but feel gratitude for the richness of the poetry and music mentioned in the video, and for the masterful way you’ve communicated it. Wonderful and well done!
Thank you for your wonderful cultural literary channel mr Adam . I gathered main information about topic you mentioned briefly here it’s first of all definition of elegy is form of poetry in which poet or speaker expresses grief , sadness, loss . Elegy began as Ancient Greek metrical form and traditionally written in response to death of person . There are three types of elegy pastoral , impersonal, personal elegy . Most popular elegy such as poem. By Emily Dickinson because I couldn’t stop for death main theme is exploration of both inevitably of death that surround what happens when people actually die . In this poem woman takes ride with personified death in his carriage all likelihood healing into ward her place afterlife. George jones ( 1931- 2013 ) he was American musician, singer , songwriter. He won notable awards national denfense service medal, known as rolls Royce of country music , genre country , gospel. His song country church time is elegy written in country churchyard as elegy , mourns death of great people famous people of common men. Country churchyard at sunset , which impels him to mediate on nature of human morality. Best wishes for you your dearest one.
This is one of the most beautifully made video i have seen recently. Thank you. ❤
Re: Craig Morgan's Almost Home...I went to a Baptist funeral where they referred to "going home" as death. A funeral is a home coming.
The poem about the homeless man going home reminds me of the scene from the movie Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray's character tries over and over to save the homeless man's life, but he cannot. God's plan is stronger than what we can do.
I love how you compare modern songs to the great poets. You also did it in your Taylor Swift video. Please do more of that. It gives people an inroad into great literature of the past and shows how contemporary songs are really poetry worthy of close study.
This was a fantastic episode. Interestingly, this is how I got into poetry in the first place. I had a high school teacher who used country music as a bridge to get students interested in poetry.
I have a question. Alan Jackson’s song, “where were you when the world stopped turning?“ how would that song be classified? It seems to have elements of an elegy (I suppose because of the themes of death and the loss of innocence) but it doesn’t seem exactly the same as the examples you just gave.
I remember when that song came out. I heard it the first time it was played because I was watching the award show. I remember that’s so many people had tried to explain or communicate what they were feeling but it felt like Alan Jackson was the only one who actually succeeded in encapsulating the nation’s grief, our shock, and our confusion.
I really enjoyed this topic. Would love to hear more on it, especially delving into bluegrass music. There's so much heartbreak, history, culture, and even political strife to be found in it.
Another tour de force! I got into Country and Dickinson later in my life. It went together with a deepening of my love for the American language. Pray we don't lose my friends!!
John Clare’s village of Helpston is actually in Cambridgeshire. It used to be in Northamptonshire back in Clare’s day and although the village obviously has not physically moved, the boundaries of the shires have been redrawn. How ironic that the idea of boundaries he so objected to in the English landscape (the ‘enclosures’) would ultimately claim the nominal identity of his village…. And my second observation is about the idea of using a list of nouns to create a narrative that you allude to in your final comments on country music. It reminded me of a poetic form by Anna Akhmatova known as a ‘sevenling’. The form uses a tercet to list a set of items, a second set of items are listed in the second tercet. At the end a verb appears in a single line to unite the disparate sets of nouns into a cohesive narrative. Although the form is not a feature of country music, the notion of listing nouns and resolving those lists into a narrative with a final ‘envoi’ seems to be a common approach. And it ties in with two poetic theories rather well. ‘No ideas but in things’ by William Carlos Williams, and the ‘objective correlative’ of T S Eliot.
Phenomenal video
This is awesome
I like the way John Anderson's "Seminole Wind" links primitive religion with the stormy weather of Florida during the rainy season.
Am I wrong, or is there no logical precedent for the possessive pronoun 'our' in Stickney's "Mnemosyne"?
I've wondered about that too. The only other person mentioned is his sister, so I imagine the memory occurs in a house shared by both families.