Poetic Gems
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Book Overview
William McGonagall was known as the Greatest Bad Verse Writer of his age, but was sustained throughout his career as by an invincible belief in his own genius. 'The Tay Bridge Disaster', 'Death of... This description may be from another edition of this product.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0715622994
ISBN13:9780715622995
Release Date:January 1992
Publisher:Duckworth Publishing
Length:160 Pages
Weight:0.35 lbs.
Customer Reviews
1 rating
Mickle rhymer
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 21 years ago
Great Bard of Tay! 'tis harder than it look To pen the like of what is written in this book, Which I venture to say without the least fear of rebuke Will not for a very long time be overtook. George Orwell identified good bad poetry such as Kipling's. McGonagall's is bad bad poetry - so bad it's good (and quite inimitable). There is a kind of anti-genius here. He could write vivid and engaging prose in naive style, but he resorted to prose only to introduce his volumes of verse. 'Poetic Gems' is the first of three volumes he produced in the 1870s and 80s, containing among other unprovoked assaults on Euterpe his famous paean 'The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay' and his even more famous lament when the bridge fell down shortly afterwards. Unkind readers have used the word disaster for both, and some have put two and two together. One thing you can be sure of: he never consciously wrote an ironic line. With the right publicity, he could play big in Middle America. Fellow-citizens of Dundee, Isn't it really very nice To think of James Scrymgeour trying To rescue fallen creatures from the paths of vice? Well, I don't know; but save one for me, Jimmy.
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