Friday, June 11, 2010

Wit

a quote, on John Dunne's Death Be Not Proud, from a stimulating play/movie adaptation.
In the edition you chose, this profoundly simple meaning is sacrificed to hysterical punctuation:

"
And Death", capital D...
"
shall be no more;" semi-colon.
"
Death," capital D, comma...
"
thou shalt die!", exclamation mark.

If you go in for this sort of thing, I suggest you take up Shakespeare.
Gardner's edition of the Holy Sonnets returns to the Westmoreland manuscript.
Not for sentimental reasons, I assure you, but because Helen Gardner is a scholar.
It reads:

"
And death shall be no more," comma...
"
Death thou shalt die."

Nothing but a breath, a comma, separates life from life everlasting.
Very simple, really.
With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage with exclamation marks.
It is a comma. A pause.
In this way, the uncompromising way, one learns something from the poem, wouldn't you say?
Life, death, soul, God...
past, present.
Not insuperable barriers.
Not semicolons.
Just a comma. 




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