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Showing posts from January, 2008

Words

Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance. ________________________ H.W. and F.G.Fowler ________________________

Meghaduta

The Meghaduta or Cloud Messenger is one of the masterpieces of Indian, indeed world literature. {1} Its 120-odd stanzas, each of four unrhymed lines, were written in the Mandakrata {2} metre at some time between 100 BC and 500 AD. {3} The Mandakrata is a long metre, moving slowly like the python, with a form as follows: {4} {5} Kalakalah, the ferry in the sound, now lets great boats lie. Beneath bold, broad, stone forts in which stiff Brits fix pride, lie little boats aground. Wet, wild, welcome, warm they hint at bitter storms. Bold, bitten barricades fall. Whose to say "fly," if nits pick petty fights and the work wanders widely? Each line has 17 syllables and 10 stresses (or, more accurately, long syllables, as Sanskrit poetry is quantitative.) The stanza is richly elaborated and tightly knit {6}, so that each stands as a somewhat individual creation. When we realize that Indian poetry is often richly sensuous, moreover, with a leaning towards reflection and speculation un

Madame de Fleury

Madame de Fleury CHAPTER I "There oft are heard the notes of infant woe, The short thick sob, loud scream, and shriller squall-- How can you, mothers, vex your infants so?"--POPE "D'abord, madame, c'est impossible!--Madame ne descendra pas ici?" said Francois, the footman of Madame de Fleury, with a half expostulatory, half indignant look, as he let down the step of her carriage at the entrance of a dirty passage, that led to one of the most miserable-looking houses in Paris. "But what can be the cause of the cries which I hear in this house?" said Madame de Fleury. "'Tis only some child who is crying," replied Francois; and he would have put up the step, but his lady was not satisfied. "'Tis nothing in the world," continued he, with a look of appeal to the coachman, "it _can_ be nothing, but some children who are locked up there above. The mother, the workwoman my lady wants, is not at home: that's certain.&q