Speaking of speaking of things and of reading poetry, Patrick does it beautifully. I wish he'd let me know when he's recorded any.

For the record, I don't think Adelstrop is a bad poem.

I quite like it.

Edward Thomas is listed in Harold Bloom's Western Canon.

Thin

>>(did you know the Horace you quote is scanned "dulc'et decor'est pro patriahh mori", which absolutely isn't how Owen seems to think it's scanned?)<<

I have a dim and distant memory of being told that the Oxford/public school anglicised pronunciation of Latin had been very different from continental standards (I believe you will still get variations in French/German/Italian accents), and only changed at some point in the late 19th century. So it's possible Owen had been taught the old ways; or just badly.

Thanks for the kind words, stokebailey. I haven't done much recently, but it'll all be in the Librivox catalogue.

Latin is pronounced in lots of ways (chanting the responses to a service in St Peter's typically throws up half a dozen different pronunciations just among your immediate neighbours.) And doubtless when Horace wrote that poem, Latin pronunciation varied around the Empire at least as much as English does today.

But how Roman poetry is scanned has nothing to do with pronunciation. For the metre to work, the words have to be elided the way I've indicated.

In this at least, Owen's grammar school seems to have given him an inferior education to the one the Jesuits were beating into us a couple of miles away.

>>In this at least, Owen's grammar school seems to have given him an inferior education to the one the Jesuits were beating into us a couple of miles away.<<

Fify-odd years can make a lot of difference. But I was taught for a time by people of his generation - and weren't some of them still haunted by that war.

Turning from poetry to prose (if I may), what do you think is the best WW1 novel (or novels)? I'm curious because I just read <i>A Farewell to Arms</i> for the first time. Years ago I read <i>All Quiet on the Western Front</i>, which I think I prefer.

August 1914 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Dublin

Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess


Thin

Don't forget about poet Isaac Rosenberg.

Thin

Birdsong

Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy

Librivox is preparing audio collections of WW1-related prose and poetry - don't know when they'll be ready.

And "No Man's Land", from Serpent's Tail, s a fascinating anthology of extracts of texts from a wide range of combatant countries:
http://www.serpentstail.com/book-detail/9781846689253

All bad poetry is sincere>>

even McGonogall?

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/...ridge-disaster

Stoke, if you like THree Men, do you know Mr Pooter? - "Diary of a Nobody" by George and Weedon Grossmith.

Ann, hi.

Thanks, yes, I have requested "Nobody" from the library based on mentions in Three Men's forward. Our excellent entire system seems to have one copy of both books. Just finished Three Men on the Bummel, also loved it.

I'm sure that you will like Mr Pooter, Stoke.

HG Wells' a History of Mr Polly is also in the same vein and very readable. [though it's probably 30 years or so since I picked it up so memory may be deceiving me!]

>>All bad poetry is sincere>>

even McGonogall?<<

<i>Especially</i> McGonagall. It's the innocent incompetence that makes it so funny and poignant at the same time.

(PS: stokebailey might like to know the late Keith Waterhouse wrote Mrs Pooter's Diary to put the other point of view. And the BBC did a a TV adaptation of Diary of a Nobody with Hugh Bonneville that seems to be available on DVD).

Spot the Gilbert and Sullivan connection ;-)

W.S. Gilbert, was friends, I think, with Jerome K. Jerome. Otherwise G&S connection escapes me, durn it.

Gilber's Disagreeable Man. "I've an entertaining snicker." Hear Patrick read it, for fun, on Librivox. Accept no substitutes.

Thanks for Mr. Polly rec, Ann. I'm in particular need of gentle yet literate escapism just lately.

George Grossmith was famous for singing the "patter" songs in G and S operas

oh, that's right. He was KoKo, wasn't he? I need to watch Topsy Turvy again. Thanks, Miss P.

Not that I understand a word of this discussion. But some that are having it might be interested in a course given this winter at the College de France (in French) on the literature of the first world war. Available in video on line from the College de France website and can be downloaded to listen on an iPod, as I do in my car.

http://www.college-de-france.fr/site...-2013-2014.htm

Apparently while the British were writing poems, the French were writing novels, or so the professor claims. I have been working my way through the ones listed for the course and finding it quite interesting.