tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post4773637268389703241..comments2024-03-25T15:07:41.959+00:00Comments on Nigeness: Wilbur's ToadNigehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314891387515045404noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-71911025002147565272016-07-06T21:15:01.709+01:002016-07-06T21:15:01.709+01:00Thanks Jeff. Jarrell really had a problem with Wil...Thanks Jeff. Jarrell really had a problem with Wilbur (most of the time), as did many others, and I think here he did misread the tone. I also think the mock-heroic note actually makes the demise of the toad more moving. Who knows what a toad 'dies toward', what toadish grandeur is in his death? I wonder also if somewhere in the recesses of Wilbur's mind were Kenneth Grahame's Mr Toad and the Ode to an Expiring Frog in Pickwick?Nigehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13314891387515045404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-69777095152844505792016-07-06T17:43:26.980+01:002016-07-06T17:43:26.980+01:00It's interesting that he remembers Randall Jar...It's interesting that he remembers Randall Jarrell's caveat about the poem fifty or so years later. RJ quotes the beginning of the first stanza and says, '...you stop to shudder at the raw being of the world, at all that <i>a hobbling hop</i> has brought to life-- <i>that</i> toad is real, all right. But when you read on, when Mr. Wilbur says the toad <i> dies/Toward some deep monotone,/Toward misted and ebullient seas/And cooling shores, toward lost Amphibia's emperies,"</i> you think with a surge of irritation and dismay, "So it was all only an excuse for some Poetry."'(Capital 'P' in the original). Jarrell didn't catch the 'undertone of humor,' I guess, and I confess I didn't either, but I like this excellent poem better knowing it's there.Jeff Geehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02556922556611887235noreply@blogger.com