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I’m in the process of memorising this and reading The Odyssey after listening to poet Dana Gioia talk about poetry memorisation’s ability to shape the heart on

I’m in the process of memorising this and reading The Odyssey after listening to poet Dana Gioia talk about poetry memorisation’s ability to shape the heart on the Tyler Cowen podcast. I very much identify with the poem’s depiction of the wear of time and it’s resistance by impervious optimism and dare (as said here by jandrewrogers) and I want to make it more part of myself. I can recite about a third so far, from the start and the end. I started with the end because that’s what I first heard in Skyfall.

trevelyan 5y ago
You might enjoy this analysis of Skyfall, which talks a bit about the choice of the poem: http://filmreadings.com/2015/12/23/skyfall/ http://filmreadings.com/2015/12/23/skyfall/ "The authoritarian tendencies of the agency are also underlined by the film’s portrayal of MI6 as a monarchical structure, where M rules as the flesh-eating “king rat” from Silva’s parable. Through such small touches as her flag-draped coffins or the recurring tune of “God Save the Queen” which plays to her grim skull-visage, M is repeatedly surrounded by iconography suggestive of her role as a murderous Queen. The connection is also reinforced by her lengthy quote from Tennyson’s Ulysses midway through the film. For although the poem in question is often read as commenting on Bond or the aging 007 franchise, it is on a deeper level the interior monologue of an aging monarch, and serves both as a comment on M’s weakening grasp on power, as well as her outright rejection of the principle of democratic oversight:"
QuesnayJr 5y ago
I tried the same, but you got much further than me. I managed the first 8 lines, and the final 5.