52 Movies: Week 36 - The Burmese Harp
This Is Rather Beautiful

Enough

He sought no mystical revelation. It was enough for him to be aware of the Nunc Dimittis.

The reference is to Ernest Dowson's Catholicism. The remark is by the editor, Mark Longaker, of a 1962 edition of Dowson's poems . 

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I don't recall every coming across Dowson before, but the wikipedia article on him makes him sound like an interesting subject for investigation.

Yes, he is. Not a major writer by any means, but interesting. He gave us the phrase "days of wine and roses." Also "I have been true to thee, Cynara, in my fashion."

When I was maybe in early adolescence, which means roughly late '50s-early '60s, I saw a movie in which the Cynara line was used and found it very affecting in some strange way. I really wonder what the movie was.

Maybe a Carry on Movie? An English comedy? I can imagine Sid James or Kenneth Williams saying that.

Oh no, it wasn't a comedy, I'm pretty sure. In my little scrap of memory the movie has a very serious feel. Probably something very adult in the old sense of the word. Very odd that it stuck with me. Must have made a strong impression.

There was a 1932 movie titled Cynara, about marital infidelity. It starred Ronald Coleman. I can imagine him saying that line. But you probably saw something made later than that?

Cole Porter wrote the song "Always True to You in My Fashion" based on that line, too. And a singer you like, Blossom Dearie, recorded it. Here it is, for your listening pleasure ;-).

Our library has a reprint edition of a collection of his poetry and prose. I'll have to take a look at it.

Yeah, it seems impossible that it would have been a 1930s film. The scrap of memory is in color.

I was about to say I wasn't aware of that song, but I listened to it first and recognized it. Even seems like I heard Blossom Dearie's version. But it's not on the one album of hers I have, so maybe I'm mistaken. Anyway, it's a nice song but is in another emotional world altogether from Dyson's ultra-romantic poem (which you can read here).

I was replying to Marianne, which I guess is obvious.

Part of what makes Dowson interesting is his conversion, but unfortunately he didn't write much about it. But if you like the Cynara poem there are other's you'll enjoy.

Currently reading the English poet Edward Thomas. Not always easy reading (he's not a "difficult" poet, just a little challenging) but worth the effort.

I don't think I know him. Can't think of a specific poem anyway.

He was an essayist, literary critic, and nature writer. He befriended Robert Frost in England not long before WWI, and Frost encouraged him to move away from prose and toward poetry. (Thomas's prose was already quite poetic. Frost later claimed that all he did was suggest to Thomas that he turn it into verse.) He wrote almost all of his poems between 1914 and 1917, when he was killed in action in France.

I thought I might have some of his poems in an anthology and I do. I just read a couple and they're very good.

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