Thursday, April 08, 2010

BRIGHT TIGERS

Going home...Hovis Bread, introduced a generation to The New World Symphony. British Airways, sadly, tarnished the Bell Song from Lakme. The Three Tenors, for the Italian Football World Cup, introduced Nessun' Dorma from Turandot, to a massive audience. 

The return of Tiger Woods to the golf scene could be introducing a large audience, I hear, to William Blake's -

Tyger Tyger, Burning Bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?



Circa: 1794.

The work is contained in Blake's collection, 'Songs of Experience'.  (There are another five verses).

Despite the interesting metaphor, could there be an unexpected surge of poetic interest being harnessed?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

it's a strange old world and it could just be that Tiger Woods' dubious activities lead to a widened audience for the poetic arts.

ZACL said...

I like the thought that some alternative relatively gentle arts culture is benefiting from an accidental restoration. It is so much better than hearing about the puritanical reckonings of nearly all the Woods' sponsor companies. Some of those responses were highly dubious, sickeningly opportunistic, in fact.

Anonymous said...

they'll all be falling over themselves to sponsor him again within a year, no matter what they said at the time because the dollar is about all that counts for anything with the likes of them, i'm afraid.

ZACL said...

You are so right... the corporations are not subtle are they. They sway with the wind; fairweather friends - that's what their tainted dollars pay for.