GUEST COLUMN
Laurence Coupe
These articles appear in newspapers throughout Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.
#Autumn is the perfect time of year to think about melancholy
Date of first publication: 3 October 2024
Autumn is here. As the leaves fall, some of us might have a sense of sadness. So it’s a good time to talk about melancholy.
In Shakespeare’s day, melancholy was seen as one of four ‘humours’ that were thought to characterise particular people. Hamlet would be seen as a typically melancholy figure.
A little later, Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) provided a rather rambling exploration of the condition, but it did make it sound interesting and full of potential.
Certainly, melancholy has moved many great composers to produce superbly beautiful music. Listen, for example, to the third movement of Mahler’s 5th Symphony, or to the third movement of Elgar’s 1st Symphony.
The same goes for poetry. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam, a series of lyric poems lamenting the death of his friend Arthur Hallam, is one of the most moving poetic works of the 19th century. For example: ‘He is not here; but far away / The noise of life begins again, / And ghastly through the drizzling rain / On the bald street breaks the blank day.’
A poet who became widely known for the melancholy mood of his verses is A. E. Housman. A Shropshire Lad is, again, a series of lyrics, the most famous of which takes the form of question and answer. The first verse poses the question: ‘Into my heart an air that kills / From yon far country blows: / What are those blue remembered hills, / What spires, what farms are those?’ The second verse gives the answer: ‘That is the land of lost content, / I see it shining plain, / The happy highways where I went / And cannot come again.’ It is perfect in its poignancy.
Here’s a short poem of pure melancholy by Frances Cornford about another poet, Rupert Brooke: ‘A young Apollo, golden-haired, / Stands dreaming on the verge of strife, / Magnificently unprepared / For the long littleness of life.’ Ironically, he was to die young in the Great War. It’s a case of sadness either way.
Finally, let’s note what two famous writers said about melancholy. ‘I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no melancholy’ (Charles Baudelaire). ‘There is life and there is death, and there are beauty and melancholy between’ (Albert Camus).
#The curious case of the forgotten ‘Poet of the Peak’
Date of first publication: 8 August 2024
You most likely will not know the name of William Newton. He has been long forgotten, but in his day he was hailed by a contemporary poet, Anna Seward, as the ‘Poet of the Peak’. She was an established and prolific author, while he was a labouring man with a gift for rhyme. Very few of his poems have survived. Indeed, it’s possible that those are all he ever wrote.
So what do we know about William Newton? He was born in 1750, in the parish of Eyam, Derbyshire, and as a youth he trained as a carpenter. Anna Seward helped him financially, and supported him in his bid to become a partner in a cotton mill in Cressbrook Dale. He died in 1830 and was buried at Tideswell.
I suppose the question most readers will be asking is whether he was actually any good as a poet. Looking over his modest body of work, I’d say that he had a certain technical skill and a flair for vivid phrases. In a sonnet written in 1790, he laments the early death of one of his children: ‘My life’s chief gem enwrapped in timeless mould!’
The major poetic influence on Newton was William Collins (1721-59), famous for his ‘Ode to Evening’. Perhaps he felt an affinity with the earlier poet, who was known for having a talent that he never fully developed.
In ‘Lines on the Fate of Collins’ (1792), Newton regrets that his poetic hero was not praised while he was alive: ‘Such envied Genius is alas! Thy fate, / Owned, loved and honoured by the world too late!’ But his estimate of his poetic hero is striking: ‘Thou, gentle Collins, knew’st each fierce extreme, / Neglect’s chill gloom, and Fancy’s sun-bright beam.’ Now he is ‘Placed on Imagination’s airy throne.’
Newton’s own obscurity is, though, a cause for regret. His poetry only being known briefly and then forgotten, we might think of Thomas Gray’s famous lines: ‘Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, / And waste its sweetness on the desert air.’
Newton’s case is certainly worth pondering. We can all think of people who had talent but who never brought it to fruition or who never had due recognition. Fortunately, scholars have in recent years been compiling anthologies of ‘English labouring-class poets’: Newton and others like him are now been rescued from obscurity.
#Let’s celebrate the wonderful promise of a secret garden
Date of first publication: 11 July 2024
This is the time of year when villages across our region hold ‘Open Garden’ days, when we’re invited to see those gardens which we wouldn’t otherwise, and admire the care that the gardeners have taken with their particular patch of earth. Indeed, to ‘open’ one’s garden is also to share a secret.
The most beautiful gardens are those resulting from years of quiet dedication. The flowers, shrubs and trees will obviously have been loved and nurtured. Nature will have been respected and will not have been interfered with more than necessary. It may well be a place in which the gardener has sought solace over the years.
Whether we have a religious faith or not, perhaps it is not going too far to suggest that a garden is in its own way a reminder of Paradise, when humanity and the natural world were in harmony. That yearning for a time and a place in which we felt at peace is celebrated by Frederick Delius in his beautiful orchestral work, appropriately titled The Walk to the Paradise Garden (1906).
Here, though, let me focus on another work: the intriguing novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1911). Written for children, it remains a favourite work of adults. I said above that all gardens have a secret; here, the garden is totally hidden and the plot celebrates its rediscovery.
Mary Lennox is orphaned at the age of ten, and comes to live at a manor house on the Yorkshire moors – the home of her uncle, who rarely visits because he has not recovered from the death of his wife.
Mary spends her days wandering around the grounds, and becomes fascinated by a robin which seems to be accompanying her. Eventually, she realises that the bird is directing her towards a walled garden which has been locked away and neglected ever since the lady of the manor died.
In time, she finds the key and she enters the garden. I won’t spoil the plot, so suffice it to say that the whole direction of the novel is towards the moment of healing.
I can’t recommend this novel enough. Also worth celebrating is the 1993 film version directed by Agnieszka Holland, which really captures the atmosphere of the book and which leaves the viewer feeling all the more aware of the beauty – and the promise – of all the secret gardens which we occasionally open to our neighbours.
#What Shakespeare has to say about the drama of our lives
Date of first publication: 6 June 2024
Have you ever felt that you are taking part in a play, and that your life is one long performance in which you are adopting a series of roles? The world’s greatest playwright certainly understood that feeling.
Everyone knows the opening of the famous speech by his character Jaques in As You Like It (1599): ‘All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players.’ In that speech, life is presented as having seven phases, culminating in old age. ‘Last scene of all, / That ends this strange eventful history, / Is second childishness and mere oblivion…’
The intriguing thing about ‘All the world’s a stage’ is that it occurs in the middle of one of Shakespeare’s most famous comedies. So the melancholy speech stands in tension with the life-affirming action of the play.
For thoroughgoing pessimism about the human drama we must turn to the tragedies, notably Macbeth (1606). The murderous main character, realising that his ambitions have been thwarted and that his end is nigh, can only conclude: ‘Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, / And then is heard no more. It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.’ The tragic action of the play certainly confirms this judgement.
Shakespeare’s last great plays are called ‘romances’, as they are full of mysteries and marvels. In Act Four of The Tempest (1611), Prospero – magician and sage – stages a masque (a drama within the drama) for his daughter and her suitor. Bringing it to an end, he tells them that the characters ‘were all spirits and / Are melted into air, into thin air’. Similarly, the world we know, with its ‘cloud-capp’d towers’, its ‘gorgeous palaces’, its ‘solemn temples, shall ‘dissolve / And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, / Leave not a rack behind.’
As for us: ‘We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep’. Is this vision tragic or comic? Neither. It represents a wise acceptance of our impermanence and a corrective to our arrogance. So let’s play the parts that life demands without getting attached to any – and then be ready to leave the stage once we have heard ‘the chimes at midnight’ (Henry IV Part 2).
#Fascinating story behind ‘Jerusalem’ is definitely worth delving into
Date of first publication: 16 May 2024
We all know the tune of ‘Jerusalem’. It was written by Hubert Parry in 1916 – in the midst of the Great War. The intention was to boost morale, and few people would want to deny that it is a rousing hymn.
Though Parry was willing to inspire the English nation at that time, it is unlikely that he would have been pleased to hear the hymn sung heartily at the ‘Last Night of the Proms’ along with ‘Rule Britannia’. He was no pillar of the establishment. Rather, he was an atheist, a pacifist and a campaigner for women’s suffrage.
The words of ‘Jerusalem’ actually come from the ‘Preface’ to an epic poem written by William Blake in honour of an earlier poet who inspired him: Milton (1808).
John Milton, author of Paradise Lost, had been a vigorous spokesperson for the 17C English Revolution – even going so far as to defend the execution of Charles I on Biblical grounds. However, Blake was convinced that physical violence was to be avoided, and he believed in a republic of the imagination. Where he refers to a sword, it is symbolic. ‘I will not cease from Mental Fight, / Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand: / Till we have built Jerusalem / In England’s green & pleasant Land.’
The inspiration for the lyric was the legend that Jesus visited England as a boy: ‘And did those feet in ancient time / Walk upon England’s mountains green: / And was the holy Lamb of God / On England’s pleasant pastures seen?’ If this was indeed the case, why should we not work to re-establish God’s kingdom in our land – ‘Among these dark Satanic Mills?’
That phrase is sometimes read as referring to the industrial revolution; but it is equally likely that Blake is thinking of the established church, which he sees as having corrupted the message of Jesus. So if Jerusalem is to be rebuilt, it will be in defiance of the religious authorities.
After all, in an earlier poem, ‘London’, he discovers evidence of the ‘mind-forg’d manacles’ in church as well as state, as he protests: ‘How the Chimney-sweepers cry / Every blackning Church appalls, / And the hapless Soldiers sigh / Runs in blood down Palace walls.’ The author of those lines – and of ‘Jerusalem’ – was no more a pillar of the establishment than Parry himself.
#There is plenty to think about in mythology of St George
Date of first publication: 18 April 2024
Though St George is honoured in some other countries, it is in England that St George’s Day, 23 April, is taken most seriously. The flag of St George, with its red cross on a white background, has long been associated with patriotism. However, there’s a lot more to it than that.
Certainly, the mythology surrounding him provides a lot for the imagination to work on. In one version he is a Christian martyr – condemned to death by the Roman emperor for refusing to renounce his faith. In another version, he is a dragon-slayer.
As a martyr, he may be understood as ascending to heaven after his death. But in the rural folk culture of England he became associated with what we call ‘fertility myth’: specifically, he was assumed to take the role of the dying and reviving god of vegetation. That’s why he is celebrated in the spring, and why he is associated with such symbolic figures as Green George, Jack in the Green and the Green Man. Morris dancing celebrates his rebirth and reaffirms the endless cycle of nature.
As slayer of the dragon, he clearly belongs to ‘hero myth’. In many versions of his story he rescues a princess who is about to be sacrificed to a monster which is also threatening to lay waste the country.
In a Christian perspective it is possible to relate George’s story to what I call ‘deliverance myth’. George, in slaying the dragon, points the way to a future liberation for all God’s people – as told in the Book of Revelation. Michael the archangel defeats Satan, depicted as a dragon, and at the same time the demonic kingdom of Babylon is overthrown.
All this is implicit in our celebration of St George’s Day. It carries a promise for England itself that the land will be renewed annually in the seasonal cycle, that heroism is still possible in our country and that Albion (the mythical name for England) will be redeemed.
The myth and ritual of St George are reaffirmed in a song by Richard Thompson called ‘The New St George’. It calls on the working people of England to heroically defend the land from corrupt politicians, greedy employers and irresponsible landowners. Listen to his original and also to the version recorded by the Albion Band: two very different renditions, but equally inspiring. (Both are available on YouTube.)
#Wordsworth’s wisdom helps in defence of natural world
Date of first publication: 22 Feb 2024
It’s all too easy to lapse into defeatism and despair when we think about the task of protecting our natural environment. We know it’s urgent that we protect our rivers, woodland and wildlife. A reliable source of inspiration is the poetry of William Wordsworth (1770-1850), which reminds us of how much nature can – and should – mean to us.
Memorably, he does so in ‘The Tables Turned’, a poem written in response to a friend’s suggestion that his time would be better spent in reading books of ideas than in communing with his natural environment. On the contrary, says the poet: ‘One impulse from a vernal wood / May teach you more of man, / Of moral evil and of good, / Than all the sages can.’
It’s not that difficult, Wordsworth tells us. As long as we can hear a bird singing, we can affirm our relationship with the earth: ‘And hark! how blithe the throstle [song thrush]sings! / He, too, is no mean preacher: / Come forth into the light of things, / Let Nature be your teacher.’
That line, ‘Come forth into the light of things’ tells us that nature is in every aspect illuminating. Trees, streams, mountains, flowers: they are all charged with ‘light’, and we are invited to align ourselves with it. The word ‘things’ might strike us as odd, but Wordsworth is simply being ‘down to earth’, so to speak – celebrating the natural world in all its manifestations.
‘The Tables Turned’, then, gives us a moment of insight into nature as our true home. In a longer, more reflective poem, ‘Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey’, Wordsworth spells this idea out. He speaks of a source ‘Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, / And the round ocean and the living air, / And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: / A motion and a spirit, that impels / All thinking things, all objects of all thought, / And rolls through all things.’
Essentially, here is an anticipation of what we now call ‘ecology’, which is the study of the earth as our ‘home’ (Greek, oikos), for which we are responsible. Our duty is to regain our connection with outer nature, and to understand that our inner nature is inseparable from it.
Wordsworth can certainly help us in this process.
#It is better to learn from our mistakes and move on
Date of first publication: 4 January 2024
When Frank Sinatra agreed to record a French song with English lyrics (written by Paul Anka), he couldn’t have known how often it would be quoted. By now, we all know those defiantly casual lines: ‘Regrets, I’ve had a few, / But then again, too few to mention.’
At a time of year when we usually make resolutions, we often ponder our own reasons to feel regret. For example, we may resolve to keep to a diet, having regretted our gain in weight. That’s fair enough, but on the whole we might do worse than adopt Sinatra’s carefree approach to the apparent obligation to be in a constant state of guilt.
Of course, we’re not talking about criminal or malicious behaviour, about which the perpetrator should surely feel continual remorse. Rather, we’re talking about everyday mistakes that any of us might make.
Here I think it’s worth quoting 19C philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, who puts this issue into perspective: ‘Life can only be understood backwards, but it has to be lived forwards.’ In other words, we have to blunder along as best we can, doing what we think is appropriate at the time – without ever knowing the full consequences.
For instance, a man of 50 might torment himself by wondering: ‘What on earth was I playing at 30 years ago? What was I thinking of at the age of 20?’ Or else he might take time to reflect: ‘Well, that was then; this is now.’
Perhaps we might also learn from the wisdom of spiritual thinker Eckhart Tolle. In The Power of Now, he distinguishes between two kinds of time.
If you made a mistake in the past, and learn from it now, without making any fuss, you are using ‘clock time’.
But if you dwell on it, if you make it ‘mine’, and if you indulge in self-criticism, remorse or guilt, you are trapping yourself in ‘psychological time’. Regret will have become a permanent obsession which is poisoning your mind. Tolle tells us to remind ourselves that we are always in the ‘Now’, and to celebrate the awareness that comes with it.
We might not describe Frank Sinatra as spiritual thinker. But when he sang Paul Anka’s song, he was right after all. Let’s give ourselves permission to feel a little more comfortable with learning from our mistakes and then moving on.
#Follow the yellow brick road to find some interesting ideas
Date of first publication: 7 December 2023
The Wizard of Oz is an entertaining, classic film that is always worth viewing again. One reason is that it’s full of interesting ideas. Here are a few.
Reality and Fantasy.
Some of the characters in Kansas reappear in the land of Oz, but transfigured. The three farmhands become the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion who join Dorothy on her journey. The nasty Miss Gulch, who wants to have Dorothy’s little dog, Toto, put down, becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. Professor Marvel, the bogus psychic, becomes the Wizard of Oz.
This reminds us that ordinary people are potentially fascinating, and that even the wildest fantasy has its roots in the mundane world with which we might be dissatisfied.
Don’t Be Fooled!
When Dorothy and her three friends stand before the awesome image of the Wizard of Oz for the second time, Toto is the one to uncover the Wizard’s secret: he pulls away a curtain to the side of the huge image of the Wizard, revealing an ordinary man manipulating a machine. The image of the almighty Wizard is a fraud. A little dog teaches us that all too often those who appear high and mighty are actually humble mortals putting on an act.
The Circuitous Quest.
The traditional quest narrative nearly always involved a male hero – a warrior who has to prove his worth – but here the protagonist is a young girl with no special strength or secret power. Yet what Dorothy gains from her journey is remarkable, making her ready to return home.
If Dorothy’s adventure can be described as a quest, then it’s best described as ‘circuitous’. To quote the poet T.S.Eliot: ‘And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.’
Enough Already!
Dorothy thought she needed the Wizard to show her the way home, but the Good Witch tells her simply to click the heels of her ruby slippers, think of home, and she’ll be there – because she has now learnt to appreciate it. ‘There’s no place like home.’
Similarly, her three friends don’t need the Wizard to grant their wishes. In coming to Dorothy’s aid when she’s caught by the Wicked Witch, they prove that they already have a brain (Scarecrow), a heart (Tin Man) and courage (Lion).
There’s lots more to say … but for now that’s enough already!
#Poetry can often help us to make some sense of our lives
Date of first publication: 19 October 2023
Every remembrance day it’s customary to recite these key lines from Laurence Binyon’s ‘To the Fallen’: ‘They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: / Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. / At the going down of the sun and in the morning / We will remember them.’ Few people can remain unmoved by those words in that order.
Poetry is well worth turning to when we want to make sense of our lives. We can find a reason in rhyme.
W. H. Davies offers good advice in the form of a question: ‘What is this world if, full of care, / We have no time to stop and stare?’ The radical Christian poet William Blake invites us to open up our imaginations and see the beauty of nature and the mystery of the cosmos: ‘To see a world in a grain of sand / And a heaven in a wild flower, / Hold infinity in the palm of your hand / And eternity in an hour…’
To say that poetry helps us live is not to say that it should ignore the fact of death. Shakespeare puts it into perspective: ‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, / Nor the furious winter’s rages; / Thou thy worldly task hast done, / Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages: / Golden lads and girls all must, / As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.’
Those of us who are well advanced in years might often turn to W.S. Landor’s reflections: ‘I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. / Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: / I warmed both hands before the fire of life; / It sinks, and I am ready to depart.’
Interestingly, there are a lot of poems about poetry itself and how it can help us live. W.H. Auden wrote a powerful poem on the occasion of the death of a poet he admired, W.B. Yeats, conveying the function of all great poets: ‘In the deserts of the heart / Let the healing fountain start. / In the prison of his days / Teach the free man how to praise.’ That’s exactly what I’m trying to say – but said many times better, in the form of verse!
#Green dimension in Christian message is an important one
Date of first publication: 17 August 2023
It was Joni Mitchell who reminded us: ‘We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.’ In order to emphasise her ‘green’ message she instinctively drew on Biblical imagery.
In the first chapter of Genesis, we are told repeatedly that as God systematically created the earth and all its glories he ‘saw that it was good’.
Then, in the second chapter, we learn that the first man, Adam, created by God to live in the Garden of Eden, is formed from the earth itself (Adamah). His role is essentially stewardship of the very earth from which he has arisen.
We all know what happens in the third chapter: Adam and his wife Eve are expelled from the Garden for disobeying God. Famously, St Augustine in the fifth century AD was prompted by this episode to formulate his theory of ‘Original Sin’: we have all inherited the offence committed by Adam and Eve.
But countering this is the theory formulated much more recently by the radical priest Matthew Fox – that of ‘Original Blessing’. This reminds us that God had seen his creation was ‘good’, and that we are invited both to serve it and to rejoice in it.
It’s noteworthy that Jesus in the Gospels consistently uses imagery which evokes the natural world. For example, he compares the Kingdom of God to ‘a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his garden; and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches’ (Luke 13: 18-19).
In the New Testament, we find Jesus being referred to as ‘the second Adam’ and ‘the son of Adam’. Significantly, when he arises from his tomb in the garden, Mary Magdalene at first mistakes him for a gardener. This might remind us that his concern is just as much for the earth as for heaven.
Indeed, Bishop James Jones, thinking of Jesus’s prayer – ‘Our Father … thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ – is prompted to coin a memorable phrase: ‘The consummation of the coming Kingdom is the earthing of heaven.’
Joni Mitchell may not have intended to say all this, but her ‘green’ message is all the more powerful given these Biblical connections. Conversely, the Christian faith only makes full sense when it takes on a ‘green’ dimension.
#Everyone has the democratic right to some peace and quiet
Date of first publication: 11 May, 2023
When I walk into my local shopping centre, the first sound I hear is not that of casual conversation, but non-stop piped music – played loud. I once asked one of the men running it whether they ever got fed up with the noise, and wanted to turn it down – or even off. His reply: ‘We can’t. It’s controlled at HQ’.
A standard definition of ‘noise’ is ‘an unpleasant sound’: one that is loud, irritating, or unwanted. For many shoppers, piped music exactly fits the bill. It’s everywhere, of course. It’s increasingly difficult to find an eating or drinking place that isn’t dominated by it – often at deafening volume. If you object, you may well be asked: ‘Don’t you like music?’ It’s tempting to reply: ‘Yes, and that’s the point!’
Indeed, many musical celebrities disapprove strongly of muzak: they see it as a debasement of the medium, whether pop or classical. The patrons of the brilliant ‘Pipedown’ campaign include Lesley Garrett, Julian Lloyd Webber and Simon Rattle.
As for the volume, those on the autism spectrum, or those with conditions such as CFS/ME and fibromyalgia, find loud music positively painful. Again, it is no coincidence that the US military used to blast round-the-clock rock music at their prisoners as a form of torture.
Avoiding locations which impose muzak, however, does not rid you of the problem of noise nuisance. All too often, the tranquillity of your home and garden is liable to be ruined, either by inconsiderate neighbours who play their sound systems at full blast or by workmen nearby who can’t work without their boombox. Again, a peaceful walk down a country lane is all too often marred by a thumping car stereo.
Such everyday experiences bring home an unavoidable fact: noise is a form of pollution. There’s so much of it: hence it is becoming more and more difficult to find a peaceful location. So we have to see it as an environmental challenge. The noise from traffic and industry is a major problem, of course. But the point about the noise from unwelcome music is that it could so easily be avoided, simply by those responsible stopping to consider its effect.
Music we have chosen is a great pleasure. But if it’s imposed on us, it counts as noise. We need to insist that everyone has the democratic right to peace and quiet.