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  • On The Age and Poetry of the Minnesingers, Troubadours, &c. FRANCE by Anonymous, from Aethelgreg
    Learned controversies have agitated the rival partisans of the Langue d'oc and Langue d'oeil, as to their comparative antiquity, their mutual relations, and the degree of influence on the literature of modern Europe which may properly be ascribed to each. The exact period to be assigned to the formation of the proper Northern Romance we can hardly expect to determine; the most probable theory may be, that one common Romance was universally diffused as the popular tongue over the Gallic provinces at a very early period, perhaps even under the Roman Government itself, but at least during that gradual dissolution of the Roman institutions, which took place on the establishment of the barbarian monarchies.
An Essay On The Ancient Minstrels In England•The Immediate Need for Poetry•Cargoes, and the poetry of romantic and economic Man•Beneath the Masks•Strict Forms

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This week 113 members visited, read 728 poems, and made 141 comments.
Oldpoetry has 92296 poems total by 5572 authors. 41839 comments.
  • Morag
    8 hours ago
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    on Are You Content? by William Butler Yeats, 8 hours ago
    Instead of calling on posterity to judge him, Yeats is wondering if his life's work is worthy of his half-legendary ancestors. Is he not content because he's not resting on his laurels - he can always do better - or because he seriously wonders whether his life has been wasted? (No, it wasn't.)

  • Morag
    8 hours ago
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    on The Apparitions by William Butler Yeats, 8 hours ago
    Given that Yeats believed in spiritualism, it is really hard to tell what he means about the apparitions! He seems to be deliberately seeking derision, but is that because he hasn't really seen apparitions, or because he thinks he has?

    In the second verse Yeats's pleasure in sitting up talking with a friend seems to be affected by the fear of being unintelligible - due to old age?

    In the third verse, the increasing Night is presumably his approaching death. If he really found his joy increasing with old age he was very lucky.

    No one of Yeats's best, but still good.

  • Morag
    8 hours ago
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    on For Anne Gregory by William Butler Yeats, 8 hours ago
    I know gentlement prefer blondes, but I doubt if anyone really loves someone for their hair colour. This is just an extended - and humorous - comment on its beauty.

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