In Competition No. 2403 you were invited to supply a poem lamenting the fate of a famous person in which bathos is the keynote.
Bathos, or unintentionally falling flat, implies a hoped-for height to fall from. A poet like McGonagall whose verse is consistently bad is pathetic rather than bathetic, whereas Wordsworth could drop hundreds of feet in seconds; witness the ‘Lucy’ poem which plunges fatally in the last two lines: ‘But she is in her grave, and Oh!/ The difference to me.’ In awarding the prizes I haven’t strictly applied the above distinction; in fact Gerard Benson’s entry never fell because it never tried to rise, but since it made me laugh on a glum day he is among the winners printed below. They get £25 each, and Mary Holtby receives £30 for her exercise in what Pope called ‘the art of sinking’.
To sorrowing sailors first the message came,
‘Great Nelson’s dying!’ What a dreadful shame!
Prone on the boards they see our hero lie,
With Hardy on the spot to kiss goodbye.
Sadly he leans above his wounded friend.
‘I’m shattered!’ he exclaims. ‘This is the end!’
The watching crew, with breath severely bated,
Alike lament and, simply devastated,
Recall their admiral in his manly vigour,
Even to ladies an attractive figure.
The hero of the Nile and Copenhagen,
In him our nation surely won a bargain,
Whereas the Frenchies in their turn got more
Than proud, ambitious Boney bargained for.
But now, alas! we mourn his final wreck:
Fate called the shots, and Nelson hit the deck.
Mary Holtby
Oh tragic, painful fate that him befell
Who hymned the Tragedy of Fate so well!
Great Aeschylus, whose shoulders, not his pate,
So long had borne the literary weight
Of glory, fell beneath a crushing blow
That quickly laid him literally low.
O wicked eagle, soaring high above
(Would that you had been no more than a dove!)
Not thinking of imagination’s flight
But only of your own gastric delight!
O tiny tortoise, slowest of your race,
But hard within your rocky carapace,
Fated to be swept up into the sky,
But then let drop, you hurtled from on high,
Struck Aeschylus upon his shiny head,vAnd left him first surprised, then, sadly, dead.
Brian
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in