Welcome to this weekend's entry in our Mark Steyn Club anthology of video poetry. And this Sunday we're celebrating the bicentennial of John Keats' amazingly productive spring of 1819 - and its loads of odes:
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on...
Thus Keats contemplating a Grecian urn, and musing on its characters and the lives they lived. This ongoing weekend poetry anthology was started for two reasons: First, if it turns out that poetry on TV is where the big bucks are, I'll look like a genius. But, if that's not the case, then more modestly I'd like to do my bit to keep some of this stuff in circulation - especially given the state of western education systems and the increasing brazenness of the new barbarians. I'm concerned about the erasure of our cultural inheritance - and in a certain sense that's at least partially the subject of this "Ode on a Grecian Urn": Keats' awe and modesty before an artifact from a vanished world. In this video I discuss the background to the poem, and then give it a whirl. To watch (or hear) "Ode on a Grecian Urn", prefaced by my introduction, please click here and log-in.
If you'd like to catch up on earlier poems in the series, you can find a brace of Kipling, with "Recessional" and "If...", plus "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold, "Ozymandias" by Shelley, "Jenny KIss'd Me" by Leigh Hunt, and a great poem of the Great War.
Steyn's Sunday Poem is made with the support of members of The Mark Steyn Club, for which we're profoundly grateful. We launched the Steyn Club almost two years ago, and as we prepare to embark on our third season I'm immensely heartened by all the longtime SteynOnline regulars - from Fargo to Fiji, Madrid to Malaysia, West Virginia to Witless Bay - who've signed up to be a part of it. As I said at the time, membership isn't for everyone, but it is a way of ensuring that all our content remains available for everyone - all my columns, audio interviews, video content, all our movie features and songs of the week. None of it's going behind a paywall, because I want it out there in the world, being read and heard and viewed, and maybe changing an occasional mind somewhere along the way. And we're delighted to say that, since the birth of The Mark Steyn Club, this website now provides more free content each week than at any time in its sixteen-year history.
That said, we do provide a few bonuses for our Club Members, mostly experimental features such as this series of video poems. However, membership in The Mark Steyn Club does come with some non-poetic benefits too, including:
~Our nightly radio serial Tales for Our Time, the twenty-fifth of which starts this Friday;
~Exclusive Steyn Store member pricing on over 40 books, mugs, T-shirts, and other products;
~The opportunity to engage in live Clubland Q&A sessions with yours truly (such as last Tuesday's);
~Transcript and audio versions of Mark's Mailbox, SteynPosts, and other video content, including today's poem;
~Advance booking for my live appearances around the world;
~Customized email alerts for new content in your areas of interest;
~The opportunity to join me and my guests later this year on the Second Annual Mark Steyn Club Cruise;
~and the chance to support our print, audio and video ventures as they wing their way around the planet.
To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here. And for our special Gift Membership see here. Oh, and by the way, that Steyn cruise will include a live performance of our Sunday Poem series.
One other benefit to Club Membership is our Comment Club privileges. So, if you like or dislike this feature, or consider my poem reading a bust, then feel free to comment away below. I weigh in on the comment threads myself from time to time, but sparingly - because it's mainly your turf, so have at it (in verse, if you wish).
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17 Member Comments
Having just watched this, I am about to venture out to Moorgate for permitted "essentials". On the way I shall pass the hostelry where Keats was born. Alas it shall be closed due to the lockdown under whch my sweet City and country currently cowers.
We are in the "inmost cave Of man's deep spirit". Shelley tells me Liberty will lead us out eventually: she had had better get a move on.
I shall raise a glass to both these gentleman (and Mr Steyn) tonight in any event.
Great to hear the poetry corner is a keeper, Mark. Again, thank you so much !
Thank you Mark for your insightful analysis and excellent reading of this wonderful poem. I love these classical poems, so full of brilliant, lyrical beauty and deep meanings. High art indeed. No comparison to the often dumbed down, vulgar, soulless, meaningless "art" with which we are saturated in this modern time. Keep up the great work and please keep these brilliant classical poems coming.
Mark replies:
Thank you, Felicity. Much appreciated - and the poetry corner will continue, that's a promise.
Fantastic if 40 years too late to save me from the memorable thrashing I took in the poetry section of English Lit. If I had had this and your insights on Matthew Arnold, perhaps my parents would not have had to pay that massive bribe in 1983 to get me into USC via the Cat-Juggling and Badminton Teams. Thank you for your genius, humor, and Club!
This is a masterpiece of your own, Mark. Some of your comments rose almost to the level of Keats' own words. (I hope you don't mind the "almost," but I feared incineration by lightning or inflamed critics if I were to omit it.) Your metaphor about the iceberg was splendid. It keeps repeating in my mind ... like a poem.
This was really wonderful, Mark. You hinted at another of Keats' odes - perhaps Nightingale, which you mentioned once in a Q&A - so very much look forward to that.
"Bright Star", directed by Jane Campion, would have to be one of the most beautiful films ever made. The soundtrack includes poems and letters (read by Ben Whishaw) set to the most perfect music (composed by Mark Bradshaw)... definitely recommended for fans of Keats!
Great choice , Mark. Didn't know Keats could draw as well, makes you sick really these multi - talents.
Haven't done your intro. yet , am sure it will be elucidating as always. Have a collection of his poems put out by Oxford Uni Press ,it's good quality paper, the silverfish love it. This temporal globe or whatever.
Love your work. Cheers.
I have long marveled at and been mystified by Keat's Ode On A Grecian Urn.
Seeing the urn, and hearing Mark's essay on the poet and poem, and hearing Mark's recital makes the membership fee seem like a great bargain.
Bravo Mark! I am headed to Italy in a few months and will try to visit the grave site. Thanks for that magnificent reading and commentary. How I wish you were my English teacher when I was a youth! But then again, maybe it takes a grey and balding pate to appreciate the sentiments.
As we get older these themes touch us even more. Bon courage!
In this article you wrote; "Oh, and by the way, that Steyn cruise..."
So, the following comment is not entirely off topic. My wife and I would have loved to attend the cruise to Alaska but unfortunately God and/or Nature intervened as it always does eventually. Cancer is one of its favorite interventions and it chose my wife. Since she's been gone, cruises and such have lost their appeal but I wanted you to know that you would have had 2 more booked and exited passengers if nature hadn't utilized its powers.
On the other hand, if my mundane comments here are any indication, we might not have mingled well with the more erudite Club member passengers. But, I do know we would have enjoyed the comedic talents of Steyn and Miller and meeting people like Michele Bachmann and others mentioned.
Mark replies:
I'm very sorry to hear about your wife, Anon, and I understand how difficult it must be to contemplate doing things alone that for years you did with one special person. But, if ever you change your mind and "cruises and such" renew their appeal, you'd be very welcome and would find many friends aboard. At the very least, if Dennis and I are playing in your neck of the woods, do come by. And my condolences on a terrible loss, Anon.
Thanks for the very kind reply Mark. I appreciate it. I just wanted you to know you would have had 2 more bookings to add to the present tally.
I'm sure all of us in the Club, erudite and erudim, wish you peace and solace, Anon. This is a special place for us, made more special by its members. May your wife's memory be a blessing.
I taught this poem many times: I didn't think that there was any aspect of it that I hadn't explored, but you made me think again about Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty .... Thanks Mark.
Thank you, Mark. For this and so much more. But thank you especially for this.
Wow.
Thank you, Mark. A great choice. Presented well and excellently read. I'm pretty sure that classic poetry videos will be a world-wide "thing" soon!