In an effort to educate myself, I am reading The Oxford Book of Essays, chosen and edited by John Gross. [copies for sale here] There’s 142 of the blighters, so it will take me all year. To make this “stick” I am going to blog each essay.
This essay is online
Who was the author: John Earle (c. 1601 – 17 November 1665) was an English cleric, author and translator, who was chaplain to Charles II. Towards the end of his life he was Bishop of Worcester and then Salisbury.
What happened the year they were born (and the C02 ppm): 1601– 270ppm ish
The Big Events they were alive for: Er, English Civil War, beginning of Cromwell’s reign. Plague. Missed out on the Great Fire…
What happened in the year they died (and the C02 ppm): 1665– 270ppm ish
My awareness of/appreciation of this author (if any): zero
What’s the essay?
The essay is called “A Pot Poet.” It’s 1 page long. For me, the key take-aways were… it’s a paean to a pisspot pot poet.
“he’s full of piss and peace and beauty” as per Paul Kelly song “Know Your Friends”
Best line(s)
“Is the dregs of wit, yet mingled with good drink may have some relish”
“and his life, like a cup too full, spills upon the bench”
Stuff I had to look up
Cento, a composition formed by joining scraps from other authors. Johnson. Camden, in his Remains, uses it in the same sense. “It is quilted, as it were, out of shreds of divers poets, such as scholars call a cento.”
Nine Muses
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses (Ancient Greek: Μοῦσαι, romanized: Moûsai, Greek: Μούσες, romanized: Múses) were the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs, and myths that were related orally for centuries in ancient Greek culture.
The number and names of the Muses differed by region, but from the Classical period the number of Muses was standardized to nine, and their names were generally given as Calliope, Clio, Polyhymnia, Euterpe, Terpsichore, Erato, Melpomene, Thalia, and Urania.[1]
In modern figurative usage, a muse is a person who serves as someone’s source of artistic inspiration.
Melpomene (/mɛlˈpɒmɪniː/; Ancient Greek: Μελπομένη, romanized: Melpoménē, lit. ’to sing’ or ‘the one that is melodious’) is the Muse of tragedy in Greek mythology. She is described as the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne (and therefore of power and memory) along with the other Muses, and she is often portrayed with a tragic theatrical mask.
Stuff worth thinking about.
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Stuff to look up
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Connects to (watch this space – if there are later essays that resonate with this one, I’ll come back and add a link to the post for that essay).
marchudson.net 
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