sara@mhuxj.UUCP (TRIGS) (02/02/86)
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE *** Someone asked about the famous bad poet of Scotland, William McGonagall, who was roughly a contemporary of Oscar Wilde. An example of his verse is the following: Greenland's icy mountains are fascinating and grand, And wondrously created by the Almighty's command; And the works of the Almighty there's few can understand: Who knows but it might be a part of Fairyland? * * * * * The icy mountains they're higher than a brig's topmast, And the stranger in amazement stands aghast As he beholds the water flowing off the melted ice Adown the mountain sides, that he cries out, Oh! how nice! As you can see he was a serious, Wordsworthian Nature-worshipper with a mind to out-do his master in grandeur. In fact what Wordsworth is to the history of English romanticism, McGonagall is to the history of English kitsch-- though perhaps a comparison with Shakespeare would give a better sense of McGonagall's commanding position within his genre. As he once wrote about himself: The poetry is moral and sublime And in my opinion nothing could be more fine.