Thursday, August 04, 2005

Sic transit gloria mundi ...

That is oratory, the professor said uncontradicted.
Gone with the wind. Hosts at Mullaghmast and Tara of the kings. Miles of ears of porches. The tribune's words, howled and scattered to the four winds. A people sheltered within his voice. Dead noise. Akasic records of all that ever anywhere wherever was. Love and laud him: me no more.

This is from Chapter 7 of Joyce's Ulysses. I quote it because of the phrase "Gone with the wind." Joyce obviously wasn't thinking of Margaret Mitchell's novel, which hadn't been written yet, and probably wouldn't have even it had been. And Margaret Mitchell certainly did not take her title from Joyce. Joyce got the phrase, I am sure, from the same place Mitchell got it: Ernest Dowson's poem ">"Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae":
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng ...

Dowson was a cutting-edge poet when Joyce was growing up. He was probably one of Joyce's early favorites. His poetry lives today in two titles. Mitchell's novel is one.
The other is taken from another poem, "Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam" -- "They are not long, the days of wine and roses."
Such are the vagaries of literary celebrity.

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