Andrew's Wiki
Terence Stupid

Content

• “Terence” is the name of a character in A Shropshire Lad
• It’s actually quite hilarious b/c you have in the first verse some person reacting to these poems and being like, “you’ve got your health, why are you bellyaching?”
  • His poetic weapon is turned against him
  • Self-parody: “The cow, the old cow, she is dead; / It sleeps well, the horned head: / We poor lads, ‘tis our turn now”
  • Speaker wants poetry for dancing to
• Poet responds: Why don’t you go drink more beer then?
  • It won’t help you in long run b/c such stuff is transient, temporary
• Poet: you should prepare for the worst b/c that’s what you’ll most likely have to face
  • I’m a friend for your rainy day
  • Tells of an old king Mithridates, who resisted being poisoned b/c over long period of time imbibed such poisons in small quantities to become immune

Form

• Five lengthy stanzas: sonnet length
• One wishes the parody would yield a different kind of poem. It’s nicer b/c you have more voices in it, and the anecdote at the end is far from Shropshire, but the meaning is the same old meaning. Despite the fascinating additions! Yeats wouldn’t do that, dangit. His references to the “king [who] reigned in the East” would have done SOMETHING to the idea of the poem.