’Who’ll be the clerk?’ : Repainted, rerhymed and vaguely personal in the death of Cock Robin
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | KOKH, Mariia. ’Who’ll be the clerk?’ : Repainted, rerhymed and vaguely personal in the death of Cock Robin. In Crossing borders between countries, scholars, and genres : Commemorating the late Kathleen E. Dubs. A cooperation of the Catholic University in Ružomberok, Pázmány Péter Catholic University and Masaryk University. An academic event at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, organised by the Institute of English and American Studies as part of the Kathleen 80 project, in cooperation with the Kathleen E. Dubs Foundation, 29 November 2024, Budapest, Hungary. 2024. |
| Description | This presentation provides a biographical reading of W. D. Snodgrass’ rewriting of the Old English nursery rhyme «Who Killed Cock Robin?» Viewed in the context of the entire collection The Death of Cock Robin, a special collaboration between Snodgrass and a painter DeLoss McGraw, the poem entitled «Coroner’s Inquest» is, arguably, not so much a parody as the peculiar retelling of the story of the bird’s death, where, upon close examination, this very act proves to symbolize the metaphorical death of the poet’s (purely) «confessional» practice, which then sparks and informs his further - broader - contemplations about his literary beginnings and legacy that, admittedly, rests upon them and then rather contrasting creative endeavors later on. By means of close reading and with William Spengemann’s concept of «poetic autobiography» in mind, the analysis addresses Snodgrass’ predicament at the time of the collection's publication and how it eventually informed the rhetoric in the Coroner's Inquest; putting his language under scrutiny, the study dissects the deliberateness and meaning behind as well as wider implications of his own beautifully obnoxious perfect rhyme. |