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Ogden Nash: Very Like a Whale: Difference between revisions
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Very Like a Whale | Very Like a Whale | ||
by Ogden Nash | by Ogden Nash | ||
One thing that literature would be greatly the better for | One thing that literature would be greatly the better for | ||
Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and | Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and metaphor. | ||
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts, | Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts, | ||
Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have | Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to | ||
go out of their way to say that it is like something | go out of their way to say that it is like something | ||
What does it mean when we are told | What does it mean when we are told | ||
That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the | That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold? | ||
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had enough experience | In the first place, George Gordon Byron had enough experience | ||
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Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold, | |||
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold, | |||
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a wolf on the fold? | Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a wolf on the fold? | ||
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Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof Woof? | Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof Woof? | ||
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But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them, | But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them, | ||
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers | With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers to people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them. | ||
gold and purple ate them. | |||
That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets, from Homer to Tennyson; | That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets, from Homer to Tennyson; | ||
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What I mean by too much metaphor and simile. | What I mean by too much metaphor and simile. | ||
== See Also == | == See Also == | ||
* [[Byron: The Destruction of Sennacherib]] | * [[Byron: The Destruction of Sennacherib]] | ||