{"id":270,"date":"2012-04-16T18:40:57","date_gmt":"2012-04-16T18:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sirpatrickspens\/?p=270"},"modified":"2012-07-02T17:20:24","modified_gmt":"2012-07-02T17:20:24","slug":"louis-macneice-1907-1963","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sirpatrickspens\/afterlife\/louis-macneice-1907-1963\/","title":{"rendered":"Louis MacNeice (1907-1963)"},"content":{"rendered":"

1948 \u2018The North Sea\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In ‘The North Sea’ he mentions Spens four times by name, including in the opening lines and in the concluding stanza. Though not in ballad form, the poem plays on the sound and rhythm of ‘Spens’.<\/p>\n

For example, in Sir Walter Scott\u2019s version of the ballad, the king\u2019s letter says:<\/p>\n

‘To Noroway, to Noroway,
\nTo Noroway o\u2019er the faem;\u2019<\/p>\n

MacNeice writes:<\/p>\n

Doorway? No more so than your office hours.
\nDoorway? No more so than your hours in bed
\nAlone or with a companion.<\/p>\n

‘The North Sea’ is set on a steamer crossing that body of water. The narrator questions notions of time, musing about Spens and the Vikings and the careless immortality of this sea. MacNeice writes of Spens as ‘a man of iron\/And master of his craft\u2019 who, like everyone else, must ‘conform to the sea\u2019s routine\u2019. ‘The North Sea’ begins with a clear allusion to ‘Spens’: ‘But not for a king\u2019s daughter?\u2019<\/p>\n

1953 Canto XVIII of \u2018Autumn Sequel\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In ‘Autumn Sequel’ MacNeice parallels the death of Spens with that of King Arthur in his barge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1948 \u2018The North Sea\u2019 In ‘The North Sea’ he mentions Spens four times by name, including in the opening lines and in the concluding stanza. Though not in ballad form, the poem plays on the sound and rhythm of ‘Spens’. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30366],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afterlife"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sirpatrickspens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sirpatrickspens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sirpatrickspens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sirpatrickspens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sirpatrickspens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sirpatrickspens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":469,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sirpatrickspens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions\/469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sirpatrickspens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sirpatrickspens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/sirpatrickspens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}