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Lavinia Greenlaw

Lo Fi

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Al night by the rosë, rosë,
Al night bi the rose I lay,
Dorst Ich nought the rosë stele,
And yet I bar the flour away.
Anon (14th century)

09.23.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (2)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Poems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Comments for “Lo Fi”

I love that one – thank you, Lavinia!
According to Paul Keegan’s terrific Penguin anthology of English verse, it wasn’t published until 1907! I Googled around a little, and found that it’s part of the so-called “Harley Lyrics,” about which you can read more here.
Posted By: Don Share on September 23, 2008 at 3:41 pm
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Yes, it is part of the Harley lyrics. The original MS is just down the road from me in the British Library and I will see for you if I can go and look (but I am sure not touch). If you look up the poem, you’ll get all kinds of spellings, and (setting aside the evolution of the English language, the history of publishing and questions of authorship) I enjoy what this makes explicit: that a “recording” is to some extent contingent or imperfect: that it is a recording (lo fi).
I know that sometimes this is plain slap-dashery, and I hate it when people mis-transcribe a poem I know well, particularly when they think they are tidying it up. I want everything in place down to the last comma. Each typo is like a scratch on a record.
But to be given a poem of unfixed authenticity (if that makes sense) does me good. It reminds me how anxious we have become about authenticity in a world we experience more and more by way of virtuality. Maybe that’s why I want to go down to the library and get in a room with the real thing. There is an electric shock to be got from the ink on the page.
Posted By: Lavinia Greenlaw on September 24, 2008 at 3:45 am
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