The play and motion picture Wit by Margaret Edson fixates on a poem by John Donne, Death be not Proud.
The fixation is on the last line of the poem:
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
The assertion is that Donne did not intend the use of a semicolon, and converting it to a comma significantly alters the meaning, profoundly uplifting the aura of spirituality.
"Nothing but a breath—a comma—separates life from life everlasting. It is very simple really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage, with exclamation points. It’s a comma, a pause."
The author quotes: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Then comments:
> I think that “beat” and “borne” lack visual concreteness. Shouldn’t it be “paddle”? “Paddle” sounds a little silly, but that’s the metaphor Fitzgerald is using. (Those boats must be canoes, not steamboats. A steamboat wouldn’t care that much about a current.)
A reminder of the obscurity of Fitzgerald's analogy, which is specific to the technology of sailing: A "beat" is a course that will take the boat upwind -- always a challenge. And if the current of the water is pointed downwind, perhaps impossible.
Somehow none of the New Yorker editors caught this either.
This is a good catch! The choice of beat here to my ear is meant to capture both a sense of urgency (beating a drum to set the pace for rowers) and beating upwind (tacking frequently). The whole article feels a little undercooked and peevishly underinformed for the New Yorker.
The fixation is on the last line of the poem:
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
The assertion is that Donne did not intend the use of a semicolon, and converting it to a comma significantly alters the meaning, profoundly uplifting the aura of spirituality.
The play:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wit_(play)
The poem:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Be_Not_Proud
Discussion:
https://lavelleporter.com/2015/02/13/readingwit/
"Nothing but a breath—a comma—separates life from life everlasting. It is very simple really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage, with exclamation points. It’s a comma, a pause."
Then comments:
> I think that “beat” and “borne” lack visual concreteness. Shouldn’t it be “paddle”? “Paddle” sounds a little silly, but that’s the metaphor Fitzgerald is using. (Those boats must be canoes, not steamboats. A steamboat wouldn’t care that much about a current.)
A reminder of the obscurity of Fitzgerald's analogy, which is specific to the technology of sailing: A "beat" is a course that will take the boat upwind -- always a challenge. And if the current of the water is pointed downwind, perhaps impossible.
Somehow none of the New Yorker editors caught this either.
Dang, says tomhow, is the better moderator.
- But when, Lord, when?!
- Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.
- Ahhhh.
That was not on my top-5 list of things that may be in that article.
Don't ask me why, perhaps an OCD of the many I suffer, but I don't see the point of that if a new paragraph is two lines below
And they look ugly in web pages for titles, feature blocks, testimonials, etc
AI likes to use them everywhere when building web apps. I hate that and have to go find/replace every dot next to a closing tag
I'll have to refine my skills.md "Don't end paragraphs with a period"