I read a remarkable line today in, of all places, a book of grammar. "Let a man be free to write the ballads, and I don't care who makes the laws". I wonder who said that. And even more so, whether it makes any kind of sense to my readers, though it took my breath away...
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8 comments:
I am almost sure that I am wrong, but I thought of giving it a try anyway - given that a ballad is basically a story, a narrative set in the form of poetry, I think they help us understand our place in the world, our society, each other, clarify our roles as human beings and teach us the distinction between right and wrong in a way that only great literature does. A person with this knowledge does not need to be ruled by laws.
Somehow I also think that the line may also have something to do with freedom of thought.
If Sir or anyone else tells me the correct meaning I will be very grateful.
Sayan Datta
Ah, Suvro da - a quiet thanks for sharing this one. Made me silent, made me look up into the distance, & made me pause with a half-smile when I read it in the early hours today. One could write an essay.
Your title made me go back and re-visit the poem later on, and it's been 9 years (!) since. Read it back then because you'd told me to while telling me about prescient poets.
Thank you.
You've hit it right on the head, Sayan. Brilliant!
Sir,
I did some 'Googling' and found out this piece, "http://www.derrickjensen.org/gerbner.html" published by The Sun way back in 1998. It's an interview with George Gerbner, who was a professor of Communications and the founder of cultivation theory (courtesy:Wikipedia). The interview in itself is good reading. And it also says that a Scottish patriot by the name of Andrew Fletcher 'coined' that remarkable line that you've quoted in the blog post.
And full credit to Sayan for making sense out of it. In fact, Gerbner too has interpreted it similarly.
To admit frankly, I just had no clue to what it really meant/implied.
Regards
...Hmm. Maybe I should just maintain my silence.
It made me pause because it poetically and very matter-of-fact-ly connects the freedom to write with the laws of the land. If a man is really free to write - then it doesn't make a difference who makes the laws. The dream weavers and tale spinners always stand apart from the rest, & see better, & know more and feel keenly, & are able to look back into the past and look far into the future, & create connections and worlds impossible for ordinary folks to imagine or appreciate or understand - but as long as the former are free to create, and are not guillotined or tortured or hounded or restrained or penalized or constrained..., the lawmakers whoever they are can keep at their laws. People will wake up when they do, and lawmakers will change crusty laws and improve old ones while the dreamers and music makers will keep throwing out their tantalizing visions of real and imagined worlds, of layered realities, and of sometimes dark and of sometimes lit-up worlds, of mixed worlds, of possible and impossible futures, and the real worlds which come about even if they be far from perfect will owe the poets and the prophets and the tale-spinners the final applause for they could see what ordinary folks can't and couldn't. But only so long as they are free to be and write - and they must be allowed to be free, and to think, and dream and write - there is hope for the rest of humanity....and the lawmakers as long as they don't interfere, let them make the laws - who cares - as long as the 'movers and shakers', the prescient poets and philosophers and prophets of many hues are free to dream, contemplate, speak, share, and write....
The title had to do with the way I saw the liner....
And at one level I was seeing very real things like imprisonment, censorship, banned books, and freedom of speech, and other material constraints...And that's one way of looking at it, I would think - even though it seems to be a rather literal way of seeing it. And the meaning can be expanded upon, I think, if one takes a wider/deeper view of ballads and of being free and of laws.....
Sorry about this mile-long comment!
Oh, it isn't a very big deal Sunup da! Fact is I had done a bit of googling myself and read a part of Gerbner's interview before writing my previous comment. I employ this method often; sometimes to confirm to myself that I am thinking along the right lines, sometimes to get an idea about what others (preferably notable people) think on the same subject and sometimes just to arrange my own thoughts into order. I call it homework. I would have provided the link to Gerbner's interview, which as you rightly say is a highly poignant one but did not because it would have been irrelevant to the present post.
Thanks anyway, though...
Sayan Datta
Found this today in The Telegraph - "I guess I'm just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom smashers and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation's laws." - S.J.Perelman
Dear Sir,
Thanks for all these gems that you share with us. Your blogs will virtually save them forever, allowing us to be pleasantly surprised and hopefully become wiser when we stumble upon them.
This quote will always be relevant, more so in times when populist, semi-autocratic leaders are popping up everywhere with a distaste for any kind of criticism or freedom.
Pardon me if I do not recall correctly the following anecdote you once shared with us: Lenin was deeply influenced by Tolstoy and hoped to reward the latter for his contributions when he came to power; upon hearing this, Tolstoy responded saying that he just hoped to continue his writings with complete freedom. I feel this anecdote conveys the meaning of this quote.
With regards,
Saikat.
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