Monday is “Grab Bag” day here at Entertainment Legends Revealed, with each Monday featuring a different area of the world of arts and entertainment (that is not featured on the other four days of the week, that is). They’ll eventually repeat, but for now, we’re still on the initial installments of each of the various “Grab Bag” legends!

This is the first in a series of examinations of legends related to poetry and poets and whether they are true or false. Since this is Memorial Day, I even made it so that one of the legends kind of sort of kind of sort of relates to the celebration of soldiers!

Let’s begin!

POETRY LEGEND: Oliver St. John Gogarty wrote a poem dedicated to the returning Irish soldiers from the Boer War that contained a hidden, less celebratory, meaning within.

STATUS: True

Oliver St. John Gogarty (1878-1957) was an Irish physician who was also a poet and author and was especially prominent in literary society as being quite witty and funny.

A contemporary and one time friend of James Joyce, many scholars believe that Gogarty is the basis for the character of Buck Mulligan in Ulysses. One of Gogarty’s poems does make its way into Ulyesses, or at least a reference to one of his poems, that is (the poem, The Ballad of Japing Jesus, appears in Ulysses as The Ballad of Joking Jesus).

Here’s Gogarty at the age of 21…

Gogarty was, like many Irishmen, a proponent of a free Irish state, and like a great deal of Irishmen, he was not happy with the Boer War (really, the second Boer War, but whatever), which involved England and the Boers, who were European settlers (mostly Dutch) who had migrated to South Africa years earlier and had co-existed with England in a state of mutual distrust. Like many Irishmen, Gogarty found parallels in the way the British treated the Boers to the way that the British treated the Irish, and it did not help that Irish soldiers were enlisted to help fight the war!

It was upon the return of the (victorious) Irish Regiment in June of 1900 that Gogarty sent in the following poem (anonymously) to the conservative Anglo-Irish journal, Irish Society:

‘Ode of Welcome’

The Gallant Irish yeoman
Home from the war has come
Each victory gained o’er foeman
Why should our bards be dumb.

How shall we sing their praises
Our glory in their deeds
Renowned their worth amazes
Empire their prowess needs.

So to Old Ireland’s hearts and homes
We welcome now our own brave boys
In cot and Hall; neath lordly domes
Love’s heroes share once more our joys.

Love is the Lord of all just now
Be he the husband, lover, son,
Each dauntless soul recalls the vow
By which not fame, but love was won.

United now in fond embrace
Salute with joy each well-loved face
Yeoman: in women’s hearts you hold the place.

This patriotic, almost jinoistic, poem was accepted gladly by the journal, but upon its release, reportedly that particular issue of Irish Society became a hot-seller.

Not because of the patriotic zeal of its readers, but rather the cries of “scandal” over the poem.

You see, the poem is an acrostic, which is a poem or other sort of writing where the first letter of each sentence, paragaph (or however it is marked) of the writing works to form a writing in and of itself.

Here, this patriotic welcoming of the brave Irish soldiers is really saying, “The whores will be busy.”

Pretty darn funny.

POETRY LEGEND: The first winner of an Olympic Gold medal for Literature went to a poem written by the creator of the modern Olympics.

STATUS: True

In 1924, the aforementioned Oliver St. John Gogarty won an Olympic medal.

What did he win it for?

Why, for a poem he wrote called “Ode to the Tailteann Games.”

You see, for a number of years, the Olympics actually gave out medals for ARTISTIC competitions as well as athletic ones!

The idea was first proffered by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the man who actually (more or less) founded the modern Olympic Games, in 1894, at the formation of the International Olympic Committee, a Committee he would be President of from 1896 to 1925 (and Honorary President until his death in 1937).

de Coubertin felt that artistic competition should follow alongside athletic competition at the Olympics.

His early pleas went to no avail for the first three Olympics in 1896, 1900 and 1904, but in 1906, the Committee finally agreed with him and scheduled to have them at the 1908 Olympics in Italy. However, due to financial issues, Italy had to back out of hosting the Olympics, and London instead held them. Given the time crunch (they had about a year to prepare), there was no time to plan artistic competitions, as well.

Undaunted, de Coubertin finally got them to have artistic competitions in 1912.

These competitions would continue until 1948, at which point the IOC determined that artists were, almost by their very nature, professionals and should not be able to compete in the Olympics, which were intended to only be for amateurs. As a way of making up for it, every Olympics ever since has had attached to the Games a series of cultural exhibits for those who are interested.

But during the time of the art competitions, the categories were Architecture, Literature (all kinds), Music, Painting and Sculpture. The works all had to be brand new for the Games and they all had to do with sports somehow.

So fair enough, but hilariously enough, the very first Gold Medal given out for Literature (and in fact, the ONLY medal given out, as they did not award any Silvers or Bronzes for the category that year) in 1912, the very first art competition at the Olympics, went to none other than the Baron Pierre de Coubertin himself!!

de Coubertin entered the work, a poem titled “Ode to Sports” under the pseudonyms “Georges Hohrod and Martin Eschbach from Germany”.

I.

O Sport, pleasure of the Gods, essence of life, you appeared suddenly in the midst of the grey clearing which writhes with the drudgery of modern existence, like the radiant messenger of a past age, when mankind still smiled. And the glimmer of dawn lit up the mountain tops and flecks of light dotted the ground in the gloomy forests.

II.

O Sport, you are Beauty! You are the architect of that edifice which is the human body and which can become abject or sublime according to whether it is defiled by vile passions or improved through healthy exertion. There can be no beauty without balance and proportion, and you are the peerless master of both, for you create harmony, you give movements rhythm, you make strength graceful and you endow suppleness with power.

Ill.

O Sport, you are Justice! The perfect equity for which men strive in vain in their social institutions is your constant companion. No one can jump a centimetre higher than the height he can jump, nor run a minute longer than the length he can run. The limits of his success are determined solely by his own physical and moral strength.

IV.

O Sport, you are Audacity! The meaning of all muscular effort can be summed up in the word ‘dare’. What good are muscles, what is the point of feeling strong and agile, and why work to improve one’s agility and strength, unless it is in order to dare? But the daring you inspire has nothing in common with the adventurer’s recklessness in staking everything on chance. Yours is a prudent, well-considered audacity.

V.

O Sport, you are Honour!The laurels you bestow have no value unless they have been won in absolute fairness and with perfect impartiality. He who, with some shameful trick, manages to deceive his fellow competitors feels guilt to his very core and lives in fear of the ignominious epithet which shall forever be attached to his name should his trickery be discovered.

VI.

O Sport, you are Joy! At your behest, flesh dances and eyes smile; blood races abundantly through the arteries. Thoughts stretch out on a brighter, clearer horizon. To the sorrowful you can even bring salutary diversion from their distress, whilst the happy you enable fully to savour their joie de vivre.

VII.

O Sport, you are Fecundity! You strive directly and nobly towards perfection of the race, destroying unhealthy seed and correcting the flaws which threaten its essential purity. And you fill the athlete with a desire to see his sons grow up agile and strong around him to take his place in the arena and, in their turn, carry off the most glorious trophies.

VIII.

O Sport, you are Progress! To serve you, a man must improve himself both physically and spiritually. You force him to abide by a greater discipline; you demand that he avoid all excess. You teach him wise rules which allow him to exert himself with the maximum of intensity without compromising his good health.

IX.

O Sport, you are Peace! You promote happy relations between peoples, bringing them together in their shared devotion to a strength which is controlled, organized and self-disciplined. From you, the young worldwide learn self-respect, and thus the diversity of national qualities becomes the source of a generous and friendly rivalry.

Let’s give the Baron the benefit of the doubt and say that it is just a hilarious coincidence and not a case of exerted influence that the first winner of the Olympic Gold Medal for Literature was the then current President of the International Olympic Committee.

POETRY LEGEND: The famed poet T.S. Eliot came up with the name for Djuna Barnes’ classic novel, Nightwood.

STATUS: False

Thomas Stearns (T.S.) Eliot is one of the most acclaimed and well known poets of pretty much any century, but certainly the 20th Century.

Born in 1888, by the time Eliot became part of the English publishing firm of Faber and Gwyer (later Faber and Faber) in 1925 he had already written most of the works of poetry that people would regard as his “classic” works, including The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Wasteland.

Eliot would work at Faber and Faber for the rest of his life. Perhaps the most important piece of work he did at that company was to aid in the publishing of Djuna Barnes’ classic novel, Nightwood.

Nightwood is about the lives of a number of expatriate Americans in Europe during the 1930s, which was the same situation Djuna Barnes was in herself, having lived in Europe since coming over from America in 1922 (here is a picture of the striking Barnes).

She spent her first six years in Paris living with her lover, the artist Thelma Wood before the pair split (here is picture of Wood).

Besides the quality of Barnes’ writing, Nightwood is also notable for the fact that the main characters in the novel are lesbians (based, presumably, on Barnes and Wood) and a prominent supporting character (perhaps the linchpin to the narrative, as it is, really) is a transvestite doctor.

Perhaps due to this fact, Barnes had a difficult time selling the work. She had a basic draft of the work done in 1932, but went years without selling it. Finally, in 1935, Barnes’ friend, the poet and author Emily Coleman (who was a hearty champion for the book) sent it to Eliot who managed to have the book published by Faber and Faber in 1936 (a U.S. edition was published the next year by Harcourt, Brace with an introduction written by Eliot).

Eliot’s connection with Nightwood has long been fodder for a great many pieces of scholarship, and along the way, a few fallacies have arisen about Eliot’s involvement with the work.

A major piece of confusion is just how much editing Eliot did on the book, but another legend about Eliot is that he is the one who named the book.

In his 1985 biography of Djuna Barnes, Djuna: The Formidable Miss Barnes, Andrew Field wrote about Eliot’s connection with Nightwood. Field wrote that Eliot’s:

single greatest contribution was the title itself, which Barnes accepted with alacrity. One can easily imagine the Barnesian glee at his suggestion with its unwitting secret watermark of Thelma’s name in it, and with her knowledge of the language Miss Barnes would not have missed the suggestion of the Old English wod, or madness, either. The novel originally had the subtitle anatomy of night, and that was very likely the springboard which suggested the title to Eliot.

However, in her absolutely brilliant 1998 essay, Djuna Barnes And T. S. Eliot: The Politics And Poetics Of Nightwood, Georgette Fleischer thoroughly debunks this claim of Field’s.

Fleischer shows a letter Barnes wrote to Coleman about the book’s title four months before Coleman contacted Eliot:

“`Nightwood,’ like that, one word, it makes it sound like night-shade, poison and night and forest, and tough, in the meaty sense and simple yet singular, … Do you like it?”

Coleman was not a big proponent of the Nightwood name, though, although Eliot later said that Coleman “was wrong about the title certainly: Nightwood is right”

So really, Eliot most likely DID have an effect on the name BEING Nightwood, and yes, Barnes discussed other titles such as “Bow Down,” which she kept as the name of the first chapter of the book and for a time, “Anatomy of the Night” was considered, so it is quite possible, if not probable, that Eliot played a part in Nightwood being the ultimate choice, but he clearly did not come up with the name himself.

Please read the rest of Georgette Fleischer’s article here to see her brilliantly discuss the extent and manner of Eliot’s editing of Nightwood, which has long been a matter of much contention.

Thanks again to Ms. Fleischer for her excellent scholarship!

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments, particularly other themes for future grab bag Mondays! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com