Spam I admire
Really. I know I shouldn't do it for lots and lots of reasons, but I actually read a spam message in my inbox this morning.
It was promoting xanax, but underneath the URL to get it now, there was a quote from Poe's The Raven:
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
One if by land, and two if by sea;
To tell 'em, wou'd a hundred Tongues require,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
I wonder how many people will get the irony?
1 Comments:
Although I am a Culture Vulture, even I do not recognize the sources of the faux Poe that have been sandwiched into the beginning and end of this stanza of "The Raven."
One if by land and two if by sea
is indeed by "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," but I am not sure who actually wrote that poem: I'd guess Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but it could well be James Whitcomb Riley, or any of a number of WASP statesman poets: John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, perhaps?
To tell 'em, would a hundred Tongues require
sounds Shakespearean but I cannot place it; in fact, perhaps because of the capitalized T, I think it might actually be Milton or Spenser, since the editions of their poetry tends to preserve the older punctuation conventions.
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
sounds like a Romantic, Coleridge or Shelley, or possibly even Gerard Manley Hopkins, but I cannot place it specifically either.
Umpty-ump years of a liberal humanities education, and I am basically one for three. There's no point in putting me on Jeopardy to compete with the SuperMormon.
No doubt one could Google up all of these specific references in a trice, since such older poetry is in the public domain.
9:47 PM
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