Sir William Gilbert was born in London, England on this day in 1836.
"Major-General's Song" (1879) by William Schwenck Gilbert
I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;[a]
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news, (bothered for a rhyme)
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;[a]
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news, (bothered for a rhyme)
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
I'm very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's;
I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;
I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore, (bothered for a rhyme)[b]
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.
I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;
I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore, (bothered for a rhyme)[b]
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.
Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,
And tell you ev'ry detail of Caractacus's uniform:[c]
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
And tell you ev'ry detail of Caractacus's uniform:[c]
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
In fact, when I know what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin",
When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin,[d]
When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,
And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery –
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy – (bothered for a rhyme)
You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee.[e]
When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin,[d]
When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,
And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery –
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy – (bothered for a rhyme)
You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee.[e]
For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
*
Music may be the universal language that needs no words—the “language where all language ends,” as Rilke put it—but that has not stopped poets from ancient times to the present from trying to represent it in verse. Here are Rumi and Shakespeare, Elizabeth Bishop and Billy Collins; the wild pipes of William Blake, the weeping guitars of Federico García Lorca, and the jazz rhythms of Langston Hughes; Wallace Stevens on Mozart and Thom Gunn on Elvis—the range of poets and of their approaches to the subject is as wide and varied as music itself. The poems are divided into sections on pop and rock, jazz and blues, specific composers and works, various musical instruments, the human voice, the connection between music and love, and music at the close of life. The result is a symphony of poetic voices of all tenors and tones, the perfect gift for all musicians and music lovers. READ an excerpt from the foreword here:https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/…/musics-spell-by-edite…/
Gilbert & Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan go together as naturally as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding--they are as enduring a British institution as Westminster Abbey or Harrods. Audiences laughed at their light-hearted but sharply satirical creations over a hundred years ago and they are still laughing today the world over. But, if you thought that Gilbert and Sullivan went together as well as their words and music do, this revealing and copiously illustrated new biography will have some surprises in store.
Bibliographic information
| Title | Gilbert & Sullivan The illustrated lives of the great composers |
| Authors | Alan James, Andrew Codd |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Omnibus Press, 1989 |
| ISBN | 0711917531, 9780711917538 |
| Length | 240 pages |
『吉伯特與蘇利文』（ GILBERT & SULLIVAN）
輕歌劇
Alan James 著的『吉伯特與蘇利文』（台北：智庫文化，1996，第 208頁）
****
The Cambridge Companion to Gilbert and Sullivan
Get access
Cited by 1
Edited by David Eden , Meinhard Saremba
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:September 2011
Print publication year:2009
Online ISBN:9781139002639
Frontmatter
pp i-xiv
https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521888493.001
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