A Moveable Feast

Latest News Updated, A Moveable Feast: A Moveable Feast is a set of memoirs by American author Ernest Hemingway about his years in Paris as part of the American expatriate circle of writers in the 1920s. In addition to painting a picture of Hemingway’s time as a struggling young writer, the book also sketches the story of Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley.
A Moveable Feast is considered by many to contain some of his best writing. Some of the prominent people to make an appearance in the book include Aleister Crowley, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Madox Ford, Hilaire Belloc, Pascin, John Dos Passos, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. The book was edited by Ernest’s fourth wife, Mary Hemingway, and published in 1964, four years after Hemingway’s death.

The book contains Hemingway’s personal accounts, observations, and stories of his experience in 1920s Paris. He provides the detail of specific addresses of cafes, bars, hotels, and apartments that still can be found in modern day Paris. The title was suggested by Hemingway’s friend A.E. Hotchner, author of Papa Hemingway, and comes from a conversation the two once had about the city during Hotchner’s first visits there:

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

Editing by Mary Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway worked on the manuscript of A Moveable Feast during his later years, painstakingly rewriting several key passages, and had prepared a final draft before he died. After his death, however, his fourth wife, Mary, in her capacity as Hemingway’s literary executor, engaged in extensive editing. Literary scholar Gerry Brenner from the University of Montana documents her edits and questions their validity in many cases in his paper, “Are We Going to Hemingway’s Feast?”, concluding that some of them were misguided, and others derived from questionable motives. This would contradict with Mary’s stated policy for her role as executor, which had been an avowed hands-off approach.

After examining the vast collection of Ernest Hemingway’s personal papers, which were opened to the public in 1979 with the opening of the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston and included notes and initial drafts of A Moveable Feast, Brenner indicates that Mary changed the order of the chapters in Hemingway’s final draft, to “preserve chronology”. Brenner notes how this seems to disrupt the intent of the book, interrupting the series of juxtaposed character sketches between such individuals as Sylvia Beach (owner of the bookstore “Shakespeare and Company”) and Gertrude Stein. Additionally, Brenner points out that one whole chapter, titled “Birth of a New School”, which had been dropped by Hemingway altogether, was inserted back in by Mary without sufficient justification in its contents or execution.

By far the most serious edit, Brenner alleges, is that Mary deleted a lengthy apology to Hadley, Hemingway’s first wife and perhaps intended heroine. This apology appeared in various forms in every draft of the book, and Brenner suggests that Mary deleted it because it impugned her own role as wife with its implications that Hadley was the most important spouse.
Source: wikipedia.org

The Clarsach

Latest News Updated, The Clarsach: Clàrsach (Scots Gaelic), Cláirseach (Middle Irish) are the Gaelic words for ‘a harp’. The word clarsach is used in Scottish English and the word cláirseach is used in Irish to refer to a variety of small Irish and Scottish harps.
The use of this word in English, and the varieties of harps that it describes, is very complex and often causes arguments or disagreements between different groups of harp-lovers.

The Irish form of the word is Cláirseach; this word has an overlapping but much smaller usage in English.

By and large the word Clàrsach in English, is equivalent to the term Irish harp, the former being preferred in Scottish contexts and the latter in Irish contexts. The less specific term Celtic harp has also come into use since the mid 20th century but is not preferred by Irish or Scottish natives to refer to their instruments.

The precise Gaelic term for the harp of the Gael is clàirseach Ghàidhealach (Sc.)/cláirseach Ghaelach (Ir.), meaning Gaelic harp.

Gaelic words for harps

The Gaelic triangular, wire-strung harp has always been known by the feminine term cruit but by 1204 was certainly known by the masculine term ‘clàr’ (board) and, by the 14th century, by the feminine form of ‘clàr’, ie, ‘clàirseach/clàrsach’. (Gd.)

Clàirseach/clàrsach is a compound word, feminine in gender and composed of the masculine word ‘clàr’ (board/harp) and the feminising suffix ‘-seach/-sach’. The suggestion that it is composed of the elements ‘clàr’ (board) and ’shoileach’ (willow) is a much less likely explanation as i) the ‘clàr shoileach’ term is masculine in gender, taking the masculine form of the definite article, and ii) the /s/ phoneme is absent (replaced by an /h/ phoneme) and therefore the /l/ phoneme would be more likely to form part of any contraction (eg, clàirleach).

The historical Gaelic harp
Maedoc book-cover, Ireland, circa 1000 AD: the earliest unambiguous depiction of an Irish harp

The early history of the triangular frame harp in Europe is contested. However three of the four oldest authentic harps to survive are of Gaelic provenance: the Trinity College Harp preserved in Trinity College Dublin, and the Queen Mary Harp and the Lamont Harp in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. All three are dated approximately to the 15th century and are considered to have been made in Argyll in South-West Scotland.

The characteristic features of the historical clarsach or Irish harp are its strings of metal wire, usually brass but possibly also gold and silver. These are attached to a massive soundbox typically carved from a single log of willow, a reinforced curved pillar and a substantial neck, flanked with thick brass cheek bands. Usually played with the fingernails, it produced a brilliant ringing sound.

Existing examples

Three medieval Gaelic harps survived into the modern period, two from Scotland (the Queen Mary Harp and the Lamont Harp) and one in Ireland (the Trinity College harp, sometimes romantically called the Brian Boru harp). Artistic evidence from study of the decorative designs on the instruments implies that all three were probably made in the western Highlands.

Opportunities for the Trinity harp to travel across the Irish Sea from Scotland into Ireland were, many, varied, and extremely colourful.  There are at least 15 other early Gaelic harps dating from post medieval times to c.1800; though most are in Ireland and are usually assumed to be Irish, many have no provenance and could equally be of Scottish origin.

Importance in society

Until the end of the Middle Ages the Gaelic harp (the historical clarsach or Irish harp) was the highest status musical instrument of both Scotland and Ireland, and harpists were amongst the most prestigious cultural figures amongst Irish and Scottish kings and chiefs. In both countries, the harpist enjoyed special rights and played a crucial part in ceremonial occasions such as coronation and poetic recital.

The main function of the Gaelic harp in medieval Scotland and Ireland seems to have been playing to accompany the recitation of bardic poetry in Gaelic or Irish.

Especially popular in 16th and 17th century English courts, the Gaelic harp was played all over Europe in baroque solo and consort music; it was praised by writers such as Francis Bacon.

The historical clarsach or Irish harp appears in the Coat of arms of Ireland, and on the flag of the President of Ireland as well as Irish Euro coins.
Source: wikipedia.org