No, Seriously, I (as a naïf gay person and consciously, therefore, and willingly, and perhaps a trifle archly, something of an outsider to the endless pothering that normal-heterosexual people fall into on the subject of women), am amazed to discover

how absurdly much of the standard literary criticism of 'La Maison du Berger' that I am only now belatedly reading through is concerned with (the apparently endless fascinating subject of) just which ladies, friends and actresses, the poet was fucking.  I am reminded of a pack of dogs running through the streets of an ancient and venerable city, assiduously and with visible delight sniffing every turd and splash of piss they encounter, and quite oblivious to the storied towers and monuments of an immemorial and glorious civilization that they're trespassing on.  A lot of heterosexual-normativity actually reminds me of this.

Well, that was harsh...but maybe only just harsh enough, because now I have some really unkind things to say about the world-view of this silly-ass, lickspittle toady of the comte d'Artois*.  But first the kindness:  Our poet's understanding of the significance of the irresistible Cyclopean directionality and speed of the railroad is sibylline and utterly persuasive.  Likewise, his view of the corruption of poetry by satire is dead-on accurate.  But his evocation of Nature is half-assed, superficial, heteronormative twaddle.   Sorry.


*My bad.  I meant of course the comte de Provence.