Quote:
Originally Posted by Allen Tice
Time to be the bad guy again. I have nothing at all against Mr. Green. I've been at a bar restaurant at a table that included him with others and we had fun, and I've heard him read this title poem twice in person.
However, each time I was absolutely unable to understand why he was so focused on a man's physical deformity. It's not like Byron could change his body. I hesitate to say what I thought of this poem. But I reject it. Not funny. Sorry.
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I would say this, Allen, though it's only a personal interpretation. The narrator's focus on the man's physical deformity says volumes about how we think about people, and much about the narrator. To me, it says nothing about Byron himself, or his physical peculiarity. Byron is so clearly a genius that focusing on his foot is comically absurd. It's like focusing on Einstein's mustache. This is not to say you should agree with this view of things, only to say that is how I read the poem.
Ed
P.S. If Byron was alive and it was possible to hurt him with such a poem, or even to hurt his living relatives, I would think differently. But Byron is effectively immortal and impervious at this point, or so I feel.