So sue me. I’ve never really pretended to a deep acquaintance with, nor understanding of, mid twentieth-century American playwrights and screenwriters. And so we have Days of Wine and Roses, a 1958 teleplay by JP Miller with Cliff Robertson and Piper Laurie , which I’ve always gotten spectacularly mixed up with Splendor in the Grass, which began life as a 1961 Hollywood movie starring Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood. Neither of them has anything to do with Tennessee Williams (although, thematically, perhaps they should have), and maybe this salient fact has exacerbated my confusion over the years.
One thing I’m not at all addled about, though, is the origins of the titles:
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass,
of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind–William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Reflections of Early Childhood
William Wordsworth. Not so daft. And very fond of recollecting rationally and in tranquility, memories from bygone days.
And then there is:
They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream–Ernest Dowson, Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam
The rather pretentious Latin title of Dowson’s poem (roughly, and non-pedantically) means something like “Life’s too Short to Fuck Around,” although I rather doubt that Dyson would have put it that way. Pedants, go for it in the comments, if you’re so inclined.
Cannot help thinking that–somewhere–Wordsworth and Dyson were trying to drive the same point home.
At least, they sorta did with me. And that might be the only lesson I learned from this literary debacle.
As with so many of those lessons which resulted from BA and MA studies in English Literature all those decades ago, while they may not have resulted in opportunities for extensive remuneration in a professional life related to them, they stood me in good stead morally, ethically, and conscience-wise, and I wouldn’t exchange them for the world.
And that’s not nothing.
In memoriam: James Patterson Beymer.
