James Elroy Flecker (1884–1915)

What a strange—and largely forgotten—work of literary Orientalism. Hassan strikes the usual traditional-Western notes of excess and cruelty in its portrayal of the legendary caliph Harun al-Rashid, so it has not aged well. But with its heady mix of rapid-fire witty wordplay, situational comedy, and near-farcical sadism and tragedy one can certainly understand how it impressed itself upon the consciousness of the young Robert Irwin, who pulled the title of his recent memoir For Lust of Knowing from a passage in this play. In the memoir Irwin relates his time spent on the road—between undergraduate terms at Oxford in the 60s—in North Africa and in an Algeria Sufi tariqa. He kept a copy of this Penguin edition close at hand during his travels. In no danger of being re-issued but worth seeking out for its outlier status in the Orientalist canon.… (more)

A passage in Borges' OTHER INQUISITIONS led me to a famous passage by this mostly forgotten poet:

O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet English tongue,
Read out my words at night, alone:
I was a poet, I was young.

Looking on the Internet, I came across this volume on Project Gutenberg, downloaded it to my Kindle, and spent an hour or so reading it. These are, for the most part, short poems. None of them is as memorable as the four lines quoted above, so if Flecker is indeed to be read in 900 years (since about a hundred have passed since his death in 1915), it will probably be those lines.

He is consistently obsessed with death, and sometimes this is interesting as in "The Town without a Market" where he listens to the words of the dead in a cemetery who must endure a "painless void proceeding to no end." His simpler poems are the best. When he starts invoking legends or writing dialogues for Mary, Joseph, and the Three Kings, it is all a bit silly. But you may find more here than I did, and it won't require a major investment of your time.… (more)

A once-popular piece of exotica, set in the Baghdad of Harun al-Rashid, who comes off here in rather poor light than in many other literay treatments. I suspect that most of those who've even heard of it know it either from association with the British theatrical giant Basil Dean or from Delius' music, used in a famous production of the piece. As orientalia it comes off rather oddly, despite Flecker's own knowledge of the world East of Suez. I have never seen it performed as a play, but read silently it comes cross as a most unlikely hybrid of high melodrama and SJ. J. Perelman. At one point a character is admonished not to "plunge the finger of Inquiry into the pudding of Impertinence". Strange, but come to think of it, not a bad Life-Principle.… (more)