Embarrassing unfinished works from great writers
QUESTION | Dear ed, I often hear about great writers, composers, and scientists leaving behind unfinished works at their death, or about recently unearthed works which remain unedited. Why is it so hard to get my hands on these?
Steve Musto
Wheaton, IL
ed SPEAKS | Dear Steve, the reason is simple: Great artists get old, get nutty, and can crank out some pretty embarrassing stuff. Some people think it's better to keep this stuff under wraps than to smudge a great reputation or slay some sacred cows. Take a look at some of the stuff from my own vault, and I think you'll agree with them:
William Shakespeare
Timaeus' soliloquy from the unfinished Man From Pantalona
Ah! These tights! How doth they beset me with emasculation! Such star-crossed hosiery! Yea, verily, they ride up like the steeds of black Tartarus! Oh, but nay! Nay! When mother dear declareth, 'Pish, child! Tis most suitable for prancing!' But would not denim of Levi or a sensible Chino prance as sweet? Fie on these leggings! Yet ... soft ... would that they came in a gentle pastel. Then a mite my heart's bile should sweeten.
ee cummings
An uncollected poem
this darn
typewriter
has no
stinking
shift key.
Plato
From the unfinished Socratic dialogue, "Au Naturel"
SOCRATES: So then, Vacuous, can a man be both clothed and unclothed?
VACUOUS: It cannot be so, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And if clothing is not an option, what then?
VACUOUS: Why, then he would be nude.
SOCRATES: It seems inevitable.
VACUOUS: Indeed, it seems so.
I won't even bother including the missing pages from Walden where Thoreau pines for cable TV and a jacuzzi. I think you get the picture.
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