Folklore: Cheesy Picture at L. of C. Site!

Subject: Folklore: Cheesy Pictrure at L. of C. Site!
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Oct 04 - 06:37 PM

Check out the U.S. Library of Congress site, "Historic American Sheet Music 1850-1920." Look closely at the picture of the charging dragoon.

You'll recognize instantly that the figure's been stolen from Lady Elizabeth Butler's ultra-romantic 1881 painting "Scotland Forever!" depicting (sort of) the charge of the Scots Greys at the Battle of Waterloo.

Oh yeah, the low-level functionary responsible changed the guy's uniform from red to blue to make this the perfect crime.

Scottish and British 'Catters, do you care to comment?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Cheesy Pictrure at L. of C. Site!
From: Oaklet
Date: 09 Oct 04 - 07:29 PM

Yes Lighter. Please accept on behalf of the British nation, our profound apologies for this terrible error of judgement/injustice or whatever. I'm sure the next few posts will be from Scottish people expressing equal remorse, desperate for atonement.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Cheesy Pictrure at L. of C. Site!
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Oct 04 - 02:05 AM

Lighter, is this (click) the page you're referring to?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Folklore: Cheesy Pictrure at L. of C. Site!
From: masato sakurai
Date: 10 Oct 04 - 04:34 AM

The illustration seems to have been taken from the cover of Charge of the Light Brigade March (1896). The Duke University site doesn't use this picture. Info on Lady Elizabeth Butler & her works is here.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Cheesy Pictrure at L. of C. Site!
From: GUEST,Lighter at work
Date: 10 Oct 04 - 11:34 AM

Subject: RE: Folklore: Cheesy Picture at L. of C. Site!
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Oct 04 - 01:13 PM

Somehow my last comment didn't get through. It went something like this:

So the L. of C. site designer stole the picture from "The Charge of the Light Brigade March," whose illustrator stole it from Lady Butler. But that's just as dumb! The Light Brigade were Brits! Weren't their uniforms red too? And what do the Battle of Waterloo and the Battle of Balaklava have to do with American history? ARGHHHHHHH! (And that's no pirate "arrgh!" either!)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Cheesy Pictrure at L. of C. Site!
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Oct 04 - 01:44 PM

If you think that's bad, just wait til you see what we've done to Hammy and Pat after we get through with them.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Cheesy Pictrure at L. of C. Site!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Oct 04 - 01:50 PM

Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them- --
Into the jaws of death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred---

I still remember parts of the poem from my grade school recitation.
Lan sakes, The Charge of the Light Brigade was known to every American child. It's as American as Apple Pie

(also an import, especially with a bit of Stilton on top).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Cheesy Pictrure at L. of C. Site!
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Oct 04 - 02:05 PM

The great Billy Bennett parody here

Subject: RE: Folklore: Cheesy Pictrure at L. of C. Site!
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Oct 04 - 02:20 PM

Mmmmmmmmmm, piiiiiiieeee....!



I suspect that the poem vanished from school anthologies after World War II because, first, strictly as a poem, its diction and imagery are pretty conventional (Tennyson dashed it off in just a few minutes after reading an account of the charge in the Times.) For hard-bitten readers of poetry, the poem began to seem artificial. Second, given the circumstances of the charge, the sentiment "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do or die," was starting to ring problematical in the modern era with its far greater slaughters at places like the Somme and Okinawa. (It wasn't universally accepted in the Victorian Age, either, since, as Tennyson himself said, "someone [in command] had blundered."   And more than one "someone," at that!)

Anyway, the survivors of the disaster were treated so shabbily by their government and society that Tennyson, the Poet Laureate for God's sake, felt compelled to write a brief sequel twenty years on commenting on the fact.

The last British horse soldier to survive the charge didn't "fade away" until the Jazz Age.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Cheesy Pictrure at L. of C. Site!
From: masato sakurai
Date: 10 Oct 04 - 10:32 PM

The sheet music is also at Levy:

Title: Charge of the Light Brigade March [history of "The Charge of the Light Brigade" on inside front cover].
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: by E.T. Paull.
Publication: New York: E.T. Paull Music Co., 44 West 29th St., 1894.
Form of Composition: sectional
Instrumentation: piano
Engraver, Lithographer, Artist: Lith. by A. Hoen & Co. Richmond, VA
Advertisement: ads on back cover for E.T. Paull stock
Subject: Campaigns & battles
Subject: Soldiers
Subject: Military officers
Subject: Bombardment
Subject: Horseback ridings
Call No.: Box: 170 Item: 054

Subject: RE: Folklore: Cheesy Pictrure at L. of C. Site!
From: Snuffy
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 08:54 AM

Scottish and British 'Catters, do you care to comment?

Scottish AND British??????????????