Pg. 73 of David Markson’s copy of The Essential Shakespeare: A Biographical Adventure by J. Dover Wilson:
On which Markson has written “Wm. W” next to the quote:
“Mighty poets in their misery dead.”
—
“Wm. W.” = William Wordsworth
Who, in the poem Resolution and Independence, wrote:
“My former thoughts returned: the fear that kills;
And hope that is unwilling to be fed;
Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills;
And mighty Poets in their misery dead.
—Perplexed, and longing to be comforted,
My question eagerly did I renew,
‘How is it that you live, and what is it you do?’”
(Italics mine.)
On pg. 159 of his novel This Is Not A Novel, Markson wrote:
“And mighty poets in their misery dead.”
(Italics Markson’s.)
Pg. 131 of David Markson’s copy of The Essential Shakespeare: A Biographical Adventure by John Dover Wilson:
On which Markson has placed a check next to the following information:
“Cymbeline, it must be remembered, was Tennyson’s favourite play, and his precious copy was buried with him.”
—-
The above information shows up on pg. 130 of Markson’s Reader’s Block:
“Tennyson was reading Cymbeline when he died. His copy of the play was put into his coffin.”
One of the many types of items of intellectual interest that keeps popping up throughout the tetralogy is information about the books artists want to make sure they read (or read again) before they die as well as the last books artists actually read on their deathbeds.
“Why does it sadden Reader to realize he will almost certainly never know what book will turn out to be the last he ever read?”
Questions Markson on pg. 181 of Reader’s Block.
Touching upon the bigger predicament that forms the main thematic arc of the books: the artist in the face of death, old age, failing health, loneliness, uncertainty, chaos, annihilation…
I’ve started calling the tetralogy The Notecard Quartet, because the books were famously written on plain white notecards, but perhaps a better name would have been:
A Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man
Yes??? No??? Maybe so???
