The Bleak Little Place Where Britten and Sebald Intersect
February 26, 2008
Pay a visit to The Rest Is Noise where Alex Ross wrote recently about Benjamin Britten’s beautiful and powerful opera Peter Grimes and the bleak, windswept landscape around Aldeburgh, which repeatedly inspired the composer. As Ross points out, this is the same territory covered by W.G. Sebald in his book The Rings of Saturn.
The bounding marshbank and the blighted tree;
The water only, when the tides were high,
When low, the mud half-covered and half-dry;
The sunburnt tar that blisters on the planks,
And bankside stakes in their uneven ranks;
Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float,
As the tide rolls by th’ impeded boat.From Peter Grimes by George Crabbe
February 27, 2008 at 9:43 am
An obvious connection, now that you point it out. Does Sebald actually mention Crabbe anywhere? I can’t think of an example.
February 27, 2008 at 9:06 pm
I don’t believe Sebald ever mentions Crabbe. It’s a shame.
March 14, 2008 at 4:41 am
Crabbe was friend of Fitzgerald I think and he is mentioned thus in Rings of Saturn - only the second book I have read by Sebald - he is a great writer.
Peter Grimes is a great opera.