It's that vision of the lake that I think E.B. "In some ways I think it's what we're all trying to re-create on the Fourth of July. The sense is a physical in way in which we pass history on to our children, and how going to a lake in the summer in Maine, doing the same thing that your father did, and having your children do the same thing is a kind of continuity of a certain kind of American experience for E.B. "There is a lot of productive confusion in that essay about looking at his son and feeling as though he's inhabiting his son's body, or that his son is inhabiting his body. On the theme of continuity in White's writing about lakes It was published in the fall of 1941 right before Pearl Harbor and America's entry into the second world war, so it's really in some ways a rumination about trying to get outside of an oncoming political storm by thinking about what it means to retreat to a lake and be outside of that for a moment." For me, one of the things I also like about it is, as a personal essay, I always say to students that I think in some ways to understand that essay, you need to remember the moment at which it was published. "One of the reasons that it's so commonly taught is it's an incredibly beautiful piece of writing. It's one of my favorite essays, and part of it is that he's had a huge impact on what we consider American prose style, which is this very clear, kind of crystalline prose style. "Well, I teach it every year when I teach freshman. My bare feet on the splintery pier turning away from the water. Someone in the distance calling someone too loud.Ī screen-door spring, the door banging shut.Īnother light going out (you must have just undressed for bed). Muffled quacking near the shore a frog belching crickets, cicadas, katydids, etc.-their relentless sexual messages.īranches brushing against each other-pine, beech.Ī fiberglass hull tapping against the dock.Ī dog barking then more barking from another part of the lake. The radio tower across the lake, signalling. receding.Ĭonnect-the-dot constellations filling the black sky-the ladle of the Big Dipper not quite directly overhead. Voices in conversation, in discussion-two men, adults-serious inflections (the words themselves just out of reach).Ī rusty screen-door spring, then the door swinging shut.įootsteps on a porch, the scrape of a wooden chair.įootsteps shuffling through sand, animated youthful voices (how many?-distinct, disappearing.Ī sudden guffaw some giggles a woman's-no, a young girl's-sarcastic reply someone's assertion a high-pitched male cackle. The plap-plapping of water around the pier. " Maine Lakes," photographs by Christopher Barnes, text by Sara Stiles BrightĪnd here's a lake-inspired poem sent to us by Lloyd Schwartz, who teaches poetry at the University of Massachusetts Boston (and who joined Here & Now in 2013 to talk poetry): Nostalgia (The Lake At Night).Here are more lake-inspired reading recommendations from our listeners: Find more from our conversation on the Mount Tambora eruption in 1816, and the art that came from it.Here & Now's Robin Young speaks with author and Colby College English professor Tilar Mazzeo ( Read E.B. White wrote his classic essay, "Once More to the Lake." In that spirit, we'll go to the lake once more, as well, and find other lake-inspired literature. When politics or social media seem overwhelming, to where do you escape? With World War II looming, writer E.B. (Lennart Preiss/Getty Images) This article is more than 5 years old. A closed jetty is seen at lake Forggensee on Apnear Fuessen, Germany.
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