[. . .] "To
break the news" -- this meant the disclosure of death.
You can't get away from that, you know. I couldn't.
Especially if it was a big disaster such as the loss of a
ship where the skipper who owned the ship went down with two
or three sons. And the
whole town would go into mourning. That can't escape you.
And hence there is a good deal of preoccupation, and also
there is a good deal
of the lighter stuff which is there to counterbalance it.
For instance, The Witches' Brew ... I
don't know how that escaped me or got out. I think it was
just an emotional release, "Let'er go, Gallagher!" When it
came out I was at Victoria College, at the time a
theological college, and some of the theological professors
said, "What does Pratt mean by writing a thing like that?
And what is his idea? What does he mean?" And the
chancellor, who had a great sense of humour, said, "Oh, he
doesn't mean anything at all about it." He said, "It's just
let'er go. Let'er go. Have a good time. Let 'er go." It was
written on the fifth anniversary of our wedding and so it
had to be in the celebrating mood. Yes, that's counterpoint
in a way, isn't it? [Compare Pratt's comment on
"breaking the
news"
in the Introductory Note to "Erosion."]
[transcription of a tape in the CBC archives in Toronto; On His Life and Poetry 52]
Editors
written for Pratt's fifth wedding anniversary. See Byron's
The Vision of Judgment as a prototype for Pratt's
parody and compare
the mode of epic burlesque with Samuel Butler's
Hudibras.
portrait of the three witches by John Austen from the first edition of The Witches' Brew