Precognition?

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Precognition?

by LissaT ^Pro @ Sunday, Sep. 21, 2008 – 09:57:40 pm

It is wonderful how sloppy research can endow whole populations with an amazing gift of precognition!

In tonight's episode of Tess of the d'Urbervilles (published 1891) they sang How Great Thou Art, the 1920s English translation by the Rev'd. Stuart K. Hine of the Swedish song O Store Gud, written in 1886 by the Rev'd. Carl Boberg.

The adaptors can hardly claim that they could find no English hymns of the correct period when the most cursory glance through Hynms Ancient and Modern will provide a plethora of them.

If they wanted to find something everyone in the cast would know there is always the very hackneyed All Things Bright and Beautiful which contains - or used to contain since most moderm hymn books omit it - the verse
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
And order'd their estate.
which would seem to fit in rather well with some of the themes in Tess.
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- Kirstin (Visitor)
- http://revk.wordpress.com/
- Monday, Sep. 22, 2008 @ 07:50:27 am
Looks as if we were both tutting at the TV at the same time last night.
- - LissaT ^Pro
  - Monday, Sep. 22, 2008 @ 09:59:14 am
  Nothing like as bad as The Tudors, but pretty tut-worthy!
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- lizdavies
- Monday, Sep. 22, 2008 @ 09:47:43 pm
I didn't watch it - I'm in no fit state for Thomas Hardy - too cheerless by half. Strictly Come Dancing for me at the moment!
The blog owner changed this comment on Tuesday, Sep. 23, 2008 12:26:30 am
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- LissaT ^Pro
- Tuesday, Sep. 23, 2008 @ 12:25:25 am
I have to say that among classic novels Tess and Jude (indeed most of Hardy's novels) are way down my list along with The Mill on the Floss and Anna Karenina.

When we moved here 22 years ago I had a lovely time rereading childhood favourites. Realising what a long time ago it is since then I have just finished rereading the Little House series which is very cheering. By the way, I found the answer to Kris's question - harvesting ground cherries is described in Little Town on the Prairie: apparently they are golden in colour, have papery husks, and would seem to be the fruits we call physalis or chinese lanterns.
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- mycorneroftheworld
- Wednesday, Sep. 24, 2008 @ 07:50:23 pm
Maybe the story writers just chose a song that they liked??
- - LissaT ^Pro
  - Wednesday, Sep. 24, 2008 @ 10:21:42 pm
  It doesn't matter whether they liked it or not, it was an anachronism. You might be the world's greatest Elvis fan, but (unless you have chosen to update the entire play) you don't make a film with Jean humming 'Love me tender' as he thinks of Fröken Julie.
  - - mycorneroftheworld
    - Thursday, Sep. 25, 2008 @ 07:59:18 am
    Well, excuse me for being ignorant here. I am not familiar with "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" and I only thought that a song could fit in even but it was not written by an English authour, which was what I thought you meant at first.
    
    But if the song was originally written in 1886, it was not that bad timing to use it for an episode dated 1891. Even if it was not translated into English at then, it was still the same genre and should maybe have the 1880th "sound" of it, if you know what I mean.
    - - LissaT ^Pro
      - Thursday, Sep. 25, 2008 @ 06:29:44 pm
      As I understand it the song was almost entirely unknown outside Sweden until the Billy Graham crusades of the 1950s. While taking your point about something which existed, albeit in another country, as having the right 'feel' of the period, I think the fact that no church congregation in England would sing it for several decades is sufficient to rule it out in the context of this drama. It also seems to me that one sloppy little mistake is usually the tip of the iceberg when it comes to poor production values in more than one area.
      
      I know that it is possible to go too far and that big expensive things like steam engines may be impossible to get for the exact year and the precise line, so that the nearest match has to be used, but I don't think a hymn comes in that category.
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- skip2468
- Friday, Sep. 26, 2008 @ 07:33:28 pm
Research today is very lean because of the world-wide greed to make money as quickly and as easily as possible.
- - LissaT ^Pro
  - Friday, Sep. 26, 2008 @ 07:43:19 pm
  Well I knew (or was pretty certain that I knew) the story of 'How Great Thou Art' because our Swedish Rector once talked about it in a sermon, but it must have taken me all of half-a-minute to look it up in Wikipedia to check my facts. A writer could do that at the same time as s/he was thinking about how to phrase a tricky bit of dialogue. Besides 'How Great Thou Art' is, I believe, still covered by some sort of copyright, while many other nineteenth century hymns are now wholly in the public domain, so any pennies saved in research time would have been blown in royalties.
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