Be careful what you wish for; you might just get it. This is the abiding message from "Miniver Cheevy." Most of us at some point imagine what it would be like to live in a distant past, to hop into a time machine and experience the sheer excitement of famous historical events, to drink in the heady atmosphere of days gone by. And Miniver's no different. He's none too happy with his lot in life. Fantasizing about what it must have been like in days of yore helps poor Miniver get through the day.
Unfortunately, the examples he daydreams about are singularly ill-chosen. Priam, king of the Trojans, watches his son being brutally slain in battle by Achilles, before having his corpse dragged around the city walls. Miniver wants to wear a suit of armor, but how uncomfortable that would be! And in any case, warfare in medieval times was such a brutal, bloody business, especially without the benefits of modern-day medicine and the treatment of battlefield injuries.
The Medici, though rich and powerful, were never fully secure in their control over Florence. Family members were murdered; they were driven from the city by their enemies; and much of their property was confiscated. They eventually returned to power, but seriously, who'd want to lead such a dangerously unstable existence?
Camelot undoubtedly has its romantic attractions, largely thanks to Mallory's wonderful Le Morte d'Arthur, but it was also a seething cauldron of unrestrained lust, treachery, and back-stabbing. Again, Miniver's so unhappy with his life that he fails to look behind the glittering, idealized facade to see what life was really like. Going back to ancient Greece would doubtless be a fascinating experience, but Thebes? With all that plague? With a big, scary monster asking a weird, pointless riddle that makes no sense? And with a highly dysfunctional royal family in charge? Count me out.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44978/miniver-cheevy
Robinson's poem satirizes those who would live in the past. In the case of Miniver Cheevy, the past he yearns for is the romantic days of great heroes, although there is not much consistency to what Cheevy likes -- the Medicis and King Arthur are thrown together into the same re-imagining of an idealized past.
Cheevy's yearning for Thebes, or Priam, or Camelot, shows that while he may know those stories, he does not understand them. In each case, these are stories of destruction and defeat: "Thebes" is a reference to Sophocles' Oedipus tragedies; Priam was defeated by the Greeks in the Trojan War; the story of Camelot is one of adultery and murder (Arthur is killed by his own son). I think the "downside" to living in any of these stories is pretty clear -- who wants to live in a tragedy? What Robinson is satirizing is not so much Cheevy's interest in these stories as his lack of engagement with them. That is, instead of understanding and learning from the themes of these stories, Cheevy is attracted to their exotic qualities. He may dream of Camelot, but ultimately he simply doesn't know what he's talking, or dreaming, about.
None of the ancient tales or narratives being referenced in this line have happy outcomes; thus, the author is suggesting to us that dreaming of them and romanticizing them shows a lack of fundamental historical knowledge.
Thebes: The main reference is to Sophocles and his portrait of the Theban dynasty. Oedipus kills his father Laius and marries his mother Jocasta. When these facts are discovered, Jocasta commits suicide and Oedipus blinds himself. Thebes is engulfed in fratricidal wars in which both of Oedipus's sons die. His daughter Antigone and her fiancé Haemon both commit suicide.
Priam: Priam was a Trojan on the losing side of a war with the Greeks. The neighboring areas were subject to pillaging and rape by the invading Greek armies.
Camelot: Guinevere, Arthur's wife, and Lancelot, his best friend, are having an affair. Arthur is killed by his illegitimate son Mordred. Although many of the knights are noble and even heroic, this is also a tale of great suffering.
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