Time - Allen Curnow

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I am the nor-west air among the pines
I am the water-race and the rust on railway lines
I am the mileage recorded on the yellow signs.
I am dust, I am distance, I am lupins back of the beach
I am the sums the sole-charge teachers teach
I am cows called to milking and the magpie’s screech.
I am nine o’clock in the morning when the office is clean
I am the slap of the belting and the smell of the machine
I am the place in the park where lovers were seen.
I am recurrent music the children hear
I am level noises in the remembering ear
I am the sawmill and the passionate second gear.
I, Time, am all these, yet these exist
Among my mountainous fabrics like mist,
So do they the measurable world resist.
I, Time, call down, condense, confer
On the willing memory the shapes these were:
I, more than your conscious carrier,
Am island, am sea, am father, farm, and friend,
Though I am here all things my coming attend;
I am, you have heard it, the Beginning and the End.

Allen Curnow (1911 - 2001)

Award winning New Zealand poet.
This was written when he was living on the Canterbury Plains at the start of his long career in poetry. Lupins were prevalent in the South Island countryside and many schools had only one teacher.

Some comments ...

The poem contains sets of three rhyming lines.

In the first line time is expressed as the wind moving in trees. A good place to start. Biblically the universe started by the movement of wind. Wind cannot be seen so much at the effects of what wind does - as in the movement of a tree or the sound from branches. Just as we cannot see time but are ever conscious of what happens over time. This is the most important aspect of time in that time continually facilitates change. In line two time is latent in both the movement of water and the change that water can make to the environment and in lines three and four we see that time is integral in defining distance and of course speed.

Time is independent of the measurement of time which is a human structuring based on the cyclical movement of the heavens over time. Time ‘just is’ and resists such measurement but such measurement allows definition of set events as in the office is clean at 9:00am (line 7) or the time set by a need as in the milking of cows (line 6).

Everything is defined by time including of course our personal association with specific events as in the time lovers meet in a park (line 9).

Time is like a mountainous fabric in which we clothe our lives (line 14). Mountainous because of the continual build of events. We only see life through a mist because we are limited by our perceptions and senses. Perhaps time has a purer view of life?

We can reflect on time past but it is only a poor second to what time can provide (line 18).

And of course the last line has Biblical connotation to the a ‘beginning’ and an ‘end’. Interestingly we tend to favour that there was a beginning and that there will be no end. Perhaps time has and will always be - if you like - a never ending fabric. I guess in due time we will find out.

Annoiting Ann Anonymous

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when she was a child

and she was quite sure
that no one was looking
she picked up a stick
to scratch in concrete
      ‘I was here’

each day

as she walked to school
she would see her work
and laugh to herself
no one would know it was her

in her teenager years

she had that teenage crush
and melting against his name
cleared the dust on his car
with words that only she could write
      ‘I love you’

She thought he really knew
but she would never tell,
in later years
when thinking about him
she would laugh inside
with a little embarrassment

she had a long and ordinary life
a husband, children
and memories to drown
and if she could paint the sky
these would be her words
     ‘life is beautiful’
      
before she died
and with a knowing smile
she left these words
especially for you …
     ‘I was here
      I love you
      life is beautiful’
                            
© Richard Scutter (and for a certain anonymous person)

15 September 2011

Analysing Prufrock: T. S. Eliot

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This well-known poem by T. S. Eliot was written when TSE was in his last year at Harvard and completed in 1911 when on vacation in Munich while studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. TSE was only 22 years old.

 What is the nature of this person Prufrock. The following is the first part of a discussion in relation to this poem …

First, look at the name J. Alfred Prufrock. It has a certain pretension or arrogance whether or not given by family. Of course if that was the case Prufrock would never change it because of his timid nature. Apparently there was a Prufrock family in existence in America.

An interesting choice ...

PRUde … a person who affects extreme modesty or propriety.

PRUdent ... a concern for the future and the taking of action in relation to what might happen … careful of one's own interests; provident, or careful in providing for the future.

FROCK ... well, feminine dress association ... and one definition … a coarse outer garment with large sleeves, worn by members of some religious orders.

deFROCK /unFrock... to deprive of priestly status

… so maybe to prufrock (as a verb)… is to deny self-expression or the self by fear and inaction … in the severe case it could lead to death by inaction … to deprive oneself of one’s own being … to be a fraud (consider the reference to Dante in the epigraph below).

So Eliot creates the subliminal connotation of a ‘prude’ in a ‘frock.’

The Dedication

Jean Verdenal was an important friend from his time in Paris. Interestingly, TSE’s foundation work is dedicated to this person and not to family or other friends so perhaps Verdenal understood TSE as a fellow student and one with an appreciation of literature. Verdenal was certainly not a Prufrock. Unfortunately he died in the Dardanelles in 1917 in action while treating a wounded soldier. TSE updated the dedication in the 1925 edition of Prufrock with details of his death. (Verdenal was born on 11 May 1890 and not in 1889 as recorded by TSE.)

The quote is from Dante … Purgatorio, Canto XXI, lines 133-136

Or puoi la quantitate
Comprender dell' amor ch'a te mi scalda,
Quando dismento nostra vanitate,
Trattando l'ombre come cosa salda.

[TSE’s translation from the Italian - Now can you understand the quantity of love that warms me towards you, so that I forget our vanity, and treat the shadows like the solid thing.]

TSE ensures Verdenal will be remembered with love.

The Epigraph

The published version of the epigraph also came from Dante's Inferno:

S'io credessi che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tomasse al mundo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per cio che giammai di questo fondo
non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

A translation …

‘If I thought that my reply would be to someone who would ever return to earth, this flame would remain without further movement; but as no one has ever returned alive from this gulf, if what I hear is true, I can answer you with no fear of infamy.’

These words are spoken by Count Guido da Montefelltro (1223-98) in Dante's Inferno xxvii, 61-6. Dante recounts his visit to the underworld. In the eighth chasm of Hell he meets Guido, punished here, with other false and deceitful counsellors, in a single prison of flame for his treacherous advice on earth to Pope Boniface. When the damned speak the voice sounds from the tip of the flame which trembles. Guido refers to this, and goes on to explain that he speaks freely only because he believes that Dante is like himself, one of the dead who will never return to earth to report what he says.

(TSE had a a draft version of the epigraph - Purgatorio, Canto XXVI, lines 147-148.)

Relating the Epigraph to Prufrock in the poem …

Prufrock is fraudulent and deceitful – if only to himself – guilty and being punished … punished by his continual paralysis … living a shadow existence … ‘like a shade’ in Dante’s underworld.

Prufrock is only willing to share his unfortunate nature to himself… never to the world at large … in the form of dramatic monologue … TSE invites the reader into this hidden world of his sub-conscious thinking … Just as Dante invites the reader to the shaded world of the dead who speak without being heard.

Looking at lines 1-12

Let us go then, you and I,
An invite to join Prufrock as he talks to himself …

When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;

To Prufrock the sky is etherised … ether,  an anaesthetic to take away pain … Prufrock can’t appreciate the sky … he also fears pain … ironically his fear of pain is much more crippling

Later we see that Prufrock himself is an etherised patient … unable to stir from his mental paralysis

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The streets are half-deserted in another sense because of Prufrock’s internal preoccupation

The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

Connotation of cheap love … unable to sleep … unhappy, and of course something is on his mind

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
The floor of cheap restaurants with shells as plates … concentrating on negative

Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent

… perhaps the physical journey and the mental are one of the same, I know people who find the mental indecision in this poem a little tedious

To lead you to an overwhelming question…
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

He has a problem … like many who have problems … don’t ask me  … it is too big to discuss … I don’t want to think about it … while of course it is ever present and it is usually followed by an elaboration ... in this case provided by the poem

Let us go and make our visit.
Come join me (Prufrock) on this journey … and you will discover more of Prufrock

Prufrock is clearly a thinker and his indecisive thoughts contribute directly to his paralysis. But perhaps of more import living in his thoughts and fears dulls his awareness of the present. He inhibits sensitivity to his surrounds which are somewhat a bleak and empty city, an expression of where he is mentally.

Later we will see how ‘his problem’ surfaces through the continuing expression of his underlying thoughts. He may be a solitary figure vying for communication but at least he invites you to a privileged insight into his underground world (perhaps under the sea is more appropriate).

How would you like all your underlying thoughts known to others?

End of the first part of a discussion for U3A.

Handwritten: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Treasures

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At the National Library Canberra

An extraordinary exhibition open to 18 March 2012 ... and features 100 unique manuscript treasures from the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library).

Spanning more than 1000 years of history, the exhibition includes exquisite illuminated manuscripts, rare letters, sketches and documents and priceless musical scores, each handwritten by major figures in literature, religion, science, music, exploration and philosophy. Beethoven, Galileo, Goethe, Kafka, Michelangelo and Napoleon are just some of the many names represented in this exhibition.

See this link ...    Australian National Library

Exhibition of Manuscript Treasures

Australian National Library Canberra
(The Bonhoeffer Exhibit)

precious scrapple from the table of the famous

foundation of thought from the fragments of a life
give a certain personal perspective

a handwritten strangulated poem
Bonhoeffer, condemned unjustly
now glass-celled and preserved for posterity

thoughts flow freely on the mighty mind of man

and the truth escapes
rattling the freedom of visitors as they pass along the way

Richard Scutter 15 January 2012

Poets' Corner Official Opening Canberra

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Poets' Corner Opening Ceremony - Canberra

Today (30 January) was the official opening ceremony of Poets' Corner at Garema Place, Canberra ... a main thorough-fare for shoppers in central Canberra ... and a Public Art initiative of the ACT Government and very much a project of the previous ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope.

Three ACT Poets had figurative sculptures created by Cathy Weiszmann with signage by Richard Tipping... the poets selected for this Public Art were - Alec Hope, Judith Wright and David Campbell.

A poem from each of these poets is attached with the works. These poems were read at the launch by prominent local poets. Geoff Page read The Heart of the Matter  (David Campbell),  Liz Murphy read The Flame-Tree (Judith Wright) , and Hal Judge read Spatlese (Alec Hope).

Alan Gould gave an excellent address from first hand reflections from the lives of these three.

Meredith Mckinney was at the readings and I took the opportunity of a photo of her against the sculpture of her mother Judith Wright ...

Audios of the readings can be obtained on request ...

National Year of Reading 2012

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The National Year of Reading 2012 …

Five fabulous Canberra authors are now official ambassadors for the National Year of Reading 2012 which is already well and truly underway:

Jack Heath, Jackie French, Marion Halligan, Omar Musa and Tania McCartney.

National Year of Reading Launch

January 18, 2012

The launch of the National Year of Reading is just a few weeks away and libraries, bookshop and community groups around the country are planning their 14 February activities. At the National Library in Canberra, the event will be hosted by the ABC's Jennifer Byrne, and there are some very special guests, including the patron, much loved writer and actor William McInnes, and award-winning children's author - and Children's Laureate - Boori Monty Pryor.

Visit this website to find out all the latest news ... http://www.love2read.org.au/index.cfm

Creating words on Creation and Creating

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Creating some spontaneous words …

… creating is a natural part of life … it goes on all the time ... in fact (like it or not) it's happening right now

… but starting at the beginning … at least the beginning of the Bible … the fifth word is ‘create’

… God created the world … so creating started a few years back … you could say married to the beginning of time … and will have no end … not until someone is clever enough to create something outside the time dimension … and God knows how that can happen! … and yes He does!

 … to digress … well, that is very true God may very well know how that can happen, but I don’t think we can understand such complexity … not at the moment …

… but did He - sorry She … (for how do we know God wasn’t really a she in disguise? … why do we always colour God with masculinity?) … did ‘she’ really create something out of nothing?

 … or did She enter some magical store cupboard and like a mother-cook decide to create a really nice cake using special ingredients in a new and untried combination … (not like my meringues which always turn out a bit flat)

… so She mixed it all together and put in a really hot oven … and then of course we know what happened next, the telephone went and you know what ‘She-Gods’ are like … yes, you’ve guessed right she was caught up talking and forgot …

 … forgot the oven was on … and oh no! … well, that oven got hotter and hotter and then of course there was a really big explosion … a shattering bang never ever heard before … you could say a really timely bang … so loud in fact it fell completely on deaf ears … and then everything after is of course just mere history … and everything has been evolving into something else ad-infinitum … everything being recreated … it is really totally amazing stuff …

… and did you know we change our bodies every 10 years … we are never more than 10 years old … however old we are … an amazing fact I discovered from a BBC documentary on the body … creating and re-creating it’s just happening all over the place (new cells for old, the catch-cry of the body)… it’s just a case of opening our eyes and seeing things a little differently perhaps?

… but, do you really think this ‘She-God’ was happy with her cake? … that’s the big, big question … perhaps she just decided to let this one go to the dogs … and perhaps She’s now well and truly tempted to go to her cupboard again to try a different recipe?

 … but could She ever create anything as … delectable, exciting, tasty … well, words completely fail me …  what can I say, as … Bombe-Alaska … the only thing that comes to mind

… I do so very much like Bombe-Alaska!

Richard Scutter

The Journey of the Magi - T. S. Eliot

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The Journey of the Magi

‘A cold coming we had of it,

just the worst time of the year

for a journey, and such a long journey:

the ways deep and the weather sharp,

the very dead of winter.’

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

lying down in the melting snow.

There were times we regretted

the summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

and the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

and running away, wanting their liquor and women,

and the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,

and the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly

and the villages dirty and charging high prices:

a hard time we had of it.

At the end we preferred to travel all night,

sleeping in snatches,

with the voices singing in our ears, saying

that this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,

wet, below the snow-line, smelling of vegetation,

with a running stream and a water-mill beating the

                    darkness,

and three trees on the low sky.

And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,

six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,

and feet kicking the empty wine-skins.

But there was no information, so we continued

and arrived at evening, not a moment too soon

finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,

and I would do it again, but set down

This set down

This: were we led all this way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen Birth and

                 Death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

hard and bitter agony for us, like Death our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

but no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

with an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.

T. S. Eliot (1927)

Commentary ...

Recounts the journey of the Magi (3 wise men) to the birth of Christ to pay homage (Re: - Matthew 2 v1-12).

One of a series of lyric poems called ‘The Ariel’ poems published as Christmas poems over a five year period from 1927.

The first five lines are taken from a sermon by Lancelot Andrews – Bishop of Winchester (1555 – 1626).

The poem is a dramatic monologue spoken by one of the wise men outlying the difficulty of the journey.

Three lines of regret balanced by ten lines on the difficulties with camels, the drivers the conditions and the environment. But they continue their ‘quest’ against their better judgement … and travel in darkness (spiritual darkness).

Then a new birth in the journey an awakening … at dawn … winter disappearing with the snow and vegetation … you could say a crossing through a symbolic waste land to something more.

The journey is from death to life in both a physical and spiritual sense … from the death of the old life ... of palaces and silken girls bringing sherbet ... to the start of a new life. This is symbolised by perhaps the most important line of the poem …

‘An old white horse galloped away in the meadow’. (Re: white horse - see Revelations 6: 2 and 19: 11).

Time is represented by the running stream, the water-mill beating the unknown future which is glimpsed unknowingly by this wise man in the foreshadowing of the crucifixion …the three trees (Golgotha), the dicing for silver … and symbolically the vine leaves become empty wine casks to be kicked around.

… then the arrival at precisely the ‘appointed time’ to a ‘satisfactory’ place.

In the last section the wise man reflects back and contemplates the meaning of this event … a Birth and a Death … with more prominence given to the Death than the traditional joy of Birth … the death of the old order … and note the clever change in the wise men returning to their places not their palaces … but the old order still persists though it is now alien and conquered. The narrator glad when the old order has gone ... when times can be changed for the better …now a stranger in the community … and in the traditional religious sense glad to see the death of ‘sin’ and a transformation beyond a personal transformation ... (however long this might take of course.)

Footnote …

T. S. Eliot became an Anglican in 1927 … this poem is a symbol of his spiritual journey from doubt to spiritual faith. It is the drama through his waste land to a life of a new awakening and represents TSE’s own internal spiritual development. His religious development expands later in another important work – The Four Quartets (1943).

Galled – abnormal vegetable growth on a plant – appropriate description for a camel … probably carrying a large load too

Refractory – stubborn, unmanageable

Sherbet - a powdered confection eaten dry or used to make effervescent drinks.

Report Card 2011 - Limerick

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Report Card 2011

could do better, could do much better

there once came a God from the sky

who looked on the Earth with a sigh

Oh what a disgrace!

that Human Race

so he returned back up to the sky

Richard Scutter 1 January 2012

2012 - will we leap forward or lurch backwards?

How was your report card?

... and is God still hanging around in your World?

Happy Old Year to Everyone

Christmas Day - Haiku

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Christmas Day

this one special day

    continues to make each day

special for everyone

Richard Scutter

Christmas Greetings to all

A Visit from St. Nicholas - Henry Livingston

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A Visit from St. Nicholas

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all
   through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even
   a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the
   chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would
   be there.
The children were nestled all snug
   in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced
   in their heads.

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in
   my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long
   winter's nap.
When out on the lawn there arose
   such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what
   was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like
   a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up
  the sash.

The moon on the breast of the
   new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to
   objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes
   should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight
   tiny reindeer.
With a little old driver, so lively
   and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be
   St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers
   they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called
   them by name!
"Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer
   and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner
   and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of
   the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash
   away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild
   hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount
   to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers
   they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St.
   Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on
   the roof
The prancing and pawing of each
   little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was
   turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with
   a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head
   to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with
   ashes and soot.
A bundle of toys he had flung
   on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just
   opening his pack.

His eyes - how they twinkled! his dimples
   how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like
   a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like
   a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white
   as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in
   his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head
   like a wreath.

He had a broad face and a little
   round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a
   bowlful of jelly!
He was chubby and plump, a right
   jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite
   of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of
   his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing
   to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight
   to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned
   with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of
   his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney
   he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team
   gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down
   of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove
   out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all
   a good-night!"

by Henry Livingston, Jr. (1823) *

Footnote …

A Christmas poem both in German and English …

When it was translated from the English to German in 1947 by Erich Kastner the lines in italics were not included. The reindeer names Donner and Blitzen are those used by Kastner.

 *see this Web link - http://german.about.com/library/blkaestner_nikolaus.htm.

Upon the Lonely Moor -Lewis Carroll

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I met an aged, aged man
Upon the lonely moor:
I knew I was a gentleman,
And he was but a boor.
So I stopped and roughly questioned him,
“Come, tell me how you live!”
But his words impressed my ear no more
Than if it were a sieve.

He said, “I look for soap-bubbles,
That lie among the wheat,
And bake them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men”, he said,
“Who sail on stormy seas;
And that’s the way I get my bread--
A trifle, if you please.”

But I was thinking of a way
To multiply by ten,
And always, in the answer, get
The question back again.
I did not hear a word he said,
But kicked that old man calm,
And said, “Come, tell me how you live!”
And pinched him in the arm.

His accents mild took up the tale:
He said, “I go my ways,
And when I find a mountain-rill,
I set it in a blaze.
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowland’s Macassar Oil;
But fourpence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil.”

But I was thinking of a plan
To paint one’s gaiters green,
So much the colour of the grass
That they could ne’er be seen.
I gave his ear a sudden box,
And questioned him again,
And tweaked his grey and reverend locks,
And put him into pain.

He said, “I hunt for haddocks’ eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat-buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold,
Or coin of silver-mine,
But for a copper-halfpenny,
And that will purchase nine.

“I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search the flowery knolls
For wheels of hansom cabs.
And that’s the way” (he gave a wink)
“I get my living here,
And very gladly will I drink
Your Honour’s health in beer.”

I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I duly thanked him, ere I went,
For all his stories queer,
But chiefly for his kind intent
To drink my health in beer.

And now if e’er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe;
Or if a statement I aver
Of which I am not sure,
I think of that strange wanderer
Upon the lonely moor.

Lewis Carroll 1856

Upon the lonely moor … comments …

Lewis Carroll was motivated to write this poem after reading Wordsworth’s poem ‘Resolution and Independence’

S1 …definite arrogance and class distinction … judgement on sight … not interested in the aged man … and superficially a question is asked while not interested in any reply … will this colour future interaction

S2 … A nonsense reply … but it doesn’t matter … alternatively these may be the words that the non-listening gentleman hears (a translation) – because he doesn’t really care … the words from the aged man have a certain humility about them

S3 … The gentleman has a mathematical bent with interest in riddles (befitting of  Charles Hodgson … compare to Wordsworth’s poem when Wordsworth is thinking about poetry when talking to the leech gatherer)   … forces calm (a metaphorical kick?) then asks the same question … and interestingly pinches the poor fellow … showing arrogance and disrespect

S4 and S5 … again a lot of nonsense and non-comprehension …and again the Gentleman distracted by idle thoughts (Rowland’s Macassar Oil – a well-known Victorian beautifier for the hair - for the Upper Class) … the Gentleman again questions ... boxing ears and tweaking the aged man’s hair as though the poor fellow is a school boy and he a teacher

S6 and S7 … nonsense continued in the same vein with certain cynical references (waistcoat and hansom cabs) … the last two lines give recognition to the Gentleman (your Honour) in terms of offering a toast

S8 … the Gentleman’s thoughts are now complete (note - his thoughts are just as nonsensical) he can focus on the aged man and what he has heard … the only thing of any sense being the thank you toast … the question is - if he had listened or been more aware would he have heard different words … would he have been given different words?

S9 … whenever the Gentleman does something by mistake that is not fitting he thinks of the aged man who is living a non-fitting life at least to his frame of reference … and of course if he had been listening (or aware of what he was doing) would he have put his foot into the wrong shoe in the first place?

From the dictionary …

Gentleman … 1. a man of good breeding, education, and manners. 2. (as a polite form of speech) any man. 3. a male personal servant, or valet, especially of a man of social position: a gentleman's gentleman. 4. a man of good social standing by birth, especially one who does not work for a living.5. History a man above the rank of yeoman

Boor … 1. a rude or unmannerly person, 2. a peasant; a rustic.3. an illiterate or clownish peasant.4. a Dutch or German peasant.5. any foreign peasant.

Note ... See also Chapter 8 of Through the Looking Glass  … Alice talking to the White Knight with the text on which this was based