I found the end of the far reaches of the Internet today. The Internet is a very big place with information on virtually everything…
…except for a full version of Robert Southey’s epic poem, "A Tale of Paraguay" published in 1825. Southey, who? Thou might aske if ye, like mee, be navght an accoemplished scholare of English literatur. You know, Southey, the English poet who was a member of the "Lake Poets" which including the distinguished William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was Southey who first penned the famous children’s story, "The Three Bears." I read about Southey’s tale of Paraguay in another book and wanted to read it. Southey never visited Paraguay, but he used lands such as Paraguay (and Brazil and the American frontier) as settings to extrapolate his political ideals. In "A Tale of Paraguay," Southey turned the prose of Jesuit Priest Martin Dobrizhoffer into an allegory promoting the idea of missionary colonialism in the British colonies, just as the Spaniards and Portuguese permitted in their colonial empires.
I searched the Web for a full version of this poem and found several books on Southey’s poetry, but I could not find a full version of his poem. Instead, I found snippets of it available here for your reading pleasure (click on the links):
Unfortunately, to read the entire poem, I have to locate a book of Southey’s poetry and either check it out from the library or buy it online. The copyright on this poem expired years ago, so "A Tale of Paraguay" is an excellent example of a work in the public domain that should be available online. Of course, some publishers are still profiting from Southey’s work by publishing collections or analyses of his poetry.
Today, I found the end of the Internet universe. His name is Robert Southey.
Umm… can we get back to the wine discourse. 🙂