Quote: History never repeats itself but it rhymes (attrib Mark Twain 1970) plus question regarding John Robert Colombo

[Dan Goncharoff]

There is a similar notion expressed in The Christian Remembrancer in
October 1845:

"The vision recurs; the eastern sun has a second rise; history repeats
her tale unconsciously, and goes off into a mystic rhyme; ages are
prototypes of other ages, and the winding course of time brings us round
to the same spot again."

DanG

On 6/21/2010 5:08 PM, Garson O'Toole wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole<adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Quote: History never repeats itself but it rhymes (attrib Mark
>                Twain 1970) plus question regarding John Robert Colombo
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I spent some time at the end of May attempting to trace "History never
> repeats itself but it rhymes", a phrase often attributed to Mark
> Twain. Barry Popik posted his results concerning this saying and close
> variants such as "History doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes" on June
> 5th. He always does fantastic work, so he preempted most of my results
>
> http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/history_doesnt_repeat_itself_but_it_does_rhyme/
>
> The first known appearance of the quote is 1970 and the New York Times
> contains an instance dated 1970 January 25 that Barry Popik found.
> Interestingly, the Times quotation is part of a query "seeking to
> locate the source" for the alleged Twain quote.
>
> I did find two additional cites that may be of interest. The first is
> a work by Canadian poet and editor John Robert Colombo that is part of
> a collection called Neo Poems published in 1970. The experimental poem
> consists of a series of quotations. Here are the first four lines of
> the poem [JRC]:
>
> A SAID POEM
>                                        for Ronald and Beatrice Gross
>
> "I have seen the future and it doesn't work," said Robert Fulford.
> "If there weren't any Poland, there wouldn't be any Poles," said Alfred Jarry.
> "We aren't making the film they contracted for," said Robert Flaherty.
> "History never repeats itself but it rhymes," said Mark Twain.
>
> [JRC] 1970, Neo Poems by John Robert Colombo, A Said Poem, Page 46,
> Sono Nis Press. (Google books no preview; Verified on paper)
>
> Books sometimes have long lead times, so the poem may have been seen
> by many others before the official 1970 publication date.
>
> The second cite dated 1971 is a review of the Neo Poems collection.
> The reviewer,  Michael Hornyansky, singles out the supposed Mark Twain
> quote used by Colombo and calls it a "random gem" while indicating
> that he had not heard it before [UTQ]:
>
> And yet, when all that's said, these jackdaw packs are good
> entertainment, provoke twinges and grins and surmises in us as they do
> in him. Maybe a real poet will 'find' Colombo one day, and weld the
> scattered riches into gold. Meanwhile, I'm grateful for random gems
> that I might otherwise have missed, like Mark Twain's 'History never
> repeats itself but it rhymes.'
>
> [UTQ] 1971 Summer, University of Toronto Quarterly, Review Section:
> Poetry by Michael Hornyansky, Page 375, Number 4, University of
> Toronto Press. (Google Books snippet view; Google Books date of 1969
> is inaccurate; Verified on paper)
>
> Do any list members know John Robert Colombo? He might have notes that
> reveal where he obtained the quote attributed to Twain.
>
> Garson O'Toole
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org