So the 19th Century had its own William Hung! I’m surprised to see that so-bad-it’s-good art was appreciated when culture was more uniform and people were far less deferential about their beliefs. I guess our rapid technological progress makes it easy to overestimate how much different we are from our predecessors on a human level. Our baser instincts still find ways to outshine our virtues and the scar tissue of worldly cynicism dictates that we should laugh sardonically at the effervescent enthusiasm of the inept.

Living after modernist/post-modernist poetry and rap music, McGonagall’s metrical errors are far less offensive than they probably were to his contemporaries but there’s still something humorously tone deaf about how mechanically he invokes construction practices while commemorating a tragedy in “The Tay Bridge Disaster”:   

“I must now conclude my lay

By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay

That your central girders would not have given way,

At least many sensible men do say,

Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,

At least many sensible men confesses,

For the stronger we our houses do build,