D. H. Lawrence, Ship of Death

[Janine]

The tennyson poem that echoes the most for me is Tennyson's last poem he wrote before he died:

Virgil, I love that poem. I have read it before. I reminds me also of this poem by Robert Browning:

Prospice by Robert Browning

Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form;
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that Death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And made me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers,
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave.
The black minute's at end,
And the elements' rage, the fiend voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain.
Then a light, then thy breat,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!

Virgil, I am not sure I agree with you on the idea of a Viking ship. It could be that Lawrence aludes to any type of ship or one of his own making. I think the ship is less specific and more symbolic of Lawrence himself being conveyed by a simplistic little boat. I still hold by the idea of the Etruscan's. I can't find my book, but I distinctly recall Lawrence pointing out the idea of the boats conveying the dead to the after-life. He respected the humbleness of the Etruscans and how they were usually not in the fore of history, such as the Greeks and Roman's were; more the idea of a lost civilization, that Lawrence felt this affinity to. I don't think in the end, he would be thinking of the Vikings, as much as the Etruscan's and their lost civilization. I will try to dig up some more to support this idea.

Virgil, I do find that your contrast of Hamlet and Lawrence is quite an interesting paragraph and thought. I had not thought about it quite that way, but I think you are right-on with the differences.

So, do you think Oats is accurate in the interpretation of the poem? I felt it was quite insightful. I wish to read the rest of the commentaries I found online. Wow, this is a really good discussion. I also need to review all that has been written in this thread so far.

[Virgil]

Virgil, I am not sure I agree with you on the idea of a Viking ship. It could be that Lawrence aludes to any type of ship or one of his own making. I think the ship is less specific and more symbolic of Lawrence himself being conveyed by a simplistic little boat. I still hold by the idea of the Etruscan's. I can't find my book, but I distinctly recall Lawrence pointing out the idea of the boats conveying the dead to the after-life. He respected the humbleness of the Etruscans and how they were usually not in the fore of history, such as the Greeks and Roman's were; more the idea of a lost civilization, that Lawrence felt this affinity to. I don't think in the end, he would be thinking of the Vikings, as much as the Etruscan's and their lost civilization. I will try to dig up some more to support this idea.

Virgil, I do find that your contrast of Hamlet and Lawrence is quite an interesting paragraph and thought. I had not thought about it quite that way, but I think you are right-on with the differences.

So, do you think Oats is accurate in the interpretation of the poem? I felt it was quite insightful. I wish to read the rest of the commentaries I found online. Wow, this is a really good discussion. I also need to review all that has been written in this thread so far.

Janine you jogged my memory. There are ships in Etruscan mythology. Here:

The scenes are a departure from earlier scenes of a happy afterlife, and depict a view of the underworld inhabited by hideous demons. This is one of the few tombs which depict Charon (Etruscan Charun) as the ferryman, in the Greek tradition. However all the demons are typically Etruscan in terms of iconography. In most cases, Charun is seen at the entrance to the underworld, carrying a large mallet. The probable use of this mallet was to open the city gates to Hades. It has been suggested that the gatekeeper at an Etruscan city would have been equipped with a similar mallet to unlock the huge wooden beams that held it secure.

http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/tardemons.html

It seems that Etruscan tombs had a lot of imagery on the transition to the next world, and perhaps lawrence is alluding to it. Perhaps you are right. Surf through here: http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/tombs.html

Yes i think Oates was correct in her interpretation.

[Janine]

Janine you jogged my memory. There are ships in Etruscan mythology. Here:

http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/tardemons.html

It seems that Etruscan tombs had a lot of imagery on the transition to the next world, and perhaps lawrence is alluding to it. Perhaps you are right. Surf through here: http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/tombs.html

Yes i think Oates was correct in her interpretation.

Oh good, I like jogging your memory, Virgil! ..shaking things up a bit.... LOL

Well, this fits perfectly. I know my memory did not fail me. In the book, you take the journey right there with Lawrence and you discover what he sees as he encounters it.

This part is very significant and I think fits the poem:

The Etruscan obsession with elaborate burials leads us to suppose that they may have had an underlying belief, similar to the Egyptians that a part of the soul remained with the body, or at least that the body was important for the afterlife. Having said that, the earliest grave sites were cremations, with the ash being retained either in biconical urns, or urns fashioned to represent huts.

I had been thinking of this idea of the body being reborn; that would fit Lawrence's view of blood and flesh being wholely important, even in the afterlife....interesting...As, we know, Lawrence's body was cremated, and later it was put into the shrine in New Mexico with a phoenix bird (his symbol) above the alter. This idea of the Etruscan's also fits in with Lawrence's idea of ritual.

[Virgil]

I agree Janine.

[Janine]

Cool, Virgil. I should post a photo of Lawrence's shrine. I will also check out the timeline book; it might reveal something about when he was writing this poem; he may have commented himself.

Just found this site called Poets & Writers and an article of some interest about Lawrence's views on the Etruscan's. Here is an excerpt from

Poets & Writers http://www.pw.org/content/door_soul_postcard_tuscia

The Door of the Soul: Postcard From Tuscia
by Linda Lappin

Lawrence's last pilgrimage led him to the Etruscan ruins north of Rome. His idea was to write a travel book about the twelve great cities of Etruscan civilization. (The Etruscans were a sophisticated people who settled in the Italian peninsula between 900 and 800 B.C. and brought with them commerce and industry, greatly influencing the rise of the Roman kingdom.) Lawrence rejected the contemporary, scholarly views of the time: that Etruscans were inferior to the ancient Romans. Lawrence's approach to the Etruscans was highly personal and unscientific, yet his book, Etruscan Places, has shaped modern readers' ideas of this vanished people more than any other text.

Traveling on foot and by mule cart, Lawrence explored Tuscia-a wild, wooded area between Rome and Tuscany, where the center of Etruscan culture was located. He visited the frescoed tombs of Tarquinia and the rougher rock tombs of Cerveteri, as well as the sites of Vulci and Volterra. In the Etruscans, Lawrence found a life-affirming culture which exalted the body and which saw death as a journey towards renewal. The art decorating their tombs, eloquently described in Etruscan Places, bears witness to their faith in an unending joy.

The parts I bolded up I believe fit the ideas in the poem.

[jinjang]

Thank you, Virgil, for the explanation on different versions of the poem. It was indeed informative. I have never seen a draft of a Korean poem and Korean poems are always in its final version. I was rather confused about different versions of a poem.

It was unintentional if I gave an impression of disliking the poem. It is a captivating poem, even though my initial pang of impression (I tend to like poems that bring out strong emotion in me) has subsided. I thank also JBI for posting the poem for discussion.

Anyone think the apples though are a reference to Frost's After Apple Picking, or is that just too big a stretch?

Frost's Apple seems to be a seize-the-day kind of apple, while an apple in this poem seems to be metaphoric as our decaying body. I really appreciate your connecting other poems or plays to this one, especially Hamlet.

[Dark Muse]

I had thought the apples were from the Biblical reference of the apple, and the suggestion of the fall of man, as well as brining death into the world.

And it is time to go, to bid farewell
to one's own self, and find an exit
from the fallen self.

Here it talks about the fallen self in relation to the apple.

Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.

The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.

And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
Ah! can't you smell it?
And in the bruised body, the frightened soul
finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold
that blows upon it through the orifices.

I think the imagery here can also allude to the idea of the Biblical appel, the grimness that will come when the appel falls, and the bruised body and frightened soul. As well as the arrival of death in the air.

And there are other Bibilca refrences which appear within the poem.

[Paulclem]

This discussion is very interesting with loads of new info. Its going to take me a while to catch up. Thanks for your contributions. This is the kind of thing I'm looking for in a literature forum - brilliant!

[Paulclem]

I had thought the apples were from the Biblical reference of the apple, and the suggestion of the fall of man, as well as brining death into the world.

I like the apple imagewith its connoations of fall, knowledge and the self spoiled by life. It's a powerful image to combine with the actual bruising of apples.

There is a strong sense of struggle in the poem - it's almost as if he is convincing himself of death with the repeated

We are dying

I wonder why he doesn't use I am dying? Of course the poem contains exhortation to build the ship of death to others, but was it too hard to wite I? Understandable if so - perhaps a little too personal - though I think it must take a great personal effort to face up to and write about your own imminent death.

I also get the feeling hat he is grasping for comfort. He can't exhort the Gods, but holds onto some reincarnatory or resurrection belief. Is that why he packs the poem with so many links to mythology? He rejected science - he didn't get on with conventional Christianity. Where does his belief settle? Perhaps the unfinished boat idea is precisely this, that he has not resolved these things in his own spiritual life.

I also find it quite in Lawrence's character that he doesn't go along with the idea that Roman civilistion wasn't superior to the Eutruscans. Isn't that just like him to buck the current trend?

[Dark Muse]

I do not get the feeling that he uses "we" isteand of "I" just becasue it is too hard to write I am dying, but I think it is just a simple recgonition and explination of the truth. I do not think poem is meant to be purely about a single individual being, but rather about man in general.

Though it may be been written in an attempt of preparation of his own death, I do not think it is meant to be purely about his personal death but about death of man as a whole.

[Paulclem]

I just find that the first person has more impact upon the reader who reads I am dying rather than we, which does not prelude the universal message, but brings this universal message to the individual.

Just speculating though.

[Virgil]

It is quite intersting that it's not in first person. In some stanzas we get a general "man" sort of person and in some there is a second person "you" and in some there is a first person plural "we" and "us." Two thoughts. First I think Lawrence is uniting humanity into this, a common shared exeprience. It strikes me as a tone of a preacher with a sermon. Certainly not uncommon for Lawrence to be preaching. Second, very little of Lawrence is in first person. I don't think any of his novels are in first person and out of the dozens of short stories and novelas only a few. Many of his poems are in first person, but still a significant portion are not. For a poet, he seems to eschew the first person more so than most poets who seem to embrace it. I don't think Lawrence felt comfortable as a rule in first person. Now why this is not in first person, it's probably anyone's guess.

[Dark Muse]

I just find that the first person has more impact upon the reader who reads I am dying rather than we, which does not prelude the universal message, but brings this universal message to the individual.

Just speculating though.

It is my impression that the primiary emphasis of this poem is meant to be the universal, not the individual, and while saying "I" may not explicitly exclude the universal, it would put more of an emphaish on a personal individual death, rather than that of man as a whole.

[Janine]

This discussion is very interesting with loads of new info. Its going to take me a while to catch up. Thanks for your contributions. This is the kind of thing I'm looking for in a literature forum - brilliant!

Paulclem, you should join in with our D.H.Lawrence Short Story discussion group; it really gets lively and interesting in that thread. I think you would like and find it fascintating. For the last month, we have been taking a break; but perhaps soon, I will choose another story and start it up again. Hope others from here join in as well.

Paulclem, I don't think I properly welcomed you to this forum, so welcome! Please forgive me.

I am glad someone started this discussion, because it got such a great response and so many terrific ideas have been expressed on the imagery and meaning of the poem. We started a discussion of the Lawrence Tortoise Poems awhile back, but we suspended it when we got to one of the last one. It's not really suspended but rather on hold. You may want to check out that thread as well. It's probably a number of pages back by now.

I am going now to read all the posts since yours above - very interesting what everyone is saying.

[Paulclem]

Thanks Janine. It's been a while since I read any of his novels. I'd be interested to have a look. I do like his poetry - particularly Bavarian Gentians - which is one of my favourite poems and relates to our current discussion. I'm really enjoying this thread.