PoemoftheWeek

[blp]

It's an old name for Istanbul / Constantinople.

...and its significance would be, I think, though I can't offer a very complete or reliable history, that it was the capital of empire in Europe and the Mediterranean, prior to power shifting to Rome, and, as such, also a capital of culture. Byzantine art is exemplified by icon painting - lots of gilding, flatness and stylisation - a style that continued for a long time in the Roman Empire before early Renaissance artists looked back to Greek classicism for a greater naturalism. Yeats is alluding to and yearning for the arch artifice of Byzantine art - paralleling other modernist breaks with the lineal progression from Renaissance classicism that had characterised western art for some five centuries.

[Virgil]

...and its significance would be, I think, though I can't offer a very complete or reliable history, that it was the capital of empire in Europe and the Mediterranean, prior to power shifting to Rome, and, as such, also a capital of culture. Byzantine art is exemplified by icon painting - lots of gilding, flatness and stylisation - a style that continued for a long time in the Roman Empire before early Renaissance artists looked back to Greek classicism for a greater naturalism. Yeats is alluding to and yearning for the arch artifice of Byzantine art - paralleling other modernist breaks with the lineal progression from Renaissance classicism that had characterised western art for some five centuries.
Your history is a little off. Byzantium became Rome's second capital in the 4th century AD. When Rome and the western half of the empire collasped (arguably attributed to 476 AD) the eastern half continued with Constantinople [Byzantium is the original Greek name of town that was there prior to Emperor Constantine making it a major city 331(? I think)] as the capital, and we have come to reffer to that culture as the Byzantines, but they still considered themselves "Romanoi," the continuation of the Roman culture, even to the end in the 15th century. I think you're right to assume that Yeats is identifying with the art of the Byzantines. It's not clear to me what period of Byzantine art he's referring to, the art of the 6th century under emperor Justinian or the art during the middle ages.

[rabid reader]

From a religious aspect, which may proove valuble. After the split of Roman birthed the first division in Christaianity. Byzantium founded the Eastern Orthadox Church... this division was made final when the crusaders invaded Constanitopal, during the First Crusade, and had a hooker dance on the alter of the EO's holiest church.

[Virgil]

From a religious aspect, which may proove valuble. After the split of Roman birthed the first division in Christaianity. Byzantium founded the Eastern Orthadox Church... this division was made final when the crusaders invaded Constanitopal, during the First Crusade, and had a hooker dance on the alter of the EO's holiest church.
Well, this perspective is pretty wrong.

Political divsion occured technically in 1054, referred to as the Schism. That's the political official division. Cultural divsion was occuring even before the western half of the empire collasped in the 5th century. First crusade occured in 1095.

Crusaders sacked Constantiople in 1204, the fourth crusade.


a hooker dance on the alter of the EO's holiest church
What? Where is that from?


Anybody for discussing the poem? I don't think the East-West Church split is relevant.

[Petrarch's Love]

It's not clear to me what period of Byzantine art he's referring to, the art of the 6th century under emperor Justinian or the art during the middle ages.

Virgil--My Norton glosses the line "As in the gold mosaic of a wall" as a reference to the mosaics in Hagia Sophia. It's unclear whether that's coming from something they know about Yeats or the editor's imagination though. In any case, I thought I'd offer a couple of pics. as a visual aid for those who aren't familiar with the Byzantine style (and for the enjoyment of those who are).
http://www.ou.edu/class/ahi4263/byzslides/099-1.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/31/44381159_feae588043_m.jpg
http://www.turkishodyssey.com/gallery/images/s0024.jpg
http://demo.lutherproductions.com/historytutor/basic/early/genknow/images/alexandriantheo.jpg
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ikon/ca5.gif

The second and third shots of the interior really show how mosaic could look like "sages standing in god's holy fire."

Here's a quote from Yeats I found in the Norton notes:


"I think that in early Byzantium, maybe never before or since in recorded history, religious, aestehtic, and practical life were one, that architects and artificers...spoke to the multitude in gold and silver. The painter, the mosaic worker, the worker in gold and silver, the illuminator of sacred books were almost impersonal, almost perhaps without conciousness of individual design, absorbed in their subject matter and that vision of a whole people."

[jackyyyy]

I like it, Virgil, and more each time I read it. Though my view of it is still forming, I can write something.

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

The 'Sensual music' is reproduction, life's rythme, and the intellect of life does not 'really' change, just continues/repeats. He shows this, mortality and the process of life's things. The first stanza, 'One another's arms', he is pointing out life again, and how 'he' does not fit or want 'that'.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.

He writes God's holy fire, so I assume he means the Christian God since it's singular, and he then writes, 'as in', so he is comparing. The 'singing-masters' term makes him sound a little irreverend. He calls them '"O" sages', which came across both ways to me - sarcastic or normal. I don't think its ambiguous if its true that he is comparing the one Christian God with the choice here. He references Byzantine, its art and culture, which points us at that information, and then by the final stanza he seems to go up a gear.. he is clear he wants that 'type' of immortality. In fact, he now welcomes it. Greek soldiers, icondom was bestowed on them by supernatural somethings. Life as a song that can only repeat is limited, happy/unhappy, and immortality, as this 'icon', is his choice.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

He is acknowledging his mind is everything, welcoming the supernaturals to take him away, to solve his heart. He wants no more heart.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,

'I shall NEVER' is strong here, like he is spitting it out.

I fell wrong of, ', perne in a gyre' .. first thought of a leg in a swirl of something (beer). 'perne/a' shows up in other languages. Can anyone offer up the official meaning of this expression, as it sits in this poem?

[Virgil]

Let me give this a kick start. Here's how I would summarize the stanzas:

Stanza 1: The mortatlity of the natural world
Stanza 2: The mortality of man
Stanza 3: The purging of mortal flesh into immortality
Stanza 4: The permanence of immortal form


Petrarch - Those are beautiful images. It was Yeat's poem which made me go an explore the artistry of the Byzantines. The early Renaissance painters owe a bit to them. I would not be surprised if the works you pasted here were prior to the Italian Renaissance and a comparison would show just how far ahead the Byzantines were artistically.



I fell wrong of, ', perne in a gyre' .. first thought of a leg in a swirl of something (beer). 'perne/a' shows up in other languages. Can anyone offer up the official meaning of this expression, as it sits in this poem?
Jacky - I think we discussed "gyre" when we discussed Yeat's "The Second Coming", a few pages back in this thread. I think he means it to be a spiraling corkscrew motion. The note (from The Selected Poems and Two Plays of WBY)I have for "perne in a gyre" for this poem is the folllowing: "swoop down in a whirling movement".

[jackyyyy]

I wondered if that was commonly accepted. Okay, so we all onboard with that, and I checked on perne after I posted, Greek. Possibly, and since its a thread for Yeats, it explains his drive in these message - I am seeing more than a poem here, a statement.

[chmpman]

Quoted from my Norton Anthology:

"I think that if I could be given a month of Antiquity and leave to spend it where I chose, I would spend it in Byzantium a little before Justinian opened St. Sophia and closed the Acadamy of Plato [6th cent. CE]... I think that in early Byzantium, maybe never before or since in recorded history, religious, aesthetic and practical life were one, that architect and artificers...spoke to the multitude and the few alike. The painter, the mosaic worker, the worker in gold and silver, the illuminator of sacred books, were almost impersonal, almost perhaps without the consciousness of individual design, absorbed in their subject matter and that the vision of a whole people." - WB Yeats in A Vision

I thought this might help. I'm glad you chose the Yeats, I just began studying a couple of his poems for a class but this wasn't one of them chosen by the professor. We did get to listen to Yeats read his poem "Lake Isle of Innisfree" though.

In the last stanza one of the things that sort of jumps out at me is the repeated use of the word "gold". He really seems to hammer (no pun intended) that into the mind of the reader. Doesn't Plato have some sort of parable about gold and wisdom? I thought there might be some connection here but I don't remember what it is that I remember that from.

[jackyyyy]

But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Its derision, to be wise on a bough to drowsy Emperors, or be humble and useful/decorative to Lords and Ladies. Greek Goddish pranking??, and it reminds me of Plato. I wonder if Yeats is laughing at himself here, he was a 'sage' afterall.

[Petrarch's Love]

Petrarch - Those are beautiful images. It was Yeat's poem which made me go an explore the artistry of the Byzantines. The early Renaissance painters owe a bit to them. I would not be surprised if the works you pasted here were prior to the Italian Renaissance and a comparison would show just how far ahead the Byzantines were artistically.

Yes, the Hagia Sophia mosaics in the pictures I posted were indeed prior to the Italian Renaissance, mostly about ninth century AD. In Italy the truly stunning 11th to 14th century Byzantine mosaics in San Marco, Venice (see below), as well as the mosaics in Ravenna and the ceiling of the baptistry in Florence were no doubt an influence on the art of the early Renaissance. I was wondering if it were possibly these mosaics in Italy that Yeats might even have had in mind or if he had actually travelled to Byzantium. Does anyone know?

San Marco, Venezia (But the pic. doesn't do it justice. It's absolutely incredible in person.)
http://homepage2.nifty.com/kenkitagawa/Venice-SanMarco-Mosaic-in.jpg

[ktd222]

Does anyone else get a sense of desperation to become immortalized in this poem-maybe even to a point beyond desperation?


Yes, I can see the fear of growing old and I can ‘enjoy’ the unembellished image of “A tattered coat upon a stick” but can he really be serious about that golden bird?

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing

Does he have control over such things as this?

[Virgil]

[QUOTE]Does anyone else get a sense of desperation to become immortalized in this poem-maybe even to a point beyond desperation?
You know, there may be a sense of desparation. He is on a quest:"I have sailed the seas..."


Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing


Does he have control over such things as this?
I supposed he does as an artist, if that is how to reach his concept of immortality.

[ktd222]

[QUOTE=ktd222]
You know, there may be a sense of desparation. He is on a quest:"I have sailed the seas..."


Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing


I supposed he does as an artist, if that is how to reach his concept of immortality.

Do you think that there may be resignation by him?

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

What I mean is: he is also neglecting the 'monuments of unageing intellect./Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.'

Maybe we should talk about the above in comparison with this line: 'to sing...of what is past, or passing, or to come.' How can he talk about 'past, or passing, or to come' if himself is avoiding ' the Beyond this world.' What I mean is that I get sense of him wanting to hold on to immortality-but immortality as it belongs in this mortal world.

[jackyyyy]

What I mean is: he is also neglecting the 'monuments of unageing intellect./Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.'

Maybe we should talk about the above in comparison with this line: 'to sing...of what is past, or passing, or to come.' How can he talk about 'past, or passing, or to come' if himself is avoiding ' the Beyond this world.' What I mean is that I get sense of him wanting to hold on to immortality-but immortality as it belongs in this mortal world.He is belittling mortal artifacts in favour of gold symbols, or platoish symbols that are supernatural amongst the mortal ones. I think you mean 'hold on to mortality???', he is still mortal as he writes this. This is what I recall of Greek and Roman existentialism, supernatural combined to the natural World. He is desperate to solve his heart, he would rather no heart, so I think he is desperate, but I also sense resignation, because of how he depicts himself as a supernatural, sitting on a bough for Emperors. He would rather this. Thanks for your comments, Ktd, I really wanted to see what someone else thought of it. Again here, I am wondering if he has a trite sense of humour, where he uses the word 'Never', for example. Why use that word, or am I reading too much into it??

Does anyone else get a sense of desperation to become immortalized in this poem-maybe even to a point beyond desperation?



Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing

Does he have control over such things as this?I think, overall, its a sense of resignation. It took me a few reads to come to this impression, and I think most will disagree with me, and I would like to know whether others think he is really being serious or not - kind of black humour.

[The Unnamable]

Does anyone else get a sense of desperation to become immortalized in this poem-maybe even to a point beyond desperation?
I see a lot of pretentious and rather precious aesthetic fartiness. The idea is silly and, as I said above, Yeats champions what I would consider gaudy artifice over what is natural and ‘real’. I don’t really care how ‘beautiful’ his imagery is, the idea of wanting to be a golden bird sitting in a golden tree in some imaginary place is laughable. I think he needed to get out of his Tower more.


What I mean is that I get sense of him wanting to hold on to immortality-but immortality as it belongs in this mortal world.
If I could feel such a tension, I might dislike the poem less – it would humanise it for me but I think he is so convinced by his own artifice that he retreats into his own rarefied world – one too far removed from the “fury and the mire of human veins” for me. The poem from which these words come is better.

[Virgil]

What I mean is: he is also neglecting the 'monuments of unageing intellect./Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.'
I'm not sure what you're saying, but I take these lines as saying that the mortal (or perhaps a better phrasing would be mortal flesh) neglects the monuments.


Maybe we should talk about the above in comparison with this line: 'to sing...of what is past, or passing, or to come.' How can he talk about 'past, or passing, or to come' if himself is avoiding ' the Beyond this world.' What I mean is that I get sense of him wanting to hold on to immortality-but immortality as it belongs in this mortal world.
That last line has always been a little mysterious to me. Is he avoiding the "beyond"? I take the poem as a quest toward the beyond.

Do people see the dichotemes Yeats has set up: mortality/flesh/ nature versus soul/intellect/artifice?

And how about the word "commend" in the first stanza? Why such an odd way of saying that the animals are in life's cycle?

And what exactly is the soul singing in the second stanza? He repeats singing several times.

Why is the city "holy" and how does the God thing fit in?

What about that last line?

And we could talk all day about the repetitions and sounds within the poem.

[jackyyyy]

I think he needed to get out of his Tower more.


If I could feel such a tension, I might dislike the poem less –
I think he is in a basement as he writes this, can't reach his tower, and would settle for a bough. I can feel the tension in the word 'never', and the imagery might be jealousy.


That last line has always been a little mysterious to me. Is he avoiding the "beyond"? I take the poem as a quest toward the beyond.

Do people see the dichotemes Yeats has set up: mortality/flesh/ nature versus soul/intellect/artifice?

And how about the word "commend" in the first stanza? Why such an odd way of saying that the animals are in life's cycle?

And what exactly is the soul singing in the second stanza? He repeats singing several times.

Why is the city "holy" and how does the God thing fit in?

What about that last line?

And we could talk all day about the repetitions and sounds within the poem.1. I think he wants a foot in both, supernatural and sit on a bough amongst mortals.
2. The dichotomy is clear but it seems wishy washy. If you were supernatural, why would you want to sit amongst mortals? There is something else going on here. Is he being humble, or (????).

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
3. Pointing out food is good. I think this is only extra imagery.
4. Singing = typical religious chanting.
5. They have a god who is head of that place. He starts with 'THAT', pointing at it. I think this is what hurts his heart, he feels spurned by life.. going at the 'tattered coats' and 'every tatter in its mortal dress'.
6. The last line is 'inevitable', his resignation and doctrine, and he would have some 'use/purpose' (Plato) in pointing this out to Lords and Ladies.

[ktd222]

I see a lot of pretentious and rather precious aesthetic fartiness. The idea is silly and, as I said above, Yeats champions what I would consider gaudy artifice over what is natural and ‘real’. I don’t really care how ‘beautiful’ his imagery is, the idea of wanting to be a golden bird sitting in a golden tree in some imaginary place is laughable. I think he needed to get out of his Tower more.

Ya, I don't think hes being realistic. But I think thats what realizing your own mortality can do to you: warp the very notion that death comes to every mortal being.
I hope before I'm 60yrs of age someone will discover the pill for everlasting life.



If I could feel such a tension, I might dislike the poem less – it would humanise it for me but I think he is so convinced by his own artifice that he retreats into his own rarefied world – one too far removed from the “fury and the mire of human veins” for me. The poem from which these words come is better.

For some reason I do get the feeling that there is tension in his search for immortality-even beyond sanity: 'Consume my heart away; sick with desire and fasten to a dying animal it knows not what it is; and gather me into the artifice of eternity.'

[The Unnamable]

I hope before I'm 60yrs of age someone will discover the pill for everlasting life.
By the time you get to thirty you’ll no longer wish this. The idea that this might go on forever is truly terrifying. There’d just be more Sudoku.

[Virgil]

1. I think he wants a foot in both, supernatural and sit on a bough amongst mortals.
2. The dichotomy is clear but it seems wishy washy. If you were supernatural, why would you want to sit amongst mortals? There is something else going on here. Is he being humble, or (????).

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
.
I take it that one has to go throught the mortal phase in order to reach "the artifice of eternity." The artists of the sixth century, the "sages" perhaps, have gone through it have reached "such a form."

How much does this owe (and how much does it contrast with) Keat's Odes, "To A Grecian Urn," and To A Nightingale"


I hope before I'm 60yrs of age someone will discover the pill for everlasting life.


I would take that pill in a heartbeat. I love life. you just got to know how to live it.

[Petrarch's Love]

I see a lot of pretentious and rather precious aesthetic fartiness. The idea is silly and, as I said above, Yeats champions what I would consider gaudy artifice over what is natural and ‘real’. I don’t really care how ‘beautiful’ his imagery is, the idea of wanting to be a golden bird sitting in a golden tree in some imaginary place is laughable. I think he needed to get out of his Tower more.

Unnamable--Think he'd been hanging out with these guys too long? ;) :

The Scholars

Bald heads forgetful of their sins,
Old, learned, respectable bald heads
Edit and annotate the lines
That young men, tossing on their beds,
Rhymed out in love's despair
To flatter beauty's ignorant ear.

All shuffle there; all cough in ink;
All wear the carpet with their shoes;
All think what other people think;
All know the man their neighbour knows.
Lord, what would they say
Did their Catullus walk that way?

[jackyyyy]

I take it that one has to go throught the mortal phase in order to reach "the artifice of eternity." The artists of the sixth century, the "sages" perhaps, have gone through it have reached "such a form."

How much does this owe (and how much does it contrast with) Keat's Odes, "To A Grecian Urn," and To A Nightingale"
The mortal phase, as I think you are referring, would be along Christian lines. Many of us have a picture of immortality and how to arrive, whether 30 is the resignation point or its 75, or if its been shoved down our throats or we were actually suddenly enlightened. We may face death situations at any time of life, and many times. Facing it is tough, or you neglect it, or you resign.

Who says eternity is an artifice? The Sages. Yeats may have been so collected in 'his' vision, that he was simply applying these images (Byzantium, Gold, etc) to further his message. Finally, what I see is a resignation, but also an offer: 'you might as well be useful'. Yes, be a Greek Urn.... as in dust to dust, be returned to the soil, to be useful, instead of a tattered up derelict, without use. I don't know enough of his other works to comment, but I can see he is fascinated with mythology, and that would be his education. We explain best by analogizing what we know the most against/for what we are projecting in discussion, as a poem in this case. Here, he is using his knowledge of Byzantium (a utopia of blind beauty and surrealism) to propell futility. When I wrote earlier that I wondered if he was being sarcastic or black humoured, atheist makes an easier envelope for the message, unless we are not atheist ourselves, of course.

[Petrarch's Love]

How much does this owe (and how much does it contrast with) Keat's Odes, "To A Grecian Urn," and To A Nightingale"

I had just been about to post the same question. Much as I do like the Yeats, I have always felt a little of what Unnamable expresses about this poem. I must say, given a choice, I prefer the Keats because both the poems you mention do seem--to me at least--to address the issue in a slightly deeper or more emotionally relateable way. Perhaps it is because Keats' urn is an object he is contemplating, not only as some symbol of the "artifice of eternity", but as an actual object created by someone not unlike himself. In Keats "Ode on a Grecian Urn" the eternity of art is rooted in the way the member of one generation can identify with what is produced by someone from a previous generation. Eternity is not for the individual but for the beauty in the world that will continue to be enjoyed by future people just as it was for the speaker of the poem. Art is not the provider, so much as the reminder of that beauty, and the acknowledgment of mortality and sadness is not only present but central to the argument of the poem.
Yeats personalizes this by specifically making himself a golden artifact, and hence he and his art are in some way handed the authority of being set apart from the rest of humanity. What the "golden bird" image lacks is that connection between the artwork and the flawed human maker of that object. It seems to suggest that Yeats himself is art itself in some way, rather than simply someone who creates things in order to remind people about the beauty in life. I think the last line is what saves him from coming across as too absurd though. The "what is past or passing or to come" does seem to acknowledge some sort of ongoing connection with life, a desire for immortality not seperate from the mortal world, to paraphrase someone earlier on this thread (ktd?).

[The Unnamable]

How much does this owe (and how much does it contrast with) Keat's Odes, "To A Grecian Urn," and To A Nightingale"
It’s far less convincing than either and seems to miss the point of both. Keats’s bird is a real one, even though he endows with a kind of immortality. His awareness of the real world is much more affecting than Yeats’s:


“Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.”

I’ve known enough of “the weariness, the fever and the fret” to prefer the Keats by miles (and I’m not that much of a fan of him, either) as well as find the Yeats pretentious, self-indulgent and silly.

Keats is no less concerned with aesthetics than Yeats but I agree with Petrarch’s Love here, especially “Perhaps it is because Keats' urn is an object he is contemplating, not only as some symbol of the "artifice of eternity", but as an actual object created by someone not unlike himself.”

When I wrote earlier that I didn’t see the tension in the Yeats poem, I had in mind the kind of tension that is in Keats. Remember that the scene on the urn is described as a “Cold Pastoral!” The 'Bold Lover' will never 'die' but he'll never plant that kiss either.

PS Do you know Desmond Skirrow’s parody of Ode on a Grecian Urn? -

“Gods chase
'round vase.
What say?
What play?
Don't know.
Nice, though.”

[Virgil]

It’s far less convincing than either and seems to miss the point of both.
I didn't make a point. I asked a question. I would agree. I don't have time now. Although you're (all, not just you) partially right, you guys are being a little harsh. He's an old man who has gone through the life and is now searching for something more. He's not saying this is how we should lead the bulk of our lives; he's talking about an after life.

[The Unnamable]

I didn't make a point. I asked a question. ... he's talking about an after life.
I didn’t mean that you’d missed the point but that Yeats had.

However, I don’t feel that he is talking about an afterlife so much as a state beyond life. Where’s “the fury and the mire of human veins”, Virgil? (Don’t tell me it’s in a different poem, I know that.)

[Virgil]

I didn’t mean that you’d missed the point but that Yeats had.
Oh, Ok.


However, I don’t feel that he is talking about an afterlife so much as a state beyond life.
I agree, but you (and the rest) are implying that it's at the expense of life. I don't feel that way. He has lived life. He understands the "sensual music" of those "dying generations." After all, what is the bird singing of, but the sensual music of life, of "what is past, or passing, or to come."


Where’s “the fury and the mire of human veins”, Virgil? (Don’t tell me it’s in a different poem, I know that.)
Yes, I know, that's "Byzantium" and he wrote that a few years after this one. Perhaps he had the same qualms you are pointing out here. While there is an element of escapisim here in "STB", I think the state beyond life requires him to experience life. Look there are plenty of Yeats poems that emphasize life's experience: his love poems, "Easter 1916", "A Prayer For My Daughter," (quite touching) and his "Crazy Jane" poems. In fact the Crazy Jane poems emphasizes the same things you want him to emphasize.

But even here I don't think he is minimizing the importance of life's experience. Look at the first stanza:

The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Let me bring you back to that question I asked about "commend." From M-W:


commend
Main Entry: com·mend
Pronunciation: k&-'mend
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin commendare, from com- + mandare to entrust -- more at MANDATE
transitive senses
1 : to entrust for care or preservation
2 : to recommend as worthy of confidence or notice
3 : to mention with approbation : PRAISE
intransitive senses : to commend or serve as a commendation of something

He is commending life. Here that bird is a real life bird, a Keatsian nightinggale, if you will. But now he is an "aged man," a "dying animal," and now is searching for eternal permanence, and he finds it in art (well, he's an artist). I take the purging in the third stanza as a metaphor for the dying process. And then, "once out of nature" he can become through his art, through his poem, the golden bird which will sing to subsequent generations. He going through the process of the "dying generations" (not avoiding it) is what allows him to sing.

[Grumbleguts]

I agree with a lot of the posts here. This is not one of my favourite Yeats Poems. To my mind Yeats was at his best when he stuck to Ireland and Irish politics, most of his metaphysical works leave me cold, with the exception of Second Coming. I have never seen why this poem is vaunted as one of his greatest and I am glad to see that I am not alone in that.

Read No Second Troy, Easter 1916 or The Lake Isle of Innisfree. They are among his best, this is just Muzak, it sounds dramating and meaningful but is essentially nothing but empty masturbation in rhyme.

[The Unnamable]

empty masturbation in rhyme.
Wasn’t that an early Led Zeppelin album? It included their hugely overrated “Stairway to Onan”.

[Petrarch's Love]

I agree, but you (and the rest) are implying that it's at the expense of life. I don't feel that way. He has lived life. He understands the "sensual music" of those "dying generations." After all, what is the bird singing of, but the sensual music of life, of "what is past, or passing, or to come."

Lest I be too quickly lumped in with "the rest," I thought I'd clarify that I agree with this point. Compared with Keats, I don't think this Yeats is as thorough and as deeply rooted in the human experience, but I don't think it's uprooted either. Considered purely on its own merits, rather than comparatively speaking, I don't know that I would classify it as completely absurd as Unnamable seems to think it is. As I said in my last post, that final line "what is past, or passing or to come" (partly a chiasmatic echo of the earlier "whatever is begotten, born or dies") in particular for me brings what might have otherwise escalated into an aesthetic daydream, back to a sympathy with the human experience, a return of the "sensual music of life" as Virg. so aptly puts it. So I'm somewhere between the two extremes in this debate. I do think it's quite a beautiful poem, but not perhaps as deeply reflective as some others I've come across.

There's a whole genre of poetry across the ages in which the poet expresses the idea of his own immortality through his art. For example, it's all over Shakespeare's sonnets (take #55: "Not marble nor the gilded monuments/ Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme"). This conversation has me thinking about the way poets chose to couch what is essentially the same claim about immortality through art. What is at stake when Shakespeare is contemplating immortality by describing his lover, another mortal creature; when Keat's is describing a man-made artifact; when Yeats is describing an imagined artifact? What claims are they making about the power of art over life when they give it power over death? Because "Sailing to Byzantium" is more abstracted from "the fury and the mire of human veins" so to speak, does that mean that it is in some way making a larger claim for the power and authority of the poet/artist who now stands in an omniscient god-like state with a body not "from any natural thing"? Is this in some way a stronger or weaker claim about the power of art than one in which art is more a reminder than an embodiment of the immortality of beauty?

OK, I'll stop throwing out questions now. Just thought that since Unnamable has alluded to it more than once and others might not be catching the allusion I'd post "Byzantium" (which isn't here on Lit. Net for some odd reason) with the appropriate line in bold (you can also find the signature of one of the members here ;) ):



Byzantium

The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.
Before me floats an image, man or shade,
Shade more than man, more image than a shade;
For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth
May unwind the winding path;
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.
Miracle, bird or golden handiwork,
More miracle than bird or handiwork,
Planted on the star-lit golden bough,
Can like the cocks of Hades crow,
Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud
In glory of changeless metal
Common bird or petal
And all complexities of mire or blood.
At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.
Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood,
Spirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood.
The golden smithies of the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity,
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.
--W.B. Yeats

[Petrarch's Love]

“Gods chase
'round vase.
What say?
What play?
Don't know.
Nice, though.”

:lol: Thanks Unnamable, I hadn't come across that before. Maybe I can make it easy on myself and assign this version rather than the original to my students next year. They might actually read all of this one without any recourse to spark notes. :nod:

[Virgil]

Wasn’t that an early Led Zeppelin album? It included their hugely overrated “Stairway to Onan”.
Hey, you know I beginning to think we agree on lots of things.

[jackyyyy]

Here, he is maybe not so romantic compared to some, but I think he could have painted it up a lot more that he actually did. Especially when I compare with the Keats that someone just posted. Yeats used his word space to build a picture of humanity and myth. I can't give any of the myth part a grain of salt, thats why its myth. But, the human part I can. I think this is where the Keats impression wins over with people, he is more relatable. As for efficacy, a golden bird endowed with supernatural powers is really no different to a live bird endowered with a something else, except in One Flew Over the Cookoos Nest. All poets colourize with different brushes and what Yeats did was more focused. I mean, it was not that hard to read, other than the perne gyre he threw in. Apart from Virgil, and I think I did with some reservations, no one else has really summed it up. What was his message, even if you think its silly or ludricous, what did he intend?


After all, what is the bird singing of, but the sensual music of life, of "what is past, or passing, or to come."
The bird is sitting in front of Lords and Ladies singing, "you silly fools" or "whos a pretty polly?". Its being compared to the Keats but I don't think there is any comparison to be made because he has a different message.

[ktd222]

Oh, Ok. I agree, but you (and the rest) are implying that it's at the expense of life. I don't feel that way. He has lived life. He understands the "sensual music" of those "dying generations." After all, what is the bird singing of, but the sensual music of life, of "what is past, or passing, or to come."

It is at the expense of his life. Hes obsessive about what had been. He doesn't want to let go, even if retaining life in this world means not being in possession of his own heart, his own soul. Hes 'sick with desire...' Hes clinging to whatever part of this world that will let him be a part of this world.
I don't know if 'what is past, or passing, or to come' means what you say, or means that people can't let go of the good part of their life.
A good analogy, although at a lower scope, are people like Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzy, etc, who come back from retirement believing they are still as good as they once were-just to find out that their not. This may not affect their past legacies, but it definity does tarnish the latter part of their life.
I see something like this happening in this Yeat's poem, but on a larger scale: his soul's life trapped in this mortal world.
This does not mean that I don't like this poem because I do.

[Virgil]

It is at the expense of his life. Hes obsessive about what had been. He doesn't want to let go, even if retaining life in this world means not being in possession of his own heart, his own soul. Hes 'sick with desire...' Hes clinging to whatever part of this world that will let him be a part of this world.
Frankly, ktd, I don't understand your point. It is at the expense of life, but he doesn't want to let life go? I thought the point was that he wants to let life go. It's not at the expense of life, because he's at the end of life. He's already lived it.


I don't know if 'what is past, or passing, or to come' means what you say, or means that people can't let go of the good part of their life.
A good analogy, although at a lower scope, are people like Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzy, etc, who come back from retirement believing they are still as good as they once were-just to find out that their not. This may not affect their past legacies, but it definity does tarnish the latter part of their life.
I see something like this happening in this Yeat's poem, but on a larger scale: his soul's life trapped in this mortal world.
I don't follow. I don't feel this analogy is apt.

[ktd222]

He's already lived it.

Ok, so when do you think life ends, when your in your 50's, 60's? Is he talking from beyond the grave?


I don't follow. I don't feel this analogy is apt

Thats because your stern with your point-of-view.


Frankly, ktd, I don't understand your point. It is at the expense of life, but he doesn't want to let life go? I thought the point was that he wants to let life go. It's not at the expense of life, because he's at the end of life.

Is this one of those statements where you pretend not to understand me. Once you live you life(in this world) thats it! move on. And he can't move on.

Wouldn't you rather do something else with the latter part of your life than dwell on the past?

[Virgil]

As I said in my last post, that final line "what is past, or passing or to come" (partly a chiasmatic echo of the earlier "whatever is begotten, born or dies") in particular for me brings...
):
I don't know what "chiasmatic" means but it sounds great! ;) There are all sorts of echoes and sound interconnections that make this such high art, for me. And yet it reads so smoothly as if no work actually went into it, as if it just rolled off his tongue. And perhaps it did.



There's a whole genre of poetry across the ages in which the poet expresses the idea of his own immortality through his art. For example, it's all over Shakespeare's sonnets (take #55: "Not marble nor the gilded monuments/ Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme"). This conversation has me thinking about the way poets chose to couch what is essentially the same claim about immortality through art...
It goes back at least to Horace, that I can think of. It must go back even further.


Because "Sailing to Byzantium" is more abstracted from "the fury and the mire of human veins" so to speak, does that mean that it is in some way making a larger claim for the power and authority of the poet/artist who now stands in an omniscient god-like state with a body not "from any natural thing"?
Too many questions. I'll just answer this one. I would characterize it as supernatural state, not "ominiscient god-like state," if we can percieve a difference. I still maintain that even in his supernatural state he's intimately linked to nature: singing of "the dying generations," and of "the mortal dress". I'm not sure I would characterize it as "power and authority." All the golden bird is doing is entertaining, as far as we can see. In fact, the Emperor doesn't seem to even want to be entertained. It seems the singing is for beauty's sake. Art for art's sake, perhaps?


Is this one of those statements where you pretend not to understand me. Once you live you life(in this world) thats it! move on. And he can't move on.

Wouldn't you rather do something else with the latter part of your life than dwell on the past?
Why do you say he can't move on. I read it as he questing for it. He's desiring it. I can't read the third stanza any other way:

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
"Come...and be" and "Consume," and "gather me."


Thats because your stern with your point-of-view.
:lol: Well, so are you. :nod:


Wouldn't you rather do something else with the latter part of your life than dwell on the past?
Oops, I didn't see this last question before. He's not dwelling on his personal past. He will sing of the sensual music (admittedly abstract) of life in a genereal sense, of the mortal dress. He's not being specific, I don't think.

[ktd222]

Look at the next post. I was playing with Image Insert and posted multiple times without knowing.


Why do you say he can't move on. I read it as he questing for it. He's desiring it. I can't read the third stanza any other way:

Ok then, does he achieve his quest? And if he does, what form does he take? I read the third stanza as a resignation:'be the singing-masters of my soul./consume my heart away/sick with desire and fastened to a dying animal it knows not what it is(as if); and gather me into the artifice.'

Check out this link:
http://courses.washington.edu/englhtml/engl481/dali.html


Well, so are you

Then we, ourselves are resigned to our point-of-view.

[Virgil]

Ok then, does he achieve his quest? And if he does, what form does he take? I read the third stanza as a resignation:'be the singing-masters of my soul./consume my heart away/sick with desire and fastened to a dying animal it knows not what it is(as if); and gather me into the artifice.'

Check out this link:
http://courses.washington.edu/englhtml/engl481/dali.html (http://)


I'm sorry, it won't let me open the link. But those are active verbs in the third stanza. I just don't see the resignation. I read it as he achieving his quest.


Then we, ourselves are resigned to our point-of-view.
I guess so.

[ktd222]

I'm sorry, it won't let me open the link. But those are active verbs in the third stanza. I just don't see the resignation. I read it as he achieving his quest.

We'll then, paste it into the address box above. I agree they are active verbs. And yes I do think he achieves his quest, but not in the way same way as you think. The resignation comes from the form he must take to be immortalized in this world.

[Virgil]

We'll then, paste it into the address box above. I agree they are active verbs. And yes I do think he achieves his quest, but not in the way same way as you think. The resignation comes from the form he must take to be immortalized in this world.
OK, I was able to open it. It's a Dali painting on time. So?

[The Unnamable]

What was his message, even if you think its silly or ludricous, what did he intend?
To quote Morrissey, “The passing of time and all of its sickening crimes”.

I didn’t know the word ‘Chiasmatic’, either. Having looked it up, I still don’t understand what it means in relation to the poem. I think the line ‘whatever is begotten, born, and dies’ is proleptic of the final line, which I take simply to refer to the past, present and future – the realm of time and change, which is the only place we exist. So the irony is that his wish to escape time by becoming a golden bird, a supreme work of art, if granted, means that he will be singing about the very things he had supposedly gotten away from. And look who his audience is. Perhaps that’s the fate of all art – to become some object no longer alive in the human sense, dispensing observations on being alive, to some elite. I suppose that’s sort of what has happened to Yeats.


I don't know that I would classify it as completely absurd as Unnamable seems to think it is.
Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.' You are all admiring the cut and quality of the Emperor’s new clothes. The idea of Yeats having written something absurd won’t strike you as quite so extreme if you read his guff about history as the movement of gyres in A Vision. Imagine if TS Eliot had put all his intellectual energy into astrology and then dropped acid. There is an unfeasibly sensible website dedicated to this nonsense. It has a nice animation of a ‘widening gyre’, though:

http://www.yeatsvision.com/

Give me the Yeats who wrote The Scholars and these lines any day:

“I might have thrown poor words away
And been content to live.”

“And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms!”



Is this in some way a stronger or weaker claim about the power of art than one in which art is more a reminder than an embodiment of the immortality of beauty?
This is where we differ. I’m not really interested in abstract, rarefied discussions about the power of art. I like my art with snot and blood on it. To quote from another of his poems,

”only an aching heart
Conceives a changeless work of art.”


So I'm somewhere between the two extremes in this debate.
“In moderation placing all my glory,
While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory.”

Alexander Pope The First Satire of the Second
Book of Horace, Imitated

So there’s me on the one side as a curmudgeonly Swift, you as Pope the moderate and…does this mean Virgil is Gay?



OK, I was able to open it. It's a Dali painting on time. So?
ktd222’s comments are an interesting reading of the poem. “The resignation comes from the form he must take to be immortalized in this world,” suggests that Yeats is aware of the absurdity of achieving immortality in the way he describes. The point of the Dali link is more in the bit of accompanying text than in the painting itself; “that which stands still stagnates”. Without the passing of time, there is no decay but no growth either, so no life. Both words are significant in ‘dying generations’.

[Virgil]

”only an aching heart
Conceives a changeless work of art.”


What poem is that from, BTW?


So there’s me on the one side as a curmudgeonly Swift, you as Pope the moderate and…does this mean Virgil is Gay?
Hey, I think that's the second time in a week you questioned my sexual orientation. :lol: Seriously, though, to my disgrace I am not familiar with the eighteen century poets. A class on them seems to have eluded me. I kind of get your references to Swift and Pope, but I'm not familiar with Gay.



ktd222’s comments are an interesting reading of the poem. “The resignation comes from the form he must take to be immortalized in this world,” suggests that Yeats is aware of the absurdity of achieving immortality in the way he describes. The point of the Dali link is more in the bit of accompanying text than in the painting itself; “that which stands still stagnates”. Without the passing of time, there is no decay but no growth either, so no life. Both words are significant in ‘dying generations’
Perhaps it is more of a wish than something he really expects. But the third stanza is an elaborate description of his transfiguration, and the fourth stanza he does talk of hammering his post life form into the golden bird. And I want to emphasize again, post life form. I still don't see the resignation.

Now I would like to ask the million dollar question that I have a hard time answering: Why is that "no country for old men?"

[jackyyyy]

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Notice the rythme here.

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

This only means he has past thus far through life. It does not mean he has 'searched' the seas.... for something. He was resigned to his fate before he started the first Stanza.

Not until the fourth stanza does he go up a tone with renewed resolve...

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

But such a form 'as'....

He is not saying he would be a Grecian goldsmith piece/ornament. He is saying he would be 'as'.

Perhaps that’s the fate of all art – to become some object no longer alive in the human sense, dispensing observations on being alive, to some elite. I suppose that’s sort of what has happened to Yeats.Its not alive in any sense, its an artifact. This is where he is mocking the blissful ignorant of Byzantium, inclusive the O sages, and why he 'pretends' himself to sit on a bough, to point it out to Lord and Ladies, which is exactly what art does, sitting in it's art galleries as a reminder. Nihilism means zero, you are gone, whoosh. I think this is his message, might as well be a trinket on the wall. When I think about it, thats a lot of paint for a little message, a quickie.


Now I would like to ask the million dollar question that I have a hard time answering: Why is that "no country for old men?"Old people don't look good hanging around discos.

[Petrarch's Love]

I don't know what "chiasmatic" means but it sounds great!


I didn’t know the word ‘Chiasmatic’, either. Having looked it up, I still don’t understand what it means in relation to the poem.

Sorry guys, I properly meant "chiastic," the adjective for "chiasmus." I usually use "chiastic," in fact I have no idea whatsoever where "chiasmatic" came from. Not sure where my brain was. :brickwall Chiasmatic has sometimes been used in this way, but evidently not for at least a century, and (as I found upon looking it up in the OED) is evidently usually used as some sort of medical term. Perhaps it's a sign I've been studying too hard when I'm starting to make up words--at least this one turned out to actually be a word. :lol: Well, lesson learned not to post absentmindedly while trying to relax the brain after a three hour poetics workshop with Derek Attridge (literary critic) encompassing everything from the new critics to the deconstructionists. :nod:

Anyway, I meant that I had seen the two lines as chiastic, in that I saw the elements in the first line--"begotten," "born," and "dies"--reversed in the final line with "past" corresponding to death, "passing" corresponding to birth into life, and "to come" corresponding with "begotten." Of course, after your justifiable confusion over my lamentable word choice made me look at these lines again, I realized that they could also be taken as much more straightforward parallelism, with "begotten" being what is past, birth, what is passing, and death what is to come. I suppose it's all a question of how you view the life cycle and how much you've allowed yourself to have been compelled by Yeats' artistic notion of rebirth.


Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.' You are all admiring the cut and quality of the Emperor’s new clothes. The idea of Yeats having written something absurd won’t strike you as quite so extreme if you read his guff about history as the movement of gyres in A Vision.

Lord, I was out of it when I posted. How could I have applied such an unseemly word as "seems" to The Unnamable?! Did I ever say Yeats couldn't write anything absurd? I am certain that he did so on more than one occasion. I only meant that in my opinion he is not being quite as absurd in this particular piece as you definitely (not seemingly) think he is. I'm not admiring the gold embroidery on the emperor's non-existent sleeve, but it looks to me as though he's still got on some boxers and an undershirt. (If you want to picture him naked that's your business).


“In moderation placing all my glory,
While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory.”

Alexander Pope The First Satire of the Second
Book of Horace, Imitated

So there’s me on the one side as a curmudgeonly Swift, you as Pope the moderate and…does this mean Virgil is Gay?


:lol: Thanks Unnamable. I think this is the first time anyone's made me the object of a quote from a Pope satire, and I've always liked this one. I'm honored. I'll let Virgil defend himself against this shocking innuendo that he wrote the Beggar's Opera. (Oh, I just saw Virg.'s post. Here's a link to the Wiki. info on John Gay, in case you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gay)

[The Unnamable]

What poem is that from, BTW?
Meditations In Time Of Civil War (section 3, My Table). The poem also contains the line, “Yet if no change appears/ No moon;”


I kind of get your references to Swift and Pope, but I'm not familiar with Gay.
John Gay was a friend of Pope and Swift. His most famous work was The Beggar’s Opera:

“Mackie was not Brecht’s original creation. Even the idea of The Threepenny Opera was not his, but was suggested to him in 1928 by Elisabeth Hauptmann, one of the more enduring of his throng of willing women. With her knowledge of English, she had been searching through material for him to use, and had come across The Beggar’s Opera, John Gay’s hugely successful 1728 parody of Italian opera, made by taking popular songs of the day and singing them to new satirical texts, lampooning politicians and opera singers alike. Gay’s central figure, the highwayman Macheath, became Mackie Messer, or Mack the Knife.”


Now I would like to ask the million dollar question that I have a hard time answering: Why is that "no country for old men?"
I agree with Jackyyy about why “That is no country…”. He simply feels that the country he is leaving is unsuitable for the aged – it’s teeming with life and full of young people enjoying themselves.


Lord, I was out of it when I posted. How could I have applied such an unseemly word as "seems" to The Unnamable?!
No need to be self-critical. I can only ever be thankful when someone sets me up with an opportunity to recite some of Hamlet’s lines. I still can’t believe that I’ll never tread the boards as the Dane. :( And I look so good in black doublet and hose.

[Virgil]

Meditations In Time Of Civil War (section 3, My Table). The poem also contains the line, “Yet if no change appears/ No moon;” .
Thanks.


John Gay was a friend of Pope and Swift. His most famous work was The Beggar’s Opera:

“Mackie was not Brecht’s original creation. Even the idea of The Threepenny Opera was not his, but was suggested to him in 1928 by Elisabeth Hauptmann, one of the more enduring of his throng of willing women. With her knowledge of English, she had been searching through material for him to use, and had come across The Beggar’s Opera, John Gay’s hugely successful 1728 parody of Italian opera, made by taking popular songs of the day and singing them to new satirical texts, lampooning politicians and opera singers alike. Gay’s central figure, the highwayman Macheath, became Mackie Messer, or Mack the Knife.”
Oh, that is very interesting. I never knew any of that.


I agree with Jackyyy about why “That is no country…”. He simply feels that the country he is leaving is unsuitable for the aged – it’s teeming with life and full of young people enjoying themselves.
Oh, you guys are saying the country is not Byzantium, but where he's coming from? I've always assumed Byzantium, but I think you're right. I've misread that all these years.

[Petrarch's Love]

I still can’t believe that I’ll never tread the boards as the Dane. And I look so good in black doublet and hose.

:lol: Now there's a performance I'd love to see.

[jackyyyy]

the country he is leaving is unsuitable for the aged – it’s teeming with life and full of young people enjoying themselves.

Oh, you guys are saying the country is not Byzantium, but where he's coming from?
The country he is leaving is 'his younger age', it was never Byzantium. Byzantium is 'this' point in time or 'this' condition and state.

[The Unnamable]

It’s Monday here and I haven’t posted a new one for 6 weeks so here goes.

In light of the kinds of discussions that have been taking place on the forum recently, this poem caught my eye. Should I even call it a poem? I’d be interested to see how people respond to it.


A Paragraph Made Up of
Seven Sentences Which Have
Entered My Memory Via Hearing Them
or Reading Them and Have Each
Left an Impression There Like the
Slender Scar Left by a Salamander
in a Piece of Rapidly Cooling
Igneous Rock

Gentlemen, which of these three vegetables: tomatoes, pumpkins, or squash, will your wives say most represents the part of their anatomy that has come to sag the most since your wedding night. There was no blood or anything but when I got there she was turning blue. It's forty-eight WABC degrees. We control the horizontal. Bachelor number three is a sales manager who collects Disney memorabilia. Missing coed found slain. All this in Encyclopedia Britannica III: American Indians, Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, The Reproductive System, Poisonous Animals and Plants, Atomic Energy, The Circus, Abominable Snowman, Napoleon and More…

CHUCK WACHTEL

[Virgil]

It’s Monday here and I haven’t posted a new one for 6 weeks so here goes.

In light of the kinds of discussions that have been taking place on the forum recently, this poem caught my eye. Should I even call it a poem? I’d be interested to see how people respond to it.


A Paragraph Made Up of
Seven Sentences Which Have
Entered My Memory Via Hearing Them
or Reading Them and Have Each
Left an Impression There Like the
Slender Scar Left by a Salamander
in a Piece of Rapidly Cooling
Igneous Rock

Gentlemen, which of these three vegetables: tomatoes, pumpkins, or squash, will your wives say most represents the part of their anatomy that has come to sag the most since your wedding night. There was no blood or anything but when I got there she was turning blue. It's forty-eight WABC degrees. We control the horizontal. Bachelor number three is a sales manager who collects Disney memorabilia. Missing coed found slain. All this in Encyclopedia Britannica III: American Indians, Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, The Reproductive System, Poisonous Animals and Plants, Atomic Energy, The Circus, Abominable Snowman, Napoleon and More…

CHUCK WACHTEL
Very interesting. Is the bold preface part of the poem and is there a title?

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I'm pretty sure that the bold type is the title - I've seen this before somewhere, I think.

[jackyyyy]

Fun, gossip, weather, television, sex, news and advertising; take your pick. I can select any one to get more, or let my car auto-search do it for me, and deepen the scar. As wearing as nature on our bodies, this time on our minds and souls, we are reshaped. I can guess the result will be seen ten thousand years from now.

[ktd222]

It’s Monday here and I haven’t posted a new one for 6 weeks so here goes.

In light of the kinds of discussions that have been taking place on the forum recently, this poem caught my eye. Should I even call it a poem? I’d be interested to see how people respond to it.


A Paragraph Made Up of
Seven Sentences Which Have
Entered My Memory Via Hearing Them
or Reading Them and Have Each
Left an Impression There Like the
Slender Scar Left by a Salamander
in a Piece of Rapidly Cooling
Igneous Rock

Gentlemen, which of these three vegetables: tomatoes, pumpkins, or squash, will your wives say most represents the part of their anatomy that has come to sag the most since your wedding night. There was no blood or anything but when I got there she was turning blue. It's forty-eight WABC degrees. We control the horizontal. Bachelor number three is a sales manager who collects Disney memorabilia. Missing coed found slain. All this in Encyclopedia Britannica III: American Indians, Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, The Reproductive System, Poisonous Animals and Plants, Atomic Energy, The Circus, Abominable Snowman, Napoleon and More…

CHUCK WACHTEL

I can already see something ''artbitrary'' about all of the things the author has written above. The Outline set by someone else so that we can then begin to interpret.

Our circumstances for different interpretations of the previous weeks poem(or any poem) is dependent on what we know of the world(our set outlines): What we've experienced; the type of information that we use to interpret situations, and so on.



Should I even call it a poem
LOL! its dependent on what you believe a poem is.

What classifications are needed to indentify something as a vegetable?

[tn2743]

Is this something to do with American culture or lifestyle???

Married life maybe...

[ktd222]

Is this something to do with American culture or lifestyle???

Maybe even more specific: the individual.

[Virgil]

Well, TN it sounds like lines from TV shows. The first one I can almost bet was from The Newlywed Game, a TV game show in the US back in the 1970s. The show asked friviolous questions to newlyweds and the spouse had to match the mate's answer.

[ktd222]

Well, TN it sounds like lines from TV shows. The first one I can almost bet was from The Newlywed Game, a TV game show in the US back in the 1970s. The show asked friviolous questions to newlyweds and the spouse had to match the mate's answer.


Gentlemen, which of these three vegetables: tomatoes, pumpkins, or squash, will your wives say most represents the part of their anatomy that has come to sag the most since your wedding night

Yes, the question is asked in way that will allow the person to lend their viewpoint. What shapes the viewpoint of each individuals response? To me all three vegetables seem too similar for me to tell the difference. Is their an option 4, 5, 6, 7...?

Let me explain further:

Maybe when I interpret the same poem as say, Unnamable, or Virgil, or Jackyll, or Petrarch, or Xamonas, Im working with the options 1,2,3; But Unnamable is working with options 1,2,3,4,5,6,7; and Virgil with options 2,3,4,5,6,7,8. These are different sets of options each individual has to work to shape their interpretion on 'something.' I don't have option 4 to interpret with but Unnamable and Virgil do, so I reject interpretation with option 4 because I don't have an understanding of it, even though it exist and may be more apt to interpret 'something.'

I know this may be going too far, but what I'm getting at is that everyone
may, indeed, interpret with different viewpoints(options available). A word can mean something to one person and something different to another person. Who or what is responsible for our viewpoints(interpretations)?

Any other ideas?

[Virgil]

Yes, the question is asked in way that will allow the person to lend their viewpoint. What shapes the viewpoint of each individuals response? To me all three vegetables seem too similar for me to tell the difference. Is their an option 4, 5, 6, 7...?

Let me explain further:

Maybe when I interpret the same poem as say, Unnamable, or Virgil, or Jackyll, or Petrarch, or Xamonas, Im working with the options 1,2,3; But Unnamable is working with options 1,2,3,4,5,6,7; and Virgil with options 2,3,4,5,6,7,8. These are different sets of options each individual has to work to shape their interpretion on 'something.' I don't have option 4 to interpret with but Unnamable and Virgil do, so I reject interpretation with option 4 because I don't have an understanding of it, even though it exist and may be more apt to interpret 'something.'

I know this may be going too far, but what I'm getting at is that everyone
may, indeed, interpret with different viewpoints(options available). A word can mean something to one person and something different to another person. Who or what is responsible for our viewpoints(interpretations)?

Any other ideas?
To some degree I agree but some of us are older and have more experience at it. When I was your age, there was no way I could interpret as well as you do. Some of it is experience built up through college and reading and some through personal experience.

[tn2743]

He compared his memory to a piece of rapidly cooling igneous rock and sentences from television shows are the slender scars on it...Hm

So this must have happened just after a volcano. The salamander surely is the TV, who somehow turns lava to rock (hence, life into memory?) with TV shows, and in the process leaves on the rocks sentence-scars.

Igneous rock, salamander: sex life?!? So TV ruins his sex life? Or maybe it ruins his passionate marriage! ...? Yeah, I know, I'm way off.

Anyway, we all know that television isn't good for our health. At least I'm right about that :p

[The Unnamable]

Here are some of the things that I pondered when first encountering the poem. I’ll try not to give my own answers to the questions I asked as I think the questions themselves should help everyone formulate their own responses and it was by working through such questions that I arrived at my own ‘reading’.

1. Why is the title so long? Why is it written in that way? The language of the title is very different from the body of the poem. Is the title meant as an endorsement of or a challenge to what follows?

2. Why are there seven sentences? At first, they all appear to be unrelated – are they?

3. How can we identify/characterise each of the seven sentences? I don’t know ‘The Newlywed Game’ but I’m sufficiently familiar with this type of inane game show to be able to identify the kind of host speaking the lines here as well as the kind of show he’s hosting. He begins with ‘Gentlemen’ and then asks a question that hardly seems consistent with the host’s supposed perception of the contestants as ‘gentlemen’. Why is there a full stop rather than a question mark at the end of this first sentence?

4. What is the context of the second sentence? Who would speak like this and in what circumstances?

5. What is the difference between 48 degrees and 48 WABC degrees? I assume that WABC is a radio station.

6. In the next sentence, who is ‘we’? The line comes from the opening credits of The Outer Limits TV show – a bit like The Twilight Zone.

7. The next sentence returns us to game shows – in the UK there was a similar show called ‘Blind Date’. Is the poem itself like a session of channel hopping? Are we flicking between different aspects of our culture as represented through the banality of the media industry? The title says “Seven Sentences Which Have / Entered My Memory Via Hearing Them / or Reading Them”, so they aren’t all TV moments. What is the significance of the fact that bachelor number three collects Disney memorabilia?

8. Is the next sentence a newspaper headline? It could also be the onscreen text during a news item. Why is the word ‘coed’ used rather than say, ‘student’?

9. Is the list of things in Encyclopedia Britannica III simply random or carefully chosen?

10. Why does the poem end with ‘…’?

11. How can we group particular ideas in all of this? For example, there are a number of mentions of cold temperatures – ‘turning blue’, ‘48 WABC degrees’, ‘Abominable Snowman’.

12. What is the cumulative effect of these seven chosen sentences?


The salamander surely is the TV,
I think the sentences themselves are the salamanders.

[ktd222]

Here are some of the things that I pondered when first encountering the poem. I’ll try not to give my own answers to the questions I asked as I think the questions themselves should help everyone formulate their own responses and it was by working through such questions that I arrived at my own ‘reading’.[QUOTE]

I looked at the poem asking myself this question: Whats missing/present in each of the thought expressed in each of the several sentences? Over the next few days hopefully my understanding will become more refined.

Boy, do you know which line is haunts me? 'We control the horizontal.'

Why does the title not have punctuation but the several sentences are filled with it? I think there is something important in this.

[QUOTE] Is the list of things in Encyclopedia Britannica III simply random or carefully chosen?

Thanks, Unnamable! The above lead to my thoughts below.


Why does the title not have punctuation but the several sentences are filled with it? I think there is something important in this.

Boy, do you know which line is haunts me? 'We control the horizontal.'
This is very telling to me for some reason. A sentence is the expression of a complete thought; and yet there are several complete thoughts expressed below the title, Some DO, to me, seem unrelated and somehow my mind is reconfiguring, trying, to produce a connection between all several sentences. Does our mind need to try to find a connection between unrelated things?

[jackyyyy]

So this must have happened just after a volcano.
I really like this!

[Virgil]

The Newlywed Game Show made Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Newlywed_Game

And here's their web site:

http://timstvshowcase.com/newlywed.html

Inane is the perfect word to describe it.

[Grumbleguts]

I believe that Ktd222 hit the nail on the head.


Does our mind need to try to find a connection between unrelated things?

This is precisely what our brains always do and what they are especially good at doing, finding connections. Whole religions have grown up out of the perceived connections spotted by our ever questing brains.

To me this poem(?) is nothing more than what the title proclaims it to be, a cluster of phrases that have stuck in the author's mind run together into a paragraph. It is the reader that imbues these phrases with anything other than randomness and Mr Wachtel was quite aware of this when he prepared this piece. I imagine that he would be quite amused to read this thread or any of the reviews and analyses of this work that must exist.

That doesn't mean that I don't quite like it, but I won't be wasting any of my time looking for hidden meanings.

[tn2743]

Why is there a full stop rather than a question mark at the end of this first sentence?


I was going to ask this on my first post on this poem. But then I thought that it was because the author was simply quoting back. He's describing the scar on his igneous rock and reporting its shape and size, but he's not actually asking the question. He doesn't want to ask the question. Am I right?

As I was reading the seven sentences, the word 'scar' keeps entering my mind. These sentences all have different lengths and depths, and shapes too, like scars.

I agree that the salamanders are the lines themselves. This changes my perspective completely. Well then, as the title has informed us, each sentence has at least one thing in common: they all have left a scar each on the author's memory in a way that a salamander would on an igneous rock. This relationship is still unclear to me. I keep thinking that I must understand this key of the title before I can understand fully the seven sentences.

I also thought that the seven sentences might not have been written in a completely different style from the title's. The difference is that the author had to use sentences already written. So the only thing he could do was to arrange them. He did not even choose them, because it was the sentences who left scars on him, not him who chose to remember the sentences. So, in a way, he's painting (or building) rather than writing. And the way that he has arranged them might not be all that different from the way he writes. Am I making sense?

'...': this one is a long and undefined scar?

I have a question: could he have read, or heard these sentences all from the TV? I read many things on TV...



It is the reader that imbues these phrases with anything other than randomness and Mr Wachtel was quite aware of this when he prepared this piece. I imagine that he would be quite amused to read this thread or any of the reviews and analyses of this work that must exist.


You might be right. But what if he did have other meanings? Out of respect for poetry, we can't take the risk of missing them. I wouldn't mind being laughed at by the author, but to dismiss a piece of writing without consideration is to be disrespectful to the author. And I think he might respect us for respecting him, in any case, don't you think?

[jackyyyy]

You might be right. But what if he did have other meanings? Out of respect for poetry, we can't take the risk of missing them. I wouldn't mind being laughed at by the author, but to dismiss a piece of writing without consideration is to be disrespectful to the author. And I think he might respect us for respecting him, in any case, don't you think?I believe it has a meaning, a moral message, and GrumbleGuts is correct to not read more into the seven, other than there are seven. These are typical 20th century footprints, that end up being genetic footprints because they shape humankind. He could have picked other footprints, even bootprints, but he picked these because they are kind of random, but inside the same media packet. As a distraction, I just happen to think there are seven because his car radio has seven buttons on it, which is strange because usually modern cars come with even numbers, so maybe its an old Mustang, and he is being kinda nostalgic. Seven could be, he is feeling lucky. I'll go one further, The Magnificent Seven.

[tn2743]

I didn't use 'meanings' only to address moral messages, I meant also the use of words and the skills of a poet that he might have employed. But Grumbleguts refused this, or at least that's what I think he did by saying that they are simply a list of random things.

They are just random? So you are dismissing all the questions as to the relationship between or the arragnement of these sentences? It's a risky assumption to make unless the author has instructed us in this direction; I don't recall reading the word 'random' anywhere in the poem. In fact, he stated clearly that this is a paragraph made up of setences which have significant structural meanings to his memory.

Well, aren't we here to answer the questions that this poem raised? I'd go along with the questions that Unnamable raised to start with. I think that there are relations between the sentences, and there is a deeper relation between the sentences and the title. And I think that these sentences have been arranged in an order of some kind (at least of time or something as basic as that). There must be more to a poem than just moral messages.

How could he have 'read' these lines from a radio?

[The Unnamable]

This is very telling to me for some reason. A sentence is the expression of a complete thought; and yet there are several complete thoughts expressed below the title, Some DO, to me, seem unrelated and somehow my mind is reconfiguring, trying, to produce a connection between all several sentences. Does our mind need to try to find a connection between unrelated things?
I don’t think there is a direct connection – they strike me as things that the poet could easily have actually heard or read. I think the significant connection is that they all tell us something about the nature of the world we’ve constructed for ourselves through the discourses of modern media. I said earlier that they have a cumulative effect but this isn’t quite right – it’s more that they interact with one another and cumulatively produce a rather disturbing picture of the modern, media-saturated world.


I was going to ask this on my first post on this poem. But then I thought that it was because the author was simply quoting back. He's describing the scar on his igneous rock and reporting its shape and size, but he's not actually asking the question. He doesn't want to ask the question. Am I right?
Possibly, I don’t really know. I would agree that the punctuation is used to comment on the lines rather than simply to transcribe them in a grammatically correct way. Look at the subject matter of the sentence. It’s supposed to be funny in a rather juvenile way but it’s about the loss of sexual vitality. Examine the diction –“part of their anatomy” (nearly always used as a suggestive reference to genitals in this context), “sag” (need I say more?) and “wedding night” (when the desire was fresh and the apparatus was willing :lol: ).
It isn’t a question because that process actually is happening with the passing of time – their physical deterioration is not a mere possibility but a fact. This is the kind of observation that we would be unlikely to stop to think about in the context of the show itself but here it is.


So the only thing he could do was to arrange them. He did not even choose them, because it was the sentences who left scars on him, not him who chose to remember the sentences. So, in a way, he's painting (or building) rather than writing. And the way that he has arranged them might not be all that different from the way he writes. Am I making sense?
Yes, I think so. I agree that the sentences aren’t intended to be lines composed by Wachtel himself but something he’s stumbled across. I don’t know if they really are verbatim transcripts that Wachtel has read or heard but I can accept that they are for the sake of the understanding his purpose in including them. As you say, he arranges them. Isn’t that what artists do? They take the materials of everyday life (the kinds of materials we seldom think about in a way that is beyond their immediate purpose), and make us look at them with a fresh eye, from a different perspective. What I meant by asking question number 1 above was that the title seems rather grand and overblown compared to the very ‘ordinary’ and everyday nature of the seven sentences.
There is an amusing Billy Collins poem with the title, Reading An Anthology Of Chinese Poems Of The Sung Dynasty, I Pause To Admire The Length And Clarity Of Their Titles. The Collins poem includes a great example –

"In a Boat on a Summer Evening
I Heard the Cry of a Waterbird.
It Was Very Sad and Seemed To Be Saying
My Woman Is Cruel--Moved, I Wrote This Poem."

Wachtel’s extremely long title reminds me of these sorts of poems as well as of the kinds of chapter prefaces you find in Swift and other eighteenth century novelists. Is Wachtel therefore suggesting that there are two linguistic realms – that of the past world of elevated literary expression and the rather debased and inane expression that saturates the world around us today? Even here in Thailand where I am immersed in a different culture, the same synthetic images of kodachrome perfection and eternal youth still ambush me around every corner. It seems that the topics of a lot if not all of the sentences are of the same stuff that poets have always written about – love, death, decay, relationships and so on. This is why I prefer to think of the sentences as actual transcripts – they then serve as a comment on the difference between the world as it is described through Art and the one in which we live.


I have a question: could he have read, or heard these sentences all from the TV? I read many things on TV...
I think they probably could, with the exception of “It's forty-eight WABC degrees” (that must be a radio announcement, surely?) and the last bit which reads more like a print advertisement to me.


To me this poem(?) is nothing more than what the title proclaims it to be, a cluster of phrases that have stuck in the author's mind run together into a paragraph. It is the reader that imbues these phrases with anything other than randomness and Mr Wachtel was quite aware of this when he prepared this piece. I imagine that he would be quite amused to read this thread or any of the reviews and analyses of this work that must exist.

That doesn't mean that I don't quite like it, but I won't be wasting any of my time looking for hidden meanings.
I have to disagree with you here, GG. I think there is far more conscious crafting going on than you suggest. I don’t think of this poem as having ‘hidden’ meanings, just meanings. It seems perfectly coherent to me and this coherence has, as tn2743 said, been arranged. I’d be interested to see if you change your opinion as the discussion progresses.


You might be right. But what if he did have other meanings? Out of respect for poetry, we can't take the risk of missing them. I wouldn't mind being laughed at by the author, but to dismiss a piece of writing without consideration is to be disrespectful to the author. And I think he might respect us for respecting him, in any case, don't you think?
I like this attitude. Good on ya.


How could he have 'read' these lines from a radio?
And then you go and let me down! Only joking. But if you look at the title, he does say “Via Hearing Them / or Reading Them.”

[tn2743]

And then you go and let me down! Only joking. But if you look at the title, he does say “Via Hearing Them / or Reading Them.”

Thanks :)

I said this because I thought Jackyyy suggested, by mentioning the 7 buttons on a car radio, that all seven sentences were taken from different radio stations.

[Nightshade]

I want to join in to this discussion since its still monday. But I just want to say in advance Im not great at poetry and Im really joining in to find out more so please bare with me.

Its a bit like what you'd get if you were flicking through channels isnt it? I mean game show, news (or possible crime drama?) , weather umm whats WABC? Something else, reality game show, news, adverts.
A scar is just the remnants a trace of something right? So what sort of like being haunted by words after you hear them on tele or read them and how they can appear to mean one thing out of context but in context they make sense?

Not making any sense am I ? :)

[The Unnamable]

Its a bit like what you'd get if you were flicking through channels isnt it?
I agree and funnily enough I’ve just watched Billy Wilder’s The Apartment again and there is a short scene with a disgruntled Jack Lemmon flicking through the TV channels trying to find something worth watching. Most of it is battle scenes or advertising so he gives up.

WABC must be a radio station.


and how they can appear to mean one thing out of context but in context they make sense?
By including them in the poem (or as the poem), hasn’t he taken them out of context so that we can look at them differently from how we would if we encountered them in their actual context?

[jackyyyy]

An auto-search finds a station, stops for about one sentence, then hunts the next. When it hits the band limit, it starts over again. After a while, you memorize certain sentences, maybe because they mean something to you. WABC is NYC, and there are too many channels, a cacophony of life, you've heard it all before, so you would rather listen to the auto-search, and maybe something new will pop up. I agree, Wachtel picked these seven to stick to his stone. I hazard we are being offered the protagonist's situation, personality, job, and the next paragraph.

[Virgil]

Gentlemen, which of these three vegetables: tomatoes, pumpkins, or squash, will your wives say most represents the part of their anatomy that has come to sag the most since your wedding night. There was no blood or anything but when I got there she was turning blue. It's forty-eight WABC degrees. We control the horizontal. Bachelor number three is a sales manager who collects Disney memorabilia. Missing coed found slain. All this in Encyclopedia Britannica III: American Indians, Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, The Reproductive System, Poisonous Animals and Plants, Atomic Energy, The Circus, Abominable Snowman, Napoleon and More…

CHUCK WACHTEL
Since these are mostly from American media allusions I can help with two more:
WABC - Yes, is a rado station in many cities in the US. Sounds like a voice from WABC in New York in the 1970s.


Bachelor number three is a sales manager who collects Disney memorabilia.

Another American game show, The Dating Game, also from the 1970s. Three bachelors are secluded away while a young lady asks them questions and she picks one for a date based soley on their responses. Stupid questions, stupid responses. More inane. 1970s seems to correlate.

Any idea when the poem was written?


By including them in the poem (or as the poem), hasn’t he taken them out of context so that we can look at them differently from how we would if we encountered them in their actual context?
I agree with that. But in addition, the dislocation from one sentence to another provides the only real poetic charge to the language in that section of poem, other than in the title.

[ktd222]

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
By including them in the poem (or as the poem), hasn’t he taken them out of context so that we can look at them differently from how we would if we encountered them in their actual context?

Virgil:

I agree with that. But in addition, the dislocation from one sentence to another provides the only real poetic charge to the language in that section of poem, other than in the title.

You know what, after looking at the poem as a 'flipping back and forth through channels or pages', I dont know that these several sentences are ever taken out of context. He is creating a mode of action where the reader is also able to sense this 'flipping' happening as its happened to him. The context of the several sentences, I think, is secondary because of this line: 'we control the horizontal.' The thoughts expressed in the several sentences seem to be what interest the author, but obviously when I flip through the channels the main ones which interest me are not the ones listed by the author. So then this gets back to 'we control the horizontal' which gets more at us individuals controlling what enters into our mind.

Does anyone want to talk about this line further: 'we control the horizontal.' I'd be very interested to read other peoples opinions. The line seems to imply a specific angle that we control(the horizontal). Then what happens to all the other angles? Are these other angles under our control? Or is this horizontal the only angle we can control? What is this horizontal?

[jackyyyy]

'we control the horizontal.' I'd be very interested to read other peoples opinions. The line seems to imply a specific angle that we control(the horizontal). Then what happens to all the other angles? Are these other angles under our control? Or is this horizontal the only angle we can control? What is this horizontal?I think you mentioned it in your first post re this poem, 'we control the horizontal'. Its stands out in the crowd, stays in your head, its profound. I want to correct myself earlier, its a 'scan' button, not an auto-search, and he does write 'hearing' or 'reading', so I will not add, roadside Billboards. These seven sentences/messages (which I am assuming is an arbitrary number), out of 100s, were impressive enough to stick. Some of the best literature is sitting on the side of our roads, repeated to us via media-pushers, in a surreptitious attempt to brain wash us into buying something:


Gentlemen, which of these three vegetables: tomatoes, pumpkins, or squash, will your wives say most represents the part of their anatomy that has come to sag the most since your wedding night.
There was no blood or anything but when I got there she was turning blue.
It's forty-eight WABC degrees.
We control the horizontal.
Bachelor number three is a sales manager who collects Disney memorabilia.
Missing coed found slain.
All this in Encyclopedia Britannica III: American Indians, Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, The Reproductive System, Poisonous Animals and Plants, Atomic Energy, The Circus, Abominable Snowman, Napoleon and More…

I'll stab a guess: He's middleaged, wife/childs(s), worries about their health and security. Its 48 Fahrenheiht (8-9C), cool to cold - depending on what you are used to, could be Mar/Apr or Oct/Nov. He's thinking about promotion/money and freedom (we control the horizontal).

[The Unnamable]

You know what, after looking at the poem as a 'flipping back and forth through channels or pages', I dont know that these several sentences are ever taken out of context.
They are literally taken out of context and placed in a new context – that of Wachtel’s poem. This makes me look at them in a way I wouldn’t if I was just channel hopping.


Does anyone want to talk about this line further: 'we control the horizontal.' I'd be very interested to read other peoples opinions. The line seems to imply a specific angle that we control(the horizontal). Then what happens to all the other angles? Are these other angles under our control? Or is this horizontal the only angle we can control? What is this horizontal?
As I said above, it’s from The Outer Limits; each episode begins:

“There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We can reduce the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits”

Old televisions used to have control knobs known as a ‘vertical hold’ and a ‘horizontal hold’’. You fiddled around with them in order to stop the picture from rolling. The statement has overtones of Big Brother but the important thing is what we think is meant by ‘We’. Is it the corporate ‘we’? The media? Could it even be a reference to the battle of the sexes as a statement made by feminists (the horizontal being the realm of sexual activity – no doubt XC will have other ideas/positions)? In the context of The Outer Limits, it could be aliens. In the context of the paragraph, it has an unsettling effect. I don’t take it as fundamentally different from the other sentences – this one also is another of the ubiquitous, encroaching assertions of a media industry that claims ownership of our souls. Something similar is going on with “It's forty-eight WABC degrees”. – They appear to own the weather.

[Grumbleguts]

I'd like to clarify my position a little if I may. I said that I quite liked the poem first and foremost. I also said that I found no deep significance in the lines chosen and I still maintain that position. To me thay are chosen to be a cross section of the kinds of lines seen and heard in American media. I had no intention of being dismissive of the poems worth, I just don't see the choice of phrases as particularly meaningful in themselves.

Of course Wachtel is inviting us to examine these sentences out of context as it were, this is self evident, but that is the extent of his construction as far as I see it, he could easily have chosen other similar sentences and achieved the same effect. He is holding up a mirror to the day to day bombardments of media slogans and formulaic phrases but it is not necessarily a carefully directed mirroir. These particular words stuck in his mind, as he says in the title, that is why they were chosen and not, "Two tyres, that's right TWO tyres for the price of one all day Sunday, every Sunday at big Ed's Tyres!" or "A horse is a horse, of course, of course, And no one can talk to a horse of course." Either of these could have slotted in seemlessly

Interestingly enough, what do you think of the title of the poem? Isn't it as formulaicly 'poetic' as the other phrases are formulaicly 'mediaspeak'? Do you think that he is asking questions here too? I think he might be. It's interesting that no one has really questioned the layout and language of the title in this thread, seeing as it is almost as long as the poem itself. Surely the contrast between the two sections is more interesting than where he found the 7 sentences?

[jackyyyy]

Interestingly enough, what do you think of the title of the poem? Isn't it as formulaicly 'poetic' as the other phrases are formulaicly 'mediaspeak'? Do you think that he is asking questions here too? I think he might be. It's interesting that no one has really questioned the layout and language of the title in this thread, seeing as it is almost as long as the poem itself. Surely the contrast between the two sections is more interesting than where he found the 7 sentences?Acknowledged. The title does a larger job than expected, it could be the para. At first I thought he was putting the cart before the horse, then realized, the would not want to 'do it' any other way. He used the title space to reduce space/wordage, as in, why not make a long title, who says a title can only have x words. The sequence is important,,, and Unnamable asked in one of his questions,,, whey the '...' at the end of the Encycl. advert. Well, I thought at first, the Encycl. Britannica bit could have gone on forever, or simply its part of an advertisement, else.. its the preface to the next para. Why do I think this is a clip out of a book and not a poem?

[The Unnamable]

he could easily have chosen other similar sentences and achieved the same effect.
This is where we disagree. Even if the sentences are actual snippets reproduced verbatim, the subtle interplay between them would be lost if you simply swapped some of them with your suggestions. For example, say we swapped the first of yours for “Missing coed found slain” and the second for “Bachelor number three is a sales manager who collects Disney memorabilia”, would there really be no difference? Wouldn’t we then lose something vital to the poem? “Missing coed found slain” is a news item; either it’s the text accompanying a TV news story or a newspaper headline. It is written in the shorthand style of a news headline (I’ll come to style of writing in a moment). But look beyond that – why might Wachtel have chosen to include this particular sentence and what is its purpose in its original context? Isn’t it to entice us into learning more salacious details about a murder? Why is the victim identified (in the sense of given an identity) as a ‘coed’ – the headline could have said simply ‘woman’, ‘female’, ‘student’, and so on. So the very fact that the victim has been given an identity as a young female (by a typically prurient media) introduces a sexual element to it. Doesn’t the word ‘coed’ carry some suggestion of young adult female encountering the world of independence and sexuality? When you see a headline like that don’t you assume that the murder was sexually motivated (and you’d be right most of the time)? Sexual tensions appear throughout the poem (even in the sagging vegetables bit). I can’t see it in your examples. Also, ‘bachelor’ is an interesting label. It serves to identify someone as available in the marriage market. This man collects Disney memorabilia. Why? When I think of Disney, I think of a world of sanitised and syrupy childhood. Does this man wish to remain a child? Is he sexually repressed? I can hear the objections now that I am ‘reading too much into it.’ I’m not saying that the man is sexually repressed but I think the lines invite the reader to take part in exploring the interplay between the different sentences (and these two sentences come next to each other). The world reported by the media includes acts of sexual violence, presumably caused by aberrant sexuality. In what we call ‘Literature’, problematic human experiences are explored in depth – in the modern world they just serve as media bytes. The language in which they are expressed now is the debased language of tabloid journalism or advertising slogans. This is why I think the language of the title is so different from the paragraph of seven sentences. The title belongs to the old world; the paragraph is what’s become of it.

[tn2743]

11. How can we group particular ideas in all of this? For example, there are a number of mentions of cold temperatures – ‘turning blue’, ‘48 WABC degrees’, ‘Abominable Snowman’.


I think I can identify another idea that came up several times: time and its progress, or timing. In the first sentence the vegetables are listed in order, I think, of sagginess (in order of length of time after the wedding). The tomato is the firmest and shiniest, the pumpkin looks older and drier though still rounded, and the squash is clearly long a saggy (I'm trying my best to be respectful with these descriptions). So in this sense, the longer it has been since one's wedding night, the further to the right his option would be, and the further he is from the burning 'volcanic' passion that the igneous rock that is his memory used to experience. And in the second sentence "when I got there" and "blue" suggests that who ever got there got there too late. His timing was terrible. There's a pattern here, kind of.

And then the temperature connects this sentence with the third. And the third sentence is connected with the fourth by the arrogance of commercials.

I fail to see the connection between the fourth and fifth. The fifth and the sixth, however, is connected by another idea that you have pointed out above: sex. Perhaps it is the "sexually repressed" man and his 'childish', perhaps ignorant, ideas of the world that are behind these violent sex crimes. Is there something unhealthy about a sales manager being single and collect children's toys?

The idea of death, or a lack of life, is also repeated.



10. Why does the poem end with ‘…’?


Is the '...' the end of the poem or of the last sentence?

I think that the last sentence might be, possibly, a summary of the greed of the nowaday commerce, which tries to summarise everything regardless of their significance or meanings and stuffs them into bite size information. It ignores the horrific depths of the events that are capable of scarring the author and with great ease and ruthlessness. I mean, finding "the circus" and the "snowman" in the same sentence as "Napoleon" or "Atomic enerygy" is unfitting to say the least; it is almost a mockery. Race, Music, food, history, sex, etc; everything is a subject of this terrible mockery. And this ignorance, in itself, leaves another and longest scar...

I think the '...' might be part of the last sentence to express the endlessness of the list of things, or the author's amazement or ponderousness at this, maybe even his pain..

Please correct

[The Unnamable]

I think I can identify another idea that came up several times: time and its progress, or timing. In the first sentence the vegetables are listed in order, I think, of sagginess (in order of length of time after the wedding). The tomato is the firmest and shiniest, the pumpkin looks older and drier though still rounded, and the squash is clearly long a saggy (I'm trying my best to be respectful with these descriptions).
Are you talking about people or vegetables? Okay, I admit – I’m at the pumpkin stage. :D

The passing of time is a popular theme for artists. I’m not convinced by the timing idea, though.


So in this sense, the longer it has been since one's wedding night, the further to the right his option would be,
So young and so cynical! :lol:


and the further he is from the burning 'volcanic' passion that the igneous rock that is his memory used to experience. And in the second sentence "when I got there" and "blue" suggests that who ever got there got there too late. His timing was terrible. There's a pattern here, kind of.

And then the temperature connects this sentence with the third. And the third sentence is connected with the fourth by the arrogance of commercials. I fail to see the connection between the fourth and fifth.
Okay, but be careful – I don’t think anyone has suggested that there is a linked progression – I referred to the interplay between them. In other words, just because you have established for yourself some pattern, don’t then make the poem fit that pattern. Perhaps there is no connection here but perhaps you were wrong to assume that there should be. Perhaps there is a connection, however. If ‘We control the horizontal’ is some kind of feminist slogan then the sexual repression of Mr. Disney could be the result of his inability to cope with female sexuality. Or perhaps ‘We control the horizontal’ is a Big Brother/Media boast – our perceptions are controlled to the extent that our identity only exists in terms of how we are seen on television or as television. The Dating Game that Virgil mentioned is, I think, the show that spawned Blind Date (UK). When huge media corporations control what we see and what we hear on the basis of maximising profits, this is the kind of garbage we end up with – but it’s all on the surface – the real nature of human sexuality involves slain coeds.


The fifth and the sixth, however, is connected by another idea that you have pointed out above: sex. Perhaps it is the "sexually repressed" man and his 'childish', perhaps ignorant, ideas of the world that are behind these violent sex crimes. Is there something unhealthy about a sales manager being single and collect children's toys?
Obviously I don’t think there always is – but the possibility of what you suggest is there in the interplay again.


Is the '...' the end of the poem or of the last sentence?
Good question – have they merged? Initially it can be seen simply to imply that the encyclopedia has more to offer but, as you say, it’s possible that it refers to the whole of the paragraph rather than just that one sentence. To me, it suggests that life goes on – to be continued next episode.


I think that the last sentence might be, possibly, a summary of the greed of the nowaday commerce, which tries to summarise everything regardless of their significance or meanings and stuffs them into bite size information. It ignores the horrific depths of the events that are capable of scarring the author and with great ease and ruthlessness. I mean, finding "the circus" and the "snowman" in the same sentence as "Napoleon" or "Atomic enerygy" is unfitting to say the least;
Again, I’d say that in this context it’s unsettling rather than incongruous. The capabilities given to us by Atomic Energy combined with the image of the world as a Circus. Now there’s a thought!


it is almost a mockery. Race, Music, food, history, sex, etc; everything is a subject of this terrible mockery. And this ignorance, in itself, leaves another and longest scar...

I think the '...' might be part of the last sentence to express the endlessness of the list of things, or the author's amazement or ponderousness at this, maybe even his pain..

Please correct
What do you mean by ‘Please correct’? It’s a poem not a quadratic equation. There are things I don’t see myself but I’d agree with a lot of what you say and like the way you go about it – with the assumption that someone else had made the effort to think about it. As I say, good on ya.

[tn2743]

Are you talking about people or vegetables?


I was following the comparison that the contestants were supposed to make about their wives' "anatomy". I assume it's a female ...thingIES :)



So young and so cynical! :lol:


Sorry, I forgot about plastic surgery :D

[jackyyyy]

Inspector Unnamable wrote up his top of mind, so if I go along with that:

Gentlemen, which of these three vegetables: tomatoes, pumpkins, or squash, will your wives say most represents the part of their anatomy that has come to sag the most since your wedding night.
He is thinking about the condition of the coed's body, after it was found.

There was no blood or anything but when I got there she was turning blue.
He is thinking about an alibi.

It's forty-eight WABC degrees.
Its the public mood, they are hunting him.

We control the horizontal.
He is trying to outthink the police - road blocks.

Bachelor number three is a sales manager who collects Disney memorabilia.
What to do with the coed's stuff, and did he leave fingerprints?

Missing coed found slain.
Confirmation, she has been found, and they have identified the body.

All this in Encyclopedia Britannica III: American Indians, Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, The Reproductive System, Poisonous Animals and Plants, Atomic Energy, The Circus, Abominable Snowman, Napoleon and More…
He is desperate for ideas.

[The Unnamable]

jackyyyy,
I have no idea what you are on (about).

[Virgil]

At first I thought they were random, like some of the early discussion. However, I don't think so any more. These two are definitely linked:

Gentlemen, which of these three vegetables: tomatoes, pumpkins, or squash, will your wives say most represents the part of their anatomy that has come to sag the most since your wedding night.
and
Bachelor number three is a sales manager who collects Disney memorabilia.To have two of seven game show quotes from an infinite possibility of media quotes is too much of a coincidence. Notice too that one is a bachelor's and the other is a newlywed's show.

These two also seem to be linked in that they are apparently referring to a crime:
There was no blood or anything but when I got there she was turning blue.
and
Missing coed found slain.

Has anyone been able to track down whether these are actual quotes from a show, a crime show for instance? Otherwise we will probably have to assume they are news blurbs and may or may not be referring to the same crime, if the first one is a crime at all. The first one may be just a medical emergency.

The last one of the encyclopedia seems out of place. It's listings mirror the listings of the poem body, but there I see complete randomness in its selection. Actually this is the third time a listing is made in the poem: (1) the vegetable listing, (2) the body of the poem as an assembling of media quotes and (3) the encyclopedia listing.

Another observation is that none of the listings are advertising quotes. All apparently from radio or TV programs.

[jackyyyy]

Another observation is that none of the listings are advertising quotes. All apparently from radio or TV programs.
He could have listened to the tv, but don't they play some tv shows on the radio?


jackyyyy,
I have no idea what you are on (about).I'm on (about) paint.

[Virgil]

He could have listened to the tv, but don't they play some tv shows on the radio?
I guess so. But is there a point to why it would/should only be radio?

[jackyyyy]

I guess so. But is there a point to why it would/should only be radio?They can all be picked up from a radio, plus the WABC. Billboards might write WABC, but tv, no.

Just checked it, WABC is on tv.


Another observation is that none of the listings are advertising quotes. All apparently from radio or TV programs.

All this in Encyclopedia Britannica III: American Indians, Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, The Reproductive System, Poisonous Animals and Plants, Atomic Energy, The Circus, Abominable Snowman, Napoleon and More…
This is advertising to me. What else could it be?

[tn2743]

The last one of the encyclopedia seems out of place. It's listings mirror the listings of the poem body, but there I see complete randomness in its selection.


"A world standard in reference since 1768" - is the slogan of the Encyclopedia Britannica website. "Standard"? and "world standard"? Isn't that arrogance or what?

If you are right Virgil (and I think you are) then I think this is a list of the things that have been standardised by commerce. Each of them have depths of meaning that are unexplored or ignored in this kind of referencing. And because this has actually become close to a "world standard" (because most people have no time to read more than 20 words about something), their true meanings are at risk of being lost forever. '...' means either 'the list goes on', or, as Unnamable suggested, life goes on - what can we do? - What do you think?

I was just wondering, when I searched for things about "we control the horizontal", almost everything that came up had "we control the horizontal; we control the vertical" going together. So why only "horizontal" here?

[The Unnamable]

At first I thought they were random, like some of the early discussion.
:D Do you mean that some of the early discussion was random or that some of the early discussion supposed that the poem was random?

These emerging linked themes are not simply those associated with game shows – aren’t they also the recurrent themes of Literature (Love and Death?)? Is Wachtel suggesting that the language of these media bytes has replaced the language of his title?


The first one may be just a medical emergency.
Interesting in the context – someone is turning blue but it’s just a medical emergency. Nothing to see here – it’s not as if it’s a murder or anything really exciting like that. :lol:


The last one of the encyclopedia seems out of place.
Napoleon? Didn’t he think that he controlled the horizontal and vertical for a while? Wasn’t he finally defeated by the coldness of the Russian winter? Many of his men turned blue. :nod:


Another observation is that none of the listings are advertising quotes.
First of all, I agree with jackyyyy that the last sentence is an ad. and secondly, none of the listings are hairy umbrellas, either.


So why only "horizontal" here?
I'd say simply that he doesn't need both and by using only the first part, Wachtel encourages us to think about it as more than simply a line from a TV show. Don't you like my suggestion that it could refer to the sexual realm of the horizontal?


as Unnamable suggested, life goes on - what can we do? - What do you think?
I also think it suggests the story will be continued, for the very reason that you address in your next question – what can we do? Neither Literature nor life offers any answers to that question. I have no idea what we should do – but it’s a step in the right direction simply to be aware of who’s telling us what and why and with what effect on our lives.

[tn2743]

Wachtel encourages us to think about it as more than simply a line from a TV show.

Ah! I think this makes sense now, though since he has taken all sentences out of context by putting them into the poem, I thought that might be enough encouragement.

Sorry, I forgot about your idea of the horizontal sexual realm. That would definitely link it with the next sentence. I was only wondering: why not vertical? But it makes sense now.

Though I have to say, being young and all, the sexual realm can be 'vertical' for a lot of the time :lol: (I hope this joke's not too rude for this thread)

[jackyyyy]

Though I have to say, being young and all, the sexual realm can be 'vertical' for a lot of the time :lol: (I hope this joke's not too rude for this thread)
I am deeply shocked!!!

[tn2743]

Excuse me :D

[ktd222]

They are literally taken out of context and placed in a new context – that of Wachtel’s poem. This makes me look at them in a way I wouldn’t if I was just channel hopping.

They may literally be, but the context of each sentence does not change in meaning. The thought expressed in each sentence is the same in the poem as it is wherever Wachtel got the sentences from.


“There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We can reduce the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits”


Old televisions used to have control knobs known as a ‘vertical hold’ and a ‘horizontal hold’’. You fiddled around with them in order to stop the picture from rolling. The statement has overtones of Big Brother but the important thing is what we think is meant by ‘We’. Is it the corporate ‘we’? The media?

I can see your point, but its 'we control the horizontal' not vertical. Nothing ever mentioned about vertical. I think this means we(we individuals) have control over everything except the horizontal.


I don’t take it as fundamentally different from the other sentences – this one also is another of the ubiquitous, encroaching assertions of a media industry that claims ownership of our souls. Something similar is going on with “It's forty-eight WABC degrees”. – They appear to own the weather.

I like your idea that 'they appear to own the weather,' but isn't it going too far to say that they seem to 'claim ownership of our souls.'

[tn2743]

They may literally be, but the context of each sentence does not change in meaning. The thought expressed in each sentence is the same in the poem as it is wherever Wachtel got the sentences from.


I'm sorry ktd222 but I don't really understand what you are saying here. Surely the author had taken these sentences out of their original context in order to put more focus on them. Their meanings may not have changed, but the context in which they are has changed. Isn't the fact that we read them in this poem rather than on the TV a change of context? Their environment and their purpose have changed, among other things. The most obvious example, I think, is the first sentence which has lost its question mark. It used to be a question, and now it is not.

Furthermore, even if the author had not intended for their original meanings to be changed, the fact that he used them for a different purpose and in a different way must have changed them. Relativity right? :)

[The Unnamable]

They may literally be, but the context of each sentence does not change in meaning. The thought expressed in each sentence is the same in the poem as it is wherever Wachtel got the sentences from.
No, it isn’t. The meaning does change. Meanings are always dependent on context. Look at this sentence:

“I enjoyed having my neighbour for lunch.”

Does it only mean one thing, regardless of context? What if the context is that it’s a cannibal who makes the statement? Now it means something very different. Poetry isn’t literal and denotative – it depends on connotations. As tn2743 says, “Their environment and their purpose have changed”. It’s not that Wachtel has replaced the meanings with wholly different ones but that he has invited us to generate meanings other than the ones intended by the original context. I assume that ‘turning blue’ in the original context refers to someone not getting enough oxygen – within the context of a poem that uses coldness as a sort of motif, it also suggests a less literal coldness.


I think this means we(we individuals) have control over everything except the horizontal.
Okay – and what does that mean? Given that the context is a series of comments about TV and media, is it so unlikely that the sentence could relate to televisions?



I like your idea that 'they appear to own the weather,' but isn't it going too far to say that they seem to 'claim ownership of our souls.'
It would be if I based it entirely upon that one phrase in this particular poem. The ‘claim ownership of our souls’ bit is the way I see it but it is consistent with the Media as represented in the poem.

[Petrarch's Love]

Goodness, get sick for a few days and I've missed this whole discussion about sagging vegetables and frustrated serial killers collecting Disney memorabilia or something. :lol: .

Well, I've only just gotten a chance to look at the contribution for this week. My first thought, like others who have commented, was that it sounds like channel surfing. I think the idea of the form (or lack thereof, depending on how you see it) is an interesting one, a media inspired stream of conciousness commenting on the way fragments of ads and tv and radio seep into our minds and sort of settle there in a plastic soup. I wonder though, if others find that it's a poem that they still find it as interesting on the second read, or if, like the quickly shifting, disposable soundbytes it's made of, it fails to keep our attention in any meaningful way? I wonder, because I've run across similar ideas before, and while I've found it the sort of thing that momentarily makes you stop and think about the connections between the random phrases etc., it's seldom anything that I feel compelled to come back to and read over again. After all, much of the allure really lies in its uniqueness. I don't know that the work itself is as interesting as much as the idea behind it of stringing random phrases together. If many poets started using the same form and it lost its originality I feel as though such a poem would also lose most of its edge. I'd be interested to hear if there are differences of opinion though. I'm not trying to claim it's "bad" poetry, just trying to see if people find it to be poetry of lasting interest. Maybe I just need to read through it again and see if it speaks to me more. ;)

[Virgil]

They can all be picked up from a radio, plus the WABC. Billboards might write WABC, but tv, no.

Just checked it, WABC is on tv.
Yes, WABC is a television station as well. It's the particular locution that suggested radio to me. But I guess it doesn't have to be.


This is advertising to me. What else could it be?
Ok, I stand corrected.


These emerging linked themes are not simply those associated with game shows – aren’t they also the recurrent themes of Literature (Love and Death?)? Is Wachtel suggesting that the language of these media bytes has replaced the language of his title?
Good points. I can buy into both.


Napoleon? Didn’t he think that he controlled the horizontal and vertical for a while? Wasn’t he finally defeated by the coldness of the Russian winter? Many of his men turned blue.
This I don't buy into. Way too tenuous a connection. What about the other things he lists?


If you are right Virgil (and I think you are) then I think this is a list of the things that have been standardised by commerce. Each of them have depths of meaning that are unexplored or ignored in this kind of referencing. And because this has actually become close to a "world standard" (because most people have no time to read more than 20 words about something), their true meanings are at risk of being lost forever. '...' means either 'the list goes on', or, as Unnamable suggested, life goes on - what can we do? - What do you think?
I don't know if lost forever, but it certainly trivializes serious topics.

Here's a thought: Horizontal, euphemism for death as well as love.

[ktd222]

No, it isn’t. The meaning does change. Meanings are always dependent on context. Look at this sentence:

“I enjoyed having my neighbour for lunch.”

Does it only mean one thing, regardless of context? What if the context is that it’s a cannibal who makes the statement? Now it means something very different. Poetry isn’t literal and denotative – it depends on connotations. As tn2743 says, “Their environment and their purpose have changed”. It’s not that Wachtel has replaced the meanings with wholly different ones but that he has invited us to generate meanings other than the ones intended by the original context. I assume that ‘turning blue’ in the original context refers to someone not getting enough oxygen – within the context of a poem that uses coldness as a sort of motif, it also suggests a less literal coldness.

Does this mean I get partial credit? Because the original meaning of the sentences is still there in the context of the Wachter poem even though a new meaning may have been generated.



Okay – and what does that mean? Given that the context is a series of comments about TV and media, is it so unlikely that the sentence could relate to televisions?

I'm just saying in the Wachter poem it states 'we control the horizontal' not 'we control every degree,' so maybe this lends some control to us(non-media) in whatever capacity it is.


It would be if I based it entirely upon that one phrase in this particular poem. The ‘claim ownership of our souls’ bit is the way I see it but it is consistent with the Media as represented in the poem.

But the title talks about these several sentences leaving 'an impression' on his memory, not soul.

[Virgil]

I wonder though, if others find that it's a poem that they still find it as interesting on the second read, or if, like the quickly shifting, disposable soundbytes it's made of, it fails to keep our attention in any meaningful way? I wonder, because I've run across similar ideas before, and while I've found it the sort of thing that momentarily makes you stop and think about the connections between the random phrases etc., it's seldom anything that I feel compelled to come back to and read over again. After all, much of the allure really lies in its uniqueness. I don't know that the work itself is as interesting as much as the idea behind it of stringing random phrases together. If many poets started using the same form and it lost its originality I feel as though such a poem would also lose most of its edge. I'd be interested to hear if there are differences of opinion though. I'm not trying to claim it's "bad" poetry, just trying to see if people find it to be poetry of lasting interest. Maybe I just need to read through it again and see if it speaks to me more. ;)
I'm in agreement with you, Petrarch. I like the idea of the poem, but ultimately the language is dull. Like I said somewhere else, the only poetic charge (other than what's in the title) is the dislocation between the phrases. Otherwise it's too prosaic, and i'm sure that's part of the point. Perhaps the aesthetics match the meaning well and that's a good thing. [BTW, from my profile this is the reason why I think Dante's Divine Comedy is the most perfect work of art; form and aesthetics match perfectly with theme and world view.] But Dante has interesting language, he's a great poet. Perhaps Wachtel is a great poet too, but this work doesn't show it. There is a technique that some poets play with, called "found" poetry. They will take lines written somewhere/elsewhere and rearrange them so that they get shaped into a poem. I don't know if this meets the definition of found poetry, but it's along those lines. It's in wiki, btw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_poetry

But the "find" is usually interesting language not dull.

[tn2743]

After all, much of the allure really lies in its uniqueness. I don't know that the work itself is as interesting as much as the idea behind it of stringing random phrases together.

I totally understand what you mean. In my very humble opinion, I think that in art, especially modern art, uniqueness and originality is essential. And it is easy to underestimate or overlook meanings. Though isn't that why it's art? An original idea would be philosophy, wouldn't it? (I have not thought this last point through, please don't prey on my weakness :D ).

Anyway, if I have learnt anything in my 3 'long' :) years of University (besides the horrific economic models which I have now completely forgotten) it is that I don't have the luxury of choosing what I want to dedicate all my attention to. I have to put the same effort into all assignments regardless of how I rate the wisdom of the question... That way my grade isn't affected by the quality of the book that I'm reading. (I'm sorry if it seems like I'm trying to sound smart)

I guess my point is: whilst the contents, meanings, or 'ideas' of this poem might not be what makes it interesting; that should not get in the way of me trying to understand them throroughly nontheless.

I know that you never actually said anything to contradict this. I just felt like contributing to this point, which was also on my mind. :)

[Petrarch's Love]

There is a technique that some poets play with, called "found" poetry. They will take lines written somewhere/elsewhere and rearrange them so that they get shaped into a poem. I don't know if this meets the definition of found poetry, but it's along those lines. It's in wiki, btw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_poetry

But the "find" is usually interesting language not dull.

Thanks Virg., I couldn't remember what it was called. I've had a lot of fun writing "found" poetry myself (no claims to anything profound, just fun). It's a nice brainstorming excercise since it encourages finding unexpected connections between seemingly seperate or unrelated ideas, or words, or sounds of words. I was thinking of one such experiment during our discussions here last week:

The time of the singing of the birds is come
And smale fowles maken melodye
The Phoenix and the Turtle
Singest of summer in full-throated ease,
Those dying generations at their song.

[Shanna]

Is there any significance to this?

"..Named from the Greek meaning fire-lizards, salamanders have a long mythological history of holding the power to thwart fire. Thomas Bulfinch, of Mythology fame, notes that "...the authority of numerous sage philosophers, at the head of whom are Aristotle and Pliny, affirms this power of the salamander. According to them, the animal not only resists fire, but extinguishes it, and when he sees the flame charges it as an enemy which he well knows how to vanquish." Some attributed these powers to the salamander's cold-bloodedness, others to fire-proof skin, while still others say the myth began when salamanders were seen emerging from the charred remnants of fire logs."

Excerpt from AN ALCHEMIST'S POEM:
A SALAMANDER LIVES IN THE FIRE, WHICH IMPARTS TO IT A MOST GLORIOUS HUE.

...In all fables we are told
That the Salamander is born in the fire;
In the fire it has that food and life
Which Nature herself has assigned to it.
It dwells in a great mountain
Which is encompassed by many flames,
And one of these is ever smaller than another -
Herein the Salamander bathes.
The third is greater, the fourth brighter than the rest -
In all these the Salamander washes, and is purified.
Then he hies him to his cave,
But on the way is caught and pierced
So that it dies, and yields up its life with its blood.
But this, too, happens for its good:
For from its blood it wins immortal life,
And then death has no more power over it. ...

- From: BOOK OF LAMBSPRING

http://www.geocities.com/alandwpeters/lambspring.html

[tn2743]

Is there any significance to this?


Interesting. I was wondering if we might have to go back to the title for more clues. Do you mind having a go at answering this question first Shanna? It seems like you're trying to suggest something.

[jackyyyy]

A Paragraph Made Up of
Seven Sentences Which Have
Entered My Memory Via Hearing Them
or Reading Them and Have Each
Left an Impression There Like the
Slender Scar Left by a Salamander
in a Piece of Rapidly Cooling
Igneous Rock

1. Its a title.
2. With it, he writes of a Paragraph.
3. He indicates that seven sentences 'have entered' his memory.

There is no evidence here that he set the paragraph out. Could be, it was presented to him as a paragraph. We can assume it is a collection that has been selected somewhere and by someone, its not random in this sense.
He also writes, 'Which Have Entered', which only indicates they are familiar to him.

He now presents this 'Paragraph' to us.

Because we can derive an infinite number of conclusions from these seven (or not??), I wonder if he is simply presenting to us a collection of salamanders that he discovered somewhere, somehow.

What do you think?


Is there any significance to this?There is definitely something in the Salamanders. Whether he is simply applying that analogy as a theme or there is something else going on here is hard to pin down. I think its in the next para.


Interesting. I was wondering if we might have to go back to the title for more clues. Do you mind having a go at answering this question first Shanna? It seems like you're trying to suggest something.Yes, its like we chase and chase the lady till she catches us. The title holds the key.

[Virgil]

Because we can derive an infinite number of conclusions from these seven (or not??), I wonder if he is simply presenting to us a collection of salamanders that he discovered somewhere, somehow.

What do you think?
You might be on to something there. However, I still don't feel that they are randomly picked. I think there is order to it, but I haven't found anyone's (including mine) logic convincing. Perhaps these are just salamanders that have crept into his consciousness, ordered by what might have been on his mind at the moment of conceptualization, frozen in the rock of his brain, but is incapable of truely communicating to future archeologists (us!) the theme or idea from some pre-historical epoch?

[jackyyyy]

You might be on to something there. However, I still don't feel that they are randomly picked. I think there is order to it, but I haven't found anyone's (including mine) logic convincing. Perhaps these are just salamanders that have crept into his consciousness, ordered by what might have been on his mind at the moment of conceptualization, frozen in the rock of his brain, but is incapable of truely communicating to future archeologists (us!) the theme or idea from some pre-historical epoch?I don't think they are random either (they stook to the stone, when others didn't). Yes, I agree there is a theme he is alluding to, but there is insufficient information in the content to fix on the target, which leads me to suppose its in the subsequent para, which he is not giving us, teasing us.

[tn2743]

He also writes, 'Which Have Entered', which only indicates they are familiar to him.


Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean here.



I wonder if he is simply presenting to us a collection of salamanders that he discovered somewhere, somehow.


Do you mean he has an actual collection of salamanders??? I don't think this can be. He indicates very clearly that the sentences are to his memory like salamanders to a rock. Sorry if I misunderstood you.

...

I think that if there is an overriding theme or 'logic' in this poem, it is the human sexual nature. Every sentense including the title can relate to this theme heavily.

I'm not sure either as to why he has arranged them the way he did. It's not that no one has come up with anything convincing; I don't think that anyone has attempted to explain his arrangement. Though I thought some of the attempts to explain the meanings and impact of each sentences and the connections between them were quite convincing. But why in that order? :confused:

[Pendragon]

If I may comment here, having read several of your posts on this poem: I cannot lay claim to being an expert on the poem's style, although I have used it with some success as a poet myself, but salamanders are a different story. You see, my home state of Virginia is said to have more species of salamanders living here than anywhere in the world. My wife and I, and my three children often go on salamander hunts. There is one species here, and throughout the Blue Ridge Mountains, that has that fire-charged "glorious hue", that this poem reminds me of so strongly. We call it a "ruber". It is actually a Pseudotritin ruber ruber or Northern Red Salamander.

This is it. Does it not have the "glorious hue"?
http://biodiversity.wku.edu/salamanders/Salamander_Images/Northern_Red_Salamander.jpg

[Grumbleguts]

I am still not convinced of a totally conscious arrangement and selection of these sentences. I can appreciate most of the arguments regarding sexual and mortal concerns but I don't agree that these are the whole picture (or even necessarily a part of it.)

These phrases stuck in Wachtel's memory, carved themselves into it as he says in the title. Isn't it a possibility that the choice of the sentences is down to nothing more than the type of sentence that the poet is prone to remember? Perhaps he has a preoccupation with sex and death, most of us do to some degree or other. Perhaps that is why these phrases stuck.

I like the idea that the Unnameable presented of the language of the sentences replacing that of the title. That I do agree with. There is a deliberate contrast between the two parts. I consider the title just as important a part of the whole as the supposed text of the work and I consider the dichotomy between the two to be far more important than which phrases were used.

I also appreciate TU's comments regarding the 'alternative' phrases that I proposed. They weren't well chosen perhaps to fit with the style of the actual ones in the poem, being randomly chosen scars from my own lump of rock which is more sedimentary than igneous, layered over years rather than fired by the first flash of youth. I still maintain that it is the linguistic style of the individual sentences that is important, the way in which 'the media' says things and the implied subtexts, rather than any particular phrase. Perhaps these examples would fit better - "MP in Vicarage Sex Romp", "Up 12 Big BBC Top 40 Places This Week!", "L'Oreal, because you're worth it." Compared with my previous suggestions, these carry a larger burden of implications, more in keeping with the ones used in Wachtel's piece.

[jackyyyy]

Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean here.I am suggesting the author is presenting to us a paragraph, that he or someone else built, which comprises these sentences. It also happens to be, that the seven have entered his memory (at some point in time). I can derive they are familiar. This does not imply randomness, because the paragraph was chosen for it's content.

Do you mean he has an actual collection of salamanders??? I don't think this can be. He indicates very clearly that the sentences are to his memory like salamanders to a rock. Sorry if I misunderstood you.No, the salamanders are the sentences.

I think that if there is an overriding theme or 'logic' in this poem, it is the human sexual nature. Every sentense including the title can relate to this theme heavily. Sex again?

I'm not sure either as to why he has arranged them the way he did. It's not that no one has come up with anything convincing; I don't think that anyone has attempted to explain his arrangement. Though I thought some of the attempts to explain the meanings and impact of each sentences and the connections between them were quite convincing. But why in that order? :confused:I don't think there is anything in the order of the sentences, But, there does exist a consistency in the content.

[tn2743]

I think the significant connection is that they all tell us something about the nature of the world we’ve constructed for ourselves through the discourses of modern media. I said earlier that they have a cumulative effect but this isn’t quite right – it’s more that they interact with one another and cumulatively produce a rather disturbing picture of the modern, media-saturated world.

Is Wachtel therefore suggesting that there are two linguistic realms – that of the past world of elevated literary expression and the rather debased and inane expression that saturates the world around us today? they then serve as a comment on the difference between the world as it is described through Art and the one in which we live.


When I first read this poem I immediately assumed that this poem was criticising the modern media in some way. It has just occured to me that Wachtel could, just as easily, be criticising the past artistic ways. Someone suggested to me that it matters more to a poet to observe spring and its flowers than to follow world politics. Maybe Wachtel, through this paragraph, wants to show us that if poets actually follow the news and use it as inspiration, this is what they might come up with: quite unflattering, though more relevant. Maybe he is suggesting that poetry should merge with reality.

Just a thought.

[Petrarch's Love]

"..Named from the Greek meaning fire-lizards, salamanders have a long mythological history of holding the power to thwart fire. Thomas Bulfinch, of Mythology fame, notes that "...the authority of numerous sage philosophers, at the head of whom are Aristotle and Pliny, affirms this power of the salamander. According to them, the animal not only resists fire, but extinguishes it, and when he sees the flame charges it as an enemy which he well knows how to vanquish." Some attributed these powers to the salamander's cold-bloodedness, others to fire-proof skin, while still others say the myth began when salamanders were seen emerging from the charred remnants of fire logs."

I'm glad someone brought this up. As a Renaissance scholar the association with the salamander and fire naturally came to mind, since salamanders in hot situations are all over the iconography of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. They were often represented in emblems, and several famous people took the salamander reclining in fire as their device (rather like the personal version of a coat of arms), among them Francois I, 16th century king of France. As Shanna's post says, the salamander was believed to be able to both survive in fire and to extinguish fire with the coldness of its skin. Because of this they were thought to symbolize the justice of God in having the power to withstand and snuff out fire. Francois I's motto, (nutrisco et extinguo, I nourish and extinguish) which accompanied his Salamander device attributes such power to the king. Here's a 16th century (possibly 17th century copy) royal emblem of a salamander (which like many stylized representations of the period, looks a bit like a little dragon):

http://www.mnemosyne.org/emb/pix/full/embmne_pad1615_pic026.jpg

And here's the municipal flag of Vitry-le-Francois in France, with Francois I's salamander device and motto:

http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/f/fr-51-vf.gif

I wonder if this was in the back of Wachtel's mind in the image of the salamander making its mark on the hot lava. If, as someone suggested, the sentences that follow are, in a sense, seven Salamanders, this association with the salamander as it is represented in traditional European iconography would suggest a connection between the power of the salamander to nourish and extinguish and the power of the media to nourish and extinguish our thoughts. Even if it wasn't really at all in Wachtel's thoughts as he penned this, it strikes me as a musing that is somehow appropriate to the poem's intent.

[jackyyyy]

Even if it wasn't really at all in Wachtel's thoughts as he penned this, it strikes me as a musing that is somehow appropriate to the poem's intent.Salamanders flourished x billion years ago, which is why they ended up on so much rock. If we carry the analogy over to our sentences, we see media comments, punch lines, spiltover language, all the things that flourish today, making up this paragraph. And, the paragraph is the rock, and now, its a poem. Thanks, Petrarch.

[ktd222]

So wasn't I on to something at the beginning of this weeks thread?

[Virgil]

So wasn't I on to something at the beginning of this weeks thread?
My dear, you are always on to something, even when I disagree with you. :D

[jackyyyy]

So wasn't I on to something at the beginning of this weeks thread?If it wasn't for your timely interlocutions, I would be listening to my car radio right now, pushing all the wrong buttons.

[Pensive]

TO HOPE BY JOHN KEATS


When by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head.

Whene'er I wander, at the fall of night,
Where woven boughs shut out the moon's bright ray,
Should sad Despondency my musings fright,
And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,
Peep with the moon-beams through the leafy roof,
And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof.

Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,
Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;
When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,
Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:
Chace him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,
And fright him as the morning frightens night!

Whene'er the fate of those I hold most dear
Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow,
O bright-eyed Hope, my morbid fancy cheer;
Let me awhile thy sweetest comforts borrow:
Thy heaven-born radiance around me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!

Should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain,
From cruel parents, or relentless fair;
O let me think it is not quite in vain
To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed.
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!

In the long vista of the years to roll,
Let me not see our country's honour fade:
O let me see our land retain her soul,
Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom's shade.
From thy bright eyes unusual brightness shed--
Beneath thy pinions canopy my head!

Let me not see the patriot's high bequest,
Great Liberty! how great in plain attire!
With the base purple of a court oppress'd,
Bowing her head, and ready to expire:
But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings
That fill the skies with silver glitterings!

And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud;
Brightening the half veil'd face of heaven afar:
So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,
Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head.

[Petrarch's Love]

Ah, Pensive, you've posted a poem by one of my favorite poets. This isn't one I've spent as much time with as others (probably because it's not in the volume of his selected poems I refer to the most). Do you know by chance if this is one of his earlier poems? It seems less finished than some of his later works. It feels to me as though he's been reading something like Spenser's "Epithalamion" with that repeating final line. I'm not sure why he doesn't maintain it throughout though (it's in all but three of the stanzas). Is there a significance I'm missing about the three stanzas that don't end with," And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head," or might this just be a sign of a beginning poet experimenting? It's got the elements of what makes some of his other poetry so deeply moving--an unwavering faith that there is something in the world worth loving, a refusal to submit to despair, a reason to hope. I hate to say though that he loses me completely when he gets to the patriotic stuff in stanzas six and seven. Keats is best at personal feelings, I inevitably get bored when he starts hitting any kind of political note. Anyway, I'll give this one some more thought and maybe some other people will comment too. Thanks for posting Pensy.:)

[jackyyyy]

I had a difficult time absorbing it until my third peek at it. The 'silver pinions' is with some mood, but then I like how he does that. I'd also like to know what year this was written, so I will research it. Thanks, Pensive.

[Petrarch's Love]

Jackyyyy (and others who are interested)--The poem is evidently dated February 1815, meaning it is fairly early in his career (early being a relative term in a career that was necessarily limited by death), and one year before the publication of his first poem in the Examiner . It's astounding how much his poetry changed between the time of this poem and his death at age twenty-five.

[Virgil]

Ah, Pensive, you've posted a poem by one of my favorite poets. This isn't one I've spent as much time with as others (probably because it's not in the volume of his selected poems I refer to the most). Do you know by chance if this is one of his earlier poems? It seems less finished than some of his later works. It feels to me as though he's been reading something like Spenser's "Epithalamion" with that repeating final line.
Keats is also one of my favorite poets. I have never seen this poem before. I did an internet search and found a date (didn't say whether written or published) of February 1815. I think this puts Keats at nineteen years old, certainly one of his early ones. In fact the site numbered the poems and while I don't know the exact logc of the numbering system, it put this at number eight. I would guess that ths is a very early poem. You can tell by how less polished it seems. I've only quickly skimmed it, but I think every single line a end-stopped line (the opposite of enjambent, I forget what that's called). Also the rhythm felt very fixed and overly regular. I believe Keats was heavily infleuenced by Spencer. Many of his stanza structures are either Spencerian or a variation. The stanza structure (ABABCC) here is also simpler than later Keats.


edit: I didn't read Perarch's last post (just above) when I wrote this. She had already mentioned the date of the poem.

[Pensive]

I love this poem but I am also a little uncomfortable with him repeating the line: "Wave thy silver pinions over my head"

I haven't read many of the Keats poems but those I read, I found them really worth reading.

[jackyyyy]

I love this poem but I am also a little uncomfortable with him repeating the line: "Wave thy silver pinions over my head"

I haven't read many of the Keats poems but those I read, I found them really worth reading.Just focusing on 'pinion'... outer edge of a wing, flutters the most, pronouncing some angelic/benevolent finger of authourity, a wisdom, a miracle for the enlightenment and relief he is asking for. I wondered what is common about those stanzas that end with this 'pinions' too, and if maybe there are crests and troughs. But, I do not see this yet. Also, 'pinion', as used today, brings up lots of notions - a strong word inferring a guide, cogwheel, a binding of sort. I think 'pinion' had other connotations in Keat's time, not unique to birds/angels. Another remark, its silver, and not white. Because of the repeat, the whole piece feels like a song people might sing in a Church or school.

[Petrarch's Love]

I'm finding it interesting in reading this poem to think about what it is exactly that Keats changed in his later poetry to make it so much more affecting. It's funny because he really sounds like a young poet here. It's not quite so hard to imagine that he's a very talented young man who would be about the age of a freshman in college, or a little out of highschool nowadays, while in his later poetry seems so beyond his years (I'm only a year younger than he was when he died, so I guess I'm keenly aware of where most people--even fairly bright and talented people--are at that age). As I said in an earlier post, the basic sentiment in this poem is not dissimilar to some of his later work, but it comes across as being obviously less developed. This might be an opportunity for us to discuss what it is that makes a poem seem "finished." What combination of the technical aspects of a poem, and choice of subject make a poem "great" as opposed to "good"?

As Virgil points out, Keats is using a simpler stanza form here than in other poems, and all the lines are end-stopped. The later Keats uses enjambment beautifully and, like Spenser, is much more conscious of the metrical breaks in the line. Some of the metaphors seem a little heavy handed here too, and as people are pointing out the "silver pinions" repetition comes off a little akwardly. At first I thought this might be because he didn't consistently carry through with it throughout the poem, but I'm not sure if that would have helped either. Earlier, I was starting to compare the repeating end line with Spenser's "Epithalamian," one of the most successful poems I can think of which repeats the same line at the end of each stanza. I wonder why it works there and not in this poem. The obvious answer would be that Spenser's is a better line, but why is this? Why do lines like the "silver pinions" come across as a bit overkill here, while the "faery lands forlorn" from one of Keats' later poems (which one would expect to sound just as sappy) works much better? (Of course, maybe some would argue that it doesn't :lol:). Anyway, just some things I was tossing around in my head. I wondered if anyone else had similar thoughts.

[Petrarch's Love]

Off topic--Does anyone happen to know what's become of Unnamable? It's not like him to stop posting for more than a couple days, and even though it's only been a little under a week since his last post, I wondered if he had told anyone he was taking a little time off for some reason? The forums are in danger of becoming positively sachrine without his cynical wit being peppered about. Will he actually let us go on discussing "silver pinions" all week?! ;)

[Virgil]

Off topic--Does anyone happen to know what's become of Unnamable? It's not like him to stop posting for more than a couple days, and even though it's only been a little under a week since his last post, I wondered if he had told anyone he was taking a little time off for some reason? The forums are in danger of becoming positively sachrine without his cynical wit being peppered about. Will he actually let us go on discussing "silver pinions" all week?! ;)
I haven't heard Petrarch, but it seems like a number of people have some sort of spring break at this time of year. I too was thinking about him, especially what his reaction would be to this poem ("To Hope," bah humbug! :D ), but I imagine he might be away.

[Petrarch's Love]

Just focusing on 'pinion'... outer edge of a wing, flutters the most, pronouncing some angelic/benevolent finger of authourity, a wisdom, a miracle for the enlightenment and relief he is asking for. I wondered what is common about those stanzas that end with this 'pinions' too, and if maybe there are crests and troughs. But, I do not see this yet. Also, 'pinion', as used today, brings up lots of notions - a strong word inferring a guide, cogwheel, a binding of sort. I think 'pinion' had other connotations in Keat's time, not unique to birds/angels.

Jackyyyy--I just saw this post. I looked up "pinion" in the OED, and it seems that the meanings you give for the word--guide, cogwheel, a verb meaning to bind--have all been around since at least the 17th century. I didn't come across any particular connotations from Keats' time that we wouldn't have now except some meaning having to do with left over wool, which I don't think is applicable. The OED does refer to the figurative use of pinion for things poetically represented as having wings. Of possible interest under that entry, is the quotation from Pope's An Essay on Man, "hope humbly then, with trembling pinions soar." I wonder if this passage was at all in Keats mind when he wrote his poem, or if it's a coincidence?

I also did a search for the phrase "silver pinions" in a wideranging 19th c. poetry database I have access to, and it came up with several instances of the phrase in describing the wings of doves of peace before Keats' use of it here.


I haven't heard Petrarch, but it seems like a number of people have some sort of spring break at this time of year. I too was thinking about him, especially what his reaction would be to this poem ("To Hope," bah humbug! ), but I imagine he might be away.

You're probably right, I forgot some people have a later spring break. Maybe one of us should be elected to be the resident curmudgeon while he's away and toss a few more bah humbugs onto the thread. :D

[jackyyyy]

You're probably right, I forgot some people have a later spring break. Maybe one of us should be elected to be the resident curmudgeon while he's away and toss a few more bah humbugs onto the thread. :DBahh, its all humbug !!! :D
( I am not electing myself, btw. Just moving things along...)

[Virgil]

I take pinions to be strictly as bird's wings.

One thing I notice is that the quatrain (first four lines) of each stanza is in the subjuntive (I think it's subjuntive, somebody check my grammer) mood. They are all in either a hypothetical or very general vague time: "When..." or Whenever..." or "Should..." or Let me not see..." or "So, when...". It puts the poem in a realm of imagination rather than the here and now.

Here's how I see the idea of each stanza:
One: When alone with hateful thoughts
Two: When wandering and despondency comes to him
Three: When disppointment seizes his heart
Four: When fate befalls dear ones
Five: Unhappy love from dear ones
Six: Possible loss of naton's honor
Seven: Possible loss of libert
Eight: A goomy cloud veils heaven

The good poetry rests in the eighth stanza and I don't think I captured it's meaning with my summary. However, the first seven stanzas are all parallel statements, that is there is no progression of thought or narrative. Like in classical music, the poem is in a theme and variation structure.

The closing couplets seem to be a sort of request for blessing from the diety, "Hope". "Sweet Hope, etheral balm upon me shed / And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head."

[jackyyyy]

Yes, I am resting with bird wing tips despite I could go figure. Overall, it appears it should or would be subjunctive mood, but its not consistent - he flips to indicative. Maybe this is as Patrarch pointed out, and I think an early work with some indecisiveness. I read up on Keats last night, since I did not know that much of him. He wrote this when he was 19, died at 25 from Tuberculosis, same as a brother. His work reflects this mental anguish, as I combine his ambitions and situation, the girl he could not marry, closeness of family, mother. Interesting, that he was around Shelley, a favourite of mine and another romantic. Keats involves more religious overtones (I think). The patriot stanza is interesting because of those times, God and country. It almost feels like a token effort, out of place with the rest except if this was heavy on his mind. I like what Virgil wrote, 'like in classical music'. I could not put my finger on it properly until he wrote that, and I agree. However, I disagree that there is no progression. I think it bounces back with the ryhme of 'silver pinions' in an unusual manner.

[Virgil]

The patriot stanza is interesting because of those times, God and country. It almost feels like a token effort, out of place with the rest except if this was heavy on his mind.
That's true. 1815 is Napoleon at Waterloo. I just looked up the eaxct date of the battle, June 18,1815. I still don't see the progression, though.

[jackyyyy]

That's true. 1815 is Napoleon at Waterloo. I just looked up the eaxct date of the battle, June 18,1815. I still don't see the progression, though.It was also the time of the Brit/Americas wars, awesome history and times, the fleet locked up with the French/spanish, not enough ships to go round. I can't sing for toffee, but I can hum(bug) it, kinda. Reminds me of a cross between a rally song and a hymn. I'll see if I can describe it better.

[Grumbleguts]

Not Keats at his romantic best. But an interesting example of the middle ground between juvenilia and his adult voice. I think I've seen this before but it must have been many years ago - its not in my selected Keats. I agree with most of what has been said here. I like Virgil's classical music comparison - my first impression was that this was in the tradition of 'lyric' poetry, ie. intended to be sung - which fits in with Virgil's view. I don't have anything else to add really - it's been pretty well summed up by you all before I got here.

[Petrarch's Love]

The good poetry rests in the eighth stanza and I don't think I captured it's meaning with my summary. However, the first seven stanzas are all parallel statements, that is there is no progression of thought or narrative. Like in classical music, the poem is in a theme and variation structure.

Virgil--I also agree that the best poetry rests in the final stanza. That's where I started feeling like I could really see the later Keats starting to develop. Your comparison to the theme and variations is very apt, and I think also highlights both what is successful and what is problematic in this poem. I've been working on a Mozart theme and variation from his piano sonata k331 recently, so I've been thinking a fair amount about what makes a theme and variation work well. The trick is to balance what is being repeated in from the theme and what is being varied just enough to keep the listner's attention. What I've noticed is that in a very successful theme and variation like Mozart's there is a sense of some kind of progression within the repetitions. Each variation gets a little more complex in some way than the last, even while being tied to the others by the common theme. Even though you are essentially repeating what you started with in the theme, there is a sense that each successive variation is building on the last and making progress toward the conclusion.

I think this highlights what you're saying about Keats' poem seeming to lack progression. It feels like he's looking for just that sort of balance between repetition and variation that a musical composer might. Hence, his uncertainty in when to use the "silver pinions" refrain, and the slightly disjointed feeling in the shifting subjects he's addressing (I agree with Jackyyy that the patriotic sentiments feel less like something he's personally emotionally invested in, than a sort of general concern of the times). If we compare it with music, this poem sounds like a theme and variation by a composer who's laying out a set of variations which, as you say lie parallel to one another--introducing something new each time but not necessarily somthing more complex or in a more comlex style that builds upon the last-- as opposed to a theme and variations like Mozart's in which the stanzas would build upon each other while maintaining just enough of the original theme to connect them all without sounding tiresomely repetitive. Just some thoughts that came to mind.


I can hum(bug) it, kinda.

:lol: Glad to see the humbugs keep rolling in. Now we'll have a whole bouquet of them to present Unnamable when he surfaces again.
Maybe I'd best get to work thinking up some less aesthetic artsy fartsy comments and more bah humbugish remarks myself just to maintain a sense of balance ;).

[jackyyyy]

refrainYou took the hum out of my whistle, that is exactly it (to me at least).

as opposed to a theme and variations like Mozart's in which the stanzas would build upon each other while maintaining just enough of the original theme to connect them all without sounding tiresomely repetitive. Just some thoughts that came to mind.Yes, and this is exactly what happens in music, which is why I was trying to sing it in my choir boy voice (unsuccessfuly, I should add). I just blew the dust off my Mozart, to be sure.

:lol: Glad to see the humbugs keep rolling in. Now we'll have a whole bouquet of them to present Unnamable when he surfaces again.
Maybe I'd best get to work thinking up some less aesthetic artsy fartsy comments and more bah humbugish remarks myself just to maintain a sense of balance ;).He'll think Easter arrived late around here, and lots of chocolate to melt over.

I didn't come across any particular connotations from Keats' time that we wouldn't have now except some meaning having to do with left over wool, which I don't think is applicable.New inventions in the textile industry before and around 1812, wool then cotton, and 'pinions' was a common multi-use word in textiles.

[Virgil]

You guys make good points about theme and variation, while repetitive, still needs to progress in some fashion. I just went searching for later Keats poems that have a similar form and I think "Ode To Psyche" fits. Go and check it. We have it in the lit net data base. It's so much better because (well for many reasons) while there is no logical thought or narrative that gets progressed, the originanlity in each subsequet stanzas does make the poem feel it is heading somewhere.

[tn2743]

"From cruel parents, or relentless fair;"

Can someone please explain this line for me; I don't quite get it. Is 'fair' a noun here? Thanks

[Petrarch's Love]

tn2743--Yes, "fair" is a noun, as in "fair maiden." He seems to be referring to some sort of unrequited love. I suppose "cruel parents" could be getting in the way of that love, or maybe they're just cruel on general principles because parents tell nineteen year old aspiring poets they should be in medical school etc. ;) (Keats did attend Med. school for a time before he dropped that profession to dedicate himself to writing). I frankly think it's a rather akward, contrived sounding line.

[Virgil]

tn2743--Yes, "fair" is a noun, as in "fair maiden."
Your explanation of the line was quite good, but you made me smile with the sentence I quote you. Isn't "fair" in "fair maiden" an adjective, not a noun. :nod: I know I can slip on the finer points of grammer, but that one I think I know. :D

[Petrarch's Love]

Virg.--Thanks for pointing us to "Ode to Psyche." A more developed Keats poem with pinions in it. ;) I think you're right that he's acheived there a lot of what he's working out here. For one thing, the longer, less structured stanzas allow for much more musical activity. My copy, unlike the one here on Lit. Net has the poem divided into four rather than five stanzas, with no break between "A brooklet, scarce espied:" and "'Mid hushed, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed." Not only does the four stanza version make more sense (I mean, why break at the colon?), but it also means that each of the first three stanzas begin with the vocative "O"--"O Godess!," "O latest born and loveliest vision," "O brightest!" This very subtle anaphora demonstrates a way he's found to introduce repetition or refrain into his poetry without having to be so blatant as to hit the reader over the head with silver pinions. Also, just as you say, the laudatory nature of the poem doesn't neccessarily tell a story, but he finds more to tell, and in more interesting ways from stanza to stanza so that the reader has a feeling of having moved forward in the course of the poem.

[tn2743]

I've been working on a Mozart theme and variation from his piano sonata k331 recently, so I've been thinking a fair amount about what makes a theme and variation work well. The trick is to balance what is being repeated in from the theme and what is being varied just enough to keep the listner's attention.

Petrarch, are you a conductor or a musician? How cool!!! I was recently given some directions into listening and understanding classical music by a conductor friend (I'm almost blind and deaf musically) - it is just as hard as understanding poetry. But I find that music and poetry are similar in many ways.

I was surprised to see the bits about nation's honour and liberty. I thought that the first 5 stanzas are also beautiful poetry, talking about something very deeply painful in a personal way. The fifth stanza seems almost like an ending of this personal comtemplation, when he asks himself whether it is in vain to throw poetry into the air. It feels like a deep 'sign', a deep breath to finally rest his worries. But then the next two stanzas suddenly come back to describe much more abtract problems (and, as you said, something he has not invested in emotionally). They kind of broke the progression down for me. It seems like he was not sure whether he has finished 'unloading' all of his worries onto the page, not sure what bothers him. Although, it is possible that this lack of progession can be delibrate. Wha ya think? :)

[Petrarch's Love]

Your explanation of the line was quite good, but you made me smile with the sentence I quote you. Isn't "fair" in "fair maiden" an adjective, not a noun. I know I can slip on the finer points of grammer, but that one I think I know.

:lol: You're quite right. I was unconsciously quoting where the use of "fair" as a noun seems to most frequently arise from. I've seen writers start off referring to the "fair maid" and subsequently just shortening it to "fair." So I suppose I meant it not as an example of how the word is used as a noun, but what it is that "fair" is replacing. The "fair maiden" becomes the "fair". Thanks for keeping me on my toes. ;)

[Virgil]

Petrarch, are you a conductor or a musician? How cool!!! I was recently given some directions into listening and understanding classical music by a conductor friend (I'm almost blind and deaf musically) - it is just as hard as understanding poetry. But I find that music and poetry are similar in many ways.

I was surprised to see the bits about nation's honour and liberty. I thought that the first 5 stanzas are also beautiful poetry, talking about something very deeply painful in a personal way. The fifth stanza seems almost like an ending of this personal comtemplation, when he asks himself whether it is in vain to throw poetry into the air. It feels like a deep 'sign', a deep breath to finally rest his worries. But then the next two stanzas suddenly come back to describe much more abtract problems (and, as you said, something he has not invested in emotionally). They kind of broke the progression down for me. It seems like he was not sure whether he has finished 'unloading' all of his worries onto the page, not sure what bothers him. Although, it is possible that this lack of progession can be delibrate. Wha ya think? :)


I was surprised too to see the political brought up here too. I guess it is understandable on a poem about hope and the national fear that Napoleon brought.

At some point we should discuss the closing couplets to each stanza and why he does what he does with them. I've certainly not come to any understanding.

[Petrarch's Love]

Petrarch, are you a conductor or a musician? How cool!!! I was recently given some directions into listening and understanding classical music by a conductor friend (I'm almost blind and deaf musically) - it is just as hard as understanding poetry. But I find that music and poetry are similar in many ways.

No, I'm not a professional musician, though it would be wonderful to be that talented. I'm just a lit. scholar who plays the piano on a pretty amateur level and have a deep interest in and appreciation of classical music. :)


I was surprised too to see the political brought up here too. I guess it is understandable on a poem about hope and the national fear that Napoleon brought.

At some point we should discuss the closing couplets to each stanza and why he does what he does with them. I've certainly not come to any understanding.

Like you guys, I also feel like the political is out of place here. I feel as though he was trying to cover every situation that came to his mind as possibly troubling and depressing--politics often fits that bill. ;) I think it's a good idea to take a closer look at each stanza Virg., but I'm going to leave that until later, since I've got miles to read before I sleep. :as-sleep:

[tn2743]

At some point we should discuss the closing couplets to each stanza and why he does what he does with them. I've certainly not come to any understanding.

I have only noticed that he uses the rhyme "shed" and "head" many times, though not in a clear pattern. But every time he uses this rhyme, it is to conclude the stanza with a feeling that he is passive and is waiting for protection or blessing from Hope or a greater power. Perhaps he is stressing that he is not doing enough himself to help the situation, that he is helpless: "O let me think it is not quite in vain/ To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!"

There's another kind of hope; one you can help by participating in in the proccess of obtaining the result to be hoped for. He could be fighting in the war, or be in the court protecting lady Liberty. Maybe he is cursing his lack of action and his "morbid fancy" that he could probably escape himself?

Other than that, I can't see anything either. I don't understand the radomness in which this particular rhyme appears.

[tn2743]

No, I'm not a professional musician, though it would be wonderful to be that talented. I'm just a lit. scholar who plays the piano on a pretty amateur level and have a deep interest in and appreciation of classical music. :)


That's really cool too. The piano is my favourite instrument. I love listening to Arthur Rubinstein, though I can't articulate 'why' intellectually... just seems calmer and deeper. I'm a grade one piano, btw :D

Anyway, back to poetry...

[jackyyyy]

Perhaps he is stressing that he is not doing enough himself to help the situation, that he is helpless: "O let me think it is not quite in vain/ To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!"I do not sense quite 'helplessness', instead 'acceptance', and then he adds 'hope'. In regard to progression, I am finding the early stanzas discuss 'personal love and hope' and the later, 'love and hope of country (duty)'. I am not suggesting he is making a comparison, because I cannot see where he provokes that (yet), but I will suggest its a progression.

Another point about those times, duty was pressganged.

Interestingly, and I do not mean to fester this thread with my meanderings, but many poems have evolved into modern songs.

[Virgil]

Another point about those times, duty was pressganged.


An interesting thought I just had. The political does show the differences between Keats and the other Romantics. The other Romantics had a subversive element to their thoughts and politics. One could never imagine Shelley writing the following: "Let me not see our country's honour fade: / O let me see our land retain her soul" I can't recall any element in Keats' opus that was politically subversive.

[jackyyyy]

I think Shelley and Yeats would have been more precise. I put this down to Keats being either less skilled or less confident at the time. I am comparing a lot with the recent Yeats piece, after the comparisons other people made, which wandered around in discussion for other reasons, not these same. Honour can be at a high price, and just maybe in Keat's situation (war times), at the price of personal love, health and other things. So, if I take that notion further it gives again the progression from personal love to love of country/duty. The 'hope' is calling for 'silver pinions' to arrive, and victory - an end to suffering. I sense resignation (I called it acceptance before), but different to Yeats (he was 19, should be full of life), and wonder if its a tough and reluctant resignation as a young man might resent. Also, being 19, and not being a military man, he would use 'refrain' in politeness.

The history fascinates me as much as the actual message itself. When I combine the times, personal biography and circumstances, I see a picture underneath the words. And here, I wonder if he was being a politer Shelley.

[jackyyyy]

badnet....

[tn2743]

I do not sense quite 'helplessness', instead 'acceptance', and then he adds 'hope'

I didn't quite understan why you have made this replacement. I don't think that 'acceptance' or 'resignation' would accompany 'Hope' as well as 'helplessness' or perhaps a better word that I can't quite think of; since the word 'resignation' itself somewhat implies lack or absence of 'Hope'. Doesn't it? Besides, if you were on the same page as me, I was talking about the final couplets of the stanzas. Where did he add Hope, if this 'resignation' was suggested in the final couplets of each stanza? I am not denying that there might be a progression that I cannot see, but maybe not in the direction of resignation. Wouldn't that contradict with the title too much?



At some point we should discuss the closing couplets to each stanza and why he does what he does with them. I've certainly not come to any understanding.

Has anyone thought more about this question? I think Virgil asked a good question here. I also thought that Petrarch were right in saying that we should look at each stanza individually in order to find a progression, since there seem to be no obvious pattern.

[jackyyyy]

I didn't quite understan why you have made this replacement. I don't think that 'acceptance' or 'resignation' would accompany 'Hope' as well as 'helplessness' or perhaps a better word that I can't quite think of; since the word 'resignation' itself somewhat implies lack or absence of 'Hope'. Doesn't it? Besides, if you were on the same page as me, I was talking about the final couplets of the stanzas. Where did he add Hope, if this 'resignation' was suggested in the final couplets of each stanza? I am not denying that there might be a progression that I cannot see, but maybe not in the direction of resignation. Wouldn't that contradict with the title too much?I think we've digested the fact there are eight stanzas, there is a lot here, and but you are right, each sentence could be given a lot of attention. 'Helpless' didn't quite do it for me. In stanza after stanza, he writes, 'When.., Should.., And as..'. Acceptance/resignation that life may/should/would be sad, ...there are despondent times, and then hope for silver pinions to arrive. I am suggesting resignation to the earthly things does not preclude unearthly things. I think the other word you mentioned, 'passive' is how I would describe his character, but not mood. Sometimes he goes '!'.

[tn2743]

In stanza after stanza, he writes, 'When.., Should.., And as..'. Acceptance/resignation that life may/should/would be sad, ...there are despondent times, and then hope for silver pinions to arrive. I am suggesting resignation to the earthly things does not preclude unearthly things.

I see what you mean about how "when..., should..., And as..." can be a sign of acceptance. They do give a feeling of submission or simply of being 'fed up'. But that is why in the last couplet of each stanza, the hope that he asks for seems so passive and helpless; but as long as he is wishing for things, he can't have given up. I think you would agree that...

"Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head"

...does not constitute a resignation.

He is wishing for something. Though even this wish is not as lively as can be. He could wish for the strength to get through whatever misfortune; he could wish for a chance to undo whatever mistake. But instead he asks to be protected or cheered up. He just wants to be blessed and offers nothing in return but verses.


I think the other word you mentioned, 'passive' is how I would describe his character, but not mood.

Sorry Jackyyyy, could you explain a little more about how 'passive' is his "character" but not "mood"? How have you separated them from each other through the message given by the poem? I see an expression of self - it can be either the mood or the character; but how does it express both separately and differently?


Sometimes he goes '!'.

Are you saying that the mood is positive or negative? '!' represents determination or desperation, no? How does that defy the passive 'mood'? Unless it's a positive mood and he is determined, then that wouldn't fit your 'resgination' theory anymore.

[Petrarch's Love]

Perhaps neither "resignation" nor "helplessness" quite covers his view of despair in the world. I think it's a matter of "recognition." In the first portion of each stanza he recognizes something that either is bad or has the potential to become bad in his life. Perhaps there are some ways in which he goes so far as acceptance of certain things that happen in life over which he has no control, but I don't think it ever goes so far as resignation, and, as Jackyyyy says, accepting earthly hardships does not preclude hope in some heavenly good (not that I think hope is relegated to the next world here--there seem to be plenty of points for hope on this earth).
The final lines of each stanza are more like a repeated prayer than anything else. They are requests that "Hope" will act to fight against and sheild him from despair. This externalization and personification of Hope does give the impression of the speaker being in a passive, plaintive position. At the same time, however, the struggle is actually an internal one. Hope is something within the poet. He is calling upon something within himself, appealing to the better instincts of his own personality.

[jackyyyy]

I see what you mean about how "when..., should..., And as..." can be a sign of acceptance. They do give a feeling of submission or simply of being 'fed up'. But that is why in the last couplet of each stanza, the hope that he asks for seems so passive and helpless; but as long as he is wishing for things, he can't have given up. I think you would agree that...No, the 'When/Should/And as' refers to subjunctive mood. I am suggesting 'acceptance/resignation' that life can be sad. I don't think submissive/fed up/helpless are the same as acceptance/resignation.

"Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head"
...does not constitute a resignation.I agree, this is hope. The resignation(s) I am referring to are prior in those stanzas.
He is wishing for something. Though even this wish is not as lively as can be. He could wish for the strength to get through whatever misfortune; he could wish for a chance to undo whatever mistake. But instead he asks to be protected or cheered up. He just wants to be blessed and offers nothing in return but verses. Sorry Jackyyyy, could you explain a little more about how 'passive' is his "character" but not "mood"? How have you separated them from each other through the message given by the poem? I see an expression of self - it can be either the mood or the character; but how does it express both separately and differently?Agreed, he is not revolting/fighting, instead wishing/hoping, which makes his character somewhat 'passive'. He states an example then calls on silver pinions and hope to arrive.

Are you saying that the mood is positive or negative? '!' represents determination or desperation, no? How does that defy the passive 'mood'? Unless it's a positive mood and he is determined, then that wouldn't fit your 'resgination' theory anymore.Overall positive '!'. Resignation to the facts of life (cases he mentions) does not mean the end. The word 'helpless' does not work for me because I believe he could revolt, and therefore he is not helpless.
I think it's a matter of "recognition." Agreed, it is a recognition in that he recognizes it to us.
The final lines of each stanza are more like a repeated prayer than anything else. They are requests that "Hope" will act to fight against and sheild him from despair. This externalization and personification of Hope does give the impression of the speaker being in a passive, plaintive position. At the same time, however, the struggle is actually an internal one. Hope is something within the poet. He is calling upon something within himself, appealing to the better instincts of his own personality.Here again, he is not helpless. He can call on something to help. I use the word 'resignation' as acceptance, not termination. A repeated prayer, yes. I am not sure about calling upon something within himself. I need to read it with that view.

[tn2743]

He can call on something to help. I use the word 'resignation' as acceptance, not termination.

I'm afraid you're not making any sense and haven't explained yourself any clearer to me. So he resigns to the fact that life is sad, but he doesn't terminate the hope that it might not be? A slight contradiction don't you think? How else do you suggest we should percieve this statement? And you haven't explained the character v mood theory that you proposed either.

[tn2743]

Perhaps neither "resignation" nor "helplessness" quite covers his view of despair in the world. I think it's a matter of "recognition." In the first portion of each stanza he recognizes something that either is bad or has the potential to become bad in his life. Perhaps there are some ways in which he goes so far as acceptance of certain things that happen in life over which he has no control, but I don't think it ever goes so far as resignation, and, as Jackyyyy says, accepting earthly hardships does not preclude hope in some heavenly good (not that I think hope is relegated to the next world here--there seem to be plenty of points for hope on this earth).
The final lines of each stanza are more like a repeated prayer than anything else. They are requests that "Hope" will act to fight against and sheild him from despair. This externalization and personification of Hope does give the impression of the speaker being in a passive, plaintive position. At the same time, however, the struggle is actually an internal one. Hope is something within the poet. He is calling upon something within himself, appealing to the better instincts of his own personality.

I agree with you. I think that you have found the middle ground here, or have made the arguments clearer to me anyway. I like the idea of the repeated prayers; maybe it's not as complicated as I thought.

[jackyyyy]

I'm afraid you're not making any sense and haven't explained yourself any clearer to me. So he resigns to the fact that life is sad, but he doesn't terminate the hope that it might not be? A slight contradiction don't you think? How else do you suggest we should percieve this statement? And you haven't explained the character v mood theory that you proposed either.No, I wrote, resigned to the fact that life 'can' be sad. I wrote, I use the word resignation as acceptance, 'not' termination. My point was, the word 'helpless' does not fit, and your word 'passive' is closer to how I would describe hiim. I do not think it valuable to put more energy into explaining his character, the 'hymn' idea has stuck, and I like that.

[Pensive]

Oh, I think that if only Keats wouldn't have repeated the lines: "And wave thy silver pinions over my head" poem would have been better but it is still good, in my opinion.

Quoting Petratch Lover: "Hope is something within the poet. He is calling upon something within himself, appealing to the better instincts of his own personality"

I agree with you and I think that we have no right to say that he was in a bad mood or in a good mood. All we are talking about is the poem which includes poet but not hismoods. He wrote this poem but all draw backs of it, they will remain as they were whether he was in a good mood or a bad one.

[tn2743]

Let me not see the patriot's high bequest,
Great Liberty! how great in plain attire!
With the base purple of a court oppress'd,
Bowing her head, and ready to expire:


I'm not sure why he has mentioned purple here. :confused:

I go to court in England all the time, and the only purple I see is the purple on the Judge's robe. So base on this risky observation (that it is about the purple of the robe that he writes), I'll ask another question: does he mean that the judges oppress Liberty?

There were arguments during the Enlightenment (and even now) that the English retrospective legal system based on common law, which claims to serve the interest of the people better than continental laws, was putting too much legislative power in the hands of the judges (when, according to popular belief, legislative power belongs to the people). Maybe this could be what he talks about. Then, once again, I find this stanza strange and lacking in "emotional investment".

Unless, of course, I have misunderstood the purple completely.

[jackyyyy]

Well.. I have no idea either, but here is something...... 'Great liberty, 1790. riots... the Great Liberty Virginians, Lady Liberty and Liberty Bell, late 1700s, purple - flower of freedom.

[Petrarch's Love]

I'm not sure why he has mentioned purple here.

"Purple" is a common shorthand way of poetically refering to a monarch or royalty, or things associated with royalty. Since Roman times it has been considered the color of the royal and the elite, since purple dye was, for a long time, both rare and expensive. This is how I had read the line.

As people have been remarking, Keats is not generally as political a poet as say, Shelley or others of the romantic circle, but he shared similar liberal views in favor of a strong democracy, freedom of the press, etc. One of his few other political poems is a brief poem written in the same year as this one, 1815, in response to the celebrations held in Briton in that year in honor of the anniversary of the restoration of Charles II (the king who was restored to the throne in the 17th century, ending the period of the protectorate in England--mostly under Cromwell--that resulted after the English civil wars). These 1815 celebrations were made in conjunction with the forced exile of the "rightful" French King, Louis XVIII to London because of Napoleon's escape from Elba. Evidently all this celebration of monarchy made Keats and others uneasy. I assume the "purple" in the "Hope" poem alludes to similar concerns about a threat to democracy in England. The court would be the king's court to which liberty--i.e. republicanism or democracy--would be forced to bow (though the choice of the word court may also have a secondary allusion to justice--I'd be interested if anyone else could make more with that). The poem criticising the Restoration celebrations is brief enough that I'll quote it here:


Lines Written on 29 May
The anniversary of the Restoration of Charles II

Infatuate Britons, will you still proclaim
His memory, your direst, foulest shame?
Nor patriots revere?

Ah! when I hear each traitorous lying bell,
'Tis gallant Sidney's, Russell's, Vane's sad knell,
That pains my wounded ear

--Keats, 1815


The Sidney, Russell, and Vane mentioned, were republicans executed as traitors after the restoration in 1660.

[tn2743]

Thanks Petrarch. :)

[Pensive]

Petratch, man, your information is a bliss. I was also wondering the same thing...

[Virgil]

As people have been remarking, Keats is not generally as political a poet as say, Shelley or others of the romantic circle, but he shared similar liberal views in favor of a strong democracy, freedom of the press, etc. One of his few other political poems is a brief poem written in the same year as this one, 1815, in response to the celebrations held in Briton in that year in honor of the anniversary of the restoration of Charles II (the king who was restored to the throne in the 17th century, ending the period of the protectorate in England--mostly under Cromwell--that resulted after the English civil wars). These 1815 celebrations were made in conjunction with the forced exile of the "rightful" French King, Louis XVIII to London because of Napoleon's escape from Elba. Evidently all this celebration of monarchy made Keats and others uneasy. I assume the "purple" in the "Hope" poem alludes to similar concerns about a threat to democracy in England. The court would be the king's court to which liberty--i.e. republicanism or democracy--would be forced to bow (though the choice of the word court may also have a secondary allusion to justice--I'd be interested if anyone else could make more with that). The poem criticising the Restoration celebrations is brief enough that I'll quote it here:



The Sidney, Russell, and Vane mentioned, were republicans executed as traitors after the restoration in 1660.
But doesn't this show how different Keats' politics (if he really had any, remember he was still only 19) was from the other Romantics? By Keats' day the republican protestant gov't was the long established rule. There's 150 years between the Restoration and Keats' day. The politics of the Restoration (I'm treading here on ground I'm not all that learned in) had a lot to do with Catholic versus Protestant understandings of Kingship. It had all been decided by Keats' day, and the new dichotomy of Keats' time was freedom, ala the American and French revolutions and the aristocracy (albeit limited) of England. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Blake all supported the French Revolution, and while Shelley and Byron were too young at the time, but certainly their world views were in synch with this new order. Keats' as I can tell seems not to be. But again I'm not all that familiar with the politics of 1815. Remember, by then the french revolution had soured and become dispicable, and then Napoleon was on the rise. Wordsworth ultimately came to reject the french revolution model. The point of all this is, either Keats' was just superficially taking up the local political sentiments of his day or he was quite uncharacteristically "conservative" compared to the other Romantics. I tend to believe it was mostly superficial.

[jackyyyy]

Not to distract, but to add. Heavy on people's minds must have been the following, and Liberty Bell.

Jackson’s energy got results, and timely reinforcements from Kentucky and Tennessee brought his available forces to a little over 5,000. After several minor attacks in December, the British launched their grand assault at dawn of January 8, 1815. It was a foolhardy attempt-an attack in close columns against earthworks defended by artillery and riflemen whose aim was known to be deadly. The assault ended in terrible defeat for the British. The British lost their three highest-ranking officers, some 2,000 other casualties, and the city of New Orleans. Jackson’s losses were just thirteen killed.

[Regit]

The politics of the Restoration (I'm treading here on ground I'm not all that learned in) had a lot to do with Catholic versus Protestant understandings of Kingship. It had all been decided by Keats' day, and the new dichotomy of Keats' time was freedom, aka the American and French revolutions and the aristocracy (albeit limited) of England.

The point of all this is, either Keats' was just superficially taking up the local political sentiments of his day or he was quite uncharacteristically "conservative" compared to the other Romantics. I tend to believe it was mostly superficial.

Hi,

So the 'court' in "the base purple of the court oppress'd" is not a court of law but the court of royal rule?

If the case is that of the latter, then I will agree with Virgil here. It doesn't seem like Keats has had much time to think about politics before writing this stanza. It seems quite superficial and too brief.

[Petrarch's Love]

But doesn't this show how different Keats' politics (if he really had any, remember he was still only 19) was from the other Romantics? By Keats' day the republican protestant gov't was the long established rule. There's 150 years between the Restoration and Keats' day. The politics of the Restoration (I'm treading here on ground I'm not all that learned in) had a lot to do with Catholic versus Protestant understandings of Kingship. It had all been decided by Keats' day, and the new dichotomy of Keats' time was freedom, ala the American and French revolutions and the aristocracy (albeit limited) of England. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Blake all supported the French Revolution, and while Shelley and Byron were too young at the time, but certainly their world views were in synch with this new order. Keats' as I can tell seems not to be. But again I'm not all that familiar with the politics of 1815. Remember, by then the french revolution had soured and become dispicable, and then Napoleon was on the rise. Wordsworth ultimately came to reject the french revolution model. The point of all this is, either Keats' was just superficially taking up the local political sentiments of his day or he was quite uncharacteristically "conservative" compared to the other Romantics. I tend to believe it was mostly superficial.

Ok, first off I think you're probably right to a certain extent in that, as I said in my earlier post, I don't think Keats is really a political poet, and I don't think he is giving very rigorous attention to the fine points of politics in his poem. That said, I don't see any problem with drawing parallels between the English civil wars of the seventeenth century and the issues in Keats day (Keats certainly didn't). To begin with it isn't strictly true that the 17th century conflict was over Catholic and Protestant views. England was a Protestant country at that point so the issue was with the Puritans on Cromwell's side who took issue with Charles I's support of more "high church" (but still protestant) practices. It is true that some feared that Charles might be inclining toward turning England back to Catholicism, but he hadn't in fact so, though religion was definately a factor, it was a more complex thing than a simple Catholic/Protestant dichotomy.

The big issue in the civil wars, setting the religion aside for a moment, was really a matter of parliamentary rights and dissatisfaction with Charles I's rule. There were a number of financial issues at stake and a desire for a stronger role for parliament. We're talking about a group that beheaded the king and started a decade long interregnum without a monarchy. While it can be debated how successful they were, and how much Cromwell came to resemble a monarch himself, the idea behind the interregnum was that they were establishing a republican commonwealth. The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 would be the end of this republican experiment. In other words, the issues between the royalists and the roundheads in the 17th century were very much related to a conflict similar to that between "freedom and the aristocracy" that you applied to the romantic period. Someone who would support the types of republican ideals of the French and American revolutions in Keats' day could quite logically refer back to this earlier (albeit failed) attempt at a republican model of government. I thought his allusion back to a sympathy with the republicans of the civil wars made his stance in favor of the new ideals of "freedom" in his own day pretty clear. From all I've read about him I gather that Keats' views were, if anything, liberally inclined. Again, I do think his treatment of politics is somewhat "superficial" as you say--that's why I find his political moments pretty dull--but I'm not seeing the evidence that he's coming across as much different than or more conservative than the other romantic poets we've been mentioning. Maybe I'm just missing something you're picking up on?

[Virgil]

In other words, the issues between the royalists and the roundheads in the 17th century were very much related to a conflict similar to that between "freedom and the aristocracy" that you applied to the romantic period. Someone who would support the types of republican ideals of the French and American revolutions in Keats' day could quite logically refer back to this earlier (albeit failed) attempt at a republican model of government. I thought his allusion back to a sympathy with the republicans of the civil wars made his stance in favor of the new ideals of "freedom" in his own day pretty clear. From all I've read about him I gather that Keats' views were, if anything, liberally inclined/ Again, I do think his treatment of politics is somewhat "superficial" as you say--that's why I find his political moments pretty dull--but I'm not seeing the evidence that he's coming across as much different than or more conservative than the other romantic poets we've been mentioning. Maybe I'm just missing something you're picking up on?
Ok, I don't want to belabor this point. But here's one last attempt. ;)

The way Keats is expressing himself politically (in both the poem at hand and the bit that you quote) strikes me as different than when Shelley and Byron express themselves politically. I'm no expert of the times, so bear with me. Shelley and Byron (and I believe they both left England for somewhat political reasons) strike me as being subversive to their gov'ts, similar to the Beat generation poets of recent years. Keats' sentiment is definitely not subversivce, in fact supportive. The Restoration was 150 years prior to Keats. That's a long time. Just consider us expressing opinions of a political issue of 1856. Especially given the issues at hand of the French Revolution and the rise and threat of Napoleon. I don't know. All in all, I think we all agree that Keats political sentiments are superficial.

[Petrarch's Love]

The way Keats is expressing himself politically (in both the poem at hand and the bit that you quote) strikes me as different than when Shelley and Byron express themselves politically. I'm no expert of the times, so bear with me. Shelley and Byron (and I believe they both left England for somewhat political reasons) strike me as being subversive to their gov'ts, similar to the Beat generation poets of recent years. Keats' sentiment is definitely not subversivce, in fact supportive.
I guess we're just reading the poem very differently. I didn't think Keats was really being supportive of his current government. Supportive of his country, yes, but not perhaps of its current policies. In these lines for example:

"O let me see our land retain her soul,
Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom's shade."

He is concerned that England will no longer be able to retain "her soul," but that this true freedom will be replaced by a mere "shade," an imitation of freedom. This looked to me like a critique of overly conservative tendencies that he was afraid were endangering the existing freedoms he valued in his country. He may not be as boldly spoken as say, Shelley, but I think his tendencies are more in that direction than not.


The Restoration was 150 years prior to Keats. That's a long time. Just consider us expressing opinions of a political issue of 1856. Especially given the issues at hand of the French Revolution and the rise and threat of Napoleon.

As for, the matter of his referring back to the civil wars, the point is that he wasn't making a political statement about an event 150 years ago. He was using the resonance of an allusion to this historical event that he assumed most of his readers would associate with a certain kind of conflict between republican freedom and monarchy in order to saterize the attitudes of his own period. We still do this with our own history. If someone wrote a piece alluding to the nazi movement or about Benedict Arnold, we would instantly grasp that they aren't really concerned with the specific issues of sixty or even two-hundred years ago, but are drawing a parallel between those times and our own to make a statement about corrupt government or treachery.


All in all, I think we all agree that Keats political sentiments are superficial.


Yes, I think we do. I don't really want to belabor the point either, just interested that we seem to have read it so very differently. :)

[Virgil]

OK, you're probably rght, Petrarch. I think you convinced me. Keats' words are vague enough for multiple readings, and his appeal to national honor seemed different than what Shelley or Byron might say. But perhaps that's just my personal impression of Byron and Shelley.

[jackyyyy]

Let me not see our country's honour fade:
O let me see our land retain her soul,
Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom's shade.If I read the poem with the mindview of a Loyalist, then the beginning and the end nolonger appear disjointed. The fought over freedoms that Keats understood were, a century and more later, fighting the freedom fighters of the rest of the World. Trafalgar was 1805, and the French and Spanish were still powerful enemies. New Orleans was 1815, and news would have hit England just prior to his writing the poem. Great Liberty was the cry of the French Republic, and the people of 'plain attire'.


not freedom's shade.He writes, 'retain' these things, but NOT, 'freedom's shade'. I think here it means, 'a lesser Freedom'.
Keats is not decrying the regime, subversive, instead appears saddened/worried by its potential loss forever. This is why the word 'passive' seems to fit here. He does not appear 'threatened' or outspoken on the issue. Rather, he explains some emotional stuff, his feelings. He starts the poem with talk of despondency and hope, love and 'freedoms'. I take these early lines as examples of freedom of soul. Then finally, he states it:
Let me not see the patriot's high bequest,
Great Liberty! how great in plain attire!
With the base purple of a court oppress'd,
Bowing her head, and ready to expire:Patriot versus patriot, he does not want to see the patriot's death, the hard earn't Liberty now 'great in plain attire'. Which patriot is he talking about, and why 'base' purple.. a dirtied purple? I wonder if he was actually the political opposite of Shelley and Byron, or and probably an undecided 19 year old.

Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,He seems unsure here?

I know my take on it depends on a few things, but it makes most sense to me right now. Those were desperate years, and being loyal was at a high price and sacrifice. It was an ideal. Events forced Keats to look again at his values, with Shelley and others would have been pulling, swaying him. When I read the opening stanzas, and what he held dear and fair, then consider what actually transpired, did celestial influence bear on Keats and those, and finally us? Its a powerful poem in many ways, and I think its unfortunate that we have such a problem finding its absolute context, but I would like that.

[MelanieD]

Now I would like to ask the million dollar question that I have a hard time answering: Why is that "no country for old men?"
I don't know if I shall say something, being old and new.
I read with great interest all your comments. I noticed that at each reading of the poem I reached a different opinion.
First, to answer Virgils question: in one of the learned books of my husband's (Brodie's Notes) it is said, Yeats speaks of Ireland in the first stroph.
Then, in my understanding of the poem, he wants to turn his back on this country where 'all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect', (he's not humble) and there too much life going on for an old man. So he sails to B. and pleads to the emblems of permanence, to allow him to enter eternity - and here the key word - 'sick with desire'. He knows he's human (dying animal) and he knows: eternity is just an idea, a dream, a desire, an illusion. He accepts that. The sages in the gold mosaic, who are eternal, shall be his singing master, as he is a poet.
Beginning of stroph IV stresses not a truth (maybe denial of rebirth) but ('But') the wish to be that poet who works and hammers at the material that lasts (the words). And he is conscious that that object is without any practical use in the world, we are the drowsy Emperors, eyes half closed we listen to a bird sing 'Of what is past, or passing, or to come' (the sensual music of life) and then go back to real living.
This poem is the sigh which is in all of us.

[Virgil]

Melanie

I think your reading seems to fit as I read it too. I take it you liked the poem?

Every Monday, one of us selects a new poem for the week to discuss. Since it is near nightfall on Sunday for you, why don't you post a poem you would like discussed? I think we've pretty much completed the Keats poem.

[jackyyyy]

I don't know if I shall say something, being old and new.
I read with great interest all your comments. I noticed that at each reading of the poem I reached a different opinion.Hi Melanie. Good to meet you. You're right, seems we already know something of a work or start from scratch, and each read and each post brings a new impression. Quite amazing how the picture (almost a book, if I may) unfolds each time. You brought some very interesting comments with you. "shall be his singing master, as he is a poet" gives me another piece in the puzzle and I did not know this about him and Ireland. :nod:

[Virgil]

One thing I forgot to mention on "Sailing to Byzantim." There is a great rendition of it set to music by Paul Hillier in a CD called "Bitter Ballads". Hillier is an early (medevil and renaissance) music conductor and arranger, and this CD is poetry (Swift, Blake, Yeats, Stein, etc.) arranged around early music form. You can check the CD out here, and even listen to little clips: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000DLVM/103-9556243-3267036?v=glance&n=5174
Early music has become a fascination for me, and coupled with poetry, I was overwhelmed. I can't say that everything on the CD works perfectly, but everything is at least interesting. You can read about Paul Hillier here:http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Hillier-Paul.htm
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hillier

I also would love to hear other classic poems set to music. I have not been too succesful in finding some. If anyone is aware of classic poetry set to music, please inform me of it.

[Riesa]

Virgil, I don't know if you like folk at all but I love this guy, Greg Brown. He dedicates an entire album to William Blake.



Greg Brown, and Songs of Innocence and Experience (http://www.trailer-records.com/artists/brown.shtml)

[Virgil]

Virgil, I don't know if you like folk at all but I love this guy, Greg Brown. He dedicates an entire album to William Blake.



Greg Brown, and Songs of Innocence and Experience (http://www.trailer-records.com/artists/brown.shtml)
Cool. Thanks Riesa. I'm going to order it.

[MelanieD]

How do I do that? It's Monday morning.
Okay, I just type one up.


Morning song

He speaks:
Come, my laid lady, whom I wooed with words,
And called my Star--
Since you proved that you loved me, I
Know what you are?

For, knowing what I am, I have a rod
To measure by
If you mistake what I gave you for love, you are
More beast than I.

And having eased in you my ambiguous lusts
I now can prove
That you're a dupe who let me wallow you
And call it love.

If I have feet of clay, yet you are now
The dirt they trod --
And in that moment when I brought you down,
I was a god!

Katherine Anne Porter

[jackyyyy]

One thing I forgot to mention on "Sailing to Byzantim." There is a great rendition of it set to music by Paul Hillier in a CD called "Bitter Ballads". Hillier is an early (medevil and renaissance) music conductor and arranger, and this CD is poetry (Swift, Blake, Yeats, Stein, etc.) arranged around early music form. You can check the CD out here, and even listen to little clips: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000DLVM/103-9556243-3267036?v=glance&n=5174
Thanks Virgil, I very much appreciate that!

[Virgil]

How do I do that? It's Monday morning.
Okay, I just type one up.


Morning song

He speaks:
Come, my laid lady, whom I wooed with words,
And called my Star--
Since you proved that you loved me, I
Know what you are?

For, knowing what I am, I have a rod
To measure by
If you mistake what I gave you for love, you are
More beast than I.

And having eased in you my ambiguous lusts
I now can prove
That you're a dupe who let me wallow you
And call if love.

If I have feet of clay, yet you are now
The dirt they trod --
And in that moment when I brought you down,
I was a god!

Katherine Anne Porter
Thanks Melanie. You did it. Let me digest it.

Quick look: Very sensual. We're going to have fun with this one. ;)

[Grumbleguts]

On first reading one would assume that Ms Porter takes a very dim view of men. And a not much brighter one of women.

[Virgil]

Shall I list the sexual puns as a start, just to get that out of the way? Why not. Here are the words with double entendre: "come," "laid", "rod", "eased in."

[jackyyyy]

Shall I list the sexual puns as a start, just to get that out of the way? Why not. Here are the words with double entendre: "come," "laid", "rod", "eased in."But Virgil, you mean... this isn't this about a gardner, in love with nature, and flower arranging? :lol:

[Virgil]

But Virgil, you mean... this isn't this about a gardner, in love with nature, and flower arranging? :lol:
I didn't fully realize it when I posted before, but that was a very naughty post. On reading it over, it makes my heart flutter. Oh the cheap thrills in life.

[genoveva]

Ew, what a horrible poem! Great puns, horrible message. But, alas, I know it is true, sometimes.

[Grumbleguts]

I don't think there are any double-entendres in this poem. The meanings of the words on Virgil's list are blatantly sexual and allow no innocent interpretation in the context of the poem. Except that I contest his interpretation of 'eased in' - the speaker is saying that he has eased his lust, not eased into the woman's body.

I should like to say in defence of the male half of humanity that I have never treated a woman with the contempt shown in this poem and doubt that many men are as callously, sexually predative as the one described here. Although I know that such do exist, it still strikes me as feminist cliche.

[Regit]

Ew, what a horrible poem! Great puns, horrible message. But, alas, I know it is true, sometimes.

I agree. Not only that, somehow I don't think it will take a week to exhaust the technical substance of this poem. But I suppose a heated discussion about feminism can be interesting, that is under the assumption that someone would be brave enough to take the side of the masculine message suggested here. Because, as Grumbleguts rightly said, men are not like that!

[jackyyyy]

Smiling here, I don't know that its horrible, though I know what you mean. Its interesting how people immediately take to a camp. On the surface it appears sexual, which isn't outlawed yet (is it?), and but this all depends on the context, no? Time and again, context turns everything upside down. Anyway, we are not the author, nor the protagonist, simply the train spotter here. I'll put my sunglasses back on now.... even if its about a gardner, in love with nature, and the double entendre is actually our faux pas. :banana:

[Petrarch's Love]

My, that is a bitter, bitter poem. The poet really holds nothing back in making him an unabashedly straightforward sob. I'll have to read it again and see if some more insightful comments spring to mind. Darn it, others have already had the fun of pointing out most of the naughty bits (though I'm sure there are more there yet unidentified). :brow:


I should like to say in defence of the male half of humanity that I have never treated a woman with the contempt shown in this poem and doubt that many men are as callously, sexually predative as the one described here. Although I know that such do exist, it still strikes me as feminist cliche.


Grumbleguts--I just saw this. Let me begin by saying that I agree with most of your post. I don't at all believe this represents men in general, and I have luckily never been involved with the type described here. All the same, I have to comment on your describing this as "feminist cliche." As a poem, it is describing a certain type of individual that does in fact exist. There are men with this kind of attitude. By identifying one such individual in her poem Porter may be displaying some sort of personal anger and resentment from a bad experience she either had herself or heard about, but it seems like a bit of a leap from that to some genralization about feminist thought. If you were reading a poem by a man who was writing about a woman who had done him wrong--and there have been many written--you might think he was bitter about women and you might think he had gone overboard in his resentment, but it would probably never occur to you to think of it as a "cliche" of male empowerment.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that men wrong women and women wrong men, and the wronged parties of either sex tend to get very bitter and sometimes get hyperbolic in their condemnation of the opposite sex. It seems to me, however, that only women who express this sentiment get placed in this kind of position where they're branded as "feminist," with the implication that being a "feminist" is in some way linked to hating men as a result of a bad experience. Call the author of this poem a bitter woman who has trouble trusting men. Say that she's wrong to express this type of opinion, but don't say that it's just some cliche rhetoric having to do with women's rights. To be fair I should say that I'm aware that there are some women who use the term feminism as an excuse for male bashing, and I disagree with their use of the term as well.

[Chinaski]

Grumble - couldn't both connotations be intended - thus strengthening the line?

Petrarch's - I don't think it is down to 'some men...' in this case - the protagonist is clearly sick - as in psychopathic. We all wrong people in love at soem time - we don't want to treat em like dirt for kicks - if we are at least relatively healthy!

[Chinaski]

By the way, I started a challenge on a new thread - anyone know where it migt have disappeared to?

[Chinaski]

Oh I found it - guess nobodies interested!

[Petrarch's Love]

Petrarch's - I don't think it is down to 'some men...' in this case - the protagonist is clearly sick - as in psychopathic. We all wrong people in love at soem time - we don't want to treat em like dirt for kicks - if we are at least relatively healthy!

Chinaski--I think you may have missed the point I was trying to make. I want to be very clear about this. I was not trying to defend this poem as an accurate representation of the vast majority of men, or even of any man all of the time. I was not disagreeing with the idea that the poem is unhealthy in both the attitude of the speaker and the attitude towards men the creation of such a speaker implies. I agree that it is unhealthy. I think there are some unhealthy people out there, or people who have unhealthy moments, and this poem is describing one of them. What I was disaggreeing with is the identification of this kind of attitude with feminism. I don't see this as a "feminist" poem. I see this as a poem that was probably written by a woman who had issues with a certain man. Maybe the man who wronged her wasn't that bad and she's over-reacting as a result of being hurt. Maybe he had his own issues with women and was really just as heartless and vindictive as the poem makes him out to be. Either way I really don't see what that has to do with her position as a "feminist," unless the term feminist is being used as the equivilent of "man-hater," which I don't believe it should be.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I must admit that I have met feminists that have exactly the attitude presented by this poem. (Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that it is typical by any means - but they are out there, just as the man described in this poem is out there.)

It was feminists like this that refused to allow men that were enrolled on the "Women's studies" course at the Open University to view the lesbian pornography that was being screened at the course's summer school "for educational purposes". Apparently, men would only view it for sexual gratification and would not see it as the pure and beautiful art form that women would perceive it as (or some such tosh). A friend of mine, that was one of only 2 men attending the course, complained to the Dean of the OU and was sent a copy on tape - very sexually gratifying it was too! :D
(That was a joke, honest - I never actually saw it myself.)

I agree with most of the comments that say that this is a very misandrous poem. Even the most blatant womanisers that I have met have not been as one-sided and disrespectful as the speaker in this poem. I can't help feeling that these feelings are being attributed to him by, as Petrach's says, a very bitter woman. He hurt her, sure, but I doubt he was as much the monster as Porter makes out; these situations tend to generate one-sided viewpoints but are, on the whole, the result of a two-sided conflict.

[Petrarch's Love]

I must admit that I have met feminists that have exactly the attitude presented by this poem. (Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that it is typical by any means - but they are out there, just as the man described in this poem is out there.)

It was feminists like this that refused to allow men that were enrolled on the "Women's studies" course at the Open University to view the lesbian pornography that was being screened at the course's summer school "for educational purposes". Apparently, men would only view it for sexual gratification and would not see it as the pure and beautiful art form that women would perceive it as (or some such tosh). A friend of mine, that was one of only 2 men attending the course, complained to the Dean of the OU and was sent a copy on tape - very sexually gratifying it was too!
(That was a joke, honest - I never actually saw it myself.)

See, there's my point. I just don't agree with this type of "feminism." IMHO a true feminist would be interested in equality, including having porn equally available or unavailable to both sexes. :D

[jackyyyy]

Frankly, I don't know what all the fuss is about. Let me try this, and tell me what you think. I think its a great love poem.

He speaks:

Two people in this conversation, argument, or lover's tiff.

Since you proved that you loved me, I
Know what you are?

- Proving you loved me once, does not tell if you do now.

If you mistake what I gave you for love, you are
More beast than I

- I proved my love for you, and if you cannot see it, then you are more stupid than I am

And having eased in you my ambiguous lusts
I now can prove
That you're a dupe who let me wallow you
And call if love.

- after releasing /opening up myself to you about my confusing love, I can now show you are two faced to let me worry about you, and you call "that" love.

If I have feet of clay, yet you are now
The dirt they trod --
And in that moment when I brought you down,
I was a god!

If I am stook in my opinion, then so are you, and this time I was right!'.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I think you must have taken some of TBtheG's acid! :D

[jackyyyy]

I think you must have taken some of TBtheG's acid! :DNargh, he spilt it all over a thread, darn it. Come on, you must have seen a heated argument. :lol: I threw that out to kickstart the motor, but there are no double entendres, notice. GrumbleGuts left one possible, 'Ease in you', relaxed in you.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I think you'll find that what he 'relaxed' in her were his ambiguous lusts - hmmm, ambiguous, do you think there's a homoerotic sub-text there? Perhaps this macho man treats women so callously because he really wants to play hide the chippolata with a Bangkok lady-boy? Opinions please?

[blp]

And call if love.

Is this a missprint? 'if'?

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I think so blp

[jackyyyy]

I think you'll find that what he 'relaxed' in her were his ambiguous lusts - hmmm, ambiguous, do you think there's a homoerotic sub-text there? Perhaps this macho man treats women so callously because he really wants to play hide the chippolata with a Bangkok lady-boy? Opinions please?I guess anything is possible if he is actually indicating that type of ambiguity. I took 'ambiguity' to mean 'confusion', then I am not on acid. I am really not sure about this macho man stuff. Another interpretation, he is a cheat (ambiguous lust), and he is calling her a cheat too (comparing with her). There is an interplay of sort going on here, love was in the past, but they are talking in the present.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

As I see it, the implication is that he promised love to get her in the sack but was never really offering it. As I say, stereotyping. Men are human, hence sensitive even if they don't want to be and even if they deny it. Often more so when they deny it.

[jackyyyy]

Come, my laid lady, whom I wooed with words,
And called my Star--
Since you proved that you loved me, I
Know what you are?

Men 'woo', and call their girl, 'my Star'. It is stereotyping to suggest only men do this, women do it too. Then he admits, 'she proved her love', but he still does not know what she is, and he is asking her. Well, she is a woman, what else could she be???

[Virgil]

I must admit that I have met feminists that have exactly the attitude presented by this poem. (Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that it is typical by any means - but they are out there, just as the man described in this poem is out there.)

I'm from a different generation, and I think Xam is close to me in age. I remember real hardcore feminists of the late seventies and eighties considered/put out/argued (I'm not sure what the right characterizaton is) that all sex between men and women was a form of rape. I know that it was not the majority of feminists, let alone women, but it was out there. Also if you weren't one of these weeny men, then you were a pig. So that sort of reading is in the realm of possibility. I wonder when the poem was written. I couldn't find it on the internet.

However, Katherine Ann Porter is not someone I would have associated with those feminists. She was of a way older generation. She died in 1980 at 90 years old.

Those are double entendres. A double entendre is a word that ostensibly says one thing but also puns with a sexual connotation. "Come" ostensiby means here listen up; "laid" ostensibly refers to laying in bed (although I grant you on this one my arguement is weak), "rod" ostensibly refers to a measuring stick; and "easying in you my ambiguous lusts" ostensibly refers to the wooing with words that was done for the seduction. And we all know what the sexual pun of each refers to. :brow: (I must say, I'm really having fun with this poem. ;) )

The shock that everyone has gotten from the poem is from the incredibly loutish behavior of the "he" speaking. I can't help but feel that there should be a complementary poem or section that starts with "She Speaks" where we get her point of view. If there was such a complementary poem and that poem presented a Wife-of-Bath type of argument, our whole perception might be quite different.

Also this poem is narrated by a woman through the voice of the man. Is this what she thinks he would say? What if what happened the night before was this: a man and a woman go to their local meat-market bar, he with the intent of picking up some woman, she with the intent of getting picked up. He says: "If you mistake what I gave you for love, you are/More beast than I". Who says she's mistakened anything? In fact his whole speech is rather outrageous. Who would actually say such a thing, even if that's what he felt? And the last line, "I was a god!", well men might think that, but to actually tell a woman that the next morning borders on delusional. Can she be so naive and he so delusional? I can't help but feel that the poem is her interpretation of what she thinks he feels. Is it more likely that she feels like dirt or that he would call her dirt? I think the former is more likely. Is it more likely that she might feel like a dupe or that he would tell her she's a dupe? Again, the former is more likely.

PS, There some good poetry in here too which I'll get to later in the week if no one brings it up. This post is already too long.

[jackyyyy]

The whole lot could derive some double entendre, if we want, and not necessarily sexual. Our sub-conscious takes us where we really want to go, eh. 'my laid lady' is the lady I won (laid) through wooing, and so on. Its standard equipment in courting ritual. I don't know what generation people are, and what culturals are here, but in any relationship (and this one is more than a one nighter) the language changes from 'you are naughty, my teddybear' in a cutting up with a chainsaw context to 'now shut up and give me a smack on the lips, O sewing machine of Satan' with a looking deep into her happy eyes context. You know, its an adult poem, afterall, displaying as real as possible, some part of some kind of relationship. Whether we can conclude anything is nigh impossible, unless there is some fact in the lines that establish. Its such a subjective issue, and it surprises me that any of us can leave a pile of words with any definition at all. But, people do for some reason, when maybe they should remember they are looking at it through a window, and when they turn their head away, put the question mark back on the cover. Here again, as Virgil pointed out, if there was a round two, she could be mouthing off at him (in his voice). You know, another thing about poetry (words), we cannot gauge the volume, even with a '!'. Ever see Richard Burton go at Liz Taylor, in that quiet voice, Cat on a Hot tin Roof, Marlon Brando. Words can cut at any volume, and double entendre is often a toy for wordy people. I am interested to see how the meat in this poem is analysed, because so far we haven't got past the sex shock (and assuming everyone here is over 18). :banana:

[Virgil]

I am interested to see how the meat in this poem is analysed, because so far we haven't got past the sex shock (and assuming everyone here is over 18). :banana:
:brow: Meat, did you say? Is that a double entendre? :lol:

[jackyyyy]

Yes, its an unashamedly, triply entendred, oft obsfucatingly and maligned seed of destruction, poked into that sentence to deliberately provoke gutterings of wild and sexual steamings! :goof:

[MelanieD]

I see, as someone put forward, the heat is out of you or the poem doesn't have enough 'meat' for long discussions.
I'll give you my version. I chose the poem 'vite fait' in a hurry, KAP fell into my hands like that. Nevertheless, I think it is a nice poem even if not knowing KAP.
She led a quite difficult life (her mother died she was two), grew up in Texas and from then on lived in many different countries and towns, including Europe. She was very educated, at fifteen she knew Shakespeare's sonnets by heart, had read most major authors. She married early and thereon very often, but most often didn't go that far. All her loves were unhappy and there were many. We speak here of the nineteentwenties and -thirties. She probably wasn't of the aggressiveness and sturdiness of a Rebecca West or Dorothy Parker (two years in a sanatorium for tubercolosis), so she suffered easily. Early on she experimented, not unlike Ezra Pound, with different forms of poetry, the "Morning Song" was from 1929. She had a vivid sense of satire and caricature in which category I would place this poem, clothed in a mock Elizabethean style (no?) or old English anyhow. It is a mirror poem, where she looks through the eyes of the disappointing lover at herself, and gives herself a sort of self-laceration at the same time.
At the end, she decided she wasn't a good poet and wrote mostly fiction. She is one of the few women writers I read with pleasure.
To finish, I will quote a poem that she translated from the Spanish written by a nun in 1641, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Has to do with recenty discussed topics.

To a Portrait of the Poet

This which you see is merely a painted shadow
Wrought by the boastful pride of art,
With falsely reasoned arguments of colours,
A wary, sweet deception of the senses.

This picture, where flattery has endeavored
To mitigate the terrors of the years,
To defeat the rigorous assaults of Time,
And triumph over oblivion and decay --

Is only a subtle careful artifice,
A fragile flower of the wind,
A useless shield against my destiny.

It is an anxious diligence to preserve
A perishable thing: and clearly seen
It is a corpse, a whirl of dust, a shadow, --
-- nothing
(For who speaks Spanish, I've the original version)

[jackyyyy]

The heat maybe out of some, Melanie, or they are simply busy. I like very much this type of poem, 'Morning Song', and if it is a 'vite fait', you must have a wide choice to mistake from. It has meat for an eternity of discussions and it does seem odd to see a 'real life' poem amongst classics and others. I want more. I read up on KAP after you posted it, and found her life 'full of life'. I hope we are not leaving it as is... ;)

I noticed the triumpf,, Spanish is triunfo. I would love to see the Spanish version, can I get it on-line somewhere, or can you post it here?

[MelanieD]

Hi Jackyyy, here is the original nun's voice (surprising)

Procura desmentir los elogios que a un retrato de la poetisa inscribió la verdad, que llama pasión


Este, que ves, engaño colorido
que del arte ostentando los primores,
con falsos silogismos de colores
es cauteloso engaño del sentido;
este, en quien la lisonja ha pretendido
excusar de los años los horrores,
y venciendo del tiempo los rigores
triunfar de la vejez y del olvido,
es un vano artificio del cuidado,
es una flor al viento delicada,
es un resguardo inútil para el hado:
es una necia deligencia errada,
es un afán caduco y, bien mirado,
es cadáver. es polvo, es sombra, es nada.

Why not try your hand and translate it again. I just have a few notions of Spanish and everytime I read a poem in this language it seems so much simpler than the one translated into. Is it the words have more flavor?
Apropos, I learned about KAP from poems that were published quite a while ago in the New Yorker. And her poetry was assembled and edited by a women professor, Darlene Harbour Unrue, U. of South Carolina Press.

[jackyyyy]

Thanks, Melanie! My Spanish is not as tried as my Portuguese, but this looks fine. I find it has more everything in the original language, and I don't think it presumptious of me to say translations 'never' capture it all. I read Shakespeare in Portuguese a while back, which must be one of the most translated poems. Word for word it worked, but nothing else (in my opinion). Thanks for the note about KAP too, I will check that out.

[Virgil]

It is a mirror poem, where she looks through the eyes of the disappointing lover at herself, and gives herself a sort of self-laceration at the same time.

Yes, I was right!!

[ktd222]

Maybe I can restart a discussion on this week's poem by telling you what I see(poetic elements) that adds to what you all have been discussing.

There seems to only be one person speaking throughout the poem, the he or I , which points to this poem being about the 'He' and not the 'her'. And adding to this is that when you read the poem there seems to be an excessive use of the word 'I'. And when you read this poem out loud, the word 'I' is pronounced against the words 'you'(her); and that sound seems to carry from the beginning of the poem to the end of the poem. And look at the stressed words associated with describing the I:trod/lust/god/rod/.
I think this all adds to an overwhelming sense that the Morning Song seems to not concern the 'Her' through the speaker of the poem.

There are some other things I see, but does anyone else want to add their opinions first?

[Virgil]

Maybe I can restart a discussion on this week's poem by telling you what I see(poetic elements) that adds to what you all have been discussing.
Great, let's get to this.



There seems to only be one person speaking throughout the poem, the he or I , which points to this poem being about the 'He' and not the 'her'.
But ktd, the "he" is not the "I". The "I" is the woman, who orients us with "He speaks".


And adding to this is that when you read the poem there seems to be an excessive use of the word 'I'. And when you read this poem out loud, the word 'I' is pronounced against the words 'you'(her); and that sound seems to carry from the beginning of the poem to the end of the poem.
Yes, I count nine "I's" and nine "you's" and that's a huge amount for such a short poem. In fact so much of the poem is framed "I am," and "you are."


And look at the stressed words associated with describing the I:trod/lust/god/rod/.
One thing, I didn't pick up the rhyme, rod, trod, god. It makes the poem accelerate.

Like the Larkin poem, this is an aubade, a greeting of the morning between lovers. There are allusions in it of renaissance poems, refering to the woman as his star (doesn't Dante do this with his Beatrice?) and the line "in that moment when I brought you down". This is a metaphor comparing the seduction to a hunt, very prevalent in Renaissance poetry. I'm always reminded of Sir Thomas Wyatt's "They flee from me that sometime did me seek" when I think of this metaphor; just google that first line and it'll come up. It's a pretty poem where he puns hart (deer) with heart.

But KAP's poem is not like your typical morning poem. She turns the tradition (of love) to crass lust, and of amorous banter to insulting ridicule. This is typical of the moderns, to turn tradition on it's head. Sort of like Joyce's Ulysses from Homer's Odyssey.

Another highlight of this poem to me was two interesting adjectives: "ambiguous lusts" and "wallow you." My first reaction was, what is so ambiguous about this lust? But it dawned on me that the ambiguity was on her part, not his. That's what led me to think that this was her imagining of his thoughts. She wasn't so naive; there was a part of her that was just as lustful.

What an interesting euphemism for sexual intercourse with "wallow you." Replace the "wallow" with "f**k" (excuse me, but this poem brings out the devil in me) and the line works perfect: "That you're a dupe who let me BLANK you."

[MelanieD]

Great, let's get to this.

But KAP's poem is not like your typical morning poem. She turns the tradition (of love) to crass lust, and of amorous banter to insulting ridicule. This is typical of the moderns, to turn tradition on it's head. Sort of like Joyce's Ulysses from Homer's Odyssey.

Another highlight of this poem to me was two interesting adjectives: "ambiguous lusts" and "wallow you." My first reaction was, what is so ambiguous about this lust? But it dawned on me that the ambiguity was on her part, not his. That's what led me to think that this was her imagining of his thoughts. She wasn't so naive; there was a part of her that was just as lustful.


And what's wrong with that? Women's lust passes over feelings like love, which is always ambiguous, as mostly you can't distinguish one from the other. And to wallow according to the American Heritage Dic is: to roll the body about indolently, to luxuriate, to revel.
I'll tell you something. I'm not a good talker (please: no fishing) and I haven't ever LEARNED anything about poetry, I read poems intuitively. I do have lots of volumes bought at random but seldom READ poetry with attention. So, being here, reading what you have to say makes me happy, I feel like coming nearer the heart of the matter (of living?) I LEARN and therefore I wanted to thank you all.

[jackyyyy]

And what's wrong with that? Women's lust passes over feelings like love, which is always ambiguous, as mostly you can't distinguish one from the other. And to wallow according to the American Heritage Dic is: to roll the body about indolently, to luxuriate, to revel.
I'll tell you something. I'm not a good talker (please: no fishing) and I haven't ever LEARNED anything about poetry, I read poems intuitively. I do have lots of volumes bought at random but seldom READ poetry with attention. So, being here, reading what you have to say makes me happy, I feel like coming nearer the heart of the matter (of living?) I LEARN and therefore I wanted to thank you all.
Thanks are to you for bringing it, Melanie! Btw, I am not learned in it either, just like to wallow in it, lustfully. Not sure about the context of 'wallow' here.

Here are a few:
a. A pool of water or mud where animals go to wallow. (n)
b. condition of degradation or baseness. (n)
c. To be plentifully supplied: wallowing in money. (v)

Interesting, you wrote, 'women's lust passes over feelings like love, which is always ambiguous'. I would like to assist by adding 'men' to that, to be on the safe side. We can certainly see her emotional condition.

Also btw, Melanie, I wanted to ask, how do you know its her talking for him about her? Did KAP write that later, or is this the generally accepted decision? I am only asking because I want to know if there is a definitive phrase, word, or other clue that makes this clear, and which it is.

[jackyyyy]

One thing, I didn't pick up the rhyme, rod, trod, god. It makes the poem accelerate.Yes, she gets progressively more 'angry' until she proclaims for him, 'I am God!' He is starting to look in a much better light now, eh.

Another highlight of this poem to me was two interesting adjectives: "ambiguous lusts" and "wallow you." My first reaction was, what is so ambiguous about this lust? But it dawned on me that the ambiguity was on her part, not his. That's what led me to think that this was her imagining of his thoughts. She wasn't so naive; there was a part of her that was just as lustful."Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

What an interesting euphemism for sexual intercourse with "wallow you." Replace the "wallow" with "f**k" (excuse me, but this poem brings out the devil in me) and the line works perfect: "That you're a dupe who let me BLANK you."The devil is needed, not Mary Poppins. :banana:

I am digesting what Melanie wrote and some research I did on KAP. This piece appear a dialog an actor/actress might perform on stage, a screenplay- one person and a single chair (nothing else), talking for two people. I think there was a lot of heavy drama being written in the US during those years. (nope, I don't know why).

[Virgil]

And what's wrong with that? Women's lust passes over feelings like love, which is always ambiguous, as mostly you can't distinguish one from the other.
I didn't say there was anything wrong with it, just that she wasn't as naive as he thinks. Women's lusts (I'm speculating here, and probably going to sound foolish) are more ambiguous than men, aren't they? We men just let our lusts hang out there. :D


And to wallow according to the American Heritage Dic is: to roll the body about indolently, to luxuriate, to revel.
I didn't want to elaborate, but "to wallow" strikes me as so apt. It's usually associated with wallowing in wet things.


I'll tell you something. I'm not a good talker (please: no fishing) and I haven't ever LEARNED anything about poetry, I read poems intuitively. I do have lots of volumes bought at random but seldom READ poetry with attention. So, being here, reading what you have to say makes me happy, I feel like coming nearer the heart of the matter (of living?) I LEARN and therefore I wanted to thank you all.
I hope you stay around and contribute to other poems we'll be discussing.

[Virgil]

Yes, she gets progressively more 'angry' until she proclaims for him, 'I am God!' He is starting to look in a much better light now, eh.

That is a very good observation.

[jackyyyy]

"Wallow"

I don't think 'wet' things at all, not in this context. You know, I really think you guys are thinking American, where is Unnamable to sort this out? :brow:

[Virgil]

Is that American? I don't know. Here's the entire definition from American Heritage Dictionary:

wal·low (w¼l“½) intr.v. wal·lowed, wal·low·ing, wal·lows. 1. To roll the body about indolently or clumsily in or as if in water, snow, or mud. 2. To luxuriate; revel. 3. To be plentifully supplied. 4. To move with difficulty in a clumsy or rolling manner; flounder. 5. To swell or surge forth; billow. --wal·low n. 1. The act or an instance of wallowing. 2.a. A pool of water or mud where animals go to wallow. b. The depression, pool, or pit produced by wallowing animals. 3. A condition of degradation or baseness. --wal“low·er n.

I don't have Oxford electronically. I wonder how that would compare.

[jackyyyy]

My favourite is a combination of 'devote oneself entirely..' and 'delight greatly in'.

The noun wallow has 2 meanings:
Meaning #1: a puddle where animals go to wallow
Meaning #2: an indolent or clumsy rolling about

The verb wallow has 5 meanings:
Meaning #1: devote oneself entirely to something; indulge in to an immoderate degree, usually with pleasure
Meaning #2: roll around, as of a pig in mud
Synonym: welter
Meaning #3: billow forth; as of smoke or waves
Synonym: billow
Meaning #4: be ecstatic with joy
Synonyms: revel, rejoice, triumph
Meaning #5: delight greatly in


http://www.answers.com/topic/wallow

[Xamonas Chegwe]

My Shorter Oxford gives similar details but in more detail - there is a distinct meaning of 'Remain plunged, take delight or indulge unrestrainedly in vice, sensuality, pleasure, misery, etc; revel in.', which sort of fits, except that he doesn't wallow in her, he wallows her. Still it wouldn't be the first instance of a poet using a word slightly out of context to drag in its associations.

[MelanieD]

I didn't say there was anything wrong with it, just that she wasn't as naive as he thinks. Women's lusts (I'm speculating here, and probably going to sound foolish) are more ambiguous than men, aren't they? We men just let our lusts hang out there. :D

Hi Virgil, maybe I heard something that wasn't there. It is just that the word love and lust are overburdened by different meanings which are kicked from one camp to the other like a football. As I see it, nature did endow men and women differently (genetically mixing it up like in a cocktail shaker, so everyone is different), but as far as I know women's love is more ambiguous than men's. You're sprung by it, if this is correct English. No hard feelings, anyhow I'm not a feminist. I fought men straight on (when necessary), maybe like KAP.

[Regit]

but as far as I know women's love is more ambiguous than men's. You're sprung by it.
Can I assume by this you mean that women are not sprung by "it"? And is "it" love?


genetically mixing it up like in a cocktail shaker, so everyone is different.
Actually I think genetics is a very accurate science, where only the smallest difference can cause dramatic changes. And most of the DNA of people are identical; everyone is different due to very small differences in their DNA (not to mention all the angry sociologists listening to this from heaven :)).

[jackyyyy]

And most of the DNA of people are identical; everyone is different due to very small differences in their DNA (not to mention all the angry sociologists listening to this from heaven :)).Aye, and don't forget to include the social engineering you elaborated on extensively, else you could be talking in her voice about him who is actually a female but acting at playing a man with a woman's perspective. :lol:

[MelanieD]

Interesting, you wrote, 'women's lust passes over feelings like love, which is always ambiguous'. I would like to assist by adding 'men' to that, to be on the safe side. We can certainly see her emotional condition.

It is my tendency to pass general statements. I better not say anything.
But I thought of Richard Ford in 'Independence Day', at the end of the book where he talks to Sally, and I found a good quote:
"I finished our talk by telling her not that I loved her but that I wasn't beyond affection, which she said she was glad to hear.
Let's be honest, each encounter is a blind grip for a dream. Let's be content, that men are not beyond affection.



Also btw, Melanie, I wanted to ask, how do you know its her talking for him about her? Did KAP write that later, or is this the generally accepted decision? I am only asking because I want to know if there is a definitive phrase, word, or other clue that makes this clear, and which it is.

No, I don't know. There seems to be no general accepted opinion about KAP. The book by Darlene Harbour Unrue says:
"In the meantime, in the autumn of 1928, Porter met Metthew Josephson and began another sur-to-fail love affair that would bring forth more poetry....
"Morning song", written at the end of the affair, reveals Porter's usual reaction to the disillusionment that attends the failure of romantic love. What is unusual in this poem is that the persona is the jilting lover. Instead of bringing forth the personally experienced pain of being betrayed, Porter had to imagine the callous arrogance of the faithless lover. For the effect of irony, she reverted to a conventional Cavalier beginning suggestive of Marlowe of Herrick, which in this instance quickly turns to a contrasting bitternes."
The rest is up to us, I guess.
I for my part stick to the version of self-punishment for this poem. Imagine her imagining (maybe wrongly, but it doesn't matter) the crudeness of this guy. Isn't she kind of exorcising not the man but the feeling that is inside her that makes her always strain to seek the wrong men? Open-heart surgery? And how about the clay-feet. Virgil should know where this comes from, Dante or Homer? Clay feet equal dust, the transient. He says he stands on clay feet and they trod on her who's dirt. So she knows he knows all is transient, but there was just one moment (triumph of man, but also of woman in a different sense, women can bring men down!), one moment where he felt eternal. I'm reading the Shakespeare sonnets, so what is he talking about in the first ones? Please my love, procreate, so you continue being. The prayer of man. Useless for most women, at the time of KAP you had no choice, but she couldn't have children. Another hurt she inflicts on herself? So maybe she incorporates the poem as both, man and (barren) woman? To whom nothing is left but lust?

[Petrarch's Love]

Wow, I've been missing a lot of good discussion and no time to make a proper response just now, but this caught my eye:

Like the Larkin poem, this is an aubade, a greeting of the morning between lovers. There are allusions in it of renaissance poems, refering to the woman as his star (doesn't Dante do this with his Beatrice?) and the line "in that moment when I brought you down". This is a metaphor comparing the seduction to a hunt, very prevalent in Renaissance poetry. I'm always reminded of Sir Thomas Wyatt's "They flee from me that sometime did me seek" when I think of this metaphor; just google that first line and it'll come up. It's a pretty poem where he puns hart (deer) with heart.

Virgil is quite right to bring up the allusions to Renaissance poetry (I like the Wyatt connection--his "Whoso List to Hunt" also comes to mind), but I can't believe that we're going straight to Dante and Beatrice without anybody first mentioning the "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" allusion. :D Maybe it's just too obvious. It's so appropriately and ironically employed. Now he is no longer gazing up at some unattainable and mysterious "star" and wondering what she is, but has brought her to earth and thinks he knows exactly what she is (i.e. what kind of woman she is). I found a copy of this poem that doesn't have a question mark after the "I/ know what you are." I wonder how that choice of punctuation was made. It certainly makes a more forceful statement without the question mark.


So, being here, reading what you have to say makes me happy, I feel like coming nearer the heart of the matter (of living?) I LEARN and therefore I wanted to thank you all.

Well, we're really glad you've come to join us Melanie. I know I've been learning a lot myself from your posts in this discussion. :nod:

[The Unnamable]

But I suppose a heated discussion about feminism can be interesting, that is under the assumption that someone would be brave enough to take the side of the masculine message suggested here. Because, as Grumbleguts rightly said, men are not like that!


As a poem, it is describing a certain type of individual that does in fact exist. There are men with this kind of attitude.
I’ve mentioned this before but there is a male teacher I know out here who is very similar to the male in the poem. He boasts openly (but only to other men) that he sleeps with a different woman at least twice a week and adds that none of them has a waist larger than 24 inches (we are all supposed to admire this). He is, quite simply, a pig - so ‘wallow’ is perfect in his case. The only thing I cannot understand is why women are stupid enough to fall for his charms. I have therefore come to the conclusion that the male speaker in the poem is right – his victims deserve their fates. Of course men lie to get women into bed and the task is made easier by the fact that women have placed such a ridiculous importance on love. We know what you want to hear so you’ll hear it.

"I don't want love. I haven't time for it. It's weakness. I am a man, and sometimes I want a woman. When I've satisfied my passion I'm ready for other things. I can't overcome my desire, but I hate it; it imprisons my spirit; I look forward to the time when I shall be free from all desire and can give myself without hindrance to my work. Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part. I know lust. That's normal and healthy. Love is a disease. Women are the instruments of my pleasure; I have no patience with their claim to be helpmates, partners, companions."
W. Somerset Maugham

“‘Gentlemen, woman is an animal that micturates once a day, defecates once a week, menstruates once a month, partuates once a year and copulates whenever she has the opportunity.’”
W. Somerset Maugham

“Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.”
HL Mencken


Virgil is quite right to bring up the allusions to Renaissance poetry (I like the Wyatt connection--his "Whoso List to Hunt" also comes to mind), but I can't believe that we're going straight to Dante and Beatrice without anybody first mentioning the "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" allusion. Maybe it's just too obvious. It's so appropriately and ironically employed. Now he is no longer gazing up at some unattainable and mysterious "star" and wondering what she is, but has brought her to earth and thinks he knows exactly what she is (i.e. what kind of woman she is).
“Hope not for mind in women; at their best
Sweetness and wit, they are but mummy, possess'd.”
John Donne Love's Alchemy

For ‘possess’d’ read ‘wallowed’.

[rachel]

well this poem makes me sad. Is it forever to be that man and woman cannot be like children and just open up to one another and not have a double agenda. Must the very act of sexual contact make man or woman a liar, a fake, a manipulator to receive a temporary orgasm that is forgotten ten seconds later while the wound they inflict upon the other-even if the other does not know it but somehow feels diminished-is to last forever.
It almost makes me think-why bother.why bother if you acted in honesty and kindness and the other acted as if you were a notch on the wall, an obscene joke.
oh well......

[Regit]

The only thing I cannot understand is why women are stupid enough to fall for his charms. I have therefore come to the conclusion that the male speaker in the poem is right – his victims deserve their fates... We know what you want to hear so you’ll hear it.
You make a good point. A wise man once said: "Only in the absence of charm can a woman be trusted." (Yes, I know, "wise" is totally in my opinion). As much as I would like to be on Rachel's side, I have seen how easily good looks and charm can win some girl's affection. The guy in the poem never said that he loved the girl. He called her his "Star", and, as he expected, she thought that it meant love. This does not necessarily mean that charm is a bad thing. It can be a great thing. Many genuinely nice guys are also charming and also with an agenda; but once he wins a girl's affection, he becomes dedicated and caring and other nice things (or at least he will try his best to be). I guess, as Unnamable said, "we know what you want to hear so you'll hear it." And, beast or man, what becomes of the guy after the "wallowing" is merely a chance that the girl was prepared to take, having easily interpreted charm for love and having consented to sex. Afterall, she could have said no.

And as Unnamable thinks his teacher friend a pig, so do I the guys who trick girls into bed. But the girls who get tricked must be partly at fault, for how bad at judging a character must someone be to mistake a guy like the one in the poem for a caring and loving man?


"I look forward to the time when I shall be free from all desire and can give myself without hindrance to my work. Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life."This is something that I sometimes want to scream out loud. Because the thing with work is, if we don't put it on top of our list, it will never get done properly.

PS. Quoting my "brave" comment, you must be one who loves a challenge Unnamable :)

[Xamonas Chegwe]

It is by no means just women that fall for 'charm'. I found this particularly interesting - it appears to be true that when a man's blood rushes elsewhere, his brain is left deprived. ;)

Link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4921690.stm)

[ktd222]

But ktd, the "he" is not the "I". The "I" is the woman, who orients us with "He speaks".

I can totally get behind this idea, except that I don't think its out of the realm of possibility for a man to act in this manner.

[ktd222]

Yes, I count nine "I's" and nine "you's" and that's a huge amount for such a short poem. In fact so much of the poem is framed "I am," and "you are."

Ya, whats interesting is that even though there are nine "I's" and nine"you's," the sound created by the 'I' is more pronounced than the 'you'. Isn't this something poetic thats happening in this poem?

[Virgil]

Of course men lie to get women into bed and the task is made easier by the fact that women have placed such a ridiculous importance on love. We know what you want to hear so you’ll hear it.

Well, let me ask you this. On what basis would you prefer relationships to be formed? I can only think of three general types: on love, on financial/status (and I don't necessarily mean prostitution), and lust. Perhaps there are others. Real relationships may share some element of each, but the only one that I meaningful is love.


women have placed such a ridiculous importance on love.
Frankly that's what I find most endearing about women. From a mother's love, to a grandmother's love, to a wife's love, they hold our families and I our lives together. God knows what this world would be like if only men existed or if women acted and felt just like men.

[Virgil]

I can totally get behind this idea, except that I don't think its out of the realm of possibility for a man to act in this manner.
Oh yes. Of course. But my point was that it was very unlikely that he would speak these thought, even if true, to her.

[Virgil]

Ya, whats interesting is that even though there are nine "I's" and nine"you's," the sound created by the 'I' is more pronounced than the 'you'. Isn't this something poetic thats happening in this poem?
They seem equally prominant to me. Perhaps "I" might be a shade more prominant.

[ktd222]

They seem equally prominant to me. Perhaps "I" might be a shade more prominant.

The 'I' is whats being stressed in this poem. I can't believe you can't hear this.

[Petrarch's Love]

I was wondering how long it would take before Unnamable came along with a reality check and a quote from Donne (who was obviously just reiterating this "feminist cliche" about men ;) ).

He boasts openly (but only to other men) that he sleeps with a different woman at least twice a week and adds that none of them has a waist larger than 24 inches (we are all supposed to admire this)

What a nauseating individual--not to mention a deadly dull conversationalist. If only all like minded men had such requirements. It would save those of us with a larger than 24" waist the bother of having to tell them to get lost. :lol:


well this poem makes me sad. Is it forever to be that man and woman cannot be like children and just open up to one another and not have a double agenda. Must the very act of sexual contact make man or woman a liar, a fake, a manipulator to receive a temporary orgasm that is forgotten ten seconds later while the wound they inflict upon the other-even if the other does not know it but somehow feels diminished-is to last forever.
It almost makes me think-why bother.why bother if you acted in honesty and kindness and the other acted as if you were a notch on the wall, an obscene joke.

Don't give up Rachel. Remember there are good people out there, both men and women, and good relationships are possible, just hard to come by sometimes. :nod:

[rachel]

I certainly won't, I was just expressing what I have heard so many say. I do understand that it is a great risk and takes courage to just be honest about who you are and what you want from someone. Why men or women think they have to lie and tell the other person what he or she wants to hear just to get either sexual thrills or money or security is something I cannot, maybe never will comprehend. Just speak the truth and if the other person doesn't like that or want that well then move on.
And the way they hate each other afterwards, at least some of my friends, well I am glad that I have chosen to be alone for these years and take my time.I could care less if I am made fun of, I have my dignity and my integrity-and besides there are too many men and women showing up at my house with tears flowing down their poor faces from having been used. It keeps me quite busy!
you are the best of friends dear Love and I know that whoever has the honor of taking your hand one day won't be anything like that.

[Petrarch's Love]

My Shorter Oxford gives similar details but in more detail - there is a distinct meaning of 'Remain plunged, take delight or indulge unrestrainedly in vice, sensuality, pleasure, misery, etc; revel in.', which sort of fits, except that he doesn't wallow in her, he wallows her. Still it wouldn't be the first instance of a poet using a word slightly out of context to drag in its associations.
My etymological instincts were awakened after reading the discussion about the definition of wallow above in the thread. I went to the online OED and found that there is indeed a definition of it being used as a transitive verb the way it is in the poem (and a lot of other interesting definitions I won't list here). To wallow somebody is to roll them around or to "cause them to lie prostrate in some liquid or sticky substance," also "to make dirty by wallowing." Most of the examples given are reflexive, as in "he wallowed himself in sin," though there are some like this in which one person wallows another. I think in this poem though, there's also the sense of the word being used as him "wallowing in" with the "in" missing just as Xamonas suggested. In any case I think I should send a friend of mine who does some work for the OED the line from this poem to include in the examples for the definition of this word. It would spice things up for bored dictionary readers. :brow:

[Petrarch's Love]

I certainly won't, I was just expressing what I have heard so many say. I do understand that it is a great risk and takes courage to just be honest about who you are and what you want from someone. Why men or women think they have to lie and tell the other person what he or she wants to hear just to get either sexual thrills or money or security is something I cannot, maybe never will comprehend. Just speak the truth and if the other person doesn't like that or want that well then move on.
And the way they hate each other afterwards, at least some of my friends, well I am glad that I have chosen to be alone for these years and take my time.I could care less if I am made fun of, I have my dignity and my integrity-and besides there are too many men and women showing up at my house with tears flowing down their poor faces from having been used. It keeps me quite busy!

Good for you Rachel. And I'm sure your heart-broken friends appreciate your sympathetic shoulder to cry on.

[The Unnamable]

Well, let me ask you this. On what basis would you prefer relationships to be formed? I can only think of three general types: on love, on financial/status (and I don't necessarily mean prostitution), and lust. Perhaps there are others. Real relationships may share some element of each, but the only one that I meaningful is love.
“There is no more usual basis of matrimony than a mutual misunderstanding.” - Henry James

To be honest, perhaps it would be better if relationships were not formed at all. The way I see it, women are like potato chips – they come in all sorts of flavours and we all probably have a favourite. However, no one wants to eat ‘Cheese ‘n’ Onion’ time after time. It’s good to try a packet of ‘Salt ‘n’ Vinegar’ now and again, as well. I agree that some women might be more like a fine, three-course meal than a bag of what we Brits call ‘crisps’, but often I really don’t want a fine meal – I’d prefer to stuff my face with junk food. That’s why God created bimbos. They are the sexual equivalent of a ‘Big Mac’.


Frankly that's what I find most endearing about women. From a mother's love, to a grandmother's love, to a wife's love, they hold our families and I our lives together. God knows what this world would be like if only men existed or if women acted and felt just like men.
How sweet! And not at all patronising to the gentler sex. :D

[jackyyyy]

“Hope not for mind in women; at their best
Sweetness and wit, they are but mummy, possess'd.”
John Donne Love's Alchemy

For ‘possess’d’ read ‘wallowed’.That is a lot more meat on the table than we had before.

Its goes against my instincts to jump into a debate about relationships rather than simply study the actual meat in the poem, the object. However, I now have an excuse like everyone else. If this poem was written three hundred years ago, would it fuel up the same thoughts, or close? Unnamable does not need to be polite about it, being blunt is needed while people have fogged up notions. There do exist plenty of walking around examples to show its true. Our own unedited social engineering today, still includes mothers telling their daughters its profitable to be a bimbo and fathers telling their sons its a strength to notch up bed posts. The problem is, children are taught one way to behave, then retaught another way... or left to educate themselves. I don't know which is worse, but education is a start, because with that, they 'might' develop a brain to discern a good act against a bad one, and if granddad and grandmom passed down some of their painful experience, just maybe that would help develop some strength of character to say 'no'. There is no clear definition of how to be, act and behave. And, we allow that, don't we.. promote the spirit of independence. So, we do it to ourselves, should slap our own faces, get used to it.

I want to add a comment about anger that I find applicable here. I believe there is an equivalent hate to love in the same person. A person's great love turns to that same person's great hate, with an equal force. I am not going to try and measure it, just say that it is the same brain loving that is hating. I guess with time, the brain would have changed itself, maybe mellowed in acceptance.

This is also one of the reasons why I refrain from pointing the finger soley at 'him', and agree with Melanie and others with regard to 'her' involvement. After digesting this idea that KAP was 'more' venemous in her portrayal of him to us because of her emotional condition, I still must conclude that it is 'him' talking. And, right or wrong, all reasons aside, that is how the author wanted 'him' portrayed to us. Therefore, he is being a pig, as presented, and in the lack of other information, and 'her' portrayal, which would only make him 'fair' or 'not fair'.

And, I need to be blunt here too. I know plenty of people that talk cr*p to each other.. and actually love each other like crazy, fall about themselves to sniff the air that person walked in. Love is a crazy notion, and the hate wallowed is equally crazy.

[jackyyyy]

It is by no means just women that fall for 'charm'. I found this particularly interesting - it appears to be true that when a man's blood rushes elsewhere, his brain is left deprived. ;)

Link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4921690.stm)Vampires do exist! Love bitten, smitten, and it's victim left pale.