PoemoftheWeek

[jackyyyy]

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.Relationships are variable, therefore, a seven year contract, renewable. Throw an insurance policy in there for good measure, with no claims bonus. That should increase the number of insurance agents knocking on your door and reduce the number of divorce lawyers. Or, lawyers include insurance on the same paper. :brow:

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.We need a woman here to say something good about men (to be on the safe side). :brow:

[The Unnamable]

Rachel,

“Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.”


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.
They don’t tell him to get lost – they compete for his attentions – arming themselves for combat with yet another caked layer of cosmetics and ever-tighter garments stretched over their carcases. What’s wrong with your sex? Why are they so foolish? Why is it that it takes only a few months for “You’ve got such beautiful eyes” to change to “What the **** are you staring at?” And why do I hear “I don’t ever won’t to change you,” changing to “you’ll never change”? Don’t any of you realise that there hasn’t been a new man since Adam?


PS. Quoting my "brave" comment, you must be one who loves a challenge Unnamable.
I suppose I do – especially when it gives me an opportunity to spit venom at the idiocy that is womankind.

[The Unnamable]

We need a woman here to say something good about men (to be on the safe side). :brow:
Where are you going to find one? Dylan had it right:

“Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth,
Blowing down the backroads headin' south.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.”

Truth will ouch.

[jackyyyy]

Where are you going to find one? Dylan had it right:

“Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth,
Blowing down the backroads headin' south.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.”

Truth will ouch.Dylan's brother had it right:

"Well, I'll look and I'll duck, and keep on lookin', and truckin' too, wid me guitar and my best friend Shoot - till she darn well finds me..." :banana:

[Virgil]

How sweet! And not at all patronising to the gentler sex. :D
Patronising? How am I patronizing? If anything they (the women in my life) have patronized me, tolerating my boyish wanderings and silly excursions, all at the expense of avoiding what is truely important in life. I'm not patronizing. I'm speaking from the heart. I'm speaking from my life.

So you didn't answer: On which is it best to build a relationship: love, finance, lust?

[Gozeta]

Where are you going to find one? Dylan had it right:

“Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth,
Blowing down the backroads headin' south.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.”

Truth will ouch.
wow, the way you keep talking you'll never meet a good women. I tend to think that women are probably better then men in many cases. Well, from what I've seen; I don't know your luck.

[Petrarch's Love]

We need a woman here to say something good about men
No problem. I've met many fine men in my life who are honest and caring people. I've known men who are hardworking, who are excellent fathers and role models, who are strong either physically or emotionally (or both). I think men have the capacity to provide the enjoyments of companionship, additional support in life (and here I mean emotional/spiritual support--though obviously many men do an admirable job of providing financial support as well), an added sense of security, ...and then there are all the obvious physical attractions (well, only obvious to about half of us I guess). :lol: And of course individual men have all sorts of wonderful qualities that people in general can have--love, loyalty, integrity, intelligence, wit and so on. I don't think either sex is necessarily better.


How sweet! And not at all patronising to the gentler sex.

This may come as a bit of a shock but, given the choice, the "gentler sex" by and large prefers being "patronized" as being loving family members rather than as being bags of crisps. :lol: Besides, I took Virgil's remark as being sincere and well meant, not patronizing.


They don’t tell him to get lost – they compete for his attentions – arming themselves for combat with yet another caked layer of cosmetics and ever-tighter garments stretched over their carcases. What’s wrong with your sex? Why are they so foolish? Why is it that it takes only a few months for “You’ve got such beautiful eyes” to change to “What the **** are you staring at?” And why do I hear “I don’t ever won’t to change you,” changing to “you’ll never change”? Don’t any of you realise that there hasn’t been a new man since Adam?

I suppose I do – especially when it gives me an opportunity to spit venom at the idiocy that is womankind.


I like it better when you're calling all of humankind idiots. At least that sounds like a logical argument. I can't tell you what's wrong with the idiots of my sex any more than you can tell me what's wrong with the idiots of yours. Incidently I personally agree that it's by and large a fruitless effort to try to fundamentally "change" a man. I've never tried to do so and don't know why some women do. I prefer to just choose to date men I don't feel the need to change, people whose flaws (and we all have them) I feel I can deal with and whose better points I can admire and respect.

[jackyyyy]

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 PorterNow I am wondering if he is simply looking out the window in the morning, talking to himself. Hardly singing because I don't think this is something to sing about.

"He speaks:"
Does this really mean its his turn to speak, or simply, 'he speaks'?

"Since you proved that you loved me, I
Know what you are?"
Why do we think he is asking her?

I am also starting to feel there are errors in the structure of the poem, and I am getting tired of dealing with ambiguities or where the piece has no apparent clue to indicate its true targets. Maybe someone here can ID them because I cannot ennunciate it.

Thanks, Petrarch. Unnamable is rather good at pushing buttons, isn't he, and if we read everything he wrote, he is actually pointing out deficiencies in both sexes. So, yes, everyone is an idiot. :banana:

[Xamonas Chegwe]

The more I read this, the more I think that she is criticising herself in this poem, almost more than the man. Remember, she is merely putting words into his mouth. When he calls her beast / dupe / dirt, it is in fact KAP describing herself this way.

She's not fond of the guy either, don't get me wrong; but I think there is perhaps more self-loathing / -criticism here than I originally picked up on.

[Regit]

This may come as a bit of a shock but, given the choice, the "gentler sex" by and large prefers being "patronized" as being loving family members rather than as being bags of crisps. :lol: Besides, I took Virgil's remark as being sincere and well meant, not patronizing.
Sure, I would not doubt Virgil's sincerity for a minute either. But you cannot deny that this remark somewhat conflicts with itself, being used as a defence against the argument that women give love a ridiculous importance. And so far I haven't heard a point raised against that argument.

[Virgil]

Sure, I would not doubt Virgil's sincerity for a minute either. But you cannot deny that this remark somewhat conflicts with itself, being used as a defence against the argument that women give love a ridiculous importance. And so far I haven't heard a point raised against that argument.
What do you mean? I agree that women give love importance, what I'm reacting to is the value of it. I don't think it's rediculous. I think it's admirable; more than admirable. Our society depends upon it. Let's say I find it heroic.

[rachel]

Rachel,

“Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.”


They don’t tell him to get lost – they compete for his attentions – arming themselves for combat with yet another caked layer of cosmetics and ever-tighter garments stretched over their carcases. What’s wrong with your sex? Why are they so foolish? Why is it that it takes only a few months for “You’ve got such beautiful eyes” to change to “What the **** are you staring at?” And why do I hear “I don’t ever won’t to change you,” changing to “you’ll never change”? Don’t any of you realise that there hasn’t been a new man since Adam?


I suppose I do – especially when it gives me an opportunity to spit venom at the idiocy that is womankind.

I think there is a lot of truth in what Unnameable has said , quote: the idiocy that is womankind.
I did say in my post Un that I was talking about both men AND women that treat one another so badly.But I feel like crying when you say that "as empty experiences go it is one of the best." I dont' believe that, because unless you have been so hurt that you have absolutely hardened your heart, I believe firmly that afterwards there is only a worse ache in the heart and more despair than before and that does not equate with any sort of peace of happiness.
I see what he says that women do with that sort of guy all the time. I had a dear friend break down and tell me that after she had been wooed and whatever , the next time she went to see the man he merely smiled and said that she wasn't the type of person he could see himself with down the road.
That is why I have stayed celebate for these years- I would rather die than use another human being for my selfish ends, they have hearts and feelings and I don't care even how handsome, rich, famous whatever they are-to me they don't deserve that sort of respect.
And, I may not be much in the eyes of this world, but I would like to die knowing that I at least respected myself enough to not go a a moment's thrill and the rest of my life feel sick at heart , never.
I cannot say like Petrarch that I have met many good men, ones I think, despite the pain and ugliness of life are still good in their hearts.
I am sorry to say many I looked up to, thought were wonderful, when given two minutes alone with me say in the living room while we waited for the dear wife to get her coat, or the parishoners to come into the room for choir practise-well let us just say I left with a broken heart and less a friend or two.
But I believe that they are out there, I believe if you look you will find them.And at the risk of freaking out about a thousand people- I just happen to think that Unnameable, despite the words he says is one of t hem
And I will not post on this thread again. It keeps me up at night crying.

[Regit]

What do you mean? I agree that women give love importance, what I'm reacting to is the value of it. I don't think it's rediculous. I think it's admirable; more than admirable. Our society depends upon it. Let's say I find it heroic.

I would not deny women the meaning or significance of their love. And I, by no mean, meant to say that society does not need women for their role and their devotion. We are arguing different points here. When I used 'ridiculous' I meant it in the context of my argument for the poem: that the girl in this poem deserved what happened to her (at least partly at fault), for placing too much importance on love leading herself to assume that the charm of the man also means love. Now that is not to say that the same girl could not find another man and build a family and, thus, becomes a valuable member of society. But in this particular incident, however, her yearning for love and her expectation of it from men is ridiculous (if, in fact, she did interprete being called a "Star", and being wooed with "words" as an offer of love and as falling in love respectively). And this represents a different way in which women can "give importance" to love, a very realistic and significant way. And it is to this that I was refering.

[Virgil]

I would not deny women the meaning or significance of their love. And I, by no mean, meant to say that society does not need women for their role and their devotion. We are arguing different points here. When I used 'ridiculous' I meant it in the context of my argument for the poem: that the girl in this poem deserved what happened to her (at least partly at fault), for placing too much importance on love leading herself to assume that the charm of the man also means love. Now that is not to say that the same girl could not find another man and build a family and, thus, becomes a valuable member of society. But in this particular incident, however, her yearning for love and her expectation of it from men is ridiculous (if, in fact, she did interprete being called a "Star", and being wooed with "words" as an offer of love and as falling in love respectively).
I'm sorry Regit. I thought you were refering to our side comments. I don't know if we know enough of what's going on for me to say if she deserved what happened. Since we are only getting her subjective feelings of the relationship, I can't judge how bad a persn the he truely is. If he really said that to her, he's a dispicable person and she's a victum. But just like a court case, it's a "he said/she said" conflict, and unfortunately there are no facts to sort out the events.

[Regit]

No need for apologies Virgil; as you said, "no grudges" :)

Though I think that there is enough evidence here. Like what Xamonas suggested, it seems like she is being critical of herself. For if indeed she speaks from her own bitter experience, then surely the information or judgement about the woman must be much more accurate than that about the man. What I mean is that, she cannot be sure if the man of whom she speaks might really be what she portraits him to be; but she must be certain that the woman of whom she speak is really what she, through the man's voice, portraits her to be. Thus, "beast", "dirt", "dupe", "laid", etc are more accurate descriptions than "God", "clay", "ambiguous".

[jackyyyy]

The more I read this, the more I think that she is criticising herself in this poem, almost more than the man. Remember, she is merely putting words into his mouth. When he calls her beast / dupe / dirt, it is in fact KAP describing herself this way.

She's not fond of the guy either, don't get me wrong; but I think there is perhaps more self-loathing / -criticism here than I originally picked up on.'the more I think' - its a strange poem for this reason. Here we are, debating who is really talking. The author is the creator of him, and I think the mention of "He speaks:" is to reinforce to us that its him speaking. Once the poem has left the author, its on its own feet. Isn't it? Or, should it be? While we feel 'safe' to assume she is beating herself up somehow, due to the baggage of information on her, that is another context we should not be including here.

Now, and only in the context of what is presented by the piece, is he a pig or is he something else? My opinion is, he is a pig, because she wrote "He speaks:". She did not write, "I woke up in the morning and imagined him saying this to me:" Soley in the context of what is presented, and in lack of Virgil's highly likely round 2, this is all we have to go on. Btw, I would hazard the piece is round 2, she already mouthed off in round 1.

The next issue, and I think where Unnamable is coming from, is; look who is pointing fingers at pigs! Well, pigs do tend to wallow in the mud together, eh. So, he has a point, and as I wrote, equal hate, equal love, equal pig.

This reminds me of a few other poems we've read here. Our view of it is corrupted by our knowledge of the author. I remember now why I prefer to look at the plain paper of it, because too much paint can turn a Da Vinci into a Dali, and Mona would appear to be a man. :lol:

[jackyyyy]

I think there is a lot of truth in what Unnameable has said , quote: the idiocy that is womankind.
I did say in my post Un that I was talking about both men AND women that treat one another so badly.But I feel like crying when you say that "as empty experiences go it is one of the best." He was quoting, and lots of examples. Men are equally idiot in feeding the idiocy of women, and vice versa. We do it to ourselves.

[The Unnamable]

It looks like I’ve upset a few people yet again. First of all, Rachel – you know that I don’t mean it when I play Devil’s Advocate. Regit challenged someone to speak for the man so I did. As Jackyyyy points out, I was quoting (Woody Allen) when I said, "as empty experiences go it is one of the best." There is certainly some truth in it but that isn’t how I lead my life. It’s freely available here around every corner but I spend my time on things like this Forum instead. As meaningless experiences go, it’s not so bad. Gozeta considered the lines I quoted from Dylan’s Idiot Wind to be the views of someone who will never meet a good woman. This is to make the same mistake that some appear to be making with the poem – it’s not how I feel all the time, just at certain moments. Besides, and I hope this appeases Petrarch’s Love as well, Dylan goes on to say,

“Idiot wind, blowin' thru the buttons of our coats
Blowin' thru the letters that we wrote
Idiot wind, blowin' thru the dust upon our shelves
We're idiots babe
It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.”


Incidentally, I’ve just spent the past few weeks in the company of a remarkable woman who is nobody’s fool and loves Dylan. She knows too much to argue or to judge but wouldn’t take kindly to me evaluating her worth according to how much she holds society together through her feminine qualities. Yes, she’s a woman but she is a thinking person in her own right first and foremost.

Nevertheless, I do think that the respective idiocies of men and women are different. I am more disappointed by the latter because I hope for better. I have heard many, many women deriding and criticising the kinds of attitudes espoused by the man in the poem. Those same women are then so flattered when the attention is directed at them that they suspend their objections and capitulate.

On the question of patronising attitudes to women, I find it alarming that no woman can see my point. The idea that women exist to check the behaviour of men and to provide a nurturing effect is simply another form of patriarchal control. Men define you and evaluate your worth according to how it suits their agenda. It doesn’t view them as people in their own right but as some kind of emotional plasma that lubricates society’s cogs. My comment aimed at women is singled out as one-sided and so unbalanced. Had it been a (supposedly) positive comment like Virgil’s, I suspect that I would not have been challenged. Make negative generalisations about women and you are guilty of lacking balance; make positive generalisations and you are a gentleman. If you want genuine equality, all such generalisations should be considered inaccurate. I guess the inconsistency proves my point.


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. After all, she could have said no.
This is the key for me – the implicit assumption that men want sex and women either consent or refuse to consent to that want. Do women have no desire of their own? Why is it that you might hear a woman say to her badly behaved partner, “right, that’s it – no sex for you tonight,” but you seldom hear a man saying the same to a badly behaved woman? Why can’t women desire loveless sex in the way men do? Why does such sex have to be considered shallow? The desire from many women seems to be that men see things the way they do (in some comments this is assumed to be more ‘meaningful’) but is this any different from men wanting women to see things their way? As ever, we are simply witnessing an ideological battle.


So you didn't answer: On which is it best to build a relationship: love, finance, lust?
I hope it’s okay if I don’t choose one of your reasons and suggest one of my own. At the risk of sounding like a new age prannet, I would say ‘respect’ and a mutual desire for a companion with whom to explore the ‘million-petalled flower of being here.’



This may come as a bit of a shock but, given the choice, the "gentler sex" by and large prefers being "patronized" as being loving family members rather than as being bags of crisps.
Exactly. You prefer being flattered, even though the idea of what constitutes a ‘loving family member’ is a predominantly male ideological construct. And it might come as a bit of a shock to you that, by and large, the ungentle sex prefer crisps. :D

Finally, I find it interesting that Donne’s viciousness in Love’s Alchemy doesn’t appear to have offended anyone as much as either my comments or KAP’s. He is saying that once you have had your wicked way with a woman, she is nothing more than a mummy. Please note, umbrage grabbers, that it was Donne who said it and not me. He could obviously teach me a thing or two about charm.

[Virgil]

I hope it’s okay if I don’t choose one of your reasons and suggest one of my own. At the risk of sounding like a new age prannet, I would say ‘respect’ and a mutual desire for a companion with whom to explore the ‘million-petalled flower of being here.’

That is quite nice. You didn't upset me, I just wanted to pin down your thought. Love is not a perfect thing, as we can see and we all I'm sure know. There is no utopia, but we have to navigate ourselves through life choosing the best options we can. It may or may not work out. As one weighs the options, one (or perhaps just I) realizes the paltriness of the other two. "Respect and mutual desire for a companion," that sounds like love to me. ;)

But as to your ideological points, I'm sure you fathom I do not agree, but I do not want to have that debate. Nor frankly would it be appropriate in this thread.


Incidentally, I’ve just spent the past few weeks in the company of a remarkable woman who is nobody’s fool and loves Dylan. She knows too much to argue or to judge but wouldn’t take kindly to me evaluating her worth according to how much she holds society together through her feminine qualities. Yes, she’s a woman but she is a thinking person in her own right first and foremost.
She sounds great. Good luck.

[jackyyyy]

Finally, I find it interesting that Donne’s viciousness in Love’s Alchemy doesn’t appear to have offended anyone as much as either my comments or KAP’s. He is saying that once you have had your wicked way with a woman, she is nothing more than a mummy. Please note, umbrage grabbers, that it was Donne who said it and not me. He could obviously teach me a thing or two about charm.
Its just more meat on the table. Most women, I talk to, are perfectly upfront in their opinion, unlike most men. However, they are less upfront about who they are, unlike most men. I am aiming that squarely at the KAP comment, whether she said it, or he did.

Dylan's brother got it right:

"
Once she has let you have your wicked way
You are nothing more than a daddy,
Tweedly shee and tweeeeedly heeee
With a banjo on each knee!
"

:lol:

[MelanieD]

What pointless discussions. I'm sorry to have chosen this poem. I would like to contribute a word from a Parisian society lady Madame Lambert, 17th century. She says that one of the things that make women unhappy is that they expect too much from men. This, I think is vice-versa. We fall in love with an imagined person. Please consider that all that has to do with feeling cannot be directed by our brains. Passion means 'to suffer', when our will is mute. But love we must, I said it earlier.
To compensate I'll typ up a small poem by John Montague

The leaping fire

Each morning, from the corner
of the hearth, I saw a miracle
as you sifted the smoored ashes
to blow
a fire's sleeping remains
back to life, holding the burning brands
of turf, between work-hardened hands.
I draw on that fire....

[Regit]

What pointless discussions.

Whatever do you mean MelanieD? We all contributed our opinions and learnt of others'; isn't that what all discussions here are aiming for? If you had an idea of where the discussion should have gone, you could have contributed a little earlier to try and save it from being "pointless". I don't see how what you've said give any kind of guidance. They're just opinions, they don't overwhelm anyone else's opinion in integrity and credibility.

[Petrarch's Love]

On the question of patronising attitudes to women, I find it alarming that no woman can see my point. The idea that women exist to check the behaviour of men and to provide a nurturing effect is simply another form of patriarchal control. Men define you and evaluate your worth according to how it suits their agenda.

Exactly. You prefer being flattered, even though the idea of what constitutes a ‘loving family member’ is a predominantly male ideological construct.

To begin with, do note that I say "given the choice," it's not as though either of these options is the way I choose to define myself or anyone else, man or woman, but I am able to identify to some extent with wanting to be a source of love and comfort to my family (not because of any male expectations, but because of my own) whereas I don't really identify at all with crisps. :D I'm very familiar with the sorts of arguments you suggest about male defined roles for women, and I do see your point about the potential for such a comment to be patronizing, but I think I was reacting to this comment as a compliment of a specific aspect of a woman's life rather than a generalization about a woman's sole role in life. If I thought that Virgil was suggesting this was the only way a woman is able to be admired or that the degree to which a woman is like this is a measure of her worth as a person (and I've seen such comments made with that sort of intent and objected to them) then I would have found it more patronizing. Being a loving wife and mother who is needed by others can be a very important part of a woman's life, in some cases her greatest contibution, and I thought that the remark was simply admiring women who fill those rolls (in fact I thought he was trying to express something akin to the sentiment in the poem Melanie just posted above). I could equally say I admire the roles that men serve as loving husbands and fathers who play their part in nurturing and being needed by their families. I personally have similar expectations for men as I do for women when it comes to providing love and support to those around them. I think it's a compliment that could go both ways (which may be where I do differ from Virgil's point?), whereas I've never really thought of describing a man as a bag of crisps. :lol: It was because of this, not because it was more "flattering" that I found the comment more acceptable.


And it might come as a bit of a shock to you that, by and large, the ungentle sex prefer crisps.


You never know. Some just don't like crisps much. I was once out on a date with a guy who prefered comparing women to different kinds of trail mix (he liked a variety). Much to his chagrin I didn't stick around to see if he would classify me as a nut or a raisin. :D



I would say ‘respect’ and a mutual desire for a companion with whom to explore the ‘million-petalled flower of being here.’

This, I think we can all agree on. Best of luck with your new lady. She sounds like a winner. :)

[Petrarch's Love]

I cannot say like Petrarch that I have met many good men, ones I think, despite the pain and ugliness of life are still good in their hearts...I just happen to think that Unnameable, despite the words he says is one of them.

I just happen to agree with you, Rachel. :nod: I hope in the future that you will have the opportunity to meet many more men who are genuinely good.

And I will not post on this thread again. It keeps me up at night crying.

Do not cry over this thread dear Rachel. Such thoughts are not worth your tears.

[jackyyyy]

Interesting about crisps... I know women who classify men by type of dog; Labrador, Dashund, Bulldog, Terrier, all the way to Poodles and Pit Bulls. I kind of like that since I am a dog fan, but I did not last long in the kennel because I had a habit of pooping where I wanted, when I wanted and as many times as I wanted. :D You know, there is no law saying people have to be in a relationship, and many people that are, settle for less than their ideals. Which is okay too. Back to "Morning Song", I still think they are crazy in love with each other unless someone can show me otherwise. :brow:

[Virgil]

What pointless discussions. I'm sorry to have chosen this poem. ...
Not so pointless, though I admit off topic. If any is my fault, I apologize. It was a good choice for a poem, but being short I think we've fully explored it at this point. If we go into that ideological discussion, now that would really be a pointless discussion.


I would like to contribute a word from a Parisian society lady Madame Lambert, 17th century. She says that one of the things that make women unhappy is that they expect too much from men. This, I think is vice-versa. We fall in love with an imagined person.
Perhaps. But the trick in life is to stay in love with that person. That I'm afraid has nothing to do with imagination.


Please consider that all that has to do with feeling cannot be directed by our brains. Passion means 'to suffer', when our will is mute. But love we must, I said it earlier.
I like that.

[rachel]

It looks like I’ve upset a few people yet again. First of all, Rachel – you know that I don’t mean it when I play Devil’s Advocate. Regit challenged someone to speak for the man so I did. As Jackyyyy points out, I was quoting (Woody Allen) when I said, "as empty experiences go it is one of the best." There is certainly some truth in it but that isn’t how I lead my life. It’s freely available here around every corner but I spend my time on things like this Forum instead. As meaningless experiences go, it’s not so bad. Gozeta considered the lines I quoted from Dylan’s Idiot Wind to be the views of someone who will never meet a good woman. This is to make the same mistake that some appear to be making with the poem – it’s not how I feel all the time, just at certain moments. Besides, and I hope this appeases Petrarch’s Love as well, Dylan goes on to say,

“Idiot wind, blowin' thru the buttons of our coats
Blowin' thru the letters that we wrote
Idiot wind, blowin' thru the dust upon our shelves
We're idiots babe
It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.”


Incidentally, I’ve just spent the past few weeks in the company of a remarkable woman who is nobody’s fool and loves Dylan. She knows too much to argue or to judge but wouldn’t take kindly to me evaluating her worth according to how much she holds society together through her feminine qualities. Yes, she’s a woman but she is a thinking person in her own right first and foremost.

Nevertheless, I do think that the respective idiocies of men and women are different. I am more disappointed by the latter because I hope for better. I have heard many, many women deriding and criticising the kinds of attitudes espoused by the man in the poem. Those same women are then so flattered when the attention is directed at them that they suspend their objections and capitulate.

On the question of patronising attitudes to women, I find it alarming that no woman can see my point. The idea that women exist to check the behaviour of men and to provide a nurturing effect is simply another form of patriarchal control. Men define you and evaluate your worth according to how it suits their agenda. It doesn’t view them as people in their own right but as some kind of emotional plasma that lubricates society’s cogs. My comment aimed at women is singled out as one-sided and so unbalanced. Had it been a (supposedly) positive comment like Virgil’s, I suspect that I would not have been challenged. Make negative generalisations about women and you are guilty of lacking balance; make positive generalisations and you are a gentleman. If you want genuine equality, all such generalisations should be considered inaccurate. I guess the inconsistency proves my point.


This is the key for me – the implicit assumption that men want sex and women either consent or refuse to consent to that want. Do women have no desire of their own? Why is it that you might hear a woman say to her badly behaved partner, “right, that’s it – no sex for you tonight,” but you seldom hear a man saying the same to a badly behaved woman? Why can’t women desire loveless sex in the way men do? Why does such sex have to be considered shallow? The desire from many women seems to be that men see things the way they do (in some comments this is assumed to be more ‘meaningful’) but is this any different from men wanting women to see things their way? As ever, we are simply witnessing an ideological battle.


I hope it’s okay if I don’t choose one of your reasons and suggest one of my own. At the risk of sounding like a new age prannet, I would say ‘respect’ and a mutual desire for a companion with whom to explore the ‘million-petalled flower of being here.’



Exactly. You prefer being flattered, even though the idea of what constitutes a ‘loving family member’ is a predominantly male ideological construct. And it might come as a bit of a shock to you that, by and large, the ungentle sex prefer crisps. :D

Finally, I find it interesting that Donne’s viciousness in Love’s Alchemy doesn’t appear to have offended anyone as much as either my comments or KAP’s. He is saying that once you have had your wicked way with a woman, she is nothing more than a mummy. Please note, umbrage grabbers, that it was Donne who said it and not me. He could obviously teach me a thing or two about charm.

my deepest apologies Un, I KNOW you don't mean it when you play devil's advocate, I wasn't a bit upset with you, only the reality that people DO think and behave like that. I am very sorry if I upset you. :bawling:

[jackyyyy]

a small poem by John Montague

The leaping fire

Each morning, from the corner
of the hearth, I saw a miracle
as you sifted the smoored ashes
to blow
a fire's sleeping remains
back to life, holding the burning brands
of turf, between work-hardened hands.
I draw on that fire....This is great stuff for a Sunday morning, and Renovation.

[rachel]

you are renovating, ooh I know it will be absolutely perfect. Hope your trip was fab.
yes it is beautiful, new life, new hope and a relief when the air is frigid and your toes and fingers are blue.

[jackyyyy]

This piece that Melanie posted is inspirational. It covers everything from beauty, love, strength and tenderness... and getting out of bed on a cold morning. :lol: I did not render it here for 'poem of the week', by the way, I think way toooo short for that. Her choice was/is perfect. I go next week, yet, btw, and renovating does sound better than ruminating, so good, eh! :D

[rachel]

just ignore me Jackyyyy, I have had about two hours sleep in well actually I cannot remember. baby Hasia is going thru the 'there is a monster in the bedroom" thing now and I am up constantly comforting her. forgive me . sigh....

[Petrarch's Love]

This piece that Melanie posted is inspirational. It covers everything from beauty, love, strength and tenderness... and getting out of bed on a cold morning. :lol: I did not render it here for 'poem of the week', by the way, I think way toooo short for that. Her choice was/is perfect. I go next week, yet, btw, and renovating does sound better than ruminating, so good, eh! :D

I agree. It's a beautiful poem--a moment of peace and clarity. Thanks Melanie. Looking forward to your pick next week Jackyyyy.

[jackyyyy]

I am away this week. :wave: Why not take a turn Patrarch, May 1st.

[Petrarch's Love]

Jackyyyy--Oh, I lost track of what you were referring to and when you said you were going to "go" next week I thought you meant you were going to have a go selecting a poem. :lol: Have a great trip, wherever you're going. :wave: Hmmm...I'll have to go think about what poem to post, that is unless anyone else is just dying to put one up.

[Virgil]

Jackyyyy--Oh, I lost track of what you were referring to and when you said you were going to "go" next week I thought you meant you were going to have a go selecting a poem. :lol: Have a great trip, wherever you're going. :wave: Hmmm...I'll have to go think about what poem to post, that is unless anyone else is just dying to put one up.
How about something from Milton, Petrarch? I don't know if "Lycidas" is too long. Just a suggestion. Whatever your heart desires.

[Pensive]

Petratch, Virgil is right, Milton will be a good choice....I think that Robert Frost might be a good candidate as well.

[Petrarch's Love]

Wow, you read my mind Virg. I was just looking at Lycidas. I've broken it into four parts with spaces that aren't in the original poem, to suggest some more easily digested segments for discussion. At least we won't run out of material to discuss. :lol:

In this monody the author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately drowned in
his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637; and by occasion foretells
the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height.

[1] Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due;
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.
[10] Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew .
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his wat'ry bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse,
So may some gentle Muse
[20] With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And as he passes turn
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.
For we were nursed upon the selfsame hill,
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove a-field, and both together heard
What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
[30] Oft till the star that rose, at ev'ning, bright
Toward heav'n's descent had sloped his west'ring wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Tempered to th' oaten flute;
Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long;
And old Damoetas loved to hear our song.

But O! the heavy change now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves,
[40] With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,
And all their echoes mourn.
The willows, and the hazel copses green,
Shall now no more be seen
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flow'rs, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear.
[50] Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep
Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.
Ay me, I fondly dream!
Had ye been there, for what could that have done?
What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,
The Muse herself for her enchanting son,
[60] Whom universal nature did lament,
When, by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
Alas! what boots it with uncessant care
To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?
[70] Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise,"
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears:
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glist'ring foil
[80] Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in heav'n expect thy meed."
O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher mood;
But now my oat proceeds,
And listens to the herald of the sea
[90] That came in Neptune's plea.
He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,
What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?
And questioned every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beaked promontory:
They knew not of his story,
And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed;
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.
[100] It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in th' eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.
"Ah! Who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge?"
Last came, and last did go,
The Pilot of the Galilean lake.
[110] Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain)
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake
"How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as for their bellies' sake
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!
Of other care they little reckoning make
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
[120] A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoll'n with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
[130] But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."

Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past
That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flow'rets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,
[140] That on the green turf suck the honeyed show'rs,
And purple all the ground with vernal flow'rs.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears.
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
[150] And daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
For so to interpose a little ease,
Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.
Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled,
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
[160] Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold.
Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth;
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the wat'ry floor.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
[170] And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves,
Where, other groves and other streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the saints above,
In solemn troops, and sweet societies,
[180] That sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.
Thus sang the uncouth swain to th' oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals grey;
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
[190] And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropped into the western bay.
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

[jackyyyy]

In this monody the author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637; and by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height.Wow, great choice. I am in Chester, I'll be sure to wave this poem at some clergy while away, thanks! :banana:

[Virgil]

You know a couple of weeks back I mentioned I think three poets who I considered top tier in poetic skill. I forgot to mention Milton. He truely is a great artificer of the english language, despite what T.S. Eliot says about him. It was either last year or the year before (at my age the years are becoming a blur) I read the entire Paradise Lost from start to finish, which I had never had to do. In school they just asigned sections to read, and usually the satan passages. So after reading the entire thing, every line, I was enthralled with Milton. I was completely in love with his voice. Shakespeare may be a slightly better poet, beng able to whip images and metaphors like breathing. But nobody, and I mean nobody, has the grand, epic, powerful voice of Milton. It truly is an adjective in itself, "Miltonic." "Lycidas" is an early work, and I think there are some rough spots in there, but those opening lines certainly foreshadow Milton's epic lines of Paradise Lost.

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due;
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.
Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his wat'ry bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.

[Petrarch's Love]

You know a couple of weeks back I mentioned I think three poets who I considered top tier in poetic skill. I forgot to mention Milton. He truely is a great artificer of the english language, despite what T.S. Eliot says about him. It was either last year or the year before (at my age the years are becoming a blur) I read the entire Paradise Lost from start to finish, which I had never had to do. In school they just asigned sections to read, and usually the satan passages. So after reading the entire thing, every line, I was enthralled with Milton. I was completely in love with his voice. Shakespeare may be a slightly better poet, beng able to whip images and metaphors like breathing. But nobody, and I mean nobody, has the grand, epic, powerful voice of Milton. It truly is an adjective in itself, "Miltonic." "Lycidas" is an early work, and I think there are some rough spots in there, but those opening lines certainly foreshadow Milton's epic lines of Paradise Lost.

Virgil--I agree that there's nothing quite like Milton. The first time I read Paradise Lost I was an undergrad sitting around in the student lounge bored and I picked up an old battered copy of PL and started reading. I've seldom been so forcefully struck by an author's voice. The lines were so powerfully different from anything I'd read before, and so alluring that I couldn't put it down. I spent the rest of the afternoon transfixed until they kicked me out of the student lounge at closing and I ran right out to the bookstore to buy my own copy. :lol:

Last year I took a course in which we read all of Milton's poetic works in chronological order (as well as the more interesting bits of prose). Lycidas struck me as one of the first places where, as you say, the voice we hear later in PL really starts to emerge. I've always found the church criticism in the middle a bit out of place (though others disagree with me) and some of the lines are less than perfect, but over all it's a beautifully written poem. There's so much more going on than you would ever catch in one reading. My favorite lines are those at the end:

Thus sang the uncouth swain to th' oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals grey;
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropped into the western bay.
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

I always feel there's something unexpected unfolding in these final lines. It may be because of the realization that the whole poem is actually being song by the shepherd, meaning that we're only getting to the actual story framing this poem when we reach the very end; and of course that final line is just perfect. I wonder what people make of the different voices in this poem: Lycidas, Milton himself, the muses, the shepheard singing at the end. There are so many different voices in this poem, but yet at any given moment it feels as though there is only one narrator, perhaps because the first person voice of the opening lines seems to announce himself so forcefully that there really doesn't seem to be any question of authority.

I also love his use of short lines in this poem. It's fairly unusual for Milton to have varied line length, but he uses them like an expert musician in this poem. There are fewer and fewer abbreviated lines as the poem progresses until the end section--somewhere around the point where the shepheards are told to weep no more and onward--has only full lines appropriate to resurrection and continuing life. Some of my favorite abbreviated lines earlier in the poem are these:


So may some gentle Muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And as he passes turn
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.

It's just a perfect poetic "turn." The two shortened lines surround the mention of Milton's death, while the full lines describe the words and actions of the muse who will grant him life in poetry even after death. The line "as he passes turn" is so rich with word play. The future "muse" or poet literally passes Milton's grave in walking by it, but at the same time it is implied that this future poet is also passing, as in passing through this life, or passing away. He literally turns to recite a benediction on the dead poet, but also turns in the sense of poetic turn, or writing poetry. One poet passes the muse to another who then takes his turn even as he himself passes swiftly out of this life. It's a beautiful evocation of the continuance of life and of poetry and of life through poetry.

Anyway, I suppose I've rambled enough for the moment (does it show that I love this poem? :D ). I'll let others get some thoughts or questions or comments out there.

One question of my own--I wondered what season of the year people imagined the opening lines were describing? I thought it was really obviously a certain time of year but I recently had a debate with a professor of mine who was equally certain it was a completely different season. I'm curious as to whether more people agree with me or with him. :D

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I would say late autumn (or possibly winter), seeing as the laurel has berries and he mentions that the myrtle (like ivy) doesn't wither like other plants.

He also mentions a 'mellowing' year - ie. aging - again leading me to late autumn / early winter.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

With regard to the lines you quote - about the urn - I take it to mean that Milton is hoping that some future poet will sing his praises in the way that he himself is praising 'Lycidas' - forgive me if that is what you meant.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Has anyone any information on the mythological persons used in the poem? I think many of them come from Virgil's eclogues, but I'm unsure. Seeing as we have Virgil with us here, perhaps he can shed some light? It's hard to make out the allusions otherwise.
Some kind of a Dramatis Personae would be useful.

[jackyyyy]

yes, 'the berries' and 'Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year' makes me think of Oct/Nov, but 'ivy, sere, and O laurels' reminds me of December. I have not digested it all.

[Petrarch's Love]

With regard to the lines you quote - about the urn - I take it to mean that Milton is hoping that some future poet will sing his praises in the way that he himself is praising 'Lycidas' - forgive me if that is what you meant.

Yes, my apologies, I realize I didn't really state the primary meaning of the lines in my comments. Just as you say, the meaning of the lines is that Milton imagines some future poet praising him in a poem just as he is now praising Lycidas, and that's what I was referring to when I said they describe a continuance of life and of poetry--one poet (the future muse) continuing where another has left off by eulogizing that previous poet (Milton) . I was taking the meaning for granted and examining the way in which he's getting that meaning across because I've always found his diction here very rich. The "turn" make it clear that he's talking about poetic composition that will immortalize him one day, and I love the way his choice of the word "passes" not only describes a poet in the future, but describes him doing something in the present tense with an implication of this future poet one day himself becoming past. It's a really wonderfully compact way of putting across a whole cycle of events repeating themselves throughout time as each succeeding poet pays homage to the last and hopes to be immortalized himself.

[Petrarch's Love]

yes, 'the berries' and 'Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year' makes me think of Oct/Nov, but 'ivy, sere, and O laurels' reminds me of December. I have not digested it all.


I would say late autumn (or possibly winter), seeing as the laurel has berries and he mentions that the myrtle (like ivy) doesn't wither like other plants.

Well I'm glad I'm not alone. I always thought it was autumn, but my professor insists that it's spring for some reason. I tried to tell him that berries probably wouldn't be out in the spring, but he seems pretty certain in his reading. I still think he's wrong though.

[Petrarch's Love]

Has anyone any information on the mythological persons used in the poem? I think many of them come from Virgil's eclogues, but I'm unsure. Seeing as we have Virgil with us here, perhaps he can shed some light? It's hard to make out the allusions otherwise.
Some kind of a Dramatis Personae would be useful.

Yes, no doubt it would be! I had forgotten there weren't any footnotes to this. There are a lot of references in the poem, but I'll see what I can do with putting together a list of key characters/allusions that may be helpful. To begin with you're right that some of the names are from Virgil's eclogues, in fact the whole pastoral conceit of the poem in which all the poets are shepherds etc. comes from the eclogues. Stay tuned for a list of the more important players mentioned....

[Virgil]

Some info on myrtle berries. I could not find what time of year they come out. My guess is late summer.


Family: Myrtaceae
Genus: Myrtus
Species: communis
Myrtle is a Mediterranean evergreen shrub whose leaves and blue berries have a flavor similar to juniper and rosemary.

The Myrtle has long been a symbolic plant in Mediterranean cultures. In ancient Greece it was sacred to Aphrodite and later to the Roman equivalent, Venus. It preceded Laurel as the plant symbolizing victory, whether in war or in athletic games. One can see Myrtle symbolically used in this way today--the golden designs used on U. S. military officers' hats contain sprigs of Myrtle. The plant's berries were used for centuries by the Romans as a pepper-like seasoning. The leaves were used in medicine, and both the leaves and flowers were used to make love potions (being the sacred plant of Venus). Myrtle is also a symbolic plant for the Jews, being one of four plants used during the Sukkoth festival that celebrates the harvest and commemorates the period during which the Jews wandered in the wilderness after the Exodus.

Myrtle was one of the flavoring ingredients in the original recipe for Mortadella, a smoked sausage from Bologna, Italy. (Juniper is now mostly used).

On the Italian island of Sardinia, a digestive liqueur called mirto is made by macerating myrtle berries in alcohol.

Myrtle berries is also a plant widely used in Corsican cuisine to flavor game and delicatessen.

[Virgil]

Has anyone any information on the mythological persons used in the poem? I think many of them come from Virgil's eclogues, but I'm unsure. Seeing as we have Virgil with us here, perhaps he can shed some light? It's hard to make out the allusions otherwise.
Some kind of a Dramatis Personae would be useful.
;) I do have a annotated version of this, but I'll have to dig out the book. Tomorrow night I'll dig it out. I've been running around all day today.

[Petrarch's Love]

First off, please note I've added line numbers in brackets every ten lines, since I figured it would be easier if we could refer to line numbers in a poem of this length.


Has anyone any information on the mythological persons used in the poem? I think many of them come from Virgil's eclogues, but I'm unsure. Seeing as we have Virgil with us here, perhaps he can shed some light? It's hard to make out the allusions otherwise.
Some kind of a Dramatis Personae would be useful.

O.K., here are a few things that might be useful:

The first important allusion that came to mind was his extended reference to the story of Orpheus in lines 58-64. For those unfamiliar with the story, Orpheus was the son of the muse Calliope and was associated with the power of poetry and music in that his own songs had the power to move rock and tame beasts, not to mention being persuasive enough to get his wife released from the underworld (that is, it would have worked if only he hadn't looked back). After losing his wife, Eurydice, he gave up women (in fact he went a step further and became gay). This enraged the maenads (frenzied female followers of Bachus) who tore him to pieces in a fit of rage and threw his head down the river.

Here are some other potentially useful glosses that jumped out to me as I was reading, though it is by no means exhaustive of references that might cause confusion:

People:

Lycidas: A common name in classical pastoral. Among others Theocritas has a Lycidas, and Virgil's ninth eclogue employs the name. I think there's also a Lycidas somewhere in Lucan, but I'd have to double check.
sisters of the sacred well (ln. 15): the muses. The sacred well probably refers to the fountain Aganippe on mount Helicon, home of the muses.
Damaetas (ln36): a conventional shepheard name in pastoral (including Virgil's eclogues)
Amaryllis (ln68) Naera (ln. 69): Both conventional names for nymphs or shepheardesses in pastoral:
Hippotades (ln. 96): Aeolus, or god of winds
Panope: a nereid (sea nymph)
Camus (ln.103) : Refers to the river Cam and to Cambridge.
Bellerus (ln. 160): A mythical giant from which Land's End in Cornwall was supposed to have derived its Roman name, Bellerium.

Places:

Deva (ln 55): The river Dee in England
Hebrus (ln. 63): The classical name for the river that runs through Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey (known now as the Maritsa, the evros and the Meric in those respective countries).
Arethuse (ln. 85): a sicilian spring associated with poetic inspiration
Mincius (ln. 86): A river in Mantua, the birthplace of Virgil
Alpheus (ln. 132): A fabled river running through Arcadia. It was thought to end in the fountain Arethuse (mentioned above). Alpheus is also the name of a character in Ovid's Metamorphoses who pursues a nymph (whose name I've forgotten just now) until she turns into a fountain.
Namancos and Bayona (ln. 162): Both places in Spain

[The Unnamable]

Well I'm glad I'm not alone. I always thought it was autumn, but my professor insists that it's spring for some reason. I tried to tell him that berries probably wouldn't be out in the spring, but he seems pretty certain in his reading. I still think he's wrong though.
I could be wrong (is that really likely?) but I wonder if your professor could be seeing what others appear to have missed. The significance of the berries being ‘harsh and crude’ is that they are not yet ripened. Milton has to celebrate Lycidas prematurely - before he has matured as a poet. The idea of things not being ready is obviously consistent with the premature death of Edward King.

Petrarch, I would have thought the following lines appealed to you most, given that you are a hard-grafting academic:

Alas! what boots it with uncessant care
To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.

[jackyyyy]

Cold berries

http://www.jimpix.co.uk/photos/default.asp?id=282

[Virgil]

Yes, my apologies, I realize I didn't really state the primary meaning of the lines in my comments. Just as you say, the meaning of the lines is that Milton imagines some future poet praising him in a poem just as he is now praising Lycidas, and that's what I was referring to when I said they describe a continuance of life and of poetry--one poet (the future muse) continuing where another has left off by eulogizing that previous poet (Milton) . I was taking the meaning for granted and examining the way in which he's getting that meaning across because I've always found his diction here very rich. The "turn" make it clear that he's talking about poetic composition that will immortalize him one day, and I love the way his choice of the word "passes" not only describes a poet in the future, but describes him doing something in the present tense with an implication of this future poet one day himself becoming past. It's a really wonderfully compact way of putting across a whole cycle of events repeating themselves throughout time as each succeeding poet pays homage to the last and hopes to be immortalized himself.
And so, by analogy, he Milton comes to "pluck" the berries, so Lycidas has been plucked. What a strong verb. It just sticks out for me in all the words of the first dozen or so lines. And "forced" as an adjective here is a little startling. I don't think he means it as fingers forced their way into something, but as fingers that applied force to pluck and crush. Not your standard way of using the adjective, which is probably one of the things that drove T.S. Eliot to put down Milton. But I think it's innovative. I almost envision God's hand plucking poor Lycidas. And add the other strong verb, "shatter" and I think you can feel the violence of the openning.

[Petrarch's Love]

I could be wrong (is that really likely?) but I wonder if your professor could be seeing what others appear to have missed. The significance of the berries being ‘harsh and crude’ is that they are not yet ripened. Milton has to celebrate Lycidas prematurely - before he has matured as a poet. The idea of things not being ready is obviously consistent with the premature death of Edward King.

Yes, my prof. said the same thing. I still wasn't too sure about that argument though. It's spring right now and I don't see berries of any description about. It seems as though you don't see berries until late summer/early fall (though I'm no botanical expert here--Does anyone know for certain when the myrtle berries would first appear?). We disagreed about "mellowing" too, which I think of as a distinctly autumnal word describing the ripening of the fall, while my prof. sees it as describing a softening of the harsh winter weather. I wouldn't say full fall, but that time around late summer maybe, when everything is on the verge of ripening but not quite there yet.

In any case, I agree with Virgil that regardless of the exact season, there's the feeling of things being cut off or "plucked" before they reach their peak, and a certain violence in the diction of the opening lines.


Petrarch, I would have thought the following lines appealed to you most, given that you are a hard-grafting academic:

:lol: Yes, there's been talk of typing up the passage you quote and posting it in the grad student lounge, though there's another group in favor of the more pithy "Laciate ogne speranza voi ch'intrate" (abandon hope all ye who enter here).

[Virgil]

Success!! Found it:

Suitable for gardens yes Nursery Unknown Compost no Size at acquisition Unknown Garden location Unknown Garden notes Myrtus communis has a colorful display of berries in the fall and early winter. The flowers and leaves of Myrtle berry (also known as sweet myrtle and Greek myrtle) have a faint sweet fragrance. This plant can survive cold winter nights that go as low as 10° Fahrenheit. This species needs summer days with high heat. Full sun to light shade is ideal for this plant. It prefers well drained soils.

http://www.crescentbloom.com/plants/Specimen/MU/Myrtus%20communis.htm

Fall and early winter. I was wrong.

[The Unnamable]

Does anyone think that Milton gave a damn about Edward King? The poem is hardly a warm and moving tribute (I’m not saying that it should be) – I certainly don’t think it encourages much sympathy for the deceased.

[Virgil]

Does anyone think that Milton gave a damn about Edward King? The poem is hardly a warm and moving tribute (I’m not saying that it should be) – I certainly don’t think it encourages much sympathy for the deceased.
:lol: I agree. I can't help but half feel that a rival was knocked off, and he got the opportunity to write up a poem to show off his learning and skill. That is pretty cynical on my part.

[Petrarch's Love]

Does anyone think that Milton gave a damn about Edward King? The poem is hardly a warm and moving tribute (I’m not saying that it should be) – I certainly don’t think it encourages much sympathy for the deceased.

Oh, he almost undoubtably didn't care deeply about poor King. They weren't close friends or anything. I don't think he was necessarily rooting for the event (though I found Virgil's suggestion amusing :lol: ). I think he thought it was a sad thing, but there isn't a very deep personal loss here. It was originally published in a memorial volume, Justa Edouardo King naufrago, compiled by King's fellow students in his honor. Milton's contribution was one of several, it just happened to be better written and thus better remembered than the others. Clearly he was using this as an opportunity to explore his own poetic career and show off his talents. To give Milton some credit, it may be that when faced with the request to write a eulogy for a guy he didn't know terribly well, he was trying his best to write based on what he did know about him--that he was a fellow poet. Often eulogies written by people who didn't know the person well tend to start generalizing about some role that person filled. All the same, it certainly comes out as more about Milton than anyone else.

[Petrarch's Love]

Success!! Found it:
Quote:
Suitable for gardens yes Nursery Unknown Compost no Size at acquisition Unknown Garden location Unknown Garden notes Myrtus communis has a colorful display of berries in the fall and early winter. The flowers and leaves of Myrtle berry (also known as sweet myrtle and Greek myrtle) have a faint sweet fragrance. This plant can survive cold winter nights that go as low as 10° Fahrenheit. This species needs summer days with high heat. Full sun to light shade is ideal for this plant. It prefers well drained soils.


http://www.crescentbloom.com/plants...%20communis.htm

Fall and early winter. I was wrong.


Thanks Virg. Now I've got good botanical evidence on my side for the great academic debate raging here. :lol: Next week perhaps we'll move on to counting angels dancing on the head of a pin. ;)

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Has anyone any examples of King's poetry? Apparently it's not terribly good.

[Isagel]

I can´t find any sorrow or, actually, any feeling at all. To me it seems more like an exercise in style, than any kind of mourning. I almost find the continued references to dying young and drowning a bit tasteless - like a tabloid. Young Poet dead by Drowning, read all on page 3.

But it might be becuase I just can´t understand things like this:
"With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, "
I might be missing something.

I also never really liked the poetry that uses that many symbols, and Gods. Sometimes I can find them interesting, like puzzles. But I seldom like them as poetry.

[Grumbleguts]

I can remember having to analyse the metre of this poem back when I was a lad of 13 or so. Underline trochees and circle spondees and do something or other to pyrrhi (or pyrrhuses, whichever the plural of the wretched thing is). I only recognised it about half way through. I do not believe that we actually spent time analysing the meaning and references of this poem or if we did I have completely forgotten anything I might have learnt 55 years ago.
It is much better read for pleasure than as a tedious exercise. The rhythm in Milton's writing is always a delight to both tongue and ear.

[Petrarch's Love]

It occured to me last night that there's an online edition of this poem with convenient glosses (you just click on the highlighted words and the link takes you to the footnote), which might be helpful given the obscure allusions and sometimes general trickiness of Milton's writing.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/lycidas/index.shtml

This site's done similar things with Milton's other works, including PL, so it might be handy for anyone interested in Milton .

[Petrarch's Love]

Has anyone any examples of King's poetry? Apparently it's not terribly good.

It's funny, I've never come across any of King's poetry, though I too have heard it wasn't that good. Poor King, ah well at least he's more remembered than most amateur poets. I'd be interested to read it if anyone dug anything up.


I can´t find any sorrow or, actually, any feeling at all. To me it seems more like an exercise in style, than any kind of mourning. I almost find the continued references to dying young and drowning a bit tasteless - like a tabloid. Young Poet dead by Drowning, read all on page 3.

But it might be becuase I just can´t understand things like this:
"With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, "
I might be missing something.

I also never really liked the poetry that uses that many symbols, and Gods. Sometimes I can find them interesting, like puzzles. But I seldom like them as poetry.

I think it comes across as a colder sounding poem if you're expecting it to be a personal eulogy to a friend. It's a formal elegy rather than an In Memorium type of poem. The heart of the poem is less in the specific death it contemplates than in a general contemplation of death and poets and the power of poetry to live past death. I personally don't find it as distant as a tabloid piece, which has no sympathetic feeling with the victim at all. I think Milton is touched in some way by King's death, but as an acquaintance and fellow student rather than a close friend. When people, especially young people, experience this kind of loss, the loss of an aquaintance and peer, I think it makes them reflect, not only on the general sadness of someone who was young and who they knew being gone, but on their own mortality, which is exactly where it takes Milton in this poem. I think he's doing his best to remember King with this poem, recognizing that King's chance to live on in some way is in being memorialized in words, and hoping that he, Milton, will in turn be remembered in some way, honored in someone else's poem. So I think the poem lies somewhere in between the detachment of the tabloid and the mourning of a personal friend.

As for the allusions and the crazy syntax, part of this is just what was popular in the period Milton wrote in and a matter of taste. Part of it is Milton's style which you are not alone in criticising (T.S. Eliot among others might be in your camp). Milton does have bad lines, and incidently I've never much cared for the one you quote. I find it cumbersome and overwrought. For what it's worth, the literal meaning is that he's bathing his oozy (wet from the sea) hair in some sort of heavenly nector, with connotations of him being annointed as he enters heaven. In terms of the allusions in general, I think part of the reason for using all those allusions to gods and to past poetry and mythology is to emphasize the connection that both Milton and King have with the past. It emphasizes the way both the life and death of a young poet is part of a repeated cycle of life and death and poetry throughout the ages, a story that has been told before and will be told again. It's a matter of searching a past story to make sense of the present one.


I can remember having to analyse the metre of this poem back when I was a lad of 13 or so. Underline trochees and circle spondees and do something or other to pyrrhi (or pyrrhuses, whichever the plural of the wretched thing is). I only recognised it about half way through. I do not believe that we actually spent time analysing the meaning and references of this poem or if we did I have completely forgotten anything I might have learnt 55 years ago.
It is much better read for pleasure than as a tedious exercise. The rhythm in Milton's writing is always a delight to both tongue and ear.

:lol: Glad you're getting the chance to re-read the poem for pleasure's sake. I personally find scansion interesting but only so far as it augments an appreciation of how the poet is working to convey his/her meaning. It's an abysmal approach to teaching the poem to young minds. It's like showing them Michelangelo's David and spending the whole time with a microscope analysing the mineral composition of the marble--missing the forest for the trees a bit.

[Isagel]

Thank you for a very nice answer. I have read Milton before, and although he sometimes can make language flow like magic, I also tend to find him bombastic, and when he makes bad lines they are sometimes remarkably bad. (It happens to the best, there are some really bad by Shakespeare too, I think there is a collection of them in a thread somewhere on the forum. TS Eliot is of course without flaw :-), though ) I know that it is partly the style of the time, and I prefer modern poetry. But when you write like that I almost feel bad for being mean to him.

[Petrarch's Love]

I have read Milton before, and although he sometimes can make language flow like magic, I also tend to find him bombastic, and when he makes bad lines they are sometimes remarkably bad.

True on all counts. I actually think among famous poets Milton writes some of the worst bad lines (but also some of the best good ones).


It happens to the best, there are some really bad by Shakespeare too, I think there is a collection of them in a thread somewhere on the forum.

Oh wow, I'd love to find that thread. A list of bad lines written by Shakespeare would make a great icebreaker for class discussion when I'm teaching him next year. :lol:


TS Eliot is of course without flaw :-),

Of course. ;)


I know that it is partly the style of the time, and I prefer modern poetry.

Yes, it's really just a matter of what speaks to you personally. I'm an oddball who just loves the stuff written around this period.


But when you write like that I almost feel bad for being mean to him.

How kind of you to say. Don't feel too bad though. He's been dead for a while so I'm sure he doesn't much mind what's said about him. :D

[The Unnamable]

I can´t find any sorrow or, actually, any feeling at all. To me it seems more like an exercise in style, than any kind of mourning.
Welcome back.

On the whole, I’d agree with you. Milton was showing us how clever he is, which is fine by me, given that he was. I think you are missing something if you feel the same about Paradise Lost, though, especially Books I, II, IV and IX.

I can’t wait until someone posts PL for ‘Poem of the Month’. Perhaps each of the twelve books could feature as the next twelve consecutive ‘Poem of the Month’ posts. Or perhaps we should have all twelve books as one big ‘Poem of the Year!’ (and yes, I did put the exclamation mark in the right place). If our sorry little lives mean that we are still around for longer than we could possibly have any excuse to be, then we should switch to prose and I, The Unnamable, hereby nominate, on this, the fourth day of May twenty hundred and six, Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu for ‘Novel of the Decade’. We could discuss a long piece like that every ten years. No one should be allowed to post more than two ‘decade texts’ in any one century, however. Would anyone be interested in a thread on the top ten words used in (a) Early Milton, (b) Middle Milton or (c) Late Milton? How about Milton’s ten best uses of the comma or the letter ‘g’?

[Petrarch's Love]

I can’t wait until someone posts PL for ‘Poem of the Month’. Perhaps each of the twelve books could feature as the next twelve consecutive ‘Poem of the Month’ posts. Or perhaps we should have all twelve books as one big ‘Poem of the Year!’ (and yes, I did put the exclamation mark in the right place). If our sorry little lives mean that we are still around for longer than we could possibly have any excuse to be, then we should switch to prose and I, The Unnamable, hereby nominate, on this, the fourth day of May twenty hundred and six, Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu for ‘Novel of the Decade’. We could discuss a long piece like that every ten years. No one should be allowed to post more than two ‘decade texts’ in any one century, however. Would anyone be interested in a thread on the top ten words used in (a) Early Milton, (b) Middle Milton or (c) Late Milton? How about Milton’s ten best uses of the comma or the letter ‘g’?

:lol: Be careful what you wish for. You may find yourself commited to a year of Paradise Lost yet. I personally love nothing better than discussing long poetic works, but I don't know if everyone else is of a similar mind. And don't you know it's dangerous to challenge an academic to do something like find out the ten most common words in early Milton? They may just settle in for a life's work of counting words in Comus and Lycidas. Luckily I'm sure someone's already done that so I'll just have to find some even less fruitful way to come up with a dissertation topic. :D

As for the novel of the decade, I say we start with the first sentence right now. No time like the present:

"Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure."

Now we can all contemplate whether Proust is making an allusion to Ben Franklin's saying "Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Also, why is it that he says he went to bed early in the past tense (obviously because for anyone embarking on a seven volume novel sleep is of necessity a thing of the past). Since it is a thing of the past, maybe he's just setting us up for an advert for a perscription sleep aid. What will happen next I wonder? Will he wake up? The answer to these questions and more next week when we contemplate the second sentence: "Parfois, à peine ma bougie éteinte, mes yeux se fermaient si vite que je n'avais pas le temps de me dire: "Je m'endors."

Actually I've never made it through all of the Temps Perdu. I'd love to do so someday, but I think reading one sentence at a time really is all I'm up for at the moment. :lol: O.K. enough silliness. We can go back to discussing Milton now .

[Virgil]

I'd like to try to understand the various transitions and structure of the poem. Here's sort of how I summarize the various sections, and I'll refer to Petrarch's sub-divisions.

Sub-Division 1: The need to sing of his death.
Sub-Division 2:

(a) The change now that he's gone.

(b) What could we have done to prevent it.
(c) He died attempting to acquire fame.
(d) How he died.Sub-Division 3: Shepherd's work.
Sub-Division 4:

(a) Look homeward, to Paradise
(b) Weep no more.
There may be more that I've glossed over. First there is a sort of classical logic to it. Does anyone know if this is a classical/medevil/renaissance rhetorical form? It's interesting Milton delays how King died well into the poem. Perhaps it was a well known fact.

The section I found the most interesting was the sub-division 3, the shepherd's work. The other sections, despite Milton's great voice, seem kind of sterile, almost like a fossil. There's just way too much classical allusions and given that he's working with a fixed established form (I guessing), it gives the feel of a petrified piece of wood. Sub-division 3 doesn't feel that way to me. It seems like he lets his imagination run there, and, even though the whole shepherd's thing is kind of corny, it's not bogged down with learned name droppings.

[Isagel]

Welcome back.

On the whole, I’d agree with you. Milton was showing us how clever he is, which is fine by me, given that he was. I think you are missing something if you feel the same about Paradise Lost, though, especially Books I, II, IV and IX.

I can’t wait until someone posts PL for ‘Poem of the Month’. Perhaps each of the twelve books could feature as the next twelve consecutive ‘Poem of the Month’ posts. Or perhaps we should have all twelve books as one big ‘Poem of the Year!’ (and yes, I did put the exclamation mark in the right place). If our sorry little lives mean that we are still around for longer than we could possibly have any excuse to be, then we should switch to prose and I, The Unnamable, hereby nominate, on this, the fourth day of May twenty hundred and six, Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu for ‘Novel of the Decade’. We could discuss a long piece like that every ten years. No one should be allowed to post more than two ‘decade texts’ in any one century, however. Would anyone be interested in a thread on the top ten words used in (a) Early Milton, (b) Middle Milton or (c) Late Milton? How about Milton’s ten best uses of the comma or the letter ‘g’?

Thank you for the welcome.
I have read parts of PL and liked them. That is why I am so disappointed in this one. Of course he may brag, but he can´t make me like it. I defy you Milton! Ha! Your clever alliterations will not make me fall this time. I see your games!

You go ahead looking for g´s and commas, we will be right there. Promise.

But reading PL as a project could be fun. Then I´ll have proper help when I get stuck.

[Petrarch's Love]

I'd like to try to understand the various transitions and structure of the poem. Here's sort of how I summarize the various sections, and I'll refer to Petrarch's sub-divisions.

Sub-Division 1: The need to sing of his death.
Sub-Division 2:

(a) The change now that he's gone.

(b) What could we have done to prevent it.
(c) He died attempting to acquire fame.
(d) How he died.Sub-Division 3: Shepherd's work.
Sub-Division 4:

(a) Look homeward, to Paradise
(b) Weep no more.
There may be more that I've glossed over. First there is a sort of classical logic to it. Does anyone know if this is a classical/medevil/renaissance rhetorical form? It's interesting Milton delays how King died well into the poem. Perhaps it was a well known fact.

The section I found the most interesting was the sub-division 3, the shepherd's work. The other sections, despite Milton's great voice, seem kind of sterile, almost like a fossil. There's just way too much classical allusions and given that he's working with a fixed established form (I guessing), it gives the feel of a petrified piece of wood. Sub-division 3 doesn't feel that way to me. It seems like he lets his imagination run there, and, even though the whole shepherd's thing is kind of corny, it's not bogged down with learned name droppings.


Thanks Virg. You're so good at doing these outline things. Let me first make a disclaimer that the way I've divided the poem was almost entirely arbitrary for the sake of having some smaller segments to digest, just so no one tries to read any particular significance into these parts (not suggesting you were doing so, just want everything clear up front). There's actually been some debate over how the this poem should be divided. It seems as though most scholars would divide it into three parts with the first part being roughly a combination of my parts one and two and the other parts as I've divided them (I was going to split it in three, but that would make the first part cumbersomely long).

The form of the poem as stated in the intro is a "monody" meaning an ode (often an elegiac ode) sung by a single voice, though many scholars (myself included) have been quick to point out that one feature of the poem is the sense of it having multiple speakers. The form it's really modelled after of course, is the pastoral elegy (basically an elegy in which the mourner and the mourned are figured as shepheards), which originates with Theocritus (but is also in Virgil etc.). Usually the classical pastoral elegy had a refrain, which is missing from Milton's version, but other than that it shares much of the same features including the invocation of the muses, the lament of nature for the fallen shepheard, the procession of mouners (which I've just realized I inelegantly cut in half in my divisions--ah well) and the consolation at the end (though obviously the classical versions of the form lack the Christian bias ;) ). So Milton is generally following a tradition, but there isn't really what you'd call a set structure he's following, and the exact genre and intended form of the poem has long been the subject of speculation. The verse itself is most akin to the form of the Italian Canzone in its occasional rhymes and varied line length.

The one thing you failed to mention about the third section is that it is an ecclesiastical satire. The inclusion of church criticism in the pastoral elegy (and the pastoral in general) had become common in the Medieval/Renaissance periods (Petrarch, and of course Spenser being among those who used Pastoral in this way). In Lycidas the "Pilot of the Galilean lake" with his "Two massy keys" is a reference to St. Peter, the keeper of the keys of heaven and critic of false teachers who has come to denounce those pastors who "for their bellies' sake/ Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold." His "mitred locks" refer to a bishop's mitre etc. I think my favorite line in this passage is "Blind mouths!" There's something about the conflation between sight and taste that conveys this sort of ghastly, irrational gluttony. Perhaps Virgil likes this section best because it's where the "wolf" shows up? ;)

Anyway, I think I'll stop for now and let others have a say.

[Petrarch's Love]

I have read parts of PL and liked them. That is why I am so disappointed in this one. Of course he may brag, but he can´t make me like it. I defy you Milton! Ha! Your clever alliterations will not make me fall this time. I see your games!

I thought you might like the following quote from Dr. Johnson. His feelings about this poem were similar to your own, in fact even more vehement. :D

"In this poem there is no nature, for there is no truth; there is no art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a pastoral, easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting: whatever images it can supply are long ago exhausted; and its inherent improbability always forces dissatisfaction on the mind."
Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Poets

[Virgil]

Perhaps Virgil likes this section best because it's where the "wolf" shows up? ;)


Goodness. I didn't even think of that. You're right!! :lol:

[Regit]

Is anyone posting a new poem?

[Scheherazade]

I have heard a lot about this poem but read it only once. Would like to hear what you think of it.

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

[Petrarch's Love]

Thanks Sher, I don't think we've discussed Frost on this thread before, or at least not since I've been around, and I love his poetry. I first read this poem as a child, and I've always liked it. It's one of those I've read every now and again many times over the years since I first came across it in school. What I like about it, and about Frost's poetry in general is the rich simplicity of it. The first line (later repeated) "something there is, that doesn't love a wall" is built around the indeterminacy of what that "something" is, and yet throughout the poem the reader has the feeling that he/she knows exactly what is being referred to in that "something." In those first few lines I always have a vivid image of the earth actively swelling beneath the wall, of the earth breathing deeply to crack the strange constraints placed upon it. Anyway, I'll make some more comments when I have the time. This should be an interesting poem to discuss.

[ktd222]

I think there is a dynamic being set up between the land and man-made things(the wall), the land and man, man and man, man and land, all being constrained, yet all(man,land,man) held together literally and symbolically by this Wall. I don't think it is as easy as the man-made wall is whats keeping the land from being in a fluid state with man. But that is(and this seems weird) the land's POV.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.

And yet there is this totally different relationship being addressed:
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

And the relationship between man and nature:
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.

[jackyyyy]

I am back and forthe with this because of sentences like the following:

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Just as I feel I have it in my grasp, he goes and does it again...

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

and again!

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.

Me thinks he is playing wid me brain. He definitely has a 'voice', just not sure what kind of voice it is. Its fascinating what he did; took the concept of a wall and wrote all around it, under it, above it, and inside it. I cannot commit a notion to it yet, except to give it the safe 10, and for making me look at so many times. :nod:

[Virgil]

The first line (later repeated) "something there is, that doesn't love a wall" is built around the indeterminacy of what that "something" is, and yet throughout the poem the reader has the feeling that he/she knows exactly what is being referred to in that "something." In those first few lines I always have a vivid image of the earth actively swelling beneath the wall, of the earth breathing deeply to crack the strange constraints placed upon it. Anyway, I'll make some more comments when I have the time. This should be an interesting poem to discuss.
The first line is indeed interesting. First of all the sentence is incredibly strained, if not grammatically incorrect. What he means to say is "There is something that doesn't love a wall." By twisting the syntax around he's giving us a crooked sentence, if you will, which mirrors the broken, crooked wall. It is indeterminant at that line, which is important because I think it will foreshadow a different meaning, but in the following line he tells us exactly what causes the crookedness, the frozen ground. So what is the significance of Frost repeating that same line later on in a different context? I have not fully absorbed it all to articulate it, but I think ktd is on the right track with the "dynamic being set up between the land and man-made things".


edit: BTW, I love when someone uses the word "dynamic". It brings out the engineer in me.

[ktd222]

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:

What do ya'll think when Frost writes The work of hunters is another thing? This 'thing' is different from the 'something', right?

[ktd222]

edit: BTW, I love when someone uses the word "dynamic". It brings out the engineer in me.

Thanks, my second word choice was 'thingamajig'.

[The Unnamable]

On one level this rather dull poem is about ordinary work on a farm. In this case, the job of mending a stone wall. On another level, the poem is about barriers between people, the stone wall symbolising this barrier. Frost disapproves of such barriers and feels that nature agrees with him. In lines 1-3, he describes a natural phenomenon: how the ground freezes and expands in winter, causing the stones on top to fall off – but he attributes a motive to this phenomenon: a shared dislike of barriers.

The sight of his neighbour with a stone grasped firmly in each hand reminds Frost of “an old-stone savage armed”. His neighbour resembles prehistoric man, barbaric and uncivilised. Lines 41 and 42 suggest that it is not only the darkness of shade in which his neighbour moves, but also the darkness of ignorance and prejudice.

[jackyyyy]

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:

What do ya'll think when Frost writes The work of hunters is another thing? This 'thing' is different from the 'something', right?You pointed it out before.. the 'something' that doesn't love a wall, is nature, because it can send the frozen ground, which swells and moves, cracks, breaks up stones and the like, does not consider a wall made up of its own nature to be anything more than a pile of stones (in this case). And the second, the 'thing', is hunters and dogs who may pull it down to get what they want (the rabbit). So, either way, nature or man may not 'love' a wall. I get the sense that the 'something' is indescribable to him, as nature is, and hunters, dogs are single entities, things, that he can describe.

The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.

I think what he is getting at is, while a wall is a physical construct, its not necessarily a 'barrier'. A barrier is a mental construct. While a wall is a wall, we decide to look at it as a separation, division, partition, barrier, or not.

[ktd222]

On one level this rather dull poem is about ordinary work on a farm. In this case, the job of mending a stone wall. On another level, the poem is about barriers between people, the stone wall symbolising this barrier. Frost disapproves of such barriers and feels that nature agrees with him. In lines 1-3, he describes a natural phenomenon: how the ground freezes and expands in winter, causing the stones on top to fall off – but he attributes a motive to this phenomenon: a shared dislike of barriers.

Does Frost disprove of the Wall? The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair/Where they have left not one stone on a stone Why then, is he coming out to make repairs to the wall? I don't get the full sense of disapproval by him. The reasons why I don't quite understand yet.

[jackyyyy]

but he attributes a motive to this phenomenon: a shared dislike of barriers.I did not pick up that there is a shared dislike of barriers, as nature would even know its a barrier. I need to find that.

I think, this wall theme has been used a few times in poetry, Wordsworth???

[jackyyyy]

And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

He seems to have aligned himself with nature, while accepting 'Good fences' can be a good thing.

[ktd222]

And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

He seems to have aligned himself with nature, while accepting 'Good fences' can be a good thing.

Jackyy? I'm not sure I understand. It is the neighbor that says Good fences make good neighbors. He is referring to Frost when he says this, not anyone else. And remember the Wall is not in 'alignment' with the land, and those two people in the poem don't seem to be 'aligned' with the land if they are trying to repair the wall.

[jackyyyy]

Jackyy? I'm not sure I understand. It is the neighbor that says Good fences make good neighbors. He is referring to Frost when he says this, not anyone else. And remember the Wall is not in 'alignment' with the land, and those two people in the poem don't seem to be 'aligned' with the land if they are trying to repair the wall.Yes, and I am concluding this is Frost's overall message because its repeated.

1 he only says

2 he says again

I think that, overall, the message is about 'natural, unnatural walls' and 'barriers/separations/divisions of the mind', and that 'his thinking' is aligned to nature - though he accepts 'Good fences'. Sorry, I did not mean the wall was aligned as in engineering, rather his brain.

[ktd222]

I'm not ready to move to the brain yet, but I would like to hear other people's opinions.

Here are some other questions I would like to ask you: what is the need for a wall? Can't the two still be neighbors without the wall?

[jackyyyy]

I'm not ready to move to the brain yet, but I would like to hear other people's opinions.

Here are some other questions I would like to ask you: what is the need for a wall? Can't the two still be neighbors without the wall?He writes, 'Good fences make good neighbours', indicating a wall may be a good thing. Therefore, a wall may be needed. I say, yes, they can still be neighbours, but, without a 'good' wall, they may not be good neighbours. I am keying on the word 'Good' here, because he is making the point.. there are good, bad, useless, pointless, whatever type of wall.

[The Unnamable]

Does Frost disprove of the Wall?
“Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,”

Could this cold something be 'frost' (as in Robert) by any chance or is this just a coincidence?

[jackyyyy]

“Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,”

Could this cold something be 'frost' (as in Robert) by any chance or is this just a coincidence?hehe, and if it is Frost, he would be something there that does not love a wall. :lol:

[ktd222]

He writes, 'Good fences make good neighbours', indicating a wall may be a good thing. Therefore, a wall may be needed. I say, yes, they can still be neighbours, but, without a 'good' wall, they may not be good neighbours. I am keying on the word 'Good' here, because he is making the point.. there are good, bad, useless, pointless, whatever type of wall.
Then I would ask what is it that the wall is walling off? Look at these snippets.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense

There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

[ktd222]

“Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,”

Could this cold something be 'frost' (as in Robert) by any chance or is this just a coincidence?

I have no idea.


hehe, and if it is Frost, he would be something there that does not love a wall.

I don't think Frost would like to be referred to as a 'something.'

[jackyyyy]

Then I would ask what is it that the wall is walling off? Look at these snippets.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense

There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.Apart other things, neighbours. Any host of reasons. He is asking, however, 'what is the point of a wall'. In the first case, he would ask so he knows its reason, and in the second case, there is a natural division (type of tree), which would make a physical wall pointless. The 'he' keeps coming back and saying, 'Good walls make good neighbours'. So, I imply, its a people thing only because nature does not need walls.

[ktd222]

Apart other things, neighbours. Any host of reasons. He is asking, however, 'what is the point of a wall'. In the first case, he would ask so he knows its reason, and in the second case, there is a natural division (type of tree), which would make a physical wall pointless. The 'he' keeps coming back and saying, 'Good walls make good neighbours'. So, I imply, its a people thing only because nature does not need walls.

Ya, it comes back to a people thing, a nature thing, a people and nature thing.

[Virgil]

Thanks, my second word choice was 'thingamajig'.
We use that in engineering too. :D

[The Unnamable]

Try these – they are .pdf files from a site for English teachers.

http://www.teachit.co.uk/pdf/4645.pdf

http://www.teachit.co.uk/pdf/4713.pdf

There is an interesting set of articles here;

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/wall.htm

In particular, I found the Lawrence Raab essay worth a go, although I can find no reliable evidence that Kennedy did quote the first line at the Berlin Wall. The Raab article begins:

“Robert Frost once said that "Mending Wall" was a poem that was spoiled by being applied.

[Virgil]

“Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,”

Could this cold something be 'frost' (as in Robert) by any chance or is this just a coincidence?
Just a side note. I don't think frost by itself would cause damage to a wall, but the cycling of freezing and unfreezing of both the ground and whatever mosture got into crevices of the wall could and does. It is a thought, though.

[The Unnamable]

Just a side note. I don't think frost by itself would cause damage to a wall, but the cycling of freezing and unfreezing of both the ground and whatever mosture got into crevices of the wall could and does. It is a thought, though.
I know that Virgil but do you really think Robert Frost didn’t think of frost when he wrote those lines? Come on!

[jackyyyy]

In his famous 1963 speech, President Kennedy professed solidarity with the people of Berlin by declaring, "Ich bin ein Berliner." Unfortunately he was not only saying "I am a Berliner," he was also saying "I am a jelly doughnut" -- "ein Berliner" being a popular local pastry.

[Virgil]

I know that Virgil but do you really think Robert Frost didn’t think of frost when he wrote those lines? Come on!
It could, but I don't think it's definitive. When I think of shifting ground and cracked foundations and crooked walls, I don't think of frost. I think of frozen ground, that is frozen earth to a certain depth that can be quite powerful. And look at the lines that follow:

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
I think it's describing what I'm saying, not some frozen suface moisture. Perhaps he's punning on his name, but I don't see it. I'm willing to accept it if you point it out. I'm not sure it makes a difference one way or the other to the poem. What's the significance?

[ktd222]

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/wall.htm

In particular, I found the Lawrence Raab essay worth a go, although I can find no reliable evidence that Kennedy did quote the first line at the Berlin Wall. The Raab article begins:

“Robert Frost once said that "Mending Wall" was a poem that was spoiled by being applied.

This is good stuff. The article is not at odds with what I've been saying. I sensed the wall's literal and figurative connotations to the 'relationships' being expressed in the poem, but I have not fully defined those relationships yet. I fear that after reading this article my ethusiasm for analyzing this poem has deflated. I guess we'll see...

[The Unnamable]

It could, but I don't think it's definitive. When I think of shifting ground and cracked foundations and crooked walls, I don't think of frost. I think of frozen ground, that is frozen earth to a certain depth that can be quite powerful.

Okay, I concede that, in the strictest sense possible, one of America’s most revered poets should have been called Robert Frozen but it’s close enough to be obvious to me and many others. He was a poet – do you think he wouldn’t have thought of possible puns? Donne did it and Frost does it elsewhere in this very poem.


What's the significance?

Okay, I’ll try. First of all, the significance is that he implies that he is one of those things ‘that doesn't love a wall”. Secondly, the whole poem is filled with a similar playfulness.

“We have to use a spell to make them balance:” – humorous (they don’t really)

“My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.” - funny – not gut-bustingly so but amusing nonetheless.

“Spring is the mischief in me” - The spring air makes him feel mischievous and he tries to make his neighbour question the proverb that sounds so wise on the surface.

“And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,”

offense – ‘a fence’! A pun if ever I saw one. He could tell the neighbour that elves are causing it?!

The speaker knows that his neighbour will never understand his feelings. The man is too deeply locked into tradition to be able to question whatever is customarily done. He points out, ironically, that his neighbour “likes having thought of it so well / He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'" Isn’t it obvious that the neighbour hasn’t thought about it deeply at all?

Virgil, you do realise that this poem is about me and you, don’t you? :D

[Virgil]

Okay, I concede that, in the strictest sense possible, one of America’s most revered poets should have been called Robert Frozen but it’s close enough to be obvious to me and many others. He was a poet – do you think he wouldn’t have thought of possible puns? Donne did it and Frost does it elsewhere in this very poem.

No I agree it must have crossed his mind. Let me somewhat concede and say it's a loose fit. I can go with it, but not without a qualm.



Okay, I’ll try. First of all, the significance is that he implies that he is one of those things ‘that doesn't love a wall”. Secondly, the whole poem is filled with a similar playfulness.
Ok. perhaps I was getting too scientific about it. He is having fun in the poem, especially where he decides to egg his neighbor on.


Virgil, you do realise that this poem is about me and you, don’t you? :D
:lol: Well, I prefer to think we just disagree but can be friends.

[Petrarch's Love]

There is an interesting set of articles here;

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/po.../frost/wall.htm

In particular, I found the Lawrence Raab essay worth a go, although I can find no reliable evidence that Kennedy did quote the first line at the Berlin Wall. The Raab article begins:

“Robert Frost once said that "Mending Wall" was a poem that was spoiled by being applied.

Thanks for the link, Unnamable. I also liked the Raab essay. I think it attempted to express something there is about Robert Frost's work in general, something which I was trying to get at in my post above when I alluded to the "rich simplicity" of his verse. People seem to be frequently tempted to reduce lines from Frost to the status of one dimensional sayings, and "apply" the lines in a cliched fashion that makes them shed the very ambiguity that made them so memorable: "Something there is that doesn't love a wall," "Good fences make good neighbors," "Nothing gold can stay," "I took the road less travelled by," etc. I'm sure I've used his lines this way myself in the course of my speech. All the same, his poems themselves are really much more complex than the way they're most frequently alluded to, but in a way that is not easily defined or readily apparent. I like Raab's observation that ""Mending Wall" is less a poem about what to think than it is poem about what thinking is, and where it might lead." I think that perhaps it's missing a large part of this poem to be overly focused on whether exactly he loves or hates the wall. Though it's obviously a question we'll want to kick around, I sense that this sort of dichotomy isn't really the "something" that the poem is after.


The first line is indeed interesting. First of all the sentence is incredibly strained, if not grammatically incorrect. What he means to say is "There is something that doesn't love a wall." By twisting the syntax around he's giving us a crooked sentence, if you will, which mirrors the broken, crooked wall. It is indeterminant at that line, which is important because I think it will foreshadow a different meaning, but in the following line he tells us exactly what causes the crookedness, the frozen ground.

I like the thought of it as a crooked sentence mirroring the crooked wall. His choice to front the line with "something" is something of a Miltonic move--conspicuously changing word order as a way of placing stress and emphasis on a particular word and thus on a particular thing or concept. As you say, he goes on here to imply that the "something" is the ground, and the forces of nature that move both ground and wall. His repetition of the line later seems to imply that he himself is the one who does not love the wall. I'm not sure though, as I said above, if saying that it is either him, or nature, or even both that do not love the wall is really sufficient to explain that "something." The "something" remains predominant.

Also, I've always notice in this line the deliberate way in which he says "does not love" rather than "hates" or "dislikes." Not loving doesn't necessarily mean hating, though that's where the mind tends to jump first. It merely means an absence of love, which could refer to a whole range of emotions from active dislike, to neutral tolerance, to a not entirely unaffectionate respect.

[ktd222]

The speaker know that his neighbour will never understand his feelings. The man is too deeply locked into tradition to be able to question whatever is customarily done. He points out, ironically, that his neighbour “likes having thought of it so well / He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'" Isn’t it obvious that the neighbour hasn’t thought about it deeply at all?
But how does the speaker knows the neighbor hasn't thought about what he has thought about? The speaker 'plays around' and never is upfront with the neighbor about his feelings. The neighbor is saying 'Good fences make good neighbor', but that does not mean he hasn't thought about what the line means. The speaker assumes.
To the speaker, the farmer is antipathetic because he seems so antipoetic: he distrusts the flow of words, ideas, and feelings. Lacking a playful imagination and the willingness to "go behind" a saying or a concept, he seems cut off from the poetic. But we must not forget that the failure of communication in the poem is mutual. And in truth, Frost's persona is the less communicative and the more hostile of the two. His portrait of an intractable neighbor involves feverish speculation that makes us doubt the reliability of his point of view. On the surface of it, at least, the Yankee's brief adage bespeaks more amiability than do the speaker's speculations and suspicious conjectures. Yet Frost offers no answers in "Mending Wall," no clues about who is right or wrong. He does not moralize: he demonstrates.(John C. Kemp:http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/wall.htm)

[The Unnamable]

You’re determined to catch me out, aren’t you? ;)

But how does the speaker knows the neighbor hasn't thought about what he has thought about? The speaker 'plays around' and never is upfront with the neighbor about his feelings. The neighbor is saying 'Good fences make good neighbor', but that does not mean he hasn't thought about what the line means. The speaker assumes.
When I set my alarm I don’t know it will go off but I assume it will. Does that make me dogmatic? I base my assumptions of the evidence available to me. Why do you think Frost writes, “He will not go behind his father's saying”? Do you believe that the neighbour has thought deeply about the saying? I don’t.

As for John C Kemp’s comments, do they strike you as accurate? Do the speaker’s words exude ‘feverish speculation’? Isn’t it apparent that this critic is forcing his argument and is aware of it?

"On the surface of it, at least, the Yankee's brief adage bespeaks more amiability than do the speaker's speculations and suspicious conjectures.

So what’s under that surface? Kemp is careful to note that it is the adage and not the farmer that ‘bespeaks amiability’. Would you characterise the speaker’s thoughts as ‘suspicious conjectures’?

While I would agree that Frost doesn’t moralise, I believe that the neighbour is more responsible for the ‘failure of communication’ than the speaker:

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

[MelanieD]

Petrarch's Love said:
- I like Raab's observation that "Mending Wall" is less a poem about what to think than it is poem about what thinking is, and where it might lead." I think that perhaps it's missing a large part of this poem to be overly focused on whether exactly he loves or hates the wall. Though it's obviously a question we'll want to kick around, I sense that this sort of dichotomy isn't really the "something" that the poem is after. --
Your comment comes closest to what I feel about this poem. I can't say I like this stern dry master of wordings. This is what the poem seems to me to be about: reality or irreality of the word. A statement, an observation about how the world is made (the wall is inside us), specially our vehicle of communication. That we use to manage truth, a thing we know nothing about. The first line:
"Something there is that doen't love a wall" - a philosophical statement of the kind: there 'is' instead of 'is not'. Applied to the Berlin wall, applied to politics in general, to any politics, it becomes something different in whomever mouths you put it. That's the difficulty of existing. And inside ourselves? How many walls? Useful? Yes, but.

[The Unnamable]

Sorry, MelanieD but at whom is this addressed?

[ktd222]

You’re determined to catch me out, aren’t you?
I'm determined to make sense of this freakin poem. :confused:


When I set my alarm I don’t know it will go off but I assume it will. Does that make me dogmatic? I base my assumptions of the evidence available to me. Why do you think Frost writes, “He will not go behind his father's saying”? Do you believe that the neighbour has thought deeply about the saying? I don’t.
In short, I don't know either way about whether the neighbor has thought deeply about the saying. I know it's what the speaker seems to believe. It's not as if one 'goes behind' his father's saying that that will still not produce the neighbor saying, 'Good fences make good neighbors.' There could be multiple reasons why this statement, to the neighbor, still have validity-even though he doesn't explain it to the speaker.


As for John C Kemp’s comments, do they strike you as accurate? Do the speaker’s words exude ‘feverish speculation’? Isn’t it apparent that this critic is forcing his argument and is aware of it?
The speaker's words do take on a kind of feverish speculation by belittling his neighbor with a word game meant to 'put a notion in his head' about why 'Good fences make good neighbors.' Again, the speaker is using the notion that the neighbor hasn't thought about what the saying really means and so its up to him to show the fallacies of such a statement.


"On the surface of it, at least, the Yankee's brief adage bespeaks more amiability than do the speaker's speculations and suspicious conjectures.
So what’s under that surface? Kemp is careful to note that it is the adage and not the farmer that ‘bespeaks amiability’. Would you characterise the speaker’s thoughts as ‘suspicious conjectures’?
What's under the surface is a mystery to all except the Yankee. The speaker is obviously not straightforward in asking the neighbor about why he believes 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Yes, I think suspicion and speculation are conveyed with the speaker's thoughts. The speaker is assuming things, like 'he will not go behind his father's saying,' and the speaker's game is meant for the neighbor to do just that.


While I would agree that Frost doesn’t moralise, I believe that the neighbour is more responsible for the ‘failure of communication’ than the speaker:
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
I agree that they are both responsible for the 'failure of communication.' When the neighbor says, 'Good fences make good neighbors,' why doesn't the speaker just say, "why do you think that 'Good fences make good neighbors'?

[MelanieD]

Sorry, MelanieD but at whom is this addressed?
Why? To all.
See the wall you draw? For what? So that I answer you politely, hey, look, I'm a good neighbor.

[jackyyyy]

In short, I don't know either way about whether the neighbor has thought deeply about the saying. I know it's what the speaker seems to believe. It's not as if one 'goes behind' his father's saying that that will still not produce the neighbor saying, 'Good fences make good neighbors.' There could be multiple reasons why this statement, to the neighbor, still have validity-even though he doesn't explain it to the speaker.

The speaker's words do take on a kind of feverish speculation by belittling his neighbor with a word game meant to 'put a notion in his head' about why 'Good fences make good neighbors.' Again, the speaker is using the notion that the neighbor hasn't thought about what the saying really means and so its up to him to show the fallacies of such a statement.

What's under the surface is a mystery to all except the Yankee. The speaker is obviously not straightforward in asking the neighbor about why he believes 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Yes, I think suspicion and speculation are conveyed with the speaker's thoughts. The speaker is assuming things, like 'he will not go behind his father's saying,' and the speaker's game is meant for the neighbor to do just that.

I agree that they are both responsible for the 'failure of communication.' When the neighbor says, 'Good fences make good neighbors,' why doesn't the speaker just say, "why do you think that 'Good fences make good neighbors'?The neighbour wants the apples and the speaker knows it.

There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.


I tell him.

'He' is joking at the neighbour, that his apples will not eat the cones. Meaning, the opposite. He is playing with his neighbour's brain to suggest, 'There where it is we do not need the wall'. Of course they need a wall. And, the neighbour only says, 'Good fences make good neighbours.' I'll bet, reluctantly, like... sure, don't bother putting a wall there, because I really don't want your apples, what a waste of time.

He tries the same tactic again:

'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

I don't think there is any failure in communication, they're a wily pair of old goats.

[ktd222]

The neighbour wants the apples and the speaker knows it.

edit: this is my comment:Your speaking for the neighbor. This is just another assumption

'He' is joking at the neighbour, that his apples will not eat the cones. Meaning, the opposite. He is playing with his neighbour's brain to suggest, 'There where it is we do not need the wall'. Of course they need a wall. And, the neighbour only says, 'Good fences make good neighbours.' I'll bet, reluctantly, like... sure, don't bother putting a wall there, because I really don't want your apples, what a waste of time.
I don't know what your trying to say here.


He tries the same tactic again:

'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

I don't think there is any failure in communication, they're a wily pair of old goats.
He's answering his own question. Where is the communication if you answer your own question.

[ktd222]

Sorry, MelanieD but at whom is this addressed?

I agree Unnamable. MelanieD, what are you addressing?

[jackyyyy]

He's answering his own question. Where is the communication if you answer your own question.The speaker is asking a loaded question, the question holds the answer.

The speaker told the neighbour this:

My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

The neighbour replied this:

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

Apples are edible, pine cones are not. He is indicating he has something of value, and the neighbour does not (at this point in the wall). However, he is talking ridiculous to his neighbour, who pretends to shrug it off. Of course the neighbour knows the difference between an apple and a pine cone. I think that suggests a LOT of communication (even if it was only a raised eyebrow over the top of the wall, but here we see, there is actual dialog). Moreover, its the neighbour who replies, 'Good fences make good neighbors.', sarcastic, because, of course he wants those apples, but would not admit it.

I don't think its an assumption, else why did Frost use an apple and a pine cone??

[jackyyyy]

Petrarch's Love said:
- I like Raab's observation that "Mending Wall" is less a poem about what to think than it is poem about what thinking is, and where it might lead." I think that perhaps it's missing a large part of this poem to be overly focused on whether exactly he loves or hates the wall. Though it's obviously a question we'll want to kick around, I sense that this sort of dichotomy isn't really the "something" that the poem is after. --
Your comment comes closest to what I feel about this poem. I can't say I like this stern dry master of wordings. This is what the poem seems to me to be about: reality or irreality of the word. A statement, an observation about how the world is made (the wall is inside us), specially our vehicle of communication. That we use to manage truth, a thing we know nothing about. The first line:
"Something there is that doen't love a wall" - a philosophical statement of the kind: there 'is' instead of 'is not'. Applied to the Berlin wall, applied to politics in general, to any politics, it becomes something different in whomever mouths you put it. That's the difficulty of existing. And inside ourselves? How many walls? Useful? Yes, but.I think you made a lot of interesting points there. I need to read this RAAB. Certainly, it goes way further than the detail he actually laid out here, and that is typical of many poems, where they contain a superior message. The applications are far reaching.

You know, it was the allies in 1961 who asked the GDR to build the Wall, and they preferred to build houses, but they obliged. And Kennedy was in front of it in 1963, they wanted it down, but up. Edit: There are conflicting stories on who wanted the wall in the first place, which goes to prove the poem again.

Amazing to realize just how fitting this poem is.

[ktd222]

The speaker is asking a loaded question, the question holds the answer.

The speaker told the neighbour this:

My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

The neighbour replied this:

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Where is the question mark?



Apples are edible, pine cones are not. He is indicating he has something of value, and the neighbour does not (at this point in the wall). However, he is talking ridiculous to his neighbour, who pretends to shrug it off. Of course the neighbour knows the difference between an apple and a pine cone. I think that suggests a LOT of communication (even if it was only a raised eyebrow over the top of the wall, but here we see, there is actual dialog). Moreover, its the neighbour who replies, 'Good fences make good neighbors.', sarcastic, because, of course he wants those apples, but would not admit it.
I don't think its an assumption, else why did Frost use an apple and a pine cone??
And I thought he was just disguishing between them two's land. How do you know the neighbor 'shrug's those questions off? Maybe the answer is 'Good fences make good neighbor,' but the speaker is not understanding of what he means by that. And obviously, the speaker is not being straightforward with the neighbor because he keeps making references to things and hopes the neighbor will pick up on what he's saying.
How the sudden does 'Good fences make good neighbors' turn into I want your apples?

[jackyyyy]

Where is the question mark?



And I thought he was just disguishing between them two's land. How do you know the neighbor 'shrug's those questions off? Maybe the answer is 'Good fences make good neighbor,' but the speaker is not understanding of what he means by that. And obviously, the speaker is not being straightforward with the neighbor because he keeps making references to things and hopes the neighbor will pick up on what he's saying.
How the sudden does 'Good fences make good neighbors' turn into I want your apples?The question is implicit, begging a response by being ridiculous.

I know he shrugged it of because of his retort:

He only says, 'Good fences...'

He could have said, 'go take a hike'.

[ktd222]

The question is implicit, begging a response by being ridiculous.

I know he shrugged it of because of his retort:

He only says, 'Good fences...'

He could have said, 'go take a hike'.

If you want to believe that, but seems awfully broken to begin with, the conversation ;) I mean. I don't think a question could be a question without a question mark, but hey, what do I know. You could yell, whisper, scream, but a question mark will be needed to be in question form.

Look here, the speaker is so closer to being straightforward with this statement:
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors?
Instead he choses this way to express himeself:
Isn't it/Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

[jackyyyy]

If you want to believe that, but seems awfully broken to begin with, the conversation ;) I mean. I don't think a question could be a question without a question mark, but hey, what do I know. You could yell, whisper, scream, but a question mark will be needed to be in question form.

Look here, the speaker is so closer to being straightforward with this statement:
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors?
Instead he choses this way to express himeself:
Isn't it/Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.You have not posted a poem today. :brow:

I don't know if you have or not, but it begs an answer. Don't you feel like answering it??

Yes, they move from 'dialog' to the speaker 'wondering' if he could play with his brain and put a more normal notion in his head instead, suggest a wall because of cows. But, as he concludes, there are no cows, so he knows that is not going to prevent showing offense.

He has his wall up because of his apples, but, he does not want to show offense to his neighbour (for whatever reason, possibly the neighbour has strawberries further down the wall).

[ktd222]

You have not posted a poem today. :brow:

I don't know if you have or not, but it begs an answer. Don't you feel like answering it??
Can you decode this for me?


Yes, they move from 'dialog' to the speaker 'wondering' if he could play with his brain and put a more normal notion in his head instead, suggest a wall because of cows. But, as he concludes, there are no cows, so he knows that is not going to prevent showing offense.

He has his wall up because of his apples, but, he does not want to show offense to his neighbour (for whatever reason, possibly the neighbour has strawberries further down the wall).
What?? strawberries?LOL...oh man. If your suggesting dialog(and I don't concur) the last line of the poem is he says, 'Good fences make good neigbors,' so is it movement of dialog to wondering to dialog? :confused:

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Does anyone else find Frost's poems deceptively simple?

I mean that thay look so obvious when you first read them and you almost think you've got everything it has to offer, but...

Every subsequent reading throws up another little niggle of ambiguity. There is no overt obscurity in most of his works but there are plenty of layers there, hiding just below the surface.

I used to dismiss Frost as a lightweight poet, but I think this discussion shows that his lack of apparent depth is not the same as any lack of actual depth.

Unlike last week's Milton, you can easily understand every line in this poem - at least on the surface - you don't need a commentary to understand any of the references; everything is laid out in the open for easy access, but there is still more going on than meets the eye. I am of the opinion that, in the Milton, once you understand the references to ancient Greek and Roman literature and know the targets of his allegories, the meaning is pretty well established. In this poem however, there are no difficult words or names of forgotten gods and heroes to decipher - most readers won't find a word that will cause them to reach for the dictionary - yet there are a whole series of layers of meaning (and possible meaning) at work here.

Frost doesn't create ambiguity by using long words and complex sentence structures; he does it by using simple words and dropping hints.

There are many poets that make me feel far more deeply than Frost (currently, Sylvia Plath is turning my head inside out every night with her incredible word choices and phrasings), but I like him none the less, because he can make me think deeply about the simplest and most everyday of phrases. That I think is his particular greatest poetic gift.

[jackyyyy]

Can you decode this for me?


What?? strawberries?LOL...oh man. If your suggesting dialog(and I don't concur) the last line of the poem is he says, 'Good fences make good neigbors,' so is it movement of dialog to wondering to dialog? :confused:You are going to hate me for this, you just answered me with a question. I told you it was loaded.

Is this dialog or not: '?'

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

Yes, in the last line the neighbour says again, 'Good fences...'

[ktd222]

You are going to hate me for this, you just answered me with a question. I told you it was loaded.

Is this dialog or not: '?'

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

Yes, in the last line the neighbour says again, 'Good fences...'

I don't know what you mean so I'm asking you to explain.

edit: who's doing the loading?

[ktd222]

Does anyone else find Frost's poems deceptively simple?

I mean that thay look so obvious when you first read them and you almost think you've got everything it has to offer, but...

Every subsequent reading throws up another little niggle of ambiguity. There is no overt obscurity in most of his works but there are plenty of layers there, hiding just below the surface.

I used to dismiss Frost as a lightweight poet, but I think this discussion shows that his lack of apparent depth is not the same as any lack of actual depth.

Unlike last week's Milton, you can easily understand every line in this poem - at least on the surface - you don't need a commentary to understand any of the references; everything is laid out in the open for easy access, but there is still more going on than meets the eye. I am of the opinion that, in the Milton, once you understand the references to ancient Greek and Roman literature and know the targets of his allegories, the meaning is pretty well established. In this poem however, there are no difficult words or names of forgotten gods and heroes to decipher - most readers won't find a word that will cause them to reach for the dictionary - yet there are a whole series of layers of meaning (and possible meaning) at work here.

Frost doesn't create ambiguity by using long words and complex sentence structures; he does it by using simple words and dropping hints.

There are many poets that make me feel far more deeply than Frost (currently, Sylvia Plath is turning my head inside out every night with her incredible word choices and phrasings), but I like him none the less, because he can make me think deeply about the simplest and most everyday of phrases. That I think is his particular greatest poetic gift.

Can you tell us what you think about the poem's meaning?

[jackyyyy]

Does anyone else find Frost's poems deceptively simple?

I mean that thay look so obvious when you first read them and you almost think you've got everything it has to offer, but...

Every subsequent reading throws up another little niggle of ambiguity. There is no overt obscurity in most of his works but there are plenty of layers there, hiding just below the surface.

I used to dismiss Frost as a lightweight poet, but I think this discussion shows that his lack of apparent depth is not the same as any lack of actual depth.

Unlike last week's Milton, you can easily understand every line in this poem - at least on the surface - you don't need a commentary to understand any of the references; everything is laid out in the open for easy access, but there is still more going on than meets the eye. I am of the opinion that, in the Milton, once you understand the references to ancient Greek and Roman literature and know the targets of his allegories, the meaning is pretty well established. In this poem however, there are no difficult words or names of forgotten gods and heroes to decipher - most readers won't find a word that will cause them to reach for the dictionary - yet there are a whole series of layers of meaning (and possible meaning) at work here.

Frost doesn't create ambiguity by using long words and complex sentence structures; he does it by using simple words and dropping hints.

There are many poets that make me feel far more deeply than Frost (currently, Sylvia Plath is turning my head inside out every night with her incredible word choices and phrasings), but I like him none the less, because he can make me think deeply about the simplest and most everyday of phrases. That I think is his particular greatest poetic gift.Yes, 'deceptively simple' puts it perfectly, and I am a great fan of simple. Btw, that Mushroom poem of Plath's is still buzzing around my head, you're right about her. We should psychoanalyse that in this thread so it has more time to air. I think the thing with Frost is, his 'voice', not unlike Milton, btw. Once I got some background on Frost, I could roughly find the voice, and at that point the personality. Of course, I could be completely wrong and he is really Bob Dylan's brother, but the fun is in the challenge, eh.

[jackyyyy]

I don't know what you mean so I'm asking you to explain.

edit: who's doing the loading?Mr Speaker

My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

[ktd222]

Mr Speaker

My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

Is this the way two people converse with each other?
If I could put a notion in his head
Why would the speaker suspect that the other doesn't have a notion about what the statement means? Just because the neighbor says, 'Good fences make good neighbor,' and thats all he says, doesn't mean he hasn't 'gone behind' the saying. That is an assumption made by the speaker. It could easily be that they both have different views of the statement. They are both being vague to each other.

[The Unnamable]

Why? To all.
See the wall you draw? For what? So that I answer you politely, hey, look, I'm a good neighbor.
I wasn't trying to erect anything - least of all a wall. I only asked because you started your contribution by quoting Petrarch and then added “Your comment comes closest to what I feel about this poem.” I was trying to confirm that you were addressing PL here but I didn’t know if it was Raab’s or Petrarch’s comment you had in mind. That’s all.

[The Unnamable]

I think that what the speaker really wants is for his neighbour to agree with him that walls are often a bad thing because they bring about unwelcome separation: “I'd rather / He said it for himself.” He doesn’t want the man to agree with him simply because he’s told it – he wants him to think about it and reach the same conclusion for himself.

I sometimes wonder if we are all reading the same poem.

[ktd222]

And I wonder if people are not being as objective as they could be because they find an article that fits with their thoughts.

[jackyyyy]

Is this the way two people converse with each other?
If I could put a notion in his head
Why would the speaker suspect that the other doesn't have a notion about what the statement means? Just because the neighbor says, 'Good fences make good neighbor,' and thats all he says, doesn't mean he hasn't 'gone behind' the saying. That is an assumption made by the speaker. It could easily be that they both have different views of the statement. They are both being vague to each other.Its a summary of their conversing. I am not suggesting the neighbour does not have 'a' notion, as I am sure he has many, but the speaker is here considering to give him one. I am not suggesting he has 'gone behind' it either.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

'go behind' refers to dropping this tradition.

Yes, they are both being vague in that they are not 'direct'.


I think that what the speaker really wants is for his neighbour to agree with him that walls are often a bad thing because they bring about unwelcome separation: “I'd rather / He said it for himself.” He doesn’t want the man to agree with him simply because he’s told it – he wants him to think about it and reach the same conclusion for himself.

I sometimes wonder if we are all reading the same poem.

I agree with this, but am adding that 'apples versus cones' is the reason for the walls. The dialog is real, so communication is happening. I go further because he uses, and exactly, 'apples and cones'. Why would he tell his neighbour:

My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines,

?

And, don't you think the neighbour knows that?

[The Unnamable]

And, don't you think the neighbour knows that?
I don’t believe he thinks about it – the speaker is just being playful. Sometimes when confronted by such dense, unreflecting obtuseness, humour is the only response. You can see plenty of evidence of this on the forum.

[Virgil]

One thing I like to do is sub divide them poem into sections and see if that leads to any conclusions. I find five rough sub-divisions in the poem. Here's how I divide it:

Sub-Div 1
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.


Sub-Div 2;
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.


Sub-Div 3:
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.


Sub-Div 4
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.


Sub-Div 5
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

So here's how I would summarize the sub-divisions:
S-D 1: Intro of the wall and nature's effect on it.
S-D 2: What the hunters secretly do to the wall and meeting the neighbor.
S-D 3: Fixing the wall.
S-D 4: Trying to convince the neighbor it's not worth it.
S-D 5: Conclusion that the neighbor is unmovable.

At first I had interpreted the contrast between S-D1 and S-D 2 as nature versus man, but given the rest of the poem I don't think so. what Frost has done is create polarities: nature/man, pine/orchard, neighbor/narrator work/leisure with my slash mark "/" as a wall between the polarized units. Is Frost saying that there is an imperviousness between the polarites? ("He is all pine and I am all orchard.") Perhaps, but the wall does need annual mending. Given that Frost chooses to write the poem from the first person of one of these polarities we do sense his preference, or at least where he feels he fits.

As a side note, the neighbor reminds me a lot of my grandfather on my mother's side, a dedicated workaholic type who can't relax. And the narrator reminds me of my father's side of the family.

[jackyyyy]

I don’t believe he thinks about it – the speaker is just being playful. Sometimes when confronted by such dense, unreflecting obtuseness, humour is the only response. You can see plenty of evidence of this on the forum.Yes but, my dense obtuse brain thinks there is a reason for the speaker's humour and the neighbour's stubborn response... and he is actually tempting these apples to his neighbour, which would be why the neighbour wants the wall, and tradition says, don't bite that apple, you'll end up like Adam!

[The Unnamable]

Yes but, my dense obtuse brain thinks there is a reason for the speaker's humour and the neighbour's stubborn response...
I really wasn’t referring to you when I said that. However, I am tempted to say that the reason is that the speaker is humorous and the neighbour stubborn.


and he is actually tempting these apples to his neighbour, which would be why the neighbour wants the wall, and tradition says, don't bite that apple, you'll end up like Adam!
Hmmm…Your response to poetry reminds me of a line from Annie Hall:

'Why do you always reduce my animal urges to psychoanalytic categories?'

[jackyyyy]

I really wasn’t referring to you when I said that. However, I am tempted to say that the reason is that the speaker is humorous and the neighbour stubborn.


Hmmm…Your response to poetry reminds me of a line from Annie Hall:

'Why do you always reduce my animal urges to psychoanalytic categories?'Actually, I am not predisposed that way, thankfully. I reduce it because 'animal urges' often end up on television, along with the XXX-files. So, you agree 'S' is humerous and 'N' is stubborn. But, you will not offer why so? We have Billy Connolly on the one side and Milton on the other, and hmm, thats why there's a wall.

[The Unnamable]

Actually, I am not predisposed that way, thankfully. I reduce it because 'animal urges' often end up on television, along with the XXX-files.
Much of the time, I really have no idea what you are talking about. I don’t mind that but I often also have no idea whether you want or do not want a reply.


So, you agree 'S' is humerous and 'N' is stubborn. But, you will not offer why so?
Do you mean that I will offer no evidence from the poem that this is so or that I offer no reasons why this is so?


We have Billy Connolly on the one side and Milton on the other, and hmm, thats why there's a wall.
Now, you see, jackyyyy, it’s comments like this that make me wonder if your favourite song is Puff, The Magic Dragon. ;)

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Can you tell us what you think about the poem's meaning?

Pretty much what a lot of other people have already said.

On the surface he is talking about mending a wall with a neighbour.
The subtext is the psychological walls that people erect against each other.

That is the obvious stuff - the deceptively simple stuff.

Under that, we have his humorous notion that there is something that hates walls and knocks them down each year, (which most people here seem to assume is in nature, because of the mention of frozen-ground-swells, but I am not sure he's really being that specific). All he is really saying is that each year, there is more damage than just what you might expect to have come from hunters and the like, so he has invented this idea of a 'something' - as he says later 'I could say 'elves' to him' - he is trying to amuse his neighbour by talking about his daft idea of a something, but the neighbour is way too practical a type to be carried by such flights of fancy. Similarly, he tries to question the point of the wall at all when the two fields have no animals to fence in (again in a humorous manner) but is rebuffed by the old man's 'received wisdom' yet again.

Throughout the poem we are reminded that the neighbour takes rebuilding the wall very seriously, whereas Frost sees it as 'just another kind of outdoor game', a not-unpleasant diversion. the interplay between the two disparate central characters is beautifully portrayed. Frost with his poetic, questioning, mercurial mind and the neighbour with his dull, set-in-stone outlook.

And this difference in outlook is also their wall - every bit as real as the physical one.

[Virgil]

Throughout the poem we are reminded that the neighbour takes rebuilding the wall very seriously, whereas Frost sees it as 'just another kind of outdoor game', a not-unpleasant diversion. the interplay between the two disparate central characters is beautifully portrayed.
I really like this. I think you articulated it perfectly.

[Petrarch's Love]

Finally had the time to properly catch up with what's been going on here. I agree with Xam. and The Unnamable that there's a sense of humor at play in the interaction between the two men in this poem. I think that's one of its best qualities. I also like Xam.'s earlier remarks:


Does anyone else find Frost's poems deceptively simple?

I mean that thay look so obvious when you first read them and you almost think you've got everything it has to offer, but...

Every subsequent reading throws up another little niggle of ambiguity. There is no overt obscurity in most of his works but there are plenty of layers there, hiding just below the surface.

I used to dismiss Frost as a lightweight poet, but I think this discussion shows that his lack of apparent depth is not the same as any lack of actual depth.

I think what Xamonas says above is very true about Frost's work, and expresses again much of what I was trying to say earlier about the poem, and what I think Melanie was agreeing with in her response to me/what I quoted of the Raab article. As Virgil points out above in his schematic of the poem, Frost sets up several sets of polarities in the poem, which makes it seem like it's founded on simple dichotomies, but I think the poem is really trying to express a dissatisfaction with any set dichotomy, or with the strong identification with one "polarity," to use Virg's term. The problem is not so much the wall. I don't think he's crazy about the wall, but I don't think that's what actually what bothers him most. I think it's the unreflecting nature of his neighbor's devotion to the wall.



We have Billy Connolly on the one side and Milton on the other, and hmm, thats why there's a wall.

:lol: Where did that come from? It was so random I had to laugh, and since I was picking up a pic. for one of the image games anyway, I couldn't help but be curious what it would look like (they have remarkably similar hairstyles);) :
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e386/LeonardoD/connoly-milton.jpg

[jackyyyy]

Much of the time, I really have no idea what you are talking about. I don’t mind that but I often also have no idea whether you want or do not want a reply.People write something if they feel like it, its not mandatory. They are replying directly or simply throwing something into the pot. I don't find this forum is insisting on formality, just politeness. With that, I believe people should feel free to express themselves in their way, not forced to a uniform style. I find it important to analyse and find something concrete, landmarks if you like, to base an assumption on. Yes, I do want to reduce it, and I alluded to your reference to Annie Hall, and I thought that was obvious, but my mention was confusing, and it failed. Cutting up the content to make it more accessible is also part and parcel of analysing it. So if Annie Hall is questioned me doing it, then she would question anybody doing it, including yourself. I am having a hard time explaining something I see here, and I don't think what I see is without any 'concrete'. I appreciate, however, that if I fail to explain it, the notion is lost.


Do you mean that I will offer no evidence from the poem that this is so or that I offer no reasons why this is so?No, of course you do, but on this occasion, you wrote, 'I am tempted to say...', which is quite a departure from when you were more sure:


Originally Posted by The Unnamable
I know that Virgil but do you really think Robert Frost didn’t think of frost when he wrote those lines? Come on!There is nothing wrong with being reserved, just surprising sometimes. I happen to disagree with this assumption based only on his name, but its okay to throw ideas around, else we stagnate.


Now, you see, jackyyyy, it’s comments like this that make me wonder if your favourite song is Puff, The Magic Dragon. ;)Well, apart from being highly creative and educational, its also fun. I am not going to pull my hair out over a bag of words, but I will never dismiss an idea, nomatter how far fetched, if there is an inkling of fact that could sway it another way. There are several things in this piece that I think are concrete enough to make me put in the extra effort. If my view is too radical for others then thats fine too.

Having said all that, the clarity of vision Xamonas displays in his write-up is awesome.

[ktd222]

Under that, we have his humorous notion that there is something that hates walls and knocks them down each year, (which most people here seem to assume is in nature, because of the mention of frozen-ground-swells, but I am not sure he's really being that specific). All he is really saying is that each year, there is more damage than just what you might expect to have come from hunters and the like, so he has invented this idea of a 'something' - as he says later 'I could say 'elves' to him' - he is trying to amuse his neighbour by talking about his daft idea of a something, but the neighbour is way too practical a type to be carried by such flights of fancy. Similarly, he tries to question the point of the wall at all when the two fields have no animals to fence in (again in a humorous manner) but is rebuffed by the old man's 'received wisdom' yet again.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill...the speaker is the one trying to engage the neighbor in this conversation, but at the same time, as you read further on the tone of the speaker gets more hostile than merely humorous questioning about the needless function of a wall. Whiner!


Throughout the poem we are reminded that the neighbour takes rebuilding the wall very seriously, whereas Frost sees it as 'just another kind of outdoor game', a not-unpleasant diversion. the interplay between the two disparate central characters is beautifully portrayed. Frost with his poetic, questioning, mercurial mind and the neighbour with his dull, set-in-stone outlook.

And this difference in outlook is also their wall - every bit as real as the physical one.
It is a 'game'-and gaming involves competiton. What's the speaker trying to prove or win at? The process of building a wall may seem serious to the neighbor, but just as equal the 'need' to not have a wall is just as serious to the speaker.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill...the speaker is the one trying to engage the neighbor in this conversation, but at the same time, as you read further on the tone of the speaker gets more hostile than merely humorous questioning about the needless function of a wall. Whiner!

I don't really see hostile - not overtly hostile at any rate - he is merely questioning why they are going through this ritual of wall-repairing and trying to get his neighbour to question too. His descriptions of the neighbour in the poem are derogatory, but his words to him are not.


It is a 'game'-and gaming involves competiton. What's the speaker trying to prove or win at? The process of building a wall may seem serious to the neighbor, but just as equal the 'need' to not have a wall is just as serious to the speaker.

I don't quite agree with you there ktd. If the narrator 'needs' not to have the wall, why is he helping to repair it? He questions the need for it - he doesn't deny the need for it outright. And games can also involve teamwork, not just competition - even though he says "One on a side", they are both working towards the same end.

[ktd222]

I don't really see hostile - not overtly hostile at any rate - he is merely questioning why they are going through this ritual of wall-repairing and trying to get his neighbour to question too. His descriptions of the neighbour in the poem are derogatory, but his words to him are not.
I agree, not overtly hostile.




I don't quite agree with you there ktd. If the narrator 'needs' not to have the wall, why is he helping to repair it? He questions the need for it - he doesn't deny the need for it outright. And games can also involve teamwork, not just competition - even though he says "One on a side", they are both working towards the same end.

When else is he going to be able to implant these thoughts in the neighbor's mind about the needless function of a wall. Like you said, Throughout the poem we are reminded that the neighbour takes rebuilding the wall very seriously, whereas Frost sees it as 'just another kind of outdoor game', a not-unpleasant diversion. Alternative motive?
Great! then they both want the wall.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

He does the job because it's "one of those jobs that has to be done". You paint the fence, repair the tiles on the roof, wash the car, mend the wall. There is quite obviously an implied tradition of wall-mending in this situation. It's a shared wall, so both parties have an obligation to repair it. Frost is questioning this tradition; questioning the need for the wall at all. His neighbour isn't interested. I would imagine that that wall went on getting repaired for many years - by the two of them, or their descendants.

An implication of the poem to me is not that we should necessarily reject traditions such as wall-mending (walls between fields and walls between people) but that we should question whether they are applicable to a particular case rather than blithely continuing with the status quo.

I don't see anything more revolutionary than this in Frost's POV here.

[jackyyyy]

This is a man made wall.

Walls do not appear for no reason.

Somebody put the wall there for a reason.

Has the reason disappeared? Well, the job of mending has to be done, because people, animals, nature, whatever, keeps trying to pull it down, and.... they want the wall to stay up. Else, why mend it.

Tradition does not make people waste their time mending walls. For sure, the neighbour is very serious about it. Speaker, on the other hand, is a wily old goat playing mischief.. and, he is the one with the apples.

[ktd222]

An implication of the poem to me is not that we should necessarily reject traditions such as wall-mending (walls between fields and walls between people) but that we should question whether they are applicable to a particular case rather than blithely continuing with the status quo.

I don't see anything more revolutionary than this in Frost's POV here.

Or, the neighbor sees nothing wrong with the wall; while the speaker, through his imagining of the function of the wall, injects connotations into that wall which would otherwise just be a wall.

[ktd222]

;)
This is a man made wall.

Walls do not appear for no reason.

Somebody put the wall there for a reason.

Has the reason disappeared? Well, the job of mending has to be done, because people, animals, nature, whatever, keeps trying to pull it down, and.... they want the wall to stay up. Else, why mend it.

Tradition does not make people waste their time mending walls. For sure, the neighbour is very serious about it. Speaker, on the other hand, is a wily old goat playing mischief.. and, he is the one with the apples.

You got me going unto I saw the word 'apple'.

[jackyyyy]

Or, the neighbor sees nothing wrong with the wall; while the speaker, through his imagining of the function of the wall, injects connotations into that wall which would otherwise just be a wall.
That works for me.

[The Unnamable]

People write something if they feel like it...
I think we are at cross-purposes. Annie Hall is a comedy and Allen was simply making fun of Psychoanalysis and the tendency of intellectuals armed with Freud to seek the deeper meaning in the most obvious of actions. My point with regard to your comments was that you were looking at things at an almost sub-atomic level without considering fully that the larger picture might be sufficient. I didn’t think you were ‘reducing’ it – in fact, quite the opposite. ‘Reducing’ simply happened to be the word Allen humorously uses in the script. I’m sorry if I gave the impression that I thought you were being obtuse.

‘I am tempted to say’ was meant light-heartedly. I said ‘I am tempted’ and then said it anyway. I assumed you’d realise I was contradicting myself.


Well, apart from being highly creative and educational, its also fun. I am not going to pull my hair out over a bag of words, but I will never dismiss an idea, nomatter how far fetched, if there is an inkling of fact that could sway it another way. There are several things in this piece that I think are concrete enough to make me put in the extra effort. If my view is too radical for others then thats fine too.
To be honest, that’s largely what I like about reading your posts – and again, I’m sorry if I offended you. Puff, The Magic Dragon was meant as a light-hearted reference to the use of psychotropic substances. For one thing, your soaring, Brownian motion-type thinking threw up the disturbing pictures that Petrarch posted above.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Or, the neighbor sees nothing wrong with the wall; while the speaker, through his imagining of the function of the wall, injects connotations into that wall which would otherwise just be a wall.

Of course he injects connotations - he's a poet - connotations and hidden meanings are his stock in trade. He is as unable to take anything at its face value as his neighbour appears to be unable not to. This is why he is asking his questions in the first place - because he can see the connotations that the other guy apparently doesn't, evinced by his falling back on the stock phrase, "Good fences...".

I don't think we're really disagreeing here, or at least, I'm not quite sure how we are. We just approached the poem from slightly different viewpoints and saw it in a slightly different light accordingly - my earlier post said it was deceptively simple; I think this shows it.

[ktd222]

For some reason I'm see Squirrels in my monitor. :lol: :lol: :lol:

[jackyyyy]

I think we are at cross-purposes. Annie Hall is a comedy and Allen was simply making fun of Psychoanalysis and the tendency of intellectuals armed with Freud to seek the deeper meaning in the most obvious of actions. My point with regard to your comments was that you were looking at things at an almost sub-atomic level without considering fully that the larger picture might be sufficient. I didn’t think you were ‘reducing’ it – in fact, quite the opposite. ‘Reducing’ simply happened to be the word Allen humorously uses in the script. I’m sorry if I gave the impression that I thought you were being obtuse.

‘I am tempted to say’ was meant light-heartedly. I said ‘I am tempted’ and then said it anyway. I assumed you’d realise I was contradicting myself.


To be honest, that’s largely what I like about reading your posts – and again, I’m sorry if I offended you. Puff, The Magic Dragon was meant as a light-hearted reference to the use of psychotropic substances. For one thing, your soaring, Brownian motion-type thinking threw up the disturbing pictures that Petrarch posted above.I find people on the whole are constantly in a state of 'cross-purposefullness', which I'd offer is a reason they communicate in the first place. We are being the intellectuals here, attempting to categorize. The problem is and if we perceive to have put the something in the wrong box, and I agree that when we are at a forest, looking for wood, we can stop when we see the wood. However, if we are still not sure its wood, I tend to go further into the forest. I did use the word, psychoanalyse with regard to Plath's mushrooms, so the Annie Hall reference was perfect. I never once thought you thought I was being obtuse, no worry, and I am familiar with you contradicting yourself to make a point, its an excellent tool, and my egging question was simply that - egging.

Why are the side by side mug shots of Billy and John disturbing? They sure look related, and there is Hadrian's Wall. (Was that Brownian?)

[MelanieD]

I read your exchanges over again. You all teach me a lot. Most of all, you force me to deeply go into a thing (a poem). I have even come to like it, and reading it again, it takes a different meaning. I'm not so learned as you are and not everything you say I understand. So my viewpoint is naive, instinctive.
When reading it, I now notice the speaker's distinct playful tone that shows in truncated sentences (i.e. He is all pine and I am apple orchard)(besides, being a gardener now, I must disagree with Frost. Unless the terrain rises steeply to rocky area on the neighbor's side, pine cannot coexist with apple trees, but this is, of course possible, as the wall is made of natural stones)(sorry for the divagation). I now think, the speaker implicitely agrees with the neighbor's proposition. He just tempts him a bit, and himself. Proof: he himself demands for the rebuilding of the wall. But 'Spring is the mischief in me' and what better time to go against all that presses against us in daily life all year round. Let's try break down order a bit. I don't think of him as the liberal intellectual and the other one as a stubborn farmer. (What's a farmer doing on a stony hill?) He's just another homeowner whose mood is not for playing games. Then, meeeting incomprehension, the speaker is overcome by a strong dislike of the man (old-stone savage armed), he sees someone horrible towering above him out of some darkness (who knows: his own?)
And there he mentions the neighbor's father (maybe all fathers, or his own??) and the submissive son who's so content of being obedient, although he had 'thought of it so well' which means: he had to reason as well and is not some dumb guy. And so he has the last word, with which the speaker agreed all along.
I should probably let all this sit a while and then read it again, but I won't.

[Virgil]

Unless the terrain rises steeply to rocky area on the neighbor's side, pine cannot coexist with apple trees, but this is, of course possible, as the wall is made of natural stones)(sorry for the divagation). ... (What's a farmer doing on a stony hill?) He's just another homeowner whose mood is not for playing games.
Frost lived in New Hampshire, which is a rocky, mountainous area. For your info. Now that I think of it, the farmer is your typical New England Yankee, short of words, full of proverbs, and hard working, stubborn fellow.

[The Unnamable]

Billy and John
Such familairity. :lol:

Mary Wilkie: I guess I should straighten my life out, huh? I mean, Donnie my analyst is always telling me...
Isaac Davis: You call your analyst Donnie?….. I call mine Dr. Chomsky

Annie Hall

[jackyyyy]

When reading it, I now notice the speaker's distinct playful tone that shows in truncated sentences (i.e. He is all pine and I am apple orchard)(besides, being a gardener now, I must disagree with Frost. Unless the terrain rises steeply to rocky area on the neighbor's side, pine cannot coexist with apple trees, but this is, of course possible, as the wall is made of natural stones)(sorry for the divagation). I now think, the speaker implicitely agrees with the neighbor's proposition. He just tempts him a bit, and himself. Proof: he himself demands for the rebuilding of the wall. But 'Spring is the mischief in me' and what better time to go against all that presses against us in daily life all year round. Let's try break down order a bit. I don't think of him as the liberal intellectual and the other one as a stubborn farmer. (What's a farmer doing on a stony hill?) He's just another homeowner whose mood is not for playing games. Then, meeeting incomprehension, the speaker is overcome by a strong dislike of the man (old-stone savage armed), he sees someone horrible towering above him out of some darkness (who knows: his own?)
And there he mentions the neighbor's father (maybe all fathers, or his own??) and the submissive son who's so content of being obedient, although he had 'thought of it so well' which means: he had to reason as well and is not some dumb guy. And so he has the last word, with which the speaker agreed all along.
I missed that. So, the neighbour is not a farmer, has 'only' pine cones and some rocks, and the speaker is the one with the apples. ;)

[jackyyyy]

Such familairity. :lol:

Mary Wilkie: I guess I should straighten my life out, huh? I mean, Donnie my analyst is always telling me...
Isaac Davis: You call your analyst Donnie?….. I call mine Dr. Chomsky

Annie HallGood point, it didn't even occur to me. I am obtuse!

And well, Mary is getting her analysis done for free (more or less). :brow:

[jackyyyy]

Of course he injects connotations - he's a poet - connotations and hidden meanings are his stock in trade. He is as unable to take anything at its face value as his neighbour appears to be unable not to. This is why he is asking his questions in the first place - because he can see the connotations that the other guy apparently doesn't, evinced by his falling back on the stock phrase, "Good fences...".

I don't think we're really disagreeing here, or at least, I'm not quite sure how we are. We just approached the poem from slightly different viewpoints and saw it in a slightly different light accordingly - my earlier post said it was deceptively simple; I think this shows it.Sorry Xamonas, this reminds me of "Morning Song", where the author is speaking for the speaker, kind of. Yes, I know what you mean when you write the poet is injecting connotations, but, finally its the speaker who does the connotating, isn't it. I am reading this wrong?

[jackyyyy]

For some reason I'm see Squirrels in my monitor. :lol: :lol: :lol:You could try adjusting the horizontal.

Do you mean... those squirrels again?

:smash: <------- wack-a-mole

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Sorry Xamonas, this reminds me of "Morning Song", where the author is speaking for the speaker, kind of. Yes, I know what you mean when you write the poet is injecting connotations, but, finally its the speaker who does the connotating, isn't it. I am reading this wrong?

Perhaps - but I see a difference in the two poems on this point. In Morning Song, the poem begins, "He speaks", telling us (as if the sex difference wasn't enough :D) that the poet and the speaker are not one and the same. In the Frost poem, the writing style is in the style of a personal anecdote or recollection - the reader is meant to accept that the speaker is the poet himself and not some creation. This may not be the case - the incident could be purely fictitious and/or exagerrated - but that is not my impression.

[Shanna]

Its Monday here.
I owe this poem, among several other things, to a friend.


More Light! More Light!
For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt

Composed in the Tower before his execution
These moving verses, and being brought at that time
Painfully to the stake, submitted, declaring thus:
"I implore my God to witness that I have made no crime."

Nor was he forsaken of courage, but the death was horrible,
The sack of gunpowder failing to ignite.
His legs were blistered sticks on which the black sap
Bubbled and burst as he howled for the Kindly Light.

And that was but one, and by no means one of the worst;
Permitted at least his pitiful dignity;
And such as were by made prayers in the name of Christ,
That shall judge all men, for his soul's tranquility.

We move now to outside a German wood.
Three men are there commanded to dig a hole
In which the two Jews are ordered to lie down
And be buried alive by the third, who is a Pole.

Not light from the shrine at Weimar beyond the hill
Nor light from heaven appeared. But he did refuse.
A Luger settled back deeply in its glove.
He was ordered to change places with the Jews.

Much casual death had drained away their souls.
The thick dirt mounted toward the quivering chin.
When only the head was exposed the order came
To dig him out again and to get back in.

No light, no light in the blue Polish eye.
When he finished a riding boot packed down the earth.
The Luger hovered lightly in its glove.
He was shot in the belly and in three hours bled to death.

No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.

-Anthony Hecht

[The Unnamable]

There are times when you read something that leaves you feeling that there is nothing left to be said, nothing that can be said but that you have to say it anyway. This poem is one of those things.

I find it extremely powerful and unanswerable. I can’t think of many lines that are more horrible than that description of the burning martyr:

“His legs were blistered sticks on which the black sap
Bubbled and burst as he howled for the Kindly Light.”

And yet this physical horror is ‘surpassed’ by the psychological horror of what follows.

For those who don’t know, Hannah Arendt was a German philosopher/political theorist who fled to the USA in 1941 to escape the Nazis. She was married to Heinrich Blucher.

She studied Philosophy with Martin Heidegger and they were lovers for a while – interesting given Heidegger’s later membership of the Nazi Party.

She is possibly most famous for her phrase “the banality of evil” to describe Adolf Eichmann (she covered the Eichmann Trial).

The title of the poem comes from what were (supposedly) Goethe’s dying words.

[Virgil]

Why do I get the feeling that Shanna is Unnamable under a different log in? :lol:

There are a few things I like about this poem, but how about I save those comments for later in the week. Just so we're not all one big shiny happy family let me point out in this post what I find problematic with the poem, and ultimately makes it mediocre for me. First before anyone jumps on me, I am in complete sympathy with Hecht's theme and moral core. I wish we would take on more dictators in the world, not shy away from them.

While I don't have any dispute with the moral core of the poem I do have a problem with it's emotional core. The poem is predicated on melodrama. At times it sinks to maudlin. The justaposition of the two narratives, the martyr and the Nazi execution, is a reaching for bathos, as if the Nazi execution was not emotionally charged enough. I can understand if a metaphor was contrived or an allusion referenced, but two parallel narratives ties the emotion together and frankly that's mawkish. In fact it superficializes both narratives. And if the point is that that there is a connection between ancient martyrdom and Nazi execution, again a metaphor or an allusion would have given the suggestion, but a detailed narrative beckons historical scrutiny, and any historian can point out a plethora of differences. Unfortuantely Hecht is striving for melodrama.

And there are phrases that are horribly melodramatic: "howled for the Kindly Light", "pitful dignity", "drained away their souls", "quivering chin". "Kindly Light" sounds like something out of my third grade Roman Catholic catechism book.

And even the narrative: The Pole switches places with the Jews, they bury him to his neck, they dig him out, and then he buries the Jews, and then they shoot him. Would make a great movie, a maudlin movie. And it might not be a bad movie, but a movie or a novel has space to develop character and in the words of one of my creative writing teachers "earn" the emotion. That's why Tolstoy in his large novels can get away with melodrama, there is enough space to develop it. And that's why a greeting card sounds so trite, there is no space to develop, I prefer to use the word "earn", the emotion. Here in 32 lines you have not one, but two vague stick figure melodramas that don't earn the emotion that's packed here.

[ktd222]

Let me just say that this poem is less about emotion and more about what the two rituals differ as far as purpose.

[ktd222]

One obvious difference I see between the two ceromonies is the use of what I would refer to as the ceromony being performed 'in the name of blank'(a divine power)-which seems to be missing in the latter ceromony. The result of this, I think(for Union Jack :lol: ), alters the fate of the souls that are being described in the poem.

[The Unnamable]

Why do I get the feeling that Shanna is Unnamable under a different log in? :lol:
Not guilty and I am confident this time that IP addresses will reveal we are in different countries.


While I don't have any dispute with the moral core of the poem I do have a problem with it's emotional core. The poem is predicated on melodrama. At times it sinks to maudlin. The justaposition of the two narratives, the martyr and the Nazi execution, is a reaching for bathos, as if the Nazi execution was not emotionally charged enough. I can understand if a metaphor was contrived or an allusion referenced, but two parallel narratives ties the emotion together and frankly that's mawkish. In fact it superficializes both narratives. And if the point is that that there is a connection between ancient martyrdom and Nazi execution, again a metaphor or an allusion would have given the suggestion, but a detailed narrative beckons historical scrutiny, and any historian can point out a plethora of differences. Unfortuantely Hecht is striving for melodrama.
:brickwall I totally disagree. What is most conspicuous about the poem for me is its detachment. To be honest, I think you have completely misunderstood what Hecht has done here and failed to notice something that he has (in your reading, pointlessly) striven to avoid.


And even the narrative: The Pole switches places with the Jews, they bury him to his neck, they dig him out, and then he buries the Jews, and then they shoot him. Would make a great movie, a maudlin movie.
A movie, eh? Did you know, Virgil, that Hecht based this part of the poem on an actual documented incident that happened near Buchenwald?

For anyone wishing to read sensitive, balanced and thoughtful responses to this poem, try the following link:

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/hecht/light.htm

[Petrarch's Love]

My first reaction to this poem was almost exactly like Unnamable's. At first I just couldn't imagine how I could add words to that, but almost in the same moment I realized that it's the kind of thing you have to respond to despite the fact that, as Unnamable said, it seems "unanswerable," so I'll try to answer. Having just read a poem I thought of as bleak, stark, and overwhelming I was amazed to see Virgil's response describing it as "maudlin," since this seemed so very much the reverse of my initial response. Having looked over the poem again I think I understood what Virg. meant about such lines as the "kindly light" having the ring of a text like a catechism. If there are some "maudlin" means of expression present though (and I don't think the diction of the poem generally could be characterized as maudlin) I would still interpret them very differently. Certain lines may be intended to evoke something like the kinds of lines we learn in school or in catechism or something similar. This poem attempts to describe events that are so horrific that faith in even the most simple good is shaken. The little lines that we cling to--little religious phrases, prayers, poetry, whatever it is--to help us face the worst in life are in danger of becoming completely obliterated. The "kindly light" is a simple phrase, so simple we just accept it as a basic truth. I don't think such prases are maudlin in this context. Instead they demonstate the hideous inadequacy of something that seems so basic and true to deal with such an overwhelming situation, just as the Polish man is unable to hold fast to even such a basic conviction as not wanting to bury another alive. How could anyone describe the things this poem deals with and not have their language come across as hopelessly ineffective to deal with such things?

And I don't see the two narratives as being "melodramatic." I think quite the reverse. If anything there is something relentless and crushing in the detached way the two are presented. The poem begins almost as though we'd walked into a history lecture and the prof. and just been discussing the poems written in the tower and is moving on to an anecdote about the martyr's execution before making an almost casual and unaffected transition by moving to a forest somewhere in Germany. It's almost as though someone were saying, and now class, open your text books to page 666 and we'll discuss the activities of the Nazis. (Note, I'm not suggesting the poem is actually supposed to be a lecture, just that it is this kind of voice, rather than a frenzied melodramatic one that I hear in this poem). What is so oppressive about the poem is that we can all picture ourselves having sat through a history class or something, where we callously turn over page after page of accounts of human brutality. This poem brings two specific incidents out into the light, forcing us to consider them in hideous detail and to realize that in the time that seperates them nothing has changed.

These are some of my first thoughts, anyway. I'll see what others have to say, and post more later perhaps. Just now there are images of martyrdoms and concentration camps in my mind. I can't think how to respond to those images adequately. I can't get past them.

[Petrarch's Love]

For anyone wishing to read sensitive, balanced and thoughtful responses to this poem, try the following link:

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/po...hecht/light.htm

Thanks Unnamable, I only saw your post after I'd posted. I like these little critical collections you've unearthed on the UIUC site. They would be great to assign for the sort of brief class discussions when you know the students aren't going to make it through multiple essays, but you'd like them to have some familiarity with readings of the poem. Maybe I should look for or do something similar for some Med/Ren works online. Is this associated with the journal entitled Modern American Poetry by chance? I can't remember where that comes out of, since it's outside my field.

Anyway, I was interested to find that in the final essay Charlson, like me, found the voice in the poem in places like the voice "perhaps of the history teacher, briskly and unapologetically moving his class from one example to the next." I think he really sums it up best though, when he writes in the opening of his paper, "Hecht's lyric voice is neither that of the objective historian nor the subjectively striving voice of individual expression; somewhere in between." I think this is a poem that is extreemely deft in the way it balances a sense of detachment and a sense of the devastatingly personal. It allows us to be just detached enough to see how grossly horrific it is, and just human enough to have the horror affect us on an individual level.

[The Unnamable]

PL,
Thank God that someone else can see the enormous power of this poem. You ask, “How could anyone describe the things this poem deals with and not have their language come across as hopelessly ineffective to deal with such things? ”. A good question and one that most writers on the Shoah must ask. Both Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel adopt a similar method to the one Hecht uses – they try to present the ‘facts’ with little commentary (Levi does this more consistently than Wiesel but Night is still a powerful and important piece of writing). The events speak for themselves. Both Levi and Wiesel were prisoners in the camps so the urge to scream out at the almost inexpressible injustice and horror of it all must have been far greater than anything I feel.

I agree with almost all of what you say and this isn’t nitpicking for the sake of it but when you say that “nothing has changed”, I would argue that, horribly, it has. Which one of the deaths in the poem strikes people as the worst and why?

As T S Eliot wrote, “After such knowledge, what forgiveness?”

A number of years ago, a British TV Arts programme called The South Bank Show covered Henryk Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. In an interview he talked about the second movement, which is based on a message he discovered scrawled on a Gestapo prison cell wall in 1944 by an 18-year-old girl Helena Wanda Blazusiakówna:

No, Mother, do not weep,
Most chaste Queen of Heaven
Help me always.
Hail Mary.

He said that he found it both profoundly moving and humbling. I guess he lacked a sense of its melodramatic, maudlin qualities. In the midst of all this unspeakable horror, the graffiti was not an impassioned expression of outrage for the evil being inflicted upon her and her family, nor a threat of revenge but something gentle, loving and unassuming. - I feel sick as I’m typing this – it’s…no matter…

The South Bank Show documentary included the inevitable footage of the piles of emaciated and brutalised corpses as well as images of mass famine and gassed Kurds. In the days following transmission, some British newspapers printed letters they had received from viewers of the programme. A number of people had written in to complain that the programme had forever spoiled for them what they had previously considered to be a beautiful piece of music. Where do you start?

Textual note: The first line of stanza three should read, “and by no means one of the worst;”

God, I needed the bathos of that last addition.

[ktd222]

This poem attempts to describe events that are so horrific that faith in even the most simple good is shaken. The little lines that we cling to--little religious phrases, prayers, poetry, whatever it is--to help us face the worst in life are in danger of becoming completely obliterated. The "kindly light" is a simple phrase, so simple we just accept it as a basic truth. I don't think such prases are maudlin in this context. Instead they demonstate the hideous inadequacy of something that seems so basic and true to deal with such an overwhelming situation, just as the Polish man is unable to hold fast to even such a basic conviction as not wanting to bury another alive. How could anyone describe the things this poem deals with and not have their language come across as hopelessly ineffective to deal with such things?
Do you know what is so horrific about the second ritual that it drains the faith of the Jews? It's the 'casual' way in which the ritual is performed. Not in the name of God. Not because the person being condemned has acted in opposition to a divine set of laws. Just for the amusement of the Nazi guards.
A ritual without a religious function. How does one plead that they've done nothing to go in opposition to their God's laws if the ritual is without a religious basis? This is the very thing that the poem portrays to me.

Side note: There is a passiveness recognizable in the latter ritual. As if it's not the guards themeselves that are carrying out these murders but parts of their uniform. Does this make sense to anyone?


This poem brings two specific incidents out into the light, forcing us to consider them in hideous detail and to realize that in the time that seperates them nothing has changed.
I think the basis of the latter ritual is what makes it more horrific: because not only are we to consider a physical pain, but also a pshycological 'pain' as well.

[The Unnamable]

Just for the amusement of the Nazi guards.
Also, to prove a point? The Pole initially refuses to carry out such an atrocity – our sense of humanity takes a last stand against evil. There is a shred of decency left and I am sure we would all like to think that we would refuse in the same position. Then, as PL said, that shred is obliterated.


it's not the guards themeselves that are carrying out these murders but parts of their uniform. Does this make sense to anyone?
Yes – “The dehumanization is complete – even the guard is metonymically identified only as his “Luger”.” -Edward Hirsch

There is a poem by Thom Gunn called Innocence that deals with this dehumanisation by war. If anyone has it, please post it or send it me. I don’t have a copy here.

[Virgil]

Well, I knew I wasn't going to be on anyone's Christmas card list with my post.

If picking an emotional subject is all it takes to write a great poem, then why don't we all write a poem about how Saddam Hussien gased the Kurds and we could all be published and great poets. Just selecting a Nazi horror scenario does not make a great poem. It's what you do with it. The "Crow" poem a few weeks back and just by memory I'm thinking of Sylvia Plath's "Mary's Song", also on similar subjects are way more artful than this. Frankly I don't see anyone talking about the poetics. You are all mesmorized by the subject. I remember writing a similarly emotionally charged poem when I was an undergrad in college, and frankly it was crap. But I picked a subject along these lines. Am I a great poet?


A movie, eh? Did you know, Virgil, that Hecht based this part of the poem on an actual documented incident that happened near Buchenwald?
Actually I suspected it, although I wasn't 100% sure. I remember seeing a documentary on the event. So what? It's what the poet does with it, otherwise I can filter through history and find lots of subject matter for poetry.


Having just read a poem I thought of as bleak, stark, and overwhelming I was amazed to see Virgil's response describing it as "maudlin," since this seemed so very much the reverse of my initial response. Having looked over the poem again I think I understood what Virg. meant about such lines as the "kindly light" having the ring of a text like a catechism. If there are some "maudlin" means of expression present though (and I don't think the diction of the poem generally could be characterized as maudlin) I would still interpret them very differently.
Even "quivering chin?" Urgghh!


The "kindly light" is a simple phrase, so simple we just accept it as a basic truth.
In what way? It's a personification of light. To personify inanimate things is a poetic strategy, but to endow them with emotion is rediculous. If that is the point of the poem and it was the only emotional stretch, I could accept it, but the poem is filled with melodrama.


How could anyone describe the things this poem deals with and not have their language come across as hopelessly ineffective to deal with such things?
So if I find other examples of poems that deal with horrific events and the poet finds the proper poetic language to express it, you'll admit your statement is wrong? It is a cop-out to claim that the subject matter is so horrific that he's forced as his only alternative to resort to maudlin, trite expressions.


As T S Eliot wrote, “After such knowledge, what forgiveness?”
Now there's a poet. I would love to compare Eliot to this.

[Virgil]

Do you know what is so horrific about the second ritual that it drains the faith of the Jews? It's the 'casual' way in which the ritual is performed. Not in the name of God. Not because the person being condemned has acted in opposition to a divine set of laws. Just for the amusement of the Nazi guards.
A ritual without a religious function. How does one plead that they've done nothing to go in opposition to their God's laws if the ritual is without a religious basis? This is the very thing that the poem portrays to me.

I can almost buy into this. I see your point. It is a Godless ritual, isn't it. Perhaps if you fleshed this idea out more you might salvage some of this poem for me. But it's going to be hard to overcome "quivering chin."

[The Unnamable]

Virgil, I have no desire to change your mind over this poem – think what you wish about it, I really don’t care. However, for the sake of anyone reading this section of the thread, I think your assumptions, reasoning and reading should be firmly challenged. I think this is an important poem and have used it with students in the past. I’d hate to think that future students might have only your unchallenged views to consider when they research the poem. I will, therefore, respond to the things you’ve said.


If picking an emotional subject is all it takes to write a great poem, then why don't we all write a poem about how Saddam Hussien gased the Kurds and we could all be published and great poets.
No one has said this – if you argument has to rely on such facile misrepresentation, then you are off to a poor start.


Just selecting a Nazi horror scenario does not make a great poem.
I repeat – no one has said it does. If you are saying that Hecht has done nothing more than simply select a Nazi scenario, then you are wrong. You might not have noticed his skill but that certainly doesn’t mean that it isn’t there.


It's what you do with it. The "Crow" poem a few weeks back and just by memory I'm thinking of Sylvia Plath's "Mary's Song", also on similar subjects are way more artful than this. Frankly I don't see anyone talking about the poetics. You are all mesmorized by the subject.
None of the three people who posted comments before this response of yours (your “all” must refer to us) is mesmerised by the subject and your accusation that we are is crass. You then add that you don’t see anyone talking about the ‘poetics’. First of all, I posted a link to some criticism that does that more than adequately and therefore saw little point in adding my own. If it generates further questions or analysis, that’s fine. Secondly, this poem is so powerful that counting the number of syllables and compartmentalising it into neat sections (an activity I know you value highly) seems not only an inadequate way of responding to the poem but also, if taken as the sole criteria by which it should be judged, positively inane.


I remember writing a similarly emotionally charged poem when I was an undergrad in college, and frankly it was crap. But I picked a subject along these lines. Am I a great poet?
Let me get this right – you wrote a poem similar in emotional intensity to this when you were an undergraduate? Yes, and I once built a nuclear generator in my dad’s garden shed for a science classes. It didn’t actually work but it was very similar to ones that do.


Actually I suspected it, although I wasn't 100% sure. I remember seeing a documentary on the event. So what? It's what the poet does with it, otherwise I can filter through history and find lots of subject matter for poetry.
When you saw the documentary to which you refer, did you think to yourself, “Melodrama – might make a great movie – a maudlin movie”?


Even "quivering chin?" Urgghh!
The point is that Hecht has deliberately focused on this image – the victims are reduced to something less than whole people. In this case the man is reduced to his fear; it's all that's left of him – it’s part of the dehumanisation Hecht is showing us. Your inability to see it as anything other than melodramatic is your failure, not the poet’s.


In what way? It's a personification of light. To personify inanimate things is a poetic strategy, but to endow them with emotion is rediculous.
Why is it any more ridiculous than personification per se? I assume because personification is a technical label that you have been trained to accept as a legitimate ‘poetic strategy’. Besides, the phrase is a religious one, which is how it is being used in this context. It appears in hymns and I’m sure there are Christians on the Forum who could give precise references for other examples of its use.


It is a cop-out to claim that the subject matter is so horrific that he's forced as his only alternative to resort to maudlin, trite expressions.
Who is claiming this? I’m not, PL isn’t, nor is ktd222. The point is that such an intensely emotionally charged piece must work harder than usual to avoid being maudlin or melodramatic. This is precisely why I mentioned Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel. They, like Hecht in my opinion, succeed. Once again, the fact that you have to resort to misrepresenting what has been said only demonstrates the ineptitude of your reasoning.


Now there's a poet. I would love to compare Eliot to this.
I find it quite sad that you have to resort to such tactics as this – my poet is better than your poet! Besides, if you display the same insensitivity to Eliot that you demonstrate in your comments on Hecht, I doubt the comparison would achieve much.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

While I can appreciate Virgil's POV, and think that TU was unjustly harsh on him, I must say that I agree with most of the comments above. The poem is far more than mere melodrama. I hadn't read it before and initially found it disturbing but lacking in emotional depth - I have since revised this view. TU's comments about maintaining a sense of detachment, to whit, presenting the facts as facts, without additional colouration, make sense to me. The subject matter is so brutal and shocking that any attempt to exagerrate it would be impossible or callous; all analogies and similes would be pale substitutes for the reality of the scenes described.

It is moving and horrific but the juxtaposition of the two scenes works well. I disagree that they show that 'nothing has changed' - there is an added layer of dehumanisation in the nazi scene that is absent in the earlier one - all dignity, humanity and hope is removed from the Pole prior to his death - the heretic is only killed, horribly killed, but ultimately, only killed.

I can't say I like this poem. But I doubt its purpose is to be liked.

[Virgil]

Virgil, I have no desire to change your mind over this poem – think what you wish about it, I really don’t care. However, for the sake of anyone reading this section of the thread, I think your assumptions, reasoning and reading should be firmly challenged. I think this is an important poem and have used it with students in the past. I’d hate to think that future students might have only your unchallenged views to consider when they research the poem.
That's fine. I don't expect to change anyone's mind. It's a politically correct subject, and it takes a lot of pursuading power, of which I'm either wrong (so be it) or I don't have the ability.


I repeat – no one has said it does. If you are saying that Hecht has done nothing more than simply select a Nazi scenario, then you are wrong. You might not have noticed his skill but that certainly doesn’t mean that it isn’t there.
Frankly other than KTD, I'm the only person who has pointed to aspects of the poetry. You're "Wow" in your first post didn't do it for me. I said there are elements to the poem which are good, and if no one points it out later in the week, I will.


None of the three people who posted comments before this response of yours (your “all” must refer to us) is mesmerised by the subject and your accusation that we are is crass. You then add that you don’t see anyone talking about the ‘poetics’. First of all, I posted a link to some criticism that does that more than adequately and therefore saw little point in adding my own.
Actually KTD has been fairly objective. No I didn't read the web site, if I get a chancce I will. But let me tell you, I'm not into group think. I know that criticism comes and goes. My master's thesis was on D.H. Lawrence and I can tell you critics got him horribly wrong for the first several decades after his death. Except for a stray comment or two, it's not worth reading any Lawrentain schorlarship published before the late sixties. So if they can be wrong about him and ultimately revise their thinking, a bunch of critics can be wrong about the Hecht poem. What is it you call it - ideology? I'm being as honest in my reading as posible. what's your fear, I may pursuade somebody?


Let me get this right – you wrote a poem similar in emotional intensity to...
No, I said emotionally charged.


Yes, and I once built a nuclear generator in my dad’s garden shed for a science classes. It didn’t actually work but it was very similar to ones that do.
:lol: That's funny. But you're not going to get me angry at you. I've seen your face now and you're not that intimidating. ;)


When you saw the documentary to which you refer, did you think to yourself, “Melodrama – might make a great movie – a maudlin movie”?
No, the form and aethetics were quite different. Same thing applies to your Levi and Weisell comment.


Who is claiming this? I’m not, PL isn’t, nor is ktd222.
What are you talking about. I quoted Petrarch making that claim right above my comment.


It appears in hymns and I’m sure there are Christians on the Forum who could give precise references for other examples of its use.
And I'm sure they're quite sincere and I'm sure Hecht is quite sincere. However it's still trite as poetry goes.


I find it quite sad that you have to resort to such tactics as this – my poet is better than your poet!
Oh come on, that's not what I'm doing. Comparison is a critical method.


God, I needed the bathos of that last addition.
Frankly I do think you wallow in bathos. A Freudian would have a field day with you.

[Virgil]

TU's comments about maintaining a sense of detachment, to whit, presenting the facts as facts, without additional colouration, make sense to me.
But that's not correct. He is coloring the narrative: "howled for the Kindly Light", "pitful dignity", "drained away their souls", "quivering chin". That's part of what's problematic.

[The Unnamable]

what's your fear, I may pursuade somebody?
I think that’s something I need never worry about.

[Petrarch's Love]

If picking an emotional subject is all it takes to write a great poem, then why don't we all write a poem about how Saddam Hussien gased the Kurds and we could all be published and great poets. Just selecting a Nazi horror scenario does not make a great poem. It's what you do with it. The "Crow" poem a few weeks back and just by memory I'm thinking of Sylvia Plath's "Mary's Song", also on similar subjects are way more artful than this. Frankly I don't see anyone talking about the poetics. You are all mesmorized by the subject. I remember writing a similarly emotionally charged poem when I was an undergrad in college, and frankly it was crap. But I picked a subject along these lines. Am I a great poet?

Virgil--I know that you had a very different reaction to this poem than I and some others did, but that doesn't mean you can assume that I, or anyone else is "mesmorized" by the subject to the extent that we can no longer be objective about the poem's merits as a literary work. I'm not going to say I didn't have a deeply emotional reaction to this poem, but I have a deeply emotional reaction to most good poetry I can think of. That's part of the purpose of poetry. I've certainly read other poems on this, or some similarly horrific subject which I have not felt were so moving and powerful as this one. I can think of things I've read which I have definately thought of as "melodramatic" or "maudlin" and which I am conscious of as depending upon a sensationalist quality to move the reader. If I had thought this poem fell into that category I would have had no problem making a statement to the effect that, while I found the subject a powerful and difficult one well worth our remembrance, I did not find the poetry itself very interesting. This was not the case with this poem for me. It may not be the most artistically brilliant poem I've ever come across, but I don't think it's lacking in artistic merit, or that it's basing itself upon melodrama.


Frankly other than KTD, I'm the only person who has pointed to aspects of the poetry.

I thought that I had begun addressing some of the poetic elements of this poem when I examined Hecht's use of the phrase "kindly light" and attempted to analyse the nature of the voice in the narrative, but you seem to claim I've been avoiding the poetics entirely in some sort of blindly overemotional response, so I'll try again:


So if I find other examples of poems that deal with horrific events and the poet finds the proper poetic language to express it, you'll admit your statement is wrong? It is a cop-out to claim that the subject matter is so horrific that he's forced as his only alternative to resort to maudlin, trite expressions.

You've missed my point entirely. I was not trying to claim that he is "forced as his only alternative to resort to maudlin, trite expressions." I was trying to say that he is intentionally using expressions that we might think of as trite, truisms in our day to day life, but using them in the context of some truly horrific events. I was interested in the way he is employing his language to create a certain effect. A phrase like the "kindly light," which comes from the refrain of a popular hymn, as well as having been used in much devotional poetry, only seems trite to us because it's something we take for granted as something we've hear over and over. In situations of extreeme horror, even situations of deep personal grief when a person doubts everything they had ever taken for granted as good in the world, such "trite" phrases suddenly take on new meaning. Have you ever noticed that Christians who pray when they are upset and afraid almost enevitably turn to the Lord's Prayer? They don't go into some long poetic discourse, they turn back to the simplicity of the words they learned by rote in Sunday school (I'm sure there are similar equivilants for other religions, I'm just not as familiar with other traditions). In a poem which revolves around the question of whether we can hold on to those good things we take for granted, I think the use of phrases we take for granted gives the poem a particular power and simplicity. Rather than trying to be more conspicously artful, which I think might come across as maudlin, Hecht chooses to employ sparing, simple phrases carefully juxtoposed with cold, hard fact.


Even "quivering chin?" Urgghh!

Yes, even "quivering chin." I'm not going to say it's my favorite line in the poem or anything, but I don't find it as awful as you do. Or maybe I should say that I do find it awful, but in a different way. It's a phrase which, on its own I can entirely see you labelling as melodramatic, but I find in the context of the poem that it comes off differently. It serves to break the momentum of the stanza. In the line before we've just heard that "much casual death had drained away their souls." I think a lot of people writing such a poem might have either stopped the thought with that line or tried in some way to go on describing what that means. The absurdly pitiful, almost maudlin, character of the phrase "quivering chin" insists upon bringing the poem back again to a baser level. What anyone would crave at this point in the description of a person being buried alive is the relief of some sort of elevation, some sort of larger perspective--maybe a further comment on the souls of the two jews, maybe some sort of narrative commentary--as a relief from the intensity of the situation. What we get instead is an extreme close up of a "quivering chin," that might, anywhere else seem almost comical. I think that the absurd, really ridiculous quality of the phrase reflects something absurd and repulsively ridiculous present in the scene itself.


Do you know what is so horrific about the second ritual that it drains the faith of the Jews? It's the 'casual' way in which the ritual is performed. Not in the name of God. Not because the person being condemned has acted in opposition to a divine set of laws. Just for the amusement of the Nazi guards.
A ritual without a religious function. How does one plead that they've done nothing to go in opposition to their God's laws if the ritual is without a religious basis? This is the very thing that the poem portrays to me.

I think KTD is on to something by saying the big difference between the episodes is the religious justification. I also think she's highlighting something important in saying that the "casual" nature of the Nazi episode is what gives it a greater sense of horror. I think the "casual" is very much at the heart of this poem--what we think of casually, what we say casually and what we say and do with true conviction. This is what I've been trying to get at in discussing the use of "trite" or "cliche" language in this poem. It is the language of religion, of sympathy, of human kindness which normally we casually take for granted that is at stake in this poem. There has been a reversal in this poem. Death is now the thing described of as "casual" and the belief in "light" of any kind is no longer something that can be casually asserted. The poem denies us the balm of an elevated language, forcing us to struggle to maintain even the most basic and cliched terms--things we just assume are safe and thus not worth considering--in the face of monstrous fact.


Side note: There is a passiveness recognizable in the latter ritual. As if it's not the guards themeselves that are carrying out these murders but parts of their uniform. Does this make sense to anyone?

Yes, KTD I had noticed that. There are some interesting perspectives on that in the essays Unnamable posted the link to. One critic read this as encouraging us to identify with the Nazi perpetrators. I had not immediately read it in that light myself, but when you think about it, this poem could very easily be seen from the perspective of the Nazi holding the lugar. All we really see of him is the gloved hand and the boot, just the way you would see yourself during this scene. I think it's interesting that everyone seems to assume there is more than one guard. Unless I missed something, there's no indication that there isn't just one single Nazi perpetrator.

[kilted exile]

Ok, I normally keep myself out of replying to these threads (never actually studied literature/poetry - only small knowledge about terminology etc), however I do read them - when I can follow what you are all talking about ;)

However, I have to say I really enjoyed this weeks poem. I disagree with Virgil I dont see it as trite at all, and I like the "quivering chin" image it allows me to visualize it perfectly.

[Shanna]

Why do I get the feeling that Shanna is Unnamable under a different log in? :lol: Perhaps because we are both equally incomprehensible to you?


Unfortuantely Hecht is striving for melodrama.Why do I get the feeling so often that you are talking out of your hat?


And even the narrative: The Pole switches places with the Jews, they bury him to his neck, they dig him out, and then he buries the Jews, and then they shoot him. Would make a great movie, a maudlin movie.Incidentally, Virgil, they do not shoot him. They are the two Jews, who by this time have been buried alive. So who shoots the Pole, Virgil? Surprise! Its the German officer! Bet you didn't realise there was a fourth character in the picture, did you? Who do you think has been holding the gun in his hand the whole time? Who do you think has been giving all these orders? Please re-read the poem on the basis of this last enlightening bit of information. I have nothing else to say to you. I just told you because I figured: if you're going to be slinging insults at something, you might as well know what its about, right?

[ktd222]

Incidentally, Virgil, they do not shoot him. They are the two Jews, who by this time have been buried alive. So who shoots the Pole, Virgil? Surprise! Its the German officer! Bet you didn't realise there was a fourth character in the picture, did you? Who do you think has been holding the gun in his hand the whole time? Who do you think has been giving all these orders? Please re-read the poem on the basis of this last enlightening bit of information. I have nothing else to say to you. I just told you because I figured: if you're going to be slinging insults at something, you might as well know what its about, right?

I don't think we're given any indication that anyone has been buried alive.
The Luger shoots the Pole, not the officer. The Luger is in the Glove, and the Glove is not specified to be worn by anyone.
A Voice gives the orders, again, not specified whom the Voice belongs to.

[Shanna]

Lu·ger n.
A German semiautomatic pistol introduced before World War I and widely used by German troops in World War II.

[The Unnamable]

Do you really believe this, ktd222? I mean, do you think that the gun itself rather than the person firing it should face a trial? Perhaps you think the glove is a disembodied entity floating around in space? Are malicious gloves the real reason for the extermination of six million human beings in gas chambers?

Apparently, there was a pair of satin mittens in the dock at Nuremberg.

[ktd222]

Lu·ger n.
A German semiautomatic pistol introduced before World War I and widely used by German troops in World War II.

So what? If Hecht did not say the German soldier was holding the Luger then how are you suppose to know? Hecht is introducing a passiveness for a reason.

[Shanna]

Do you really believe this, ktd222? I mean, do you think that the gun itself rather than the person firing it should face a trial? Perhaps you think the glove is a disembodied entity floating around in space? Are malicious gloves the real reason for the extermination of six million human beings in gas chambers?

Apparently, there was a pair of satin mittens in the dock at Nuremberg.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[Shanna]

So what? If Hecht did not say the German soldier was holding the Luger then how are you suppose to know? Hecht is introducing a passiveness for a reason.Have you heard of the term 'metonymy'?

[ktd222]

Do you really believe this, ktd222? I mean, do you think that the gun itself rather than the person firing it should face a trial? Perhaps you think the glove is a disembodied entity floating around in space? Are malicious gloves the real reason for the extermination of six million human beings in gas chambers?

Apparently, there was a pair of satin mittens in the dock at Nuremberg.

When did 'trial' come into play? I thought we are discussing the poetry introduced by Hecht in this poem.

[ktd222]

Have you heard of the term 'metonymy'?

Yes. Have you heard of the word 'assumption' and the phrase 'use what your given'?

[Shanna]

When did 'trial' come into play? I thought we are discussing the poetry introduced by Hecht in this poem.Ah. Right. Of course.

[Virgil]

Perhaps because we are both equally incomprehensible to you?

Why do I get the feeling so often that you are talking out of your hat?
Sorry to get offf on the wrong foot with you Shanna.
My first statement you quote, I was just being a little facetious. I don't think a little humor is that bad. The second quote I dispute. I gave quite a detailed presentation of my thinking, and frankly more detailed than anyone who likes the poem. If you wish to not talk out of your hat, you should take point by point my arguemnets and refute them. I don't see you doing that.

Incidentally, Virgil, they do not shoot him. They are the two Jews, who by this time have been buried alive. So who shoots the Pole, Virgil? Surprise! Its the German officer! Bet you didn't realise there was a fourth character in the picture, did you? Who do you think has been holding the gun in his hand the whole time? Who do you think has been giving all these orders? Please re-read the poem on the basis of this last enlightening bit of information. I have nothing else to say to you. I just told you because I figured: if you're going to be slinging insults at something, you might as well know what its about, right?
Sorry if I messed up the antecedants of my pronouns. I am quite aware there is at least one Nazi (I prefer to use that term rather than German; I don't wish to disparge a whole people) officer. I don't think I flung any insults at the poem. I said there were good elements to it that if no one points out by the end of the week I will. I said I am in sympathy with Hecht's moral point. It's just my appraisal of the poem is not as high as everyone else's.

[ktd222]

Sorry to get offf on the wrong foot with you Shanna.
My first statement you quote, I was just being a little facetious. I don't think a little humor is that bad. The second quote I dispute. I gave quite a detailed presentation of my thinking, and frankly more detailed than anyone who likes the poem. If you wish to not talk out of your hat, you should take point by point my arguemnets and refute them. I don't see you doing that.

Hey, its only Tuesday.

[The Unnamable]

So what? If Hecht did not say the German soldier was holding the Luger then how are you suppose to know? Hecht is introducing a passiveness for a reason.
Okay, I can see where you are coming from but you are pushing it to ridiculous extremes. It doesn’t say that a one-armed Colobus monkey from Glasgow is holding the gun, either. Should we consider it as a serious possibility?

[Virgil]

Do you really believe this, ktd222? I mean, do you think that the gun itself rather than the person firing it should face a trial? Perhaps you think the glove is a disembodied entity floating around in space? Are malicious gloves the real reason for the extermination of six million human beings in gas chambers?

Apparently, there was a pair of satin mittens in the dock at Nuremberg.
That being said, ktd does have a point. I don't know the significance of why Hecht phrases it this way (and given all the melodram I point out in the poem, it is not beyond question to think that this is more melodrama, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt for now) but it is very consciously done.

[ktd222]

Okay, I can see where you are coming from but you are pushing it to ridiculous extremes. It doesn’t say that a one-armed Colobus monkey from Glasgow is holding the gun, either. Should we consider it as a serious possibility?

I'm just trying to see what Hecht has created by doing this.
Maybe it does have to do with the Nazi soldier, but to a lesser extent, or else he would have included the Nazi with a more prominent role in the poem, say, the actual body of the Nazi?

[Shanna]

That being said, ktd does have a point. I don't know the significance of why Hecht phrases it this way (and given all the melodram I point out in the poem, it is not beyond question to think that this is more melodrama, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt for now) but it is very consciously done.I'm still trying to work out what you could possibly mean by an argument as garbled as this.

[The Unnamable]

I'm just trying to see what Hecht has created by doing this.

Your question has already been answered above. He uses metonymy for a reason. This is Ellen Miller Casey, not Shanna:

“It condemns the German soldier by its amazing use of metonymy and the passive voice. The soldier is a void, to be inferred only from a Luger and its glove and a riding boot.”

Like a nicely fitting glove, that pretty much covers it. The officer has no shred of humanity – he is nothing more than the murderous ideology represented by the uniform in which he stands. He has become something less than human. Besides, if you were the Pole, what would you look at?

[Shanna]

Would make a great movie, a maudlin movie. And it might not be a bad movie, but a movie or a novel has space to develop character and in the words of one of my creative writing teachers "earn" the emotion. That's why Tolstoy in his large novels can get away with melodrama, there is enough space to develop it. And that's why a greeting card sounds so trite, there is no space to develop, I prefer to use the word "earn", the emotion. Here in 32 lines you have not one, but two vague stick figure melodramas that don't earn the emotion that's packed here.Exactly WHAT MELODRAMA are you going on about? And no, a greeting card does not sound trite because there is no space for development, you could have it go on for miles and it would still be as nauseating. It is trite because the idea at its core is a cliche, because it is based entirely on cheap values. There is no emotion packed there. It is hollow. It is not the volume of poetry that overcomes that limitation, but an awareness of the abyss between what is genuine and what is contrived. You, obviously, don't have any such awareness, so exactly what right do you have to call Hecht's poem trite?

[The Unnamable]

If you are still there, kilted exile, the Colobus monkey from Glasgow was not in any way meant as a slur on your good self. :D

[ktd222]

Your question has already been answered above. He uses metonymy for a reason. This is Ellen Miller Casey, not Shanna:

“It condemns the German soldier by its amazing use of metonymy and the passive voice. The soldier is a void, to be inferred only from a Luger and its glove and a riding boot.”

Like a nicely fitting glove, that pretty much covers it. The officer has no shred of humanity – he is nothing more than the murderous ideology represented by the uniform in which he stands. He has become something less than human. Besides, if you were the Pole, what would you look at?

I don't see him just condemning the soldierl. I see the 'act', and yes, I see how horrible it is, but I don't see the Nazi soldier as part of what Hecht is trying to convey in the poem. This may be more of the poem's purpose:

No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.

[The Unnamable]

I don't know the significance of why Hecht phrases it this way
Now that, I agree with.


and given all the melodram I point out in the poem,
:lol: You gotta love it.

[The Unnamable]

I don't see the Nazi soldier as part of what Hecht is trying to convey in the poem.
You don’t think Hecht has any beef with Nazis? :eek2:

[ktd222]

You don’t think Hecht has any beef with Nazis? :eek2:
I don't care. I don't think he cares about the Nazis, at least not in this poem. I think he only cares about the victims.

[Shanna]

Except for a stray comment or two, it's not worth reading any Lawrentain schorlarship published before the late sixties. So if they can be wrong about him and ultimately revise their thinking, a bunch of critics can be wrong about the Hecht poem. What is it you call it - ideology? Oh, and I take it you're the best judge of that?
That is the full extent of your argument? If they were wrong about Lawrence, they can sure as hell be wrong about Hecht - and that's supposed to convince anyone here?

what's your fear, I may pursuade somebody? :lol: :lol: :lol:

[The Unnamable]

I don't care. I don't think he cares about the Nazis, at least not in this poem. I think he only cares about the victims.
He might not care for them but he certainly cares about them.

When in a hole....

[ktd222]

He might not care for them but he certainly cares about them.

When in a hole....

Not in this poem.

[ShoutGrace]

I don't see him just condemning the soldierl. I see the 'act', and yes, I see how horrible it is, but I don't see the Nazi soldier as part of what Hecht is trying to convey in the poem. This may be more of the poem's purpose:

No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.

I agree with this. I think that the Nazi soldier plays a part just as the others, but part of the poem's purpose - and the aspect that struck me most forcefully - is the description (accusation?) of the fact that not only was the act allowed, without any 'saving' light, but that the act was also 'unremembered', almost. Unremembered is not the word I want to use, however. 'No prayers or incense rose. . . '. There is a word which sums up that feeling but my head isn't working right now.

[Shanna]

Unremembered is not the word I want to use, however. 'No prayers or incense rose. . . '. There is a word which sums up that feeling but my head isn't working right now.Dictionary.com says there is no such word as 'uncommemorated', which I find funny.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Dictionary.com says there is no such word as 'uncommemorated', which I find funny.

I think there used to be such a word but nobody bothered to write down anything about it. It's buried in an unmarked sentence somewhere.

[ShoutGrace]

I think there used to be such a word but nobody bothered to write down anything about it. It's buried in an unmarked sentence somewhere.

:lol: :lol:



Dictionary.com says there is no such word as 'uncommemorated', which I find funny.

So do you agree, Shanna? With my thought, that is.

[Shanna]

There lies the difference between the two incidents described in the poem, and perhaps the purpose of the juxtaposition - that in the first, there are people around who ensure that the burning man was:

Permitted at least his pitiful dignity;
And such as were by made prayers in the name of Christ,
That shall judge all men, for his soul's tranquility.

Whereas in the second incident, there's no one. The Pole bled to death alone, unremembered, uncommemorated, nobody prayed for his soul and his body lay there for years afterwards, gathering soot. PL, in her first or second post about this poem, said somewhere that nothing's changed, in all these years. But I think the poet's point is that it has changed. Its grown worse.

[The Unnamable]

ktd222, do I have this right? In this poem Hecht doesn’t care about the Nazi soldier? The fact that he has portrayed him as behaving with almost incomprehensible, unfathomable cruelty should not be taken as any indication that, in this particular poem (which Hecht has dedicated to Hannah Arendt), he is at all concerned with his behaviour? Is the soldier in any way responsible for his actions? Is he merely a victim of Nazi ideology, just like the people he buries alive or shoots?

Shout Grace,
You agree with ktd222’s comments (at least the ones you quoted). You also “don't see the Nazi soldier as part of what Hecht is trying to convey in the poem”. My own explanation for those last four lines appears to be different from yours (I think – I’m not really sure what you are saying). I think that there are no prayers or incense because there is no loving God. At the risk of offering more trite, maudlin and melodramatic bathos that only serves to demonstrate my desperate need for psychiatric treatment (an ad hominem comment that our reliable mods appear to have missed), I’ll quote Elie Wiesel’s Night:

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my Faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.”

Elie Wiesel Night

Obviously, Hecht isn’t simply saying that all the evil in the world is the result of one lone Nazi soldier - but surely you can’t believe that the poet ignores or even exonerates him? Of course it’s not about blaming an individual soldier – Hecht doesn’t individualise him, but to say that “the Nazi soldier” is not a “part of what Hecht is trying to convey in the poem” is rather extreme, wouldn’t you say?

[ktd222]

I think we've all keyed on one of the poetic elements in use in this poem: passive voice. In this way, Hecht is able to focus our attention on the vivid horror in detail about what the Jews had to grow through, and at the same time, exclude the perpetrator from this act, as far as 'face time' and our attention is concerned. At first reading I also saw Nazis associated with these torturings being carring out on the Jews, but after further re-readings I found the Nazi(edit) purposefully absent from the poem. I obviously can't identify(emotionally) with a boot, or luger, or eye, but I can definitley identify with human beings.

[ShoutGrace]

Obviously, Hecht isn’t simply saying that all the evil in the world is the result of one lone Nazi soldier - but surely you can’t believe that the poet ignores or even exonerates him? Of course it’s not about blaming an individual soldier – Hecht doesn’t individualise him, but to say that “the Nazi soldier” is not a “part of what Hecht is trying to convey in the poem” is rather extreme, wouldn’t you say?

I think that it would be. I more than likely misrelated my thoughts. I was saying that in my reading of the poem, the fact that the divine intervention did not occur, that no 'saving' interference burst through and onto the scene, and the author's reiteration of that fact, are what affected me most deeply.


I think that there are no prayers or incense because there is no loving God.

As it relates to the author's intent, right? Meaning that both Hecht (implicitly), and Wiesel (explicitly), declared the absence (or disproof?) of God in these two works?


---EDIT--- Oh, are you saying that the 'prayers and incense' constitutes the act of divine interference that never took place?


Yes, the thrust of this poem is not based on the concerns about the Nazi soldier.

I think that I do agree with that. I think that the author is 'calling out' both the acts and the lack of providence. At least more so than the soldier.

[ktd222]

ktd222, do I have this right? In this poem Hecht doesn’t care about the Nazi soldier? The fact that he has portrayed him as behaving with almost incomprehensible, unfathomable cruelty should not be taken as any indication that, in this particular poem (which Hecht has dedicated to Hannah Arendt), he is at all concerned with his behaviour? Is the soldier in any way responsible for his actions? Is he merely a victim of Nazi ideology, just like the people he buries alive or shoots?

Yes, the thrust of this poem is not based on the concerns about the Nazi soldier.

[Scheherazade]

More Light! More Light!
For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt

Composed in the Tower before his execution
These moving verses, and being brought at that time
Painfully to the stake, submitted, declaring thus:
"I implore my God to witness that I have made no crime."

Nor was he forsaken of courage, but the death was horrible,
The sack of gunpowder failing to ignite.
His legs were blistered sticks on which the black sap
Bubbled and burst as he howled for the Kindly Light.

And that was but one, and by no means one of the worst;
Permitted at least his pitiful dignity;
And such as were by made prayers in the name of Christ,
That shall judge all men, for his soul's tranquility.

We move now to outside a German wood.
Three men are there commanded to dig a hole
In which the two Jews are ordered to lie down
And be buried alive by the third, who is a Pole.

Not light from the shrine at Weimar beyond the hill
Nor light from heaven appeared. But he did refuse.
A Luger settled back deeply in its glove.
He was ordered to change places with the Jews.

Much casual death had drained away their souls.
The thick dirt mounted toward the quivering chin.
When only the head was exposed the order came
To dig him out again and to get back in.

No light, no light in the blue Polish eye.
When he finished a riding boot packed down the earth.
The Luger hovered lightly in its glove.
He was shot in the belly and in three hours bled to death.

No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.

-Anthony HechtMoving the poem to the present page.

This is the first time I come across this poem so without any prior impressions: I find this poem somewhat detached but not lacking commitment or emotional depth. It makes me feel as if I am looking at some photos or watching those events through some camera lens; seeing only where camera is directed (the glove, the lugger, the boot, the chin, blistered legs...). Of course, there is someone holding that camera and my view of the scenes are limited with their directions.

Even though as a 'viewer', we can only see the things Hecht is pointing at, I don't think that he is putting the words into the reader's mouth either. I keep thinking that if I was watching this scene, this is how I would have described them had I been asked to be 'objective' (I am not claiming poetic grandiose here, which I have none, but simply saying that, in my opinion, the poet achieves to describe what he sees, without resorting to colourful adjectives etc). In the light of this description, I feel it is up to me, as a reader, to decide how I feel about all this and take a stand if necessary.

I agree with ktd that the change between the two scenes is very striking and one of the most noteworthy things in the poem, in my opinion. However, Hecht's purposeful detachment, while not lacking emotion, gets the first prize, I believe.

[Virgil]

“It condemns the German soldier by its amazing use of metonymy and the passive voice. The soldier is a void, to be inferred only from a Luger and its glove and a riding boot.”

Like a nicely fitting glove, that pretty much covers it. The officer has no shred of humanity – he is nothing more than the murderous ideology represented by the uniform in which he stands. He has become something less than human. Besides, if you were the Pole, what would you look at?
I agree with this. Also the nice fitting glove suggests the efficiency of the Nazi.

[Virgil]

Exactly WHAT MELODRAMA are you going on about? And no, a greeting card does not sound trite because there is no space for development, you could have it go on for miles and it would still be as nauseating. It is trite because the idea at its core is a cliche, because it is based entirely on cheap values.
Cheap values like love or honoring your mother or father or congratulating someone for a rite of passage? If you consider those cheap, I wonder what your core values are. They are trite becuase they have been deflated of individuality, not because they are cheap.

[Virgil]

Obviously, Hecht isn’t simply saying that all the evil in the world is the result of one lone Nazi soldier - but surely you can’t believe that the poet ignores or even exonerates him? Of course it’s not about blaming an individual soldier – Hecht doesn’t individualise him, but to say that “the Nazi soldier” is not a “part of what Hecht is trying to convey in the poem” is rather extreme, wouldn’t you say?
ktd, I have to agree with Unnamable here. The Nazi soldier is part of the drama. But you know you had me thinking about the ritual aspect to the drama you brought up earlier. I'm beginning to agree. The drama has a feeling of a choreographed ritual. In a religious ritual, say like the conversion of bread and wine to the body and blood of Christ every Sunday morning, the power behind the ritual is the Godhead itself. In Hecht's little drama, the "god in the machine" if you will, the power behind the ritual, is not really the Nazi soldier, but the Luger. And so the image of the Luger is paramount to that of the soldier.

I'm beginning to really like your understanding of what's transpiring as ritual.

[Petrarch's Love]

Since it's become an issue, I thought I'd quote my earlier response to KTD's initial mention of the disembodied nazi (I think the comments got lost in an overly long post in which I tried to respond to too much at once :lol: ):


Yes, KTD I had noticed that. There are some interesting perspectives on that in the essays Unnamable posted the link to. One critic read this as encouraging us to identify with the Nazi perpetrator. I had not immediately read it in that light myself, but when you think about it, this poem could very easily be seen from the perspective of the Nazi holding the lugar. All we really see of him is the gloved hand and the boot, just the way you would see yourself during this scene. Imagine that this is being filmed. The camera, which you the reader are looking through, would be positioned from the point of view of the Nazi holding the lugar.

Whether you buy this argument or not I think it points to one reason for the minimalist description of the Nazi. Hecht doesn't want it to be an individual with a face who we can direct our hatred against. He's making it clear that the Nazi could be anyone who could wear a glove and boots. I think KTD is partly right in that this poem is not concerned with one individual Nazi soldier. It is, however, very much concened with Nazis (not chimps from Glasgow :D).

[Petrarch's Love]

Cheap values like love or honoring your mother or father or congratulating someone for a rite of passage? If you consider those cheap, I wonder what your core values are. They are trite becuase they have been deflated of individuality, not because they are cheap.

Virg--I think in your response to Shanna you've hit on what makes the "trite" phrases of this poem work. What I tried to argue earlier (at too long length?) was that it is not the individual phrase, but the context of the phrase that makes it "trite." In this poem these phrases are being individualized. They are brought to bear in the context of two situations where they represent the sorts of "core values" you describe. They are reinvested with the individuality and meaning that makes them significant rather than maudlin.

[The Unnamable]

Yes, the thrust of this poem is not based on the concerns about the Nazi soldier.
To which question is ‘yes’ a reply? You can play with semantics all you want but there is no doubt in my mind that Hecht is bothered by Nazis and I take the poem’s title to be significant. No one appears to have mentioned/ considered the title yet.

If you know some History, you will know that Weimar was considered the birthplace of Humanism. Goethe’s dying words (and I don’t want to get into a debate about whether or not these actually were his dying words; Hecht has used them as if they were) are a plea for enlightened humanism but in this poem, there is no “light from the shrine at Weimar beyond the hill”. The poem insistently excludes the possibility of the moral light of either God or Humanism:

“Not light from the shrine at Weimar”
“Nor light from heaven”
“No light, no light in the blue Polish eye”
“And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.”

The light of humanism is not only denied but also replaced by physical and moral darkness. That this appalling event takes place near Weimar makes it all the more terrible in Hecht's eyes. The Nazis held rallies in the National Theatre at Weimar as early as the mid 1920s.


Oh, are you saying that the 'prayers and incense' constitutes the act of divine interference that never took place?
I’m saying that there is no loving God – neither in the poem nor in my view of things. The world we inhabit is, as the comment from Kent in King Lear goes, “cheerless, dark and deadly.”

[Petrarch's Love]

I agree with almost all of what you say and this isn’t nitpicking for the sake of it but when you say that “nothing has changed”, I would argue that, horribly, it has. Which one of the deaths in the poem strikes people as the worst and why?

PL, in her first or second post about this poem, said somewhere that nothing's changed, in all these years. But I think the poet's point is that it has changed. Its grown worse.

Since this came up twice I thought I'd respond (that is unless Virg's suggestion that you're one and the same sticks :D ). You're both right of course. In the context of the poem things have gotten worse. Maybe it would have occured to me to say so if I hadn't been reading Titus Andronicus for class at the time (it's been a cheery week of reading), but somehow in that context it seemed as though human nature itself hadn't changed as much as the efficiency of their methods. But I digress. You're absolutely right in the context of this poem, and I ought to have said as much. I think KTD is right in pointing to the lack of social and religious recognition as the key factor in setting up the second scene as even more horrific. I think there's also something more terrifying about the fact that it's psychologically and spiritually devastating. You always imagine that your comfort in such a situation would be that they can harm the body but never your inner core. In the Nazi situation the victims are stripped of everything.

[Virgil]

Virg--I think in your response to Shanna you've hit on what makes the "trite" phrases of this poem work. What I tried to argue earlier (at too long length?) was that it is not the individual phrase, but the context of the phrase that makes it "trite." In this poem these phrases are being individualized. They are brought to bear in the context of two situations where they represent the sorts of "core values" you describe. They are reinvested with the individuality and meaning that makes them significant rather than maudlin.
Yes, I understood that when you made your argument before. However, I still think it's a cop-out on the poet's part to resort to trite phrases. The trite phrases may add this layer to the poem that you point out, but it's still not poetry, at least those phrases. He could have made the same point with original lines.

[The Unnamable]

unless Virg's suggestion that you're one and the same sticks :D
Don’t you start as well! Shanna is clever but, well…

While I’m here – you made an outrageous claim earlier that everyone had assumed there was more than one Nazi – I didn’t and I demand an apology. Also, a Colobus monkey is NOT a chimp. Chimps are apes – monkeys aren’t, although both are Primates. You should know that as an expert in Renaissance Literature. Why does everyone misquote me?

(Do I really need to use a smiley?)

[Petrarch's Love]

He could have made the same point with original lines.

He could not have made the same point with original lines. Original lines would not have resonated within the reader in the same way, as things that we've heard over and over again. Using the title of a well known hymn is going to have a much different effect on someone who's familiar with that hymn than anything the poet could have come up with.

[Petrarch's Love]

Don’t you start as well! Shanna is clever but, well…

While I’m here – you made an outrageous claim earlier that everyone had assumed there was more than one Nazi – I didn’t and I demand an apology.

Alas! I had no idea I'd fallen into the trap of generalization! Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! My apologies, since I obviously meant everyone except The Unnamable One.


Also, a Colobus monkey is NOT a chimp. Chimps are apes – monkeys aren’t, although both are Primates.
And alas once more! Please pardon my innacuracy. I am but a humble mortal primate myself.


You should know that as an expert in Renaissance Literature. Why does everyone misquote me?

Because it's such fun?


(Do I really need to use a smiley?)

No more than I do I hope.

[ktd222]

To which question is ‘yes’ a reply?


ktd222, do I have this right? In this poem Hecht doesn’t care about the Nazi soldier? The fact that he has portrayed him as behaving with almost incomprehensible, unfathomable cruelty should not be taken as any indication that, in this particular poem (which Hecht has dedicated to Hannah Arendt), he is at all concerned with his behaviour? Is the soldier in any way responsible for his actions? Is he merely a victim of Nazi ideology, just like the people he buries alive or shoots?

Aren't all of your questions here concerning the Nazi soldier?

[Virgil]

He could not have made the same point with original lines. Original lines would not have resonated within the reader in the same way, as things that we've heard over and over again. Using the title of a well known hymn is going to have a much different effect on someone who's familiar with that hymn than anything the poet could have come up with.
I said I could have accepted "Kindly Light" if it was the only melodramatic phrase. But what about : "drained away their souls", "quivering chin", "pityful dignity"?

[Shanna]

Don’t you start as well! Shanna is clever but, well…BUT WELL WHAT, EXACTLY..?

[Isagel]

I can't say I like this poem. But I doubt its purpose is to be liked.

At first I had the same reaction. I did not like this. I also found myself saying things like - "well, it gives a reaction, but is it really poetry? It seems like more like prose. And I am not sure if I think it is good". Now, don´t hit me. I have given it careful thought and I think that it was a reaction to the documentary style, but also something caused by the emotions of the poem.
Hecht writes about things that are repulsive, and I think that my first response was a reaction to that. I was repulsed, and I guess that is what he wanted.

We all like to believe in a kindly light, or some last dignity. In this poem as PL wrote there is none.

If you have patience I will tell you an anecdote. It is related to the poem.
I was traveling in Germany, and came across a small town. It was fit for a postcard. They made good wine there and we had to much before deciding to go and try to visit the castle on the hill. The castle was not for visitors, but on the way half hidden was a small grave yard. The sign said that this was a resting place all all who died during the second world war in this small town. Jews, soldiers, prisoners of war, children and adults. Side by side. There was a poem on the wall. It was about brothers torn from brothers, and how heaven would at last "open the heart of peace". And it seemed like a closure at the time. A kind comfort, while looking at the lush trees and the lovely valley. And Hecht shows it to be a lie. There is no kindly light in this death. Just fear that breaks people as easily as bullets. We cry for light and get fire that turns our bones to ashes. And then we are gone, and the heaven does not open.

"No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot."

[ktd222]

Anyhow, when Hecht states 'much casual death had drained away their souls,' I don't think that the draining away of their souls is only as a result of the ritual being performed by the Nazi guard without a religious basis on his part, but also the opportunity given to the victim to speak to his god.
In the first ritual the victim is permitted this 'pitiful dignity':And such as were by made prayers in the name of Christ,/That shall judge all men, for his soul's tranquility.
While in the latter ritual the opportunity for prayer is not even given: No prayers or incense rose up in those hours

And I think this gets to the matter of the poem: that prayers are in some way needed to acknowledge to Christ that one believes in Him; therefore, Christ will judge all men's fate based on the victim's soul's tranquility.

So the last paragraph goes as follows:
No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.

The prayer or incense is what rises up to speak with God. Just as in the beginning paragraph when Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt composed 'these moving verses,' the verses is itself an acknowledgement of Christ, as well what moves up and speaks directly with Christ for you.
There is movement in this poem!
And in the end I think that part of the victim, the 'acknowledging part', is what has drained away.
And in the same way, this is why the 'Ghosts from the ovens' at the end are mute. Because the opportunity for acknowledgment of Christ in life(aloud) is lost by not standing behind one's faith and speaking up.
Therefore you have this cycle at the end of the poem where the Ghost continually seem to try to rise, but instead sift down through crisp air, 'and settle upon his eyes in a black soot.' The ghosts themselves have, in a way, lost the 'light', and now is described as 'black soot'; which incidently is what is covering the Polish eye from seeing light.

PS: tell me where I'm rambling and I will try to clear up my thoughts.

[kilted exile]

If you are still there, kilted exile, the Colobus monkey from Glasgow was not in any way meant as a slur on your good self. :D

Indeed not after all there are few monkeys in glasgow, however, there are many uneducated apes but most of them prefer primitive weapons such as hammers and sharpened golf clubs to the confusing gun with all its moving parts.

(just as a point of reference, in glasgow terminology I would be refered to as a "hun", strange eh?)

[Petrarch's Love]

I said I could have accepted "Kindly Light" if it was the only melodramatic phrase. But what about : "drained away their souls", "quivering chin", "pityful dignity"?

In one of my earlier posts I addressed how I thought at least one of these lines, the "quivering chin," worked as an example of a purposeful rejection of more elevated language in this poem. It's sometimes not really a matter of what phrases a poet is using as much as the way he/she is employing them, and I think that what others have been referring to as "documentary style" diction works well towards creating the effect this poet is striving toward. I simply don't feel that they're melodramatic lines and you do. I suppose we may just have to leave it at that. I'd be interested in hearing what you liked about this poem though, since you said earlier that there were some things you thought good.

[The Unnamable]

Ktd222,
Why is it that the Jews do not hesitate in burying the Pole alive even after he has taken a stance by refusing to do the same with them? The answer Hecht provides is that “much casual death had drained away their souls”, which I take to mean that they are so desensitised by the treatment they have previously received as members of a race that has been systematically annihilated, so brutalised that they have no core values of decency left. They are utterly broken. The only thing that I see in this poem that could be described as trite is the offering of religious condolence.


The prayer or incense is what rises up to speak with God. Just as in the beginning paragraph when Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt composed 'these moving verses,' the verses is itself an acknowledgement of Christ, as well what moves up and speaks directly with Christ for you.
There is movement in this poem!
I have no idea what you mean here. First of all, Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt did not compose any verses (at least not in this poem – I have no idea if they wrote limericks to each other in private). They are two people to whom Hecht has dedicated his poem. Do you actually read what people post? I provided information about them in #946. They are not participants in the poem, if that is what the garbled comments above are actually saying. Earlier you said, “If Hecht did not say the German soldier was holding the Luger then how are you suppose (sic) to know?” and then added, “Have you heard of the word 'assumption' and the phrase 'use what your (sic) given'?” Correct me if I am wrong but you appear to be saying that we should only focus on what is provided in the poem. Yet now you have no qualms about making a statement like “the Ghost (sic) continually seem to try to rise”. Where is the evidence for this? What does it mean, anyway? Are you suggesting in some way that Hecht’s purpose in this poem is to show us the true way to God and offer us some kind of religious hope? There is no hope offered. All light has been extinguished, which is why I said that I found the poem unanswerable.

Your comments lead me to believe that you have read the critics in the links I posted above. May I suggest you read them again but this time make understanding them your focus, rather than simply trying to ransack them for an argument.

[ktd222]

Ktd222Your comments lead me to believe that you have read the critics in the links I posted above. May I suggest you read them again but this time make understanding them your focus, rather than simply trying to ransack them for an argument.

I have read none of the sort. I've contributed to a lot of poems in this thread and not only to the ones analyzed by the site you suggest-which makes me think your the one who goes on the internet and finds an answer that matches yours before you give people the post to the site.

[ktd222]

Ktd222,
Why is it that the Jews do not hesitate in burying the Pole alive even after he has taken a stance by refusing to do the same with them? The answer Hecht provides is that “much casual death had drained away their souls”, which I take to mean that they are so desensitised by the treatment they have previously received as members of a race that has been systematically annihilated, so brutalised that they have no core values of decency left. They are utterly broken. The only thing that I see in this poem that could be described as trite is the offering of religious condolence.

Geez, look who is analyzing the poem like it's a history report.

[ktd222]

Ktd222 I have no idea what you mean here. First of all, Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt did not compose any verses (at least not in this poem – I have no idea if they wrote limericks to each other in private). They are two people to whom Hecht has dedicated his poem. Do you actually read what people post?
Good, you focus on that background information and not the poem.

How else would you read the opening lines:
For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt
Composed in the Tower before his execution
These moving verses,

[ktd222]

Ktd222
Do you actually read what people post? I provided information about them in #946. They are not participants in the poem, if that is what the garbled comments above are actually saying. Earlier you said, “If Hecht did not say the German soldier was holding the Luger then how are you suppose (sic) to know?” and then added, “Have you heard of the word 'assumption' and the phrase 'use what your (sic) given'?” Correct me if I am wrong but you appear to be saying that we should only focus on what is provided in the poem. Yet now you have no qualms about making a statement like “the Ghost (sic) continually seem to try to rise”. Where is the evidence for this? What does it mean, anyway? Are you suggesting in some way that Hecht’s purpose in this poem is to show us the true way to God and offer us some kind of religious hope? There is no hope offered. All light has been extinguished, which is why I said that I found the poem unanswerable.

Ya, I read your post, with a spark of analysis here and there, and then your posts were drowned in useless information.
Why don't you read these lines from the poem:
No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.
Its all there. And what is going on in this last stanza correlates back to the first ritual. I'm really sorry you can't see the movement in the poem.

There is hope offered. The person with 'legs were blistered sticks on which the black sap bubbled and burst' seems to still hold firm to his 'faith' in the midst of all the pain the person is experiencing.

But the Jews also seem to go through a sort of horrific ending to their lives, yet I don't hear any of them reaffirming and standing behind their faith.

[The Unnamable]

Good, you focus on that background information and not the poem.

How else would you read the opening lines:
For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt
Composed in the Tower before his execution
These moving verses,

First of all, I wouldn’t set it out differently from the way the poet has done:

More Light! More Light!
For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt

Composed in the Tower before his execution

Then I would consider the possibility that Composed could be an adjective as well as a verb.


I have read none of the sort.
Perhaps you should consider doing so?


-which makes me think your the one who goes on the internet and finds an answer that matches yours before you give people the post to the site.
I don’t need to go searching for anything other than the verbatim quotations (I like to offer accurate quotation): I’ve read a lot of books, you see.


Geez, look who is analyzing the poem like it's a history report.
The fact that Hecht has dedicated his poem to two actual historical characters, has quoted the dying words of a third and bases his poem on a historical event is obviously irrelevant and a poem about the atrocities of the Holocaust should equally obviously not consider historical reality – poems exist in an ahistorical, aesthetic void, don’t they?

As I said earlier, when in a hole…

[Isagel]

No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.
Its all there. And what is going on in this last stanza correlates back to the first ritual. I'm really sorry you can't see the movement in the poem.

There is hope offered. The person with 'legs were blistered sticks on which the black sap bubbled and burst' seems to still hold firm to his 'faith' in the midst of all the pain the person is experiencing.


It is strange. We quote the same part and get different lessons from it.
I thought that the idea was that hope did not help him, faith did not help because no kind light came, and that the last stanza confirms that lack of hope. I thought the poems title asking for light was an echo of his plea.
So I can´t see the movement you refer to - at least not in the same way as you do.

[The Unnamable]

and then your posts were drowned in useless information.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I'm sure Hecht would agree with you. That's why he bothered to mention Arendt and quote Goethe.

Miss Jones, take a letter:

“Dear Mr. Hecht, I liked your poem but where are the similes and metaphors, where is the onomatopoeia, where is the opportunity to reduce it to a technical exercise in literary criticism? I’ve just learned how to scan poetry but you blind me with historical information. How do you expect me to sound clever when you insist on mentioning such useless things? Still, it’s a nice poem about hope.”

[ktd222]

First of all, I wouldn’t set it out differently from the way the poet has done:

More Light! More Light!
For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt

Composed in the Tower before his execution

Then I would consider the possibility that Composed could be an adjective as well as a verb.
The same poem that I printed out has those two lines above as part of the same stanza.



Perhaps you should consider doing so?
No, seems to have messed you up pretty good.


I don’t need to go searching for anything other than the verbatim quotations (I like to offer accurate quotation): I’ve read a lot of books, you see.
Wow, good for you buddy...and?



The fact that Hecht has dedicated his poem to two actual historical characters, has quoted the dying words of a third and bases his poem on a historical event is obviously irrelevant and a poem about the atrocities of the Holocaust should equally obviously not consider historical reality – poems exist in an ahistorical, aesthetic void, don’t they?

As I said earlier, when in a hole…
As I showed in my post, the copy I have have the two lines you mentioned in the same stanza which changes the meaning of the opening lines.
If I look at the poem with the opening two lines as is, then yes, the poem becomes a dedication; but that still doesn't take away that it's 'moving verses'.
Yes, it is irrelevant. It's a poem, and poems have poetic elements: thats what I'm looking for more than background information.

[The Unnamable]

Yes, it is irrelevant. It's a poem, and poems have poetic elements: thats what I'm looking for more than background information.
That hole just keeps getting bigger - you'll soon be through to the Earth's core. Be careful your shovel doesn't melt. :D

[The Unnamable]

I thought that the idea was that hope did not help him, faith did not help because no kind light came, and that the last stanza confirms that lack of hope. I thought the poems title asking for light was an echo of his plea.

And in this you are right, of course.

[ktd222]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I'm sure Hecht would agree with you. That's why he bothered to mention Arendt and quote Goethe.

Miss Jones, take a letter:

“Dear Mr. Hecht, I liked your poem but where are the similes and metaphors, where is the onomatopoeia, where is the opportunity to reduce it to a technical exercise in literary criticism? I’ve just learned how to scan poetry but you blind me with historical information. How do you expect me to sound clever when you insist on mentioning such useless things? Still, it’s a nice poem about hope.”

Where is Goethe in the poem?
Yes, I think he would appreciate a person who is able to see what type of poetic elements he uses.

[ktd222]

I’ve just learned how to scan poetry but you blind me with historical information. How do you expect me to sound clever when you insist on mentioning such useless things? Still, it’s a nice poem about hope.”

Its sad to say but what I've just learned about poetry seems to be more than you know about poetry.