PoemoftheWeek

Wow, there's been a lot written here since I last checked in. I'm learning a lot about Stevens--super.

I agree with much in the analyses already provided. The thing that keeps bugging me in this poem is why exactly forms have vanished for the Hoon in the third stanza. I somehow feel that this is some key point I am missing. I understand how the passing of the waltz is in some ways the passing of one generation's music soon to be replaced by "some harmonius sceptic soon in some skeptical music" in an "epic of disbelief." But the fact that the forms of the Hoon have vanished as well as the form and order of those who relied on the company of others, seems to indicate not only the loss of the waltz as a social kind of music but the loss of the imagination, almost of music itself. The Hoon did not depend on people, so the loss of the waltz should not affect his forms, which one assumes are the forms created in his own mind. All the same "his forms have vanished." Everything is lost, even the music of the individual? Is this because he has been forced into the company of the mob searching for order? Is he a sort of solitary ivory tower poet whose inward forms have been shattered by the reality of the masses?

By the way, Unnamable, you've got the song "Waltzing Matilda" stuck in my head now. :lol: Oh well, before that it was the waltz from Lehar's "The Merry Widow." I'm obviously taking this poem way too literally.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Managed to find one, then? ;)
Come on now, Virgil. I wasn’t trying to trash Stevens and enthrone a British poet in his place. :lol: I did make it perfectly clear that I was only referring to this particular poem. I also said that I like some of his stuff. For you he is one of the top poets of the twentieth century; for me, he isn’t. Does it matter? It’s not as if I’m trying to encourage people to dislike him. Be fair to me; if anything, I have tried hard to help people gain a better understanding of what he’s saying and how he’s saying it. Whether they then like him or not is up to them and the comments I made should help them have a better foundation on which to base their decision.

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Sure, I'm not taking offense, and I certainly wasn't making it an American versus British thing. I understand how some don't take to Stevens. What I admire in Stevens the most is his originality of style. No one has written like him before him that I can think of. Perhaps some of the symbolists do have an echo (albeit a translated echo) in his poetic voice.

BTW, you're critical process of analyzing the poem, piecing together the stanzas and their transitions to arrive at a coherent meaning is very Aristitalian. The old man would be proud. ;)

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Originally Posted by nguyenngoctue

I don't think that the music is referred to here simply as "some kind of artistic expression" (p#193) to describe the mob's rage.

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I don’t believe that’s what I said. I referred to it as "some kind of artistic expression" precisely because it needn’t be a waltz or even music. Nor did I say that the mob’s rage would be “described” by that art. I said, “brought within” (which is not very clear, I admit but this is a complex idea). I’ll attempt to explain what I mean.

The waltz is enjoyable, exhilarating, fun, etc. but it is also ‘valuable’ in that it provides extra layers to human experience, layers that are in addition to the merely factual. Its role is similar to a religion in this respect. It imbues existence with qualities that are absent from the merely physical, biological and chemical basis of our being. I am just a collection of atoms but that’s not the end of the story. The way that the waltz does this is what I was trying to explain in # 179 above – the bit about the first stanza.

What the artist must attempt to provide is some means for “the shapes For which the voices cry,” to serve as “Modes of desire, modes of revealing desire.” At they moment it's just a possibility.

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Originally Posted by nguyenngoctue

I think that the music is the focus of the poem; we shouldn't start to look at a broader meaning of the poem until we have found the very specific points that the author is trying to make.

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Could you explain what you mean by this? I assume you are suggesting this is what I have done.

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Originally Posted by nguyenngoctue

I do agree that the words 'form' and 'order' may be too impersonal, or not as specific as I'd hope (They don’t just refer to music). But they make a solid point. Form and order surely are the essential means of existence. If something lacks either form or order, it will cease to shape (like the desires of the mob).

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I don’t think I've said anything that contradicts that.

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Originally Posted by nguyenngoctue

The last two verses clearly state that the waltzes, "the epic of disbelief", will be made "constant" by the skeptic's skeptical music; so all will be solved by this character, making him a key character.

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You see "the epic of disbelief" as being the waltzes. Can you explain why?

Too many waltzes–The epic of disbelief
Blares oftener and soon, will soon be constant.

Is the hyphen here used as a sign that what follows is a description of the waltzes? It seems to me as if it’s more to denote a break– On the previous two occasions that the phrase was used, it was completed by ‘have ended.’ This does set up an expectation. My explanation for this is above in the bit about 9 and 10. As Virgil pointed out, “Blares oftener” is ugly and dissonant. Perhaps it does refer to the waltz as it sounds now that it is “empty of shadows” but I think it also refers to what has replaced the waltz. It’s the reason we need a new waltz.


This poem has reminded me of Yeats’s Easter 1916 and The Second Coming, especially the lines,

“The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

and

“A terrible beauty is born.”

I’ll try a comparison now, which might just be nonsense.

Let’s assume for a moment that the context of the poem is the 1930s and the mobs are those who will shortly be wearing swastikas (I know this isn’t the context of Stevens’ poem but I am trying to explain the idea of the “harmonious skeptic”). There is an increasing unease among some artists at the time about some emerging and ominous destructive force. (I think The Second Coming demonstrates this feeling) The world is rushing headlong into destruction and carnage (for a change :D ). Along comes Picasso and paints Guernica. The painting is not an exuberant waltz but a terrifying depiction of mechanised mass slaughter. But it’s a work of high art, a masterpiece that takes the disorder of mass killing and frames it within a form that enables us to see something beyond lumps of charred human flesh. In the act of confronting and giving shape to the horror, the artist has produced order. Picasso is just the sort of figure who could be called a “harmonious skeptic”. He brings order to disorder while retaining his sense of the darker side of human behaviour.

I know that Stevens’ poem doesn’t take us into the dark realm but neither “motion” nor “shadows” are unambiguously positive.

When was the

It’s Monday here! I knew Asia was a good choice. :D

Anyway, I wonder if anyone would like to discuss this poem by Philip Larkin? I’ve chosen it for a number of reasons:

1. Hardly anyone recognised him in the pictures of authors thread;
2. The poem is far more straightforward than a lot of the poems so far posted;
3. There has been a lot of discussion of faith on the board recently and I thought it might be interesting to read a poem about the contemplation of death by someone who had no faith.
4. I think it’s extremely well written;
5. It’s how I feel on a “true dark night of the soul”, which is about three times a week.


Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
-- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused -- nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear -- no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Philip Larkin

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

The thing that keeps bugging me in this poem is why exactly forms have vanished for the Hoon in the third stanza. I somehow feel that this is some key point I am missing.

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I don’t think the explanation can be found in the poem itself.

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

By the way, Unnamable, you've got the song "Waltzing Matilda" stuck in my head now. :lol: Oh well, before that it was the waltz from Lehar's "The Merry Widow." I'm obviously taking this poem way too literally.

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This highlights our different cultures. My other possible choice was The Band’s The Last Waltz. :D

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I don’t think the explanation can be found in the poem itself.

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I'm inclined to agree with you.

So, Unnamable, I thought you were in England somewhere. Since when have you made the timezone switch to Asia? (Or are you just hoping to get by with this so you can get an early start discussing your poem ;) ).

Seriously, though, I'm glad you posted the Larkin. It's a good poem, if a wee bit depressing, and I think most of us have probably experienced those dark, doubting, realizing moments "when we are caught without/ People or drink." I had a night like that a few nights back. Luckily I'm agnostic not atheist, so I was able to give myself a little more hope to lean on than poor Larkin here ;). That last line is really a great one. I'll have to mull this one over a bit and maybe make some more constructive comments later (like maybe when it's actually Monday here :lol: ).

...of Wilfred Owen's poem, "Awake". A lot of the same images occur in that poem.

Wow. I'll have to spend time with this. Thanks for posting it, Unnamable... I don't know that I've read any of Larkin's work.

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Originally Posted by TodHackett

...of Wilfred Owen's poem, "Awake". A lot of the same images occur in that poem.

Wow. I'll have to spend time with this. Thanks for posting it, Unnamable... I don't know that I've read any of Larkin's work.

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Me neither. Didn't he write the one that begins - "They tuck you up, your Mum & Dad"? - something like that anyway. ;)

I like this one very much though. It's as plain as the Stevens was cryptic. But just as good.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

I know that Stevens’ poem doesn’t take us into the dark realm but neither “motion” nor “shadows” are unambiguously positive.

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Good stuff Unnamable. With this qualification I leave quoted I can accept your understanding of Steven's use of "mob." My initial reading of "mob" was in the sense that democracy has sometime been referred to as mob rule. Stevens even uses the word "freed" and I felt that he was after a distinction between those within a social group and those who stand apart from it as artists. I think there is still room in your reading for this too.

Before we leave Stevens, I hope readers here can appreciate his skill as a poet, even from this minor poem: his structuring of complex ideas, their transitions, the repetitions, concentrated images, symbols/emblems to arrive at a higher level of abstraction, word sounds. He's more of a poet's poet, very infleuencial to American poets that followed him (Roethke, A.R. Ammons, others). Appreciating him is like appreciating modern classical atonal music, it's an acquired taste mostly acquired by specialists. There has only been one person I've personally met that was passionate about Stevens, and she was a college professor who specialized in his work. Other professors who I have had that have taught him, never seemed to project passionate appreciation. One famous (famous at least in his mind ;) ) critic who stands out that does love Stevens' work is Harold Bloom, of all people. If I were to recommend a truely great poem (a little long to post here) of Stevens it would be "The Auroras of Autumn." Perhaps one day I will post the final canto of the poem (Canto X) which to me is sublime.

As to the new poem, fine with me. I do think Scher has some crazy rules about time change and Monday posting. She slapped my hand a few weeks ago. But, at the risk of ticking her off, who cares. :D

"If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our in our throats and feel cold in our extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business." H.D.T.

I think Larkin has really caught the feeling of cold in our extremities, but, am I wrong to feel that the last verse is a bit of a cheat? We've felt the cold, now let us go about our business? I'd have preferred it if he'd stopped on the line "Death is no different whined at than withstood."

But I'm willing to be convinced.

.

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Originally Posted by Whifflingpin

"If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our in our throats and feel cold in our extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business." H.D.T.

I think Larkin has really caught the feeling of cold in our extremities, but, am I wrong to feel that the last verse is a bit of a cheat? We've felt the cold, now let us go about our business? I'd have preferred it if he'd stopped on the line "Death is no different whined at than withstood."

But I'm willing to be convinced.

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The last stanza is my favourite, especially the postmen like doctors. I think you're reading something as general and philosophical - we'll die, but in the meantime let's get on with it - when actually it's specific and a bit narrativey - this is what keeps me up at night, or what I think about when I can't sleep; in some ways, these thoughts are associated with this still, empty time of the morning for me; then the day starts again. This seems necessary to me. It certainly makes the whole thing less abstract.

Xamonas,

You can see Larkin’s original here: http://www.artofeurope.com/larkin/lar2.htm
but your version does actually exist. It was written by Adrian Mitchell after he was told that someone had thought your version of the first line was the correct one:

This Be The Worst

They tuck you up, your Mum and Dad
They read you Peter Rabbit, too.
They give you all the treats they had
And add some extra, just for you.

They were tucked up when they were small,
(Pink perfume, blue tobacco-smoke),
By those whose kiss healed any fall,
Whose laughter doubled any joke.

Man hands on happiness to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
So love your parents all you can
And have some cheerful kids yourself.

Adrian Mitchell


Petrarch’s Love,
I am from the UK but I live and work in Asia. I was back in the UK at Christmas. When I posted the Larkin it really was after midnight here and in one of Scher’s posts she said ‘Monday in your part of the world’, which it was.

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I am from the UK but I live and work in Asia. I was back in the UK at Christmas. When I posted the Larkin it really was after midnight here and in one of Scher’s posts she said ‘Monday in your part of the world’, which it was.

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Ah, I should have known you would really be playing by the rules. I was a tad confused since I didn't know you were writing from Asia--may I ask which country you're in?

A professor of mine has us reading "This be the verse" for my Brit. Lit. class. The first day of class he read the first line, to give us a taste of what to expect.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

your version does actually exist. It was written by Adrian Mitchell after he was told that someone had thought your version of the first line was the correct one:

This Be The Worst

They tuck you up, your Mum and Dad
They read you Peter Rabbit, too.
They give you all the treats they had
And add some extra, just for you.

They were tucked up when they were small,
(Pink perfume, blue tobacco-smoke),
By those whose kiss healed any fall,
Whose laughter doubled any joke.

Man hands on happiness to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
So love your parents all you can
And have some cheerful kids yourself.

Adrian Mitchell

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:lol: :lol: :lol:

A very good pastiche.

I remembered the 'tuck you up' line from a cartoon in the Guardian on the day Larkin died. Funny the things that stick.