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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.
And I wonder if people are not being as objective as they could be because they find an article that fits with their thoughts.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
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 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:Quote:
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.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines,
?
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by jackyyyy
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:
Quote:
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.
Quote:
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.
Quote:
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.
Quote:
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.
So here's how I would summarize the sub-divisions:Quote:
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.'
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.
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!Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by jackyyyy
Hmmm…Your response to poetry reminds me of a line from Annie Hall:Quote:
Originally Posted by jackyyyy
'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.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by jackyyyy
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?Quote:
Originally Posted by jackyyyy
Now, you see, jackyyyy, it’s comments like this that make me wonder if your favourite song is Puff, The Magic Dragon. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by jackyyyy
Pretty much what a lot of other people have already said.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
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.
I really like this. I think you articulated it perfectly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe
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:
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe
: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);) :Quote:
Originally Posted by Jackyyyy
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...oly-milton.jpg
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
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:Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
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.Quote:
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!
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
Having said all that, the clarity of vision Xamonas displays in his write-up is awesome.
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!Quote:
Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe
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.Quote:
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
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.Quote:
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 agree, not overtly hostile.Quote:
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.
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?Quote:
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.
Great! then they both want the wall.
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.
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe
;)You got me going unto I saw the word 'apple'.Quote:
Originally Posted by jackyyyy
That works for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by jackyyyy
‘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.Quote:
Originally Posted by 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...".Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
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.
For some reason I'm see Squirrels in my monitor. :lol: :lol: :lol:
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
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?)
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by MelanieD
Such familairity. :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by jackyyyy
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
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. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by MelanieD
Good point, it didn't even occur to me. I am obtuse!Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
And well, Mary is getting her analysis done for free (more or less). :brow:
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?Quote:
Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe
You could try adjusting the horizontal.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
Do you mean... those squirrels again?
:smash: <------- wack-a-mole
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by jackyyyy
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
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.
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.
Let me just say that this poem is less about emotion and more about what the two rituals differ as far as purpose.
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.
Not guilty and I am confident this time that IP addresses will reveal we are in different countries.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
: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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
A movie, eh? Did you know, Virgil, that Hecht based this part of the poem on an actual documented incident that happened near Buchenwald?Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
For anyone wishing to read sensitive, balanced and thoughtful responses to this poem, try the following link:
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poe...echt/light.htm
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.