PoemoftheWeek

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.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

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

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Not guilty and I am confident this time that IP addresses will reveal we are in different countries.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

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.

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: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.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

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.

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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/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.

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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

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

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?

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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?

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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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

Just for the amusement of the Nazi guards.

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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.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

it's not the guards themeselves that are carrying out these murders but parts of their uniform. Does this make sense to anyone?

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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.

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?

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Originally Posted by Unnamable

A movie, eh? Did you know, Virgil, that Hecht based this part of the poem on an actual documented incident that happened near Buchenwald?

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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.

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Originally Posted by PL

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.

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Even "quivering chin?" Urgghh!

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The "kindly light" is a simple phrase, so simple we just accept it as a basic truth.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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Originally Posted by Unnamable

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

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Now there's a poet. I would love to compare Eliot to this.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

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.

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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."

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.

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Originally Posted by “Virgil”

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.

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No one has said this – if you argument has to rely on such facile misrepresentation, then you are off to a poor start.

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Originally Posted by “Virgil”

Just selecting a Nazi horror scenario does not make a great poem.

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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.

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Originally Posted by “Virgil”

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by “Virgil”

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?

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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.

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Originally Posted by “Virgil”

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.

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When you saw the documentary to which you refer, did you think to yourself, “Melodrama – might make a great movie – a maudlin movie”?

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Originally Posted by “Virgil”

Even "quivering chin?" Urgghh!

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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.

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Originally Posted by “Virgil”

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by “Virgil”

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by “Virgil”

Now there's a poet. I would love to compare Eliot to this.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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Let me get this right – you wrote a poem similar in emotional intensity to...

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No, I said emotionally charged.

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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.

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: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. ;)

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When you saw the documentary to which you refer, did you think to yourself, “Melodrama – might make a great movie – a maudlin movie”?

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No, the form and aethetics were quite different. Same thing applies to your Levi and Weisell comment.

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Who is claiming this? I’m not, PL isn’t, nor is ktd222.

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What are you talking about. I quoted Petrarch making that claim right above my comment.

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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.

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And I'm sure they're quite sincere and I'm sure Hecht is quite sincere. However it's still trite as poetry goes.

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I find it quite sad that you have to resort to such tactics as this – my poet is better than your poet!

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Oh come on, that's not what I'm doing. Comparison is a critical method.

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God, I needed the bathos of that last addition.

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Frankly I do think you wallow in bathos. A Freudian would have a field day with you.

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Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe

TU's comments about maintaining a sense of detachment, to whit, presenting the facts as facts, without additional colouration, make sense to me.

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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.