PoemoftheWeek

Notes from the translator, Eliot Weinberger: "twenty years ago, my own collaboration with Paz began....that poet, publisher, and translator have continued to work together all these years is the result of a strange calmness-however full of debate-that has marked what are often rancorous relationships." Which leads me to believe that he might actually have Paz' approval on his translations.
Some background on Paz:

He spent time in New York and San Francisco, taught at Cambirge, University of Texas, and Harvard.
He started publishing poetry at seventeen, was friends with Andre Breton, participated in Surrealist activities, published an anthology of Mexican poetry, (the English version was translated by Samuel Beckett) and was the Mexican Ambassador to India, which led him to immerse himself in Indian art and philosophy.
"Poetry makes things more transparent and clearer and teaches us to respect men and nature," Paz says.

more about Paz

First Wallace Stevens turns out to have been not just an insurance man, but the company head, now we find that Paz was the Mexican Ambassador to India. For some reason, I love this. I suppose its the assault on the unworldly romantic poet stereotype.

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Originally Posted by Paz

Between Going And Staying
Octavio Paz

Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.

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This seems to be about twilight. The first line repeats the title and makes it clear it refers to dusk - as a sort of undecidable between day and night. The rest of the poem is a description or elucidation of this.

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Originally Posted by Paz

The circular afternoon is now a bay

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A circle becoming a semi-circle? And if so, why or how?

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Originally Posted by Paz

where the world in stillness rocks.

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Apparently paradoxical. Still, stillness could refer to perpetuity. Also to the constantly circling earth on which the poet, seemingly impossibly, is experiencing a moment of stillness.

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Originally Posted by Paz

All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can't be touched.

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As an aside, this reminds me a lot of Villon:

'In my own country I am in a far off land...

...when I lie down I have a great fear of falling'

But it's not the same; there isn't the same existential unease. This is, I think, the beginning of Paz describing the sort of hallucinatory quality that twilight gives the world - hallucinatory not in the sense of distorting or adding anything, but making one intensely aware of the inherent strangeness of observable phenomena. The light is softer, observation is easier and, at the end of the day, we become less active and prepare for rest. Things fill out their identities and we have a chance to contemplate them. They become both more 'visible' and, in being seen as objects of contemplation rather than utility, more 'elusive' to the understanding. 'Can't be touched'? I'm skeptical. I think he doesn't want to touch them because it's more pleasurable just to look at them, these objects he has been using throughout the day:

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Originally Posted by Paz

Paper, book, pencil, glass,

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And they

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Originally Posted by Paz

rest in the shade of their names.

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A lovely line, but I'm not sure I understand it. Perhaps it's that the names give a stability to matter that would otherwise be unstable. ? Dunno.

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Originally Posted by Paz

Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.

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Doesn't sound like a headache to me. Again, I think it's about being at rest. Sitting quietly at the end of the day, one notices tiny motions such as one's own pulse in certain parts of the body. 'Syllable of blood' - a beat, something that might almost have a sound, the length of one syllable.

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Originally Posted by Paz

The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.

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Again, twilight, the low sun milkily reflected on the wall.

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Originally Posted by Paz

I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.

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Both in the eye and watching oneself from it - he's maybe the reflection of himself in the retina, watching himself in a moment of reflection. Or he looks into an eye and sees finds himself there - reflected. Or the eye is actually the window of his room.

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Originally Posted by Paz

The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.

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The moment scatters - perhaps night falls, taking away the clarity of twilight, even taking away the names of the things in that they become no longer visible. The poet is 'Motionless', but stays and goes - probably because he also disappears in the dark. He is a pause - he identifies himself with the still moment he's been describing, in which he has had an intense sense of the world and himself in it. It's a poet's moment, a moment of both clarity and strangeness and he is a poet. When the moment is gone, so is he. The moment, the pause, is him.

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This seems to be about twilight. The first line repeats the title and makes it clear it refers to dusk - as a sort of undecidable between day and night.

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blp--I agree, I definately picture the poem at that sunset/twilight time. Especially the description of "all visible and elusive" conjures up that sort of lighting. I picture him overlooking the ocean for some reason (maybe the use of the word "bay" in the third line gave me that image, or maybe that's just the place where I've most often had similar moments).

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Paz
The circular afternoon is now a bay

A circle becoming a semi-circle? And if so, why or how?

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I thought this was another reference to the time of day. Again, I'm picturing the ocean (though it works anywhere, it's just easiest for me to envision clearly on the water). If you picture that you're in the middle of the ocean, or any other flat place where you can see the horizon easily, at noon or early afternoon the sun is going to be shinning all around and the horizon will be bright around you in a circle. Toward sunset and twilight, the sun has descended to one point in the west, and is only really illuminating a portion of the horizon in a semi-circle or bay shape. That's what I think the line refers to anyway. Could be wrong.

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Originally Posted by Paz
where the world in stillness rocks.

Apparently paradoxical. Still, stillness could refer to perpetuity. Also to the constantly circling earth on which the poet, seemingly impossibly, is experiencing a moment of stillness.

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Stillness can also refer to silence, and I think that is the primary meaning here, especially since the Spanish reads "quieto" which I'll assume is akin to the English quiet. Still (hey, yet another way to use this word!), the meaning of "stillness" as something not moving works very nicely in the context of a poem that ends "soy una pausa," as does your gloss of stillness as "perpetuity." I wonder if the Spanish "quieto" has both connotations of non movement and non sound just as the English "still" does?

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Notes from the translator, Eliot Weinberger: "twenty years ago, my own collaboration with Paz began....that poet, publisher, and translator have continued to work together all these years is the result of a strange calmness-however full of debate-that has marked what are often rancorous relationships." Which leads me to believe that he might actually have Paz' approval on his translations.

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Riesa--Thanks for the background material. It's interesting that the translator had such a close collaboration with the poet. I think it shows in this being a remarkably good translation (at least in my opinion). I wonder though, why Paz himself wouldn't have done the translations. His English must have been pretty good if he taught at Cambridge, Harvard and U of T. I suppose it takes a real facility in both languages--knowledge of cultural resonances of language etc.--to be an effective translator, and maybe he didn't feel he had that?

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I love that word too. I wish I could find more times to use it. I would love to stick it in a technical report one day and watch some of the reactons. You've probably never read technical reports, but it just wouldn't go.

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Oh, you should just slip it in casually in the middle of one of your reports and then when they ask about it just act suprised that they don't recognize this obvious and simple technical term. :D You could say something like "What, I thought everyone knew about the sprezzatura principle of engineering! It's pretty fundamental isn't it?" and they'll be too embarassed thinking they should know all about it to ask you to elaborate. I'm sure it could be carried off with the right amount of sprezzatura. ;) I had a friend once who used to do this all the time with very impressive sounding words she made up. She was very disappointed to run into me, because I regularly make lists of unfamiliar words I run into and look them up in the OED every day, so I caught her at it early on. :lol:

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

blp--I agree, I definately picture the poem at that sunset/twilight time. Especially the description of "all visible and elusive" conjures up that sort of lighting. I picture him overlooking the ocean for some reason (maybe the use of the word "bay" in the third line gave me that image, or maybe that's just the place where I've most often had similar moments).

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I picture it the same way and I do think it's the 'bay' reference, but it's a funny effect since that seems to be a metaphor.

I think this poem is all about how light, at different angles, changes how we perceive an object--even to the point of attatching emotions to that object. The light-play off an object may make it feel lovely from one point, and make the object seem repulsive from another. But this is us: We infuse the objects with emotions; otherwise the objects would just be objects--inanimate objects at that. And I think the 'I' in the poem sees that:

I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.

You can imagine the I looking at the shadow of the I's eye. A blank stare returned from the I's shadow. No emotions invested in the shadow's eye.

The world that we 'see' using our sense of vision is emotionless.


The last stanza of this poem is the only stanza with two sentences. This is weird to me, because I don't know which of the 'I' is 'I stay and go' and which is 'I am a pause.' Which I is the real person and which I is the I's shadow?

I also get a weird sense after reading the last stanza and comparing it to the first stanza:

The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.

Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.

Does this mean only 'the day' can love objects because 'the day' controls how an object looks by aiming light at certain angles off the object? Funny use of syntax: 'the day'--makes the day sound like an object. Is the writer getting at this: only an inanimate object can love an inanimate object?

What do ya'll think?

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Originally Posted by ktd222

I think this poem is all about how light, at different angles, changes how we perceive an object--even to the point of attatching emotions to that object.

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Originally Posted by blp

It's a poet's moment, a moment of both clarity and strangeness and he is a poet.

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I think both of these statements kind of get at the theme of this inscrutable poem. It seems to be about a moment caught in the mind and where the mind twists and shapes what it senses.

One other motif that I see that has not been already mentioned is that of narcissism: “the day wavers,/in love with its own transparency” and then later is echoed with “watching myself in its blank stare.”

Of the eight couplets there is only one that is not wound around in an elaborate metaphor: “All is visible and all elusive,/all is near and can’t be touched.” That is the only flat, sentence in the whole poem. Is that the theme then, being that it boldly stands out? And from who’s perspective is that from? I assume the narrator, but the opening lines start from the perspective of the personified “day.”

The other seven couplets are wrapped in metaphysical conceits, similar if not even more elaborate than the 17th century metaphysical poets. Let’s unpack a couple of these. The first couplet: The day “between going and staying,” I can envision this as the twilight time where the afternoon seems to hang fire. And then he doubles up on it with “the day wavers.” But then how is the day transparent and how can it love its own transparency?

“The circular afternoon is now a bay/where the world in stillness rocks.” How can the afternoon be circular? All time in reality is linear except through a mind’s perception. (Except perhaps in quantum physics, but I don’t think that’s relevant here.) And then the afternoon (an abstract notion) is morphed into a bay (a tangible thing). And how can the world a large entity rock in the bay, an entity that is a subset to that larger entity. So the afternoon is a bay from which the world rocks?

The other couplets are not quite as elaborate, though elaborate enough. So is this poem about the mind reshaping the outside world through its power of imagination? Perhaps. Is this poem about the power of the mind to impose its will on the self? Some how all these themes presented by all of us seem to be relevant, but I'm not sure if any of us are actually articulating what Paz is after.

The last couplet is also quite interesting. “The moment scatters. Motionless,/I stay and go: I am a pause.” Blp has already mentioned how he, the narrator, has become the pause. It also echoes the first line, only inverted. “Between going and staying” has become “I stay and go.” Go-stay is now stay-go. And it’s shifted from the perspective of the day to the perspective of the narrator.

Entertain this notion, if you will. Wallace Stevens in “The Snowman” starts from the mind of the narrator and ends in the mind of the snowman. Paz starts this poem from the mind of the day and ends in the mind of the narrator. Sort of the opposite of Stevens. A relationship perhaps? Probably not, but interesting to note. The two poets do seem similar in style.

I kind of enjoyed this poem more so now after I've unpacked.

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“The moment scatters. Motionless,/I stay and go: I am a pause.” Blp has already mentioned how he, the narrator, has become the pause.

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Virgil,

How would you interpret these two lines:

1) I am the pause.
2) I am a pause.

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So is this poem about the mind reshaping the outside world through its power of imagination? Perhaps. Is this poem about the power of the mind to impose its will on the self? Some how all these themes presented by all of us seem to be relevant, but I'm not sure if any of us are actually articulating what Paz is after.

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Who really can mirror the thoughts of anybody other than themselves. You guys want to tackle this poem line by line?

"Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.

The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks."

With the "circular afternoon is now a bay" line I think Paz is setting a tone of seeing an eventual absence and end to the "day". A "circular" afternoon would be infinite, but a "bay" has a definite opening to another larger body. These lines make me feel the poem could be about the span of one's life.


"All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can't be touched.

Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.

Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood."

I find the contrast between the tangible nouns present in the first couplet here, compared to the intangiblity of time interesting. Time seems to have a greater affinity with the narrator than the objects that are seen around him. He seems to take pleasure in what cannot be felt within this poem.

"The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections."

Here again the tangible "wall" is referred to as "indifferent", creating a distinction between the narrator and the external world.

"I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare."

This couplet just confuses me.

"The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause."

Here the "moment" of reflection into those intangible mysteries, as the twilight dissipates and everything is no longer in the romantic light of the sunset, disappears as the final rays of the sun "scatter". He is no longer drenched in that intangible light and everything appears as it is, without illumination.

As to the thems, I see a celebration of what cannot be felt and what is left to the imagination.

Great poem by the way, but I'm sure I'm totally off base.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

Virgil,

How would you interpret these two lines:

1) I am the pause.
2) I am a pause.

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I know you asked Virgil this question, but I'll have a go.

I think Paz is identifying himself with the pause he's described throughout the poem and, in doing so, sees himself as, generally, a pause.

I think the pause is something he creates for himself through his imagination. With his human faculties he is able to view the world from the standpoint of "a pause" in a world that doesn't really support the existence of a true lack of motion.

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I think Paz is identifying himself with the pause he's described throughout the poem and, in doing so, sees himself as, generally, a pause

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So by Paz stating the 'I' in the poem as being a pause, does that identify the 'I' as being part of 'the pause' he is describing thoughout the poem?

If so, what happens to the poems meaning then?

Is the the description of the 'I' as ' I am a pause' make the 'I' less signifcant(meaning, part of something larger) to 'the pause?'

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Originally Posted by ktd222

So by Paz stating the 'I' in the poem as being a pause, does that identify the 'I' as being part of 'the pause' he is describing thoughout the poem?

If so, what happens to the poems meaning then?

Is the the description of the 'I' as ' I am a pause' make the 'I' less signifcant(meaning, part of something larger) to 'the pause?'

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My first reacton was along the lines of blp's statement. But now you got me thinking. There could be a difference. But I can't guess at the significance.

Poem for the new week:

THE WILL by John Donne

BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,
Great Love, some legacies ; I here bequeath
Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see ;
If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee ;
My tongue to Fame ; to ambassadors mine ears ;
To women, or the sea, my tears ;
Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore
By making me serve her who had twenty more,
That I should give to none, but such as had too much before.

My constancy I to the planets give ;
My truth to them who at the court do live ;
My ingenuity and openness,
To Jesuits ; to buffoons my pensiveness ;
My silence to any, who abroad hath been ;
My money to a Capuchin :
Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me
To love there, where no love received can be,
Only to give to such as have an incapacity.

My faith I give to Roman Catholics ;
All my good works unto the Schismatics
Of Amsterdam ; my best civility
And courtship to an University ;
My modesty I give to soldiers bare ;
My patience let gamesters share :
Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me
Love her that holds my love disparity,
Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

I give my reputation to those
Which were my friends ; mine industry to foes ;
To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness ;
My sickness to physicians, or excess ;
To nature all that I in rhyme have writ ;
And to my company my wit :
Thou, Love, by making me adore
Her, who begot this love in me before,
Taught'st me to make, as though I gave, when I do but restore.

To him for whom the passing-bell next tolls,
I give my physic books ; my written rolls
Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give ;
My brazen medals unto them which live
In want of bread ; to them which pass among
All foreigners, mine English tongue :
Though, Love, by making me love one
Who thinks her friendship a fit portion
For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.

Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo
The world by dying, because love dies too.
Then all your beauties will be no more worth
Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth ;
And all your graces no more use shall have,
Than a sun-dial in a grave :
Thou, Love, taught'st me by making me
Love her who doth neglect both me and thee,
To invent, and practise this one way, to annihilate all three.

My word! It's long! Better get cracking.

A very entertaining poem. I found myself, after the first couple of verses, trying to guess what the reason for giving was in each one. He was a clever old boy.

And it's not long enough in my opinion. I couldn't stop reading it once started.

I like the few Donne poems I have read. I find the way he puts his ideas through very entertaining. He is very creative and witty, which, I believe, makes this poem fun to read even though it is somewhat long.

I have not 'studied' this poem (only discovered it last year on this Forum) so I thought it would be nice to go through it paying particular attention to all the references like Argus, which is a giant with 100 eyes in mythology and he leaves his eyes to him! :D

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

Oh, you should just slip it in casually in the middle of one of your reports and then when they ask about it just act suprised that they don't recognize this obvious and simple technical term. :D You could say something like "What, I thought everyone knew about the sprezzatura principle of engineering! It's pretty fundamental isn't it?" and they'll be too embarassed thinking they should know all about it to ask you to elaborate. I'm sure it could be carried off with the right amount of sprezzatura. ;) I had a friend once who used to do this all the time with very impressive sounding words she made up. She was very disappointed to run into me, because I regularly make lists of unfamiliar words I run into and look them up in the OED every day, so I caught her at it early on. :lol:

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let me say that merely reading your and blp's thoughts and word pictures about these poems is often to me more beautiful and enriching than the poem itself. So I concede that it is very important for there to be at least someone who takes a work apart and critiques it so that the essences and richness can be appreciated by those who having no time and opportunity can partake of a feast. thank you

:lol: Good old JD. Thanks for posting the poem Sher. I'm busy analysing another Donne poem in a paper just now, so I'm going to hold off any analysis of this one until after Tuesday when I turn that in so I don't get hopelessly confused :confused:. For now I'd just like to say that it's a very clever little poem and it gave me a nice laugh this morning.

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let me say that merely reading your and blp's thoughts and word pictures about these poems is often to me more beautiful and enriching than the poem itself. So I concede that it is very important for there to be at least someone who takes a work apart and critiques it so that the essences and richness can be appreciated by those who having no time and opportunity can partake of a feast. thank you

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Rachel-- :blush: Glad analysis can be worthwhile from time to time. We'd love to hear more of your opinions on the poems here if you ever find the time.

I couldn't take in the whole poem at once so I'll note the first stanza.

BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,
Great Love, some legacies ; I here bequeath
Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see ;
If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee ;
My tongue to Fame ; to ambassadors mine ears ;
To women, or the sea, my tears ;
Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore
By making me serve her who had twenty more,
That I should give to none, but such as had too much before.

1) 3 entities exists: I, Love, and the her

2) some legacies...huh? Maybe the I is deciding what part of the I that Love will inherit--which doesn't seem to be much.

3) Love has taught the I love through making(a sort of force) the I to serve the her(unconditionally?), who had twenty more of what? Twenty more demands in addition to the I as a servant? And ending the stanza with but such as had too much before brings up the question of before what? Probably a reference to the I as a servant to the her is already too much of the I that is being given in the name of learning love. Is the I questioning Love's method of love?

4) The only part of the I that Love inherits here is the I's eyes, but only if the I's eyes are blind. LOL at the reference that Love is inheriting blind eyes. This gives Love the opportunity to experience what Love has taught the I: love being unconditional when 'the her' need is involved. But what about the I's needs? Is a relationship being set up where the I has very little importance? Can love, defined in this way, keep together a relationship?

Nothing is being given to Love in this first stanza except a perspective for Love, to itself, experience. This experience being Love's own teachings.

I don’t think it’s as complicated as that. The legacies here are those things he bequeaths. The recipients have no use for any of the things he leaves to them. They already have more than enough. The woman has already had twenty lovers to serve her. Isn't Donne being a bit cheeky or perhaps tongue-in-cheeky?

I enjoy it more as philosophy - or even economics - than poetry, though you might say it works philosophically as only a poem can. It's wonderfully slippery - or it revels in the slipperiness of the ideas it's talking about, mostly love and giving.

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Originally Posted by Unnamable

The recipients have no use for any of the things he leaves to them. They already have more than enough.

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Presumably, you're only talking about the first stanza. The very next is all about giving to people who don't have enough. (It's like some several centuries prescient dialectic between free market monetarism and socialism!) The tone is cheeky, at least at first, but the different contexts in which he places his themes make it seem like more than mischief. It gets quite tricky. I'll try to find time to comment more later.

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Originally Posted by blp

Presumably, you're only talking about the first stanza. The very next is all about giving to people who don't have enough.

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Yes – I was responding to ktd222’s comments, which were about just the first stanza. As for the next stanza, I don’t think that the point is that they don’t have enough but that the recipients this time cannot accept his offerings – he is continuing his dig at the woman:

“Only to give to such as have an incapacity.”

There is no point in giving truth to those that live at court – their whole existence is based in deceit. Similarly, there is little point in giving pensiveness to buffoons.

The last three lines of each stanza explain the significance of his bequests.

Isn’t this simply an averagely witty (by Donne’s standards) attack on both the woman and Love with a few other targets thrown in to make his mates laugh? The last stanza is very bitter.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

2) some legacies...huh? Maybe the I is deciding what part of the I that Love will inherit--which doesn't seem to be much.

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I don't think the poem aims to 'honour' the 'Love' with all these legacies but more to criticise her for her shortcomings. So there is no surprise that she doesn't get much from him.

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3) who had twenty more of what?

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20 other lovers. The lady has already other lovers but insists that he should be his lover too hence teaching him not to give anyone but those who already have more than enough. 'Before'>Before he has given them those things.

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4) The only part of the I that Love inherits here is the I's eyes, but only if the I's eyes are blind.

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Since in this stanza he is leaving things only to those who has already has more than enough, leaving his love 'blind eyes' means she is also blind, ie, to his love. She already has more than enough lovers and does not appreciate his love.

Even though the poem seems like a bitter piece addressed to his lover, I think it also does a very good job of giving away Donne's view of many others, especially in the later stanzas and there is more to this poem than laments of a neglected lover.

Unnamable,

Why don't you give my comments more thought and then respond properly. The things I noted do exist in the poem. You went on a long rampage about that Larkin poem, I'm sure there is more than you are noting here.

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20 other lovers.

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Where does the word lover appear?

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I don't think the poem aims to 'honour' the 'Love' with all these legacies

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I never said this. Get your facts straight.

Petrarch, you seem to have access to resources the rest of us can only dream of. Is the semi-colon in line 6 of the first stanza correct? All the online versions I’ve looked at have a semi-colon. Can you (or anyone else) tell me why it isn’t a colon? Each subsequent stanza has a colon at the end of the corresponding line and that makes more sense to me.

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Originally Posted by “blp”

I enjoy it more as philosophy - or even economics - than poetry, though you might say it works philosophically as only a poem can. It's wonderfully slippery - or it revels in the slipperiness of the ideas it's talking about, mostly love and giving.

(It's like some several centuries prescient dialectic between free market monetarism and socialism!)

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Could you explain what you mean here?

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Originally Posted by “ktd222”

Unnamable,
Why don't you give my comments more thought and then respond properly.

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I gave them thought. Perhaps you should? What do you mean by ‘properly’? To be honest, I didn’t really understand a lot of what you said. There, I’ve set you up nicely for a damning retort. :lol:

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Originally Posted by “ktd222”

The things I noted do exist in the poem.

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I was only responding to the first stanza, which is what you discussed. My follow up comments were in response to what blp wrote.

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Originally Posted by “ktd222”

I'm sure there is more than you are noting here.

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The best way to persuade everyone would be to demonstrate this, preferably with clarity.

And Scheherazade is right – he means 20 other lovers (or 20 others who have served her, to be precise) – it’s clearly implied.

It’s nice to see aggression similar to that for which I have a reputation. It’s not so nice to see it when the same level of informed observation doesn’t support it. Nevertheless, Mr. Bennet is always ready to encourage Mr. Collins. :lol:

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Originally Posted by “Scheherazade”

Even though the poem seems like a bitter piece addressed to his lover, I think it also does a very good job of giving away Donne's view of many others, especially in the later stanzas and there is more to this poem than laments of a neglected lover.

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Many others? :confused:
And yes, there is more to the poem than the laments of a neglected lover. There is wit, erudition, playfulness and so on. But I still believe he is bitter. In the final stanza he says he will die and thus put an end to himself, Love and the woman. I’ll say the same to you as I did to ktd222; the best way to persuade would be to show.

As for the blind bit – isn’t it primarily simply a reference to blind cupid and the idea that love is blind?

‘rampage’ – that did make me laugh.

Scher: "Since in this stanza he is leaving things only to those who has already has more than enough, leaving his love 'blind eyes' means she is also blind, ie, to his love. "

I think that "Love" is Eros, the god of love, who is blind.
"her" is the disdainful beloved one.

Eros (Love) is causing Donne (I) to love "her."

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Isn’t this simply an averagely witty (by Donne’s standards) attack on both the woman and Love with a few other targets thrown in to make his mates laugh? The last stanza is very bitter.

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Spot on Unnamable, that's exactly how I read it. I enjoy reading the analyses of poetry here (and add a bit from time to time if I feel able) but I really think that a lot of you have gone over the top here, trying to dig out gold from a mountain when it's lying in plain sight in front of you all the time. Some poems really are as simple as they appear. This is one of them, IMHO. :nod:

Xamonas: "Some poems really are as simple as they appear."
I agree with you, at least in respect of the first five stanzas, but I think I've lost the plot in the last.

Unnamable: "In the final stanza he says he will die and thus put an end to himself, Love and the woman."

He does say that, but in what sense can he mean it?
She will not be perturbed, as she has twenty others to serve her (Stanza 1,) cannot receive his love (Sta 2,) despises it (Sta 3,) and prefers younger lovers (Sta 5.)
Cupid, doubtless, will continue to shoot his arrows.

So, is it only his world that he will undo by dying, and his love and perception of her beauties and graces?

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Whifflingpin,

IMHO Donne's saying that her grace and beauty are of no use without someone to love her, himself being that someone. He is being a bit melodramatic at this point (and almost certainly with tongue firmly in cheek) . Read something more into it if you like, I'm not the sharpest critic and never claim to be, but that's all I see there.

I thought Donne was talking about Love's grace and beauty. I don't think he addresses "her" in any other line of the poem, and he addresses Love continually. Also, the imagery of unmined gold in a mountain and a sundial in a grave seems to fit because Love will be buried with him.

Xamonas: "Donne's saying that her grace and beauty are of no use without someone to love her, himself being that someone. He is being a bit melodramatic at this point (and almost certainly with tongue firmly in cheek) ."
OK, I can go with that - a rather more elegant "I'll kill myself and you'll be sorry"

Bluevictim: "I thought Donne was talking about Love's grace and beauty. I don't think he addresses "her" in any other line of the poem, and he addresses Love continually."
It is a bit of a jump, but I think it is her beauties and graces, not Love's. He addresses Love as "thou," but has switched to "you" for these lines. Hence my assumption that he has changed the person he's talking to.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by bluevictim

I thought Donne was talking about Love's grace and beauty. I don't think he addresses "her" in any other line of the poem, and he addresses Love continually. Also, the imagery of unmined gold in a mountain and a sundial in a grave seems to fit because Love will be buried with him.

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But he talks of all three dying (in some way): himself, the woman and Love. Himself because he physically dies; Love because his love for the woman is a part of him and dies at his death; and the woman because she is now bereft of appreciation by the one that loves her. Melodramatic as hell but I already made that point.

Quote:

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To invent, and practise this one way, to annihilate all three.

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On second thought, I think he is maybe talking about the world's grace and beauty (possibly including "her"), because, as Whifflington points out, he uses the plural "your" rather than the singular "thy".

bluevictim: "On second thought, I think he is maybe talking about the world's grace and beauty (possibly including "her"), because, as Whifflington points out, he uses the plural "your" rather than the singular "thy"."

I still think it is her g&b. "you" is formal, rather than plural. I can see why he might wish to address his beloved, (the poem is indirectly addressed to her throughout, is it not?) but I cannot see that he would suddenly want to address the world.

Whifflington and Xamonas,

You're probably right, but for some reason I'm still uncomfortable with it. The way I read the poem, the speaker is exasperated with love and the woman, and it seemed to me more like he is giving up (in frustration) rather than trying to stick it to her. He doesn't seem to think that it would make any difference to her if he died. After all, there are at least twenty others who can appreciate her beauty and graces. IMHO, of course.

I really liked the word play in
The world by dying, because love dies too.

Stanza 2 - "ingenuity" - I had to check. This originally meant ingenuousness (freedom from guile,) not, as it does today, ingeniousness (power of ready invention.) The modern meaning would have meant that the Jesuits belonged in stanza 1, perhaps.


Unnamable: “Is the semi-colon in line 6 of the first stanza correct?”
In the Penguin book “The Metaphysical Poets” this semi-colon, and the colons, are all full stops.
In Donne’s time, the punctuation would still have been non-existent, would it not? [Edit - no, idiot.]