Poetry Reading Group Redux- Nominations

[mortalterror]

And I wasn't giving a far-fetched description. This isn't Quark spinning one of his wild theories. It's pretty much right down main street, "Intro to Lit" kind of stuff.

Balderdash. We've been hoodwinked!

[Quark]

but I did not acknowledge I thought that's what Leopardi was referring to

Backpedal, backpedal, backpedal. You said it was like the "Aeolian Harp metaphor," not the "Aeolian Harp." And, if you meant it was similar in only the most superficial of senses, why wouldn't you say that? Isn't it misleading to start a "refutation" of something by agreeing with them?

The rest of my response was not a qualification to an agreement, but a refutation of the Aeolian Harp metaphor as analogous.

And some refutation it was.

it's possible to read this through the prism of Romanticism and through the prism of something other than Ramonticism, say Neo-Classicism

I'm open to that possibility, but no one has given us any reason to believe that the poem is Neo-Classical. Meanwhile, there are many reasons why it's Romantic: its subject has precedents in the Romantic tradition, the reflective lyric is a choice form of the Romantics, the speaker is addressing himself or herself on a "lonesome hill," there's a reference to the Aeolian Harp. All of these are reasons to look at the poem in a Romantic context. If there's something Neo-Classical, bring it forward.

A poet doesn't sit down and say i'm going to write a romanitc poem today

And yet there are Romantic poems. It doesn't matter what they intend to do when they sit down. Literary movements are not defined by what the artist is thinking when his or her asss hits the chair. Rather, they come from the subject of the work of art, its attitudes, form, vocabulary, and reception. Many poets believe that they're writing in one tradition when really they'll find their home in another. Two of the six major English Romantic poets (Blake and Byron) wanted to be considered part of earlier literary traditions. Yet they make up the heart of Romanticism now.

at least not a good poet

Some people consider the British Romantic poets to be a highlight of British literature. I don't understand why putting a poem in it's literary-historical context makes it a bad poem. I guess, if it was just a generic Romantic poem with nothing else to distinguish it, that might be boring. No one is suggesting that, though. In fact, I said earlier:

There's a lot going on this poem. It's not just daydreaming about infinity, nor is just trying to distract oneself from unpleasant thoughts. It's also a commentary on poetry and art.

There is a lot going on this poem. It's not just any one thing. And, again, I find this an odd reversal from you. You've been shooting down any reading of the poem that you yourself have not already authored. To Paulem noticing the meditative element of the poem, to mortal suggesting that the poet is fleeing people, to mortal suggesting there's a commentary on artistic creation, to me suggesting that the poem is Romantic--to each of these you've folded your arms and shook your head. You've clung to one pretty reductive reading of the poem throughout: one where the infinite overwhelms the personal. That's a good reading, but when you turn around and claim that my reading is reductive--that to call it Romantic is to call it bad--then I'm surprised.

And one last thing before I drop this:

Does that last line bring him back to the emotions on the hill? If one sees that last line in that way, then one could make an argument of Romanticism for the poem.

This is not the definition of Romanticism. You've gotten hung up on Wordsworthian emotion, and you've let that define Romanticism for you. A lot of Romantic poetry, though, doesn't have sentimental shepherds or warm and fuzzy descriptions of landscapes. Much of it is cold and abstract. I gave some examples of this earlier. Shelley's "Mount Blanc" is a good one. Nature is not emotionally regenerative here; instead, it's quite terrible or plaintive. Romanticism is about a certain orientation to society and the self. It's about valuing imagination and sympathy over materiality and community. Romantics appreciate inspiration over effort. Many of them do idealize the trees and the hills, but not all of them. We shouldn't make nature appreciation the be-all and end-all of Romanticism.

Balderdash. We've been hoodwinked!

I don't even know what this means.

[mortalterror]

I don't even know what this means.

I am merely suggesting that you are deliberately attempting to mislead the group. Virgil and I are wise to your games. He knows that I know, I know that he knows, he knows that I know he knows, and we know that you know what we know. We're calling shenanigans. I'm joking.

[JBI]

I am merely suggesting that you are deliberately attempting to mislead the group. Virgil and I are wise to your games. He knows that I know, I know that he knows, he knows that I know he knows, and we know that you know what we know. We're calling shenanigans. I'm joking.

Still, I think the overemphasis on Romanticism must be questioned. It is framed as a classical Idyll. The extensive time he took to edit the poem is clue enough.

Of course, metrically speaking it follows conventional forms - the big shift is actually the emergence of Rousseau in his work at this point (according to my edition, which I won't paste here as I have no time to translate it from Italian and French). The encounter gives him a break with conceptualizing, according to the intro, "Bientôt de la surface de la terre j'élevais mes idées à tous les êtres de la nature, au système universel des choses, à l'Etre incompréhensible qui embrasse tout." - Rousseau.

Sempre caro mi fu quest'ermo colle
E questa siepe che da tanta parte
De'll ultimo orrizonte il guarde esclude.

To me this lonely hill was always precious
And this hedgerow also , where so wide a stretch
Of the extreme horizon's out of sight.

What is the question of lonely? It isn't in the original - Ermo in this case as a suffix gestures toward "deserto" in connotation, simply meaning empty - perhaps a bit of a red-herring. The word "parte" in the second line as well is rather fond, as he uses it elsewhere with warm connotations (Garzanti edition note).


Ma sedendo e mirando interminati
Spazi di là da quella, e sovrumani
Silenzi, e profondissima quiete,
Io nel pensier mi fingo, ove per poco
Il cor non si spaura.

But sitting here and gazing, I find that endless
Spaces beyond that hedge, and more-than-human
Silences, and the deepest peace and quite
Are fashioned in my thought; so much that almost
My heart fills up with fear.

My problem is really with the bottom of this translation - It sort of flips the binary - ove, as a contraction functioning to link the parts. I cannot exactly think of a better way to translate it, because it is functioning on a negative, so rather than say my heart fills up with fear, it reads more like "my heart almost, for not a little, [wouldn't be able] to not be afraid. I can't exactly explain it, but the use of the positive on the verb instead of the negative seems to exaggerate the fearfulness of the scene.





E come il vento
Odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello
Infinito silenzio a questa voce
Vo comparando; e mi sovvien l'eterno,
E le morte stagioni, e la presente
E viva, e'l suon di lei. Così tra questa
Immensità s'annega il pensier mio:
E'l naufragar m'è dolce in questo mare.

Questionably though, the next bit doesn't use a subjunctive tense - it is rather strange, in the sense that he is presenting it as objective, when clearly he is writing of "il pensier mio," his thought. Also curious is in the third last line, his use of the preposition "tra" as apposed to something translating to in - as if he is passing through the infinite, as apposed to the infinite passing through him. The last bit also gestures to his desire to be destroyed within the infinity that is briefly passing him over. It all links back to what he wrote about it in the Zibaldone: "La natura l'abbia posta in noi solamente per la nostra felicità temporale, che non poteva stare senza illusioni." (taken from Garzanti edition note)

To me it seems not so much romantic as it does to be its own character; if I were to contrast it with something, I would be more inclined to compare it to this:

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Than to Tintern Abbey, which to me is the exact opposite poem. What Woodsworth is discussing, to me, is a wholeness found within his encounter with the Abbey and nature, whereas Leopardi seems to go the opposite direction; he is outside of it, and can only look at its enderlessness in contrast to his own limitation - he remarks on the extent that the illusion can sustain him, but he also laments the fact that the hill is merely a trick - my earlier comments toward the seasons and the wind to me suggest a reading based heavily on his use of the preposition "tra" which implies that everything passes through him, and the infinite offers him only a glimpse, implying his own mortality. The wind and the seasons then to me read as aspects of the infinity, as nature itself is, to me in my reading of Leopardi, central to his concept of the "infinity" or the endless.

What Leopardi does for much of his career is bemoan the cruelty of nature, as a bringer of suffering, in that it only affords brief periods that only lead to suffering and death. The hill then, in my reading, marks the viewing point, where he can see things move, and here the sounds, but ultimately, must descend from.

[Virgil]

Backpedal, backpedal, backpedal. You said it was like the "Aeolian Harp metaphor," not the "Aeolian Harp." And, if you meant it was similar in only the most superficial of senses, why wouldn't you say that? Isn't it misleading to start a "refutation" of something by agreeing with them?

Oh for goodness sake Quark, here's my exact post from that response:

I see your point Quark. Yes the wind through the bushes is similar to the Aeolian Harp metaphor, but with Leopardi, nothing the wind is limited in comparison the the scope of what it's set against, the infinte space. In fact he creates a direct compariosn: "pit its [the wind] speech against infinite silence." I think the key to this is evaluating the silence. There is a dichotomy. The wind is earthly, and the vastness of the horizon brings in another dimension, far reaching. The vastness of the horzon and boundless space is slient, "silences,/Deeper than human silence, an unfathomable hush" and that silence is what brings fear. And then there is the mentioning of dead seasons and the immensity that "drowns." It's only one small poem, and the rest will dictate to how similar or different Leopardi is from the Romantics, but i certainly see a distinction so far.

There is nothing in there that suggests i'm agreeing with you that it's roots are Romanticism.

I'm open to that possibility, but no one has given us any reason to believe that the poem is Neo-Classical.

I believe JBI has, though I admit it's sketchy. I don't think there's such a pure definition of what is neo-classical as there is for Romanticism.

Meanwhile, there are many reasons why it's Romantic: its subject has precedents in the Romantic tradition, the reflective lyric is a choice form of the Romantics, the speaker is addressing himself or herself on a "lonesome hill," there's a reference to the Aeolian Harp. All of these are reasons to look at the poem in a Romantic context. If there's something Neo-Classical, bring it forward.

Well, the lyric is rooted in classicism too. Ever read Horace, Sappho, Pindar. Here's Ode 3.13 from Horace:

O Fount Bandusia, brighter than crystal,
worthy of sweet wine and flowers,
tomorrow shalt thou be honoured with
a firstling of the flock whose brow,

with horns just budding, foretokens love
and strife. Alas! in vain; for this
offspring of the sportive flock shall
dye thy cool waters with its own red blood.

Thee the fierce season of the blazing
dog-star cannot touch; to bullocks wearied
of the ploughshare and to the roaming flock
thou dost offer gracious coolness.

Thou, too, shalt be numbered among the
far-famed fountains, through the song I
sing of the oak planted o'er the grotto
whence thy babbling waters leap.

Song, country animals, nature, it could be seen as Romantic, but it's not. It's classical. Just because a poet contemplates nature, doesn't make him Romantic.

And yet there are Romantic poems. It doesn't matter what they intend to do when they sit down. Literary movements are not defined by what the artist is thinking when his or her asss hits the chair. Rather, they come from the subject of the work of art, its attitudes, form, vocabulary, and reception. Many poets believe that they're writing in one tradition when really they'll find their home in another. Two of the six major English Romantic poets (Blake and Byron) wanted to be considered part of earlier literary traditions. Yet they make up the heart of Romanticism now.

I agree there. We're not disputing what romanticism is. We're disputing whether Leopardi's poem has elements of it. While it seems to have elements in it, I think its core is not romantic. But like I said, we are each reading through a prism and this poem is too short to fully classify it.

There is a lot going on this poem. It's not just any one thing.

Agreed.

And, again, I find this an odd reversal from you. You've been shooting down any reading of the poem that you yourself have not already authored.

Why is that odd from me?

You've clung to one pretty reductive reading of the poem throughout: one where the infinite overwhelms the personal. That's a good reading, but when you turn around and claim that my reading is reductive--that to call it Romantic is to call it bad--then I'm surprised.

I have said we can read it your way too. I'm just not convinced. What do you want me to do, capitulate to make you happy? Look, I respect your opinion and reading. I happen to disagree.

This is not the definition of Romanticism. You've gotten hung up on Wordsworthian emotion, and you've let that define Romanticism for you. A lot of Romantic poetry, though, doesn't have sentimental shepherds or warm and fuzzy descriptions of landscapes. Much of it is cold and abstract. I gave some examples of this earlier. Shelley's "Mount Blanc" is a good one. Nature is not emotionally regenerative here; instead, it's quite terrible or plaintive. Romanticism is about a certain orientation to society and the self. It's about valuing imagination and sympathy over materiality and community. Romantics appreciate inspiration over effort. Many of them do idealize the trees and the hills, but not all of them. We shouldn't make nature appreciation the be-all and end-all of Romanticism.

Sure. If you read my earlier posts on this, I also said that the "infinite silence," "deeper than human silence," seems to suggest something outside of romanticism. It seems to be drained of mystery and spirituality.

[The Comedian]

Forgive me, but I've been away for a few days and would like to participate in this discussion. However, I cannot find a starting point. Are we discussing a single poem? (If so, which one?) or are we just reading the book and posting what comes to mind?

I guess I was under the impression that we were selecting a single poem, discussing it, then selecting another one. If this is so, could someone point me at the correct poem?

Gracias

[Virgil]

Forgive me, but I've been away for a few days and would like to participate in this discussion. However, I cannot find a starting point. Are we discussing a single poem? (If so, which one?) or are we just reading the book and posting what comes to mind?

I guess I was under the impression that we were selecting a single poem, discussing it, then selecting another one. If this is so, could someone point me at the correct poem?

Gracias

Yes, it's probably been going on now for four pages or so. It's "L'Infinito" or in the Grennan translation called "Infinitive."

[The Comedian]

Yes, it's probably been going on now for four pages or so. It's "L'Infinito" or in the Grennan translation called "Infinitive."

Many thanks Virgil.

[The Comedian]

I was taken by surprise at the narrator's peaceful masochism in this poem. He's sitting on this hill, just behind a "hedge that hides the entire horizon, almost" -- then he "pictures" the "boundless spaces away out there".

My first thought was that he could just stand up and look over the hedge -- or peek through, if the hedge was taller than he. Then he could see the bounds all about him. But then again, he calls the hill "lonesome" in the first line, which makes me think that he goes there to be lonesome and afraid, to cull this emotion from selected observations of the landscape and then use these observations as a catalyst to enhance his own dejection and self-imposed isolation. Looking out of the hedge would remove him from this self-created cage he's made around him.

The next few lines pick up the (to my mind self-induced) fear idea, but use sound images to convey it: "silence" "wind" "rustling". The oddest part of the poem, for me, came next when he "pits" these two ideas ("rustling" and "silence") against each other. (Of course, there is no silence; he's just imagining it -- there can't be if there's audible "rustling" in the hedges).

The last few lines, however, brought the poem home to me: the iteration of the progression of the seasons ("dead" because they've past), leading him to the "here and now" -- and the echo of death imagery: "wrecked" "eternity" "drown".

And then the word "easeful" in the last line -- and I felt I could see why he loves this hill: it's a glass of vodka at 10:00am when no one's looking; it's a 15 minute nap at work in your cubical chair while your office door is closed-- the hill is a guilty escape to nothing. And at the same time he recognizes that his coming to the hill is a path to ruin ("wrecked") in the long run.

[JBI]

Lonesome is a mistranslation; should be deserted.

[stlukesguild]

Lonesome is a mistranslation; should be deserted.

Of course JBI's word is law. We will just need to assume that all the translators... most of whom work with the assistance of editors, professors, and interpreters fluent in the language and literature being translated... made the decision to employ the word "Lonesome" or "Lonely" because they were all incompetent.

By the way... here is an interesting link which offers multiple translations of L'Infinito ranging from plain prose literal translations to Robert Lowell's creative "imitation":

http://www.textetc.com/workshop/wt-leopardi-1.html

[stlukesguild]

I haven't read through all the posts so far, so excuse me if I repeat someone else... but I thought that this article from Monday's New York Times might be of interest:

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/19/bo...ter-dante.html

[Quark]

Some questions:

It is framed as a classical Idyll. The extensive time he took to edit the poem is clue enough.

It's been a while since I've read a classical idyll, but I thought the idylls were like Theocritus's pastorals. Is that the comparison you're drawing? When I look up idyll in reference works, I get definitions like this from The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (http://books.google.com/books?id=mp0...dyll&f=false):

a short poem describing an incident of country life in terms of idealized innocence and contentment; or any such episode in a poem or prose work. The term is virtually synonymous with pastoral poem, as in Theocritus' Idylls (3rd century BCE). The title of Tennyson's Idylls of the King (1842–85), a sequence of Arthurian romances, bears little relation to the usual meaning. Browning in Dramatic Idyls (1879–80) uses the term in another sense, as a short self‐contained poem.

and this one from Literary Terms: A Dictionary (http://books.google.com/books?id=dHw...l%22&f=false):

A short lyrical poem depicting rural or pastoral life. Such verse frequently contains conventional, idealized descriptions of the simple life of the shepherd. Begun by Theocritus and followed by many Classical poets, such as Vergil, poetry of this kind has been called pastoral. However, the pastoral idyll differs from the pastoral elegy in that it avoids a mournful tone. [definition continues]

Is this the way you're using the term?

the big shift is actually the emergence of Rousseau in his work at this point

You say "at this point." When exactly is this point? I mean, is there a particular year we can pin this down to?

What is the question of lonely? It isn't in the original - Ermo in this case as a suffix gestures toward "deserto" in connotation, simply meaning empty - perhaps a bit of a red-herring. The word "parte" in the second line as well is rather fond, as he uses it elsewhere with warm connotations (Garzanti edition note).

That's interesting. I've seen it translated as "lonesome" or "solitary." Some translations have extra words inserted in, though. At the beginning of the discussion I was noticing how some books have words like "plaintive" or "sad" attached to the wind, but other don't comment on the wind at all. The translator might be inserting a word to help readers to the mood that they think readers would miss in a purely word-for-word translation. Or, it could just be a mistranslation. I'm not good enough with English, let alone Italian, to know what the case is. If "lonesome" is not there, that does change things.

It all links back to what he wrote about it in the Zibaldone: "La natura l'abbia posta in noi solamente per la nostra felicità temporale, che non poteva stare senza illusioni." (taken from Garzanti edition note)

translation?

Than to Tintern Abbey, which to me is the exact opposite poem.

Neely brought up Tintern Abbey, but I don't think he was trying to equate the two poem's take on nature and the infinite. I think he was just saying that both use their meditations on these issues to find some comfort.

I agree that the take on nature and the infinite is quite different in the poems. There really isn't much to compare between them. I suppose the structure of the poems are similar, although Leopardi's is obviously much shorter. Each start with observations about a particular thought that then opens up into a philosophical discussion before turning back to the particular situation the poet finds himself or herself in. This is pretty common formulation. In fact, M.H. Abrams (major critic of Romanticism--wrote The Mirror and The Lamp) gave this a name: "Greater Romantic Lyric." He explains it in "Structure and Style in the Greater Romantic Lyric":

Some of the poems [Romantic lyrics] are called odes, while the others approach the ode in having lyric magnitude and a serious subject, feeling fully meditated. They present a determinate speaker in a particularized, and usually a localized, outdoor setting, whom we overhear as he carries on, in a fluent vernacular which rises easily to a more formal speech, a sustained colloquy, sometimes with himself or with the outer scene, but more frequently with a silent human auditor, present or absent. The speaker begins with a description of the landscape; an aspect or change of aspect in the landscape evokes a varied but integral process of memory, thought, anticipation, and feeling which remains closely involved with the outer scene. In the course of this meditation the lyric speaker achieves an insight, faces up to a tragic loss, comes to a moral decision, or resolves an emotional problem. Often the poem rounds upon itself to end where it began, at the outer scene, but with an altered mood and deepened understanding which is the result of the intervening meditation

I think the poem resembles the "Greater Romantic Lyric" in structure, at least. Yet there isn't nearly as satisfactory of a resolution or insight offered at the end of the poem. As everyone has been noticing, the impersonal infinite overwhelms the personal, and there's no "resolving" this problem. Instead, there's just an ounce of solace (maybe) in slipping into the "immensity." There's something at the end, but clearly it isn't the fireworks that Wordsworth sets off. When we get into the themes and content of Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," there probably are more contrasts then parallels, but the structure seems to be similar, at least.

You also mentioned a Wallace Stevens poem, I believe. But I'm not touching that with a twenty-foot pole. Trying to explicate a Wallace Stevens poem is like opening up a can of worms. I'll stick to the Leopardi.

then use these observations as a catalyst to enhance his own dejection and self-imposed isolation. Looking out of the hedge would remove him from this self-created cage he's made around him.

I love that we have eight different conversations going on at once. I'm not being sarcastic, I do like all the posts, but it's a bit much to try to respond to them all. There's the Romanticism/Classicism conversation, the nature/infinite discussion, the translation discussion, the commentary on art discussion, and now the psychological discussion. Is he self-imposing isolation to "enhance his own dejection?" Before, I think Neely was saying that this the hill is about comforting himself from painful thought (I could be mistaking Neely's point). Now, it's being suggested that the hill is about self-inflicted pain. I don't know which is a better reading.

The oddest part of the poem, for me, came next when he "pits" these two ideas ("rustling" and "silence") against each other.

What confused me about that is I'm unclear as to whether he's contrasting or equating those two. Some translations say "pits" against, but other say "compare." The two ideas are seemingly contrasting, but the string of and-phrases makes them seem similar. When I first read the poem, I read this as a dialectical exchange--two opposites productively playing off one another. But, now it seems more ambiguous.

The last few lines, however, brought the poem home to me: the iteration of the progression of the seasons ("dead" because they've past), leading him to the "here and now" -- and the echo of death imagery: "wrecked" "eternity" "drown".

this article from Monday's New York Times

You mean June 19th 1983's Monday. You're reaching way back for this one stlukes. It's got some good biographical details, though.

[JBI]

Lonesome is a mistranslation; should be deserted.

Of course JBI's word is law. We will just need to assume that all the translators... most of whom work with the assistance of editors, professors, and interpreters fluent in the language and literature being translated... made the decision to employ the word "Lonesome" or "Lonely" because they were all incompetent.

By the way... here is an interesting link which offers multiple translations of L'Infinito ranging from plain prose literal translations to Robert Lowell's creative "imitation":

http://www.textetc.com/workshop/wt-leopardi-1.html

The above site gives three, lonely, solitary, hermit's, etc, and even the "pushed off by itself". It doesn't matter though, I didn't come up with my translation - it's in the note within my book, that kind of makes it clear. The word itself is not common, and if you google.it it, you'll realize it only really comes up in this poem, or in a few cases, as parodied versions of the poem.

[JBI]

Sorry didn't make it clear; it was at this point that he began reading Rousseau as well as Pascal, which leaks directly into the poem. Until now he had only read classic and religious works for the most part, but by the time he got ill, he made an about face.

My link arguably to the classical is in that he fashions the poem as a moment of country beauty in a rather plain form, keeping with the Idyll convention, and although he does not come off as happy or Bucolic, there is still the resonance of pastoral elements.

The pastoral world of the idyll automatically functions with a background of the real, as essentially none of its poets were shepherds, or farmers, only imaginers who use the zone to portray a purer life-form free of the corruption of contemporary life (usually implying a satirical edge in the Roman sense of the genre). What Leopardi has done though is to translate the notions into a new form, making instead of the rustic life the subject of appeal, nature, and life outside of its infinity the scorned.