Break, Blow, Burn ~ Camille Paglia ~ Part 1 ~ Poet Export

BREAK, BLOW, BURN

by

Camille Paglia

Camille Paglia's most recent book, released the end of March and available only in hardcover, Break, Blow, Burn contains forty-three poems from Shakespeare to Joni Mitchell accompanied by Paglia's short essays of commentary on the poems.

.

Georgia Dusk

The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue
    The setting sun, too indolent to hold
    A lengthened tournament for flashing gold,
Passively darkens for night’s barbecue,

A feast of moon and men and barking hounds,
    An orgy for some genius of the South
    With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth,
Surprised in making folk songs from soul-sounds.

The sawmill blows its whistle, buzz saws stop,
    And silence breaks the bud of knoll and hill,
    Soft settling pollen where plowed lands fulfill
Their early promise of a bumper crop.

Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile
    Curls up, blue ghosts of trees, tarrying low
    Where only chips and stumps are left to show
The solid proof of former domicile.

Meanwhile, the men, with vestiges of pomp,
    Race memories of king and caravan,
    High priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man,
Go singing through the footpaths of the swamp.

Their voices rise . . .the pine trees are guitars,
    Strumming, pine needles fall like sheets of rain . . .
    Their voices rise . . . the chorus of the cane
Is caroling a vesper to the stars. . .

O singers, resinous and soft your songs
    Above the sacred whisper of the pines,
    Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines,
Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs.

~Jean Toomer

Discussion Leader: Deems

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We're thinking of this discussion as a "mini-course" that will run throughout the summer, but there is no requirement to sign on for the duration. Given that many folks will be away for parts of the summer or will be entertaining family, this will be a catch-as-catch-can operation.

The plan of attack is to look at the poems line by line in a method called explication of text which simply means close reading.

All are welcome. No previous experience with poetry is required, but all who have studied and loved poetry are also welcome.

Please join us and indicate your interest by leaving a message.

Maryal (Deems)

Count me in, my book has arrived.

Welcome, Andy! Always good to see your happy face.

This happens to me a lot lately: I thought I had subscribed and didn't realized till last night that I hadn't heard anything. I think I click on subscribe and forget to check "check messages".

JoanK!! Welcome. You didn't do anything wrong. Until today we didn't have the Proposed page up (my fault) so even if you clicked on Subscribe, there was no here to come.

I'll bet that's incomprehensible, right?

Anyhoo, very good to see you again. This will be fun with you aboard.

Maryal/Deems

That sounds like one of those ancient fragments, mentioned by Paglia in her introduction, which hints at real poetic greatness.

It happens to everyone, Joan. I seem to remember even Gertrude Stein's disappointment when she reported in a measured way that there is no there there on arriving at her sought-for destination.

See you all on the 23rd, not only neither here nor there, but everywhere that the poet's fancy can reach to.

Jonathan

And now Jonathan! Our little group is growing. And we have plenty of time for others to join since it is only a little after Tax Day (USA) and there is now a here here. Love your reference to the ancient poetry fragments, Jonathan, from the introduction.

Here or there, but certainly here for the duration. Once we begin, that is.

Maryal/Deems

Tomorrow, at 10 AM PDT, Camille Paglia will appear on Michael Krasny's Show, Forum, on KQED-FM, 88.5. Here is the blurb: Michael Krasny Forum host Michael Krasny welcomes Camille Paglia to the studio to talk about her favorite poems. The professor, described as a "veteran diva of shock discourse" has a new book titled, "Break, Blow, Burn." The web site is "kqed.org" and it can be heard live as well as archived for later review.

Thank you, Mrs. Sherlock! I saw Camille Paglia at Politics and Prose, a bookstore in Washington, D.C. But it is good to know that she is also on the radio. I expect that she might be on Book TV (C-span on the weekends) some time soon since she seems to have infinite energy to make appearances.

Are you planning to join our group? We'd love to have you.

Maryal/Deems

Yes, I can't resist poetry. I must order my book; I wonder which (if any) of my favorites she has included.

William Carlos Williams' icebox is in there (sans plums -- I checked).

O boy, o boy, does this mean that Kevin will be joining us too? If you have the book, Kevin, you gotta come. Yes, the icebox poem is in there as well as the farm poem, both by WC Williams, the good doctor.

Mrs. Sherlock--yahoo, glad you will be joining us. I do like your name, probably because I can remember it.

Poetry better watch out with all of us savvy folks (specially for Kevin) joining forces. And Kevin, I think the mezzanine of hell is where Virgil and all the great pagans are (well, not all of them, but the ones Dante approved of): lots of green fields and intelligent conversation.

Maryal/Deems

Deems -- I'm not so hot at poetry, so I could use a little Pagliazation (or whatever you call her school marmin'). I'll see if I can get my hands on a copy via the library. I looked at it in the bookstore. 20 buckeroos, she was. Whew! What books do to a lad's budget!

And thanks for the dope on Dante's Mezzanine. I plum forgot about Virgil and the Pagans (a rock group
from the 60s, no?).

Kevin--Indeed, lots of rock groups back then with odd names. Now the odd names belong to rappers. Paglia's book is intended for general readers, both people who love poetry and those who haven't done much with it before. We'll have to see how well she keeps that promise. I can't even console you with the fact that it would've been ten percent off last month at Border's since it is no longer last month. Anyhoo, hope you join us.

I am a Private Reader (much lower on the scale than a General Reader). Still, I will try to get the book so I can wax poetic. Thanks for the welcome and I MAY see you in a week or so.

I'll come with you as I have written some poetry and am curious as to how I might improve it. Anything is worth a try.

I heard part of the Paglia interview; she is a firecracker! Not at all shy about her opinions. Reading her should be a blast. A caller asked if she had poems other than those written in english; she replied that she may do another book for them, but it is very time-consuming, choosing among the translations, etc.

Well a big HI to you, Jan Sand. Most interesting to hear that you are a poet. We can use a poet's eyeview here. Since Paglia has chosen, at least for the first part of her book, some of the canonical works of poetry (in English), I have no doubt that you will recognize some of them. What kind of poetry do you write? Short, long, lyrical?

Mrs. Sherlock--Right you are. Dr. Paglia is a firecracker, even more so live than I had imagined she would be. I'm pretty sure that she has more adrenaline than most folks. She clearly uses overstatement to make her points. However, I think in the essays that follow each poem, you will find her measured and scholarly, not scholarly as in you can't understand her but scholarly as in she knows what she is talking about and she does everything she can to make her points clear.

But fear not, this is not a political tract. For that, we'll have to read one of her others, Sexual Personae, perhaps?

Maryal/Deems

No Personae, Please. We're British.

OK, Kevin, give me ten minutes and maybe I'll figure that out. I know you mean something. I'm looking for the pun and not seeing it. Pun, pun, where are you?

From the Oxford English Dictionary:

4. Pl. personæ, personas. a. A character deliberately assumed by an author in his writing; also transf.

1909 E. POUND (title) Personae. 1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 20 June 345/1 To this extent, Lewis Eliot is, as it were, a convenient and comfortable persona for his author. 1962 W. NOWOTTNY Lang. Poets Use ii. 42 So far as a particular kind of persona is necessary to the poem, the poet's diction must create it. 1963 AUDEN Dyer's Hand 401 The more closely his [sc. Byron's] poetic persona comes to resemble the epistolary persona of his letters to his male friends..the more authentic his poetry seems. 1976 Gramophone Dec. 965/3 George Logan and Patric Fyffe in the personae of Dr Evadne Hinge and Dame Hilda Bracket are on EMI One-Up OU2125 (7/76).

Still working on the pun.

Maryal

Pun? I don't do puns.

It's just a take on the famous English play, No Sex Please, We're British! I saw it back in 1982.

Thankewe! Working on that would have kept me awake tonight. I've not seen the play but I certainly recognize the title.

Now I can ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz z zz zzz

Maryal/Deems

No Sex. No Personae. There is a bioLogic to that. I wonder who thought of it.

Jan, so glad to see you will be here. Reading you poetry is such a pleasure, it has me thinking in meter again; maybe a verse will rise from the ashes of my mentation. Do we get extra points for rhyming?

Of course, Mrs. Sherlock. Emerge, like the Phoenix from your own ashes and rhyme or rime your heart away. I'm not much good at it, so I'll just write in prose, old dull ordinary prose. I do like to read poetry but I gave up writing it when I was in college. I just couldn't come up to my own standards. Wanted so desperately to be deep and philosophical and beautiful all at once. I still have those old poems somewhere. Should search them out and make sure they are in the recycle bin before I am too old to remember where they are or who wrote them.

You can't be embarrassed after you're dead, can you?

Maryal

Anyone can find my poetry by submitting my name to Google.

I enjoy rhyme as well as all the other poetic techniques. I have no formal education in the field and do it for fun. Rhyme can be made interesting by using it as a focus point to reach past line endings into content comnnections although it can add a kind of dumb sing-song quality to a poem. Sometimes I get lazy and let rhyme inject a surprising word to poke a thought along.

Thank you, Jan. I will read some of your poems today.

Maryal

Jan Sand's Poetry Menu

I've been reading along here. ~Marj

Well hello there, MarjV. I hope you will continue reading along with us. We haven't begun yet, of course. Thank you for the link. I went and read Jan's poems yesterday and enjoyed them. Perhaps "enjoyed" is not quite the right word because some of them are sad, but I certainly appreciated them.

Maryal/Deems

Got my book! How are we going to do this, poem by poem?

Mrs. Sherlock--So happy to hear that you have your book. Yup, we will proceed poem (and accompanying essay) by poem. Paglia works in chronological order which I think is helpful for a study of poetry since so many poets learn from each other. Also poets who wrote in the same time period share the same culture (more or less), so it is easier to catch a glimpse of the world that surrounds a poem.

So, we'll begin with the three (I think it's two sonnets and the ghost's speech from Hamlet) by Shakespeare and then move on to John Donne. Donne's Holy Sonnet 15 provides Paglia with her title.

Maryal/Deems

I bought my book yesterday. Haven't yet done more than glance at it, but how can a discussion of poems I like by people I respect be anything but good.

YooooHoooooo! Pat H! Welcome welcome. Our merrie crew is gaining in numbers. Good to see you again.

Maryal/Deems

Yikes! I forgot to subscribe to this site and just found it again. After a Dr.s appointment this AM I will return to read all of these missed posts.

Welcome back, Andy. I hope that all went well with the doctor.

Yes, EVERYONE, if you use subscriptions, do remember to subscribe! There are so many discussions that one can easily get lost on SeniorNet. I speak as one who has herself been lost.

Maryal/Deems

I love the question you posed. One can't be embarassed after death, can one???? That brought a loud guffaw.

I live in Helsinki and have yet to locate the book but I looked up a New York Times review and it is long and worth reading. It is at:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F07E3DE113CF934A15750C0A9639C8B63

Jan--The book was just released in late March so I am not surprised that you are having problems in Helsinki. I do hope that you can locate a copy. How about badgering your local library?

Thank you for the link to the NYTimes review.

Maryal/Deems

I have checked the two very large book stores in Helsinki and the book is not here. I might be able to keep track of the discussion if, like the discussion of "The Story of Civilization ", at least some of the book material is presented in this site. I probably can access the poems discussed in other ways.

Jan--Bad luck! I'm pretty sure that all the poems in the first half of the book are available online, but there is no online excerpt from the book. It is so new, you see. I'm sure the main points Paglia makes in her essays will come up during our discussion.

I hope you will stay with us.

Maryal/Deems

I want to read them! I will look for all on the web:)

This link gives a list of the poems in BREAK, BLOW, BURN

http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0375420843&view=toc

Thanks for the list. I am familiar with many of them. I was disappointed at the absence of Frost. And Dylan Thomas. I would have been fascinated by an analysis of Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark" or if that was too long, "The Jabberwocky". And at least one of Millay's sonnets. Or Arnold's "Dover Beach". Oh well. You can't have everything

Thanks, patwest, for the link to the contents of BREAK, BLOW, BURN.

Jan--I recently heard Paglia speak and when it came to question time, the first to the mike said, "Well, everyone is going to jump on you for the poems you didn't put in this book, aren't they?" Paglia laughed and said the criticism had already begun.

Some poems that I dearly love are not in her anthology. My daughter points out that she is ignoring very excellent contemporary poets. I tell myself that there are only 43 poems here, and no matter what 43 she had picked, a lot of people would find their favorites left out.

Maryal/Deems

Here is a short Paglia interview. She doesn't mince any words in giving her opinion.

Paglia; Philadelphia City Paper

Marj- this artcile says that she is a professor at the University but doesn't say which University. Is it PA?

I am really a novice when it comes to poetry, but it somehow speaks to me and makes me take pause (that is unusual for me.) I am hoping to learn a great deal more through this discussion.

I enjoyed the article, thank you.

MarjV--Heh! Indeed, Paglia is a woman full of opinions which she does not mince or soften or dilute. She is the epitome of outspoken. Thank you for the link.

Andy--Paglia is University Professor of Humanities and Media Studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. I'll have to check out this university. They must have a web site. The article is from a Philadelphia paper and thus the writer can assume that the audience knows about the Unversity of the Arts.

Maryal/Deems

I read the article and it's nice to know she liked "Jabberwocky". Too bad she didn't elaborate why. As somebody who writes poetry but doesn't know any poets it's interesting to get her take on the poetry community. I think she's a bit rough. The poet lauteates Karl Shapiro and Billy Collins (among others) have done some very nice clear poems. And Auden was a major poet she neglected.

JAN:"I was disappointed at the absence of Frost". She says in the introduction that she hates Frost, but she doesn't elaborate and tell us why. I'm already frustrated by the fact that she doesn't elaborate her opinions enough for us to really discuss them. I'm hoping we can do this with supplementary material.

JoanK--Suppliment to your heart's content. We are not all going to agree with Paglia's (admittedly strong) opinions. I enjoy teaching Frost's poems because the students generally "get" him, but he's not on my list of poets that I would anthologize either, especially if I had to limit myself to 43 poems.

When my daughter and I had the Large Discussion as to whether or not any contemporary poets were as "good" as Donne and Herbert and Blake and Yeats and.....you go on and add to the list, my daughter said that she thought Paglia was not looking hard enough, that there are indeed a number of poets she (my daughter) thought were excellent. I foolishly decided to "defend" Paglia and the discussion accelerated. Finally, I hit upon an acceptable compromise, or perhaps a dodge.

I said that if I were compiling an anthology of a truly limited number of poems (43) and I was going to write an accompanying essay for each one, I would pick poems that I had things to say about, poems that I knew what to do with on a close reading.

I think that is what Paglia has done, and I think everyone will enjoy the essays she writes about the poems whether or not you agree with her choice of poems.

Dissenting opinions are most welcome.

Maryal/Deems

It's not that I think she shouldn't hate Frost. It's that I miss her telling us what she hates about him, so I can see what she sees, and decide if I agree.

Of course, each of us would pick different poems if we were doing this. She lays no claims to having picked the 43 absolute best in the universe, nor should she. In fact, I am hoping that some of her choices will be highly individual and idiosyncratic. That is where I am hoping to learn the most.

It's what she finds in some of these 'familiar' poems that really perplexes me. But what can you expect from someone who is looking for the magic in words? Feel battered. Blow your top. Do a burn. It bodes well for a discussion.

From the variety of the poetry on the list I would expect that the book might express a delight in the multitude of capabilities of poetry. The field lies somewhere between prose and song and partakes of both. Some people object that some poetry ventures too far into one or the other but it also has a "fourth dimension" in using words and concepts in such a novel way as to be unique as a mode of expression.

E e cummings and Dylan Thomas and Lewis Carroll have moved to warp words into new sounds and sounds into new words to move into this strange and beguiling and exotic area which is why they fascinate me. Each in their own way present a charming cryptic form of language that evokes the mystery and seduction of new words the way new lands enticed early explorers expecting to see dragons and monsters and magical sorcerors and trees full of diamonds and succulant fruit.

With all the different ways poem are unique it brings to mind how each of us is so unique and have traveled different paths in life.

~Marj

Hopefully I can get the book- I have a Border's discount coupon. And a store near here.

Marj--Good luck. I got my copy at Border's. The other night I noted that they still had a couple of copies. I think it's selling pretty well, especially given that it's a book of poetry and commentary on poetry. Look for the shocking pink cover. I don't think you can miss the title.

Maryal/Deems

Frost is my favorite poet, too, and his reputation probably suffers from his popularity among the "common man" even though he's no grocery store variety populist like, say, Ferlinghetti was.

Ernest Hemingway (in fiction) went through the same deal. Academics shunned him because common readers embraced his oh-so-readable books, which came across stylistically as "simple." I know Paglia may not count as an "academic" but, in my mind, there's academics and contrarian-academics and she's one I'd place in the latter category.

Frost's poems are deceivingly simple and in many cases quite complex. Maybe I'm partial because I'm a New Englander and Frost we claim as one of ours (even if he was born in San Francisco and even if his full name is, of all things, Robert E. Lee Frost).

End of really cool post. Hope it doesn't get a Frosty reception.

P.S. Jan, I didn't know we had a Finn (or an expat in Finland) here. We have dear friends who live in Finland (city of Espoo).

I'm a New Yorker, a refugee from my native city which has turned unsympathetic to seniors and overpriced for people living on a very limited income. Also, importantly, my wife and son and three grandchildren are Finnish. Espoo is just a short bus ride from Helsinki.And more importantly, Finland has no grand ideas about militarily converting the world to its way of thinking.

Kevin--Frost is much loved and you're right about some of the poems being very intricate. My guess is that it is Paglia's personal preference to omit Frost, but I wouldn't go so far as to think of this as an "academic" choice. By the way, Hemingway is much studied by academics. There are new books and articles about his novels and short stories all the time, not to mention biographies. I don't think he was ever discredited because he was "simple."

In fact, Hemingway is only apparently simple because of the lucid prose style (imitated by many contemporary writers, along with Faulkner, his oposite). If you pick up The Sun Also Rises and open to one of the scenes where there is dialogue, you will notice that he omits tag lines (he said, she said) and if you don't slow down (or mark the text) you quickly lose track of who is speaking. Maybe a better example would be "Hills Like White Elephants" where a young man and his girlfriend (wife? not clear in the story) are discussing whether or not she should have an abortion. Their conversation must be read very slowly to determine which one is speaking.

Jan--How much cheaper is it to live in Helsinki? And how long have you lived there? I'm interested to know more.

Maryal/Deems

I first came to Helsinki as a field man for a design firm on an exhibition for the US Commerce dept. in 1961. I met my wife here and lived in various spots around Europe and in the USA. When my three year old son was made quadriplegic by a careless driver in Israel in 1968 the USA would give me no help in his care Finland volunteered to give him Finnish citizenship to place him in the Finnish medical system. He lived thirty years longer and I cared for him within the hospital system. I made several unsuccessful attempts to re-establish myself professionally in New York City and finally decided my only future lay in Helsinki. The educational system through university is essentially free and the medical system permits me to be medically maintained as the USA does not. Rents and food are comparable to the US but my meagre savings have lost 1/4 of their value in the decline of the dollar. The people are considerate, well informed, and most speak a reasonable English which is deleterious to my becoming fluent in Finnish.

I'd love to move to Finland Station. But I can't convince my wife, who's grounded in American soil (and perhaps a better American than I am, as I could easily bid this land farewell).

Good news -- I'm in queue for the Paglia book from the inter-library loan program. Only 2nd on the list, too.

Jan, I am looking for a refuge for my retirement. Victoria, BC, has my main interest now but Finland sounds attractive. A dear friend tells me that I can't run far enough away to escape the bellicosity and evangleism the United States is becoming. Speaking of evangelistic Christians, they are turning out their own lawyers now; 600 a year according to NPR. How is Finland on religion, or lack of same?

Thank you, Jan. I read about your son in one of your poems. What a terrible thing. I am sorry for your pain. I know what it is to have a child in trouble or injured. It's always a case of wanting to be the one who suffers if you are a parent.

Mrs. Sherlock--Alas, 600 evangelical lawyers being churned out a year? Talk about non-cheering information. My father was a Congregational minister and he saw the tide of evangelicism coming some thirty years ago. A man ahead of his time. He is currently rolling in his grave and shaking his head.

Kevin--Good news about being second in line for the book. YAY.

Maryal/Deems

"Frost is my favorite poet, too, and his reputation probably suffers from his popularity among the "common man" even though he's no grocery store variety populist"

In music, people who know more than I do sometimes get embarrassed to like the pieces that are super-popular. These pieces get played over and over, and people who go to a lot of concerts get tired of them and start to dislike these "old war horses" as they are called.

These pieces are always approachable and melodic or dramatic. But they are often excellent as well. It's a shame. I'm glad I don't know enough about poetry to know which the old war-horses are, so I don't have to take this baggage with me.

After all, we are students of poetry. It's natural we should like the most approachable first. And hopefully, this coarse will help us approach the more difficult.

Super point, Joan. "We are students of poetry". That helps to make the playing field level.

And I do like Frost.

And Finland sounds like a better deal than our country for older people. I can't believe my current dental bills! Jan, does that medical help in Finland also cover the dental? And prescription medicine?

And I shake my head also about that number of evang. lawyers!!!!!

Baggage is what makes the book so wonderful. Camille Paglia doesn't travel light. Of course, she would probably insist on calling it associations. And it's just dazzling to watch her unpack. That's the fun part of the book.

I think John Donne's famous batter plea might have been avoided altogether if he had had the counselling of one of the six hundred Christian lawyers. Heaven help us if the poets start running of to the lawyers to help them with their case.

It's revival time again in America. Just like Mark Twain said. Surely only good can come of it.

Jonathan--Thanks for the laughter. I pictured Donne running off to a lawyer (solicitor? Rumpole of the Bailey?) to get spiritual counseling. Donne was himself a cleric, well known for his sermons as well as the poems. He was on familiar ground with God, his faith deep and not easy. Easy religion seems to be the order of the day. No thought process required. Don't get me going.......

You two are so funny!!!!!!

I'm imagining Rumpole dealing with all this. ha!!!!

I have the book on hold at Borders since I forgot to take my discount coupon with me.

I assume the discussion will be held. And I'll join.

~Marj

ps...anybody need the coupon- I can forward the e-mail with the link to print it out....20% off any book 10th to 16th.

Marj! Of course the discussion will be held! Fear not.

I'm just busy with end of the semester hoohaa and thus don't have a lot of time. But it's almost over. Yay!

Just wanted to double check.

I like it that a whole big discussion is not ensuing prior to the starting time.

Thanks, Maryal

My computer became ill about five days ago and I just got back into operation.

Finland is a very nice place to be but it's not too easy to take residence here. Since my wife is Finnish and all my descendents are now Finnish my way has been made easier. If you pick up languages easily it may be easier to gain official acceptance but work is difficult to find unless you have special skills.

This might help you. http://www.finlandjournal.com/finland.php

Here is another interesting site

http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=36458

My world will collapse if this discussion doesn't happen.

I keep checking in for reassurance.

I have plenty of anthologies around the house, but nothing like Paglia's, in which each little poem comes with a letter of introduction. Poetry made easy. Even inditing is made to seem easy, with such fine examples of the art. And what a brilliant opening with that unusual little sonnet that Shakespeare must have knocked off in a senior moment. Been there. Done that.

OK, who started the rumor about not starting?

I'll even get the first sonnet up in the heading the day before so you can all memorize it. Heh.

No rumor....I just wanted to doublecheck before I putout the $$$$ for the book. I like how she organized it from just glancing at it in the store.

Marj--God willing and the creek don't rise!

God willin' and the creek don't rise
Maryal/Deems will have a surprise
Poesy for all, and a curmudgeon, too --
What the poesy crowd would call Paglia stew
So if you find your alliterative tomes
On May 23 to this thread roam.
Break dance
Blow up
Burn, baby, burn!
Break dance
Blow up
Burn, baby, burn!
And now that I've set poesy back a million years
Yell your little assonances off with all kinds of jeers.
Break, blow, burn but no Frost
Break, blow, burn but no Frost.

Speaking of Frost, he was the author of the poem on the Last Man Standing contest a while ago. I thought I knew Frost, but when its word by word it is easy to go astray. Sometimes you can guess the next word with Frost, but not Dickinson! Her words are so sculpted that there's no room for guesswork. Brings a new level of appreciation.

Kevin--I applaude your "poesy" as it describes what will happen here, how many ways BREAK BLOW BURN can be used, makes me laugh, and is clever and delightful. Poesy away.

OH, the "Paglia Stew" would most likely make the woman herself laugh.

Earnest she can be, but upon one in-person viewing, I found her to have a lively sense of humor too.

Mrs. Sherlock-- Agree. Poetry when you have to take it word by word is much more difficult. And Dickensen would be harder to do that way than Frost although Frost has many an unexpected word as well.

Maryal

Is it the sacred river Alph we're watching?

I desperately needed to be enlightened. I never heard the term "poesy" til I read it here. I Googled the word and found a Poesy journal but I didn't really want to watch the photos. And it didn't tell me anything anyway.

Then I came across this which is another journal and had a definition http://www.poesy.org/about.html

poesy \Po"e*sy\,n. [F. po['e]sie (cf. It. poesia), L. poesis, from Gr. ?. from ? to make. Cf. Posy.] 1. The art of composing poems; poetical skill or faculty; as, the heavenly gift of poesy. 2. Poetry; metrical composition; poems. Music and poesy used to quicken you. 3. A short conceit or motto

I like the word! Just had not encountered it before. So I have progressed up the ladder a rung.

Poetry at last!! I am always pleased to join in. Bern

MARJV, Here is my favorite "definition."

Poesy

Leave it to Sammy to go on and on and Kubla Kh-on.

I like the word "poesy" because it sounds more "poesetic" and old school, like me (don't argue with the mirror, I always say).

P.S. No sign of my library-loan copy yet.

Thanks for the link.

I like the word "poesy" very much.

Here's the first entry for the word poesy in the Oxford Eng. Dictionary. It is marked ARCHAIC.

1. = POETRY. a. Poetical work or composition; poems collectively or generally; poetry in the concrete, or as a form of literature. (In early use sometimes including composition in prose, esp. works of imagination or fiction: cf. POEM 1b, POET 1b, c, POETRY 2.) Now an archaic or poetical synonym of poetry.

13.. Min. Poems fr. Vern. MS. lv. vii. 73 Salamon seide in his poysi, He holde{th} wel betere wi{th} an hounde {Th}at is lykyng and Ioly,..{Th}en be a Leon,..Cold and ded. 1377 LANGL. P. Pl. B. XVIII. 406 Thanne piped pees of poysye a note. 1390 GOWER Conf. II. 148 Ovide..tolde a tale in Poesie, Which toucheth unto Jelousie. c1400 Destr. Troy 418 As put is in poise and prikkit be Ouyd. 1560 WHITEHORNE Arte Warre 108b, The perfeccion that poesie, paintyng, and writing, is now brought vnto. 1581 SIDNEY Apol. Poetrie (Arb.) 49 It is not ryming and versing, that maketh Poesie. One may bee a Poet without versing, and a versifier without Poetry. 1605 BACON Adv. Learn. II. iv. §1. 1636 DENHAM Destr. Troy Pref. (1656) Aiij, Poesy is of so subtle a spirit, that in pouring out of one Language into another, it will all evaporate. a1704 T. BROWN Sat. Antients Wks. 1730 I. 14 The Satirical poesy of the Greeks. 1841 D'ISRAELI Amen. Lit. (1867) 405 Among the arts of English poesie, the most ample and most curious is an anonymous work. 1883 Congregationalist Mar. 265 The Book of Psalms..is the Paradise of Devotion, the Holy Land of poesy.

Welcome BERN!! Come join our happy company.

...where Alph the sacred river[not the creek] ran
through caverns measureless to man
down to a sunless sea.

That's from memory so a word or too may be off.

From Coleridge, "Kubla Khan"

Watch out for that person from Porlock.

Great fun to read the Oxford words.

." The Opium induced hallucinations Coleridge experienced gave him an unusual insight that allowed him to create some of the most imaginative and visual places ever conceived. The visceral quality of his poetry allowed the reader to see these fantastic places like none other. The price paid for this talent was the addiction to the same Opium that gave him the visions." http://www.archetypal.com/xanadu/samuel_taylor_coleridge/

I had never heard this about Coleridge. Perhaps you all with a deep literature background were aware.

And furthermore, while he was writing Kubla Khan down in a burst of opium-induced inspiration, someone interrupted him with a bunch of mundane business, and when the man left, Coleridge couldn't remember the rest of the originally much longer poem.

Kevin, I can "see" your facility with words from the poem or poesy above! And while I'm still trying to find a thread of sense from all the words expressed so far, I'm delighted to become a part of the conversation.

And would you believe it? Paglia, a New Critics' fan, promises her focus will be on the words of these poems. I'm wondering if this is a threat or a promise. Can't wait for the time when all our words of wit and wisdom begin to flow. Bern

Thanks, Bern. Words are facile for me. Talk is cheap, as my dad always complained (just made me buy more stock, is all).

My copy of B³ is in. Unfortunately, I can't get it until the library reopens on Monday.

Ah yes, that person from Porlock who interrupted the opium dream. It's always something when you're a writer, isn't it? Coleridge was also a great talker. Contemporaries galore report how wonderful it was to be in conversation with him. I think he was an extrovert. Much of the good writing we have is done by introverts. Extroverts keep getting distracted by one thing or another while introverts can happily work away with their own company. My daughter, who is an introvert, says that when she has a decision to make, there's a whole committee in her head making various recommendations. How I wish I could do that. No voices in my head at all when I have a decision, just a huge question mark.

Bern--We're just "chatting." You're in plenty of time for the beginning still a week away and a little more.

PatH--I've always thought that Coleridge simply lost the vision and invented the distraction. No one will ever know. But Kubla Khan is such a miraculous little fragment that I can understand Coleridge's desire to publish it even though he couldn't finish it.

Kevin--Not to worry. We don't begin until May 23. Before you know it the library will be open and you can retrieve the book. Jan--I hope you manage to find a copy somehow. If not, the poems will be (at least in the beginning) in the heading and we'll all do our best to introduce Paglia's comments which I find instructive and entertaining (and short!)

Marj--One of the perks of my job is access to the OED online. I love reading the sentences that illustrate the use of the word.

Maryal/Deems

I loved that definition, too. Have you all read "The Professor and the Madman" by Simon Winchester, the story of how it was compiled?

I don't know too much about poems.

Normlet3

Normlet3 -- You're in! (And you're welcome!) We can all learn together. I'll be the Chief Headscratcher.

Whose poem this is
I think I know
I cannot even
Figure it, though

No one can see me
Writing here
The darkest evening
Of the year

My little computer
Must think it queer
To stop and think
About poems all year

It gives its hard drive
A little shake
To laugh at my many
Poetic mistakes

The words are lovely, dark, and deep
But I have miles to go
Before knowledge I keep
Yes miles to go
Before knowledge I keep.

copywrong 2005
Kevin "I Shall Be" Freeman

Kevin: Frost must be rolling with laughter or shaking a bony finger at you!

I read SeniorNet boards in 1994, and somehow get away from it. Glad to find you all again!

Good Day to All Poetry Lovers. I would like to join your discussion on May 23rd.

This sounds like a lovel book. I have begun a search through the library network here in NH. Hopefully I can find a copy. I love words and literature. I will try to keep up with the discussions. Esther Barber

I'm interested in this book which has received wonderful reviews. Count me in please.

Deems, they're coming out of the woodwork!

Welcome JoanV, isabel56, Esther, and Vouzon LC. Maryal will be here by and by to pour the lemonade and bring in the freshly-made molasses cookies. She's out apologizing to the heirs of Robt. Frost for the poem that appeared in her thread this morning. Meantime, I'll have to do.

Glad to see you here!

Poetry has always been on the periphery for me until I received an invitation to join the Academy of American Poets last month.

Please include me in the book discussion starting on 5/23

Kathleen

Hi Kathleen! And welcome~!

(Um, is Deems down at the local Wal-Mart handing out fliers? It's the '49 Gold Rush in posters!)

BTW, Kathleen, congrats on the invitation. Did you write some poetry to attract that organization's attention?

This book has some very interesting reviews. I would like to join and try once again to increase my appreciation of poetry. La Verne

Oh, this is turning into one great poesy party!

~Marj

Um... Marj? Could you run out for more brownie mix?

La Verne, this book will definitely do it for you. There'll be no turning your back on poetry after this. Paglia will not let you off the hook.

Kevin, I think you can expect to get an invitation very soon from the AAP.

Thanks for keeping the memory of Frost alive. So he's too tame for Paglia. So he's left out in the cold with all the others who didn't make the cut. She loathed him as a teenager, she tells us. Now that's unusual. Not a birch tree climber, my guess.

Kevin- I hope you like the Ghirardelli mix...that's my current favorite-- the chocolate is absolutely heavenly X 2 - rich , moist, dark and contains chips!!!!!.

Just goes to show you what happens when you leave the store for just a little while.

Thank you, Kevin, for doing the honors, making the brownies, pouring the drinks, greeting all and sundry.

I've been gone this afternoon at an open house given by a former student of mine. He has just earned his PhD and I remember him when he was a pup. In fact he says that he was planning to major in physics and that I talked him into English and that it has made all the difference (for good, thank heaven). Too bad for physics though.

Anyhoo.......tumtumtumtumtumtum tummpty tum.......

Welcome JOAN V and ISABEL and ESTHER and VOUZON and FAKI, and I hope I didn't miss anyone.

Maryal/Deems

Please, all who emailed me saying that you wanted to join us, leave a message here so we'll all know about you. Those of you who plan to check in regularly might want to subscribe to this discussion. Then when you click on "Subscriptions," you will be brought to the post that follows the one you last read. Well, I didn't say that very clearly. Someone else take a shot. SeniorNet is a really big place, and if I didn't use Subscriptions I'd get lost myself.

Maryal/Deems

Before taking up a book or my Palm (great to test one's eyesight) to read, I usually try to discover as much as I can about the author, not just facts but a little gossip mixed in. Hurrah! for blogs. Somehow I find it fascinating to get-to-know all about the person whose spirit and personality makes her words a kind of conversation… and then when all the neighbors chime in with their “two cents,” there is wit and wisdom enough to spread the word.

Kevin, your parody is sure to have awakened Frost’s words from the deep freeze of our memories. How about “Fire and Ice.”

Marjv, Let’s make some brownies! How about some ice cream on top?

And,bmcinnis- hot fudge sauce over it all!

Some say dessert will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of my wife's brownies
I hold with those who favor Fudge Townies.
But if I have to discuss poems twice,
I think I know enough innate
To know that our good friend, Maryal/ Deems
Is also great
And all she Seems.

News Flash: The estate of Robert Frost has contacted seniornet.org and asked it to cease and desist with the melting of a certain poet's Frosting.

P.S. to marj and Bern -- what the devil's in these brownies?

Kevin--You are something else. I love parody. I love your poems. I love how closely you stick to Frost (must be the chocolate sauce on all those brownies). Honestly, People, you must be careful not to get brownie crumbs and chocolate sauce all over the poems. We are a serious group here, ready to take on some of the great poems in the Engfish language. Let's all be careful to use our napkins and assume serious and studious poses.

I've been receiving all sorts of emails from AOL people who plan to join our little group to eat brownies (what IS that in them, Marj?), drink lemonade and sigh responsively to pomes. I've asked them all to post in here because I don't intend to conduct any of this discussion via email. I'm really good at multitasking, but I want all my poetry in one place. You gotta watch those little devils (the pomes, not the AOL folks) every moment.

And Bern do you really READ on a palm pilot? My fingers are too big to operate those little devices and I really wish I'd been born a little later because I could have gotten addicted to one more electronic device.

I do have an iPod which I love.

Maryal/Deems

I promise to be serious once the bell rings, Teach. I'll even be serious now if you want. Nothing gold can stay, including bad parody.

"I promise to be serious once the bell rings" -- yeah, right. If you believe that, I've got a bridge I want to sell you.

Actually, I hope it's NOT true. You can be serious, but don't forget to pass those notes when teacher isn't looking (No paper airplanes, though. We ARE adults!)

Pass me another brownie, Marg.

Amendment: I promise to be mostly serious when the bell rings. And when the teacher's looking. And when Joan's not jabbing me in the back. And when no one's saying, "Onomatopoeia" (which makes me snort, hiss, and moan).

Other than that, all bets are off.

(Oh, and Joan. Got milk? These brownies are sticking to the roof of my mouth, making me mumble onomatopoeiacally.)

Such fun!!! Yeah! Milk and brownies are it!

Deems, Becoming addicted to electronic gadgets is also for the "young" of heart. I am proof positive of this truth. This all began with my fascination for the internet, this harbenger of the Palm and then the Ipod...what's next?

What a wonderful array of indiscriminate bits and bites of language: words, phrases, sentences, images: treasure troughs waiting to be unlocked, discarded, or just plain played with.

Since my back is beginning to talk "back," and my eyes are beginning to fade and I cannot sit before a computer and read all that is of interest, I simply copy bits a pieces of info into a text file and upload it with my books into the Palm to be read in a more comfortable posture like lying in bed, late into the night with no light necessary and from a tiny lighted screen with 10 pt type for easy reading. And by the way, I click through the pages with a thin stylus that keeps my fingers from becoming caloused.

And as for the Ipod, I have uploaded my lifelong collection of classical Cd's and this listening keeps me going for my 3 mile hike on the treadmill every day. I believe tomorrow is the day we are to become "serious," I hope our discussions will continue to be enhanced with bits of humor and wit especially since the focus will be upon a genre that flourishes with any attention it can get.

Bern--You have given to the humble palm pilot a coziness I had never imagined. And downloading things from here to read in bed at night with a nicely illuminated screen. I never even thought of that.

I should have thought of that because I had a couple of students last semester who had the Bible in two different translations downloaded onto their Palms.

No seriousness required until May 23. That's not tomorrow, I hope, since I am not ready. EEEEEeeeeeek. And of course the spirit of camaraderie and light-heartedness is to continue. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Maryal/Deems

been reduced to palm pilots, (whatever they are) for nightime coziness, however I rather think I would like to participate in here, mostly because I am not good at poetry, although I often love it.

Anything that requires chocolate brownies is also a plus. I ordered the book online at a local bookstore today, hopefully I shall receive it in time.

thanks Deems

Anneo

Anneo--Welcome to you! A palm pilot is one of those hand held computer things with a small keyboard and a small screen. You can hook them up to a computer and move files from computer to palm pilot. They have very large memories and Bern will have to tell you more because I don't have one.

~Maryal/Deems

Wow!! Sense of time is the first to go..or is it the beginning of...

I can blame this week long projection into the future, on the fact that I've just purchased the book and am ready to go! Spring semester classes are over, graduation was a great success with 200 hundred grads, our best yet, and summer classes begin today the 16th. I have already read the first poem, imagined how I would approach sharing it with my own students. I have a lit course up and ready to begin today. My class are adults and what a joy it is to provide a forum with a discussion tool like this one to guide our own discussions. Yes, I do introduce them to the formal elements of a genre, as well as the other more conventional applications a credit course requires, but I believe, on students' own terms. We begin poetry from the "outside in."

We begin by "seeing it first, as Pagalia suggests, at a "distance" as an "object" like the facade of a house with aspects that draw the senses to come in and see, hear, and touch with the mind's eye.Then when we have warmed up, we begin to discuss what images, events, nuances come to mind that we connect with, remember, appreciate, want to share etc.

I plan to introduce some of Pagalia's selections to my own students and I'll share these with yo'all if you like.

Well as Jackie Gleeson so aptly puts it, "Off we go!!" Next week, that is..

(In case you think, this is some "upstart teacher" sharing with you, I will give you a hint of my age..the first number is a "7+" This, of course, is also an excuse for my anticipated time lapse in a previous entry) Great to be with friends! Bern

Bern--It is exciting for me to have you here! Congratulations on the completion of the semester and graduating those students. And it is great news that you will be "test-driving" Paglia's book--or some of the poems--in your adult class. I'm interested to hear how things go and please bring here any insights the students have. What's the age range? I don't think there's anything better than teaching adults.

And I think it's the knees that are first to go. Time, the sense of time, is really relative. Not the first sign of the bad A word.

Maryal/Deems

I found my motto in the Iliad discussion group, in a speech of Agamemnon:

Nestor, old sir! If only your knees

Were as strong as your spirit....(4/336-7)

From each according to his ability, to each according to his knees.

With the knees involved in the distrubution of goods, or in providential dispensations, I wonder if it's either praying or pleading that wins the share of the pie. Heh, so much of poetry is prayer. That's how it got its start. Proposals are mostly prayer, with the bended knee being the ultimate weapon. Can't you just see Jack Donne on his knees. Did he get up feeling bettered or battered?

Very provocative suggestion, Jan

What a grand idea to use a Palm to download text. I find so much good read on the internet but get tired of reading the screen or sitting. I'll have to ponder a purchse. Thanks for the clue-in idea, B.

Very impressive that you teach adult students at the university, Bern. I always thought that adults who return to school of their own volition are the most motivated and therefore valuable students in existence. Lucky you, in other words.

You should have them join the thread as well. Assign them pseuds to log in under. Maybe sobriquets like "Donne," "Wordsworth," "Coleridge," "Byron," "Shelley," "Keats," and "Barrett Browning" and so forth. Quite British, I know, but you could do the same thing with American poets.

Just a notion, is all. Realize it's easier said than done.

My Achilles give me more trouble than my knees. Supplicating on bended Achilles? Nah.

In the Bad Idea Dept.: I made "homemade" chocolate sauce by microwaving chocolate chips to the melting point, then adding vanilla ice cream on top. The chocolate froze and became a dark, impenetrable Arctic Ocean floor. I was expecting hot fudge and wound up hitting an inedible wall.

It's enough to make a guy wax poetic. "Ode to a Cold-Shouldered Chocolate Chip."

Count me in for the discussion. Love poetry. Everyone fancies himself a poet at some time or other. I'm out the door to search for the book.

Welcome, Blueshade, pull up a chair, have a brownie and meet the others. We're glad to have you with us.

Maryal/Deems
.

Kevin- there is a product specifically made to melt and put on the ice cream by one of the chip makers. Can't remember what it is called but it comes in a container that can go right in the microwave. So that would be fine to have on hand. I liked it very much. I ended up eating it out of the container with a spoon.

Oh, man. I get in big trouble when I eat things straight from the container. Especially after shopping in one of those warehouse grocery stores where Super Size is the rule and not the exception.

Chocolate as hyperbole, it'd be (trying desperately to stay on topic).

Do NOT get the pomes sticky!!!!

You all are sure having a lot of fun here. Are you sure you didn't get the brownie recipe mixed up with marionberry pie?

And shucks and durn. Our university library has Break, Blow, Burn. I checked online last week and they had it on Thursday. So I waited until today, since graduation was Saturday, and there just might be a parking place. There was. And it wasn't on the shelf. On Friday, our little regional U sent their only copy up to Washington University in St. Louis until mid-June. Maybe they'll copy what they need and send it back. I'll keep checking. Or, maybe whoever has it will show up here, which would be good.

pedln--I'll keep my fingers crossed. We'll still be here in June, in fact much of the summer since there are so many pomes.

You mean this is more than a one-month meeting? Death by Chocolate (starring Miss Marple) is right (or is it "write"?). We book borrowers obviously won't be able to marathon with the book owners. Sigh. Such a capatilist society.

G'luck, Pedln, with the hunt. I'd lay a blonde brownie trap at that there fictional university library you mentioned. Sure to land something. Something Swedish, I suppose.

Nothing worse than books with food in them. Pages stuck together. Chocolate thumbprints. Unidentifiable (thank god) stains of every sort. Yech.

Please do not eat while reading the poesies. Cogitate, don't gurgitate, should be your by-the-book motto.

Re: gurgitate. I think I made the word up. Poetic license, then. Or brownie license. Heck, licenses cost money and you can fee anything. Ask your local legislature and they'll tell you: It's a fee country, folks!

I am amazed I have reached the second half of the seventh decade and am in excellent health. Just a bit stiff after sitting, but otherwise I have no complaints except for ugly fingers from what I suppose is arthritis. Still have my own teeth; unfortunately had to have a small filling in one of them yesterday -- my marvelous dentist did it painlessly without anesthetic. Do love that man.

Back to poets -- I have long thought Don Marquis one of my favorites. Anyone else familiar with his work? His "lives and times of archy and mehitabel" is one of the good things to come from the days of Prohibition. A couple of years ago, I loaned my dogeared copy ago to a young adult granddaughter who had developed cancer, and she finally returned it "reluctantly." So I sent it back to her, so pleased she liked it as much as I. Timeless.

Blueshade--It sounds like you are doing very well indeed. My best friend from high school (a beautiful woman, then and now) has "ugly hands." They are all knarly, but she says they don't hurt at all. And you have GOOD TEETH. In my next life, I plan to have excellent teeth. Mine are all bridges and crowns and even an implant. I figure my Cadilac is in my mouth. I am single-handedly putting my dentist's three daughters and my oral surgeon's son through college.

I remember Archie and Mehitibel, but just the names. I'm sure someone else here will respond.

Maryal/Deems

I certainly do remember Archy. He was a literary cockroach who used to sneak into the office of a newspaper reporter after hours and write by jumping on the keys of the typewriter. He had to use all lower case, because he wasn't heavy enough to work the shift key. One night he found the shift key had been left on, and HE WENT CRAZY WITH JOY!!!

Mehitabel was his friend, a free-living alley cat. Her motto was "Toujours gai, Archy, toujours gai!"

There was a lot of gentle humor and mild social commentary in them.

http://www.donmarquis.com/readingroom/archybooks/coming.html

I have the book. It's due May 31st. As they say in these parts: Hahaahaha etc., et. al., ibid., e.g., i.e., ergo, over, and out.

I have 'Break, Blow, Burn' on hold at the library.I can pick it up on Saturday. I am so excited! I would like to learn about poetry. I can't think of a better teacher than Professor Deems. Then, there are the many posters who know so much about poetry.

I hope the book is not too hard for me to understand.

A Quiet Lurker

Something attibuted to Don Marquis that tiptoes into my mind from time to time -- "I have followed/ all of my life/ something I cannot name." Say it aloud. As Meredith Willson's Music Man said "It trips along lightly on the tongue. . . "

I am picking up 'Break, Blow, Burn" from the Library today. I must admit I am a lurker and seldom post. However, I love SeniorNet and learn much from those who do. Thanks to all.

Welcome, HATS and jayfay!

blueshade, the quoted line from A & M does indeed trip along on the tongue.

I started reading. And I must say I am so pleased with how Paglia presents. Not particularily easy reading but the essays are short and have a flow so you don't get lost

I understand there is no specific end time for this discussion- is that correct? Therefore, we won't have to rush thru the book in a month?

We can poesy along. ~Marj

Marj--Yes, it's my plan to give every poem and essay a few days and then move on to the next one. Since some are more difficult or the essays are longer, or both, it's hard to determine how long the book will take. I imagine that it will take us though July and into August.

That's just a guess. I'm so happy that you like the presentation. Me too. I took one look at this book when it first came out (end of March) and said "WaHoo."

Maryal/Deems

HA! I just got the pun.

Good one, Marj (you're speaking my language).

Prof. Deems, are we doing the poesies in order, or jumping around to sample different poets each time we change?

And doesn't she have fun showing them off?

Looking and reading the above poem, I am happy to know that it's allowable and suggested to read a poem more than once.

Kevin--No hopping around among the poesy. I plan to take them in the (chronological) order in which they are presented. I think chronological order allows us to see how poets are influenced by the ones who came before them. Paglia presents them in chronological order because she finds it useful pedogogically. Me too.

There's many a poetry anthology out there that groups poems by theme or type or form, in chapters where the apparatus explains the form. I've taught from these anthologies and the students tend to understand (or admire or tolerate) the more modern ones and think that the earlier ones are "overly complicated."

Chronological order will also help us to understand some of the figurative language in the poems.

Maryal/Deems

HATS--Indeed, over and over and over. And over. Poems frequently don't yield their meaning on just one reading because poetry is language in its most condensed form.

Speaking of chronological order reminded me of a book which I own titled:"The Golden Thread" by Bruce Meyer, a Canadian professor. Loved reading it because he "exaimines how literature functions as a continuum"; "an extension of ongoing ideas". Many times I would say aha! Meyer began with the Bible and ended with Joyce. I had heard him lecture on CBC radio and finally the book was published.

http://www.harpercanada.com/global_scripts/product_catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=0006384943

I wuld be interested in participation in the discussion but I cannot find the book in my locality and I wonder if there will be enough book materal presented so that investigation of the material by Paglia will be clear enough to me for me to make cogent comment.

JAN: don't worry, we'll make sure you get enough material. The poems will be posted (right?). Paglia's comments are short, and I'm sure the pithy parts will be quoted over and over in the discussion.

If a poem is complex, sometimes on the first reading you are lucky if you can match up all the subjects and verbs.

Jan--I am also sure that we will make many references to Paglia's comments. We can't scan the essays and make them available here because of copyright restrictions, but we can certainly give a pretty good summary of her points. Plus, I also teach poetry and in much the same way Paglia does so if I explain that a Shakespearian sonnet is composed of three quatrains and a couplet, I am not using her exact words but those of anyone who can define a Shakespearian sonnet.

Well, that didn't make much sense, did it?

Stay with us.

Maryal

PatH--astute comment. Sometimes, especially with older poems, our first job may be to simply find the sentences. Inversion will occur and the subject and verb may not be in their "normal" places.

"You may behold in me that time of year when. . ." wouldn't be a bad paraphrase of the beginning of sonnet 73.

I have composed several sonnets and found the job somewhat tedious until I realized that it broke down to four quatrains and a couplet. That made it easier since quatrains are a cinch and a couplet is no trouble at all. Iambic pentameter can be tricky but if you read a few formal sonnets before you get down to work, the rhythm sticks and the stuff moves along.

But there are some pieces labeled sonnets that are much more informal. I wonder what makes them sonnets.

Fourteen lines=sonnet, or that is my understanding.

And it looks more or less like a box on the page.

There's also the Petrarchan sonnet which has an Octave and a Sestet, eight lines followed by six line with a rather intricate rime scheme. Petrarch made the sonnet cycle (a group of sonnets working together around a main focus or theme, usually love) popular. It's a lot easier to rime in Italian or French or Spanish than it is in English.

Honestly, I have little exposure to William Shakespeare, except that I am British by birth and lived there for almost 13 years, at which time I was torn from my moorings.

Off the top of my head, I think Mr. Shakespeare was perhaps having a midlife crisis and feeling ever so incompetent. When I read this for the first time I was struck by the blackness of it and wondered was he affected by the Black Death/Bubonic Plague?

Unfortunately because it is soooo handy I consulted google.com and much as I abhor using the web as an authority: "He was three months old when a plague epidemic began in 1564 and was lucky to avoid infection and to survive infancy." And from the same site, "The black death appeared in 1347. But then disappeared in 1670." To attribute my findings: www.firstscience.com/SITE/editor/062_ramblings_09072004.asp

So poor dear, was he surrounded by death and its tentacles for much of his existence, perchance?

Being the typical female I wonder if he wrote the last two lines about a woman - ah ha! The piercing, intuitive female who feels he's a bit over the hill, might croak from the plague and therefore in spite of knowing this, she must be very in love with him - because one or the other of 'em isn't going to be around that long. Somewhat egocentric of a comment, be it masculine/feminine source. Ouch, What a feminist sort of observation. Excuse moi!

If you go to the website where I found this Black Plague stuff (which I believe the Great Fire of London took care of in short order), there is a note about the Nursery Rhyme which I know as "Ring Around the Rosies" and would betcha anyone English also remembers it as that title. They have it as follows: "Ring a ring of roses, A pocket full of posies, Atishoo, atishoo, We all fall down." The only line I have quarrel with, is the first one. But the explanation of the rhyme is interesting: The first line of the rhyme depicts the round red rash that appeared on the victim's skin. The sweet smelling posies were what people held to their noses to ward off infection. Sneezing was an early symptom of the disease, and this was closely followed by 'falling down' or sudden death."

Apologies for getting a bit off the subject but all this events probably affected Mr. Shakespeare.

Welcome Suwanee!--It's good to have you here with us. Interesting note about the plague. It certainly did affect Shakespeare's life because the theaters were closed for a couple of years when plague was rife in London.

We haven't gotten to the discussion of this poem yet--the one you see a midlife crisis in. I see mortality and the acknowledgement thereof which may well be a component of a midlife crisis.

Maryal

Perhaps,being in my late 70's, I see the sonnet as very personal and has more to do with the the natural process of ageing and the loss of the outer beauty of youth than anything to do with the Bkack Death. It pleads that the glow of love and life still persists internally though the ashes of an ageing body present a very different external appearance.

Oh, great. Discussions about my old friend, Mort Tality, and getting old (I seem to always be on the get). I'm looking forward to the 23rd because, in the early going anyway, I'll have book will travel.

Write a sonnet, Kevin. Address it to your book lender. Tell them what a renewal would do for dear old Mort. Good to hear he's still with us. Make sure you mention Love. Happy ending, and all that.

I'm looking forward to the our travel of the 23rd. With our companions- almost like a gathering of pilgrims!

Marj--PILGRIMS--I like that. A while ago here on SeniorNet we read The Canterbury Tales, and we all felt like pilgrims among the company. So pilgrims it is.

You may take your trusty steed, your book, and whatever personal possessions you absolutely have to have. I recommend some kind of rainwear--and a steady heart.

Maryal/Deems

For those of you worried about my double name: I used to be just Maryal but there were other posters on SeniorNet who I got confused with, so I switched to Deems (my maiden name). Then I had problems because people weren't sure who I was. Sooooo for a little while I have been signing with both names just so folks will know I am me.

Hi, I'm new to this discussion, but hope to gain some new insights into this book of poetry. I'm a non-traditional college student between spring and summer classes. This will help keep my mind active. Looking forward to hearing from you all.

Precisely what I had in mind about the pilgrims , Deems.

Welcome, Hey Sal, you will be in good company.

Welcome, HeySal, and great name by the way.

I was a non-traditional college student too, but we didn't even have a name for it then! And you're not late. We start on Monday. We're just having a conversation and --sometimes--brownies. If Marj remembers to bake them.

Maryal/Deems

I didn't make it to university until I was a grandmother. My son (my youngest,whom I cannot believe is now 48) was attending the same college at that time, a "traditional" student. I often remarked how strange it seemed to be going to college with one's son. He stopped me cold when he said, "Try going to school with your mom!"

My take on Sonnet 73 has nothing to do with midlife crisis. Old and growing older, one is reluctant to leave what one loves.

Jonathan, I'm hard at work on that "Shall I Compare Me To a Winter's Day" sonnet. Writing sonnets was one of the Labors of Hercules, no? Sure seems it. I'm only on Line 3, Syllable 7, iambic 3a, pentameter 5L.

Like punishment, almost. The only thing worst than my having to write it is your having to read it once it's done. That ought to teach ya.

The comments about going to college are fun to read. I went to college when I was about 40 and discovered that faculty termed us "mature students." The justice side of me found it discriminatory and the going back to school part of me thought, "that'll be the day!"

Hey, I got my advanced degree when I was 55. I was only a baby. The woman who graduated next to me was 80!!

Better late than never. When I returned to college for a fourth year, the local college would allow me one 3 hour course and told me the only thing open was computer programming for the old Texas Int - TR-80. I took it, aced it, loved it, and was hooked on computers. I got my BA degree at 55 in accounting.

Kevin, I recognized your sonnet bearings immediately. I've been stuck in the very same spot myself. And, I might add, with a lot more hopeful opening verse than the one you've chosen. Shucks, no one around here is ever going to think of you as Mr Winter. No wonder it seems herculean. How about something with walking sticks, and staffs, and scallop shells, and jollie companee, and that sort of thing. Can you have it ready for the 23.

Maryal, I never see a reference to 23 without thinking it's a reference to THE 23rd. It must be the favorite little poem for millions. I wonder Paglia didn't include it. Perhaps for spiritual relief, the way comic relief is used in tragedy.

Oh dear, a marauder was here!

Never fear, more are near!

Found a flier on my car at Wal-Mart promising free brownies and milk here. May I join?

suec m'dear, you are most welcome.

Marj--Those look YUMMY. Thank you for cooking. I always thank the cook and am always grateful.

Kevin--You are writing a sonnet based on #76?

I'm excited as are the rest of you who appreciate Kevin's talent. I had a roommate in college who wrote wonderful parodies. The only hard part was when I took an exam, I'd hear her reciting a parody.

Goodness, only one more day. I'll be gone tomorrow, but back bright and early Monday morning.

~Maryal

P.s. Patwest--I'm pretty sure that the old TR80 was the machine we used when I taught word processing at the secretarial school. Sure does sound familiar.

This is not a parody. It's just having to finish nonsense started. Shakespeare's SONNET XVIII is his most famous, but Paglia gives it the Frosty shoulder, alas (and alad).

Tomorrow it's all business. But today, the Brownie Party continueth unabated!

Shall I compare me to a winter's day?
I art more pale than a yogurt raisin:
Rough winds do blast my face like Januar-ay,
And winter's grip will ne’er be a fadin’:
Sometime all too cold the north winds combine,
And oft is Old Man Winter’s ire aroused;
And every knee from cap sometimes declines,
By chance or gravity, my movement doused;
But to eternal winter I will not bow
Nor lose possession of that mind I growest;
So sit down, Death, and figure outeth how
You canst help me rhyme and be in the knowest
So long as I can breathe or I’s can see,
So long writes this and offends all of thee.

Kevin! that is great fun nonsense-

Kevin, Kudos! (Kudoes?)

Watch out, Kevin! If you get a little better, we will switch from analyzing Paglia's poems to yours.

Kevin, I like your yogurt metaphor in the second line. You are certainly not a-lacking in talent and I was not the least bit offended. I bet everyone enjoys your writing

Friend of mine sent me these:

http://www.shakespeare.com/ http://www.shakespeare-online.com/ http://www-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/ http://ise.uvic.ca/ http://www.rdg.ac.uk/globe/ http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/ http://www.shakespearemag.com/ http://www.english.emory.edu/classes/Shakespeare_Illustrated/Shakespeare.html http://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/homepage.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare http://shakespeare.about.com/ http://www.ciconline.com/bdp1/ http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/shakespeare/ http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/timeline/timeline.htm http://www.lynchmultimedia.com/shakespeare.html

suwanee--Thank you for the links. I'm sure some will enjoy looking at them.

About the internet: it's best to stick with sites that come out of universities or welll-established places (such as the Globe which is in one of the links above).

The internet has incredible resources, but I hope everyone here will stick close to the poem itself and not go wandering around in the vast area of Shakespeare studies! We might lose some of you in the woods. It is going to be especially difficult to stick with the poem when we get to the ghost's speech from Hamlet where, I note, even Paglia wanders a bit to other plays.

Tomorrow we begin. Everyone make sure to read the poem OUT LOUD several times. This is the one disadvantage I can think of to studying poems online. You really need to hear a poem.

Maryal/Deems

Kevin--Good going, and I'm so glad you're here with us. We need a wordsmith.

A question for all: What differences do you see between the structure of Shakespeare's sonnet and Kevin's? No telling, Kevin.

Maryal/Deems

I searched today for Camille Paglia and thought others might be interested in what I found, before we get going tomorrow.

First,I found there is something appealing for almost everyone in what she stands for and expresses, though not everyone will like it all. She is a 58 yr. old tenured, erudite and provacative Professor of Humanities and Media Studies and Univ. of the Arts in Philadelphia. Her highest ideals appear to be free speach and free thought. She is a social critic and author..

She is a feminist, Italian-American, atheist and lapsed Catholic, democrat, and libertarian. She believes in enlightened capitalism which she sees as a balance between entrepreneurship/free markets and social responsibility. She has been against the Iraq War. She has voted for Bill Clinton, with some misgivings, and believes that Hillary is mendacious.

She is vehement about the need for educational reform of the entire U.S. ed. system, seeing no accountability with price gouging of students and their families. She is against poststructuralism (?, meaning not entirely clear to me. Anyone have a good understandable definition?) in education, and wants a return to fundamentals and great books, with emphasis on the fine arts. She believes that parents can help children to learn non-revisionist/real history by going through art books with them.

She adheres to the best of the 1960's and has been influenced by Marshall McLuhan and Allen Ginsberg

I understand her better now. What else should we know?

Deems posts: "The internet has incredible resources, but I hope everyone here will stick close to the poem itself and not go wandering around in the vast area of Shakespeare studies! We might lose some of you in the woods. It is going to be especially difficult to stick with the poem when we get to the ghost's speech from Hamlet where, I note, even Paglia wanders a bit to other plays."

That is an excellent point because there must be others than me who don't have a large literary background.

A while ago Paglia was on Book TV's 3 hour In Depth series. She is an interesting woman. I think she mentions in the Introduction Harold Bloom directed her doctoral thesis. Faki, I'm so glad your unclear about the meaning of poststructuralism - I was too embarrassed to question it. Anxiously awaiting tomorrow.

tralala -- Immortal? Consider it done. (Just give me some time, and let me know what you'd like to be compared to -- a summer's day, a winter's tale, a spring's leak, an all fall's down?). Seasonal kidding, is all.

Poststructuralism dares not speak its name (I spoke up for it, just there). I think it's best avoided as it's deadly around poesies.

And deems, I surely won't tell because I can't (your structure question).

Is there a specific # of days you'll dwell on each poesy, or are you playing it by ear?

Good luck, poetrynauts. I'll scrape and clean the brownie pans now. Put on your game faces and have a coffee chaser because the bell's about to ring. School is almost in session!

HOORAY! Am I the only one that guesses that no one knows what poststructuralism means? In any case, I saw enough "isms" when I was in academia not to want another one. I suspect if it was anything anyone outside of academia cared about, it would have a less jawbreaking name. (At least this is my prereadingthepoemsism! Maybe postreadingthepoemsism will be different.)

My friend who gave me the links is an interesting link himself! His father is a Shakespearian buff and also Professor Emeritus, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada. He received his BA and B.Litt from Oxford University. He is the author of many books and articles, including an earlier monograph with Mellen Anne Sexton’s Poetry of Redemption: The Chronology of a Pilgrimage (1988).

I must say I agree with you, Deems, re using the I/T. As I'm not very familiar with Shakespeare, thought the links might help others who may be like myself. But we must be careful not to get lost in the woods as MarjV suggests.

Thank you, Faki, for the Camille Paglia bio summary. Is she at Temple University, I wonder? She's really more of a Swarthmore College type methinks. Somewhat of a character-and-a-half, perhaps?!!

JoanK, gosh, I agree with you :O) I am not keen on pedantic boors. Learning is like folk music to me and if you want to pass it on, then please make it understandable.

My guess is that it is precisely the poststructural in Kevin's sonnet that Deems would like us to see. It's no big deal. And I can't understand why Paglia should be against it. Too conservative perhaps. On both the right and left. And judgeing by what we read about her in Faki's post, Paglia has too many positions to be a truly free spirit. Be that as it may. She promises to show us how to find beauty and meaning in poetry. What more could we ask for? What a summer this will be.

Kevin, I'm thinking this tralala, whoever she is, is hoping you can catch the melody of her being. She is probably looking for something post-seasonal. Leave that to the Shake and Vivaldi. Post us something non-derivative.

...

I've been called many things in my life, but poststructural? Never. The postman only rings once.

OK, then. Here's the best I can do in a non-derivative way while it's still legal (that is, before the discussion begins and deems has a right to run this workshop As She Likes it).

"To Tralala, Wherever This May Find Her"

Tralala, To be franca,
Your name sings
off the tongue and
Makes us want to
thank ya.

Von Trapps can have their does and their rays and even me,
But you’ve got the tra,
And the la
Squared, see?

So sing to us loud
Like wet crystal lips
Underneath
a child’s
circling
wine-glass fingertips.

We’d surely like to hear
Your Greek of-chorus
often,
Cause poems lacking hubris
Make our dear hearts
Soften

So tra to our las
Even if it doesn’t rhyme.
Tra rhymes with
La rhymes with
La rhymes with
Lime.

A quick survey of Google gave me the impression that structuralism conceives as reality being made from an integrated context of interrelated concepts made explicit in language and symbols. Post-structuralism seems to concentrate more on the specific focus of an individual object or situation and derive its reality as generated out of this focus.

Only a guess as I know nothing of the business.

Good morning!! Welcome to our poetry extravaganza with 43 good poems waiting to greet you. The first one, Shakespeare’s sonnet #73 is in the heading. I will put the first few poems in the heading.

I propose that we take three days (more if necessary) for each poem and accompanying essay. One of the chief delights of this book for me is Paglia’s essays. They are well thought out and always pay tribute to the poem.

Paglia must have taken her first literature courses about the time I did because she says in her preface that her training was the so called “New Criticism.” In its most severe form, the method was to approach a poem (the method worked best with poems and very short stories) with no preconceptions, even to knowing who wrote the poem or when that person lived. The crticial method that preceded New Criticism was largely to look at the poem in the light of its author. There wasn’t much said about individual poems and how they worked.

The approach I plan to use here is in line with Paglia’s. A little biographical material may be helpful and we don’t have to pretend that we don’t know whether the poem was written three centuries ago or last Tuesday.

If it is possible for you to avoid talking about “what the poet intended,” I would appreciate it since we cannot know what the poet “intended.” Even if we did know exactly what the intention was, the poem either fulfills expectations or doesn’t.

Once any work of art is created and released into the world, it is its own being. D.H. Lawrence, novelist and critic, once wrote that even if the writer tells you exactly what s/he intended to do, you are to look to the work. “Never trust the teller; trust the tale,” was the way he put it. This is sound advice.

One other request: please “talk” to each other and not just to me. A good conversation will result if everyone here interacts with other participants. And please read all the posts. Please. Not just mine. All of them.

There's no need to worry about poststructuralism for a long time, if ever. I've been wondering what would happen to the literature time period that followed post-modernism. "They" have come up with one. "Modernity." Yep, that's now. Of course, we can just say now because that would be too clear.

~Maryal/Deems

The intent speaks well to me of the disconsolation of the losses in old age of the wonder and the beauty of the full life of youth but life itself beomes sweeter because of the sense of how much has been lost. I am not clear as to what "Death's second self" might be.

Here is another view of old age slightly different.

"ARRIVAL

Old age is a journey

Into an unfamiliar country

On an alien planet.

Common sights, common sounds

Ring old bells in the mind.

Hills are steeper, gravity stronger

And the very substance of the body

Bonds more weakly

So that bone and muscle spalls.

The skin, a transparent membrane,

A map of blue roads inscribed on parchment.

Perceptions fragment and the idea of self

Shimmers in strong light

In preparation,

Like a cloud of dandelion seeds,

To dissipate and flee

Before the slightest breeze.

Sleep is ofte referred to as a miniature death, and that fits here--black night takes away the twilight, then Death's second self "seals up all in rest".

I like Paglia's take on Line 8. She writes, "Six sibilants in line 8 produce a sound of 'sh-h-h,' hushing but also paralyzing." Never would have noticed that, but it re-emphasizes Deems' point about reading poems aloud. Poems must be heard if they're going to shush you.

Where I misread the poem is in the final couplet. Here Paglia says Shakespeare directly addresses the reader:

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

When I read it and even when I re-read it, I thought the "thou" addressed Shakespeare's lover in his twilight years. To me, then, Shakespeare was addressing her and stating that true love means standing by your man even when he can barely stand. It was as if he were thanking her for making life easier, despite the physical decline he was enduring in the autumn (or the twilight) of his life.

Whoops.

Woke very early, shortly after 4 am, and couldn't entice Morpheus to return. Thought, "Oh, great, class begins today. Hope it's not too early," and eagerly came into the classroom.

I like Sonnet 73, from the first reading to the most recent, which must be about the twentieth. Impressions from first readings often change for me. Jan Sand's understanding of the words match my own interpretation, except that I appreciated the reference to sleep. I haven't really warmed up to Paglia yet, however; most likely she will seem more friendly as readings progress.

Also, Jan, I enjoy very much your "Arrival." It is your own work, is it not? Thank you for it.

I had not noticed the repetition of the words "in me" until the words were brought to my attention by Paglia.

"In me" operates like a stage cue, prompting the entrance of each metaphor from the wings."

"In me" is in lines one, five and nine.

Thank goodness for Paglia's essay!

Hello Jan Sand, I very much enjoy your works of poetry.

3 days a poem sounds very good.

"Beholding" old age as the first quatrain asks is a challenge in our current society. Think how many commercials push us to be youthful, younger looking, etc. Takes courage to ask someone to look at this body becoming rickety, wrinkled & perhaps assuaged by chronic disease.

And I think the poem asks us to love anyway in very strong language. Love because "I" will soon be gone.

I like how Paglia picks it apart metaphor by metaphor.

~Marj

Like Hats, I didn't notice the "like me" either.

And Jan posts: life itself beomes sweeter because of the sense of how much has been lost. Isn't that so true. And also life is sweeter due to the way that time scurries by. Here it is almost to a holiday weekend in the USA- it seemed further away. Living in moments needs be else that too is lost.

ps- & I "lost" the time to get this included in the above post

-->

FRAYED AT THE END

Along the way

One collects.

Sparsely,

If one has the wit to realize

The trip may be long

And pockets meanly shallow.

Youth and simple fascination

And an innate sense of order

Folds acquisitions into sense

Which fit most sensibly to stores.

But time overwhelms

Most economic husbandries

With plenitude.

Memories ferment and melt

To Pollock patterns.

Order and disorder meld.

Stars and tissue paper,

Unstrung pearls and graveled skins

Of tangerines long consumed.

Furniture no longer squats

In set configurations.

Curtains sag. Corners soften,

Faired by dust and crumbs

Into spider playgrounds

Where choruses of flies ensnared

Hum in symphony.

Dying must,

I belatedly perceive,

Be approached with caution.

Powers fade and disappear

In minute secret phases,

Like coins percolating

Through a pocket hole.

Distant objects blur.

The spines of books

No longer shout

What lies within.

Their colors smear

As by a moistened thumb

Into colored cacophones.

Sounds struggle through

A buzz and whistle static.

Anaesthetic numbness

Gloves my fingertips.

A ghostly dental shot

Has thickened up my mouth and tongue.

Soon I must be enwrapped

In white sterility

Within a chrome corral

Where hungry tubes

Will suck my openings

And pump intrusive stews

Bestowing to my life

A marginal extension.

Steaming from my center,

Like a lump of melting CO two,

Cold fear billows out

White clouds to lift me up and off to nothingness

Kevin, I had read the poem before, and had always assumed Shakespeare was addressing a lover. I think the language allows it. In line one, he says thou mayest...behold. And in the last two lines; thou perceivest.....thy love...thou mustleave.

But in a poem you can have it both ways. He could be addressing a lover, he could be using himself as an example to the reader to make the most of what we will soon lose, or, less likely, he could even be talking to himself, saying "look at yourself, therr's not much left, but that just makes you want to make the most of it". It's all the better for meaning more than one thing.

Good morning again! I posted my message last night before I went to bed because I am a night person and not always dependable in the morning.

So happy to see so many comments here already. And Jan provides a poem with a similar theme--old age.

Let's talk about that "shh shhh" that Paglia mentions and Kevin calls our attention to. Sleep is "Death's second self that seals up all in rest." Look at all those s's and if you read the line aloud you will hear them. This repetition of beginning sounds is called alliteration and is a favorite device of poets.

Hats and Marj mention the repetition of "in me" which Paglia points out. They are specifically used here to mark each of the three quatrains (a quatrain is simply a group of four lines). The first "in me" is in line one. The second one in line five begins the second quatrain and the third one introduces the third quatrain. I like the little bit of variety SS (my abbreviation for Shakespeare) provides in the first line. It could read "In me thou mayst behold that time of year" which would match the composition of the other two lines which include "in me," but instead he inverts the line which throws emphasis on TIME which a number of you have noted is at the heart of this poem: "That time of year thou mayst in me behold."

Blueshade--Thank you for pointing out how multiple readings of a poem can lead you to different conclusions. I find the same thing happens for me. Shakespeare is such a rich writer that although I've probably read Hamlet twenty or thirty times over the course of teaching it (I always reread whatever I assign my students), every time I read it I have different insights.

Have you all noticed that when you read a familiar work at different ages, the meaning changes?

When I first encountered this sonnet, I too felt very old (I was 18) and I could imagine exactly what it felt like. Little did I know. . .

More later. Keep thinking.

Maryal/Deems

I find the analysis delightful. It reveals how a careful word mechanic can lay traps and contrivances to resound in short memory in ways far more clever than I suspected.

Begin in a poetry discussion is something very new for me. Ditto SS. Also do not have the book. But . . . . .

Thanks PatH for talking about "thou" as I had been wondering who "thou" was, and I interpret you to say it could mean more than one. Also, Deems and Hats, the "in me"s break it down into more manageable pieces for me. Glad that was explained. We shall try.

Before we get too deep in the poems, I'd like to point out something I really like in Paglia's book -- the way she has presented each poem by itself,on a blank sheet of paper. She points out later that Donne uses the blanks between the lines as part of the poems. I have found leafing through the poems that that becomes more and more true for all the poems: the blank paper is part of the poem. It reminds me of some music where the composer uses the silence between the notes as part of the music.

By reading the poems aloud, it is important that we see the poem as an auditory experience. But it is obvious that Paglia has a strong sense of poetry as a visual experience as well.

This is a good sonnet to start out with because, as Paglia points out, you can really see the potential of the 4-4-4-2 structure of the sonnet. The "three acts" are interesting. I notice they close down in time: from a year to a day to the length of time of a fire, and end in an enclosed space too (the hearth). It gives me a feeling of the closing down of life.

One thing really stumped me in reading it: the "his" in line 10. ("That on the ashes of his youth doth lie"). By the structure, it seems to refer to the fire, which is called "it" in the next line. Am I missing something here?

Good question there, Joan.

Going back to the "thou". When a word can mean more than one thing it seems that enriches the poem for more people. If we each feel a unique response to the poem today, tomorrow it may elicit another meaning.

Yes, Camille Paglia brings the poem alive, and her criticism is fascinating. This is a wonderful book. Also, there is room for argument which I always like.

I look at this poem, having experienced the recent death of my 86 year old husband. And, the mood of the poem and comments of the critic somehow lacked at least some authenticity, for me anyway. Here is what I found: According to the great Shakespeare expert Harold Bloom (in the Riverside Shakespeare) the poet was only about 31 years old (dates are hard to identify re the poet) when he wrote this poem; his sonnets were probably written in the early 1590's. Shakespeare died at the age of 52 in 1616, probably, and Bloom says this was an early death, though of course people died earlier in those days. So, it appears that he was not a dying poet at the time this sonnet was written.

Also, Paglia was in her late 50's when whe wrote Break, Blow, Burn, and possibly has her generation's view of death. For example she writes: "the branches tossed and outlined against the sky resemble the imploring arms of victims trying to escape fate." The older person, frequently not always, can be more accepting of death and see it as a release.

The other interesting thing I found was that Bloom indicates that the first 126 sonnets were addressed to a young man. If true, then banish all our romantic thoughts, perhaps, about this sonnet having been written for a much loved woman. Although I suppose that was still possible. The young man may have been the then Earl of Southampton, and there seems to be doubt that this was a homosexual liaison.

Another thought: I really experience authenticity when I read the ending couplet; this does give meaning to my experience with my husband.

Faki,

I think 'Break, Blow, Burn' is a wonderful book too. I am so glad Maryal chose it. What a good choice! Paglia's writing style is addictive. I am left not feeling exhausted from learning her thoughts about a particular work. I just want to go forward and read the next work in her book.

JoanK,

I love what you wrote. "the blank paper is part of the poem. It reminds me of some music where the composer uses the silence between the notes as part of the music."

pedln--Stick around. Poetry becomes more accessible the more one accesses it. And the “thou” question is most interesting. Perhaps the “thou” is the reader; perhaps it is the lover (or the child); or, and here’s my favorite at the moment, perhaps the poet is speaking to himself. Seeing the approach of old age can make the simple and commonplace parts of life very precious.

JoanK I too like the way the poems are printed. Each poem has its own page or pages and the commentary waits until the next page even if there’s still plenty of room left on the page. And certainly the poem is both a seen object and a heard object. Your analogy to music is fine and there’s another one to painting—the whole idea of negative space. I’ve been trying to learn some of the fundamentals of drawing recently and negative space keeps coming up.

You also point out something that I noticed—we begin large with a time of the year and then we move to a single day and then finally to one aspect of a day, the fire.

I’m still working on the question about why we have “his” in line 10 followed by “it” in line 11. Both do seem to refer to “fire.” For some reason I keep seeing a phoenix wander into these lines, but I can't back it up.

Marj--Yes, there’s more than one way for “thou” to point (see above). Are the brownies ready? And could you please make some oatmeal raisin cookies too? My favorite.

FAKI--I am sorry for your loss; I know what it means to lose a beloved man. And certainly death can look very different to one who is quite old. An excellent point. I’m not at all surprised that SS was not old himself when he wrote the poem. He is imagining old age (or perhaps feeling prematurely old) and not experiencing it. Way back when I was 18, I wrote a few poems. One of them was in the voice of an old man. The only part of it I remember are the lines “Ah child,” he smiles and nods/ Could it be/That such a one as you could love and old man like me?” I have no idea why I decided to assume this voice. Both my grandfathers died before I was born.

You also bring up one of the problems with the sonnets. We don’t know just when any one of them was written. Scholars disagree as to what young man was intended (a lover, a potential patron?) as they disagree about who the “dark lady” was. When the sonnets were gathered together, they were put in the order we now have. I love to read Bloom on Shakespeare. His passion is contagious.

Hats--I’m so glad that you are finding pleasure in Paglia’s book. When I first saw it, I was enchanted. Good to know that others are too.

Maryal/Deems

A very good observation, Joan. Shakespeare dazzles with his wordplay in lines 9 and 10. If, as Paglia says, a poem is like an aquarium, then these two lines, and the whole sonnet, are a good illustration of Shakespeare's aquatic choreography. The way I see it, 'his' is 'me's' dead youth, a third player in Shakespeare's little drama. And that is what we have here. A part of me, still possessed by me's young friend, is gone, laying in ashes. All that remains of 'me' is a glow. The fire, that too was part of the youth that me was. 'It' must then be the faint 'glowing', all that remains of him.

'This thou perceivst' was the occasion for the poet doing such a heart-rending self-assessment.

I think the poem could have been titled To His Young Friend. We'll meet this refrain again and again.

As someone who enjoys and writes poetry it is a bit distressing to see the minute disection of this sonnet into its minute lexigraphic components and such puzzelment over the significance of each word. I wonder how Shakespeare would have felt as to the impact of his mind child on minds that did not know how to react to its living energy. I see bearded gnomes poring over a document and submitting it to laser beams and x-rays and neutron activation analysis before permitting themselves to be subject to its naked beauty. Oh well, it is educational.

I enjoyed reading all of your posts. Everyone seems to have their own unique perspective. I’m afraid I can add little to the mix. .

Deems - thank you for saying poetry gets more accessible the more it is accessed. Would you believe English was one of my majors and I managed to graduate without ever taking a poetry course. I feel like a fish out of water. Paglia is a very good guide, her writing is clear, easy to understand, and she explains things in a way even I can understand.

I especially liked Paglia exploration of the third quatrain. The paradox of being nourished and consumed at the same time is wonderful.

Jan, I too have never examined a poem word-by-word (except when I was writing it). It is almost like self-hypnosis, I just get so involved with the meter and the words, each new word is almost like, aha, of course, that is exactly right. Questioning why he uses one pronoun insteaed of another disrupts the flow. I know what I like...

If you're going to talk about a single poem for three days running, then you're going to have to get used to poems on a gurney under the harsh glare of Operating Room lights. Maybe a bit antiseptic, but cold reality.

That said, the Romantic in me can sympathize with the spirit of your post, Jan.

Thank you Deems.

I am not totally clear about Shakespeare's take on religion. I know that he was baptized in a church in Stratford and also buried in the same church. Paglia mentions that "there is no reference in Sonnet 73 to God or an afterlife." This would be natural to include, I think. She also says that "consciousness itself is elemental," meaning I guess that man in combination with nature is elemental. This may reflect Paglia's belief.

In the next Sonnet 29, Shakespeare mentions a "deaf heaven" (maybe that heaven does not exist.) Also, singing "hymns at heaven's gate."

In the plays religion does come up. For instance, wasn't there something about Shylock converting to christianity?

I think that religion was important to Elizabethan England, wasn't it? Maybe Shakespeare was not strong in his religious beliefs but reflects the times and so brings it up.

What do you think, Deems? Thanks.

Jan, I don't think we are missing the overall beauty of the poems. I for one was stunned, reading the sonnet aloud. But it doesn't make for much discussion. After we pick it apart, see all the allusions, notice many layers of meaning, see how the sounds reinforce the words, (the repeated Ss, for example), etc., THEN we put it back together and it's a whole again, but now we are also aware of all the levels and subtleties and meanings and it is much richer for us.

I suspect that you yourself spend a lot of effort carefully picking the best words for your meaning ("pockets meanly shallow" comes to mind). You mustn't mind too much our efforts to understand your sort of cleverness.

About dissecting a poem..............I believe there is a way of parsing or diagraming (or whatever it is called) a poem. Perhaps someone knows how. Deems?

I made a copy of the Sonnet and then divided the quatrains and the ending couplet with lines, making notes here and there about what Paglia had to say. That helped me to see it easily and review the content more carefully. But, I think there is a better way.

I understand the fascination of close analysis of poetry but as one who writes the stuff my feeling is that if it ain't visceral it ain't nuthin. What interests me is that when a poem delivers a punch just how that verbal fist is powered and what lingustic molecules lubricates the delivery. Then I can add the technique to my toolkit.

Pat, that's what suddenly did it for me as well. Reading it aloud. With a certain emphasis on 'thou' in the last line it suddenly became beautifully simple and incredibly beautiful. Why is it that one is baffled one minute by a word or a line, and then have it suddenly fall into place the next moment?

The poets among us should perhaps be patient with others who plod along mining the poem for its riches and its magic. I can't get over the nuanced observational differences in the three words 'behold', 'seest', and 'perceiv'st'.

We're just beginning to tap the mysteries of a poem. Help us along. We would like to hear of the energy expended in the writing of a poem. That articulation of an aesthetic or psychic experience.

Jonathan--I’ll go with the pronoun “his” being used for his lost youth and the “it” for the fire. Thank you! And there are a number of sonnets addressed to a young man, some urging him to marry, others praising his beauty.

Jan--Odd but the poem always remains whole for me even after a very close reading. The next time I encounter this poem it will be itself, a living entity. What astonishes me is how much SS could pack into so few lines, the richness of the metaphors, the beauty of the language.

suec--How on earth did you escape with no poetry at all? We’ve come to a time now with almost no requirements but back when I majored in English, we had to take a course in Chaucer, one in Shakespeare, one in Milton, one in the Romantic poets. Those are all poetry! When I got to graduate school I intended to specialize in the seventeenth century, but was drawn to modern American by one charismatic professor. So poetry is not my specialty. Nope, the novel is my territory. I now teach poetry only to freshmen, and that in the same semester that we teach the novel so I’m afraid poetry gets short shrift.

Kevin--Good heavens! Operating room lights? Camera? Action? Autopsy? Not to fear, the poem will survive.

Mrs. Sherlock--You are speaking of poetry from the perspective of writing it, are you not? Or do you mean that in reading a poem, you get caught up in it?

I think I’m going to have to agree with PatH who wrote, “THEN we put it back together and it's a whole again, but now we are also aware of all the levels and subtleties and meanings and it is much richer for us.” That’s how it is for me. I never analyze a poem without coming back to it and reading it aloud again. It’s sort of a right brain/left brain experience.

FAKI--I don’t know the system of diagramming that you mention. You bring up a complicated question. I think it’s based on Paglia’s sentences, “The sonnet’s three submerged quatrains are like fleeting, elegiac self-portraits: the poet as a year, a day, and a fire. Shakespeare, like Darwin, sees humanity beset by impersonal forces. There is not reference here to God or an afterlife.”

It’s interesting that you bring up the question of religion. Too complicated to examine right now, but I picked up a book at Border’s today called Shadowplay by Clare Asquith. It’s focused on Shakespeares “hidden beliefs” and “coded politics” in the poems and the plays. I’ve only just looked at it. One focus of current criticism of Shakespeare has to do with whether he was a secret Catholic. There was a PBS show about a year ago on this topic and I’ve read several articles arguing that his heart belonged to the Catholic church. During his lifetime, England was Protestant, having been severed from the Roman Church by Henry VIII, Elizabeth’s father. But the times were tenuous. Under Mary the country was again returned to Catholicism, but Elizabeth made it Protestant again. Shakespeare wrote under two monarchs, Elizabeth and James I (James VI of Scotland). Both were Protestant.

I think all that Paglia is saying is that in this poem, there doesn’t seem to be a heaven or an afterlife which is quite different from saying anything about Shakespeare’s personal beliefs.

How about if during these next two days, we give folks who haven’t had time to say what they want to about this poem a chance and the rest of us can comment on anything we find interesting in Paglia’s introduction. Why did she find it necessary to add yet another poetry anthology? Why did she decide to write an essay on every poem she selected?

Maryal/Deems

Would you agree that Shakespeare in a few lines in this sonnet imagines just as swelling a stage for his little drama as he does for an opener in Henry V? Oh, for a muse of fire. And pronto the spectators see all of France and England on his stage.

Here, in 73, as Paglia points out, in a few lines Shakespeare introduces a 'tremendous range of reference and a fineness of observed detail.' Yes, it is easy to get lost in the details.

Yes, there's so much in the introduction about saving Western culture, reforming academe, and generally a mission statement regarding a custodianship of poetry and not its destruction.

Deems, I feel so certain that 'it' can only be his decrepit self, not the fire, merely a glow of the former fire, which went out with his youth.

Jan, I like your reference to the reader's becoming subject to its (the poem’s) “naked beauty.” I think we could look at this another way also. Every poem, as I view it, is adorned in some way: with images, nuances, references, symmetry, etc which together presents itself to us “begging” the reader to dig deep, connect, break down in such a way that its utter simplicity appears, perhaps accompanied with a single simple and visceral sound: “Ah!”

Simplicity is the word I am searching for: a single nuanced word that awakens all of our senses, line by line until the final couplet softens the “stern self-reminder” and our resistance to the reality that Death brings to the senses but not to the “heart” of either the speaker or to the reader. Bern

Jonathan and Deems, what about that word “it?” What does the beholder “see in me,” the speaker?

Does the speaker call the person to see beyond the “twilight” of such a day that brings “dark night?” or to see beyond the “glowing of a fire” that for now is fed not diminished by the ashes upon which “it” lies?

Bern

it = "ashes of his youth"?

I'm still thrown by Paglia's insistence that the couplet's "thou" is the reader. Replace "thou" with "the reader" and "thy" with "the reader's" and it steals the lightning from this poem. It also sounds silly and out of place.

Why am I missing this? Because I haven't had my Wheaties yet?

Oh I just love this. I feel like I have something meaty to study, something I can bite into. I have missed this and I thank you Maryal for providing us with this venue.

I've made numerous notations in the margains of this "blank space" provided on my print out. The scenes, the scenes! It is so authentic written this way that I feel myself experiencing the boughs of my own life spliting and fading into the twilight. I feel the coldness of old age and the aloofness of time pressing on me, as I "wait" for the grim reaper. (Is this the "black Night" whisking me away into obscurity?)

"When yellow leaves , or none, or few, do hang"

hang -ha-ha as in my fleshy skin on the boughs?

I love the fact that we can dissect these wonderful words and each have our own thoughts to share. Not to worry, this ole poem has withstood centuries of dissection.

A couple of unrelated observations: One: To me, a fire is exotic, mysterious. The number of times I have "had" a fire can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Somethings about fires as references I lack in the specifics that those whose lives depended on fires knew on a subliminal level. Two: To the 30-something, lost youth can bring profound regret. Maybe more than to the three-score-and-teners. I for one do not feel pangs over my past years; more like relief that I don't have to go through that angst, pain, etc. again. Finally, I attempt to write poetry, rarely sucessfully. Listening an interview with an author, she said that she reads poetry every day; reads several before she begins each writing session. A little poetry always leads to more.

It's difficult to remember that it is indeed MAY 24 when it's so confusingly cold in Maryland. I've lived here for years and this is the strangest spring I can remember. It warms up for a few days and then returns to weather that, if it weren't for all the green leafiness, could be early October. Disorienting.

Nonetheless.

Someone, and forgive me for not naming you individually, asked what Poststructuralism was. For those of you interested in all the "isms" that have been spawned by the English Department in the past thirty years, I have found this useful glossary:

http://www.geneseo.edu/~bicket/panop/compindex.htm

If you look at "poststructuralism" you will find a relatively simple definition along with a link to "structuralism" which preceded it.

The main problem in academe, as Paglia sees it, is that crticism which once served to shed light on texts of various sorts, has become more and more theory laden so that in discussing a text, one moves deeper and deeper, not into the text, but into the jargon of the particular theory.

"Decontructionism" is basically the theory of Jacques Derrida, who departed this life last year if memory serves. It is quite a ride to read Derrida, but no one after him did what he did so well, so eventually the theory fell to imitators and lost steam. I'm not saying this very well, but no one practiced what is called "deconstruction" in such a lively manner as Derrida. It became bogged in specialized language.

Under various of these "isms," the text retreated into the background becoming merely the pretext for the verbal pyrotecnics of the particular critic practicing the particular "ism." It served as jumping off point and little more. Occasionally valuable insights were brought to light, but one had to wade through much verbiage to find them.

Anyway, if you are feeling especially inquisitive, take a look at the glossary I have linked above. I warn you, it will lead you to more questions.

ALF--aka Andy--welcome to ye. I've been wondering where you were. Good to see you.

Paglia states clearly in the first paragraph of her introduction, "In Break, Blow, Burn, I have tried to write concise commentaries on poetry that illuminate the text but also give pleasure in themselves as pieces of writing." I think she has succeeded. So many critics have to be literally waded (imagine fisherman's trout fishing boots here)through. I find her commentaries crystal clear.

Maryal

I agree, Alf- having something meaty to study.

And I bought the book because of the spacial feeling with the poem set apart from the couple pages of discussion. Until I had it in my hands I wasn't sure if I could deal with it.

I like looking at the words and then the phrase and the whole. It enhances the poem next time I read it aloud.

I see a dialogue in this sonnet, between two very real people.

There is obviously an age difference between the speaker and the one spoken to. The much younger person has made the poet feel the difference, it seems to me. He suddenly sees himself through his young friend's eyes - the knowing perception in the 'thou perceiv'st' look at him. Perhaps the young friend even spoke it out. As metaphorically dramatic as his state is made to seem, as a leafless tree, a fast-fading sunset, a faint glimmer in the ashes, the poet nevertheless maintains a cool, resigned demeanour regarding the prospect of his second and final death, the first being the death of his younger self. The poet seems to be reinforcing the perception of himself that the young friend has already seen for himself. Why else would the poet say, paraphrasing the last two lines - your perception of me is and should be the reminder that makes your present youth more dear to yourself and to enjoy it while you may.

The message seems clear to me, it's the theatricality, or the poetics of the whole thing that amazes. But that's Shakespeare.

Forgive me, was SS referring to himself when he spouts his "In Me?" How old was he when he wrote this? I know someone answered this already but I can't find the post. Thanks. He sure knew how to explore the human spirit, didn't he?

I like the way SS explores the "human spirit" too. From what Paglia writes, the sonnet is to be taken far and above the original self and out to the natures of all men. Paglia speaks of"microcosm to macrocosm--mankind's interconnection with nature."

I might have misinterpreted the author. If so, sorry.

Those "M" words are pretty big words for me.

Andy--When looking at a poem, it is traditional to call the voice in the poem "the speaker" and to try not to identify it with a specific person. SS only lived into his fifties and the sonnets were written earlier in his career. Look at what Jonathan suggests--that the speaker has been in the company of someone younger to whom he looks "old."

The writer of a poem may assume the voice of someone older or someone younger than he/she is. Some poets also cross the gender line (Emily Dickenson for one).

All that said, SS's sonnets always seem personal; we seem to hear the poet's voice. But he wasn't old. He just felt old.

Hats--You have microcosm--the small thing and macrocosm, the larger thing exactly right. In Shakespeare's time it was a commonplace to find a small world that represented a larger one.

Can we refer to him as "WS" or possibly "The Bard"?

"SS" reminds me of a certain para-military unit from German history.

S's ability to be ageless in the sense of this poem reminds me of E Dickinson's same kind of ability. She wrote of various incidents of life when she was young (besides switching gender) that had a truth to them far beyond her experiential years.

We can just plain use "S" for William.

I'll do my best to call him S. But years of notetaking are working against my best intentions. However, I certainly don't want to bring in the flavor of WWII, especially not until we get closer to that time period.

Anything anyone would like to make special note of in Paglia's introduction?

I can even type out Shakespeare so he won't hissss so much.

M

Marj--Yes, exactly. Dickenson is a good example of a poet who sometimes took on the other gender.

Have any of you heard the boys' choir in Westminster Abbey? Years ago we were in London visiting the abbey and just happened to hit a rehersal. It was truly like hearing a heavenly choir (or as I imagine one to be). Shakespeare's line "Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang" always reminds me of that experience.

M

"Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang"

This line interests me. Those "bare ruined choirs", i.e. the ruins of the abbeys which henry VIII destroyed, show up again and again in later English literature, and seem to have become symbols of a rather melancholy romanticism. I read this poem differently, however (probably to my and the poem's detriment). I see Shakespeare as making a veiled political comment: i.e."just as the monarchy destroyed the abbeys, so the monarchy has destroyed and silenced me!"

Joan, that is really an interesting reading. Don't say to your detriment~ that's creative thinking~

I swear Maryal, I've been living in a cave! For crying out loud, I didn't know that we were NOT supposed to ID the "speaker." h-mmm --I thought that was the whole point, to try to figure out who is speaking to whom. Cool, I've got it now. I loved the "fire" thoughts. It reminded me of inspiration and the passions of youth that soon become merely ashes.

Thank you for the info and link re poststructuralism. I have continued to research it, including an interesting discussion today with a local librarian who helped her husband with his doctoral thesis on poststructuralism; she thinks it is bunk.

I have learned a few things: poststructuralism is excessively theoretical with little to find that is realistic or applicable to life experience. So, it does not make much sense to me (and many.) It seems to be related to such things as theory, diversity, populism (although people don't seem to get it),feminists, revisionists in educational circles, relativism (or almost anything goes), and repudiation of our cultural past. It arose in Europe, especially France (I wonder if it relates to the European Union). And I am sure all of the above is arguable. I have two books, by Foucault and Derrida which I will try to read (Heaven help me.)

Here's my guess about the whole thing: it is a myth; the intellectual elite are having fun with us. I learned somewhere if something cannot be defined in simple terms, then nobody really understands it.

Having banked many a fire in my teens, as my family prepared to retire, these lines remind me of looking in the furnace and seeing the hot glow - no longer in flame - however, putting out great heat and the red of this hot, hot fire glowing above the ashes from bygone fires.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

The fire of our soul, our inner spirit, the hot blood of our passions built on the ash of our youth...

And then the line,

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

Life is self-destructive. The forces that we use to advance and discover; the love that turns our darkness into light, like a grass fire we advance, fueled by the dry grass, dependent on that fuel which feeds our soul, our spirit, our passions. We are dependent on the principles and inspirations that are the source of our ideas and desires, that provide the light of our life force and we leave behind a twilight, a scorched field. After the fire of our life is banked our ash becomes the base for other fires to build upon.

Hold, cold - hang, sang - day

West, rest - away

Fire, expire - lie, by - strong, long

The endings fit and the choice of words almost tell the tale of the entire poem...

'I'm still thrown by Paglia's insistence that the couplet's "thou" is the reader. Replace "thou" with "the reader" and "thy" with "the reader's" and it steals the lightning from this poem. It also sounds silly and out of place.' post 248

Kevin, I feel knocked off balance myself by Paglia's suggestion. It all comes from brainstorming the sonnet the way she does. She did promise us a good time.

I also have a problem with her suggestion that the couplet is the 'poet's stern self-reminder'. I don't think so. Her train of thought here leaves me wondering what's to love. And the momentum she has built up in her brilliant essay carries her right along into some doubtful moralizing, and even to the beginning of a final postmortem, something Shakespeare could never have intended. Like you say, the lightning is gone with ideas like that.

Joan, seeing a 'veiled political comment' in the 'bare ruined choirs' is close reading of the highest order. I'm surprised Paglia missed it. Actually, just a week or two ago I read something of that being done in recent Shakespeare studies. All kinds of coded political messages in his works.

What I’ve found remarkable about Paglia’s comments is how she takes the nuances of a single word like “fire” and describes it literally at first and then expands its application to the personal. Then she takes a backward look at the fire’s original source, to mention of the the boughs of trees. From the perspective of looking back at the sequencing of the poem itself, she suggests the poet’s creation of a sense of time: past, present, and toward a state of “no time at all.” Bern

I also find it remarkable bmcinnis and as she tells us in the intro:"I believe in immersion in and saturation by the poem, so that the next time we meet it, we have the thrill of recognition."

My very favorite thought that Ms. Paglia lends is her statement that "sleep is a daily rehearsal for our final repose." I loved that thought and how well she explored it in her description of "night."

Alf,

I loved that statement too! I never thought of death in that way. I pondered that thought for a long time.

You have a way with words, Bern. You wrote “. . .the final couplet softens the ‘stern self-reminder’ and our resistance to the reality that Death brings to t he senses but not to the ‘heart’ of either the speaker or the reader.” Some of you object to Paglia’s reading of “thou” in the final couplet and that’s just fine. One of the wonders of poetry, when it is good, is an ambiguity that will not settle down. Sometimes you just have to settle for both/and/either. The poem tilts different ways depending on who you think that final “thou” is. My students, who always want absolute answers, sometimes flinch when I point to the ambiguity of a statement, a Janus of a sentence in a poem or a novel. They desperately want it to be one or the other as if we were discussing a math problem.

I have another thought about Shakespeare’s age when he wrote the sonnet. We’ve discussed the fact that you don’t have to be truly aged to write about growing old (Eliot was all of 32 when he wrote in Prufrock, “I grow old, I grow old/I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled”) but I think there is a difference between being old oneself and writing about it as a younger person. There’s a sort of romantic tone if one is younger which is absent when the writer is older. Perhaps growing older is something one is more aware of when young? Once one actually is growing older, once aging is “something that is happening to me,” it’s different. Mrs. Sherlock, you have already made this point in #250 when you said “To the 30-something, lost youth can bring profound regret. Maybe more than to the three-score-and-teners.” The point bears repeating.

Anyway, there’s no reason that we should all agree about various shades of meaning in this sonnet, or that we should agree with Paglia’s take on the poem. The ground rules are simply that we agree that the speaker here is considering his own aging, that he uses three excellent metaphors to describe his condition and that the final couplet, which actually names love, brings the sonnet to rest.

There are a million “wrong” readings of the poem. This is not a poem about a sweet kitten or a well-worn boot. It is not about the beauty of nature or the smell of a fresh baked pie. And on and on. More on this later.

JoanK--Please let us know what your veiled political statement (#261) is. In what ways do you see the speaker as “silenced” by the monarchy? And which monarch do you have in mind? Certainly not an invalid reading at all, but do tell us more.

An aside to FAKI: I’ll be pulling for you as you wade into Derrida and Foucault. It’s enough to read a chapter or two to get the flavor. Derrida is fun sometimes, especially if you enter him with your game hat on. But no one else can practice what he does with such a light touch (or no one I’ve read I should say). Foucault is denser and less playful but also interesting. The problem is that so many young scholars and graduate schools grazing around for something new to do, latched on to these two (and Lacan) and an entire industry was spawned which churned out new PhDs who could theorize the legs off a donkey but who could not “read” without the crutch of theory. As you can tell I am not a fan of deconstruction or post-structuralism in general. I find it interesting sometimes as theory but useless when it comes to teaching. I would emend you comment just a little—I think the intellectuals are playing games with each other. It’s a kind of club. They have no thought of the general reader. It’s not really an attack.

Maryal

Barbara!--Welcome to our group. I liked what you said about the fire: "After the fire of our life is banked our ash becomes the base for other fires to build upon. " When you think about it, we are always consuming ourselves as we live. Who was it said, The minute you are born, you begin to die? I remember being shocked when I was a girl when a friend of mine died of leukemia. Someone, heaven knows who, said when I argued that she wasn't old enough to die that anyone living is old enough to die. My friend, Lorrie, was only nine.

Maryal

Tomorrow we turn to Sonnet 29.

M

On the light side, I must say this is most delicious. Along with the brownies, from now on, due to our immersion in each poem, I'll automatically know, for instance, what Sonnet 73 is when I read or hear it mentioned. I even was thinking about the various times of the "year" this morning before I got out of bed.

~Marj

MarjV, thank you for the brownies! Yummy!

As much as I admire Sakespeare (and it is a great deal) I cannot accept his relating sleep to death. Recent research has indicated that sleep is an active function of the mind to incorporate events of the day into the long memory of the mind while death is the cessation of all functions. My own take on sleep is this:

-->

;TO SLEEP

The dreams that lace my sleep at night

Upend and bend and warp the way I think.

I cannot always get their thoughts quite right

Because my logic at the day won=t link

To juxtapose my laughter and distress.

Dreaming fits it well - so I assess.

It frees great secrets dungeoned deep

That filter out through passageways of sleep

And are returned again all locked away

When mind redresses up to face the day.

Jan--However hard it is for you to accept, in the Renaissance, sleep was often seen as a portrait of death. Shakespeare frequently uses it this way. Think of Hamlet in the well known "To be or not to be" speech: "To die--to sleep,/ to sleep--perchance to dream: ay there's the rub/ For in that sleep of death what dreams may come/ when we have shuffled off this mortal coil?"

Or to use another example, the sonnet by John Donne:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Remember when you learned not to tell your children that their Grandfather had "gone to sleep" when he had died? For a long time there, people tried to gentle death by comparing it to sleep--and thereby no doubt terrified many little children who decided that if sleep meant going away forever, they weren't going to do it.

I enjoyed your poem on Sleep. I'm especially taken with the second line. Thank you.

Maryal

A by the way - at the bottom of this page you can arrange to have a Sonnet from the Bard e-mailed to you three days a week - Arrange for Shakespeare each week

Jan, I have been enjoying your posts, especially this last one on sleep. Though the Renaissance view of sleep associated it with death as Maryal shows in the beautiful selections from Hamlet and Donne, I am inclined to agree with you; I cannot compare sleep with death either, and the scientific evidence is there today, as you say. I enjoyed your poem, To Sleep. I am always impressed with people who write poetry, since I am hopeless there.

Deems (Maryal) thanks for all of your help. Your knowledge and wisdom help us all.

Before we leave this poem, I'd like to comment on one of the historical points that Paglia makes. She says:

"By treating the sonnet as a freestanding poem rather than a unit in a sonnet sequence, Shakespeare revolutionized poetry in the same way that Donatello, liberating the statue from its medieval architectural niche, revolutionized sculpture."

This struck me particularly, since it reminded me of a similar development in a very different style, Japanese poetry, starting in the late 1600s. The great poet Basho took the first verse in an elaborate form of linked poems, and developed it into a freestanding form of great power and beauty, the haiku, with revolutionary effect.

I am not a poet, but it strikes me as counter-intuitive -- that the shorter, freestanding, (perhaps simpler, at least structurally?) poem should develop after the longer form. It is clear in both cases that it allowed a deepening and flowering of the form.

I went running to my World Poetry book, to see if I could find comments on this, but didn't after a quick search. Many, but not all, of the earliest poems given for various cultures were long epics, that recounted and passed down history (real, or of the gods).

DEEMS: what do you know from your knowledge of the development of poetry that bears on questions of going from sequence to freestanding, length to brevity, complex to simple. I'm not sure exactly what I'm asking here, but maybe it makes enough sense that you can grasp it.

On S's (possible) political message: DEEMS you may be thinking of something more subtle than I meant. I'm influences by the programs on Shakespeare we watched in the PBS program club a while ago. They showed him growing up Catholic at a time when practicing Catholicism meant death. Whatever his personal religious beliefs, the recent destroying of the abbeys by King Henry VIII must have been an event of great shock and bitterness in the community of his childhood.

It also showed him in situations where he had to censure his plays, his theaters were sometimes closed, etc. He must have resented the monarchy's influence on his life.

So I saw comparing himself to the bare, ruined, and silenced choirs as a statement of the power of kings to silence him, thus ruin him, make him bare of the things that meant life to him.

I said: to the "detriment" because to someone who has worked for the government as I have, complaining that working for the government drains your life is not poetic: it is just same old same old. I would prefer to think in terms of romantic ruins.

I am not familiar with Japanese poetry and my acquaintance with the poetry that I do know does not, it seems to me, indicate all poetry of any era conforms to one particular type. There are, of course, standardized forms within which a poet may fit thoughts but these forms are varied and poets may choose one or more to play with but not necessarily to hold to one form alone. I appreciate and delight in Frost and e e cummings and Millay and Shakespeare and Donne and Blake and Yeats and Stevens and Hopkins and Dickenson and Eliot and Auden and Ginsberg and Thomas and Dr Seuss and am hard put to say that there was a sudden overwhelming conformity that possessed any era or group of poets.

Paglia said it: 'no writer before Shakespeare packed more into a sonnet.' And doesn't she find it all for us in her beautiful little commentary. She rips right into the poem to get to all its poetic details, guiding and prodding her reader to follow suit. Picking it to pieces? Just open to its magic.

'In BREAK, BLOW, BURN, I have tried to write concise commentaries on poetry that illuminate the text but also give pleasure in themselves as pieces of writing.' (introd.pvi)

They do. They do, dear Author. They overwhelm. Who could ever have imagined that the simple oral thermometer could be useful in analysing and predicting human behaviour?

'Shakespeare's metaphor makes our body temperature an index of ambition, physical stamina, and sexual passion.' p6 So check your temperature before planning your days and nights.

But not to worry, when the time comes, when you will have no need for a thermometer to explain that shiver. I see no need to get the elderly man 'trembling with fear at approaching death'. And he should be able to raise his arms without people wondering if he's imploring fate to change its mind. He needn't feel that all his life his bones have been preparing themselves only for his crucifixion.

Mercy! But what a thrill to read.

There's more. Much more. But we'll stop with Paglia's elderly man conjuring up for us a 'vanished civilization'.

I have it on good authority that Shakespeare now wishes he could rewrite the sonnet.

Don't get me wrong. I bought the book for its commentaries. I admire what she has done for those of us who need a little help.

JONATHAN says: "Picking it to pieces? Just open to its magic".

You are quite right. I didn't mean to drag the discussion down by all that political "stuff". After all the picking, we come down to what Emily Dickinson said (Quoted by Edward Hirsch "How to Read a Poem"):

"If I read a book (and) it makes me so cold no fire could ever warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know. Is there any other way".

You people!--I can't keep up with you all. Please forgive me if your name doesn't appear from time to time. I'm certainly reading all your comments and thinking about what you say. I even go back to read your earlier posts, just to refresh my memory.

Jan--How different in time is Helsinki from the US east coast? I've been trying to figure out the difference--guessing five or six hours. Is that about right? Also, if you look at yesterday's Washington Post (I think it's still available online), there's a very nice slide show on education in Helsinki with voice over. What lovely playgrounds for children! I would have killed to have lifesize horses to climb around on when I was a kid.

Joan K--Keep in mind that poetry is not my specialty and that the poetry I am familiar with is almost all western European (although I do admire the haiku and my daughter has introduced me to a little Chinese poetry). Here's what I think happened. The poems we have from antiquity are long--think Homer and The Odyssey and The Iliad. There are lots of theories of how Homer's poems, parts of which were probably once sung, came to be so long. Never mind that--we have ancient manuscripts. Long poems. Then there's "Chanson de Roland," also long and, with the exception of Psalms, the poetry in the Bible--long. When you get up into late medieval times, you have shorter poems appearing as songs--the troubadore song/poems. Some of these were written down. My guess is that many were lost.

Here's the part where I'm speculating: I think that if there were shorter poems, they didn't survive because only book length ones were kept. Also I'm guessing that many short poems weren't written down at all but passed around from person to person, perhaps as lyrics. If you read some of the old ballads, like "Barbry Allen," you'll find that there are multiple versions of some lines and verses. I suspect these variants reflect their oral history.

So, counterintuitive though it may be, longer poems were the rule (so far as we can tell) and Shakespeare was revolutionizing the role of the sonnet by treating each poem as an entity. Petrarch and the earlier English sonnet writers wrote sonnet sequences, all published together as a book.

Jonathan--I too admire Paglia's work. She is rigorous, but clear and I think she worked hard over these essays. It's not easy to say so much in so little.

Maryal

Helsinki is 7 hours ahead of the US East coast. Finland is a large country physically with a relatively small population of about 5 million. It has an excellent educational system free up through the university and almost everybody including the kids have cell phones which makes them easy to keep track of. Lots of pine and birch trees and large wooded parks in and around Helsinki. The temperature can get colder than New York at times but it never reaches New York's sweltering summer temperatures. Almost everybody speaks some English and summer is pleasantly cool alhough it can get up to 80F.

Some of the world's best designers and orchestra conductors are produced here and health costs are very small and the service is very good. I cannot find a good source here for allspice or caraway seeds but otherwise the country is quite satisfactory.

Although the general theme is different this sonnet is remarkably like the previous one in references. It sets the context in a time of the year and refers to singing birds as an emotional note.(no pun intended) And it indicates a change in attitude towards the positive as the result of love for a fellow human which defeats all negativity.

(A love/hate experience of poetry reading) Sonnet 29 at first seems so obvious, but Shakespeare, a master of the word, signals the reader to dig deeper, stretch beyond the obvious in time and state of mind.

Try playing with words themselves, the ideas and images expressed, and then progress to the climax expressed in the final couplet.

Try this “Exercise in Three Readings”

Bern

First: Underline (in pencil, of course) singular words and phrases. NOTE the interplay of contrasts, and tone (sound) these suggest.

Second: Focus on two lines at a time. CONSIDER the sense and interplay of thoughts flowing.

Third: Read the whole poem aloud. “VOILA!” (Miss Piggie speaking) EXPERIENCE the “whole thing!” where words, images, figures take whole of each in a particular way.

Now you are ready to read what Pagalia has to say.

For those with grit, sharing this approach might be an “eye opener” for all of us as well as a well earned sense of accomplishment for you.

I’m not sure, Jonathan, that we will experience what you shared in your quote: “Metaphor (or close reading) makes our body temperature an index of ambition, physical stamina, and sexual passion.' p6 So check your temperature before planning your days and nights.”

Hi Barbara,

Thank you for the link.

Maryal,

Mentioning names does not matter. All that matters, I think, are the comments and having this wonderful book, Break, Blow, Burn. I am learning so much. I also find myself reading the comments from posters over again.

We have had a technical ERROR.

The first line of Sonnet 29 should be:

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,

Everybody, quick, get out your screen pencils, draw a line through the one in the header and print out the correct first line.

Just kidding. Off to get the eraser.

Good morning, Hats and Bern and Jan. Actually, it must be afternoon in Helsinki but I have all I can do to try to find someone to help me fix the sonnet in the header. Something went wrong with the first line (which may be part of Jan's immediate response that this sonnet seems much the same as 73!)--when things begin with the same line, it makes them even more alike.

It's interesting to me that the first line from the other sonnet fits right in with the remainder of the sonnet, although there are several important words missing without the correct first line, like disgrace, for example.

It's sort of like when you are reading and you accidentally skip a page When turning pages and the story goes on anyway. Or worse, when you accidentally read a copy of a book that has left out an entire section. That happened to me once and I didn't notice until a friend asked me about a character who had appeared in the missing section.

Anyway, hold your comments until we get the proper first line restored.

MEANWHILE, she said, we have a little housecleaning to do. There are a number of folks with AOL emails who wrote to me saying they were interested in this course.

These folks may be here and reading, but they don't have a little box at the bottom of the page to post comments in.

In order to post comments or even thank Marj for the delicious brownies she provides, you need to register with SeniorNet and make yourself a password. Then you can come to this discussion and there will be a blank box at the bottom of this page that will say "Type Your Message Here." You can also subscribe to this discussion, by using the subscribe to this discussion box underneath the box for posting. If you use "subscribe," you will be brought to the first post you have not read. Don't use AOL "favorites" or it won't work.

Long explanation for what is a relatively easy process.

Maryal/Deems

Ok Maryal, tighten up the reins here. Mr. Shakespeare has survived for all of these centuries just awaiting Senior Net's interference. Oh my- talk about disgraced!!

***maryal***--best I can do for blushing.

The first line is now correct. Disgraced, and in men's eyes too. Alas.

So, Andrea, what do you make of this one?

Jan, another kudo for Finland: Kimi Hakkonen won the Monaco Grand Prixe last weekend, beating out the dreaded Mickael Schumaker, the present world champion. Kimi is the white knight to Mickael's eminence grise.

Although I was led astray in my comment on the similarity of the two sonnets there is nevertheless a striking similarity in approach. The first lines establish a negative frame of mind at the evaluation of the situation of the speaker and then there is a final emotional upthrust with the acknowledgement of compensations.

Jan--Despite the error, your commentary was on target, I think. There is certainly a similarity between these two sonnets. You describe it well, starting off in a gloomy manner and then an upward swing in mood at the end. Does the speaker sound like a younger man than the speaker in # 73? (I'm assuming man in this case because a woman "in disgrace with men's eyes" would hardly be speaking of her shame at this time period. She'd be jumping in the Thames.)

Question for all: Why is Fortune capitalized? Does Paglia explain this? Must go read the essay.

Maryal

Here's the first paragraph of Paglia's essay. I'm impressed at how quickly she moves and how much she makes me see:

Poetic design in Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 is a tour de force that makes Sonnet 73's symmetrical, self-contained units look almost stodgy. Ignore the modern punctuation: Sonnet 29 is essentially a single sentence, cascading down the lines with the virtuosity of the natural speakng voice that Shakespeare mastered in his career as an actor and playwright. He treats sonnet structure with audacious, jazzlike improvisation, as if it weren't even there. Syntax too is plastic in his hands. Most of the poem is just a prelude, a piling up of subordinate and participial clauses. The main body of the sentence (subject and verb: "I think") doesn't arrive until the tenth line, where it acts as a pivotal point of transformation.

--Paglia, Break, Blow, Burn 9

That is good; in fact, it is wonderful. Paglia seems to me to be moving as quickly with her language as she argues that the sonnet moves.

Maryal

With Fortune capitalized I'm tipped off not to take this young man's wild mood swing too seriously. I believe the sonnet could be addressed to his mother in heaven. Only a mother would lend a sympathetic ear to all this melodramatic despair.

Gosh, Joan, did you misunderstand me? I thought your 'political stuff' was a great thing to see in the suggestion of the ruined abbeys. It so Paglian. Wonderful. And those beautiful ruins now. All over England. And so well maintained. The Fountains. St Hilda's (I believe) in Whitby. Shrewesbury. And Tintern. I never view those ruins without looking up to see if Wordsworth is looking down on me.

What can be said for poetry that leaves one cold? I'm surprised that Emily D would even mention it.

I wonder why the author chose this sonnet; I will try, but it does not interest me much. I think I will go out in the backyard and plant my tomatoes on this beautiful Oregon day. See you later for the Ghost's Speech. La Verne

Actually Emily's comment is very much to the point. I continually hear people question what is and what is not art. The test is not how clever the metaphors or language might be or how unusual the form or whether the viewpoint is usual or not. It is simply whether the poem reaches down into some vital personal center and gives it a shock.

Wikipedia has an informative article re Fortuna. There is a synopsis of Fortuna's influence thru the ages.

Fortuna in Wikipedia

At first glance, I didn't care much for this sonnet. But that is what this course is doing: between Paglia and you all, I see more each time I look. Back later to discuss.

I think some poems emotionally move different people differently depending sometimes on life experiences. If you have ever experienced clinical depression or been close to one who has, I think you understand this poem better. Shakespeare here is not in a happy mood. Paglia's essay to me is, if not more interesting than the sonnet, more challenging. Thanks for the link on Fortuna, Marj.

The goddess Fortuna is widely referred to throughout this period. Fortune turns her wheel--sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down (as S. appears to be here). When you are at the very bottom, you can always hope that Fortune will turn her wheel a little faster and then you will rise like bubbles to the surface (to mix a metaphor).

What with FAKI off in her garden in glorious Oregon and Joan K's not especially positive reaction to this sonnet, I ask the rest of you--what do you see here, or what does Paglia see? that causes you to admire it?

Is any of the language confusing? Do you all know that "Haply" means "Luckily" or "Fortunately"?

What comes out most strongly in this sonnet is the malaise of the creative artist franticly comparing himself to others of accomplishment and severely doubting his capability but findig saving grace in the warmth of a friend who accepts him whatever.

It has always seemed to me that S is talking to a depressed friend but saying that this list of faults, lacks, would bow him down were it not for the love that elevates him to a state higher than kings. I seems that this is a monologue, directed at someone specific. Somehow it doesn't feel like ruminating on the lousy life he's living, but praise for the effect of the love he's receiving.

I didn't say I didn't like it. I meant to say that it took some study for me to like it.

Paglia, who is clearly strongly visual, does a good job of pointing out the movement of the eyes in these poems. She did it in the first one, and now in the second:

"we are made to look one way and then another in a psychologically distorted world".

I found it interesting to follow those looks:

First we see through "men's eyes"(1), then back to him alone and his weeping eyes (2). Then we try to rise to heaven (3) but fall back, looking at himself (4).

Then we look at other people (5-7). I love the distance he creates here: one, him, him, this man, that man. As Paglia says, they don't see him. But he also sees them as from a great distance, like the wrong end of a telescope. I picture him sitting alone in a gloomy space: looking in the far distance seeing another land full of sunshine, hope, friends, art, and scope. That world is large and expanding, and his world is small and closed in. And he brings us sharply back to it and to "despising"(8-9).

Then he thinks of the loved one, and becomes the lark (10). Whereas before, when he tried to rise, he came back with a thud to "look upon myself, and curse my fate"(4), this time, he leaves sullen earth and sings at heavens gate (12). What a contrast in the first group of 4 and the last -- from "troubling deaf heaven" to a lark arising; from cursing to singing, from being closed within himself to being at heaven's gate.. He surely is talking of his work here.

He has left that small dark world, and found a world of wealth of his own.

I don't dislike this poem: I love it.

Precisely as Joan says..."I picture him sitting alone in a gloomy space: looking in the far distance seeing another land full of sunshine, hope, friends, art, and scope."

Having gone thru a period of deep depression years ago I can remember exactly that feeling. One is so removed from anything pleasant & removed from other people. And as Deems mentions, you can certainly relate to this poem if you've gone thru depression. I say finding the open "gate" is not quite so simple as S would have it be in this poem.In a way it almost sounds bi-polar!

And I do like the poem.

It makes us realize what a heavy price S. paid for writing the beautiful works that we love so much. Who was it said something like: writing is easy -- you just open your veins and let out all your blood on the page.

MarjV, I like this poem too. I think the sonnet is easy to relate to because it is relating to a common emotion. This common emotion, which comes and goes, in our lives is one of worthlessness.

This wretched feeling that makes a person feel totally alone, set apart from family and friends and also from invisible forces in heaven. I think this is why S writes of deaf heaven and bootless cries.

This feeling is most dreadful, I would think, for artists, writers, etc. To think that the ability is gone which makes you want to get up each day and might never come back has caused some to commit suicide. Writers call it writers block. So, those who are not blocked and can continue to perform become the people you despise or envy the most.

MarjV, I have experienced "the black dog" of depression too.

Joank wrote "It makes us realize what a heavy price S. paid for writing the beautiful works that we love so much."

This is what I am trying to write.

Well I'm going out on the limb here but why does she believe the main body of the sentence is "I think."? I would think it would be I beweep as he lists numerous grievances and complaints. He's broke (disgraced with fortune) -lil ole Fortuna-and men's eyes (admiration for him.) He feels an outcast and cries with lamentation to a deaf God. When he looks within he hates what is to follow and wants to be as others; hopeful, handsome and well liked. Our bard wants to better at his trade and have others capacity and/or opportunities. He is burdened with what he loves the most- his art!
I would say the subject/verb of this entire piece is "I beweep." Ok professor, I'm ready to take my medicine.

To whom is he looking? Who does he see that brings joy to his heart?
Paglia says "The beating of the lark's wins surely mimes the beating of his own heart, which quickens at the mere idea of the beloved." I loved that and completly missed that when I read the sonnet.

from the Dept of Motor Vehicles where I was held prisoner for some three hours. It was supposed to be simple: transferring the title of my Honda to my daughter. We even took in some old license plates (from the Honda Civic my daughter had before--here's the snag--from a Subaru that departed this life in the year of our Lord, 2000. It died, literally died on the highway. My daughter had it towed to a place where some mechanic thought it could be fixed, turned out it couldn't, she signed the title over to them, they gave her the plates, said plates winding up in the basement.

As a good citizen, I decided that since we were going to the DMV, I'd take those old plates along too. Shouldn't have done that. A stern looking fellow at what we thought would be the Final Station, gave us yet another ticket with a number (83) on it and said daughter might be in some heavy debt for not turning those plates in sooner. Go to Station 15--couldn't find it. The DMV here is a massive building full of angry people and depressed people and many many lines--we had previously been at Stations 19 and 27. Finally found Station 15, tucked away in a corner and not in numerical order. We had number 83. They were on 62 or 3. I stupidly had not taken a book.

My daughter worried about how much money she was going to owe for being derelict. I figured she could talk her way out of it. OK, so the DMV closed at 4:30--announcement made over the loudspeaker and everything. I looked around the building. None of the other people were leaving. No one even stood up. So we stayed too. My daughter was the next to last person and didn't have to pay anything at all. I think they were checking some vast computer databank to see if those license plates were associated with any crimes.

Anyhoo, all was accomplished. I'm wiped out.

I've been reading some excellent discussion here and so glad that JoanK doesn't dislike this sonnet. Back tomorrow when I can think again. The DMV is a powerful narcotic.

Maryal

I think there is too much artistry in this popular little sonnet for it too be taken at its face value. Sure it's a favorite to mull over when one is feeling blue. It makes such a good case. But I can't see it as a matter of clinical depression, or anything approaching a bipolar mood disorder, if only because he gets himself out of it anytime he wishes. I believe the sonnets mood is just as much religious as psychological. Praise works. Hymn-singing works. Even reciting this little sonnet to oneself, or one or two selected lines, can help one turn things around. It's composition must have been restorative for the poet. From importuning deaf heaven to crashing its gates with a little praise - all in fourteen lines.

Or perhaps Shakespeare was only spoofing all those other poets who found their heavens, their everything in their mistress' favor. A smile, just the thought of her.

Thanks Mrs Sherlock. You got me going.

Approaching the sonnet from the point of view of a writer perhaps it is worthwhile to contemplate why Shakespeare so heavily emphasises his miseries. It seems to me it is used as a method to demonstrate the strength of his affection for his friend. The deeper the miseries his love can compenate for, the greater is the demonstration of the strength of that love. It is a way of reversing the power of a negative to a positive.

Alf, I went back and asked myself the same question. “Think” could be the better word because it metrically fits in the line or because it better reflects the point of the poem which is not on his distressed state but the transition from being distressed to experiencing a kind of exaltation when the muse returns. Like you I am “ready to take my medicine.”

Jonathan, I love the unique way you “see through” the poet’s intent, particularly in your statement that, for the poet, his composition might result in a “restorative state of mind. After all, Shakespeare and his contemporaries were literally in love with words themselves: words that create a new kind of “ intensity and inwardness of feeling and perception,” words that became “impassioned expressions of inner feelings and crafted to create a kind of “spontaneous effusion.” One critic states that poets of the Elizabethan time often wrote with a “conscious dignity” but at the same time with words that came across as something “fresh and new.” I believe Shakespeare was indeed caught up in all this and as a genius with the connections between words and human emotions, he was able to create poetry that is still able to elicit from readers personal responses both then and now.

Bern

Though both sonnets devote most of their lines to everyone's favorite topic -- Me, Myself, and I -- both are really about someone else. That is, Shakespeare may devote 12 of 14 lines to himself, but the poems' compass, weight, soul (what have you) come from the "other" mentioned in both cases.

Getting old ain't bad when someone like you loves me (Sonnet 73), and feeling blue ain't bad when someone like you exists (Sonnet 29).

This selflessness wrapped in selfishness is like a sheep in wolf's clothing, but Shakespeare pulls it off
(hey nonny nonny -- it looks easy, but it's Barder than you think!).

"The beating of the lark's wins surely mimes the beating of his own heart, which quickens at the mere idea of the beloved."

I wondered how Paglia got to this thought when the poem speaks of the lark singing. Then I saw "arising from sullen earth". Sullen is quite a negative word also. A one of it's definitions is silence. Therefore the lark rises and breaks the silence . Te lark rises like a phoenix rising from ashes, making a change in what was. As does the speaker's mood.

And the award goes to. . . . . . . . .

(hey nonny nonny -- it looks easy, but it's Barder than you think!)

deliciously contributed by Kevin, who is being good, as promised, and not throwing spitballs or tipping over his chair.

Way back yesterday, before the DMV experience, Jonathan(#299) remarked “He could be expected to be younger in 29 than he is in 73.” I’m not sure whether to take this as a humorous one-liner, which it is if read one way, or a serious comment that, of course sonnet 29 was written before sonnet 73, which assumes that the sonnets are numbered and presented for us in the order in which they were written. Just goes to show you how hard it is to get tone just right when all we have is a screen and type. Facial expression or a certain glint in the eye would give us the answer right away! But I can’t see Jonathan.

But I do understand Jonathan’s take on the melodramatic despair in this poem as I also agree with Jan’s point about the “malaise” of the creative artist comparing himself to others of accomplishment. That’s a very good point. Shakespeare and Christopher (Kit) Marlowe (Doctor Faustus and many others) were exact contemporaries and Marlowe was already an established playwright when Shakespeare came to London. In addition to Marlowe, Shakespeare had mighty competition from Ben Jonson, John Webster, John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont. The theater was booming and multiple performances were staged. (The wonderful movie, “Shakespeare in Love,” although an invention, gives a fine portrait of competition in the theater.)

Joan K alerts us to how adeptly Paglia shows us the movement of the eyes as the speaker looks at a man whose prospects in life are more hopeful, then one who is good-looking, one with many friends (patrons perhaps). I notice that he manages to make all these comparisons in just two lines. My favorite line follows: “Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope” along with Paglia’s comment, “Shakespeare, incredible to us, evvies another’s ‘art,’ that is, literary skill.” It is hard to believe that the immortal bard envied others their art, but doesn’t it make him more like us, more human?

Marj--Good to read that you “get it”—the depression—that I see here. It’s the line “with what I most enjoy contented least” that pegs real depression for me. When that which you have always enjoyed, found pleasure in, no longer even interests you, then you have fallen into the well of depression. [An aside on depression—if anyone has been or knows someone who suffers from depression, the best book I know of written about depression from the inside is William Styron’s Darkness Visible.]

Hats--You feel the depression here as well and write of “this wretched feeling that makes a person feel totally alone, set apart from family and friends and also from invisible forces in heaven” and point us to that important word “bootless.” Yes indeed, the speaker certainly feels that prayers are useless in this situation.

Since some of us have noted the real depression here, I’d like to add that for me this part of the poem is the most “convincing.” The happy ending, with the lark and the heart responding to a remembered “sweet love” is almost too easy. This is, after all, a sonnet and must be brought to a conclusion, and Shakespeare seems to have wanted the poem to be a tribute to that person whose love he remembers. But for me, the first nine lines of the poem are the most meaningful. Andy/ALF is, I think, making the same point. Correct me if I mistake you, Andy.

Bern--Thank you for reminding us of the enduring power of Shakespeare’s words. He was in love with language. I am always amazed when my students respond so viscerally to Shakespeare. They have all sorts of problems with other important writers—Dickens, Dostoevsky, Hardy, George Eliot—who are more recent.

Maryal/Deems

You are correct Madame Professor. I beweep that the points re. depression speak loudest in this sonnet.

OK - I have read everyone's post and I am sorry. as much as I try to match my feelings reading this poem to this depression that everyone is noting I just cannot get there - I do not see this as being a young man who is even owning the feelings in the first 9 lines --

He starts out with When - an adverb clause - Synonyms albeit, howbeit, though, although, while, whilst [chiefly British] Related Words but, whereas.

When, followed by all these phrases describing when - the hows and whens of life -

When to a young man could easily be, a young man describing something that he sees others experience and therefore, he should expect to experience however, he really never has - but he has opinions, strong opinions, about how others should act given that if he were in that spot that is how he would act - the first bit is almost like a scolding rant that you see young folks do...

Example: A twenty year old collage student at UT ~~ let's shorten what the poem is saying and make sense as if it were a college student saying - let's shorten the first line further to make sense out of it ~~ When, in disgrace - I alone would own my outcaste state -

I can just picture it - the collage student telling his buddy - so you drank too much last night on 6th street and the bar tender not only wouldn't serve you any more but, asked you to leave or he would call the police - and there you were with your friends - and When - in life -- like 'if' in life -- I disgrace myself - I own the fact that I am going to be an outcaste in society or among my friends.

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,

And so if you are disgraced then, quit caterwauling about it because if I ever find myself in this situation I know that I can cry to the heavens about my fate but heaven will turn a deaf ear since these cries of mine would have no legs or shoes or boots - these cries, they cannot march across fields - they are me being on a pity pot.

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

wishing that I was in the same state of sobriety as my friends or at least not being thrown out and separated from my friends - and I still had the hope that we all had when we started drinking that we could get away with it and not be refused at the bar.

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;

Look at Rick there - he drank as much as I could if we were out for a night partying on 6th street and he wouldn't be thrown out of the club and there is Doug - he has a gift for drinking so that no one knows he even had one drink and here I am not able to hold my beer without acting in a way that I am least content with myself and the potential outcome.

The ";" is the first real brake - a sentence with something added to the preceding full sentence that will strengthen it, or change it, or tell you what is wrong with it - a semicolon links independent clauses.

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising

And so loosen up here and listen to me - I can think this way despising myself

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising

Haply - adverb: by chance, luck, or accident.

But you, with your luck, in comparison to all this bad news that happens and that I just described -- look at you - [and he looks at his friend like making a toast and says something like] I look at you and like Mack Brown and Coach Royal rolled into one.

From sullen earth, sings praise at heaven's gate;

Like looking Texas trampling Nebraska in 2003 with Mac Brown keeping Benson in or, like looking on a field of Bluebonnets in Spring.

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Hay buddy, we have it made in the shade - here we are able to party our nights away on 6th street, the live musical capitol of the world, and get up in the morning knowing we live in Texas, which we all know we wouldn't change that since, when others die they only then get a glimpse of Texas because, living in Texas is like dying and going to heaven. [in other words, all the proverbs of a typical twenty year old UT student who grew up in Texas and is proud of his state and the school and the all important football team]

And so I see this as a poem that is setting up all this wonder of luck by showing the down side first - because without describing the down side you cannot appreciate the good luck - I also wonder if Shakespeare was trying out writing the morose as a prologue to tackling a character like Hamlet.

Everyone seems to think "haply" refers to chance or fortune. It seems more likely and fitting that "haply" is a contraction of "happily" as the mood of the poem reverses on this word.

aha - could be - the dictionary says one thing but it would help I bet to have a dictionary that tells us the meaning of words from the sixteenth century - but to me happy and luck have a lot in common - like happy go lucky - what do you think...?

hmmm haply was used in the Bible -- "How much more, if haply the people had eaten freely to day of the spoil of their enemies which they found? for had there not been now a much greater slaughter among the Philistines?

In fact this whole story in Samuel: 14 is set up like the sonnet with all this bad news first followed by the change -

wordnet says - haply means by accident. Synonyms: by chance, by luck and then suggests the link to Samuel as a further example of the word in use.

And they also include fragments of the Cantos with this -- ("O ye, who are in a little bark, desirous to listen, following behind my craft which singing passes on, turn to see again Your shores; put not out upon the deep; for haply losing me, ye would remain astray."

Wow here is another - for never having the word in my vocabulary it sure is around...

William Wordsworth wrote about the Duddon, a river he knew and loved from his early years. His series of 34 sonnets was written during 1818 and 1819.

Sonnet I

NOT envying shades which haply yet may throw
A grateful coolness round that rocky spring,
Blandusia, once responsive to the string
Of the Horatian lyre with babbling flow;
Careless of flowers that in perennial blow
Round the moist marge of Persian fountains cling;
Heedless of Alpine torrents thundering
Through icy portals radiant as heaven's bow;
I seek the birthplace of a native stream.
All hail, ye mountains! hail, thou morning light!
Better to breathe upon this aery height
Than pass in needless sleep from dream to dream:
pure flow the verse, pure, vigorous, free, and bright,
For Duddon, long-loved Duddon is my theme!

Folks, I know depression. It runs in my family, on both sides, and there ain't no one who can make it go away. To me, this isn't real depression. Barbara, I think you've got it. It is like he's creating melancholy with the litany. Something is not quite sincere, as if he's writing this as an assignment, not heart-felt.

I thought the very same as Jan.

Then I used The Websters 1828 Dictionary : HAP'LY, adv. By chance; perhaps; it may be.

Lest haply ye be found to fight against God. Acts.5.

1. By accident; casually.

Makes for a totally different meaning if it isn't a contraction of happily.

Haply in the Free Online Dictionary

Reading it again and looking closely at the word "when," the speaker seems to have a need to share his troubles with those who might become troubled. In other words, this is what it's like and this is what will happen in the end. He is sharing his case of depression.

The word "when" leads me to think the speaker is sharing a past experience. This past experience has come upon him more than once. This makes the speaker feel he is worthy to help someone else with the same experiences.

He wants whomever he is talking to know that there is a light at the end of a tunnel. In the end, God does hear him. Once God hears him all his doubts fade away.

This poem reminds me of David's Psalms in the Bible. There is a time of doubt and fear. Then, there is the time of refreshing joy.

Barbara, I see the importance of the word "when." The use of "when" allowing the writer to introduce a helpful treatise.

Lurking for the most part. I've never liked poetry and only written a little due to my interest in folk music until I read Jan's and I liked it so well I gave him a page at my web site. Others have too. This is mine

Jan at Claires Place

I liked it for the emotional impact and the humor as well. Now I'll hang out here and see what else I can learn about POETRY. . . . Claire

"Death's second self, which seals up all in rest.

In me thou seest the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie",

reminds me of the sound we make when quieting a child into sleep and goes with rocking. I relate to poems on an emotional level but appreciate alterations especially when they work well out loud. . . .Claire

Apparently unlike Paglia, I see the sonnet form as emphasized here as in the first sonnet, although more subtly. Again it reads almost like a three act play, each quatrain being an act, with an epilogue.

The first act-quatrain , sitting alone, trying to reach heaven and failing, thrown back on himself (1-4).

The second act-quatrain, looking enviously to that other world of light and scope (5-

The third act is a parallel to the first, but here, by thinking of "thou" instead of himself, he succeeds in "arising" and singing (9-12).

And the epilogue that gives the "happy ending".

He starts each quatrain with a stressed syllable ("TUM tah tah TUM" instead of "tah TUM tah TUM" as the form demands). Although he uses irregular rhythm elsewhere in the poem, perhaps these emphatic starts mark each new act, as "in me" did in the first poem.

I am not a good enough reader-alouder to hear the effect of his irregular rhythms: I wish I could hear someone else read it aloud. Perhaps it is these in part that give Paglia the sense of rushing, perhaps stumbling.

I am with those that find the depessed part of the poem most convincing. In both this and the last sonnet, the final couplet turns the poem in a new direction, away from him and out to "thou". But here in this one, he still ends in the last line talking about himself ("That then I scorn to change my place with kings"). The weight of his life still overshadows the other. I find it hard to see this a primarily a tribute to "thee".

Joan I also agree it is thou and not thee - although what I think is he is using himself as an example rather than being seriously in depression - so that he has a foil for his 'good news' - I guess that word and coma after - When, - for me says much...

I did not pick up and see the idea of three acts - wonderful yes, I see that now - I can understand how he would agree not to want to change place with kings over his desiring of others art and scope however, I have a hard time thinking he would prefer not to change places with a king but would prefer to hold onto his fate as an outcaste with bootless cries to a heaven that does not listen.

In fact that first bit abut his fate as an outcaste with bootless cries to a heaven that does not listen, sounds like Shakespeare beweeping his situation as a Catholic knowing that members of his wife's family were hung in the gruesome fashion of the day.

OK this could be a more serious poem then even I thought - if he is bemoaning his Catholicism with a king on the throne who is killing off those who practice the "Old" Religion - but wait a minute - someplace I remember reading that the Sonnets of Shakespeare are not Biographical.

Ok than I am back to my earlier summation that the beginning is more a bit of Rhetoric than a serious cry about him being in depression...ah so... we will have to agree to dis-agree...and such is the wonders of relating to poetry...

reading it aloud..it's subjective I guess and it's in the emphasis

SONNET LXXIII

W. Shakespear

"That TIME of year thou mayst in me beHOLD When yellow LEAVES, or NONE, or FEW do hang upon those boughs which SHAKE against the COLD Bare, ruined CHOIRS where LATE the sweet birds SANG.
In ME thou seest the TWIlight of such day"

Claire

CLAIRE: yes, that sonnet 73 is perfectly regular (iambic pentameter?):

This TIME of YEAR thou MAY'ST in ME beHOLD. and so on.

It's in the next sonnet he plays with the rhythm:

WHEN, in disGRACE with FORtune AND men's EYES.(1) (The comma after "when" makes you emphasize it).

Next quatrain: WISHing me LIKE to ONE more RICH in HOPE (5)

Next: YET in these THOUGHTS mySELF alMOST disPISing (9)

I remember in High school English class, I always went to sleep when the teacher started talking about rhythm, and I don't want to run it into the ground. But Paglia refers to jazz-like improvizations, and I wondered if you all had felt a jazz beat?

somehow keeps me from appreciating the content. I don't like the da de dum de da de dum de thing. it makes the rhythm more important than the words. . . so I guess it is subjective. I did read it that proper way the first time through and was bored until I found the drama inherent within. . . . and followed that around . . .

would that constitute a "jazz-like improvization"?,

Claire

Joan I'll take liberties with this little thing and make it the way it feels to me.

WHEN, in disgrace with FORtune and men's EYES. (The comma after "when" means pause to me) wishing ME like to ONE more RICH in HOPE

yet in THOSE thoughts myself ALmost dispising

etc. just me and jazz I guess. the acedemic structure can hold the words but for me it sometimes distorts the meaning and flow.

that's why I think I don't like poetry very much. the da de dum de stuff interferes. . . . Claire

I think I've done too much da dum stuff. If I read it in a speaking voice, I hear different degrees of stress. The stresses you skipped are there, they are just slighter.

I didn't pay any attention to rhythm until Paglia made that comment about jazz. Then I wanted to hear what she was talking about. But too much of this detracts from the poem --- you're right.

One thing I'm learning in this class --- sometimes when I analyze the poem it really adds to my feeling for it -- like following the eyes in the second sonnet. And sometimes it really seems to take away from it -- like now, when I got too involved in the rhythm. Next I have to learn what kinds of studying the poem are fruitful for me and what aren't.

so it is subjective and feeling it with my gut is right on the money.Also skipping the minor emphasis is in keeping with my love of brevity. . .I think that such is more powerful in affect somehow. . . . Claire

Joank, your words a “music to my ears.”

“ I have to learn what kinds of studying the poem are fruitful for me and what aren't.”

This has been my quest over these more than 50 years of probing, reflecting, comparing/contrasting with authors, critics and most especially students, about poetry and I have been enriched by all of this. I have always just enjoyed poetry but it was only in my years as a graduate student where I became immersed in 20th century poets and the New Critics that I was able to appreciate both the reading, reflecting, and synthesizing to suit myself.

What I have discovered recently—Some have mentioned this site already—is the newer format for the Academy of American Poets

where options for reading and exploring poets and poetry abound.

I also enjoy the refreshing and reflective comments of all our participants.

Bern

I AL-so HAD trou-BLE when TEA-chers KEPT
a RHY-thm WITH the GOL-den RU-ler's TAP
u-PON the DESK where OF-ten SCHOOL-kids WEPT
so WE could LEARN pen-TA-me-TER'S odd RAP.

(Pass the butterscotch brownies and a milk -- tall one.)

BMCINNIS: wonderful link. Here is a page from it on how to read a poem in a poetry group:

HOW TO READ A POEM

I like the poem at the end very much.

After reading thru your 15 comments since I last looked yesterday I decided to read the poem aloud like a rap. That makes a different feeling altogether.

Thanks for the links to the revised Academy of American Poets- looks excellent.

Shakespeare in rap time? (With apologies to Robert Frost's Two Tramps in Mud Time). The beat must be what lends to my semi=trance when reading poetry. Deep analysis of the words, like this, does detract from its majesty. Why did Paglia pick these two sonnets? There are others I like better, and certainly like less, that these two. I'll read all of them again noww with these tools in mind, looking for the little playlets, seeking jazz, maybe rap, maybe ? Great project for the seekend.

Welcome winsum--Love of poetry is not a prerequisite for the course, nor is rigid scansion of lines. Just let the words fall into their natural stress system. Poets who follow iambic pentameter (as in the sonnets we have been reading) almost always vary the rhythm by inverting feet and changing the stress precisely so it won't become too automatic and boring and stressful(l?).

Kevin, you took me right back to the ruler and the teacher with that post. Ah yes, how to drum the rhythm into the students. I proudly announce that I have never done that although it has occurred to me to tap it onto their skulls with my knuckles. But I don't.

The thing to remember is that English falls fairly naturally into iambic pentameter. Many of the sentences you speak every day are more or less iambic.

Barbara--Although I don't see any mention of alcohol in the sonnet, that certainly is an interesting take on the poem. Not what it says to me, but you seem to be sticking somewhere near the poem.

Marj--We'll be needing more blonde brownies since both Kevin and I seem to be eating them. And you might milk the cow and chill the milk for the long weekend.

I hope those of you who celebrate Memorial Day and have time off will enjoy this extended time and I hope it's in the sun, which finally came out here too. It was like New England here in the middle states for what seemed like weeks.

The ghost from Hamlet has come to keep us company over the weekend. I doubt there will be much posting and I myself have a few plans, but I promise to check in and see what's going on.

Maryal/Deems

Joan,

that Lowell poem made me shiver especially these lines.

The painter's vision is not a lens, it trembles to caress the light.

Claire

"And in the porches of my ears did pour The leprous distillment"

Wow. mixing metaphors as in PORCHES and POUR and DISTILLMENTt including the antecedent LEPROUS. This is so rich. . . . if we stop to analyze. perhaps I'll just read it . . . aloud of course . . . Claire

It seems I'm not the only one confused by it. see it here at

The shakespeare Glossary

Claire

Yes Winsum, even the dictionaries give it a poison from either of several possible sources all of which since have been proven not to cause poisoning.

Some of the other words that I wanted clarity are; from my old Britanica dictionary;

pos·set - Function: noun - Etymology: Middle English poshet, possot: a hot drink of sweetened and spiced milk curdled with ale or wine.

The American Heritage dictionary says ~ posset: clot ~ which is what curdled milk would become - a clot.

ea·ger - Function: adjective - Etymology: Middle English egre, from Middle French aigre, from Latin acer -- more at EDGE

1 a archaic : SHARP obsolete : SOUR - eager: acid -- sour: from Old English sur; akin to Old High German sur sour, Lithuanian surus salty 1: causing or characterized by the one of the four basic taste sensations that is produced chiefly by acids <sour pickles> -- compare BITTER, SALT, SWEET 2 a (1): having the acid taste or smell of or as if of fermentation : TURNED <sour milk> (2): of or relating to fermentation b : smelling or tasting of decay : RANCID, ROTTEN <sour breath>

un·hou·seled - Function: adjective - archaic 1: not having received the Eucharist especially shortly before death 2: not having received the father's blessings before leaving his care.

un·aneled - Function: adjective - Etymology: un- + aneled, past participle of anele to anoint, from Middle English, from an on + elen to anoint, from ele oil, from Old English, from Latin oleum -- more at OIL archaic : not having received extreme unction

taint - Function: verb - Etymology: Middle English tainten to color & taynten to attaint; Middle English tainten, from Anglo-French teinter, from Middle French teint, pp. of teindre, from Latin tingere; Middle English taynten, from Middle French ataint, past participle of ataindre --
transitive senses
1 : to contaminate morally: CORRUPT <scholarship tainted by envy>
2 : to affect with putrefaction: SPOIL
3 : to touch or affect slightly with something bad <persons tainted with prejudice>
intransitive senses
1 obsolete : to become weak
2 : to become affected with putrefaction: SPOIL

I just added that to my glossary notes for GHOST. . . . Claire

"Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge To prick and sting her. "

gives me the shivers and the whim=whams also. . . . Claire

Sounds like no love lost there - but this was a conflicted soul wasn't he...

Paglia's analysis of "The Ghost's Speech" is really quite descriptive and wonderful, almost as classic as the Speech itself. From the Ghost's Speech, Hamlet,the play, is thereafter in a downward spiral of madness,death and horror. Paglia calls the Speech a "magnificant flight of strange, lurid poetry", and she goes on to explain it all; quite terrific, I think.

Have a great and meaningful Memorial holiday, all, and don't have any nightmares.

Well as new books have a shorter lend/lease time, my copy of To BBB or not to BBB is due the 31st. I tried to renew, my old trick tried and true, but some miscreant has it on HOLD, effectively blocking my renewal with her holdewal.

Dag as in nabbit!

Well, hopefully you'll continue to post the poesies in the header, at least until you run into copyright problems.

Color me squamish!

It's hard for me to read this poem as closely as I did the others. But then I avoid horror movies like the plague. I know. Chicken, chicken.

But even running away from it, I can appreciate the beauty of Shakespeare's language.

Undoubtedly the language is skillful and colrful but my take on poetry is unfortunately self centered and a poem must pierce my perceptions of my own world and alter them to be sigificant to me. This thing leaves me cold.

My admiration of this is in the purely technical: How S tells this dreadful tale in such language and such meter, while constructing somewhat ordinary sentences. When I retire, I have a project: Read each one of S's plays, with the commentaries of several experts alongside: Bloom, Azimov, and two recent books I can't remember. It would be chating for me to look this up now, so I'll solo.

Barbara gives the def. of eager as: ea·ger - Function: adjective - Etymology: Middle English egre, from Middle French aigre, from Latin acer -- more at EDGE

Whereas Paglia [pg. 16] defines eager as 'acid' which then clarifies the line "like eager droppings into milk".

What an absolutely vivid tale of horror this poem is. Much more when you read it aloud giving different emphasis to words or phrases each time.

Good morning. Good to see some folks here ready to take on our last bit of poetry from Shakespeare. Next in Paglia's collection is John Donne' "The Flea," and rest assured, Kevin, I will put it in the header.

I love Hamlet. It's a very long play, almost twice the length of Macbeth and often cut some when produced, but there is so much in it that one can teach it year after year and focus on different parts. It is packed with wonderful soliloquies including one from Claudius, the dastardly brother who has poisoned old King Hamlet, now a ghost bothering the nightwatchmen in Denmark and finally, at the end of Act 1, confronted by young Hamlet who commands him to stay. All was not well in Denmark even before the ghost's announcement of his untimely death at the hands of his brother, but from this point it becomes imperative for Hamlet to avenge his father.

winsum--those "porches" are not really mixing the metaphor. They are simply the gateways of the ear--one of the openings to the body through which poison can be administered. In Renaissance England, Poison, as Paglia points out in her essay, was considered the weapon of "cowards, fickle women, and devious Italians." It was no way for a brave man to kill another.

Central to this speech, and to the play as a whole, is the metaphor of Denmark as a garden. When Old King Hamlet was still living, Denmark was a beautiful Garden (think Eden). After his murder, everything disintegrates and it becomes "an unweeded garden."

Once Hamlet was "the expectancy and rose of the fair state" (Ophelia) and Ophelia was a "rose of May" (Laertes), but since the murder of old King Hamlet, Denmark has become a prison, an "unweeded garden/ that grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely." (Hamlet in 1,2, before he speaks with the ghost.)

Now the snake (in the form of Claudius) has entered the garden, killed the king and left the state in disrepair. There is also a political threat to Denmark from Norway. There are no peaceful moments in this play.

Let's look closely at the ghost's tale, examining the language as you have been. I tried to access the Oxford English Dictionary online, but it won't open. I think that our subscription is in process of renewal. I wanted to look up "eager" in the sense it is used here, to mean acid (Paglia), and I'll need it for other words to come in other poems. I think the same thing occurred last year and I'm hoping that it's just a subscription glitch and not some more budget cutting.

Maryal

I wonder if Emily P would have liked this one? She seems to have been thrilled by both hot and cold. Was she giving a new meaning to cold. Must check the OED. Obviously there's cold and there's cold.

The third by Shakespeare. Paglia is still going with the canon thing. Wasn't it interesting to read that Harold Bloom came to her when she was planning her doctoral thesis. So we had better pay attention to what she is saying. It seems no hot or cold for her. Just poetic appreciation and development. The first was meant to show how Shakespeare 'revolutionized poetry' with the use of the sonnet form. Pretty impressive. The second poem is really breathtaking as, as Paglia, demonstrates, a tour de force in poetic design. It's disconcerting somehow to hear that the first poem must now be seen as 'stodgy', well, for the sake of Shakespeare's professional development we'll accept that. And the third of Paglia's forty-three: 'a magnificent flight of strange, lurid poetry.' Are we willing to tolerate a doctoring of the news for the sake of creativity, or for the sake of plot?

Forty to go. And it gets better. Or if it's treatment of depression, it gets worse...

The first definition in my OED:

†1. a. Pungent, acrid, keen to the taste or other senses. Of medicines: Sharp or violent in operation. Of diseases: Acute, severe. Obs.

Joan

Yes, "Something is rotten in in the state of Denmark", all right. Act I, Scene IV.

I love Hamlet too; it has become like an old friend. I first saw it at Stratford-on-Avon many years ago, and then at other locations including our Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. (In sev. weeks I will be there to see Twelfth Night and Richard III.) I think I may have read it first in high school.

I have to return my "BBB" to the library also, and I rarely buy books, but rather use a terrific local library. But yesterday I bought "BBB", which is a keeper for me, and I can write in it. Also, yesterday, I could not resist buying "The Best Poems of the English Language", 2004 and including poems from, 1343 -1899 except women poets to 1923, by Harold Bloom. Since I also have the "Riverside Shakespeare", compiled by Bloom, including all the Shakespeare plays, and poems with commentary, this combination should last me for the duration. Anyway,that is my rationalization for the expense.

Jonathan, I am always interested in what you have to say. What do you mean by, "Are we willing to tolerate a doctoring of the news, for the sake of creativity, or for the sake of plot?" Thanks.

so maybe it's best to lurk and learn . . .I wish I had the book though. The essays must be interesting to those of you who are already familiar with the works. Like Kevin, I need the poem in the heading. It's too bad that we can't have the essays there too. . . . Claire

Kevin: she sticks with the canon thing. "It seems no hot or cold for her. Just poetic appreciation and development".

I agree. when I read the introduction, I pegged Paglia(rightly or wrongly) as one of those people who find it easier to express passion toward things she hates than things she loves. Many of us can relate to that, but as a matter of personal style, I prefer those who share bounteously their love and awe at these wonderful poems (as Edward Hirsch does in "How to Read a Poem. But then, he is a poet).

The introduction tells you what she hates (Frost, post-structuralism etc.). I went hopping through the book to find out what she loves. It's there -- it breaks through the professional walls she has built up, but you have to look for it.

I am very much enjoying The Ghost's Speech. Of course, Paglia's essay is like my guiding light. Without her words, I would miss the significance of the beautiful words written by Shakespeare.

While reading about Hamlet's father's peace before the disruption of his brother, I would not have thought of comparing his orchard to the Garden of Eden. Obviously, most of you knew this beforehand. I am coming along slowly.

I also like how Paglia contrasted the method of murder. She is talking about a stabbing or poisoning. She writes that in Renaissance England poisoning was a coward's choice of murder. Like today, we think of someone who stabs a person in the back as very cowardly. Time changes our thoughts about a murderer's choice of weapon. That is so interesting!! I love murder mysteries, can you tell?

Jonathan, forty to go and it gets better??? Yippee!!!

You're right Hats. I, too, have never thought (nor remember being taught) that the Garden of Eden is the metaphor here and it has become tarnished. I love the way that SS throws in the serpent innuendos throughout this speech. We (the audience as well as Hamlet) learn that ole Claudius (Lucifer)has struck with his fangs against the happy dominion( as well of the government)of our dear King. We learn he IS the devil incarnate causing infective and lethal results. Like the brothers Cain and Abel, one slays the other and all hell breaks loose in the Garden.
How can you not love Hamlet? In just these few lines we learn that the good king, safely at rest, has actually been poisoned by the creeping, slithering serpent, his brother. The populace has been lied to and the sin of murder and covetousness is buried with the good King. He's ticked off and rightly so! "Pay attention Hamlet , listen up, I've something to tell you. This man, your uncle has murdered me, lied to everyone and is now sleeping with your mother. I wasn't allowed extreme unction but he, this crafty, slick snake has now won the prize- my kingdom and my wife."
OK! I get it, I agree with the king but why in the world did he want Hamlet to take heed? Filial love? No, he must have known what type of temperment his son had, didn't he? Then-- to top it all of he admonishes Hamlet not to be too hard on his mother and to leave her to heaven.
You've got to love SS "Leave her to heaven and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her." Love it!!!

Finally, in this the third essay, we get what we might expect from Paglia (if we are to judge her by her previous forays into literature and provocation). She writes of Claudius' murder of Hamlet, Sr.:

"The hushed sense of trespass gives the murder a homorerotic tinge, as if its violation of a hidden pocket of the body rehearses male-on-male rape."

Well, this piece of provocation does what good commentary is supposed to do -- startles and takes a definite stand. Not boring at all, Paglia rolls the dice in hopes of a lucky 7, but it's craps (sic), remember, so snake eyes (sorry -- an obviously bad "Ghost's Speech" link) is a distinct possibility, too.

I think this comment is off base (two die, two ones), but everything that follows is wonderful -- the esoteric comments on murder by poison (especially using the ear), etc. Much, much stronger stuff (more potent, if you'll forgive me!) than the preceding sonnet commentaries. So even though I find the homoerotic bit over the top, I give Paglia a pass and applaud her overall essay here. Great stuff. Momentarily took my mind off brownies, even. Well, kind of sort of briefly, I mean.

P.S. I was left to wonder about one point of logic. The King's body is graphically described as being deformed like a leper's by the poison. It is called festering and compared to offal, yet Claudius tells a believing Denmark that this is because of a serpent's bite? I guess it is ours to believe that no one but Claudius himself saw the body, a neat trick when one thinks of the King-apparent as undertaker, too. Ah well, then. What's more important is that the decomposing Hamlet, Sr., better fits the metaphor of the garden -- as fertilizer, if nothing else.

You'll never regret buying Paglia's little masterpiece. Much of what she says just invites commentary. She knew that, so she left lots of white space for the reader's marginalia. Lots around the poems, and lots on the page on which she ends her little prose poems. Don't you think Paglia is doctoring up the 'news' in the poems she has selected?

HATS, I don't know about the others, but much of what Paglia says is new to me as well. In fact, I think that Paglia herself is hoping that much of what she says will be new for us. And it is. Dizzingly, as she concedes for Shakespeare himself, her fellow artist.

So you love murder mysteries? What really happened in the garden that afternoon, during the royal siesta? How can Hamlet's father claim to know what or who killed him? He slept through it all.

Hold nothing back. Each of you were issued a poetic license on signing up. It's in your kit.

probably she's doing it to promote her book. I understand she did something similar with artists which is again full of personal conjecture since she is not an artist or a poet either unless prose is poetry, but only a critic who enjoys the sound of her own words. . . I don't think I trust her to write about artists with any real knowledge or understanding and she's lost me here with her allusions to male eroticism. . . . bye all. Claire

Well she sure missed on some eroticism when she talked about Donne's flea - it is one of my all time favorite ribald poems and where on the internet we may want to be a bit more circumvent I would think in a book she could go for it - but maybe today books in order to be sold have to meet a level of decorum.

By the time Paglia is through with it we've heard about:

mold, fungi, spiders and rodents running wild in the garden about the sleeping king. Fast asleep.

'Claudius, the crowned reptile...with malice toward's God's creation.'

'The ghost's bitter sexual jealousy...magnified by voyeurism.'

'male-on-male rape'!!!

a 'Satan blocking and cancelling God's work.'

milk of all kinds; generic, mother's and the kindly human kind.

much about the royal bed with the need to both liberate and purge it

Was the king, the rightful one, sadistic? Or impotent?

the crown of thorns, this time around her two-timing heart

sexual intercourse as intimate torture, the excruciating love-death...

bondage and torment in the bedroom

the consummate skill demanded from an actor howling out the O! Horrors! aria. (In my school edition, Hamlets was given this line.)

HAMLET as the failure of Idealism, and a regression to the reptilian.

HAMLET as the precursor of GOTHIC.

much, much more to come.

Hey, Claire, don't bail on me.

the one graduate literature course I took was taught by a man whose idea of analysis was to show that whatever the piece we were reading seemed to be about, it was really about sex. After he did that to half a dozen authors, I started to really turn off. I think in some circle, professors get brownie points if they can find sexual illusions that no one else has come up with -- the kinkier the better. It's OK by me, as long as it doesn't completely dominate the discussion (which it doesn't in this case).

The next poem we read is definitely about sex. We'll see what she does with it.

Just what we needed. Thanks!!!

Yes, Kevin,CP is doctoring up the news (about the poems). What a clever way to put it.

Considering CP's past books and interests, I think we had better get ready for almost everything sexual in her upcoming comments, even if it may seem over the top. Surrealist (as CP calls it) "The Flea" is an example. She calls it "one of the oddest love poems ever written" and then tells us why.

I would like to know more about the Metaphysical School of British Poetry, "The Flea" being an example, she says. I'll have to look it up I guess, and will appreciate your comments about it.....when we get to "The Flea."

MarjV,

I really enjoyed the the cold lemonade. Yummy!!

Marj--Thank you for the wonderful ice cold lemondade! Just what I need on this afternoon when I am running so far behind. Marj does all the cooking around here and I am grateful.

I agree with those of you who say that Paglia probably makes some points, or suggestions, in order to get a rise out of the reader. I think she goes a little far here with the suggestion of homoeroticism although I'll support her (in theory) a little later when she makes a similar observation.

I have to go out again in about half an hour so I'll leave one more day for the ghost. Then on Wednesday, we will journey away from the Bard and toward John Donne and then. . .and I'm holding my breath waiting for this one because he is one of my very favorite poets, George Herbert. Long time ago I was thinking of doing my graduate work with a focus on 17th century poetry because I had discovered George Herbert and thought I'd like to continue working on him. For a number of reasons I changed my mind, but I still love Herbert. He's strictly a religious poet but he finds so many clever ways to vary his there. I hope you will like him.

John Donne, on the other hand, is both a secular poet and a religious poet. He wrote the love poetry--and there certainly are many sexual inuendos in the love poems--one doesn't have to go teasing them out. They are there and are meant to be there. Donne intrigues me because he frequently uses the language of religion when he writes secular love poems and sexual language when he writes the holy sonnets. Two different kinds of love indeed, but since those early saints who experienced all sorts of ecstasies did the same thing in their descriptions of their mystical experiences, there must be common ground here.

Remember how we were all discussing Paglia's choice of poets and how some were upset that either their favorite poet or a favorite poem was not included here? I have one of my own by George Herbert that I have loved ever since I discovered it and I'm thinking of putting it in the heading for maybe a half day so I can share it with all of you. It's a poem that doesn't need a whole lot of analysis, but I like the defiance in it. I think I am altogether too defiant, or used to be; I have mellowed considerably.

Maryal

Can you ever be too defiant? "So there!" can be your motto. "Take that! Sic semper!" And so forth.

Claire, come back! Don't run from Paglia... fight back with your own opinion! That's what I'm doing when I say the ear as male rape thing is crap(s). I much preferred her metaphor of Claudius being a "gardener" who is watering his brother's ear. Glug-glug-glug-glug. Voila! and the King of Denmark looks like Godzilla!

Marj V
Where would we be
Without your brownies
And other felicities?

Thanks for that visual. Virtual visual. Just had a bowl of ice cream and all it wanted was one of your brownies on the bottom. Foundation. Support. Sweet structure, so to speak.

OK, I must run (or "flea," if you will but not shakespeare). Tomorrow, then?

Seems to me Paglia would enjoy people reacting to her explorations ; stretching the thinking for those of you who have much background in this type of study; and for those us who do not have that background, it provides a basis against which to read your thoughts as you all react and respond. I am quite overwhelmed in this new area but that is OK as I'll hang in there and go on with the challenge.

I just now researched "Mannerist" which P used in para.1 on pg 14. I'd missed that on first reading so wanted to see what she meant in relation to S.

If Claudius had stabbed Hamlet's father, a supposedly more manly way of killing someone, you could equally claim it to symbolize male on male eroticism. I think this bit is somewhat extreme.

Good point, Pat. That's the way these discussions go. Since it's almost impossible to talk for any length of time without mentioning something that could possibly, conceivably be a sexual symbol, this kind of analysis is like shooting fish in a barrel.

That doesn't mean there aren't plenty of sexual references in Shakespeare -- there clearly are. it's just too easy to get carried away. Remember, S. never read Freud.

At least her male-male rape argument makes some kind of sense, unlike her argument in that last sonnet that because the people who S. admired and wanted to be like were men, his love probably was a man too. Don't use this book with teen-aged students -- you'll give every boy who ever dreamed of being Michael Jordan nightmares.

I would imagine that anyone wanting to be Michael Jordon already has nightmares.

Dream of his wallet, not of him.

When I went back to college in my 30's, I found that many professors played to their audience, raging hormone post teens. As an adult, I was outraged at the way they pronounced some really specious theories as fact, and the eager students lapped it up. It gave me a whole different perspective on academics. I think P is doing something similar. We have to careful lest we encourage this sort of thing...

I've been thinking about scansion and the basic iambic pentameter line of Shakespeare. winsum, I think it was, was troubled by the dee dum dee dum factor getting boring. Actually Shakespeare's basic line is iambic pentameter, five feet to a line with the basic foot being an iam, u / (unstressed, stressed). Forgive me those of you who already know all this, but I promised to provide some of the basics.

OK, so how does a poet prevent this line from becoming boring? He or she frequently moves slightly away from the established meter in order to provide variety as well as letting stresses fall where they naturally do.

For example the following line from the ghost's speech is in regular iambic pentameter, unstressed (u) stressed (/) across the line:

And in the porches of my ears did pour

and in(u /) the por (u /) ches of (u /) my ears (u /) did pour (u/)

The line sounds a little jig-trotty if you force the meter too busquely, but perfectly normal if you speak it. However, this line

O, horrible! O, horrible! Most horrible!

would be distorted if forced into regular iambic pentameter. Here, there are several options of how to scan the line. Here's what I've come up with:

O hor (u/) i ble (u/) O hor (u/) i ble (u/) most hor (//) i ble (u/)

There are six feet here, one more than iambic pentameter, and while most of the feet are iambic, I think the next to last one must have two stressed syllables, which makes it a spondee (a foot with two stressed syllables). There are a number of other lines in the ghost's speech that also vary from the iambic pentameter line. Thus does Shakespeare write a poetic line while also making the ghost sound like he is talking.

Paglia points out that Shakespeare, as a result of years in the theater as actor and writer, has mastered the human voice. I think few would argue with that statement. In order to produce the human voice, the strict meter of poetry must be endlessly varied.

I hope this makes sense. It is so easy to mark a line of poetry on the chalk board and so difficult online.

Maryal

It seems to me that this line is further varied by having what you might call big and little stresses:

O hor (u/) i ble (u/) O hor (u/) i ble (u/) most hor (//) i ble (u/)

So you have half-way between iambic pentameter u/u/ and uuu/.

No doubt there is a technical name for this.

I couldn't get the /s to come out bold. I wanted it to be:

u! u/ u! u/ !! u/ (with ! being a bold /)

Another source of variatin in a line is syllable length. It takes longer to say "porch" than to say "in".

That's wonderful. Can we do that kind of breakdown with the horrors that Paglia brings to the scene? Do we want to? I wonder at what point we will read a poem and be able to predict what she will say about it? She does have a Mannerism of her own.

PatH--Yes, there are a number of ways to read the line--I understand yours. There's also a way of breaking up the feet differently with more than one unstressed in a foot. I'm scratching my memory here --I think the rules are that you can't have more than two stressed feet in a line. Here's where I'm foggier--I think you can't have more than two unstressed in a row without a stressed. Scansion always makes me feel kinda itchy. I can almost always see more than one way to scan a line. Indeed, porch does take longer to say than in. Language has all kinds of variety built into it.

Completely off topic but interesting in terms of words: It is very difficult for me to say DESKS. It always winds up hissing in an unseemly manner at the end. That SKS is a loser combination.

Maryal

Jonathan--No intention here of doing every line. Gazooks! But I think it does help to develop an appreciation of how poetry has those beats behind it.

Another completely off-topic remark: Yesterday while driving I heard parts of Walt Whitman's Song of Myself that had been put to music. Two singers and the composer were there. After listening to part of "Song of Myself," I arrived at my destination. My ultimate decision was that Whitman was best read and not sung. It wasn't awful, but all the poetry went out of it for me. Go figure.

the subscription to the Oxford English Dictionary is working again. I emailed our library. They were unaware of the problem and very grateful to be told. Anyhoo, it works again!

OK, remember the passage above

The leprous distillment, whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigor it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood.

We were discussing the meaning of "eager"

I knew that the information would be in the OED and indeed it is. You have to look way down to an obsolete definition, but here it is, and notice, one of the exemplary quotes is from this very speech.

2. spec. Sour, acid, tart. Obs. [So Fr. aigre.]

c1350 Med. MS. in Archæol. XXX. 352 Eysyl or egyr wyn. c1460-70 Bk. Quintessence 4 Corrupt wiyn, {th}at is, rotyn, but not egre. 1575 Art of Planting 39 The wylde and eager Cherry tree. 1602 SHAKES. Ham. I. v. 69 It doth posset And curd like Aygre droppings into Milke. a1717 PARNELL Hermit 39 Bread of the coursest sort, with eager wine. 1727 BRADLEY Fam. Dict. I. s.v. Brewing, It was hard to brew Drink which would be fine before it was eager. OED

Maryal, who is very happy to have her dictionary back.

Maryal, I didn't mean to be critical or impatient about scanning lines. Pat did a marvellous thing with it. Especially with the line of horrors. It filled me with admiration. I wish I could do it, but I have a two left-footed ability, alas. I'll feel more comfortable once we get away from the canon stuff and get to free verse. It was just that I was reminded of the mock horrors to be found in some of the things Paglia adds to the subject in hand. Doesn't she have a lively imagination as part of her meaningful criticism? She is certainly showing us how to read poetry. I wish I had had a teacher like her.

The intensity of the first three poems has been very trying. I'm looking forward to being entertained by Donne. And CP. She's growing on me...

In a parallel inspiration author John Collier wrote a very funny short story called Gavin O'Leary about a flea who gained the passions of a girl by sucking her blood while she was watching movies about people in love. It ended up as a film director in Hollywood.

To hear an audio clip of the poem, run, do not walk, to here: http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/flea.htm

Jan--Interesting about the short story. It is playing on an old theme. That writer, I suspect, knew something of this poem or others like it. During the Renaissance, there were quite a few poems about fleas and women. Remember, as Paglia points out, fleas were a common occurence during this time, even in aristocratic surroundings. They infested clothing and furniture. And they didn't have flea collars and sprays back then.

Anyone who has ever de-fleaed (talk about a word I can't spell) a dog knows that the most efficient way to kill a flea is to get it between the fingernails and squish until you hear the tiniest of clicks.

More later.

Do go hear the poem read. I have followed Paglia in typing the poem in archaic spelling. For flavor. I considered putting it in modern spelling. What do you think?

Maryal

My Dell won't play the audio clip Maryal. It keeps responding with "An error has occurred."

Alf, try right clicking on the icon. That's how I got it to play.

Yikes. Andy--Did you do as Marj suggested? I've got both Real Player and several other players installed and I'm not sure which one carries it. There's an icon at the top right of the page that works for me. It looks like the volume icon on my machine.

Is anyone else having problems? It really helps to hear the poem.

It took a bit for it to load for me although last night it went right through.

Would you like to hear "The Flea" read to you?

To hear an audio clip of the poem, run, do not walk, to here: http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/flea.htm

The audio tape works for me on Real Player. It does take about forty-five seconds to load. I'm using Firefox which is generally faster than IE or Netscape. Those of you with slower browsers may have to wait a minute or two. It's the whole poem read aloud--and quite well, I think.

I get an "error" message also, when I click on the rt., upper icon. I have Windows Media Player and IE.

Well drat. I'll try to think of something. Technie assistance needed!

I just tried IE and it still works.

I wish there was only one browser. Gleek.

Andy, can you hear other audio files on your computer? If you are using Real Player, you may need to download the latest version here: http://www.real.com/freeplayer/?rppr=rnwk -- This is the free version not the 14 day free trial.

It plays for me in Windows Media and Real Player.. on IE, Netscape and Firefox. I don't know about the Mac browsers. Real Player does have some conflicts, but I don't know what they are.

I'll ask in computers problem.

Thanks, Pat. You certainly know more than I do. I wouldn't even have thought to ask Andy the question.

Also- try rebooting your computer after shutting it down cold. And make sure your internet cache is cleaned out. I can get is in both versions Media player & the Real

I think we've frightened the flea away. saw us all descending on him.

Doesn't Paglia do a great job of explaining this poem? If Donne made a martyr of the flea, Paglia makes a good case for its canonization.

The poem may have done more than his Catholicism to wreck his career and put him into disfavour with Ann More's father. It was poems such as this made people shake their heads.

He shouldn't mind being outdone, along with being undone. As he said after the secret wedding was discovered, and he had landed in jail over it: John Donne, Ann Donne, Undone.

Jonathan--Well we're not scared, you and me, are we? You bring us one of Donne's famous quips. He married, against the parents' wishes, 17 year old Anne More. whose father was Leiutenant of the Tower of London. Anne bore him TWELVE children, seven of whom survived their mother's death. She died after delivering a stillborn child when she was-----everybody ready for this?---------thirty-three. Donne himself only made it to 59, but at that he lived longer than a lot of folks in the early 17th century.

Let's look at the three stanzas of the poem. Paglia makes a point that Donne makes excellent use of the white space between stanzas. Maybe the overall situation first: The speaker and his lady are somewhere in a private place; he wants her to yield to him, but she has refused. He makes an elaborate logical argument showing her, or trying to show her, how small a thing it is she denies him. However, the lady kills the flea, purpling her nails with its blood, and apparently says that neither of them seems to be the worse off for her deed.

OK, three stanzas. In stanza one the speaker points out the flea who has bitten him and is now bothering her. Between the first two stanzas, the lady moves to capture and kill the flea--apparently she catches him. The speaker says, hold on, don't kill that flea.

Between stanzas two and three, the lady kills the flea and tells him that neither of them has been harmed by her deed. And the speaker concludes his argument with, Hey, if you would sleep with me, nothing more that a small bit of blood will be wasted No more harm will be done than the flea's death took life from her (and him).

The fascinating stanza to me is the second. It contains a developed metaphor called a conceit. Few poets I know of were more ingenious than Donne in creating these conceits. The flea becomes the couple's marriage bed since their two bloods are mixing in it. More than a bed, the flea is a marriage temple and the language of religion enters the poem. This language continues with cloistered and living walls of Jet as if the flea's body were an elaborate sarcophogi. The speaker continues the conceit with his injunction not to kill the flea and add her own death, suicide, to his, and finally to sacrilege--the language points to the trinity of flea, woman, man as well as to the Trinity.

OK, come out come out wherever you are. What comments do you have on this poem?

On my slow browser, it plays, but has to stop every few words to reload, making it hard to appreciate the poem. Maybe I need to empty my cache. How do you do that?

Calling Pat, our techie who knows all. I'm not going to tell you how to empty your cache because it's been a while since I've done that and although I'm fearless on my own computer, I don't want to break yours. Sort of like riding someone else's bike or driving someone else's car.

In IE
go to Tools
scroll down and click on Internet Options
In the center click on the button that Delete Files
Click OK Click OK That should help.

In Netscape
click on Edit
scroll down and click on Prferences
scroll down to advance and open it by clicking on the '+'
Click on Cache
at the top click the button -- Clear Cache.

Well, now you will probably tell me you have a Mac.
I use to speak Mac back in the dark ages, but they changed the language and their computers and I got lost.

In Firefox
go to Tools
scroll down and click on Options
At the bottom click on the button that says clear ( next to Cache
Don't click clear beside Cookies or you will lose the cookie that lets you come to SN without logging in each time
Click OK

I'd say "The Flea" is clever and humorous. Certainly it is a unique concept to me.

Donne was part of a group of Metaphysical Poets, who were concerned with ontology or first principles and being and existence. I certainly am blank when it comes to philosophy; I wish I had paid more attention to that great prof. who tried to teach the subject to us freshmen so long ago.

I want to ask about T.S. Eliot's connection to Donne. Apparently Eliot renewed interest in Donne by supporting him, in the early 20th century. Anyone know more about how this happened? Does Eliot have a connection to classic (l7th Century) Metaphysical Poetry? It is interesting that CP does not include T.S. Eliot in BBB. Thanks.

Thanks. I did it (in IE). It helped maybe a little bit, but not much. My computer needs more memory. Oh well.

I wondered why this kind of poetry was called metaphysical. I found this in Miriam Webster:

2 entries found for metaphysical. To select an entry, click on it. metaphysicalMetaphysical

Main Entry: meta·phys·i·cal

Pronunciation: -'fi-zi-k&l

Function: adjective

1 : of or relating to metaphysics

2 a : of or relating to the transcendent or to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses b : SUPERNATURAL

3 : highly abstract or abstruse; also : THEORETICAL

4 often capitalized : of or relating to poetry especially of the early 17th century that is highly intellectual and philosophical and marked by unconventional imagery

I had been thinking of meaning 2. Looks like the name derives from meaning 3.

Yes, unconventional imagery fits Donne, as does witty and complicated which I read somewhere else.

I also read that the occult (or supernatural) or Eastern thought does not fit the group of l7th Century Metaphysical poets.

I'll take meaning 4, Joan K. Metaphysical poetry is the poetry of John Donne, Herbert, Marvell and others and it is intellectual and "witty" in the sense that Shakespeare used the word. Full of playing with ideas and language.

FAKI--T.S. Eliot was more or less the literary dictator of the time period when I was in college. We studied Donne because Eliot had praised him. I remember reading the essay but would have to look it up. Eliot admired the toughness and resonance of early 17th century poetry, especially the poetry of John Donne. Eliot's own poetry is full of difficulties that remind some of Donne.

Thank you, Pat for those clear instructions on spring cache cleaning.

I couldn't remember the title because it was too obvious, "The Metaphysical Poets."

Here's a short quote from the Nobel prize page on Eliot:

"Also in The Sacred Wood, "Hamlet and His Problems" sets forth Eliot's theory of the objective correlative:

The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an "objective correlative"; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula for that particular emotion; such that, when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.

Eliot used the phrase "objective correlative" in the context of his own impersonal theory of poetry; it thus had an immense influence toward correcting the vagueness of late Victorian rhetoric by insisting on a correspondence of word and object. Two other essays, first published the year after The Sacred Wood, almost complete the Eliot critical canon: "The Metaphysical Poets" and "Andrew Marvell," published in Selected Essays, 1917-32 (1932). In these essays he effects a new historical perspective on the hierarchy of English poetry, putting at the top Donne and other Metaphysical poets of the 17th century and lowering poets of the 18th and 19th centuries. Eliot's second famous phrase appears here--"dissociation of sensibility," invented to explain the change that came over English poetry after Donne and Andrew Marvell. This change seems to him to consist in a loss of the union of thought and feeling. The phrase has been attacked, yet the historical fact that gave rise to it cannot be denied, and with the poetry of Eliot and Pound it had a strong influence in reviving interest in certain 17th-century poets."

The phrase 'Metaphysical Poets' used to be a roadblock for me on the way to enjoying some exceptional poetry. But no longer.

T. S. Eliot, according to the quotes in Maryal's post makes use of two phrases:

1. 'objective correlation', signifying 'a correspondence of word and object'.

2. 'dissociation of sensibility', 'a loss of the union of thought and feeling.' This he found in later poetry. So it must be the 'union of thought and feeling' that he found and liked in the Metaphysical Poets.

I want to congratulate FAKI for simplifying it for us with her finding just that, the 'clever and humourous' in The Flea. Suddenly it seems much easier. Put another way the poem is a combination of condensed emotion and intellect.

Of course it is. Can anyone doubt Donne's intense emotion? The intellect seems to be shared. Donne's use of logic, and what a lascivious logic it is, meant to amuse, is still a tribute to his beloved's intellect. However, far from being a matter of 'jumping through hoops to win her admiration', as Paglia puts it, it is much more, as Paglia also concedes, that the poet 'as a Gentleman, he knows his pleasure depends on a woman's consent.' It seems quaint, but times were different. Paglia talks of the 'complex rituals with which society has always tried to contain and control sexual energy.' She is a bit too optimistic or feminist on that point I think.

Hasn't T. S. Eliot fallen out of favour recently? What's interesting is that Paglia feels we will find some Donne influence in Emily Dickinson's work.

First, the National Spelling Bee is on ESPN today. These kids are amazing.

Then, learning has to be one of the best things about life, and I am learning so much here. I may even come out of this really liking poetry; I've been trying to do so for years. I think the difference is the Minicourse we are taking and Maryal, The Book, and what I learn from all of you.

How interesting, Maryal, that you studied Eliot and Donne, learning about the connection. Thank you for all the good information. Johathan, I can understand "dissociation of sensibility", I think, but I have to explore "objective correlation' more. But you are certainly onto something with condensed emotion and intellect.

I wish CP had included Eliot in The Book so that she could clarify it for us and also show the Metaphysical element in his work. And what are we going to do when we do not have Paglia or Maryal to explain it all for us? Although, maybe we will learn to do just that ourselves through these discussions. I understand that Paglia is now writing another book of essays; I hope it will critique poems again.

Back to the spellers. La Verne.

OK all these sixteenth century English poets seem to have been familiar with Ovid - I remember learning Shakespeare studied Ovid. Marlow refers to the flea in his play Doctor Faustus - I've heard the quote but did not know where it came from...

Here it is:

PRIDE. I am Pride. I disdain to have any parents. I am like to Ovid's flea; I can creep into every corner of a wench; sometimes, like a perriwig, I sit upon her brow; next, like a necklace, I hang about her neck; then, like a fan of feathers, I kiss her lips; and then, turning myself to a wrought smock, do what I list. But, fie, what a smell is here! I'll not speak a word more for a king's ransom, unless the ground be perfumed, and covered with cloth of arras.

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Marlow also mentions the flea in scene 5: "I will teach thee to turn thy self to anything, to a dog, or a cat, or a mouse, or a rat or anything. Clown. How! A Christian fellow to a dog, or a cat, or a mouse, or a rat? No, no sir, if you turn me into anything let it be in the likeness of a little pretty frisking flea, that I may be here, and there, and every-where."

Marlow wrote the play sometime around 1588-92 - Doone is born 1572

And so to Doone's flea - at first he uses the flea as a simply way to look at how simple a thing it is for her, as simple as a tiny flea, too loose her maidenhood. He is saying look the flea has united us so why not...there is no shame here...

This his verbiage to convince her is about as erotic a line I've ever read..."And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than wee would doe.

Her parents do not approve and she will not make love to him and this is killing him and, and what a con job making her feel guilty...then he goes on...

When she sqishes the flea with her nail the blood in the flea is like their innocence, he asks her what sin did the flea commit that it deserves to die - also, she would lose no more honor than she lost when she killed the flea.

Must be that fleas in beds was common during the sixteenth century. However, more important, who knows what Ovid's flea was all about...seems that flea had an affect on both Marlowe and on Donne...when I Google all I get is reference to Marlowe - I have tired Ovid bitten by flea and Ovid flea in ear - by not knowing what the flea was to Ovid I am lost trying to find the reference - anyone know...?

FAKI--What fun the National Spelling Bee is (as long as you don't have a child you know in it--some of them look like they might faint with tension). It must be on Cable somewhere? I watched the local news last night and we have two from this area (one from MD and one from VA) who made it to the most recent group. A while ago here on SeniorNet, we read Bee Season which is about spelling bees and a dysfunctional family (is there some other kind?).

Barbara--Thank you for telling us all of the connection to Marlowe's Dr. Faustus and his flea. Apparently fleas were all the rage to use in writing of one kind or another. You're right about the reading of Ovid. Remember we are back in that period of education in England when all education was classical--Latin and then Greek. I expect they saved Ovid for the higher forms, but I'm sure some boys read it on their own once word got out about all the "adult material" in it.

For those of you who prefer God to fleas, tomorrow we will move on to Donne's Holy Sonnet #1.

Maryal

OK, now it's my turn to look for sexual symbols. After the diet Paglia has fed us in the last few days of sex as incest, torture, jealousy, rape, lust and crawling ants, I see in this poem symbols of the intimacy and oneness of sex. I reach for phrases like "mingled","one blood made of two", "more than married", "met and cloistered" like a person in the desert, thirsty for some acknowledgment of one of the joys of life.

can't figure out if they are married or not can you Joan -

Deems when we were studying Shakespeare last winter during the PBS series we learned that Shakespeare started his study of Ovid when he was 12 and was attending school - we also learned that the one book he took with him when he had to leave school at I think it was when he was 14 - well the one book was the book of Ovid's poetry.

"The Flea" isn’t new to me—I read it in college and have read it from time to time since. I’ve always liked it; it’s a little gem in the neatness of its correspondences and the cleverness of its arguments. And I get a romantic chuckle from it.

BUT, it’s also an example of a type of argument I don’t like, in which you trivialize the concerns of the other person. You first equate the problem to something light and unimportant, then demolish these substitute concerns, thus supposedly demolishing the real problem. This was a weighty decision for a woman in Donne’s time, not to be dismissed lightly.

Thanks, Barbara, for your very interesting quotes about fleas. And thanks, Deems, for the advice on how to kill them. I've never had pets, don't think I've ever even seen a flea, but my fingernails are strong, so I'm armed and ready.

A good example here of how important one word can be. This lady will not have sex with the speaker because she does not want to lose her maidenhead. She's a virgin, and as JoanK points out that was very important at the time. The parents who do nothing in the poem but "grudge" are against the marriage (apparently).

PatH--No pets, ever? Gee, I've had so many I've even been bitten by a flea. Several dogs ago, we had a little Welsh Terrier who got a bad case of fleas (quickly cured fortunately). Unfortunately, I didn't know he HAD fleas until I was bitten one night while I was asleep. I am a heavy sleeper and I didn't notice until morning when I awoke scratching my stomach. I had about eight flea bites. Several together and then a couple more and then a single one and another. You could trace the jumps of the flea by the bites. Anyone, keep those fingernails in good shape. Flea bites, unlike bites of other sorts I've had, mosquito, spider, take forever to heal and they itch and itch and itch. Bright red, tiny little bites. Yick.

JoanK--I understand your point about making light of something that is important to the other person. But at the same time, I assume that Donne's wittiness was appreciated by the listener. I've always imagined that Donne wrote this poem to Anne, the woman he married secretly (because the parents "grudged").

Maryal

It's hard to believe that the same man composed both The Flea and this Holy Sonnet. How clever of Paglia to put them together. No flea-bitten casuistry in his appeal to his maker. After belittling his lady's sin, his own now has him terrified. Her sin would have meant pleasure for him. His sin has made a physical wreck of him. He's tottering off to hell. Suddenly he wants his heart to belong to God. There seems to be no thoroughgoing moral reformation here, just a desire to 'rise againe'. Which in The Flea context could again seem very erotic.

But he did go on to become a great preacher. A favourite with the king. He became the Vicar of St. Paul's I believe. Could it be that The Flea indicated the making of the cleric. There would have to come an awakening after the sacralege employed in his seductive ways. What an object lesson. And there's real pathos here too.

Don't be persuaded by our analyst. Here is Donne as he should be seen.

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, 5
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, 10
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Before we leave the flea - been going crazy looking for Ovid's flea but I found these tidbits on this site -- The Art of Love - Ovid

In Book II - Elegy II the explanation includes --

This is one of Ovid's cynical celebrations of adultery as a harmless game. In the Middle Ages adultery was to become transformed into a quasi-religious ritual, very different from this, but often involving the same complications.

Bagoas is the slave employed by Ovid's mistress' husband to guard over her. Ovid threatens and cajoles him in an attempt to have some "harmless" fun with the wife. This list of instructions may be compared with those to the wife in Book I, Elegy 4.

Ovid belongs to the old school of thought which does not take women's reluctance to engage in sex seriously. Although this pattern of thought has caused a lot of damage over the centuries, and continues to do so, it is important to remember that in the past both men and women accepted the notion that courtship usually involved the overcoming of resistance, the latter necessary to prove that the woman was not utterly debauched. This poem would not have conveyed any notion of rape to ancient readers. This is the most explicit poem about lovemaking in all of Classical Latin literature.

Sounds to me like Donne re-worked Ovid...

We have Donne to thank for the memorable "No man is an island..." His words continue to thrill us. Hearing a snippet on NPR once, a poet said that poetry is about things we can't see. It is that voicing and the unity of experiences we all share that strikes such a chord with me. Just the words: "Death, be not proud", "How do I love thee, let me count the ways", etc, lets us revisit the whole emotional esperience. Nothing written in prose affects me this way.

Yes, Jonathan, we have turned to Donne the cleric. After Anne's death, he never remarried, and you are right, was Dean of St. Paul's where you can go today and see his shrouded funereal monument. He posed for it.

And, Jan, I love that sonnet too, perhaps the most frequently anthologized of all Donne's holy sonnets. Thank you for putting it here. I read it at my father's funeral.

Mrs. Sherlock--Indeed we do owe "No man is an island" to Donne who wrote it in one of his meditations on emergent occasions. Here is the pertinent passage: "All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

You will all recognize the source of Hemingway's title in this passage. The bell that was tolled to summon all to church was also tolled at the passing of a congregant, slowly, slowly.

Paglia points out that Donne's first holy sonnet resembles Shakespeare's #29 with its "fluid rhythms and falling pattern." She goes on to say that here God replaces the Petrarchan lady of the sonnet tradition. The poet is the love-starved seeker.

Paglia then adds an arguable statement, "From the arguable evidence of his plays and poems, Shakespeare was probably an agnostic, but Donne clearly believed in a personal God." It's this sort of strong stand on one side or the other of an argument that makes a strong critic. It's important to note here that Paglia is arguing only from the evidence in the writing, leaving aside any evidence from what we know of the life.

Maryal

Thank you for "death be not proud" and "no man is an island" with "for whom the bell tolls." I copied these and also previous comments so that I can have them with my material on poetry.

As for "Holy Sonnet XIV", I was interested in the form, metaphor, content and the poet's ingenuity. But also, the more I think about it, I see the intertwining of sex and religion in this sonnet as grotesque. This was the custom in those days, says Paglia (and I guess her custom), but I don't like mixing the spiritual with "female anguish, victimization and bondage" and the "transsexual and homoerotic" as Paglia does, though at the same time I see the possibilities.

I too could read "Death Be not Proud" at a loved one's funeral, but not "Holy Sonnet XIV."

Barbara, you may be on to something with the role of the flea in Donne's courtship and wooing days. My reaction at first was one of speculating about the use made of a flea that he himself may have brought back himself from his Spanish expedition with Lord Somebody or other. I had to think of a verse in a poem by Hilaire Belloc:

' And the fleas that tease in the High Pyranees'

Isn't The Flea a tease?

I find myself disagreeing with Paglia's strange read of Holy Sonnet 1. Was she really taken in by that designation 'holy'. What's holy about the sonnet?

All religion is whistling in the dark. Sometimes the melodies are delightful.

Maryal, yes, Paglia sees a resemblence in Shakespeare's Sonnet 29. I'm beginning to think there may be a thread running right through her 43 poems. I see an even greater resemblence in Shakespeare's Sonnet 73. In the images of another old man bemoaning what little life he has left. What a difference between the two poets.

DEEMS: "JoanK--I understand your point about making light of something that is important to the other person." We twins are used to being taken for each other. I endorse PatH's statement (but I would hate to put her in the position of having to endorse some of mine).

DEEMS: Jonathan listed:

"'dissociation of sensibility', 'a loss of the union of thought and feeling.' This he found in later poetry. So it must be the 'union of thought and feeling' that he found and liked in the Metaphysical Poets".

The "he" referring to TS Eliot. I am interested in understanding this better: I think it may be at the heart of the trouble I have with Eliot's poetry. I don't know whether now is the best time to discuss it or when we study the later poets and can see the difference.

JoanK--I'm so sorry for commenting to you when I meant your twin, er, look alike, er double. And I can't even SEE you!

As for the "objective correlative," it's one of the sticking points in Eliot's criticism. The problem is it's really hard to define just what he meant--it's finding the right words that will create (in objective terms) that which is felt and thereby recreate the sensation. Eliot never really made this point terribly clear so lots of other critics attempted to do so. When he writes in "Prufrock" "I have measured out my life in coffee spoons," I think he is creating an objective correlative for the feeling of life having been devoted to small things, not very important ones.

As for the "dissociation of sensibility," that's a little hard to explain as well. Eliot argues that after the seventeenth century, a sort of dissociation of sensibility set into poetry so that the words did not automatically define a feeling. Anyway, it became a well-known phrase bandied about by all and sundry.

FAKI--I'm not sure why you find the use of sexual metaphors objectionable when the subject is God. Could you explain more? Are you looking at it from a twenty-first century point of view maybe?

The best I can do here is recall a lecture I attended once where the speaker argued that in most time periods, either the subject of sex or of death was not openly dealt with. If one was faced, the other was covered up and not spoken of. He said that in our time sex was everywhere but death was not something one spoke much of. He pointed to the Renaissance in England (Shakespeare and Donne and others) and said that at that period both sex and death were acceptable topics. I realize that death isn't religion, but it's the most helpful thing I can think of now. Donne uses religous language in his secular poems too. Does this bother you?

Maryal

This is a fine sonnet. But I think Paglia seriously misreads it. As well, she reads into it things that are simply not there. Donne, down, would hardly claim that he was under the same kind of cross that caused Jesus to fall, on the way to Calvary.

Donne is desperate. He finds himself in a state of decay, his feeble flesh wasting away. His eyes are dimmed. Death stares him in the face, casting a pall of terror over him. In this state he turns to his Maker.

'Repair me now.'

I believe these words are spoken by a humble petitioner. Imploringly.

I can't see where Paglia finds the evidence to believe that the poet is 'berating' God, much less 'rebuking' God for negligence, the way she does. She sees an 'imperative mood' in the phrase, 'Repair me now.'

'He (Donne) treats God like a superintendant responsible for maintenance and upkeep.'

For what? For strength to return to the pleasures of yesterday, such as are suggested in The Flea? That's all we know of him at this point. And that is hardly evidence of a spiritual life.

How can Paglia claim this, in the face of the poet's acknowledged despairing state of mind? She seems to take no notice that it is 'by thy leave' that he is even able to look to God. And that it is Thy Grace' that will save him. That's not something one demands. That's not Donne.

The whole cast of the poet's plight seems to be a terror of losing this life, which is indeed ebbing away. This seems to recall him to a sense of sin. But where's the spirituality in the sinking man's claiming before God: The Devil made me do it. Which is essentially what he is doing. That could easily be superstition.

'But OUR old subtle foe so tempteth me.' line 11

God must have shaken his head, on hearing it. Now he's OUR foe? And as subtle as you used to be, Donne, when you were engaged in your seductions?

'the eternal twilight of earthly illusion', Paglia's beautifully imagined state in which Donne travelled 'on the road of life.' This is supposed to have dimmed his sight. I think Donne would disagree with that.

In the last three or four paragraphs Paglia is really winging it with her imagination. Wonderful to read. Making, for example, a pun out of 'Thy Grace'. Donne would surely have found it Amazing.

'Pictorially the poem is a cruciform emblem.' Give me a break. I have to think about that one.

Our acquaintance with Donne is too recent to entirely trust him. The capital 'A' in the last line, Paglia says, 'peaks like a holy mountain.' I'm not certain it's not intended to look phallic.

'In Donne, the benefactor is the Holy Ghost, airlifting the soul from certain damnation.' Is this Paglia's way of preparing us for the next Sonnet?

It boggles the mind. But that's poetry. Spirituality? After the first Sonnet, I would say, too little and too late. You're a goner, Donne.

haply/onely

Jonathan

Sorry, I am getting the Holy Sonnets mixed up, in case you haven't guessed. I moved on the XIV before reading I. So, I will backtrack. Is there no end to Donne's Holy Sonnets? La Verne.

Considering how much attention has been given to definitions of words used by the various poets, I wonder why "repaire" has not come under discussion. Just seemed to me as I read the lines that he (Donne) was not thinking of being "fixed." Here's what Merriam-Webster shows for repair -- repaire was not found:

Main Entry: 1re·pair Pronunciation: ri-'par, -'per Function: intransitive verb Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French repairier to go back to one's country, from Late Latin repatriare, from Latin re- + patria native country -- more at EXPATRIATE 1 a : to betake oneself : GO <repaired to the judge's chambers> b : to come together : RALLY 2 obsolete : RETURN

Alters the idea, don't you think? Personally, I find Paglia trying.

"Paglia trying" -- She certainly sets one to thinking and agreeing or disagreeing.. Sorry, but I have a difficult time agreeing with much of what she says.

But sometimes she brings out a point, I just never considered or read about.

Aha--Good. Disagreement with Paglia. I think she'd be delighted. She is a woman of strong opinions (always backed up although you may not agree with her) and often those with strong opinions actually like to be disagreed/argued with. It helps them to see where the weak points in their arguments are.

LaVerne--There are many holy sonnets, but only two in this book. Then we move on to one of Maryal's favorite poets, George Herbert. Love the man. He's also a cleric and all his poetry is about religious subjects or his own problems with belief at times.

OK, Jonathan finds himself in disagreement with points that Paglia makes. I disagree with her for picking this particular sonnet. I think Donne has better holy sonnets. I do like very much the next one which will be up here tomorrow. Jonathan--the ancient foe isn't God--it's you know the fellow who is always looking to seduce us, i.e. Satan himself. (hymn line and I cannot remember which: "Yet still our ancient foe/ Doth seek to work us woe/ His strength and power are great/ And armed with cruel hate/ On earth is not his equal.") But I agree that Paglia goes a little over the top with the suggestion that Adamant is like a huge peak in the end line. I don't think it's phallic though.

Pat--It's fine to disagree with Paglia. Sock it to her. I'm certain she's had other critics (including my daughter). I'm glad you find some of her points jumping off places for thought.

Blueshade--What an interesting definition you found for repair. Being all rebuilt from the ground up is certainly a bigger job that just a few shingles and a couple of nails could do. I think you're right in tune with the tone of the poem. The speaker definitely feels himself to be in need of a major rebuilding. Notice "That not one hour myself can sustain." He's in danger of falling back if God's sustenance is not there all the time.

Do any of you know the sermon by Jonathan Edwards (New England--The First Great Awakening): "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"? It's tone is harsher than Donne's is here, but I always think of the images in it (God holding us like spiders above a raging fire) when I read "Not one hour myself I can sustain."

The abrupt beginning of this poem is typical of Donne. He does not beseech God or beg for mercy; he demands. I think Paglia has reason to point that out. Other first lines of Holy Sonnets by Donne:

"What if this present were the world's last night?"

"Spit in my face, you Jews"

"At the round earth's imagined corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels. . ."

and, of course, the one we will read next:

"Batter my heart, three-personed God"

Donne is known for his strong and sometimes harsh first lines. Many of his secular poems also have these strong first lines:

"Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm"

"I long to talk with some old lover's ghost"

"He is stark mad, whoever says
That he hath been in love an hour"

"Oh, do not die, for I shall hate
All women so, when thou art gone"

"For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love;
Or chide my palsy, or my gout,
My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout"

That's enough, you get the idea--striking opening lines, often contrary to what was thought to be "poetic."

Maryal

Occasionally, when I read something moving , it feels like it is actually making my hair stand on end, and that is the case with this sonnet, especially the beginning. "Thou hast made me": wham! right to the heart of things. Here I am, flawed, decaying, afraid of death, but Thou made me, and presumably hast some interest in preserving, repairing, and saving me.

Jonathan, I agree that the poet is not rebuking God. The tone is one of petition, not berating or demanding.

When I read Paglia’s comment equating adamant with lodestone, I objected, because adamant is used to describe several very hard minerals (including diamonds), and lodestone, iron oxide, isn’t particularly hard. But I learn from the Oxford English Dictionary that adamant was also used to mean lodestone until the 17th century. That makes "Thou like Adamant draw mine iron heart" particularly effective. Lodestone is magnetic, hence draws the "iron heart". An iron heart is strong, but not as strong as adamant, so the strong but inadequate is drawn to the strongest of all.

We must not allow Paglia to distract us from finding the real meaning and nature of Donne's spiritual crisis. How quickly we get from Donne's look at the triunal nature of God and its workings to fixing leaky pots and going for erections. Isn't it wild?

But Donne and Paglia go well together. Both determined, not to tease, but to batter the listener into thought. Finally, it seems that for both of them it is not the sexual connotations, but the intellectual stimulation, the display of wit and verbal ingenuity that are brought into play.

I may not agree with her on specifics, but I admire her method. She in turn owed it to several of her own teachers mentioned in the Introduction. I do see the influence. There does seem to be something quasi-rabbinical in her thoroughness.

It might be that that gets her into trouble with the broken pot metaphor, the one that needs the services of a tinker. that's alright as far as it goes in explaining pot-mending, but it seems to me we lose sight of the 'THREE-personed God' with whom Donne is being so 'brash'.

Paglia does point out that it is the Holy Spirit that does the BLOWING - 'the breath of life'. She does not make it clear, as Donne must have wanted, that the BREAKING is the work of the Son - 'I stand at the door and knock.' And it is the Father who BURNS - 'may his light shine upon you.'

It seems to me that are suggestions of other contemporary and even medieval religious urges hinted at in this complex sonnet that Paglia does not see in this poetic form. Her interpretation if true, would have had Donne composing in canticles. However what she does not mention she provokes the student to look for.

This sonnet has helped me to get a better understanding of The Trinity.

haply/onely

Jonathan

OK and a big OK at that - finally - talk about reaching into the back files our your mind - this is going back to sophomore year in High School folks and only snitches would come out the dark dust - well those snitches were just enough and with the power of Google and hours yes, hours of looking and reading as Higgins would say "I think she's got it - the rain in Spain..."

That last line had me trip over a phrase that I could not remember it in full and didn't remember if it was Augustine or Aquinas - "it would cast itself towards God as iron towards a magnet" - "it" being the soul -

Well let me tell you I read 3 full sections of Augustines "City of God" and finally started to look for Aquinas and found it in his "Desire and Freedom." - But very valuable was the reading of the"City of God" because it put this whole poem in perspective for me.

First of all John Donne was a Catholic before he later renounced his religion pledging his allegiance to James I, King of England, without compromising his religious loyalty to the Pope - he also was a lawyer who would have studied the art of argument and therefore, it is probable that he read at least Augustine who as a Doctor of the Church and who is studied by most serious Christians - Catholic or not...

If he read Aquinas, a Doctor of the Universal Church, is anyone's guess but there are other quotes that arrive at similar thinking without the use of the magnetism of Iron. However that last line of this poem makes me wonder...

A by the way toward my conclusion -- In John Donne's The Progress of the Soule he refers to the temptations of sin -

But most of all Augustine says it as part of a whole thesis of the body versus the soul - "And hence all of these have held the soul to be mortal; since, whether it were body, or some combination of body, certainly it could not in either case continue always without death. But they who have held its substance to be some kind of life the reverse of corporeal, since they have found it to be a life that animates and quickens every living body, have by consequence striven also, according as each was able, to prove it immortal, since life cannot be without life." On the Trinity - Book X

In On Grace and Free Will Augustin proves: "From the testimony of Scripture that there is in man a free choice of will; and there are also in the same scriptures inspired proofs given of that very Grace of God without which we can do nothing good. Afterwards, in opposition ot the Pelagians, He proves that Grace is not bestowed according to our merits. He explains how Eternal Life, which is rendered to good works, is really if Grace. He then goes on to show that the Grace which is given to us through our Lord Jesus Christ is neither the knowledge of Law, nor Nature, nor simply remission of sins; but that it is Grace that makes us fulfil the Law, and causes Nature to be liberated from the Dominion of Sin."

Attending Catholic schools, we were taught that if you were a Saint then upon death your body is made whole and perfect - therefore, to me this poem is one of despair as Donne realizes his body is not whole and beautiful and therefore, his sins have come back to haunt him - also in his other poems that deal with death he likens the sins of the world to Illness and the decay of Nature An Anatomy of the World & The Second Anniversarie Of The Progres of the Soule

Bottom line - the last line of the poem can be the expression that is the desire for God within each of us - and recognized in the Psalms - "As a deer longs for streams of cool water, so I long for you, O God." - Psalm 42:1,

Augustine wrote in his Confessions that: "You made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you."

Often quoted from a pulpit is Pascal: "There is a god-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man, and only God can fill it."

Which by the way here is a terrific site of ALL The Works of John Donne

The state of his body could be literal but since it is a poem I would imagine it to be allegorical for how how he sees his sinful life and in death he hopes there is a kind of Benediction and so he confesses his sinful life in preparation.

Jonathan--Yours is a sentence I wish I had written: "But Donne and Paglia go well together. Both determined, not to tease, but to batter the listener into thought. Finally, it seems that for both of them it is not the sexual connotations, but the intellectual stimulation, the display of wit and verbal ingenuity that are brought into play." I think a tough wit and intellect are indeed what both require. Whether the play of language is complicated or relatively easy to understand, the approach is rigorous. Donne is taking his religious statement very seriously, and I think he believes that he is constantly in need of being drawn to God.

Barbara--My goodness, back to Augustine and Aquinas! Thank you for the work you have done. Yes, Donne was a Catholic before his conversion and he came to the "established church" (later Anglican) later and at a time when there was much turmoil in England over religious choice and when people got in very real trouble for being Catholic. Donne had a brother who was imprisoned for concealing a priest.

Certainly Donne would have been very familiar with the Church fathers, and he used some of their imagery; the heart being drawn magnetically to God, is a good example. I think where Donne shows his imaginative grasp of the image is in his using the idea of magnetism (his soul is constantly being weighed down but is drawn upward by God) with the image of the wings (which as Paglia suggests, brings to mind the Holy Spirit, often portrayed as a dove (as in John's baptism of Jesus).

Maryal

Maryal, the hymn you mention in post 447 is "A Mighty Fortress is our God", written by Martin Luther.

A mighty fortress is our God,

A bulwark never failing;

Our helper He, amidst the flood

Of mortal ills prevailing.

For still our ancient foe

Doth seek to work us woe;

His strength and power are great,

And arm’d with cruel hate,

On earth is not his equal.

If this doesn’t recall the tune to you, if you are familiar with Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony, that is the religious theme he uses to great effect.

A book of songs I have says: "Martin Luther’s original chorale, written in 1527, became the battle song of the Protestant warriors. It was translated in1853 by Frederic Henry Hodge. In 1942 once again it served as a battle hymn and was sung by the free Norwegians in defiance of a Nazi order to close the ancient Trondheim Cathedral."

This latest Donne seems to confirm God as a tinkerer constantly fooling with his imperfect creation, Man, and Donne again pleads with God to improve the machinery.

My short trip to Williamsburg, VA was, as always, a welcomed trip into the past which always refreshes me to puzzel over the then and now. We seem to be doing a lot of this here in our discussions and this delights me.

Barbara, what a wealth of mind travel you present in your links to an earlier time when Augustine and Acquinas were my "pals." And as always, I cannot resist visiting each of these links for a quick review.

I read over Donne's poem closely and what came to mind is the thought that indeed this is a religious poem but it also rings with familiar the depth and imagery that he and other poets use when they try to describe the poetic process itself--lots of intellectual and emotional pain in the uncertainty of its muse and "Ah!!" the last line.

What do you think??

Glad to be back to the discussion "table."

Bern

Welcome back, Bern--I've been wondering where you were. Williamsburg is a delight, at least to me, and I hope you had a fine time there. But I've missed you here.

PatH--O thank you. Of course--Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"--I can hear the tune in my head and the lyrics came immeriately, but I was missing the first bit (which would have given me the title). I knew it was a well-known hymn which is why I used it for an example. I do appreciate your pegging it for me.

OK, our last poem by Donne is up. Let us consider it today and tomorrow and then move on to George Herbert on Wednesday.

Maryal

Maryal,

I will need to return my book to the library. I will read each poem that is placed in the heading. I am enjoying the discussion so much. Thank you.

Ok! this is why I don't read poetry with anyone else. I do not see any sexual innuendos in this sonnet. Beginning with the 1st line of Batter my heart, three-person'd God;"
I read this to mean the author is beseeching God , the father, son and holy spirit, to pommel his heart, not just seek this sinner out, pausing and waiting to restore him.
He wants to be "o'erthrown", made anew, impacted by the force of "break, blow, and burn." Erection with resurrection? OH BOY! I missed that one and don't agree with it. This aliteration which she deems (no pun intended Maryal) "a barrage of explosive b sounds," is the b-b-b-beating of his heart- b-mm,bmm,bmmm.
He professes his love for God but he is weak and captivated by "wordly" things. He belongs to satan, Lucifer. One way or the other he is tired of vacillating between good and evil and begs for his freedom by invoking the holy-trinity. Like all good Christians he knows that he has to make that choice and he begs for God's intercession. I read this as a mortal sinner petitioning for the allure and the spellbinding joy of the Lord.
OK, I'll take my whipping but please-- even after reading her explanation I just don't get it.

I just have to agree, Andy.
Paglia seems to have missed it altogether.

Obviously there is a sexual reference in the last line where he requests that God neutralize his sexual drive to conform to the Christian ideal of not being tempted by women. In this he accepts the Christan idea that women are the bringers of evil as they take love to themselves that belongs to God.

Paglia does say the strangest things, but given the ambiguities in this kind of poetic statement she must feel alright with her interpretation of the message in the poem. On the other hand she would be more surprised than anyone to find us all agreeing with her. I'll bet.

Doesn't it sometimes seem that for the poet everything is a love affair, whatever the range and nature of the emotions involved? We are seduced by the poets' verses. Seeking God seems a romance for Donne. I wonder is God susceptible to such poetic blandishments?

In the context of Jan's question, what, exactly, does Donne want to have fixed? There is mention of sin, and Satan, the foe God and Donne have in common, but even that seems to be used by Donne for greater intimacy with God. He's a strange case. A willing swan it seems to me, but that's getting ahead of the story.

I think the speaker in the poem is begging God, His Lord, to change him. Rather than his human nature, this person wants a spiritual nature. I don't see any sexual undercurrents in the poem.

I think of the Songs of Solomon in the Bible. This book, in the Bible, seems like a book of verse written to a woman from a man or vice versa, but these words, I think, are written as loving words to God.

Hats--That's exactly it--the Song of Solomon is an excellent example of language that is usually the language of lovemaking being used to stand for the soul and its hunger for and love of God. The meaning of the poem is exactly as you say, but the language used is sometimes the language of sex. Does that make sense?

Look at the second quatrain. Here the image of the speaker is that he is a town that has been taken (usurped) by the enemy. Imagine a walled city that must be stormed in order to be retaken. Now look back at the first line BATTER (as in battering ram, one way to break into a walled city). OK, the speaker is look a city that has been taken by Satan. Reason, the ruler in the city, should help him toward God but has proved weak and untrue.

And then we have the last six lines of the sonnet:

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie:
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot againe,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Here the speaker is now engaged to "your enemie" (Satan) but begs to be taken from Satan (divorce, untie, break that knot) and then enthall me, literally enslave me. And then the magnificent paradox of only by being enslaved (by God) can the speaker be free. The language of paradox is all through the gospels--the first shall be last, he who loses his life will save it, etc.

Notice the last line. "Ravish" means rape or take violently sexually (it fits with that city that needs to be broken into and taken back by God) and then we see the word "chaste." The two are in direct opposition and we have another paradox, in order to be chaste, pure, the speaker must be ravished by God.

The situation is not sexual, but some of the language is.

I'm glad you're sticking with us even though the book must go back to the library. I'll be posting the poems in the heading for a while yet.

Maryal

There's a typo in line 11.

KNOW should be KNOT--break that knot again.

I read the last line as a reference to religious ecstasy. Many mystics experience a state of ecstasy in their communion with God: I read him as saying that he can't be chaste until he substitutes the ecstasy of love of God for human physical love.

I assume the fortress that has to be battered is the fortress he has built around his heart through years of decadent living.

JoanK--I agree. Aren't we saying the same thing? Religious ecstasy is also described in words that are often used to tell of sexual ecstasy.

Well Paglia would have a field day with Saint John of the Cross [Dark Night of the Soul] wouldn't she --

When the breeze blew from the
Turret
Parting his hair,
He wounded my neck
With his gentle hand,
Suspending all my senses.

Or in the first stave of his The Living Flame of Love

O living flame of love
That tenderly wounds my soul
In its deepest center! Since
Now You are not oppressive,
Now consummate! if it be Your will:
Tear through the veil of this sweet
encounter!

Yep like Joan says - the mystics have used this language which makes you wonder where this gal studied...? Ah so - maybe it is a way to get folks to read poetry - they say sex sells...

Being fair and maybe by way of an explanation - seems this is more about passion than sex - and passion can translate to the object of your love in which we do not have other language to describe passion except the language of sex...

Thanks for St. John of the Cross, Barb. Anyone have a quote or two from St. Theresa? The language of rapture is the language of rapture and poets take advantage of it.

oooohhhh rapture I like that word over passion...St. John of the Cross just happens to be my bell weather through thick and thin - I do not have any of St. Theresa's work...

Paglia says it. She also says, in her Introduction, on page xiv:

'My title comes from a poem in this book, John Donne's Holy Sonnet XIV: "That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend/Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new." Donne is appealing to God to overwhelm him and compel his redemption from sin. My secular but semimystical view of art is that it taps primal energies, breaks down barriers, and imperiously remakes our settled way of seeing....A good poem is iridescent and incandescent, catching the light at unexpected angles and illuminating human universals - whose very existence is denied by today's parochial theorists. Among those looming universals are time and mortality, to which we are all subject. Like philosophy, poetry is a contemplative form, but unlike philosophy, poetry subliminally manipulates the body and triggers its nerve impulses, the muscle tremors of sensation and speech.'

There is a certain symmetry here, isn't there, between the goals that both Paglia and Donne are aiming for? She tries so hard making her case with help from a kindred spirit. Artistically speaking. But somewhere Donne loses her. Agree or disagree with her. She does an amazing thing with this piece of poetry.

Just keep dropping in HATS. I would really miss you if you don't.

Of course I would say that to all of you. There is much great poetry ahead. Paglia is an exciting guide. But there is a lot of blood, sweat and tears spent in getting inside some of these poems.Could we jump a hundred pages and take a look at the note left on the fridge door? That would bring Kevin back. I think he liked that one.

Jonathan, I really look forward to your entries. In my many years’ experience of reading and discussing poetry with students both adult and traditional, I must admit some of you thoughts are like none other that I’ve see or heard expressed. e.g. I have never viewed the “contemplative” or “poetry” described as an experience which “ subliminally manipulates the body and triggers its nerve impulses, the muscle tremors of sensation and speech.” The word “manipulates” especially, communicates a visceral response something like the extremes I experience after reading Robert Frost’s poem, “Fire & Ice.” -- an apt metaphor for your description of poetry?? -- an apt metaphor for your description of poetry??

I am intrigued by this statement also: “There is a certain symmetry here, isn't there, between the goals that both Paglia and Donne are aiming for? In light of the contemporary passion that motivates our goal oriented society, associating this notion with what Pagalia and Donne are “aiming for” leaves me with the same internal response mentioned above.

And finally another: “Pagalia “tries so hard making her case with help from a kindred spirit. Artistically speaking.” Try confronting the feminist, Pagalia with this one!

Keep ‘em coming!

Personally, I could not agree more with Pagalia, a scholar and feminist’s reflections. The time of Donne was when the spiritual, the mystical, the artistic engaged the senses and spirit in a paradoxical “symmetry” where the profane becomes sacred and two become one in a sensual and metaphysical, mystical exchange which transcends the sexual alone.

Teresa of Avila says in her “Autobiography” that it is impossible for her to describe the kind of mystical rapture she experiences but then goes on at length to detail her physical, psychological and spiritual responses to her personal and contemplative approach to mystical union with God.

Yes, I have read it all, 50 years ago when this was part of our religious’ spiritual “upbringing,” but, of course, with no mention of this being allied with a sexual encounter. That came later in my studies of literature.

Jonathan, I really look forward to your entries. In my many years’ experience of reading and discussing poetry with students both adult and traditional, I must admit some of you thoughts are like none other that I’ve see or heard expressed. e.g. I have never viewed the “contemplative” or “poetry” described as an experience which “ subliminally manipulates the body and triggers its nerve impulses, the muscle tremors of sensation and speech.” The word “manipulates” especially, communicates a visceral response something like the extremes I experience after reading Robert Frost's poem, Fire & Ice.-- an apt metaphor for your description of poetry?? I am intrigued by this statement also: “There is a certain symmetry here, isn't there, between the goals that both Paglia and Donne are aiming for? In light of the contemporary passion that motivates our goal oriented society, associating this notion with what Pagalia and Donne are “aiming for” leaves me with the same internal response mentioned above.

And finally another: “Pagalia “tries so hard making her case with help from a kindred spirit. Artistically speaking.” Try confronting the feminist, Pagalia with this one!

Keep ‘em coming!

Personally, I could not agree more with Pagalia, a scholar and feminist’s reflections. The time of Donne was when the spiritual, the mystical, the artistic engaged the senses and spirit in a paradoxical “symmetry” where the profane becomes sacred and two become one in a sensual and metaphysical, mystical exchange which transcends the sexual alone.

Teresa of Avila says in her Autobiography that it is impossible for her to describe the kind of mystical rapture she experiences but then goes on at length to detail her physical, psychological and spiritual responses to her personal and contemplative approach to mystical union with God. Yes, I have read it all, 50 years ago when this was part of our religious’ spiritual “upbringing,” but, of course, with no mention of this being allied with a sexual encounter. That came later in my studies of literature.

Wonderful posts here. Have we lost Kevin? No, no.

I wondered if the Song of Songs could have been Donne's (literal) inspiration, and reread it. I am lucky enough to be able to read it in Hebrew (with help from the English translation) and it is even more beautiful than in English.

Here fron the University of Pennsylvania web site is the KJV of the passage which seems most like Donne:

Cant 5:2 I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.

Cant 5:3 I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?

Cant 5:4 My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.

Cant 5:5 I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock.

Cant 5:6 I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.

Cant 5:7 The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.

Cant 5:8 I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.

The web site is:

SONG OF SONGS

The writings of St Theresa:

THE WAY OF PERFECTION

JoanK,

I bet it is very beautiful in Hebrew. Thank you for the St. Theresa link.

Hi Jonathan!!

It fits right in with what you've been discussing re "ravishing", etc.

O Jesus, Whose Face is the sole beauty that ravishes my heart, I may not behold here upon earth the sweetness of Thy Glance, nor feel the ineffable tenderness of Thy Kiss. I bow to Thy Will - but I pray Thee to imprint in me Thy Divine Likeness, and I implore Thee so to inflame me with Thy Love, that it may quickly consume me and I may soon reach the Vision of Thy glorious Face in Heaven. Amen

Bern, I had forgotten about Robert Frost's Fire & Ice. That is an interesting poem to bring into the discussion at this point. Very apt, I think, with its treatment of those two conflicting but complementary emotions, desire and hate. And aren't they at the root of Donne's poetic meditation? Strange, however, that Frost should be put in mind of the end of things, a perishing. While for Donne they are life itself. What a passion they arouse in him.

Could someone find for us the Bernini sculpture of Saint Teresa caught up in an ecstasy. Paglia mentions her.

And in her commentary to the Sonnet, for supporting argument in elucidating the text she also mentions:

The OT Song of Songs. Thanks Joan for the selections.

Caravaggio's painting of Saint Mathew.

Dante and Vergil, and the beautiful Beatrice.

Persephone in Hades.

And the New Jerusalem.

Paglia thought long and hard about this sonnet. Her essay is a tour de force.

Bernini's sculpture of Saint Theresa of Avila Baroque - St. Theresa in Ecstasy (1645–52), created for the Cornaro Chapel of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria.

The statue of St. Theresa of Avila is highly idealized in detail and in an imaginary setting.

St. Theresa of Avila, one of the most popular saints of the Counter Reformation, wrote narratives of her mystical experiences aimed at the nuns of her Carmelite Order; these writings had become popular reading among lay people interested in pursuing spirituality.

She once described the love of God as piercing her heart like a burning arrow. Bernini literalizes this image by placing St. Theresa on a cloud in a reclining pose; what can only be described as a Cupid figure holds a golden arrow (the arrow is made of metal) and smiles down at her. The angelic figure is not preparing to plunge the arrow into her heart— rather, he has withdrawn it. St. Theresa's face reflects not the anticipation of ecstasy, but her current fulfillment, which can only be described as orgasmic.

The blending of religious and erotic was intensely offensive to both neoclassical restraint and, later on, to Victorian prudishness; it is part of the genius of the Baroque. Bernini, who shows every sign in his writings of being a convinced and conventionally devout Catholic, is not attempting to satirize the experience of a virgin who lived a life of chastity, but rather reflects a complex truth about religious experience — that it is an experience that takes place in the body. Theresa described her bodily reaction to spiritual enlightenment in a language of ecstasy used by many mystics, and Bernini did her the favor of taking her seriously. Baroque

Thanks you bmcinnis for commenting on Jonathan's writing - yes, I have enjoyed the posts and it is unusual but wonderful to have what is enjoyed brought to our conscious minds.

What I am in awe of is that all of us are not only familiar with the beauty of Church literature. history and art but are obviously deeper into our faith than a mere Sunday service -

Please include me out insofar as the depth of faith is concerned.

As much as Freud has been demoted these days, the arrow is rather obvious.

Wow, Barbara! Thank you for showing Bernini's sculpture. It is magnificent. I also needed your explanation for what is happening to St. Theresa of Avila.

Hats, If you go back to my entry to Jonathan, you will see a link to Teresa's Autobiography in which she attempts to describe her experience as Bernini presents it. She says though, that attempting to descibe an experience that transcends what words cannot express is impossible to do, so like many mystical writers, she keeps repeating, trying to reach the unreachable.

Bern

Thanks, Bern. I must have missed it. At times, I do miss some posts and find myself scanning posts over again.

Bern,

After this quote in the Autobiography, I could have read on and on. What St. Theresa is describing, for me, is very hard to comprehend. Probably, this is because I am not a saint. I would think very few people experience such a high level of "ectasy" as John Donne and the Saints of the Bible describe. I think the rarity of the experience and our desire to grasp the Holy while we are still so earthly is what makes this poem so interesting.

I have a desire to remember this poem and reread it. The hope is that I will fully grasp what the poet is feeling. I could say the same for St. Theresa's Autobiography and Solomon's songs,etc. There is something unreachable in all of these religious works.

"In these raptures the soul seems no longer to animate the body, and thus the natural heat of the body is felt to be very sensibly diminished: it gradually becomes colder, though conscious of the greatest sweetness and delight. No means of resistance is possible, whereas in union, where we are on our own ground, such a means exists: resistance may be painful and violent but it can almost always be effected. But with rapture, as a rule, there is no such possibility: often it comes like a strong, swift impulse, before your thought can forewarn you of it or you can do anything to help yourself; you see and feel this cloud, or this powerful eagle, rising and bearing you up with it on its wings."

Thanks, Barbara, for the Saint Theresa by Bernini. And for the source in Aquinas for the last line in the previous sonnet. You are indefatigable in your researches! With such amazing results. I look forward to seeing what you do with Coleridge's Kubla Khan...

Seriously, I have a lot of sympathetic feeling for the great mystic tradition of the earlier part of the last millenium. My interest was aroused a long time ago by Evelyn Underhill's MYSTICISM, which has much on Saint Theresa. The subtitle conveys her approach: A study in the nature and development of Man's spiritual consciousness. It's very readable.

HATS, you don't have to be a saint. But it does help if one is a poet...

What wonderful posts! St Theresa, St John of the Cross, all your contributions. Thank you. Yes, Jonathan, it's on to George Herbert.

George Herbert (1593-1633) was a somewhat younger contemporary of Donne. He was also a cleric. He had a little parish and apparently was quite the musician. (Every time I look at the dates of some of these poets, I realize how much longer many people live today. Herbert only lived to 40. Yikes.)

Here's a quote from the Luminarium Site:

"Herbert's poems are characterized by a precision of language, a metrical versatility, and an ingenious use of imagery or conceits that was favored by the metaphysical school of poets.3 They include almost every known form of song and poem, but they also reflect Herbert's concern with speech--conversational, persuasive, proverbial. Carefully arranged in related sequences, the poems explore and celebrate the ways of God's love as Herbert discovered them within the fluctuations of his own experience. Because Herbert is as much an ecclesiastical as a religious poet, one would not expect him to make much appeal to an age as secular as our own; but it has not proved so. All sorts of readers have responded to his quiet intensity; and the opinion has even been voiced that he has, for readers of the late twentieth century, displaced Donne as the supreme Metaphysical poet."

from the George Herbert page at http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/herbbio.htm

Maryal

Count me as agreeing with Jan Sand's post #480.

MY first reading of Herbert's poem was to experience it from two perspectives: first as a child and then as an adult.

As a child I am not familiar with an understanding of what a "conceit," is all about. Quite simply I am "scared to death." The ominous breadth and depth of this lessson from "school" of life, the resounding somber and threating sounds and images. The words themselves reveal a gloomy place where sound and thunder are spelled out without compassion. (could this description be a "conceit?"

As an adult, I long for another of the poet's church-poems: Church-Musick whose words sing a melody of invitation and desire.

Now I await, to become enlightened.

Bern

My first impression is of an exaltation of dust as somehow superior to the energy and struggle and difficulty which life presents and involves itself with in the intricate processes of being alive. I find this an unattractive ideal.

I have a new direct computer connection and it is running very slowly today. It's ordinarily fast as lightning. Since this occurred a week or so ago, I expect it to last the day.

So.

I differ somewhat from Paglia in her reading of this poem. She suggests that the poet is accompanied to church by the soul (her) who goes to a separate part of the chapel to pray while the body goes to the area of the church, or the crypt, where the dead of the parish are buried in sarcophagi with their inscriptions above them and perhaps their shield bearing the family arms. The body (the mortal part of us) is sent to a harsh school where he will learn that he is mortal as are all those buried dead.

I'm not convinced that one has to see this duality represented in the way Paglia presents it. I can see the poet's soul deep in prayer while his body (his intellect perhaps) is concentrating on the church monuments. I'm pretty good at multitasking myself and that's what I see going on here.

Whichever.

The poem can be paraphrased as "while my soul is busy with prayer, I consider my flesh that is subject (as all flesh is) to death. The study of these monuments will be a school lesson that will teach my body how to spell (the names on the monuments) and to note the birth (and death) dates on the stones. The monuments are made of Jet (a black anthracite stone) and Marble and they prevent all the dust of those dead from mingling together. They signify who the dead are, but the poet wonders what will point to the stones when they themselves fall down and "kiss those heaps, which now they have in trust"? Everything falls, all comes to ruin, even the stones meant to keep the names of the dead in the memory of the living.

The poet then addresses his flesh and tells it to learn that it is but the (hour) glass that holds the dust (which he will eventually be) that measures time. The final lesson is to notice how tame the dust inn view is and to teach yourself how to prepare for the ultimate fall.

Paglia's reading is more extensive and creative. We agree on the basic meaning of the poem.

Maryal

The magic that a good metaphysician can work with a handful of dust!

While he doesn't succeed in bringing the dead bones back to life, Herbert does find a charming sermon in the melancholy scene. The theme is dismal enough, but it's marvellous to see that he is not frightened out of his wits over it like Donne seems to have been. Even alive, Donne was inclined to see himself as an effigy.

One is also reminded of Shakespeare's treatment of the theme in the grave-digger scene in Hamlet: the skull unearthed,

'Hamlet: "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorr'd in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it".'

How much more hopeful is Henry Vaughan's happy line about HIS departed friends:

'They are all gone into the world of light.'

It nearly breaks my heart to think how many we were, setting out to explore the world of poesy. However, Vaughan continues:

'I see them walking in an air of glory.'

I'm certain Herbert would not have chosen this poem to welcome his parishioners into his Temple. In fact he greets them in the Church Porch with the charming lines:

'Harken unto a Verser, who may chance / Rhyme thee to good, and make a bait of pleasure. / A verse may find him, who a sermon flies, / And turn delight into a pleasure.'

Most of the 150 or so poems making up The Temple are more like the two following, The Quip, and Love. A half dozen gloomy things like this one are scattered about. Perhaps to serve as wake-up noises during the sermon.

Perhaps Herbert himself felt unhappy with the mood. He quickly follows up Church-monuments with the happy little lyric that Bern found for us: Church Music.

All the while he spends with the dust is the same as,

'While that my soul repairs to her devotion.'

haply/onely

Jonathan

It sure seems to me a dismal poem. Harkening back to a theology of dualism. Not a person as a whole but divided body and soul.

That poem sure wouldn't be welcoming to me. Thanks for that thought, Jonathan :"I'm certain Herbert would not have chosen this poem to welcome his parishioners..."

I like your "translation", Deems. Helped me make better sense of the poem.

~Marj

Jonathan and Marj--I'm glad you are both here. Odd, but the subject matter of death and the decay of the body, ashes to ashes and all that, has never bothered me. I don't even find it especially depressing. I don't even know why. You'd think, now that I am officially a "senior," I might take the subject more personally, but I don't. Maybe it's just the influence of having a minister for a father_ always a cycle of births and marriages and funerals. Equally a part of being alive.

I also think that in this time period, people were far more aware of death and its inevitability since so many children died before they were two and there weren't any antibiotics. If you got a serious infection, you were pretty much a goner.

Or maybe we all think today that we are immortal? Or at least able to cure many illnesses?

Glad my paraphrase helped, Marj. I'm worried about my ability when we get to Emily Dickinson. Perhaps Jonathan or Bern can take over? Hmmmmmm? Her poems are short and they look so simple sometimes. But they never are.

My connection is a little faster than it was this morning. Good sign.

Absolutely, death, ashes, etc. are a part of the whole cycle. I worked in a church setting, been a hospice volunteer so I am also familiar. I wasn't meaning to dismiss that as not important. Just that the poem seemed dismal.

oh, Marj, I'm sorry. My comment wasn't addressed to you. I was thinking of all the people who I know are "with" us and thinking that maybe the subject matter of some of these poems was a downer for them.

There are many subjects for poems, but I'd say the most popular ones are love, nature, death, art (specifically poems about poems).

How many people, I wonder, have visited some of the many crypts that are under large churches in England? Small ones too, sometimes. This poem reminds me of seeing the reclining knights and their ladies in Westminster Abbey. It reminds me of how much more present death was for Donne and Herbert. It makes it even more curious that the "momento mori" was so popular. Thanks, Jonathan, for reminding us of Hamlet and his musing on the skull of Yorick. I've always wondered how he knew that that particular skull was Yorick.

Maryal

What first lacked clarity now is understandable, thanks to two good critics and a little study. It will be interesting to see what we learn from Herbert's next offerings.

Favorite lines (and perhaps an argument for cremation): That flesh is but the glasse, which holds the dust That measures all our time; which also shall Be crumbled into dust.

Some of us here probably believe that the soul will carry on beyond the dust; some probably hope so; and some do not believe it. Yet, perhaps that is the major (unspoken?) message here: that the soul does carry on while the dust does not.

DEEMS says"There are many subjects for poems, but I'd say the most popular ones are love, nature, death, art (specifically poems about poems)".

Yes. I think it is important in our society where, as we were saying earlier, in most places it is not permitted to talk about death that poetry is still one place where we can deal with this subject. If Paglia had not given us any poems on death, she would have shortchanged us.

Having said that, I still am finding her selection of poems one-sided and depressing. When I first got the book, I hop-skipped and jumped through it and wound up feeling very depressed and down -- whereas usually poetry, even when it deals with death and the dark side of life, leaves me feeling uplifted, more in touch with my inner nature. Even sharing the deepest fears and dreads of life with great poets can lead me to go deeper: so that I am like the Song of Songs "I am asleep but my heart is awake".

This book has done much to make me use my mind, but very little to wake my heart. So far it seems to me we have had heaps of depression, teaspoonfuls of joy; much on death and almost nothing on life; lots of sex but only a drop of love. She has already warned us that she despises poems on the beauty of nature: as one who takes much of my strength and need for beauty from nature, this is a major loss for me.

I am delighted that this book has succeeded in enrolling some of you into the beauty and magic of poetry. It is not doing that for me. Clearly I am wrong, but I wonder why anyone for whom this book is an introduction to poetry would ever want to read a poem again. I am learning a lot, particularly about how to read a poem. The process and discussion have been wonderful. But I am afraid the net result may be to drive me away from poetry, at least for awhile.

I hope some of you who are clearly finding this a thrilling experience will post and explain why -- it may help me.

I came in to delete the last message, but I was too late. I hope no one takes it as reflecting on the quality of the discussion or the discussion leader, which, as always, are outstanding. I would learn from hanging out with you guys no matter what we were doing -- Deems and the rest of you are people who really enrich my life.

But for me Paglia is not such a person. I guess it's clear that she gets on my last nerve. Poetry finds out who you are: you can't hide from it, and I don't like who Paglia is. I can learn from her "little gems", as Pat calls them, but I've hung around Academia too long and seen too much of that kind of brilliance to find it impressive unless it's combined with something I don't see in Paglia: a kind of commitment and giving of yourself to what you are doing that goes down to the very roots of who you are. Without that, all the brilliance is just brilliant games-playing. Whether I'm right or not, that is what I see in Paglia.

Since I don't have the book and the second hand comments in the posts are not exceedingly clear as to Paglia's writing it is difficult to be swayed as to how Paglia handles the material.

But as someone who indulges in the poetic form to express ideas I find it difficult to dismiss any particular form of poetry. There are good and bad productions. Dr. Seuss can, to my taste, be just as rewarding as T.S.Eliot or Dylan Thomas. They each, in their way, contribute something to my life I would not have had without them and for that I value them.

Death is such a juicy subject. Every hour about 7,200 of us humans get tipped into oblivion and we each are waiting in line with secure tickets for the experience. For some of us it is more lurid than others, but Mr. Herbert's almost emotionless acceptance as life being a trivial transition from dust to dust gives me the feeling the guy is missing something.

"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Amen! to your last line, Jan. Dylan Thomas had it more right I believe. Even for people who have come to accept their death during disease, they do go thru the "rage" period to some extent or another.

These are only my opinions. I've never written a poem. And I never did well with poetry in school. I suppose we've all heard about the twelve-year-old who was asked for his understanding of a little piece of romantic song. Without much hesitation he told the teacher and the class: it's all about a boy and his dog.

It's often difficult to know what the poet is trying to say. Maybe he's only kvetching. Maybe he's trying to make a sad thing glad. Poetry is certainly about exploring feelings, and the urge to express them, to make a monument to them, or to get them out of ones system. Time and place make a difference. And yet. Donne and Sylvia Plath are four hundred years apart, but Paglia comes back to him when she is considering the poem by Plath. Paglia is driven to get to the heart of the poem. It was the intellectuality and theorizing in academe that throws her into despair. If she lets her brand of feminism cloud her judgement at times, then she is the loser. But she is still stimulating. Forces me to face up to how I feel about the poem.

I found this thing by Donne which might be apropos:

THE TRIPLE FOOL. by John Donne

I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry ;
But where's that wise man, that would not be I,
If she would not deny ?
Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked lanes
Do purge sea water's fretful salt away,
I thought, if I could draw my pains
Through rhyme's vexation, I should them allay.
Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,
For he tames it, that fetters it in verse.
But when I have done so,
Some man, his art and voice to show,
Doth set and sing my pain ;
And, by delighting many, frees again
Grief, which verse did restrain.
To love and grief tribute of verse belongs,
But not of such as pleases when 'tis read.
Both are increasèd by such songs,
For both their triumphs so are published,
And I, which was two fools, do so grow three.
Who are a little wise, the best fools be.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I. E. K. Chambers, ed. London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 14.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the same place where Bern found the more cheerful poem by Herbert. Jan, I don't think Herbert is making light of the dust that he is contemplating.

JONATHAN: "Paglia is driven to get to the heart of the poem. It was the intellectuality and theorizing in academe that throws her into despair. If she lets her brand of feminism cloud her judgement at times, then she is the loser. But she is still stimulating. Forces me to face up to how I feel about the poem".

Yes, that is true. I guess I took it for granted -- that getting to the heart of the poem was the aim. What other aim could there be? I forgot that Paglia is writing in an environment where, apparently this aim had been lost. I will have to give her more credit, say "Bravo" -- maybe she can turn criticism in a more fruitful direction and let others carry it further. Thank you.

DONNE says "Some man, his art and voice to show, Doth set and sing my pain ; And, by delighting many, frees again Grief, which verse did restrain. To love and grief tribute of verse belongs, But not of such as pleases when 'tis read. Both are increasèd by such songs,"

That is exactly right. Poetry is about life, and especially about the deepest parts of life. As Mori Ogai said it leaves "no spot hidden". That is why it drives us into the deepest parts of ourselves. And I expect no less of anyone who writes about poetry.

The above comments have been boiling up for awhile. It's a shame they came out with Herbert's poem: they didn't refer to it.

I like that poem a lot, and don't find it gloomy. Although he probably wrote it about a crypt, I see it in an open air graveyard, with the dust all around underfoot, waiting to receive us when the marble and jet that spoil the party have given up their stewardship. I find it consoling to think that my body came out of dust and will return to that dust -- one form of immortality.

And it restores a balance. After the weight of guilt that Donne has given us, I find Herbert's to be a poem of innocence.

Although I certainly would not deny anybody the delight of identifying with dust I find my own sense of identity is intimately associated with my differentiation from dust. Life becomes precious to me by its fragility and individuality gained from ephemeral uniqueness. Perhaps my components were derived from undistinguished material but I and every other living thing partakes of being a particular concoction of ingredients unique in time and place and capability and when that uniqueness is destroyed, there lies the tragedy of not being alive.

Gosh I have to agree with Joan on this one - nature and fantasy and myth puts a smile on my face - I also have to agree Dylan Thomas is "The wordsmith of all poets" - but contemplating dust all I can do is shrug - but then my family's reaction to death was fun and a big party - yes, usually a drinking party but family came that had not seen each other in years and the chatter was continuous - everyone walks up to the body and a story shared - folks poked cigars in my fathers top pocket because to them to see him without a cigar was out of character - some tears yes, but between the laughter of this story or that one -

Unfortunately my kids were all too small when my parents died and I didn't take them with me when the last aunt died and so they are talking of sadness and worry how to have a funeral for me - I think I will write a how to book and in order to get them in the mood I will have a box of balloons all ready for them to blow up and surround the coffin with balloons, maybe even tied to the how to book have a bottle of champaign that thy should ice to toast my send off on my next adventure.

THANK YOU ALL for keeping the discussion going.

I'm still having trouble with a very slow connection and have finally gotten a person at RCN who assures me that "the problem is being resolved." OK, I have an appointment this afternoon, but I'll be back tonight with I hope, fingers crossed a reliable connection.

Maryal

Barbara, I wouldn't miss your funeral for all the world...

Permit Herbert to contemplate the dust. He does it to bring himself down to earth.

BARBARA: baloons -- what a great idea!! But I want more -- I want CONFETTI. When my kids were little, to celebrate each birthday, I would gather the neighborhood kids in my basement, and have them throw confetti until the air was filled with stars. THAT'S the way I want to go!

I like what Herbert does with the dust—a triple expanding image. You are the dust inside the hourglass of your body, which will turn to dust, and be enclosed in an elaborate sarcophagus, which will turn to dust, each in turn mingling with the next larger, until finally it mingles with the whole world and is indistinguishable from it.

PAT That is what I was trying to say, but you said it much better.

Perhaps I can make my point clearer in modern technological terminology.

All information can be transmitted and stored in digital form. Digital form consists of merely a collection of ones and zeros. In effect, they are technological dust and in chaotic arrangement they have very little if any significance or interest. But the greatest poetry and the most marvelous ideas can be presented in digital terms by an intricate sophisticated arrangement of these insignificant components. Life is a sophisticated arrangement of insignificant components.

To find comfort in the fact that all wonderful concepts in digital form can be reduced to a chaos of ones and zeros leaves me puzzled. To gain comfort that all the wonders of something alive and delightful can be reduced to a chaotic pile of dust is fascinating to me but hardly a source of comfort.

I have read the above lines over and over. I think George Herbert's poem is a plea for the reader to become comfortable with the idea of death. In order to do this I must surpass my emotional side and look at death with the intellect. What can this unavoidable experience teach me?

MarjV, I love that poem. I think people do go through the "raging" process before ever being able to think that in death there are lessons. In other words, I think "rage" is a step that most people are unable to jump over. First, we fight the idea of our mortality. Then, we finally make peace with immortality. After all, there isn't a magic potion that will make mortality go spoof and disappear.

Jan,

How about this Digital Poetry you can see and hear in surprising ways.

When to we start the next poem??? How about 2 day per poem?? Does this allow enough time.

Bern

Jonathan, I agree that some poems seem to me so obscure that all I can appreciate is listening to myself reading the words aloud.

Now here is a clue to poetry's origins.

What do you think? Bern

Yahoo and other exclamations of glee. I am once again reliably connected. It no longer takes minutes for the page to load and I can hop around the internet with rapidity. How quickly we become used to new speed and how spoiled I am.

OK, the new poem by Herbert should be up there this morning. Bern's suggestion that we move the poems along more quickly is an excellent one and we shall so do.

Jan--I'm really sorry that you don't have Paglia's book because I would be interested in hearing your response to her essays. You brought up some points about how many think of death today that made me wonder if the strong faith that earlier poets had doesn't contribute to their subject matter. It is generalizing to say that in Herbert's day more people were closely connected to religious beliefs about death and how necessary it was to prepare spititually for it. I'm having touble expressing exactly what I mean, but it certainly matters that, whatever our individual beliefs may be, we now live in a far more secular culture. PatH/s point about the metaphor of the body being but a glass to hold the dust that will eventually, once the hour glass has siphoned it all through, return to dust is pertinent here. Herbert would have felt that concept more viserally than we do today.

JoanK--You are welcome to make any points whatsoever in this discussion. I always read what everyone writes with attention and consideration and far from being offended by your reference to poetry that is more uplifting, I took it as somewhat of a challenge to see how much such poetry had been written. I have an anthology put together by Harold Bloom which he entitles, humbly as always (!) The Best Poems in the English Language. It contains hundreds of poems and also some commentary by Bloom. There are very few poems that are upbeat. I consulted my daughter who actually reads poetry for pleasure, including the poems of contemporary poets, and she suggested Wallace Stevens as the most positive of the lot. We will get to him later. Research in this area is ongoing. I am determined to find the sort of poem I think you have in mind.

Jonathan--I don't write poetry either, gave that up when I discovered that I couldn't write the kind of poem I admired, but I do love to study it. Thank you for your posts here.

I'll go see what I can do about getting "The Quip" up in the heading. Meanwhile, those of you who have the book, please comment on your reactions to it.

Maryal

Here are the first two definitions from the OED for quip as a noun:

1. A sharp or sarcastic remark directed against a person; a clever gird or hit. In later use also without implication of sharpness: A clever, smart, or witty saying; a verbal conceit. Freq. in phr. quips and cranks (after quot. 1632).
In common use down to c1650, after which literary examples are rare till after 1800.

1532 MORE Confut. Tindale Wks. 709/2 With this goodly quyppe agaynste me. 1584 LYLY Alex. & Camp. III. ii, What's a quip? Man. Wee great girders call it a short saying of a sharpe wit, with a bitter sense in a sweet word. 1632 MILTON L'Allegro 27 Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles. 1665 MANLEY Grotius' Low C. Warres 351 This by a military jest, and facetious quip, they called the Commonwealth. 1784 COWPER Task II. 472 Direct me to a quip Or merry turn in all he [Paul] ever wrote. 1843 LEVER J. Hinton xliv, The whole conversation is..a hailstorm of short stories, quips, and retorts. 1855 A. MANNING O. Chelsea Bun-ho. xvi. 274 She..gave him back quip for crank.

b. A verbal equivocation; a quibble.

c1590 GREENE Fr. Bacon ix. 225 These Schollers know..How to vse quips and sleights of Sophistrie. 1812 KNOX & JEBB Corr. II. 95 The practical goodness may be readily overlooked, whilst theological quips and quiddities may be fastened on. 1850 KINGSLEY Alt. Locke xxxvii, I will not..entrap you by quips and special pleading. 1875 JOWETT Plato (ed. 2) III. 73 Tricks of controversy and quips of law.

Maryal

And isn't it nice to move along. To get beyond death. It's not surprising if some would like to move along more quickly. One is inclined to walk more quickly through the graveyard at night. I have never been able to get the picture of Hawarth out of my mind. The vicarage where the Bronte sisters lived. On one side the tombstones and on the other the heaths. Damned gloomy the day I was there. They lived with it day after day, in November as well as May. It does something with ones imagination.

I have the book GEORGE HERBERT in The Classics of Western Spirituality series. This discussion was finally the incentive to take it off the shelf. There are three footnotes for The Quip:

1. Title means both "sharp remarks" and "verbal equivocations."

2. 'train-bands'. Abberviation of trained bands, the citizen-soldiers of London; here, referring to all society (also 11, 12, 16, and 20) (I don't see the connections in the latter lines)

3. 'But thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.' See Ps 38:15, "For in thee, O Lord, have I put my trust; thou shalt answer for me, oh Lord my God."

So which words actually make up the quip? Surely not the statement reflecting the verse from Scripture? But then, why is it in the singular?

I love this line and a half "Then came brave Glorie puffing by In silks that whistled" I love it not silks that rustled but that whistled - remember when we wore silk stockings and silk slips and they whistled?

From a U. of Toronto website

1] The word "quip" is an abbreviation of "quid pro quo" and means a retort, a sharp reply. Such a reply is made in the last stanza..

http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem984.html

Thus the singular.

I may owe Paglia an apology (but I'm too much of an old curmudgeon to give it).

I'm beginning to appreciate her choice of poems and historical arrangement:

First we had Shakespeare, the secularist (at least in these poems), despairing because the world despises him, and being rescued by human love.

Then Donne, the agonized would-be mystic, afraid of death, full of guilt, pleading with God to rescue him because he's too weak to rescue himself.

Then Herbert. His "Church-Monuments" stands here as an answer to Donne: yes, we die, but where we go is good ("the good fellowship of dust"). Our ashes are innocent, (tame, free from lust), fitting us for our fall into dust.

"The Quip" stands here as an answer to Shakespeare: the rewards of the world despise (geere at) me, but that's alright. My rewards are not of this world, but in the love of God.

I accused Paglia of lack of balance. I spoke too soon. The balance is in Herbert. He answers Donne's guilt with innocence, his fear with trust, Shakespeare's despair with confidence in God's love.

Three very different men, three very different views of the world. But between the three of them, what a journey they have taken us on. Each of us may choose to stay with a different one of the three, but all of us must find ourselves somewhere in here.

JAN: I see the view in Church-Monuments as very Eastern: your views expressed as very Western. You are sharply differentiating between the consciousness of Man, and the inanimate dust. In Eastern religions, all of the universe is seen as one, with a consciousness, which differentiates itself in various forms (humans, dust, etc.) and then dissolves back into one. A hard idea for Westerners to grasp.

I don't know if Herbert had any contact with Eastern philosophies. I think some mystics of all religions, East and West, have arrived at this view. Maybe I'm stretching here, but I think this is where Herbert is going: all of us becoming part of the whole (which of course is God).

How simple and beautiful. I find it a little ambiguous: not sure from the punctuation which way it goes: God is Herbert's or Herbert is God's. That's as it should be it goes both ways.

Just as I wondered if Donne was influences by "The Song of Songs", so I wonder if this comes from 2:16:

"My beloved is mine and I am his." (In Hebrew "Dodie li veh ahnee lo")

In "The Quip" Paglia sees the poet as beleaguered. I think the poem is too funny to be beleaguered. Both "Glorie puffing by in silks that whistled" and Wit, who would, in order to be a comfort, "in short, make an oration" are hilarious. How well he captures them in a few words.

Perhaps because I'm thinking in terms of Shakespeare's Sonnet 29, I see two meanings to "Beautie crept into a rose, Which when I pluckt not". It does have a sexual connotation, as Paglia says: he doesn't give way to lust. But could it also refer to his poetry, as failing to capture the beauty of the rose? Perhaps not from lack of talent or sensitivity, but because his poetry is in the service of another world. Paglia sees the next verse as referring to his music.

We are, perhaps, persisting on this too long, but I sense that you are inserting significance into the insignificant in order to ascribe universality to it. My own point is that I know about the universe only what I can perceive with my senses. Pragmatism may dismay a search for the vague universal but I prefer to stick to a rational reality.

looks like we have a Neoclassicist among us who is suggesting it is easier to understand the Neoclassic poems since they are based on reason [a justification for something existing, an explanation of the cause of some phenomenon] with clearly defined rules.

Where as the "Metaphysical" poets wrote what to the Neoclassicist sees as lacking - the valid norms of reason and nature [perceived through our senses] - therefore, suggesting the Metaphysical poets are describing something "unnatural" or "adverse to nature" rather than the "supernatural".

Metaphysical poets, including Shakespeare, wrote puns, witticisms to offend the most basic Neoclassical rules of reason, clarity and the rule of decorum. The church being great subject matter since it presented itself with clear reason and with rules of decorum -

During this time in history the church going upside down for many and with no avenue to protest the changes, the church not only became a great source for quips and puns but the concept of the natural versus unnatural was easily seen by readers who for centuries saw one version of the church as the only natural way to worship.

What I see Herbert doing here is taking death and turning into a one on one relationship with God - rather than death being part of his chums waking him as in a spirit of carnival. Seems to me he is making a quip about this isolated one on one relationship with God versus, the community that is the church - this imagery I also see as commenting on the change that death brings from the community of man to the old saw, we are all alone when we die.

Enjoyable and easy to understand, with CP's help. I continue to appreciate her creativity. I agree with CP that "The Quip" is a joke on the antagonists in which morality tops the temptations.

"But thou shalt answer,lord for me" reminds me less of "the second coming of Jesus", as CP says, and more of judgment day at the pearly gates.

Interesting that these four temptations are still with us today, although the only one that need be a vice is Glorie, no better now than then.

Good luck to anyone in the way of the probable hurricane near Florida.

I will be busy with three great books from the library today, plus several mysteries I already have: One Nation Under Therapy, How the Helping Culture is Eroding Self-Reliance; On Hitler's Mountain, Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood; and The Survivor, Bill Clinton in the White House. Also I will be away until the end of next week (seeing some Shakespeare), so I will check in then.

At least in these two poems, Herbert’s outlook is much simpler and more straightforward than Donne’s. Donne, reaching out for faith, is in an agonized struggle against this world. Herbert has made his choice and seems comfortable with it.

Jan finds no comfort in the notion that we will all return to unrecognizable dust, but this is not the case for Herbert himself. While the poet’s body is learning the lesson of the dust, his immortal soul is praying to God, and therein lies his consolation.

The same is true in "The Quip". The worldly pleasures pass by, and he sees their attraction, but there is never any doubt of the outcome. He easily answers his tempters and is content to wait for God’s final answer.

Up until "The Quip", I have needed the full 3 days for each poem. Sometimes one of these days has been breathing space, or time spent mulling over what I have already said or read or thought, but the pace hasn't been too fast. Certainly "The Quip" doesn't need 3 days. Perhaps the time should vary with the complexity of the poem. I'll go along with what everyone wants. If we go too fast for me, I will push myself or skip an occasional poem.

In any case, it would be helpful to have a reminder in the heading of the dates to be spent on the poem.

like you Pat it often takes me a day or so to mull over especially after I read what others have said and put that in the mix - and so I am content with the three days -

All I get from this is that Herbert's mind is rigidly unpersuaded by any form of reason or emotion or desire. This would seem a virtue in a true believer but to me it seems he has been totally brainwashed by doctrine.

I agree with those that find they often need three days: two to deal with the poem intensely, and a "down day" for a more relaxed look.

And to that Jan adds that Herbert is 'totally brainwashed.'

We all know what Herbert would say to that. He certainly seems to be a totally committed churchman, totally immersed in the High Anglican service. Perhaps he was a true believer as well, but he could probably make a pretty good case for being so.

How does he come across as a poet, Jan? Is any poet rational? Aren't they ideologues at the very least? Of what use would reason be for him. Just look at the problem Donne had with it:

'Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, / But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.' Sonnet XIV

Anther Churchman speaking. But only a generation later the brilliant Earl of Rochester, hardly a god-fearing man was also disillusioned with reason In his famous Satire against Mankind, he writes:

'Reason, an Ignis fatuus, in the Mind,

Which leaving light of Nature, sense behind,

Pathless and dang'rous wandring ways it takes,

Through errors, Fenny-Boggs, and Thorny Brakes:

Whilst the misguided follower, climbs with pain,

Mountains of Whimseys, heaped in his own Brain:

Stumbling from thought to thought falls head-long down,

Into doubts boundless Sea...'

So that would be my reply to your provoking post. It's not like Herbert feels he's home free. There is a lot of conflict in his blessed assurance. Or so it seems to me.

Joan, that was a beautiful flip/flop, pardon the expression. I was so happy you didn't delete the post that started it all...

Poetry will do that to you.

JAN: so here we have Paglia, who calls herself an agnostic, giving us three men dealing with aging and death: a (probable) agnostic, and two who are committed to different versions of Christian belief. It is a smorgasborg -- take from it what you want and leave the rest behind. Complaining that you don't agree with one of them is like complaining that there is more than one dish to choose from on the table. If your view of the universe isn't represented in these three, wait -- there will be more.

If I am going to undulge in nonsense, my taste runs to Edward Lear. "The Owl and the Pusseycat" is far more appealing to me than someone divesting himself of all his human capabilities to prostrate himself before an imaginary being. Tarting it up with poetry makes it no more palatable to me but of course, tastes vary.

FAKI--Have a good vacation and come back. I saw the author of Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood on Book TV (C-Span). she was absolutely magnificent. She read some sections from the book that nearly moved me to tears. She seems to have mastered remembering the child's viewpoint while merging it with the adult sensibility.

PatH--"Love," the third offering from Herbert will go up tomorrow night followed by "To His Coy Mistress" Sunday night. I agree that the pacing can move up a little. We will need a few days for Marvell's poem, probably the most famous seduction poem in the language.

Buckle your seatbelts, folks. We are on a more rapid roll.

Maryal

I can certainly appreciate the advantage of a day to "mull," but with a temperment like mine, I need to be reminded of this. My lifetime drive has been, I'm afraid,"Let's get on with it!" This is why I love the interactive capability of what internet searching provides: Instant access to a variety of sources until I am exhausted and then I have to "mull" before I take off again. What a life!!

With Pagalia, I imagined Christ's temptations in the desert, accosted not through the guise of a "Quip" but through direct "altercation." Both Christ and the speaker triumph over temptation, one over bombast and the other with direct and unequivocal seriousness.

By the way, I have a question: What does Pagalia "mean" by the "trap of precosity" and then explains the reference to this word as becoming "narcissistically self-referential (a problem of medieval scholasticism as well as modern poststructuralism." Well here I go off to the races, trying to link this reference to subjects I don't know enough about...yet.

Bern

- In a Lecture-Room by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Good-morning, Fool... Three times a week You hold us helpless while you speak, Teasing our thirsty souls with the Sleek 'yeas' of your philosophy... Well, here we are, your hundred sheep, Tune up, play on, pour forth ... we sleep... You are a student, so they say; You hammered out the other day A syllabus, from what we know Of some forgotten folio; You'd sniffled through an era's must, Filling your nostrils up with dust, And then, arising from your knees, Published, in one gigantic sneeze... But here's a neighbor on my right, An Eager Ass, considered bright; Asker of questions.... How he'll stand, With earnest air and fidgy hand, After this hour, telling you He sat all night and burrowed through Your book.... Oh, you'll be coy and he Will simulate precosity, And pedants both, you'll smile and smirk, And leer, and hasten back to work.... 'Twas this day week, sir, you returned A theme of mine, from which I learned (Through various comment on the side Which you had scrawled) that I defied The highest rules of criticism For cheap and careless witticism.... 'Are you quite sure that this could be?' And 'Shaw is no authority!' But Eager Ass, with what he's sent, Plays havoc with your best per cent. Still—still I meet you here and there... When Shakespeare's played you hold a chair, And some defunct, moth-eaten star Enchants the mental prig you are... A radical comes down and shocks The atheistic orthodox?— You're representing Common Sense, Mouth open, in the audience. And, sometimes, even chapel lures That conscious tolerance of yours, That broad and beaming view of truth (Including Kant and General Booth...) And so from shock to shock you live, A hollow, pale affirmative... The hour's up ... and roused from rest One hundred children of the blest Cheat you a word or two with feet That down the noisy aisle-ways beat... Forget on narrow-minded earth The Mighty Yawn that gave you birth."

Maryal, you haven't even begun to tell us why Herbert is your favorite poet. Surely you must be looking beyone the 'nonsense' in his artistry.

I'm sorry. I have so much coming at me in the summertime I won't be able to keep up with the rest of you with the cranked-up scheduling.

Bern--I'll do my best to translate what I think Paglia is saying. First, here is the pertinent paragraph. It pertains to the stanza on Wit and Conversation:

The fourth temptation would be the most agonizing for a poet in love with words: "quick Wit and Conversation"--imagined as a single, hybrid being--stands for intellect or cleverness for its own sake (17). This character is one of those great talkers whose brilliance has evaporated into thin air because they lacked the will or patience to get it down on paper. As with Glorie, self-love is again the fault, just as appetite and acquisitiveness were perils for Beautie and Money. Bewitched by his own voice, Wit inflates every "short" point into a long-winded exegesis; whatever "comfort" (guidance) he offers is lost in the pedantry of a pompous "Oration" (18-19). That Herbert had been public orator at Cambridge University suggests he was well aware of the trap of preciosity, when language loses meaning because it has become narcissistically self-referential (a problem for medieval scholasticism as well as modern poststructuralism).Paglia, 41-42.

Herbert, because he was public orator, trained in public speaking, would have known that "preciosity" (fastidious refinement--I think of it as spinning words until the words themselves notice each other and remark on themselves) can be used to deceive and obfuscate. Think of those medieval churchmen who spent their words arguing about very small points of doctrine, spinning the conversation out in order, I think, to show off. And that's what Paglia accuses poststructuralists of--and I agree with her. Essentially, she makes her whole point clearly in the first sentence of the paragraph.

Back later. Off to movies--"Cinderella Man."

Maryal

Jonathan--That was the original reason for the slow schedule--summer. However, I think as we move closer to modern English, we can go a little faster. I plan to slow down for Marvell (To His Coy Mistress) and later for Emily Dickinson and others. In other words, the schedule will be somewhat erratic. Please stop in as much as you can.

More on Herbert later, I promise.

Actually, I think my current favorite poet is Wallace Stevens. Herbert was my favorite poet when I was in Grad. school, along with T.S. Eliot. Paglia and I don't agree about Eliot.

hmmm I am beginning to think I am having a different interpretation of this poem than the rest of you - I saw the line "To meet together, where I lay," to mean that his chums would come to see him laid out after his death and share their memories of his life on earth, rather then judging his worth based on these behaviors designed by the Church and therefore by God where as his chums who would have judged his worth on earth as he behaved in their good company.

"At first" and "Whose hands" sound to me like a surprise asking - as if talking in death saying - what is going on here I expected my chums. Followed by his reviewing his past as he waits in line for judgment -

"Yet when the houre of thy designe
To answer these fine things shall come"

I guess the hour of thy design could be in the future and not eminent after death - but then I would not know how to understand the bit about the chums seeing him laid out...

Barb--and because of "where I lay," I took it to be a sort of dream where these characters out of an allegory came to visit him (and tempt him) one by one. Isn't it interesting how such a short phrase can point in different directions?

Here's one of Herbert's poems--I think I referred to it earlier--that I identify with. I was a "defiant" child and have worked against my basic nature all my life. The title of this poem functions as an outside part of the poem. The collar--first and foremost an ecclesiastical collar--but also a dog's collar by which one pulls the dog back with the leash.

The Collar

I Struck the board, and cry’d, No more.
I will abroad.
What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the rode,
Loose as the winde, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me bloud, and not restore

The What I have lost with cordiall fruit?
Sure there was wine
Before my sighs did drie it: there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the yeare onely lost to me?
Have I no bayes to crown it?
No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?
All wasted?
Not so, my heart: but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit, and not. Forsake thy cage,
Thy rope of sands,
Which pettie thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law,
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away; take heed:
I will abroad.
Call in thy deaths head there: tie up thy fears.
He that forbears
To suit and serve his need,
Deserves his load.
But as I rav’d and grew more fierce and wilde
At every word,
Me thoughts I heard one calling, Childe:
And I reply’d, My Lord.

The "board" in the first line would be a table--think of the expression "bed and board." There may be an additional pun on the title. Choler--anger, which the poem is full of. The image of the poet hitting a table (with the flat of his hand, with his fist?) and saying "I've had it. No more" I love that. I also love the end of the poem where the angry poet gets a response. His tantrum apparently over, he returns to his vocation.

I like the way Herbert uses the language of Petrarchan love poetry here. He is the suitor and God is the desired one (whose job it is to keep rejecting). The poet here has apparently had enough of his vocation, enough of always being "in suit" to his lord. He will hit the road, get out of there. After all, he is a free man, no slave.

All that business of sighs and tears is also part of Petrarchan conventions which by Herbert's time had become pretty old and overused. When used by Petrarch, they are delightful, but everything wears out in time. In this poem, Herbert gives them new life by using them for a different relationship--the poet's relationship with God. And notice that we have a "call" in the last line and it is the poet's vocation (calling) which has been the center of the poem.

A note on the lines. A number of the lines should be spaced in quite a few spaces from the left hand margin. I don't know how to do that.

But if you look at a printed version of "The Collar," you will see how raggedy the left margin is.

Maryal

If you go HERE http://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/Collar.html , you can scroll down a little and see a photograph of a printed version of "The Collar."

Discipline

THROW away thy rod,
Throw away thy wrath:
O my God,
Take the gentle path.

For my hearts desire
Unto thine is bent:
I aspire
To a full consent.

Not a word or look
I affect to own,
But by book,
And thy book alone.

Though I fail, I weep:
Though I halt in pace,
Yet I creep
To the throne of grace.

Then let wrath remove;
Love will do the deed:
For with love
Stonie hearts will bleed.

Love is swift of foot;
Love 's a man of warre,
And can shoot,
And can hit from farre.

Who can scape his bow?
That which wrought on thee,
Brought thee low,
Needs must work on me.

Throw away thy rod;
Though man frailties hath,
Thou art God:
Throw away thy wrath.

~George Herbert

Here, as in "The Collar," the left margin is broken. The third line in every stanza is indented to about halfway across the line.

The Pulley

WHEN God at first made Man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by—
Let us (said He) pour on him all we can;
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way,
Then beauty flow'd, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.

For if I should (said He)
Bestow this jewel also on My creature,
He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness;
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast.

~George Herbert

Here again the title functions outside the poem. Why on earth, the reader asks, is this poem called "The Pulley"? The answer lies in what pulleys do, ie. aid in pulling something toward you.

The scene: God is creating man. He is pictured as a sort of chemist who is pouring various virtues out of a "glass of blessings". Strength, beauty, wisdom, honor, pleasure--all these blessings, and I personally think some others as well, and then when the container is almost empty, only one blessing lies within the glass--REST, as in rest from work and the business of the day. Then we get a whole lot of punning on "rest." The danger, as God sees it, is that if REST were given to man, man might rest in the Creation and forget about God. And then in the first line of the fourth and final stanze, another turn on the word REST--"Yet let him keep the rest"--Let him keep all the other blessings I have poured out on him.

REST--the need for it--is the Pulley that will "toss him to My breast" if goodness isn't enough to lead him.

I think this poem shows Herbert's ability to play with words very clearly.

Can you recall your high school or college days in a poetry class where your eyes became glassy or your ears stopped as your instructor droned on about the cultural and literary wonders of Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress?" Or if you were like myself loved every minute of it.

Enter now into the Digital Age and the Virtural Classroom. Click everywhere and anywhere that suits your fancy--the page is alive!

Begin with listening (left corner)

Do you think Pagalia would agree with the feminist view in the Criticism section?

This is how our students are learning learning today. This is an opportunity to participate yourself. Love it or hate it, it's here to stay.

To "His Coy Mystress"

I would love to see your experience of this approach!!

Bern

I hope you'll pardon this interruption from a viewer and non participant but those posts 544 and 545 on The Collar just blew me away. That link! The actual photograph of the original BOOK! I was mesmerized by that book, just can't stop looking at it, it's hypnotic, the way the lines are aranged, the age of the thing, wow wow wow. Deems's explanation of the use of the language of Petrarchan love poetry, and then, as if all that were not enough, the additional richness of more explanation on the linked page, and the music, even! Awesome, just awesome.

The posts from the participants here are likewise marvelous, and Deems, thank you for giving us all the gift of your incredible knowledge, I am totally blown away by this incredible happening on our boards. Awesome!

sorry to burst in but I'm sitting here with jaw dropped and unable to stop clicking on the link and rereading all the points about The Collar. Awesome, just....(I never heard of Herbert!)

The quote is from Deem's post #544.

I would also like to quote Bern's question in post #548, having to do with Marvell's COY MISTRESS:

'Do you think Paglia would agree with the feminist view in the Criticism section?" (In the link to The Coy Mistress)

I don't know what Paglia would think, but I was disgusted by that point of view. If correct, it would be like God accusing Herbert of insincerity, of being a hypocrite. And if anyone ever talked to God like he really believed in him, it must be Herbert.

Just imagine. Some of the imaginative things seen in that feminist view. And who is to say that being feminist is not a further dimension of being coy.

What could be more realistic than Marvell's proposals? Let's get on with it before Herbert comes along and draws melancholy lessons from our ashes.

I believe the coy mistress loved the poem, and was happy to have the ravishment drawn out for an age.

OK, everyone, our final poem by George Herbert is up.

Comments?

Is it easier to read Herbert now that there have been a few?

JONATHAN: you lost me with your post 559.

I agree that I didn't think much of that "feminist interpretation". Remember, that is only ONE feminist's interpretation, just like your interpretation is one man's interpretation and mine is one woman's interpretation. It's clear that Paglia doesn't agree with it, since hers is different.

But I don't see how an interpretation of Marvell would imply that Herbert is a hypocrite. What do they have to do with each other?

Does anyone else get a picture in their heads of John speaking to Christ at the last supper as if Herbert has the simple and sincere love of a John....

Sorry! I jumped ahead of myself in my last entry. I did not notice there was another poem by Herbert to discuss.My purpose in introducing this link related Marvell's work was simply to share how concisely the internet can so grab a variety of topics and points of view related to a particular subject. When I chanced upon the suggested feminist critical view of the poem, I smiled a little at how a modern view like this one can impact upon an interpretation of a poem. I meant for readers to see the breadth of views a poem can generate. I did not mean for it to detract from the poem itself.

Here is a thought about Herbert:

There has been some discussion already about how metaphors about love and love making have served to express both human and divine relationships. It seems that persons in the 16th and 17th century took this subject more "in stride" than us moderns. Critics say though, that Herbert is at home with subject too. His expressions are gentler, less "passionate" than some other poets. Herbert has written three poems with subject titles "Love". Reading them together has given me a clearer idea of how unique and personal Herbert's poems are in expressing what the relationship between God and the individual can be.

Love Poems

Barbara, I have a few questions myself.

I must admit, that in my view, Pagalia seems to be "stretching her applications" and allusions, and for me at least, this feels like speculation instead of revelation of the truth that the words and ideas themselves communicate. A sentence like the following puts my mind in a tizzy:

" Love's response is Zen-like: to illustrate how self-entrammeled is humanity by fallible words, he uses touch an punning to circumvent everyday logic."

I know what "everyday logic" means but the allusion, the vocabulary and the sentence structure drive me "crazy." I find myself asking, "What is Pagalia trying to say?"

Bern

Paglia seems to me to be making a bit of a stretch in finding so much homoeroticism in "Love". I can see that the language of the poem allows this interpretation, but that’s not the feeling I get from it. I see more of a straightforward allegory of redemption of someone who is hesitant because he knows his own unworthiness. I don’t know if I’m not subtle enough or she is being too subtle.

As things go, Herbert went.
I consider time with him
Ill spent.
His poetry, so much devoted
To professions of abject desire
For a God much noted
For cruelty and consignment
Of confused souls into fire
When a God could,
With facility,
Have acted with humility,
And corrected divine mistakes
With infinite compassion, understanding,
And, perhaps, a celebration
Of acceptance
With holy ale and cakes.

Joan, I guess I was trying to be metaphysical in my solution to some crazy connections I was making among several posts and the link to the feminist's view in the Coy Mistress link. I meant to emphasize Herbert's true devotion to his God.

As you yourself have pointed out each poem does not end in itself. It continues on to the next. Paraphrasing Donne: 'no poem is an island by itself...' Did I understand you correctly?

Barbara, yes, I get the picture. Of course. Your suggestion fits Herbert's relationship with The Master, exactly.

That's alright, Bern. I love your hurry and your eagerness. I've speeded up my whole schedule, to get the big picture. In that connection I would like to recommend a book I've started reading. Elaine Feinstein's, TED HUGHES: The Life of a Poet. Of course half of it is about Sylvia Plath. Her poem DADDY is beginning to make sense. I think it could just as easily have been titled MOMMY.

What is marvelous about Marvell is his deep appreciation for the tangible attainable things offered by being alive instead of pining for the thin shadows of watery imagination. His lust for a love of solid flesh and almost panic at how its pleasures demand full appreciation before they vanish when that final bell is rung resounds through the poem so that being alive is a real joy.

Jan, I loved your poem about poor Herbert, especially since it is followed by our encounter with Marvell. What a halarious seduction poem. I can imagine the fair lady being "enraptured" not seduced with the baldness of the speaker's intent. I can only imagine her response--from a "feminist" perspective, of course.

Bern

My "definiton" of diction is a close reading of words where the definition is not as important as how these interpretations hang together, and in this case, to reenforce the poet's intent. The link below shows how this works. Hope you like it!

The questions beneath the comments are "meat" for discussion.

To His Coy Mistress

The poem you have been hungering and thirsting after--no doubt because it is not new to anyone--and is famous--and has some wonderful language in it--is now up in the heading. We'll spend a couple of days with it so that everyone has a chance.

Marvell wrote a wonderful long poem "Upon Appleton House" which is a tribute to the Fairfax family for whose daughter, Mary, he was a tutor. He also wrote a number of other poems, but this is the one that everyone associates with his name.

Maryal

How cruel of Paglia to have Marvell following so closely after Herbert. We now have to consider earthly illusions as against heavenly illusions. These poets really put one to a lot of trouble. Who is pining more? Herbert or Marvell? Who with optimism, and who with despair? A love that lasts forever? Or a love with a momentary thrill? A refusal on the one hand. On the other an invitation to 'sit down, and taste my meat.'

And it get's trickier when one considers what each one considers a crime. Comparisons are odious, sometimes, but this one might be worth it.

Something Herbert said somewhere would make this sort of thing a waste of good talent. The sort of thing he wanted not to compose. He felt a higher calling. This courtly stuff he left behind when he went to Bemerton.

Marvell quite clearly sets the parameter of his amour with the first lines which indicates that time is fleeting and he wanted to make merry while he could. It is a celebration of a life that, like a glorious display of fireworks, must be acknowledged as a delightful display. To my mind this is a wonderful acceptance of pragmatic reality rather than the cockeyed illusion that there is an everlasting existence which never has been more than pie in the sky.

Like any artistic comment on the nature and effect of the world, poetry is a discipline which utilizes many of the tools of the mind and of the materials of language to create its effects. No doubt a badly forged thought can be made interesting by linguistic jewelry much as a tyranosaurus rex might be adorned by Christmas balls and neon lights but the damned thing is still a horrid raptor. A poem is worthwhile to me when it elucidates reality in a way I had not perceived before. Which is why I prefer Marvell to Herbert.

Well lots of pretty words but he wouldn't sway me with his insistence on meeting his needs and making his life more bearable or rather less of a waste while he is on this earth - but no word as to her needs or how she will be happier except to please him - sheesh...but then that is the feeling about the message and not about how he says it...sorry can't seem to get there - he comes across to me as one charming selfish bore...regardless how pretty he expresses himself.

The implication is that the Coy Mistress has needs that will be met too, once she overcomes her reluctance. "...and while thy willing Soul transpires At every pore with instant Fires....Let us roll...all Our sweetness up into one Ball....we will make him (our Sun) run.

Hmmm I see him putting words in her mouth - not asking but then, I know, I know, this is a poem from one voice and I am being much too practical here...

BARBARA: " I know, I know, this is a poem from one voice and I am being much too practical here".

Yes, perhaps, but you have a point. This poem has the same fault that Pat pointed out in the flea: her concerns and reasons for refusing him are minimized and implicitly shown as trivial -- in Donne because what he asks for is defined as trivial, in Marvell because it is assumed that she is just playing a game and will yield eventually.

Nether poet ever (in the poems) asks her reasons for refusing and deals with them. If the sexual "double standard" then was like it has been in much of history, what is "fun and games" for him could be a life altering, even life destroying decision for her.

I notice even after Donne has his religious conversion, he's only concerned that his "sinne" will send him to hell. He still doesn't worry about the effects on the women he sinned with. This attitude seems to have persisted in marriage: we are told that his wife had twelve children in twelve years and died of the last childbirth.

This is a criticism, not really of Donne and Marvell, but of the whole tradition. Like Jan, I, too, am entranced by the last two lines. I note they are very different in tone from Horace's ode containing "carpe diem".

As JoanK points out, given the social structure of the times of Marvell and Donne, a man’s request to make love was inevitably a selfish one, since the consequences were almost certain to be much more serious for the woman. Still, there is a difference in tone between the 2 poems. Donne uses a very clever and graceful argument to trivialize his mistress’ objections. Marvell is describing his own philosophy, in which the only thing that makes sense is to seize fiercely as much joy as possible in the short time available to him. He does seem to think that this makes sense for his mistress too, and that her life will be richer for the experience. Donne doesn’t even say "You’ll like it", only "You won’t mind it".

I hardly know what to say about this poem. I am almost too familiar with it. If I were in class, my temptation would be to read it out loud to the class and say, "There. See?" That would be a very poor way to begin a discussion though, wouldn't it?

You all seem to be so serious about WIT and cleverness. I think that in most cases we cannot know how serious the poet was in making his plea. It was the sign of being extremely clever and well-educated to be able to write complicated and sophisticated poems, sort of like playing a good golf game now might be for CEOs. A verbal facility was very respected. So I can read this poem and imagine that the lady is no more real than the poet's voice that praises, that it is a conventional situation--man makes clever argument to seduce young woman.

I admire this section of the poem:

Thy Beauty shall no more be found.
Nor, in thy marble Vault, shall sound
My echoing Song; then Worms shall try
That long-preserved Virginity,
And your quaint Honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my Lust:
The Grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Even in this poem with all its elaborate indirect praise of the lady--I'd sure give you all the time in the world to praise your beauty IF we had all the time in the world (but we don't), we have the skull looming in the not so far distant future.

Worms will get your maidenhead eventually (so you might as well yield to me now). It's lovely in the tomb, but warm bodies don't embrace there. And by the way, my genitals will turn to dust as well.

There's an archaic meaning to the word quaint which Paglia turns our attention to: "Marvell's mischievous strategy is a taunt: if you hang on to that thing too long, he warns, no one will want it! Pleasure is trumped by decay: her "quaint Honor" (chasity) and his phallic "Lust" will crumble into "dust" and "ashes." Her attachment to honor is "quaint" because it is intriguing yet unfashionable and antiquated. "Quaint" also puns on "queynte," a medieval word (it appears in Chaucer) for female genitalia" (Paglia 51).

Lest any of you think that Paglia is overreaching here, I remember looking the word "quaint" as a noun up in the OED back when I was in college. No wonderful internet access then, but some six large volumes--anyway, I looked up "quaint" as a noun and found the Chaucer quote used as illustration.

Maryal

Well Marvell would have won my heart with that poetry and my "quaint" as well I presume. I really liked this poem and hate to admit it but I've never read it nor have come across it in any of my reading. The guy's on a mission. He knows who and what he wants and is so elaborate and dramatic in his plea that yes, I fear I would have succumbed. In fact I agree with him. Hey, what the heck, one can NOT take it with them, tempus fugit indeed and so--- grab the moment.

Now that we seem to have exhausted the discussion of “To His Coy Mistress” as a seduction poem, what do you think about the poet’s other theme, “carpe diem,” a lament about the passage of time. I discovered that this theme is as prevailing as that of love itself. In fact,carpe diem's origin goes back to the Ancient Latin poet, Horace who wrote an ode about it.

Billy Collins, a contemporary American poet still has something to say about the subject: “Moments are the building blocks of time. Since we are mostly oblivious to the individual perceptions that make up our lives, it’s the job of lyrical poetry to bring us back to a sense of the momentary. Poetry’s oldest theme is “carpe diem” -- seize the day -- stretching back thousands of years. Poets are not coy about the sense behind this ancient imperative: We do not have an unlimited number of days.”

Here are two poets, old and new who are among the many who thought the words important enough to write a poem with that title.

Of these three poems about time which, do you think, is the most powerful?"

Shakespeare

Robert Frost

something is amiss with the links bmcinnis...

Robert Frost

Boy, I don't know what happened to the posting: hope all the posts don't do that.

Here is a link to Horace's Ode 1.11 from which the phrase comes, with a very literal non-poetic translation. I have a more lyrical translation if I can find it -- meanwhile you can see why Paglia avoided translated poetry.

The tone is quite different from Marvell. Instead of siezing joy in the moment, Horace is losing trust in the future. I'll be back when I've read the other two poems.

CARPE DIEM

Two different messages. I like the Frost better, although I don't agree with his idea. Shakespeare is too close to Marvell without the rich imagery. Frost makes me ponder. In the end, though, no. The present, if you really work on living in it, becomes both very rich, very layered, yet very simple.

Carpe diem has been interpreted as "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die". But there is a lot more to it than that. Life consists of a series of presents: if we don't live in the present, we don't fully live. This does not mean we can't plan and be responsive to concerns that go beyond the present. But at some point, we have to live right here, right now. There is noplace else.

I'll cast my vote for Nothing Gold Can Stay--Frost at his best. And I am a little in tune with the philosophy. Perfection, as I've experienced it, has only lasted a brief while. In other words, that which I think of is golden, is also transient.

I think Joan K is right about Horace. His emphasis falls on that might come in the future (unpleasant). I also think that Seize the day urges us to take advantage of and enjoy that which is in the present. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die is different because of the dying bit.

Sometimes it is very hard to stay in the present. I have practiced doing it ever since I noticed that I was no longer young. Some people enjoy the planning and anticipation of a trip more than the trip itself. I don't particularly like the looking forward to part but I love the adventure itself.

Hello, Jonathan, Jan, JoanK, PatH, Andy (ALF), Bern, Barb and Hats I think you're there too. Where's Marj? The brownies are running low.

O, and welcome Ginny who has crept in and looked around.

Well all I know preparing for a holiday especially Christmas is far more fun and fulfilling than the day itself...

However on the seize the day bit - to me if the emphasis is on seize - than I feel energized. "Seize" - seize the moment, the opportunity, the look see - like a kid feeling the cloth in the dry goods store even if you know your mom will scold - or, feel that fur laid on the back of the pew in front of you while you are kneeling during Mass -again knowing your mom will scold you under her breath - run out just as a storm is about to brake and feel the wind and those first big fat drops of rain -

Stop, even though several miles away and listen over the sound of traffic on a fall afternoon to the crowds cheering at a UT game and the band playing the UT fight song -

Open the front door at 2: in the morning when an rare, 5 year, snow fall covers the mesa and kids have gotten out of bed with their cardboard boxes and garbage can lids to whoop and holler as they slide down the big hill in the dark, before the morning sun melts it all -

Seize the magnolia off the tree and bring the delicious scent into the house - and watch each day till the first tomato turns red so that you can bite into it and let the juice squirt all over your clothes.

No matter how many times you have seen it and promised that there was more to do that watch TV on Memorial day weekend, tune in to watch the concert on the Washington lawn and feel your heart heave as the band plays America the Beautiful.

Find a silly reason to call on a friend or write an e-mail to the grandboys.

Delay an appointment just to watch a fawn being born and the first hour of care by the doe. Stay up all night a couple of times to watch what the deer do during the night.

Stop for every lemonade stand and every farmer who is selling fresh anything regardless who is in your vehicle with you - clients get a kick out of it.

Yep, seize the moment, the opportunity to smile...

That's wonderful Barbara. Marvell must be wishing he had chosen some of your delightful alternatives, and not the only one on which his motives would be questioned.

I share Andy's feelings about the poem. And Jan is on side as well. But I fear we are outnumbered. Well, they will never be able to say they weren't warned. And poor, conceited Marvell, could never have dreamed that it might be put to a vote.

It may be a line for some, but it's 45 beautiful lines for me, with every one of far greater worth than the rubies she is finding by the Ganges. Goodness, where are her priorities? Offered beautiful sentiments, great intellectual wit, dire but honest warnings, with the promise that together they can crash through the very gates of life, away from their transient former beings, to a new immortality of their own making. (I hope I haven't lost you, Jan.)

Who was the poet who said something like...one moment of glorious life is worth an age without a name?

I think I would like to go out swinging. I wonder whom I could persuade that tangos are great with a partner.

Gather ye Rosebuds While Ye May (Robert Herrick)

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

THE ARTIST AS TRAVELER IN TIME

Could I move through time the way I tread space
I would no more attempt to resee Caesar
Than stroll from Brooklyn out to Central Asia.
But within the tight neighborhood of my life
There are many things I would unknot and redo.
This then is the trap of traveling through time.

So a painter can revise, rethink, realign
The canvas as a total surface, so would we,
To attain a perfect life, analyze and reconsider,
Readjust each small component,
Remove a second here, a minute there,
Devise new particles of time and consequence,
Cement them tight into place.
We would become purists and at end,
Relate all to all.
It might be we could be satisfied by just one perfect moment.
All else wiped away, that moment erect in eternity .
A crystal dewdrop poised upon a green blade of summer grass
Glistening in the momentary glance of a summer sun.

Joan K, I loved your three entries--a great deal more enlightening than my three repetitions which were caused by my effort to paste in the addresses via Dreamweaver. The last one I got it right.

“But at some point, we have to live right here, right now. There is no place else.” Your comments are a great illustration of how time makes a difference when it comes to applying a concept like Carpe Diem throughout time. You’ve captured this in your entries.

Barbara, I was so enthralled with your expressions about your Carpe Diem, I decided to try one myself. How about my living-in-the-in between where the happenings of now trigger a new search for what was before to what it will be like tomorrow.

I like your thoughts better because they are so tactile and inclusive.

Jan, Wow! What a poem. Here is my take on it. (forgive me if I have displaced your intent in any way.) Each moment we live allows us to “Devise new particles of time and consequence” leaving the undoing to others more adept than we until that “one perfect moment” hovers above and beyond eternity like “a crystal dewdrop poised upon a green blade of summer grass Glistening in the momentary glance of a summer sun.”

Thanks to all for the many “perfect moments.” Bern

Yes, brownies. Where's Marj and the brownies? Some of us are so busy eating, we're not saying anything.

Wonderful posts! BERN: thanks for the kind words BARBARA, thanks -- you have really told us how to do it. JAN : great as always!

I only looked at Frost's "Carpe Diem". I'll go back and revisit the others. I love "Nothing Gold Can Stay" too.

A ruby, a beautiful red stone, usually expensive are second in hardness only to diamonds. Perfect rubies are less common than perfect diamonds, and are usually much more expensive. Rubies are transparent to translucent.

Before wearing the gem, place it in unboiled milk or Ganges water. It should then be worshipped with incense and flowers.

A Sun mantras should be chanted 108 times per week, best at sunrise, noon, and sunset on a Sunday. the "king of gems"

The blood of the high and mighty demon Vala was taken by Surya, the sun-god, who then fled into the blue vastness of space. Ravana, the great king of Sri Lanka, who was puffed up with his power and his victory over the demigods, attempted to block the sun-god's flight in the sky like a solar eclipse. Appearing terrified of Ravana's fearsome presence, the Sun-god dropped the demon's blood, which fell down into the deep pools of Bharata which were surrounded by forests of betel nut trees and scintillating with sunlit waves. (Bharata or ancient India, as referred to in the text, included Burma, Siam, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet and of course, Sri Lanka.)

From that time on, these pools became as holy as the sacred Ganges River and were known as Ravana-Ganga. The banks of these waters became covered with precious gemstones, all sparkling with dazzling splendor. Beautiful and effulgent rubies, as well as other colors of corundum, possessing manifold virtues, are the gemstones which originated on the perfumed shores of Ravana-ganga.

The rubies from these fragrant lands are found in a variety of hues. Some are red like human blood, while others resemble the red of pomegranate seeds. Some rubies are vermillion red and others are yellowish-red like saffron or shellac dye. These should be evenly colored with light shining from their very core. Being illuminated by rays of the sun, this crystal species shines forth with wonderful color and brilliancy, reflecting in all directions and spreading rays all around. Ancient Vedic Gem Lore

"Nothing Gold Can Stay" is the linchpin of SE Hinton's novel, The Outsiders (Francis Ford Coppola's movie of same name, too).

I will type in a Frost poesy at some point, if Deems permits. Maybe when it ties in with the "poem of the day (or days)."

OK I have been pulling this poem apart and trying to get past the sickening feeling I have reading the poem again. Analyzing I think I figured out where the insult is located in this poem

I started by looking up what Coy really means and was surprised to learn it simply means: Tending to avoid people and social situations; reserved. And in middle English coy means quiet, or still. I think most of us think the word means what coquettish means: flirtatious sexy - marked by or tending to arouse sexual desire or interest.

Seems like he has decided even with more time he would complain - with the reference to the tide of Humber - The Humber is a large tidal estuary forming part of the boundary between northern and southern England.

And so while she is sitting by the Ganges finding rubies he is complaining over the boundary separating them.

Then he goes into his spiel about loving her deeper than the ocean sort of thing. And this is where it really sets it up for me as dehumanizing her - he talks about his passion in a framework of time for her various body parts - not who she is, her loving ways, her character, her beauty, softness or statuesqueness or any other description of a women with a soul but rather, body parts - he praises her eyes, forehead, breasts, other parts of her body and finally her heart. She may just as well be a turkey served on a platter. And the way he describes the attention to her heart it is because she "rates" high on his scale of ladyship and he would not stoop lower...sheesh...

And so, in eternity, that I imagine since he says time's chariot at his back to mean after death, her beauty will be no more. What beauty is he speaking about - oh of course the beauty of her body parts at this time in her life - certainly doesn't sound like he is talking about the beauty of her spirit, or her lovely virtues.

Of course he must add a bit of risqué sexual talk - "then Worms shall try That long-preserved Virginity"

Well it is here that I said - hold the phone - what does seize really mean -- "To grasp suddenly and forcibly; take or grab" Oh - grab - hmmm - does that mean take what is not yours or what you want and manipulate to grab what is not yours - certainly my view of seize was to take spur of the moment what was offered --

hmmm and the definition goes on; "To take into custody; capture. ~~ To take quick and forcible possession of; confiscate" -- Well this is sounding more like war than taking advantage of the good things in life..."To lay sudden or forcible hold of"...Holy Hannah this is power in the raw...dictionary - seize

And so I thought, coy hmmm when or are there any men who are coy - off to Google - male coy - and lo and behold what comes up but lots of references to Narcissus - Narcissus and Echo - I read several sites telling the tale and then it hits - if you replace time with the word water you could see what is happening here -

Of course this is all about the "Him" the seducer, this is a narcistic view of seizing or capturing what "His" passion is all about - it is not a love poem or even a seduction poem to a her -

In book III of Metamorphis there is the tale of Narcissism who sees himself and falls in love, then laments the pain of unrequited love and finally is changed into a flower.

In this site the the pain of unrequited love Narcissism says, "Do you remember in your life that lasts so many centuries... I am enchanted and I see, but I cannot reach what I see and what enchants me’ – ‘and it increases my pain the more, that no wide sea separates us...[the Humber tide]...We are only kept apart by a little water!...[by time rather than water]...Why do you disappoint me...You offer me some unknown hope with your friendly look...I am burning with love...not much time is left for me to live, and I am cut off in the prime of youth...as morning frost thaws in the sun, so he is weakened and melted by love, and worn away little by little by the hidden fire."

And so where I see this poem as a disregard for a woman as a living, loving creature with feelings and virtues and beauty into a seduction of her body parts that will satisfy a lustful request for sex before the chariot of death arrives and her beautiful parts are worm eaten it is also a clever turn of a phrase so to speak of taking the story of Narcissus and making this a poem more about the very thing that offended me - a poem of seduction that was selfish in its regard of a woman as an object of his desire or passion.

Though Marvell’s taradiddles
May pose a raft of riddles
As to what the man really meant,
There really is no question
That his dominant suggestion
Was that life and love is much too quickly spent.

The years are most unkind
To the face and the behind
Where either can become most uncouth.
So Marvell simply urges
That all our hormone surges
Should be given proper outlet in our youth.

So hurray for someone wise
Who can readily surmise
That life can be wasted on the staid.
Let’s make love while we can,
Take advantage, gal and man
Of the opportunity to get sweetly laid.

JAN: since we are all well past our youth, does that mean we've missed our chance? Speak for yourself!

The opportunities are surely still there but considering the side effects of a relationship one becomes somewhat more cautious. At least I do.

Marvell is using traditonal Petrarchan apparatus in praising his mistress, Barbara. The lady always had alabaster skin, usually blue eyes, teeth like pearls, lips of rosy red, flowers bloomed on her cheeks, her breasts were milky white pillows, and on and on. And yes, the praise was usually resticted to her physical outside--her body. And only to those parts of the body that the poet could see or get a sense of. When Petrarch was busy idealizing his Laura, young men and young women did not see each other in public alone, or usually at all. Except in church. In church a young man might gaze upon a young woman if he were circumspect. And perhaps if he was really lucky he might see her entering or leaving church.

So, yes, the physical aspects of the lady. Marvell follows tradition here.

I'd say the fact that the poet addresses his elaborate argument, for it is an argument, to his mistress, implies that he surely appreciates her mind since she would have to have some background knowledge of courtly love, geography, metaphor and language, even to follow his logic.

Kevin--If you see a tie-in to a poem you want to type in here, by all means do so. Just don't eat all of Marj's brownies. I have taken the last batch out of the freezer and I sure hope she returns to us soon.

I take this poem as many of you do, an incitement to revel in the faculties we have (I'm extending it to include more than youth) while we have them and to appreciate them.

JoanK--A fiesty response--good for you. From what I read, sex is certainly not just for the young and all bodies are beautiful in the eyes of the lover. Hoooooh, more romantic than I generally turn!

Maryal

During one Magic Time in my youth, I visited Muir Wood in California. I was so humbled among those immense trees, I could not get enough of looking at them. Then I noticed at the foot of one a spider's web, glistening with dew in a shaft of sunlight. The contrast of agelessness and fragility struck me with wonder. The image has stayed in my mind all of my life and has offered a refuge in stressful moments.

Shoot Maryal it is not her mind I think he should be praising but to limit his praise to body parts to me is a turn off - traditional or not, famous poet or not, today we can say that this patriarchial version of "power-over" is self-centered. To continue to hold on high the flag of scintillating sex using women as an object, we continue the concept of self-centered love making as a virtue just because it was put into Petrarchan sonnet by a poet revered for generations. Even in Italy the fame of Liliana Cavani has replaced Gina Lollobrigida and Sofia Loren, sex goddesses of the 60s.

Seems to me at least the root of this self-centered approach could be examined within the context of the words chosen as well as, taking a look at the similarities in myth and the work of other poets. Why would we accepted this nonsense without examining the objectifying of a women in the name of continuing the concept that desire is male driven - and that satisfying his passions is based in a self-centered view of his sexual needs that are an estuary away from hers.

I agree, BARBARA. DEEMS, maybe this is why you feel that the women in the poems are not real. They aren't. This is not a criticism of Marvell, but of the whole tradition.

But we can both appreciate the poem, the richness of its imagery, its enjoyment of life while we see its limitations. I said in an earlier post that poetry finds out who you are. We will see these poets that we read much more clearly and completely than we are used to seeing other people with which we have a brief encounter: both their brilliance and song and their human warts and pimples. It can be unsettling. All of us will find things we really dislike -- I in Paglia, Jon in Herbert, Barbara in Marvell. Hopefully we will find more to like and admire. By the time we finish, we should have covered the whole range of humanity, and be the richer for it.

This is a very serious matter indeed. Men getting their jollys at the expense of women. Perhaps there is something to be said for seeing just one line in the forty-six.

Be patient. Women do eventually find a voice. If Petrarch had his blazon, so does Paglia have hers. Paglia is setting us up for DADDY. Or, perhaps providing a moral foil for the starkness of the next selection. Men love to dally. Donne and Herbert dally with their God. Marvell dallys with his mistress. Blake brings us down to earth with a thud.

Blueshade, I've seen it too in the woods, after a sun-shower. The trees are dressed with dazzling jewels. A raindrop can seem a bit of fire, even at hundreds of feet.

Somehow I get the impression here that women are being imposed upon by being invited to exercise their sexual capabilities. Sure, there is the tradition that they like to be persuaded but hey! don't they get their kicks too? Who is using whom - or maybe perhaps there is some mutual pleasure?

"We can appreciate the poem...while we see it’s limitations."—JoanK.

That’s exactly how I feel about this poem. I have commented on the unfair aspects of seduction in Marvell’s time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like the poem. It has long been a favorite of mine. There are many unforgettable phrases in it; some of them were catch-phrases between Bob and me—the sort of "insider joke" that married couples have which is so tedious for everyone else. And the last verse, escalating in intensity up to the white-hot last six lines is hard to beat.

I've always loved it myself. I've always felt that Marvell's lines had wings even greater than those on time's chariot. He seems to have remained ahead.

Barb--Of course the tradition itself is patriarchal. That's where we are--in the seventeenth century. You can sympathize with the lady all you want, but it won't change things in the seventeenth century.

Jan--The risk for the woman, of course, was pregnancy, not to mention loss of her good name and the fact that no man of good standing would have her.

We're back there, folks, where women were ruined and went for strolls by the Thames before jumping into it to drown.

But this poem is playful and erotic and almost refuses to take such serious concerns as pregnancy into consideration.

It is full of life, and notice that the mistress is saying NO. All the women in these seduction poems say NO. It's not like the poet succeeds in his endeavors.

Tomorrow, I think, we begin with Blake, the oldest of the poets we group together as the Romantic poets. When I was an English major, the head of the department was a Romantic Period scholar and thus all new English majors were required to take a full year of the Romantic poets. We did Wordsworth and Coleridge first semester (our professor had no fondness for Blake) and second semester was Byron, Shelley, and Keats.

And Chappie taught--or was supposed to teach--both semesters. The year I was a sophomore we all had him for first semester, and then he got ill. I think it was heart problems. At any rate, our very favorite professor of all, Dr. Mark Benbow, took over the second semester Romantics course and did we have fun. Yes we did; we all loved Benbow and I came to appreciate the Romantics.

So on to Blake and then Wordsworth, then Coleridge, then Byron, then Shelley, then -OOOOPS--Paglia doesn't seem to include Keats. Hard to believe. YIKES.

Maryal

It is insulting to women to assume that they are not capable of evaluating the potential risks and rewards of a relationship. To assume the inevitability of victimhood for women in a relationship is to assume they are basically naive. I grant them more than that.

hmmm interesting - it never occured to me to read a poem as a piece of history and place the characters as separate therefore, I could have feelings about the characters that are not included in the universal theme of the poem -

I am not sure I know how to do that and be true to, for example, what Robert Frost wrote; "Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words."

I guess since it is history we do not mention, like the elephant in the middle of the room, the remark about the Jews either...

I think poetry written and included in the western cannon can be admired and taken to heart, however, I cannot accept that we do not take the responsibility of acknowledging the lines which support the western white prejudices, used for hundreds of years to continue the power-over model towards race, creed, color, gender, or religion.

If the issue of power-over does not have meaning for you, that is your choice. However, please do not attempt to dilute the prejudicial thoughts written in a poem as less meaningful for me. By telling me how I should understand the poem as a statement of one women's historical experience separate from the whole, [the poem is included in the western cannon because of its universal theme] is not supporting what I value. Nor is it supporting the sense of responsibility many value when they acknowledge the arts as not honoring race, creed, color, gender, or religion.

Jan, I agree wholeheartedly with your statement:

"It is insulting to women to assume that they are not capable of evaluating the potential risks and rewards of a relationship."

It would be more "insulting" not to imagine that there could be a number of ways a woman would respond at any era. If we assume that the some women understood this "invitataion" for what it was, an exaggerated proposition on the Petrarchian theme that was being debunked at that time. I imagine this "liberated" personality responding with verse that was as equally savy and "coy,"-- a clever ironic "put down" to his invitation. The problem with the Western Cannon we hold so "sacred" is that we never, or almost never, see any poems written by women. There must have been some woman, somewhere at that time with a sense of humor.

Bern

Certainly there were women with a sense of humor. Who else would this kind of poem be written for?

OK Pat, name one. If there were any, the poets at that time seem never to have stopped trying to con them.

I don’t know her name, but Marvell’s poem is obviously addressed to a woman with a sense of humor. I assume he knew his audience, and tailored his approach accordingly. And why should he stop this approach? There were plenty of women around, might as well write them plenty of love poems.

It's not surprising to hear of a professor who had no fondness for Blake. He could at times frighten even the poets. And that takes a lot.

Barbara, you certainly found a lot of meaning for rubies. And it's meaning in the poem. Why did he choose rubies? So, of what significance is the 'conversion of the Jews' reference, for the poem? Was it poetical incorrectness?

I don't think Marvell's crowd were the type to jump off the bridge for anything.

Women can have the most wicked sense of humor.

My take on the Rubies is that they are second only to a Diamond in hardness and since there are fewer perfect Rubies when they are rare they are more expensive than a Diamond - therefore my take is that the coy mistress is showing a hardness that is rare and expensive.

During Marvell's time in history I do believe the Christian attitude was, the Jews just needed conversion and all would be well however, since we have the recent history during the last century of what western white prejudice was able to accomplish to rid itself of Jews and today we have anti-Semitism rearing its ugly head, I think to let a phrase go by without at least acknowledging it as prejudicial is not very responsible.

As to a women during this time seeing this as humor - there are a lot of things said that women grin and go on - so much that we are still sorting out all the put downs - when titillation is suggested that is at a women's expense I prefer to acknowledge that is what is happening rather than do an old 'grin and bear it' routine.

A women wiothout other choices may have, as Jimmy Buffet observes when asked why this [wo]man is laughing, "if we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane. Besides, crying and throwing up are bad for you."

I love poetry, warts and all, but I also feel responsible to acknowledge discrimination. Most of us have taken poems at face value but if while reading a poem, during these times when people are still struggling out of injustice, I feel responsible to note the mindset that silenced those who are objectified...

I own several books of women poets from this time in history - whose work is not included in the Western Cannon - the tone of these poems is quite different than the tone of Marvell. I could quote some of their work but that would be tedious since this is an issue that we do not all share with the same priority.

Let us move on - there are more poems and y'all know where I stand - I just do not want my values to be minimized that's all...

Paglia is careful to remark on Marvell's line about the conversion of the Jews:

"The couple would defy time too: patiently enduring her whims and rejections, the poet would blanket history with his love, from the primeval era of Noah's flood to the Second Coming, when Jews will allegedly turn Christian. The casual anti-Semitism, so dismaying to modern readers, shouldn't obscure the audacity of Marvell's premise: he is sacrilegiously conflating Christianity with his pagan cult of love, where either he or Eros displaces Christ." (Paglia 49-50)

Anti-semitism was rampant and continued to be so up through the modern period of American Literature. I can give you many examples in Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, as well as in other lesser known novelists. Shakespeare creates Shylock, the Merchant of Venice, a rapacious Jew.

Literature must be read, I think, with an historical perspective as well as with the heart. Otherwise one imposes one's cultural norms on the culture of another time.

Was anti-Semitism wrong? Of course it was. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't everywhere.

OK, Blake's London is up. We'll read the Chimney Sweeper second. I'll provide a little background information on William Blake a little later.

Maryal

Since the subject has arisen, it might be worthwhile to consider the Pacino interpretation. Although Shylock is presented as unswerving in his demand for cruel payment it is quite obvious that although he is driven by vicious assaults on his people, his religion, his family and his property and perhaps the frustration of his demands may satisfy anti-semetic prejudice, his position is not at all presented unsympathetically.

I think Paglia hit the right note with her term "casual anti-Semitism". Marvell is usingthe "conversion of the Jews" to indicate the end of time, since this is supposed to happen at the Second Coming; hence from the Flood to the Conversion of the Jews represents the whole span of history. He isn't even thinking about the Jews in themselves; it's just a catch-phrase to him. Now, it's on to Blake for me.

wow - duty over dreams of freedom and safety...as only can be seen if dead...

Are we really all victims to our earthbound existence where duty is our only salvation?

Jonathan you were right - talk about thud...!

WOW, you stay away for a little while and the poem changes. Thanks, Pat. We're now back with the book, "The Chimney Sweeper" and then "London."

Jan--Yes, and I think that Shylock is often portrayed as Pacino did--these days. What would be really interesting would be to see how the part was acted in Shakespeare's day. But--we can't know that. And yes, Shakespeare isn't as hard on Shylock as he might have been (the man just wasn't a bigot, was he?).

Pat H--I think you just explained Marvell's use of the "conversion of the Jews" better than Paglia does--exactly. The whole span of time (well, almost--Noah's early but not the earliest, but obviously easier to refer to than the whole garden of Eden thing) is exactly how I've always read those lines.

WOW!, to you Barbara, for your perfect lead-in to the miserable lives of the young chimney-sweeps.

'So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.'

'salvation', according to their exploiter, would come with doing their 'duties'.

Welcome to Blakeian anger.

I see nothing anti-Semitic in Marvell's poetic use of the phrase Conversion of the Jews. As everyone knew, that was not about to happen anytime soon. So it becomes part of the despairing lover's complaint. As for Paglia's notions about Marvell's audacity in 'sacrilegiously conflating Christianity with his pagan cult of love, where either he or Eros displaces Christ'...that's critical nonsense. IMO.

Both poet and artist, Blake was a sort of Pre-romantic. The Romantic period in English poetry really begins with Wordsworth and Coleridge. Born in London, Blake had no formal education. He was apprenticed to an engraver and earned his living as an engraver all his life.

He wasn't a professional poet or a man of letters. However, some of his lyrics were known and admired by Coleridge and others, and his paintings were valued by some of the better artists of his time. Harold Bloom, in an introduction to a selection of Blake's poetry, calls Blake "a self-taught radical Protestant, more than deeply read in the King James Bible and in Milton. They account for all but an insignificant part of his literary tradition."

Blake considered himself a prophet whose business it was to bring the truth of the situation of the lower classes in England to consciousness. He was always on the Left politically. The Revolutions of the period, both in America and in France, did not come to England. Blake came from the lower class and never forgot it.

He wanted his poetry to return people to the poetry of the English Renaissance. He found the poetry of the 18th century (Alexander Pope) unacceptable. He also wanted to give England painting like that of Michelangelo, a height England had never reached in painting.

Since the two poems we will be looking at here are both poems of social protest, I'll quote Bloom one more time:

"Blake's was a fierce spirit, akin to the greatest dissenters that the 'inner light' tradition of Protestantism has produced among the English."

Reading that, I thought of John Wesley, another ardent Protestant who deplored the living conditions in England and the general unconcern of the Church of England for the poor.

One note on the poem: The speaker of the poem is a young chimney sweep who was so young when he was apprenticed to the business that he could only say "Weep" instead of "Sweep," which, as Paglia points out would have been the cry on the streets to advertise the services of chimney sweepers.

Those of you who have seen (or read) Mary Poppins will remember the cheerful chimney sweep who courts Mary Poppins. I have forgotten his name (he was played by Dick VanDyck), but I can remember every word of the cheerful song, "Chim-chiminey, Chim chiminey, chim chim charoo." Blake's view is the realistic one. This was a grim business for a young boy.

I didn't quite realize we have progressed 200 years from Shakespeare already. Shakespeare's "ruined choirs" are being satirized as subjects of melancholy romance by Jane Austin, who weaves her own non-melancholy romances in quiet spinsterhood. People are reading the early Gothic tales. The religious wars are over and are replaced by wars against Napoleon. Big sailing ships are going to Africa and South America by way of South America. Those pesky colonists in America have gone their own way. And Blake lived to 70

A different world.

Golly I wanted to be quiet but for so many not to see this as anti-Semitic amazes me...all the Bible says is, "And, behold, I will send to you Elias the Tishbite before the great and signal day of the Lord come: and he shall turn the heart of the father to the son, and the heart of a man to his next of kin, lest I come and utterly smite the earth."

It was the faithful, that decided this meant in the last days before the judgment the Jews shall believe in the Christ who they have labeled the 'True' God - Among early church fathers even the Nicen fathers included this 'as the thinking of their following'.

The belief has been that the prophet Elias would return in his chariot of fire before the second coming of Christ as the judge, and fulfilling the hope for Christianity Elias would turn the hearts of the Jews who had previously hated, so they would love the Son who is the Christ.

If y'all remember the Jews were also, for a nearly two thousand years, blamed for the death of Jesus.

And so to casually accept this myth of the Jews accepting Christ as their savior in order to gain heaven as a definition of time, seems at the least a non-reverent comment towards the Jewish faithful.

Golly just how many insensitive old beliefs do we want to let go without comment, while allowing an author to trivialize the intention - I'm expecting next that we would let go as a by-the-way a reference to Aunt Jamima...

OK - I know, I know, we do not agree on this issue - OK, y'all think I am making too much of a big deal -

I shake my head in disbelief that we can discuss a historical pieces and not acknowledge the author's views while looking at the piece to see if those views are consistent and therefore, popping up in their writing - I am really flabbergasted - not angry or annoyed - just plain gobsmacked...!

Whoops a couple of post while I was writing - Looks like everyone is going forward - and yes, I will as well - yep, y'all can breathe...

JoanK and I are here at the same time. Thank you for reminding us of the historical backdrop, Joan. Yes, Austen is writing and revolutions are happening, both in America and in France, conditions in London are going downhill rapidly for many of the lower classes. And Blake lived to be 70! After all these dying poets, we finally get one who lived the promised three score and ten. And wait till we get to Wordsworth. He lived to be an octogenarian.

Paglia has skipped over some very important poets, especially Milton. But she is looking for short lyric poems and Milton has only long epics and sonnets. I think she decided not to do a sonnet which doesn't really represent Milton at all. And there aren't any poets here from the neo-classical period. Thank heaven.

Those of you who admire Pope can go read "The Rape of the Lock" on your own.

Isn't this poem of Blakes part of the Songs of Innocence that includes Tyger - hard to realize there is less than 100 years between his birth and the death of Marvell - the feel of the poem is very different as if we are really in the next era.

This is a nice site by Paglia on the Pre-Raphaelite Art where she says, "The Pre-Raphaelites revived Blake, who had died unknown."

On the bottom is a link to her page which links to many sites that feature this "Feminist Fatale."

Barbara--Interesting link. I didn't know that it was the Pre-Raphaelites who renewed interest in Blake. He was almost unknown at his death and never famous during his lifetime. But one short biography I read of him said that he died a happy and fulfilled man. In the essay (taken from Sexual Personae, there's a reference to Elizabeth Siddal, whom Rossetti obsessively painted. She died of a laudanum overdose. We will return to the subject of laudanum when we get to Coleridge.

I think this poem would be from Songs of Experience, the companion volume to Songs of Innocence. Gotta check that.

It was originally Songs of Innocence. Then Blake added Songs of Experience. You can see them both here:

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/blakeinteractive/works/songs_intro.html

The third poem is "Chimney Sweeper" if you would like to see it in Blake's handwriting with his illustrations.

The eighth poem is "London" which we will read next. Interesting illustration here.

There are also audio recordings of the two poems we are studying as well as summaries and brief critical comments. A good site. One would expect no less from the Tate.

Maryal

This is one of those poems I came upon during my adolescent "age of innocence." And my response has not changed.

Here are my thoughts:

Unlike Pagalia, I do not see lines 15...as a shift of voice, rather the the child's voice speaking-- only this time with a touch of a kind of "innocence" and touching irony.

Rereading this poem as an adult, with others, whose role is or has been a parent or a teacher, continue to experience vicariously childhood or adolescent "innocence" along with our children and our students have no need for Pagalia's account of that horrific litany we already experience as part of a whole lifetime of events that clash with our own nostalgia for the innocence we hoped could last longer

For me, the poem speaks in only one voice, that of an innocent child. What makes it more touching is the ironic shift in voice where the child speaks from an innocence that is so poignant for us, the "wise" and weathered ones.

Bern

I have long believed that we, all of us, have a responsibility to tell the stories of those who cannot speak for themselves. And poetry has always been one of the best ways to do this.

Edward Hirsch pointed out in "How to Read a Poem" that poetry has always, though the ages, been a voice of protest. “Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry” said Auden of Yeats.

The Russian poet Anna Akhmatova said :

I stand as a witness of the common lot 
survivor of that time, that place.

Shakespeare said:

                         Our size of sorrow 
Proportion’d to our cause, must be as great 
As that which makes it.

Wole Soyinka could have been talking about Blake when he said “Even when the poem emerges as essentially tender, its poignancy remains a yet more lacerating accusation”.

What more can be said that would add anything to Paglia's fine interpretation of the poem? She is certainly right in describing it as a thundering indictment of a 'callous society that enslaves and murders its young.' (p55) The chimneysweep's lamentable little tale is Blake's attempt to batter the conscience of England, an England proud of its civilization and culture, professing to be Bible-reading, basking in God's blessings, and probably finding comfort in hymns like John Newton's Amazing Grace. Are they too being deceived like the 'thousands of sweepers'? Or is Blake mocking these exploiters about their expectations, when the 'golden key' will unlock their coffins? On Judgement Day. It seems appropriate to see the thousands of sweepers as sacrificial lambs. But for the sake of clean chimneys? To have their chimneys washed in the blood of the Lambs? What a melancholy thought.

Washed clean of the soot. How heavenly it must have seemed to a child locked in a black chimney. To go leaping and laughing down a green plain. To wash in a river and shine in the sun. The poem is heartbreaking. Did the narrating Sweep often dream of his mother? Did Little Tom Dacre often talk about his father? It seems so.

JoanK--You touch me with your comment that we who can speak bear the responsibility of speaking for those who cannot. Surely Blake must have seen these young sweeps every day (he lived all his life in London) and as a boy who had been poor himself (his father was a hosier), he must have wondered what his life might have been had his father been a little poorer and more desperate.

I especially like how the narrator comforts little Tom Dacre who weeps for his lost hair. And we, the reader, see how poignant the comment is because if Tom hadn't become a sweep he'd have kept his hair.

I find Tom'd dream heartbreaking. He dreams only of the most ordinary joys of childhood, running free in the sunshine.

Child labor was a reality in England and this country until fairly recently. So many small ones sent to work so young. In the textile mills of New England very young children were put to work doing the simplest tasks.

My son is visiting this weekend so I may be a little laggard here. "London" will go up tomorrow night.

Have any of you checked out the website from the Tate? I really enjoyed it.

Maryal

I loved the website from the Tate. I bookmarked it to explore later.

Child labor is gone (I hope) in this country, but it's not gone. The chances are that at least some of the clothes we wear and the computers we sit at were made by children somewhere in the world, working in conditions as bad as those of young Tom Dacre.

I like the fact that Blake names the sweeps. The narrator has no name, but the young newcomer and the children he dreams about are all named. This makes them real people, not an abstraction.

I also like his use of the two children: the newcomer and the "old hand" (probably a couple of years older). The old hand has been indoctrinated, and is busy indoctrinating the newcomer, telling him it's good they cut his hair, he should do his duty. The overseer doesn't have to do it: the children keep each other in line.

The details break your heart. My young grandsons can't say "s" yet. If it were them, they would also say "weep, weep, weep".

The Tate site was great. I put a link in the heading.

The concept behind the poem is the very old Christian myth that life on Earth may be miserable but everything will be wonderful after you die. It is a religion of slaves who have no hopes on Earth.

The International Labor Organization estimates that 250,000,000 children are working, 120,000,000 full time. Some are in horrible conditions, like four year olds tied to rug looms so they won't run away.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH -- CHILD LABOR

JAN: you remind me of the old labor song (quoted from memory -- please correct):

Long haired preachers come down every night 
Try to tell us what's wrong and what's right. 
When we ask"How 'bout something to eat?" 
They will answer in voices so sweet: 

(chorus)"You will eat, bye and bye 
In that glorious land above the sky. 
Work and pray, live on hay 
You'll get pie in the sky when you die"

'Bring me my bow of burning gold! / Bring me my arrows of desire! / Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold! / Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight, / Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, / Till we have built Jerusalem / In England's green and pleasant land. '

Blake was making use of something even older than the Christian myth. He may even have influenced Marx, who convinced the Jews that waiting for the Messiah was futile.

At the time Blake was telling about the chimney sweepers, others were proud of their new-found principles freedom, equality, life, liberty and happiness for all.

On the other hand it was the Christian myth which sustained many American slaves for so many otherwise hopeless generations.

So Blake was a revolutionary. I had no idea. What was the situation in England then. The French Revolution was going on. Was England close to revolt at that time? If so, how did it resove? Does anyone know?

I wonder how one evaluates the poetry of protest in the canon of poetry. In one sense, it is less universal than other poetry, since it is always specific to "that time, that place". On the other hand, "man's inhumanity to man" seems to be just as universal as love, beauty, death, and the other great themes of poetry.

In spite of the fact that we don't have chimney sweeps anymore, I feel this poem speaking to me. More than the next poem, which is actually less specific as to time and place. I think it is because the very specificness of The Chimneysweep makes me realize that these are real people, children like the ones I know, spending their shortened lives in real suffering. Whereas the vague statement of "London" seem unreal -- lacking specific historical context, I find myself asking "What is he talking about? Why is the man tired, the baby afraid, the soldier bleeding, the harlot cursing?"

When I lived in New York I met a clever guy who made his living as a chimney sweep in Long Island. Here in Finland chimney sweeps still go house calling for business.

http://www.ncsg.org/

Jan--I assume that your chimney sweeps use brushes and not little boys? We have chimney sweeps around here too, but we don't have any of those convoluted pieced together chimneys as were present in England at that time.

Also, I think the references to doing one's best and having God for a father must be taken (by the reader, not by the boy) as the deepest of irony. Blake knew that the Church of England had no interest in the welfare of the poor. The situation at the time was that Pitt was in control and extremely repressive measures were enforced. Eventually the situation in England led to the formation of the Labour Party. But open revolution did not break out.

I think we need to take the references to having a loving father in heaven are to be taken the same way we take Pangloss's constant sayings to Candide, reminding him that he lives in the best of all possible worlds while Candide watches thousands die in earthquakes.

IRONY.

From Blake's other poetry I very strongly doubt he was ironic about God. His sense of wonder about the world indicates he greatly admired the sophistication and creativity of God.

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

I misunderstood you, Jan. Yes, Blake believed in God. He did not believe in the faith of his fellow Englishmen however. He wanted to restore a fundamental belief somehow. In his long poem, Jerusalem, he undertakes his role as prophet.

Notice all the repetition in this poem. What effect does it have for you?

What are your favorite lines or parts of lines?

I really like "London."

Do you?

Blake's "London" reminds me a bit of Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night" (typed below). Different, but similar. Both perambulatory, for sure. Only those boots are made for different walkings.

Acquainted With The Night
by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Blake's walk through the city is the walk of an activist, a sermoniser. Frost, more modern (or, shall we say, more reservedly American?), walks his city in a more passive, introspective manner.

Both hear and see evidence of mankind's suffering. But whereas Frost crosses paths with a watchman and drops his eyes, "unwilling to explain," Blake is MORE than willing to explain (do you have a minute, he seems to be saying, how about an hour?).

Unspoken in Frost, perhaps, is the message of Blake. Perhaps the despair, then, is the "acquaintance" Frost speaks of. And typical of Frost, we get the touch (how about the full-court press?) of nature, this time in the form of the moon -- "one luminary clock against the sky."

As for Blake, I don't know which poem is on deck in Paglia's book as it is long gone from my lend-lease library hands (have we considered a list of all the poems that'll be discussed in the header?), but my favorite is "Jerusalem" where he tackles the British myth of Great Britain being a "New Jerusalem." It has that line about England's "dark, Satanic mills" in it, which warms my anti-industrial blood (he says, mocking progress as he types on his keyboard).

"London" holds a special message for ladies "acquainted with the night," I see. A curse to children and the institution of marriage, it seems. Tighten your Bible belt a notch, then.

My favorite line, in this "Iraq Nam" era of politicians too proud to admit a mistake and save American lives by abandoning an old-school foreign misadventure, is "And the hapless Soldiers sigh/ Runs in blood down Palace walls."

Once the childhood yearning to "dress up" in uniforms and drill is met (I think of Robert Louis Stevenson's sickly child in "Child's Garden of Verses" with the toy soldiers across his sickbed blanket), the unromantic rub of soldiering is quickly brought down.

This is a statement poem. But then, Blake is a statement poet. The Yankee (by way of San Francisco) poet Frost would've been embarrassed by the tone and the forwardness (in New England we keep such thoughts to ourselves), but there's a kinship, too.

The "luminary clock against the sky" shines over London's sooty skies, too, after all.

If Frost seems uncertain about time in his romantic, nocturnal wanderings in a one-cry New England town, Blake does have an interesting conception about time in one of his best short pieces:

Ah! Sun-Flower

Ah, sun-flower! weary of time, Who countest the steps of the Sun; Seeking after that sweet golden clime, Where the traveler`s journey is done;

Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow, Arise from their graves, and aspire Where my sun - flower wishes to go.

Now that's a piece of poetry!

KEVIN, JONATHAN: thank you for enriching our discussion with those wonderful poems.

Welcome back, Kevin and thanks for "Acaquainted with the Night." Frost's poem makes an interesting contrast. Blake's poem is certainly far harsher, even the sounds of it, than Frost's which you call "passive and introspective." I agree. Blake is crying out, sighing out, along with that soldier. By the way, how can a sigh run like blood down a castle wall? I think that's one of the wonderful moves in this poem. It can't be, but it works.

I also like the pun on "appalls" in the third stanza: "How the Chimney-sweepers cry/ Every blackning Church appalls" Since "appall" means literally terrify and since it also brings to mind the pall, the cloth covering a corpse, there are several meanings going on here. The church itself has been shrouded by the Chiney-Sweepers sighs, as well as actually shrouded by the soot from those coal fires which the chimney-sweepers have to clean from the chimneys. [Here's the OED on "pall" as a noun: "4. A cloth, usually of black, purple, or white velvet, spread over a coffin, hearse, or tomb. Also: a shroud for a corpse. Cf. PALLBEARER n.]

Blake packs a lot into this line. We have the church covered as with a pall, we have the connection to pall the noun for which there is a definition above and we have the chimney-sweepers who are sighing. This is the sort of serious word play that sometimes takes place in poems.

The "youthful Harlots curse" in the final stanza is a venereal disease of some sort--my guess is syphillis. We see the marriage of a young couple, the male half of which has been consorting with a harlot; he takes her disease right into the marriage bed where it is transfered to the new-born infant.

The final line of the fourth stanza bring back the funereal imagery of the third stanza. Because of the foregoing transfer of venereal disease the Marriage carriage becomes a Marriage hearse, carrying as it does the potential death of the not-yet-even-conceived infant. Again, these meanings are extremely condensed. Blake uses as few words as humanly possible to make the points.

Now, what do you think about "mind-fog'd manacles"? Do you have any or can you give some examples?

Maryal

Wordsworth--The World Is Too Much with Us
Wordsworth--Composed upon Westminster Bridge
Shelley--Ozymandias
Coleridge--Kubla Khan
Whitman--Song of Myself (1 and 24)
Dickinson--Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Dickinson--Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers
Dickinson--The Soul Selects Her Own Society
Yeats--The Second Coming
Yeats--Leda and the Swan

Maryal

Blake surely takes the thought a step farther in LONDON. The robin redbreast now becomes the beaten, frustrated man, the fearful infant, the sweep coffined in his chimney, the cannon-fodder soldier, the harlot cursing her unwanted, illegitimate baby, leaving the lawfully 'banned' wife blighted with STD.

The cage. The man-made, mind-forged manacles. Not the devil, but man's inhumanity to man.

The streets of London become a horrifying vision for Blake. He seems hardly able to contain his indignation and rage as he looks on captived humanity. It's made to seem like a journey through Hell, and perhaps Paglia has a point in comparing it to Dante's Inferno.

Blaming it all on Church and State seems a bit much. But it must be that radicalism, revolution, terrorism and anarchy are born in maelstroms of immorality such as this. And good poetry is written.

How far we have come from the devout meditations of Donne and Herbert, and, except for that unpleasant anti-Semitism, the frivolity of Marvelle.

Let's cheer up. Soon we will be on the Bridge with Wordsworth. Looking down on a different London.

Another fine essay from Paglia. For me it resembles nothing so much as a preacher's great sermon based on a favorite canononical text. It's just marvellous to see what she gets out of and what she puts into Blake's LONDON.

As I said in an earlier post, I don't like this poem as much as The Chimney Sweep. For me, the images are either too vague or too confusing to evoke the hell that Paglia and Jonathan sees.

I do like this verse very much:

In every cry of every Man, 
In every Infants cry of fear, 
In every voice: in every ban, 
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

The phrase "mind-forg'd manacles" is brilliant.

One of the most specific ills he sees is that of the young harlots.

Most of these harlots were there for the same reason the chimney sweeps were there. It was that or starve, in a society that gave few other options to women to support themselves. Many of them had been "sold", like the sweeps were, at an age not too much older. Their lives were hard, brutish, and short. If disease or the brutish treatment of their handlers didn't kill them, in a few years they would lose the only thing they had to sell, their beauty, and starve along with their children. So why doesn't Blake show them the same pity and understanding he does the sweeps?

The harlots have little choice, the men that use them have more. So why does Blake blame the harlots for turning marriage into a hearse, and not, at least equally, the bridegrooms?

It seems to be an almost universal characteristic of most cultures which are male dominated to blame women for the equal participation of men and women engaging in an unapproved activity and thereby punishing women for this "evil". The Garden of Eden adventure is representative although muslim cultures are most offending in this area today. Men cannot admit to themselves that their impulses are frequently the base cause for this activity frequently at the protests of women and they can dump the "sin" on women. As a heterosexual male I am, in general, ashamed of my gender.

That was the line in Paglia that drove me through the roof - to still believe that claptrap that the wives were frigid is the classic excuse for those who want sex the easy way and their way -

Did Paglia never see French lieutenant's Woman or read the reams of material debunking the notion that men turned to prostitutes because they were not getting it at home...

If all the harlots during this time in history were because of frigid wives living out the patriarchial myth than with today's sexual freedom we would not have the strip clubs, the Hugh Grants, prostitutes in every town and the largest trafficking in sex slaves that has ever existed in the history of mankind -

I was ready to accept Paglia's concept of today's women using Modonna as the flag waver for healthy feminism, till I read that bit and realized it was her, buying into the patriarchal version of history so that of course she is not going to see the habit of thinking in these poems...

I didn't read the bit about Madonna --- was it in her website? But if Paglia is a feminist, I haven't seen any sign of it. People can be feminists and think differently, but so far, she hasn't picked up on any of the obvious issues raised by these poems.

That's fine -- we all have our own issues. There's no reason why she has to deal with feminist ones, but why label herself a feminist?

She makes a big deal out of it on her web site - all about how the feminist movement is a bunch of whining women although she thinks there are some modern examples of women that are examples of feminism like Modonna...and you are right she continues the patriarchial view of women...

that I think Barbara is referring to from Paglia's essay. I know some of you don't have the book. Paglia is addressing the final stanza:

"'Youthful' for that time might well mean she is in her early teens. Through no choice of her own, she may already be a mother. She fends for herself in the mean streets by the only trade she knows. Her 'curse' is her come-on, the soft, flirtatious invitation in which the poet intuits her hidden hatred. Her curse is also the 'plagues' of venereal disease, the whore's revenge covertly transmitted over the sexual network to her clients' respectable virgin brides. In Blake's radical philosophy, prostitution is created by religious prudery and social hypocrisy: middle- and upper-class men, their desires frustrated by pious, unresponsive wives, hunt down working-class women by night whom they would treat as invisible or subhuman by light of day. The poem presents sexuality, like the Thames, as a natural but potentially torrential force. Its distortion or blockage has catastrophic consequences. By poisoning posterity, syphilis, which would spread throughout nineteenth-century cities, threatens to bring history to a halt. The 'new-born Infants tear' is 'blasted' like a sapling by the winter wind: a baby's tear ducts can be contaminated in his or her passage through an infected mother's birth canal (a medical risk avoided today by cesarean section). That such infants cry without shedding tears implies a stunting of emotion and a brutalized future." (Paglia, 62)

Explain to me, Barbara, where you see Paglia blaming the prostitute for anything other than a perfectly reasonable hatred of her profession? I think Blake's implied condemnation of "pious, unresponsive wives" is historically accurate. Young women during Victoria's time were given the advice for the wedding-night to simply lie on their backs and "think of England." They were taught to submit to a man's sexual desires. They were also taught that women did not appreciate sex but that it was necessary for men. Paglia can't be blamed for these ideas which really existed and which for the most part were passed down from women to women.

One of the fascinating (to me) facts about the Victorian era is its supersensitive repression of sexuality--ankles must not be shown; ladies sat in certain ways; even piano legs were sometimes covered because they were LEGS--existed and the same time as a huge burst of pornography. There's a good deal of written pornography from the nineteenth century. And there were many prostitutes; Jack the Ripper made it his business to take some of them out of this world.

Paglia is not blaming women for the system. She is showing us what Blake's stance in the poem is.

Maryal

But I think he does, Joan. In no uncertain terms. He sees no less a tragedy in the harlot's fate than he does in that of the drafted soldier or exploited sweep, and any others trapped in an unhappy societal fix. In fact he saves her for the last to emphasize his point. He's not condemning anyone. He's deploring. He dislikes harlotry. He sees the chains on her too.

I'm not seeing things quite the way some of you are. And I don't buy all of Paglia's interpretations either. Blake was not a male chauvinist. Or a patriarch. Or a Victorian. He was a human being. Sad, or enraged by what he saw.

Hearing the curse on the midnight street, I take to be just that. A woman cursing and a baby being born. I see no judgement in that. Just pain.

Once again, what a contrast to the streets of Frost's New England town. There was a cry, just a partial cry. What could that have been? It was interesting to have Kevin post it. Isn't it obvious why Paglia disliked Frost?

 I hear 
How the youthful Harlots curse 
Blasts the new-born Infants tear 
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

I read this as Blake blaming the harlot. It's her curse that blasts and blights. But "harlots curse" could be read several ways -- that she curses or that she is cursed. Perhaps the rest of his work makes his views clearer. Since you have read more of it than I, I defer to you. In any case, it is our poem now, and we can see the pain in it.

I was not damning Blake: he was a man of his time, and few of us can see very far beyond the point of view of the time we were born in. Of course we want historical figures that we admire (and I do admire Blake a lot, just not this particular poem) to think the way a 21st century person would, but that won't always happen. We need to see if there is enough in the rest of his thought to be valuable to us, and leave the parts that aren't valuable behind.

This came up before, in Marvell's remark about the Jews. I oppose anti-semitism where ever I see it, as anyone in the Story of Civilization discussion can tell you. But many of the writers I most admire (Shakespeare, Tolstoy) show this kind of knee-jerk anti-semitism. It was so much a part of their society that they absorbed it without thought.

I do think, as Barbara said, that we need to note these things when they occur: we need to be sensitive and not swallow the author's assumptions without thought. But we also need to see them in the context of the writer's whole work. We may be making unconscious assumptions that will be just as offensive to future generations.

“I do think that we need to note these things when they occur: we need to be sensitive and not swallow the author's assumptions without thought. But we also need to see them in the context of the writer's whole work. We may be making unconscious assumptions that will be just as offensive to future generations. “

Joan K , I could not agree with you more. Having read and studied so many “critical” approaches to poetry, I usually do not try to interpret what the “author’s assumptions are.” Assumptions are based on the way words resound: their definitions, their nuances etc. The poem, after all is an “object”—not to sound cold and unfeeling—that needs to be appreciated for what is says to the individual whose particular knowledge and experience vary greatly.

Sometimes I make myself aware of how I am experiencing the poem personally: with my mind, my emotions, my intellect-- Which includes the time and context in which the work is written. A work of literature, to my mind, is “out there” to bring to light who we ARE, not who we should be.

Bern

Well said, Bern.

OK, you Shakespeare lovers. Is Midsummer's night last night or tonight? In any case let me know if you see any fairies.

JAN: is midsummer celebrated in Finland? How? Are you far enough North that the sun doesn't set today?

PS. I went from here to poetry and read your midsummer poem. Great!

The actual moment of solstice is slightly less than 2 hours from now (2:46 EDT) which makes Midsummer Eve last night. I'm guessing that is what Shakespeare meant, but my copy doesn't say. I totally forgot to dance around a bonfire last night.

See: http://www.uta.fi/~th63387/juhannus.html

Very interesting. Thanks, Jan.

Blake describes the harlot’s curse (disease) blasting the newborn infants tear. Paglia’s comment on this is an example of one of her faults—over elaborate interpretation. "...a baby’s tear ducts can be contaminated in his or her passage through an infected mother’s birth canal (a medical risk avoided today by cesarian section)." Given the state of medical knowledge and belief at that time, there is no way Blake could be thinking of tear ducts acquiring germs during birth. Either he means that the infant is crying because it is sick, or (as Paglia also suggests) it is crying without tears because it is stunted emotionally and physically. It’s coincidence that this fits a bit of modern medical knowledge.

Yikes, I missed absolute midsummer! Drat. I did know that today is the longest day because I looked it up last night. I love light; I miss light terribly in November and December and couldn't live happily anywhere north of where I am now because of the additional lack of light.

I loved being in England a few years ago because there was so MUCH light there after dinner, hours and hours and the blackbirds on the roofs. Will never forget them.

PatH--Clever of you to recognize Paglia's contemporary medical knowledge. She really goes a little far with those tears, doesn't she? It would have been better to simply remark that syphilis was passed from one generation to the next. They did know that in Blake's day.

Can't get anything by you sharp-eyed folks!

The new poem will be up soon.

I have given this post some thought - I know we are not discussing the system of patriarchy and yet, if Paglia can make a sideline in parenthesis to clarify a solution for birth to a women infected with syphilis today than she could add other sidelines that would clarify the romantisized way of thinking that was typical of Victorian doctrine of chivalrous protection for women that were "ladies" without taking into account that women in all classes could be frightened into social and sexual conformity by giving examples of factory workers and prostitutes.

I tried to sort out of this sentence that sent me reeling - what is it that Blake is saying and what is Paglia saying - I also read that Paglia was a student of Bloom - awesome but also, someone who carries forth the patriarchial myths - not subversively because we all have been so subject to these myths that we have a difficult time reacting differently.

Paglia says: "In Blake's radical philosophy, prostitution is created by religious prudery and social hypocrisy: middle- and upper-class men, their desires frustrated by pious, unresponsive wives, hunt down working-class women by night whom they would treat as invisible or subhuman by light of day."

Even today, with all of our sexual freedom, we have young church going girls who speak of either being a virgin prude or a slut with no in-between choice.

In literature of the times 'good wives' blushed and showed resistance submitting to the male will - Keeping women helpless and pure served the system well - what is not brought to our attention is that this chivalrous attitude gave men authority over women - at home or the harlot - It was not till around the time of our Civil War that women had any legal protection. She had no control over her earnings, could not choose where they lived, could not own or manage property even if it was passed to her when her father died, she could not sign papers. Her husband owned her service could send her out to any form of work and pocket the profit. He was allowed to sue others for wages due her and then pocket them.

A women, married or not was chattel throughout her life with a man being her legal keeper. She was in the same class as a lunatic and dead to the law. If she ever thought of divorce she could be detained against her will if she took even the clothes on her back. If he died without a will all the property except for a Bible, school books, a stove, spinning and weaving supplies and basic household necessities were taken regardless how many children.

And so as today the older girls in a poor family are often left on the streets to fend for themselves. Anger - I think survival becomes more of an issue than anger - you can have the privilege to be angry when you are set in your circumstance and know you will survive - this would be the story of an experienced older harlot, not a "youthful Harlot"

"The poem presents sexuality, like the Thames, as a natural but potentially torrential force." [But not a force that women ride, rather a force that gives an entitlement to sex on demand for men] -

"Its distortion or blockage has catastrophic consequences." [this is offered as a fact - there is no question mark here questioning this assumption. Paglia has bought the system's belief that sex for men is a "need" in which they gain momentary power -]

These sentences are suggesting that it is a women's duty to provide an endless supply of sex for men and therefore, the male is free to exploit, since love is the only rational in which the female is pardoned for sexual activity.

"By poisoning posterity, syphilis, which would spread throughout nineteenth-century cities, threatens to bring history to a halt. The 'new-born Infants tear' is 'blasted' like a sapling by the winter wind: a baby's tear ducts can be contaminated in his or her passage through an infected mother's birth canal (a medical risk avoided today by cesarean section)."

Here we do have Paglia entering the thought with a modern solution that sounds to me like someone offering a pragmatic solution to a problem without addressing the real problem which is based in sexual greed.

We understand greed in financial matters but we still do not seem to understand sexual greed - think about it - When was the last time that someone defended a woman on the grounds that she hadn't had any sex for a long time and there wouldn't be a problem if she combed the streets looking for a young thing selling his body for her?

Not just Blake but, describing Blake, Paglia is suggesting the Harlot is an accepted part of society to satisfy a system that believes men should be able to satisfy their flaming desire and justify it, by suggesting their angelic, pure wives or, the girl they are engaged to marry is "unresponsive."

We learned in the movie the French Lieutenant's Wife that there were enough Harlots in London during the nineteenth century that given the male population they could have sex 3 times a day with a different girl each time.

I prefer to read the poem that Blake is acknowledging all he includes in the poem as a "Marks of weakness, marks of woe" and not just that the harlot is angry passing along her pox on other women as well as the men and their illegitimate offsprings.

This is a UT professor who says something about today which to me his thoughts ring and are missing in Paglia's thinking Prof. Jensen

This same essay was picked up and reprinted by the Men's Resource Center for Change

And to continue a postive note this is a wonderful site Teaching Sexual Ethics

Barb--What a wonderful post about patriarchal thinking. Certainly you have hit a number of the important facts. And the patriarchal system was the only one Blake knew. (Christianity is patriarchal despite all the veneration Catholics have for Mary.) All of Western Civilization operated as a patriarchy and still does to a large extent.

I think we have moved on somewhat in our thinking, understanding, for example, that women have sexual needs just as men do, BUT In terms of POWER which it seems to me is at the center of this whole argument, women have far less power than men. Look around the Senate and the House. Look at the Fortune 500 list of millionaires. Look at how many women are CEOs.

One of the problems women have in getting full equality is, and this is just personal belief, biological. Women get pregnant, bear children, are perhaps more concerned for their welfare (or maybe I should say more emotionally wrapped up in them) than men are because they are frequently around the children more (or maybe that instinct is biological too). Anyway, it is, as today's young women are discovering, difficult to "have it all." If you take time off from your career to have a family, there is no guarantee that your job will be there for you when you want it back. If the job is still there for you, there is also no possible way for you, the mother who decided to stay home for a while, to catch up with the woman who did not have children or did not marry.

Anyway, your post really made me think. There's a book I'm trying to remember the title of. I heard the author on public radio and the subject matter of the book is the generation of women (to which she belongs) who reaped the benefits from the women's movement and who thought that they could have it all. They are discovering that it's just not that easy. Perhaps the title will come to me later. If so I'll post it here.

Maryal

I'm not sure I know what the poet is hearing. Oaths, being shouted in the streets. Or everybody talking about the evil consequences of harlotry. And who had the baby? IMO, and it's only that, I think Blake might be thinking of loveless marriage. And because of the banns, preventing separation of two unhappy people. Infidelity ensues. Harlotry would be the effect and not the cause of marriage looked at as one more imposed manacle. I can see that perhaps Blake is blaming the marriage institution. I believe the harlot gets his sympathy like the sweep and the soldier, and most of all, perhaps, the wife.

'over elaborate interpetation'

Pat, your so right. Paglia is very thorough in her way. Granted that Blake is difficult to understand at times, that is no excuse to find whatever one wants to find. But it does add an impetus to get oneself involved in what it is the poet is trying to say.

I was inclined to pass on the next poem. Until I read what Paglia has to say about it. What she does with it! WOW! Even finds another instance of casual anti-Semitism.

Jonathan--Good to hear that you won't be passing on the next poem. I think we can all agree that Paglia, love her or despise her, is certainly good at provoking conversation! I really enjoy reading her essays; I frequently disagree with her, but she doesn't get facts wrong, and we're never all going to agree on a single interpretation.

I think Paglia is right about the "cries" that the poet hears being, in part, the cries of salesmen (and women) hawking their wares as was the custom in London at the time (and other places--think of all those black and white films with the newspaper boys hawking their papers). And the great song my mother taught me when I was a kid:

In Dublin's fair city
Where girls are so pretty
I first set my eyes
On sweet Molly Malone
As she wheeled her wheelbarrow
Through streets broad and narrow
Crying "Cockles and Muscles
Alive, alive-o."

Maryal

Worry not, Jonathan. I'm back on track.

I am sure said with a broad wink Jonathan - obviously there are thoughts and words that send me through the roof and it takes me a million words to build a ladder that I use to climb back down...

I really had an issue with Paglia, who I expected more from than I did Blake...she has the benefit of today's ethics.

What struck me about the poem is all the "crying" -- Every man cries with a different type of cry since he says "In every cry..." -- However infants cry in fear -- Chimney-sweepers cry -- where as soldiers sigh and he hears every voice.

The Harlot does not make a sound - he hears about her and how she "blasts" the infants tear and "blights" the marriage sending death to the union.

So the harlot acts unknowingly and he acts by wandering through London observing faces and the Church is appalled while everyone else cries out and the harlot is the silent killer.

Sure does give a mind picture of Dante's Inferno doesn't it, or maybe that Pieter Brueghel painting with all the people doing all sorts of things in a big open space - here it is The Fight Between Carnival and Lent.

The voices he hears are "mind-forg'd" manacled to every ban - not the much creative thinking going on here in Blake's London - the ban rules.

Interesting that he used the word charter'd rather than charted - the first definition of chartered is: hired for the exclusive temporary use of a group of travelers. -- Where as charted means:To plan (something) in detail: is charting a course to destruction.

With his choice of word it says to me he or, all of us, are travelers through temporary streets, as the Thames is a temporary flow for travelers -- not much in common with the meaning of "ban" which has the feel of a detailed plan in common with a chart or, course to destruction?!?

Deems,

Would you give a description or definition of the names, Proteus and Triton in the above poem please?

Hats!! good to know you are still here. From the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Proteus-- in Greek mythology, the prophetic old man of the sea and shepherd of the sea's flocks (e.g., seals). He was subject to the sea god Poseidon, and his dwelling place was either the island of Pharos, near the mouth of the Nile River, or the island of Carpathus, between Crete and Rhodes. He knew all things—past, present, and future—but disliked telling what he knew. Those who wished to consult him had first to surprise and bind him during his noonday slumber. Even when caught he would try to escape by assuming all sorts of shapes. But if his captor held him fast, the god at last returned to his proper shape, gave the wished-for answer, and plunged into the sea. From his power of assuming whatever shape he pleased, Proteus came to be regarded by some as a symbol of the original matter from which the world was created.

Poseidon was the Greek god of the Sea. Brother of Zeus. He's the god who gave Odysseus so much trouble on his trip back to Ithaca after the Trojan War.

Triton was a merman (male version of the more familiar mermaid), man to the waist and fish below. His father was Poseidon, god of the sea.

The new poem is up everybody and we have jumped forward a little to Wordsworth, who with Coleridge, was responsible for a great shift in English poetry.

Wordsworth and Coleridge published in 1798 Lyrical Ballads to which they both contributed poems. (Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is in this volume.) Their manifesto was to make poems out of the language ordinarily spoken by man. Wordworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility." Wordsworth much later in his life became poet laureate of England.

Maryal

And yet I cannot say it moves me not. One does begin to feel strange stirrings in the depths of ones being. The lines really do speak to the sensitive reader. Memorable lines to be called up on suitable occasions. Like when standing on the dunes and looking out at the mighty sea. And hearing Triton's roar in the seashell is awesome. It does seem a pity that we now know it is only the echo of our busy minds.

However one man's sordid boon is another's pleasing reality. In bringing back the wonders of paganism, the poet ignores the miracles of a later creed. Just as wondrous if you believe. The poet makes his choices like the rest of us. I don't think his ruminations at the seashore rated a Great God!

'Wordsworth means to shock.'

So says Paglia, on page 66. On the chance that we might miss the shocks, she obliges us with the hidden meanings. The way she goes rampaging through the sonnet is a bit of a shock in itself.

with the wink turned to a broad smile

Jonathan

The poem is a cry for mankind to rip away the blindness conferred by the necessities of dealing with the artificialities of the modern world and face nature again raw and crystalized into the old strong lovely myths.

Again, while I don't always like Paglia's analysis, I appreciate her historical arrangement of poems. In Blake and Wordsworth we have two mystics, both dealing with the increasingly urbanized society they live in, but reacting in very different ways. Blake seeing the human misery of the city, Wordsworth seeing that modern life cuts us off from nature.

To Wordsworth, it is through communion with nature that humans can move out of the everyday to the transcendental. Thus, to be cut off from nature is to be cut off from the deepest parts of our being, from God, if you will.

I don't agree with Paglia that he gives up on nature, rather, he gives up on our ability to be in tune with it. When he talks of being a Pagan, I don't think he is thinking in terms of rejecting Christianity, although that would seem to make sense. Rather, he is rejecting the modern, rational mindset that sees the world as understandable by rational means. What he seems to mean by paganism (here identified with Greece, not early Britons, as Paglia says) is a view of the world as filled with magic, as containing something beyond our everyday experience. Proteus and Triton here are concrete symbols of a world beyond, a world denied by the increasingly rational and mechanistic world view.

I don't know if Pope's translation of the Iliad had been published, and if Wordsworth had read it, but it's interesting to me that Homer, writing over 2000 years earlier, had made a somewhat similar comparison between the country, close to nature and filled with magic spirits, and the city of everyday concerns. I assume it was this romantic view of rural Greece that influenced the romantics, ignoring their cities.

I don't think the change from seeing the world as magic, mystical to seeing it as rationally understandable can be traced to Christianity (although the Jews might have started it with their insistence on one God and a code of laws).

The connection of a rational vs mystical/magical worldview to religion is not that simple. Greek pagans gave us some of our best logic, and Newton, who saw the world as a machine which could be understood completely if we just knew enough, was deeply religious.

The theme has become so trite that it is more like something a Sister Mary Agnus would have told us about life in the 6th grade with others jumping on the bandwagon every time Technology became more advanced. We are still doing it when we blame kids for being fat - if only they gamboled in nature all would be well...

I must say though the mind pictures of "Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn" is a much more virile picture of the gods giving an edge to life that likening God to the wind and sleeping flowers just doesn't cut it.

Quaint? Maybe. Like one of those "take time to stop and smell the roses" posters that used to litter the mural landscapes of our 60s and 70s pasts. Still, it must be said that the lines:

late and soon,/ Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

accurately predict what lay ahead. If Wordsworth thought it was bad in his day, he should visit a mall or 3 billion in the States today -- how people spend out of habit, out of boredom, out of empty desire; how one mall looks like all malls; how cheap, gaudy, and artificial this chasing after the wind all is.

I have a spot in my heart for this old Romantic. I even wrote a paper on his "Lucy Gray" once upon a year long ago.

The fish-herder and fortuneteller, Proteus, and the horn-player, Triton, were minor deities, and actually play a less exciting role in Wordsworth's poetic scheme, than the 'howling wind', the Sea's demon-lover. And the way in which the poet sneaked the lascivious Moon into the erotic scene in broad daylight ('the pleasant lea' suggests sunlight) is a pleasing fantasy.

The theme seemed trite enough until I saw what Paglia could do with it. Something like Chapman with Homer. She opens huge new vistas. For example she has the guys spending something other than money in the Malls. Bringing in Roman generals and Church Fathers to draw out the poet's moralising doesn't seem necessary to me. Don't we all try to cope with the meaningless in our lives? Don't we all need the getaway?

The seashore does it for me too. I once had two divers describe to me the wonders of the deep, as they prepared to submerge themselves in the Sea, off the rocks on Cape Ann, north of Boston. What they told me surpassed anything the pagans saw coming out of the water.

What did they tell you? (I always was a fan of the Myth of Atlantis.)

Also, remember, divers (short "i") divers (long "i") are protean sorts who forever change their tunes (especially if armed with a North Shore conch shell).

Proteus may be minor, but he gave us one of the most wonderful adjectives from Greek mythology out there.

or: communing with Nature.

Blow me a passion, oh Wind

While the Moon looks on

Rocked hither and thither

Is not what I'd rither

I'd rither

Be Blown higher than high

OK...do I hear the pipes of Northern New Mexico calling...?

Sorry for lateness today. Summer seems to have too many small duties that add up to a lot to do.

Paglia's first paragraph on this poem (just to give you some of her flavor):

"Not until midway through this sonnet, which opens with general reflections about life, do we realize that the poet is gazing out to sea from a bluff or meadow ('this pleasant lea'). Wordsworth's very specific, open-air point of view prefigures that of the Impressionist painters who set up their easels on hills or country roads. The poem relies on quick notations and atmospheric impressions, but its impulse is emotional rather than documentary. Somber and pensive, Wordsworth strikes his characteristic pose of isolation and detachment."

An aside--Reading this poem and Paglia's essay reminded me of how I came to abbreviate Shakespeare (still do, in my notes for classes) as SS. I told you about always having done that but I couldn't for the life of me remember how it all began. It's all Wordsworth's fault, you see. I mentioned that all English majors when I was in college had to take the Romantic poets their sophomore year and that we spent a whole semester on Wordsworth and Coleridge. I'm pretty sure that I didn't mention that's when I learned to use abbreviations for authors. Wordsworth was simply way to long to write, so he became WW, not for William Wordworth, but for the two Ws in his last name. Later, when I was taking notes on Shakespeare, I continued this practice. (Coleridge, by the way, was Col.)

Although Paglia argues that it's not until line 11 with "standing on this pleasant lea" that we know where the poet is, but I see it earlier in line five: "This sea that bares her bosom to the moon," because of the demonstrative "This." In order to use, this the sea has to be near at hand. Otherwise, it would be the sea.

And those howling winds are not howling at the present moment. Notice that they are "upgathered now like sleeping flowers." No demon lover here, except maybe by implication--later he'll be around.

One note that Paglia makes about the poem, I agree with. She points to Wordsworth's wishing to have lived not now, not in the modern industrial age, but in pagan times and says that the poet's view of paganism is "perhaps too optimistic." How true. Poets, especially Romantic poets were attached to times in the far distant past as well as far distant countries and they often made those times/places seem more appealing than the drab present.

Here's a section of Paglia's essay that is likely to be more controversial. Sex ahead alert:

"'Late and soon'--yesterday, today, and tomorrow--'we lay waste our powers', exhausting and debasing our best instincts in meaningless activity. We're caught in a vicious cycle of "getting and spending": Wordsworth boldly fuses economics with sex--the go-go commercialism of industrial England with predatory libertinage, a showy male sport. Materialism feeds on itself, while 'getting' (procreating, as in 'begetting') without emotional investment or commmitment is an affront to Mother Nature. Heedless 'speding' (an old colloquialism for ejaculation) reduces sex to selfish mechanical release--what Shakespeare calls 'lust in action,' where pleasure is followed by shame and disgust (Sonnet 129)."

OK, I said to myself, that makes sense. I had already thought of the double meaning of "getting," but didn't go quite as far as Paglia does with "spending." However, it fits.

I did notice something about the first line of the sonnet that Paglia doesn't mention. She says, "The world is too much with us": the tone is flat, severe, dismissive." I notice also that the line is monosyllabic. Whenever one encounters a monosyllabic line, something is going on with the language. Here, it makes the whole line flat--we agree on that.

Maryal

WW is like RS (Rousseau, of course!) in his idealization of peasants, pagans, and the common man. Remember, ole RS disagreed with VT (guess who?) and insisted that savages were "noble." VT dismissed this as liberal drivel, saying any noble savages were figments of RS's imagination. Evil is innate, VT insisted, while RS was equally vehement that evil and hatred were "learned from the environment and upbringing" type things.

Tolstoy (TST), too, was beholden to RS, especially his Sentimental Education, which heavily influenced TST's early fiction. TST would go on to idealize the Russian peasant, right down to walking out in the fields and working with them side-by-side (how amused they must have been to be reaping hay with the eccentric and slightly daft master!).

WW is subject to such critical scrutiny, but so are all the Romantics, and where would we BE without the Romantics and their precious capital "Rs"? I tell you where we'd be. Mired in Realism and Naturalism and other unnatural type stuff.

Really!

P.S. As a lad, I always read the flat first line as a whole, paying no mind to the punctuation or how "late and soon" naturally leads into Line 2. I liked it, too. It sounded something like this:

The world is too much with us, late and soon.

Now that I think of it, such a reading makes "late and soon" a contest between "us" and the "world."

Kevin--Ah yes, Rousseau--big influence there. The Romantic poets were much taken with exotic locals and they were very much behind the Revolution in France--until it reached its Reign of Terror stage. That bit frightened them off. Chuckled about abbreviation for Rousseau--you've got the pattern all right.

I'm stuck on VT, but I'm working on it. How about Voltaire??

The French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement
provides us with some idea of how WW related to the French Revolution himself.

Do you think this poem in keeping with the poet's Romantic notions elsewhere?

Bern

Yes, Maryal, VT is indeed our friend Voltaire -- the other option being our friend, Vermont (motto: "Keep Vermont Green -- Send Money).

If I may generalize (being too uppity to just colonelize), the Romantics loved the common man, myths, fairy tales, exotic locals, distant cultures, the surreal, horror and macabre, legends, nature, alternate states (such as New Jersey), drug-induced worlds (such as Disney), fantasy, dreams, heroes, derring-do, swashbuckling, shivering timbers, the individual, subjectivity, emotions, exagerration, and posts by Kevin Freeman (registered Romantic).

WW certainly fits the bill. (This post is too much with us, late and soon.)

Bern--Thanks for that poem. I couldn't remember exactly where these lines were

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!

They so perfectly capture the response to powerful historical events (in this case the French Revolution) that the young sometimes feel. Later in life Wordsworth leaned more toward conservative ideas--the common pattern (or used to be) for many. These days, in this country, conservatism seems to be ascendant.

Kevin--That was my problem with VT (in my notes he has to be Vol.)--kept thinking of Vermont. I'm from Maine; what else would I possibly think of? Excellent summary of the interests of romantic poets in Kevin's post. (#694)

OK, folks, we have another sonnet by our friend Wordsworth in the heading. This is one of his few poems that has an urban setting since he was a fan and resident of the lake country. Nature and all that.

But here we have London.

Maryal

Which town in Maine do you hail from, Maryal? China? Norway? Mexico? South Paris? Sweden?

Few know you can read-around-the-world in Maine alone.

Sorry to disappoint you, Kevin, but I come from Bangor. However, my father once had a church in Norway when my sister was a young girl.

Wordsworth may get a little silly about Romantic other cultures, but Oh, what a poet!! "Composed upon Westminster Bridge is wonderful!

Here is all the beauty, tenderness, and love that we didn't see in the earlier "love poems". In fact, I'd say that this is the first real love poem we've had -- to a city, yet:

When I saw that earlier crack of Paglia's (CP) making fun of poems about nature, I wondered how she would get through the Romantic poets with out a poem on the beauty of nature. She almost does it. Instead of poems about nature, she gives us poems about the works of humans. (from London through Kubla Khan). Clearly a city person. It makes for very interesting contrasts, but cuts us of from what, to many, is one of the chief joys of poetry -- the connection to nature.

Almost, but not quite. Wordsworth won't allow us to be cut off. As was said, the sea baring her bosom to the moon remains with us. And Westminster Bridge places the city within nature so tenderly that we see them melding together.

I haven't read Paglia's comments yet -- I almost don't want to. Unlike the rest of you, I find they take away as much from the poems as they add. I'll be back when I've read them.

When I said Westminster was the first real love poem, I forgot Herbert's "Love". OK, the second real love poem.

I don't think 'The world is too much with us;', would sound flat if we could hear Wordsworth speaking it out. And then pausing. Once one has the stressed syllables right, it makes for a perfect opening line.

What a flip he does in the early morning on Westminster Bridge. This is the 'world' that he is looking at. Bathed in early morning glow and color. Just as fine as Nature, the 'valley, rock, or hill', in the dawn's early light, up at his retreat in the Lake District. What a surprise it must have been for him.

Joan, I think you would be wise to ignore Paglia on this one. Just enjoy the view...

I like her essays. They keep one on one's toes. Seeing everyting in terms of gender gets a bit much at times. All in all she's a good teacher. She comes close to trashing The World. Taking my cue from her led to something which should have remained in the drawer.

Jonathan it isn't gender or sex that is the issue for me - it is the put down that parrots a biased view of gender, or creed that sends me out of space...I am a believer in the concept that language governs thought which governs beliefs and action...!

I am amused that when Wordsworth, a Romantic nature poet, writes a poem to a city it is a city with the people asleep--city as landscape. It's a wonderful poem; I've always liked it.

JONATHAN: too late -- I already read Paglia. For once, I agree with her in finding the poem quite sensual.

I relate to this poem due to experiences as a child. I used to wake myself up at dawn whenever I could, and wander alone through the streets of my (very different) sleeping city, with a love for it that I still have -- a very different city from later in the day.

Is this a sign of solitude and estrangement, as Paglia says. She really makes me think with that one. Since I share WW's quiet, sometimes foolish, mysticism, let me try to defend it.

These "moments" which he seeks are always both solitary and unifying. Unifying because they make one part of the universe one is experiencing, no longer separate from it. But solitary in that they are internal; part of oneself.

WW finds this unity with things, not people. He doesn't put himself inside the misery of the city, as Blake does. But neither does he preserve "his solitude and estrangement by shutting down his expanded perception" as Paglia says. Instead, he shares that perception with us. He is not the person who will take another into himself, but he is the person who will give himself to another, to us. Maybe that's enough for one man.

hmmm the beauty of the morning - my mornings crash, clash, sear, shout, glare, trounce with the glory of 10,000 firebrands thrown by winged gods scorching fields, creeks and baking rooftops while 20,000 trumpets peal a silent riot - all before 7: in the A.M. - powerful, from that first sliver of blood red on the horizon but hardly what I would call beautiful.

Composed upon
The Edge of the Mesa.

Dawn cracks
Soundless
Salvo
Splits the edge of night
Reveal the ancient rite
Sun
Saturates
Panes
Bleed vermilion
On silent containers
Fortifications of illusion
Wall-out
The flame
Of
'Knowing'

All my working life I was up before dawn, moving about in a sleeping city. Of course there was lots of life if one knew where to look for it. But to see the first rays of the sun striking the skyscrapers, and the deep shadows in the streets. It seemed unearthly at times. It put one into a wonderful frame of mind. And then the times, from a mountaintop, gazing at a panorama of other mountains at sunrise, one looked into a really unearthly city. One felt like seeing the future in it. And how about the North Rim of the Grand Canyon at sunset. The nature poet stakes out the best territory. If one could only find the words.

Barbara does, in a dazzling way.

There is a story I seem to remember about Wordsworth. A young lad, a local boy in the Lake District in England, remembers meeting the highly regarded poet. In fact he helped the poet to his feet after he had taken a fall while skating. There was not a word of acknowledgment or thanks from the great man. He was a great poet. We've all loved his stuff.

JONATHAN: haha. He was probably mad as stink to be caught in such an undignified position. Probably the kind of guy who's so busy looking at the sky, he trips over his own feet every time he goes out. We Romantics aren't necessarily very competent.

"Enjoy the view". "We've all loved his stuff". What's going on? Are we supposed to be embarrassed to like Wordsworth? Why? Is he too popular, like Frost? Are we supposed to be more sophisticated? What for?

Barbara: I really liked your poem. Give us some more.

Barbara,

I love your poem. Thank you.

Joan K I read this statment with interest: "...What's going on? Are we supposed to be embarrassed to like Wordsworth? Why? Is he too popular, like Frost? Are we supposed to be more sophisticated? What for?"

I read through our entries related to Wordsworth and did not see any inkling about to whom these questions are addressed? What I have seen though, are a variety of points of view that enrich the meaning and appreciation for him as a poet.

Sometimes though, I don't always get the point of what is being said--like there is some kind of subliminal conversation going on beyond a discussion of the poetry.

Good evening, folks. Home just in time to write a quick post before watching "Into the West" which is on TNT and has been for the last couple of weeks. It's not all that good, but I'm hooked anyway. They run it on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday which is good because then I don't forget it.

I'm not sure I see where the subliminal conversation is--Bern, do you mean in Paglia? Do you mean here?

Here's today's exerpt from Paglia on Wordsworth's sonnet:

The "City" is capitalized partly because of its nymphlike personification, but that term also remains current for central London. In the foreground along the Thames, the masts and rigging of docked ships would have been as dense as a forest, while in the middle distance loomed the dome of Saint Paul's Cathedral as well as the rooftops, spires, and turrets of other landmarks, such as the Courts of Justice, the medieval Temple Church, and the royal theaters of Covent Garden and Drury Lane. Hence the catalog--"ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples"--succinctly captures the actual skyline from Westminster Bridge. The poet is confronting, without his usual suspicion and hostility, the political, legal, and commericial matrix of British society."

I think that's helpful criticism in that it reminds us of what we can see from Westminster Bridge and what Wordsworth is looking at (or remembering).

Thanks for the poem, Barbara. It made me feel that hot Texas morning. It's hot enough here, close to 90 today, but not that hot. Soon, it most likely will be even hotter.

Maryal

ah so...the illusion makers..."the political, legal, and commercial matrix"...

Is Wordsworth considered a political poet or simply a romanticist, who stress strong emotion, imagination, freedom from classical correctness and rebel against social conventions?

Barb--I think he was only political during the first part of the French Revolution. After that the poetry is strictly confined to other topics, usually nature and a sort of spiritual autobiography in his long poem, The Prelude.

Shelley's "Ozymandias" is now in the heading. It reflects the interest in the exotic, the distant, which we will see again in Coleridge.

I still can't believe that Paglia omitted Keats completely.

I'll let you know when I recover from the shock.

Shelley was married to Mary Shelley who wrote Frankenstein when she was still a teenager.

A calm worthy to exclaim about. I like that touch. Poetic license?

Postcard poetry comes with a view to be enjoyed. Seriously! So why have it spoiled by hearing it shouted into ones ear that one is seeing only the tip of the iceberg of poetry in the fourteen lines. As Paglia is in the habit of doing. I thought I detected just such a feeling of annoyance in your post, Joan, in which you seemed well satisfied with your enjoyment of Wordsworth's Bridge sonnet. So I got to feeling, why allow it to be spoiled for oneself. 'Enjoy the view' was meant as a passing remark on individual preferences in the enjoyment of poetry.

We have to remember that Paglia is determined to arouse her readers from their poetic slumbers. She did, after all, choose as her theme the Break, Blow, and Burn approach of the restless poet. And she is a great tactician with that strategy. I find her both exasperating and fascinating. This book is a campaign for her.

I'm off to see the world. A Sunday drive. I refuse to believe that London is the fairest view on Earth. Why one need only look at any old grain of sand like Blake. Perhaps that's only English sand. I can't forget those feelings when I finally saw for myself the English scenes described by the nature poets. Nine-tenths imagination, or unsuspected feelings? I once had an English Tourist Information officer tell me that a good poet is a national treasure. As in getting and spending.

Good poets and Camille Paglia not withstanding. It seems to take more. And there were more. If only we hadn't run out of Brownies!

I thought it would be interesting to compare Shelley's sonnet with another written by a poet with whom he was in friendly competition. His seems a little less didactic.

Ozymandias

Bern

JONATHAN: Got it. But what is "postcard poetry"?

Going below the surface is fine. As I said in an earlier post, I find that some analysis adds to the depth of my understanding of the poem. Other analysis puts up barriers, and gets between me and the poem. Paglia does both. I am still struggling to see what makes the difference.

BERN: interesting comparison.

I'm confused by the "heart that fed" in line 8. Apparently, I;m not the only one. Here are some possible explanations from Bern's site:

"The hand that mocked them" seems to be the sculptor's hand, delineating the vainglory of his subject in "these lifeless things"; and "the heart that fed" must be Ozymandias' own, feeding on (perhaps) its own arrogance. Kelvin Everest and Geoffrey Matthews suggest that line 8 ends with an ellipsis: "and the heart that fed [them]" (that is, those same passions that are the referent of the pronoun "them" governed by "mocked" (The Poems of Shelley, II: 1817-1819 [London: Pearson, 2000]: 311).

Paglia points out that the sequence of narrators in Ozy (forget my learning to spell it) creates a feeling of distance in time, and also is incomplete, since the poem never returns to the first narrator. These feelings are carried out in the last two lines.

The last two lines are not a separate couplet (as in Shakespeare and Donne, but not in Wordsworth), which would give a feeling of completion, but rather continue on the rhyme scheme. Neither do they provide a summary or climax as in most sonnets. They don't finish. Instead, they end with the sands stretching far away. I get a strong feeling of time stretching away, an endless sequence of narrators observing an endless sequence of civilizations rising, flourishing, and perishing.

From Paglia’s essay on “Ozmandias”: “Ozymandias is the Greek name given by the Roman-era historian Diodorus Siculus to the great Rameses II (who may be the Bible’s obstinate pharaoh defied by Moses).”

She also calls our attention to how distanced we are from the subject by the various voices. First we have the voice of the poet, but the remainder of the story is told in the voice of the traveler (who may or may not have been real) and then finally the words, presumably by the pharaoh or at least attributed to him: “Look on my works, ye mighty and despair.”

I enjoy the double meaning of this inscription. Obviously it was originally intended to be boastful, “Look at all I have done, you other mighty ones, and just forget about trying to outdo me. It can’t be done.” And then there’s the way we take the inscription as we read it on what is now the pedestal of the legs, the only remaining part of the statue other than the shattered face of the statue, “Look at what has become of that which once was great and powerful. How sad.” The poem reinforces this second meaning with its final lines:

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

~Maryal

Thanks, Bern, for the other site and response to the poem. I think we can all agree that Shelley's poem is superior to his friend's. Competition seemed to be somewhat of a parlor game in Shelley's day since the origin of Frankenstein lies in a challenge as to who could write the most frightening story. Mary Shelley won.

Joan K--Interesting question about "the heart that fed" in line 8. I think the line can be read at least two ways: 1)the heart that was literally fed by the wages earned from the working of the statue and 2) the heart of the sculptor that fed on the revenge he was getting by portraying the cruelty of this absolute monarch. Do either of these work for you?

~Maryal

When I read this poem for the first time or over and over, my eye stops abruptly at the second line.

“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. “

Even though I try avoid political allusions, this time I can’t help it.

I see a cartoon with this image astride two parts of the world and wonder what will become..

“Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

I don’t mean to stir up any controversy, but simply ask, “Will history ever stop repeating itself?” And “Whose legs are they anyway?”

Bern

To hazard answers to your questions, I'd say, "No, history can never stop repeating itself (unless life itself stop in mocking echo to the Franklin quote about two people only being able to keep a secret if one of them is dead)."

To your other question about the legs, do you mean, who in real life did Shelley base OZMANDYIAS on? Do we know in fact that he did? I have only the poem to see, not Paglia, so I'm missing any insight there provided. From this side of the curtain it looks simply like a hubris poem. God (or Fate) 1, Man and his Vanities 0. Game Over.

A poem that would cheer the existentialists, then.

Well the Greeks may call User-maat-re [Ozymandias] and the Egyptions call him Ramesses al-Akbar and in Exodus he is simply known as "Pharaoh."

He building program was the greatest ever known - he built mortuary temples, oblisks, a temple to Osiris at Abydos, the cliff temples at Abu Simbel, which were rescued when Aswan Dam covered them in water, and this gigantic staute in the desert.

He lived till the age of 92. During his life he took 8 wives, his first wife was Nefertari - he sired 162 children - 52 known sons. His empire extended from present-day Libya to Iraq, as far north as Turkey and southward into the Sudan.

Egyptians' age-old rivals were the Hittites - soon after he became the Pharaoh the Hittites appeared and he quickly raised an army of 20,000 soldiers, an unheard of number - the battles continued for 15 years along the Gaza strip - peace was established when Ramesses' married Hattusilis' two daughters.

All Shelley seems to be saying is all this greatness is nothing more than grains of sand in time. That is when you can easily become discouraged thinking how little your efforts in life make a difference...ah so...I guess all we can hope for is to add and not take from the human condition during our lifetime.

I didn't know that Mary Shelley was the daughter of Mary Wollencroft! Wow - evidently Shelley was kicked out of school for his political views...this is long but a great Bio Bartleby on Shelley life handed him a few lumps...

I think the heart in line 8 has to be Ozymandias’. I read it like this: Ozymandias’ passions still survive in the form of this sculpted face. They survive the hand that made the mocking carving and they survive O’s heart, which created and fed his passions when he was alive.

Pat H--I think you're right. It's the pharaoh's heart that was so full of pride. And that fed on the praise which the statue would have offered him, or encouraged others to offer him.

Maryal

DEEMS: I meant to suggest this earlier. Would you like to post one of Keats poems for us, and we could play a game of trying to guess why Paglia left him out. There's no law that we can only read what's in the book.

Great idea, Joan. Like you say: there's no law. Paglia sets us a fine example. She'll go anywhere for an allusion or association.

Her commentary is very helpful in demystifying the message in the Ozymandias sonnet. It come down to, it seems, a case of the chisel being more powerful than the sword; and a case of the artist being greater than the idols he has been taught to worship. Paglia finds, and then brilliantly explains, the

'secret message (that) has been transmitted from artist to artist to posterity'

All this, in what she describes as,

'a spontaneous Romantic effusion, reportedly written straight out in less than an hour on the flyleaf of a borrowed book'

Such sudden inspirations, or effusions, are not all that unusual. Not among creative geniuses, with minds well stocked with the imagery and language of their cultural inheritance. As Paglia points out, 'Ozymandias' becomes more meaningful if one remembers Marvell's 'deserts of vast eternity'; the stalking ghost in HAMLET; and the autumnal boughs and tree trunk, the 'bare ruined choirs' of Shakespeare's Sonnet 73.

And then, very strangely, Paglia also brings into the picture the giant Olmec heads later found in the Central American jungle. With that she suggests a clue to an interesting puzzle of her own making. The Traveller in the sonnet. The messenger. Where is he from? Space is mentioned as part of his journeying. Or the chance that he is a time traveller? Has he come out of the past? That aside, in the real world he has been to Egypt land. On a mission?

Never mentioned is the possibility that the traveller may have lost a trunk on his travels. Hence, with the missing trunk on his mind, he talks of trunkless legs. When he goes on to tell about the tyrannical facial features often found on Olmec heads, and seldom or never on the usual

'serene pharaonic portraits of every (Egyptian) dynasty'

isn't it obvious where he's from? The missing trunk of the statue? I would look for it in the Yucatan.

Paglia is never better than when she is having some little difficulty with the text. A joy to read.

Jonathan, your focus upon the traveler reminds me of this theme of journeying throughout literature, whether it be an individual’s spiritual quest or the poet’s desire for achieving immortality through his/her works. Both of these types of individuals rely upon some degree of uncertainty that seems to drive them/us onward. Whether it be rebirth, heaven or the muse, Shelly reminds us, not so much of the rewards, but the consequences of losing our way by the arrogance of believing we “can go it alone.”

Bern

Joan K--Excellent suggestion (putting one of Keats' poems here). May I ask you to remind me of this about a week from now? Patwest, who has been doing all the poem transfers to the heading--Kubla Khan is up there now--won't be back in town until, I think, July 9 or 10 so I can't change the order until then. Does that make sense? Meanwhile, I'll be looking for a Keats poem that isn't too long to type (!)

Maryal

DEEMS: great!

Before we leave Shelley, from Shakespeare through the romantics almost half (7 of 16) of the poems we've read are sonnets -- by Shakespeare, Donne, Wordsworth, Shelley. Can we see any development in the form? We can certainly see its strength and dramatic possibilities. What happens to the sonnets after the romantics -- do we continue to see them?

So there I was in Barnes & Noble and I spotted a book entitled Opium in big gold letters. It was a coffee table book. Shiny photographs, wonderful illustrations. What better could I find for a background for Coleridge and especially for “Kubla Khan” I wondered.

Picked up the book (Colin R. Shearing, Opium: A Journey through Time, 2004) and began reading. Opium, as we all know, comes from the opium poppy. A tincture of opium called laudanum was first developed by Paracelsus (1490-1541). The name of the drug came from the Latin verb laudare which means "to praise." The idea was praise to God for such pain relief.

A little later Thomas Sundenham (1624-1689) developed another tincture of alcohol and opium. He also used "laudanum" to name the drink. He used wine, usually sherry, with spices such as saffron, cinnamon and cloves to disguise the bitterness of the opium.

Laudanum was commonly prescribed for children and adults for relief from pain, coughing, aches, what have you.

Enter Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the youngest of ten children of a minister. A sickly child, he was prescribed laudanum for pain relief. At Jesus College, Cambridge, he discovered the visionary potential of opium and that it kept his anxieties and depressions at bay.

He became heavily addicted and carried a silver bottle of laudanum around his neck for the rest of his life.

In 1794, Coleridge dropped out of Cambridge in a fit of revolutionary fervor to lead anarchist uprisings in Bristol. There he met William Wordsworth and together they moved to Stowey, Somerset. It was there that Coleridge wrote "Kubla Khan" under the influence of opium.

Wordsworth was more straitlaced and after working with Coleridge for a while (they produced Lyrical Ballads to which both contributed poems), he became disgusted with Coleridge and the two fell out. Coleridge spent the next ten years wandering.

I noticed in Shelley's biography that Shelley also used laudanum, although I don't know to what extent.

It is always startling to see to what an extent the use of highly addictive drugs was considered an everyday occurrence. It was true in this country as well, even later. Opium was given to infants to quiet their crying.

Kubla Khan certainly has the flavor of what I imagine an opium dream would be like: vividness, strangeness, wild changes in mood.

Ah yes, Joan K, the sonnet continues to be written. There's just something about a squarish poem with a single focus that appeals to poets. When we get to "Leda and the Swan," we'll hit another sonnet.

As for developement. Excellent question. I drove myself mad trying to figure out the rime scheme of "Ozimandias."

Finally came up with abab acdc edefgf. That depends upon making "appear" and "despair" a rime (they are close and given that Shelley makes "stone" and "frown" a rime, I think he intended an off-rime here).

Anyway, the point is that "Ozymandias" is not a Shakespearian sonnet with four quatrains and a couplet. It is what is usually called an Italian sonnet (after Petrarch) with an octave and a sestet.

Another difference between the earlier sonnets and Shelley's is that in Shakespeare's sonnets, for example, there is generally a theme established and then a reversal made. Sonnet 29--The poet is very depressed for quite a few lines and then happens to think of "thee" and feels much better. Donne's Sonnet XIV has this same turn. The octave, or better the first two quatrains, is a request for God to treat him more briskly because he is in the clutches of sin. The poem turns with line nine "Yet dearly I love you. . . " and really turns in the final couplet, "I/Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,/Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me."

When we get to Yeats, you will see one of the lines actually broken in the poem.

So, yes, there are changes, especially in the direction of doing something more daring and less tradition, I think.

I have an OLD anthology of British Lit, now long out of print, that contains the following introduction to "Kubla Khan." I think it's worth reading for the sentence from Purchase his Pilgrimage with all its archaic spelling alone. And then there are all those ways of spelling Kublai Khan!

__________________

This amazing poem came into being by no ordinary method of composition. Coleridge dreamed it during a sleep induced by opium, subconsciously fusing a number of details from various books. A prefatory note by Coleridge explains that “in consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair” while reading Samuel Purchas (d. 1626), the compiler of travel books. In the Purchas his Pilgrimage of that devoted follower of Hakluyt occurs this sentence about the enlightened conqueror Kublai Khan (1216-94), founder of the Mongol dynasty in China; Coleridge’s eye was on it when he dozed off: “In Xanadu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace, encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant springs, delightful Streames, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest therof a sumptuous house of pleasure, which may be removed from place to place.”

“The Author,” proceeds Coleridge, “continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but alas! without the after restoration of the latter!”

Maryal

I don't think Shelley intended anything much with OZYMANDIAS. It was a throwaway sonnet. Unless you go for the 'secret message', as Paglia does. It needs a lot of polishing, besides the rime. The reader easily misses the blemishes, because he is so easily blinded by the stark scene, and the shock of the heavy-handed didactic lesson for would-be tyrants. If the rime scheme is maddening, so can a 'shattered' visage be, with its broken pieces still showing obvious frowns and sneers and wrinkled lips. Why did every poster have difficulty with line 8? That's easy. Because the poet had a difficulty with it himself. But it's a wonderful sonnet, nevertheless. Although unfortunate that the great Shelley's fame should rest on this. In this anthology. Almost ozymandian. What or who toppled poor Ozy? Was it part of a preemptive strike by an enemy. I'm thinking now of the day that Saddam was toppled. Wasn't that an indignity?

I have to admit the scientist in me keeps pointing out how unlikely it would be that the remains would look like that: with the trunk missing completely, and the rest more ore less intact, with the statue out in the middle of the desert with no signs of ruins around it. Never mind, it's a great picture, and drives its point home. Every student like me who encountered it remembers it.

As a Sociologist, I'm always curious as to what social changes were behind the tremendous flowering of creativity in poetry in England in the early 1800s and, in particular the reactions to the city that Paglia has chosen as her theme for the romantic poets.

In England, the seeds of the Industrial Revolution were being laid by the Enclosure Acts: a series of laws that were passed between 1760 and 1830 which had the effect of concentrating the land into the hands of a few owners and throwing small farmers off the land to go to the cities and look for jobs in the factories. Life was becoming more urbanized and chaotic. Together with this (and perhaps related) were the movements toward revolution in France, America, Ireland. All of this must have been stimulating to a lot of intellectual thought and experimentation.

I don't know if these factors explain the tremendous flowering of poetry in a short time and small space that we see in the romantics, and that we still celebrate.

Joan a thought - I wonder kind of thought - seems to me there is probably a plethora of poetry written during all periods of history and what makes the all time list is how often the reader turns to certain poems and certain poets - how the poems tap something relevant in the reader makes a poem a keeper...

And so with that premise I would think examining what it is about the Romantic period that touches us today - is it this fantasy that life was wonderful before the countryside was criss crossed with wire and train tracks? Is the black and white of industry versus countryside in the raw, still a theme that we would prefer to consider rather than the ambiguity of advanced living and health conditions that technology brought along with its exploitation of our time, energy and creativity for pay...Is it that today we are more responsible for our own protection and choices where in the early nineteenth century nature had more control and there was little freedom for the average man, much less women and children...

I know today I watched out my window for about an hour, with a smile on my face, the fawn that was born last week racing around my backyard and then quitly exploring my patio with its mother looking on - oh to wax poetic about nature alive and well in the middle of Austin rather than noting the dull sound of traffic that is always with us now and tells me how busy the international commerce is traveling on the interstate that flows between Neuvo Laredo and Duluth, gateway to Canada, filling our lungs and killing us with heated Nitrogen Dioxide.

It is hard to feel a beauty that can be translated into words while looking at speeding metal in various shapes and colors moving 3 abreast on a black asphalt or white concrete road.

The city scapes are with us but the middle distance either offends or we take it for granted - most everything has been written about the far distant view, leaving only the up close and personal views of action in a city - and like, after reading a contemporary novel such as Atonement it is comforting to return to a read about sea adventures or settlers on the move or ladies in a great house and so too with poetry -

The imagination of green hills and wailing women with heros marching set with beautiful language is easier to think on than words of a post-modernist like Pryne --

Where we go is a loved side of the temple
a place for repose, a concrete path.
There’s no mystic moment involved . . . love is
when, how &
because we do

As compared to the images of Coleridge ~~

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Or Shelley saying ~~

I can give not what men call love:: But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above: And the heavens reject not,
The desire of the moth for the star,: Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar: From the sphere of our sorrow?

As someone who writes poetry regularly the procedure undergone by Coleridge in composing the poem is more the rule than the exception. I frequently arise in the middle of the night with a phrase and a vision that comes from a dream or a source I cannot fathom. And I frequently arise in the morning and look at the material I have written and have no clue as to what it was all about.

Barbara: wonderful post!

Yes, you're right. There's something about the romantics that continues their appeal. While none of us missed reading Pope. Presumably there are many poets from both periods who have gone down in obscurity.

One thing that the Romantic period had was an attachment to the language actually spoken by people. During the "Age of reason," there were many poets, Pope chief among them, but they developed so many conventions and rules and artificial "poetic" ways of writing that, although they may have pleased each other, they don't continue to fascinate.

Every once in a while, a period comes along when ideas seem to be catching fire. The age of reason was wonderful for producing countries--think of America's founding generation--and for prose, but when it comes to poetry, Jan reveals that the roots run deep into the subconscious. Another such period was the sixties when there were rampant political ideas and a sense of a "cause." During this time folk music took hold for a time and wonderful songs were written.

I think the revolutionary ideas that so fired up Coleridge and Wordsworth when they were young, combined with an increasingly grim industrial economy, fueled the movement. But there were many causes.

Barbara--Thank you for the fawn story. I could almost see the little one.

Jan--Welcome back. Wondered where you were.

Marj--We're all hungry.

I'm hungry too.

Deems, I agree that the changes in the “conventions and rules” of poetry are changing as society and its influences change. I’m always amazed though, that the bottom line seems to be a realization that our understanding of being human and human nature remains constant.

I must admit I am more captivated by Pagalia’s own vision, dream, and fragmentary interpretation of “Kubla Khan” than my own. She seems to take us on a journey through her literal and fanciful allusions of a poem which is far away and timeless. She addresses this Romantic break-through work from the perspective of a poet-artist who sees himself possessed “with a power of divination, or seer into Western Culture’s destructive force, written in the form and context of a dream-like state--vivid and illusory.

I find myself going back and sorting out the ideas that reveal her points of view about the poem from more than one perspective: e.g. of a post romantic traveler, an artist, an innovator etc.

It would take a long time for me to ponder and relate Pagalia’s insights with my own thoughts about the poem, and for me, I’m sure the impact of title of her book will continue to work on my own experience and imagination..

Bern

Good for you, Bern. You are daring. You do mean a hunger for 'honey-dew' and 'milk of Paradise', don't you. Be fore-warned. After having fed,

'Close your eyes with holy dread.'

Please tell us about it, when you return from your dreams.

Here it is:

THE PAINS OF SLEEP

Thank you, JONATHAN. A wonderful poem.

I love the end of this poem which is part of the explanation for losing the inspiration, probably because it reminds me of "The Ancient Mariner," grand old poem that most are familiar with.

Thanks for the link, Joan K, and Jonathan for reminding us of "The Pains of Sleep."

Here are the lines I love:

And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Last semester I taught a course on the Bible (as literature) and in the old testament, aka the Hebrew Bible, there are quite a few mentions of prophets going into ecstasies. Coleridge describes how I imagine some of those prophets must have looked.

Even King Saul went into an ecstasy with a group of prophets--and King David danced before the ark of the covenant.

I really like Kubla Khan, and it is a fitting climax to our exploration of the romantics. And I really like Paglia here, both her analysis of the poem and what she has done with the arrangement of poems.

This whole journey through the romantics has been, as one level, an exploration of the relationship between nature and the works of humans. First we have Blake ‘s city and its “mind-forg’d manacles. Humans, in creating their civilizations, have created prisons that (presumably) don’t exist in nature.

Then Wordsworth(in The World) tells us that modern civilization has cut us off from nature, and from our sense of magic. But surprisingly, in Westminster, he shows us the city lying open to nature as in a caress.

Next Shelley shows us nature and time reducing the works of humans to ruins and dust.

Finally Coleridge with the most complex poem of the lot. And I admit, I am grateful for Paglia’s help here. Here nature (presumably both material nature and human nature) is deep, dark, strange and terrifying. But it is the material from which humans create. From this dark, strange material, humans create beauty, pleasure, sunniness. But at the price of remaining dark themselves.

The caves of ice fascinate me. The world below seems to represent human’s inner nature. I see it differently from Paglia – all the heat and passion has gone into creating that sunny dome. The creative process has turned dark into light, strangeness into beauty. But it has also used up the heat and passion within, leaving cold, ice, and barrenness. So, the sunny dome above, in the material world, and the caves of ice below within the creator. We can see how fragile this is – the darkness and passion could break out at any time destroying everything.

Paglia got so wrapped up in the fantasy of the whole poem, which was a joy to read, that there wasn't much to add - I started a journey to figure out where Coleridge could have read about or seen images that allowed him to have his drugged dreams - I wondered at first what books were in print that gave a history or understanding of Kubla thinking only of the stories brought back by Marco Polo - well was I surprised - I got a history lesson in tea, drugs, trade, South China shipping, explorers, [shocked to realize Cook found the Hawaiian Islands before this poem was written] pottery, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Spice War and even dipped into the Opium War, although, that was later - I had the time of my life...!

Joan K, your comments on the “relationship between nature and the works of humans” during the Romantic period where nature was the preoccupation of the age of Romanticism, makes me wonder … when we get to the more contemporary works what your ideas related to Pagalia’ s arrangement for these poems will be?

Barbara, I would never have thought to journey back to the source of poets’ images. If I tried that, I’m afraid I would get lost and never journey back in time for the next poem. So I will enjoy each entry as it is.

Bern

Although there is an undoubted exhuberance in the declaration there is also a decided lack of elegance as compared to Donne's "Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee" which says the same thing in less words but perhaps in a more dismal tone.

I am puzzled by the line: Hoping to cease not until death.

OK, folks, a big shift here to another country--America--and a very different poet, Walt Whitman. Whitman and Dickinson are the acknowledged best American poets of the mid-19th century. They always have more poems in anthologies that are arranged chronologically and usually even when poems are arranged thematically.

Whitman served as a nurse during the Civil War and I have seen several of the houses where he worked, one of them on the northern side of the Rappahanock River (Battle of Fredericksburg). He wrote what has to be the greatest of the poems written to commemorate the assassination of Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed."

Whitman broke all the rules--he didn't let the length of the line or the number of stresses in a line dictate the rules to him; he was devoted to his book of poems, Leaves of Grass to which he added, and which he revised, until very old age.

Notice the section numbers here. Paglia has selected the first section of "Song of Myself" and the 24th section. There are many more. "Song of Myself" is a long poem.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

In these four lines of section 1, Whitman announces that he will break whatever rules he wants; he will introduce subjects which are ordinarily not in poems; above all he will write with ENERGY.

If there's one word that sums up Whitman and his voice for me, I think it must be ENERGY.

Jan--I've always assumed that Whitman was announcing that he would continue writing until he was dead. In the line before he announces his age and that he will now begin. His plan is to continue until he dies. What does everyone else think he means with the line, "Hoping to cease not till death"?

Maryal

You can find the entire "Song of Myself" here:

http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem2288.html

And if you look all the way down to lines 1332 and 1333, you will find two of my favorite lines from this poem.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

Is that American, or what? Barbaric Yawp indeed! No fancy schmantzy poetic stuff for Whitman. He's going to stand on some high spot and send his yawp over the roofs of the whole world. And he's wild and free and, well, American.

Which seems appropriate for this 4th of July long weekend.

Maryal

Shame on me. I make it a point to stress to my students how important CONTEXT is and how one should be very careful to quote with enough of the context to not make the quote lie.

Here are lines 1331-1333:

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

If any of you are in the NewYork area, there is a celebration starting this weekend of the 150th anniversity of Leaves of Grass.

http://www.poets.org/viewevent.php/prmEventID/3669

Here, scroll down to "W" to hear Orson Welles reading "Song of Myself".

SONG OF MYSELF AUDIO

I don't recommend listening before you've read it several times -- it goes by pretty fast.

Thanks, Joan K--I'm going to listen to Welles tomorrow, something to look forward to. I watched "Notorious" with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman a couple of nights ago (had never seen it, believe it or not) and was hit by how fast the supporting actors talked. For the most part, I thought the stars were about normal pace ("normal" in this case being what I expect from movies today).

I've noticed this before--in old movies--how fast they talk. I wonder exactly when they learned to slow down and stop rushing so.

Anyone know?

This sounds so much like the vision of America we would like to portray and at one time believed this was who we were - The White Man's dream of a Democratic Union with room to breathe and, lands to roam, air clear and clean, as was the image of what was right and where our values lay. - Strike up the band and hook your thumb in those suspenders of red, white and blue.

What stands out in Whitman in contrast to the previous poetic specimens exhibited by Paglia is the exaltation of the physical self with all its hungers and exudations and the lack of the necessity to justify delight in this to a concept of a theoretical spiritual being. I am with him on this but somewhat disturbed by his admitted noisy presentation.

I like Whitman, but somehow need to take him in small doses. Like Jan, I find him so noisy (and somehow BIG) as to be rather overwhelming.

Barbara--If you continue reading "Song of Myself," you will find that Whitman hoped to speak for all Americans, the poor, those of color, the outcasts. He was nothing if not democratic. Whitman was gay although most contemporary scholars think that he may have not been very active, if active at all. As a minority, he certainly had a privileged position to understand those who were disenfranchised.

I like Whitman too, Joan, and he's not always so loud. In "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" he is lyrical and certainly subdued.

I'll be away some over the long weekend, but I'll check in when I'm home.

Maryal

Perhaps the poet to compare Whitman to is Carl Sandberg who was also a singer of the force of the American dream. To me, Sandberg was lyrical in a more acceptable way and not so full of himself. His feeling was more in line with the songs of Woody Guthry and Leadbelly and Pete Seeger and even Bob Dylan. and many of the songs that evolved from English folk music with anonymous origins.

WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOMED

Has Whitman left everyone speechless? Not surprising -- he does that to me.

I love the fact that 19th century American poetry is represented by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. Typical of a literary tradition that gave us both Mark Twain and Henry James.

This was a very interesting time in US history. We were expanding the frontier, and everything seemed new and possible at the same time that the Eastern seaboard was losing it's frontier quality, and developing a literary tradition based on that of England. We needed both Mark Twain and Henry James: both to develop and carry on the English tradition and to do new things, things that were uniquely American. Perhaps we need both Whitman and Dickinson too -- the largeness, the expansion, that are so much a part of the United States, and the seeing of the vastness in the small and circumscribed of Dickinson.

I notice we have left England behind, unless I missed someone. We get one Irishman, one Canadian, one German refugee raised in the US. Everyone else is United States, born and bred. Is this our insulism, the fact that we have less access perhaps to new British poets, do we relate more to poetry from our own country, or has US poetry been that good?

It is a shame that Paglia restricted the book to English speakers, although I understand her qualms about using translations.

while Deems mourns that Keats is not included I mourn that Dylan Thomas is not included - for me he is the greatest wordsmith of the twentieth century.

!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OH! Walt Whitman! You're doing Walt Whitman!! I absolutely LOVE Walt Whitman! OH that does it, I must have this book, you're only on poem 18, maybe it's not too late to join in?

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

Gotta hear what she says about Whitman: a celebration of the life in all of us, what vigor, what power. Love Whitman, fabulous choice.

Jan, does Paglia compare Whitman to Sandberg or were you comparing? Is Sandberg in the book? Whitman reminds me of Sandberg but I like Whitman so much more. Sandberg lived not far from me actually, in NC. Interesting home, have any of you been there? Raised goats.

Chicago by Carl Sandberg:

HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,

That's a totally different take, and view, less personalized, to me. Sorry to butt in but I LOVE Whitman!

PS: This is on SeniorNet's Home Page, I just saw this!

Books & Culture: This year marks the 150th anniversary of the initial printing of "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman. Listen to a free lecture on Walt Whitman brought to you by the Teaching Company.

Neat!! Thought you might like to see that!

Joan, that's an interesting observation. That's it exactly, I thought to myself, when I read it. With his exuberance one is soon left thinking what is there more to say?

But what could be more in keeping with the spirit of the day? To have Walt Whitman on the board, on the The Fourth. He sings for all America today. Mr Democracy!

I can look forward to the American poetry coming up. With Emily Dickinson up next. Haha, she says more in two lines than Whitman says in two pages. They are just the perfect pair to oppose to the English (as in England) poets we've been consideriing up till now. But, where I see little English influence in Whitman, the first of Dickinson's has Shakespeare, Donne, Marvell, and Wordsworth written all over it.

Very gratifying to see that a Canadian poet gets the last word in Paglia's poetic charm bracelet. As so often happens, however, it celebrates an American event. How is that for neighborliness?

Sorry, to hear of your disappointment, Barbara. It would have been nice to have something of DT's. We do get some hilarious Yeats, authentically Celtic, wouldn't you say.

And here to BLOW on the glow of the smouldering coals of our discussion:

The inimitable Ginny!!!

You're just in time. The discussion is about to take off. From here on in we are creating new CANON, a la Camille Paglia. She is a glorious guide. Gets carried away at times, but she does sweep us all along with her.

Joan, we don't exactly leave the British behind. For a few short years there is a strange attempt at a marriage of American and British minds, that serves neither well, but does a lot for poetry.

Happy Fourth!

Thank you Jonathan, and you are more right than you know apparently when you say Whitman is just right for the 4th!!

The Teaching Company Lecture above just said that 150 years ago on July 4, 1855, Walt Whitman published his first edition of Leaves of Grass!

Happy Fourth of July!!

Happy 4th of July !!!!

And welcome home from the West, Ginny. I had no idea that this was the 150th anniversary of the publication of Leaves of Grass. We just got lucky, patwest and I, with the schedule for the poems!

Serrendipity (one r, maybe?). It looks awfully full of Rs to me, but hey, I never could spell.

Happy 4th to those who celebrate it and stay safe at the fireworks. Hot dogs will be served around here and then the fireworks in nearby Rockville. I don't like going to the D.C. Mall because the fireworks seem so far away (unless you go early and grab a close in blanket spot).

Maryal

Couldn't resist, looked it up. Serendipity. One R.

I've had my hot dogs, corn, watermelon, and mango (can't get tooo traditional!) and I'm ready for the fireworks. We can see the Gaithersburg ones from the field behind my neighbors house. Everyone brings folding chairs and LOTS of bug repellent.

You can have the Mall. I used to go when I was courting in a canoe on the Potomac. Now, I'd rather sit in a chair. Maybe I am getting old.

Not surprising that this poem is met with silence. If Whitman leaves one speechless, Dickinson leaves one breathless, with chills running up and down ones spine. Just look at what it did to Paglia. She makes it all very interesting, but at the same time it raised a lot of hobgoblins and gremlins in her mind.

I'll suggest it's a New England ghost story. With heavy overtones of the Metaphysical and the Transcendental. After taking a cue from Wordsworth when she turned her back on the World, Dickinson took Donne's keen interest in Death, borrowed Marvell's Winged Chariot, and rode off beyond the Sunset. A ghost story told by one who has been dead for centuries, and is now reminiscing. And what she has to work with! Life and Death. Time and Eternity. Mortality and Immortality. And after 24 lines the reader is left only with endless, deepening mystery.

This is my first encounter with Emily Dickinson. And I find this poem easily on a par with Coleridge's Kubla Khan. More original it seems to me. After all, Coleridge was only using what he had read about somewhere and stored away. The Hermit of Amherst found it all in the 'World' she created for herself. One poem is as thrilling as the other. I don't find Dickinson in the least morbid. Just scintillating as a poet. Everything takes on so many meanings in her hands.

I just finished Paglia's essay on this poem and found it fascinating. When one has taught a poem numerous times and is about thought out on it, it really helps to read another's take on it.

Paglia lets herself go on this one. And the essay is longer than most, three pages. WOW.

Dickinson was almost the opposite of Whitman in terms of her crowing on the rooftops. She published only three or four poems in her lifetime. Upon her death, a relative discovered many packets of poems, tied up with string.

One of Dickinson's interesting characteristics is her capitalization of nouns (Paglia remarks on this); another is her long dashes (just a little longer than I can accomplish using Word). When Dickinson's poems were published, these dashes were often eliminated. A big mistake. Poems should be kept with their original punctuation, especially when we are dealing with a poet as careful as Dickinson.

Maryal

Gosh. How much of Paglia do we take at face value and how much not? Is there any room for other interpretations? She really reached with the Whitman (tho I did love her explanation of “Manahatta” as the Algonquin Indians, and did not know Whitman was considered a Romantic!!??!!), but this lovely poem she...as you said, Deems...outdid herself.

I have never seen this on the literal plane as an abduction and murder, have any of you? What is her source for that, other than herself? holy cow!

I thought the Personification of Death was also a notion of some associated period of the time, can’t remember if it was “Romantic” or “Victorian,” and don’t know the terms, but I seem to recall a lot of old engravings with the sick bed or etc., and Death standing by with his sickle, waiting. The fact that he’s not expected this time is really delicious. I loved this poem for it's truths: who of us feels he can "stop for Death??” I love the irony of that happening, inexorably, with civility, which it does sometimes. Doesn’t it?

He knew no haste, I love this poem, have I misunderstood it ALL these years? Hahahaa

The swelling of the ground and the Cornice in the ground brings to mind a million old cemeteries, some of which are regular cities of the dead, WITH cornices and lintels a plenty. I can’t make the leap she wants to the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the poet has already said Death drove a carriage, isn’t that also a convention of that era?

And how on earth she gets God as the suave kidnapper and the question of whether or not God is the driver or the driven is amazing. Dickenson has already said the driver is Death, wouldn’t that be the antithesis of God, or was Dickenson, whom Paglia says was “fiercely agnostic,”actually saying something else here? What an interesting interpretation, is there room for another?

What DO those dashes signify, Deems?

Ginny--There are always other ways to read a poem, especially if you have read a lot of them. Yes, surely Death was personified before D. wrote this poem, but generally not as a coachman who came by to pick one up. This fellow even has good manners. Paglia is talking about the language when she speaks of an abduction, literally a taking away.

I do myself see the ambiguity in the poem--as to what is being said about Death. At first, it sounds pretty good, what with Immortality being in the situation (or in the carriage) but then we discover there is no sense of the kind of immortality that we were maybe hoping for, a homecoming, a being welcomed into the heavenly kingdom, perhaps?

Here there is a starkness and a sense of many many years spent in that carriage with Death, a kind of stasis if you will.

What do the rest of you think about Paglia's essay?

Maryal

I take the dashes as being meant for momentary reflection, or for a slight redirection of thought.

Paglia is all over the place on this one. She overloads Emily's carriage with excess baggage. She makes God the fourth passenger, and implicates Him in Death's kidnap and murder scheme. She has 'I' feeling 'duped and defrauded' by 'Christ's rosy offer of an afterlife'. That is reading a lot into it. 'I's eternity seems to be a state of remembering life, and life was a state of travelling along with death. The big day in life was realizing an eternity. Emily had her own agenda.

And what critical justification is there for turning

'The Dews drew quivering and chill - ' ( ED )

into

'The Dews grew quivering and chill' (Paglia)?

Anyone who has felt the chill come on with the dew, after sunset will go along with 'drew'. At a time like that the body, a tired or ageing body could seem like little more than gossamer and tulle to the soul.

GINNY: you missed the earlier discussion, and our mixed reactions to Paglia. I think our consensus is that she offers some brilliant insights, and also overreaches herself (we only differ in how much of each we think she does). None of us take her opinion for more than the opinion of a brilliant woman, which we are free to accept if it works for us, reject if it doesn't.

We all put ourselves into the poems we read -- Paglia is clearly doing that with her "take" on Dickinson's death. I'm interested in what those of you who know Dickinson's other poems think they have to say about death and immortality.

I think Dickinson goes beyond Personification with this poem. There is a certain abstract quality about it, despite being firmly anchored to the 'Ground'. Twice yet. Who can tell the being of 'I' in the poem?

Death really is a companion during life. Do we ever really forget it? Implied in Dickinson's consideration of Immortality and Eternity is the same conclusion regarding Death, as Donne's, in his 'Death be not proud' sonnet. As a transition, a gateway, a part of nature. But how little rhetoric over it in Dickinson.

Death is kind, civil, and in no hurry. And for some he doesn't come soon enough. It takes no poet to tell us that, but ED makes good use of the thought. Death is made to seem almost a rite of passage. A means to an end.

And how she breezes through life, through the several stages of life, in the third stanza. Again the passage. How strange to consider the two sides of the Setting Sun. Makes one shiver. Advancing or being left behind. Everything in this poem has so many meanings. I've never seen anything like it.

No actually I didn't miss the earlier discussion, Joan, I read all the Books discussions, believe it or not, every post. This one is a great one, one of the best.

I agree with Jonathan, but will just say gently that the ambiguity or amorphousness you might feel about spending Eternity with Death if you were an Agnostic might actually be quite a bit like what she describes, I doubt sincerely you would be looking for a reunion of Those Passed On, and disappointed when they don't appear, think of Frosts's "There may be little or nothing beyond the grave, but the strong are saying nothing till they see." (paraphrased)... hahahaa but I'll shut it for now. hahahaa

Hmmm what I get from this poem is the leisure in which death can be honored - years ago I taught Needlework - studied in England and France and spent some time studying samplers in Cambridge - there were so many samplers done with human hair often from the deceased that was honored by the sampler - at the time I remember learning that the eighteenth century was the first time in history that pomp and circumstance so to speak could be arranged for an average person who died - that the whole protocol of mourning was established during this time in history.

And that is what I am seeing in this poem - time to allow death to be more than a non-event where a body was quickly disposed of and the focus for everyone was only on the here-after not what happened to your mind or body before or at the time of death.

It took me awhile to understand --
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity—
Then came the dawn and my mother would say - as I realized death came in a horse drawn carriage.

I cannot for the life of me remember but isn't there the shortest short story of two lines - something - I hurried and met death on the road to someplace or other...maybe Damascus??

Dashes or not, Dickinson’s poetry, for me, instead of reflecting images and associations from the outside world IN, her poems provoke the wildest and most personal images and experiences from WITHIN, And having read Pagalia’s “take” and those of the rest of us, I can experience this phenomena here too.

Even if I had not known Dickinson spent her life in the seclusion of her self and her surroundings, there is a tone of “hauteur” and insulation that fascinates me.

I make use of the dashes, along with Jonathan, to take flight inward or outward in my own imagination with images and experiences of my own as Pagalia seems to have done.

After having read this and many of her other poems, I feel like my mind has been seduced, as in a spider’s web to …what?

Bern

Since I have no Paglia for reference I must defer to my personal outlook.

It seems to me that here death is neither kindly nor threatening, merely inexorable. The carriage analogy is a way of Dickenson bidding goodbye to all the things she has known on Earth with some uncomfortable foreboding of being conscious and interred for an intolerable duration. Although there is a general faith in believers that death implies a quick transfer to either reward or punishment, there is some mythical belief that the dead will arise only at the second coming. A claustrophobic period fills the gap.

And then, of course, since Paglia mentions Kubla Khan, you can't help thinking of Coleridge and his Twins, Death and Life in Death in the Ancient Mariner. There seemed to be a difference to Coleridge, I wonder if there was to Dickenson?

I personally see a LOT of irony in this, am I the only one?

Good morning, all. Jan has reminded me of the idea, long held and still held by many believers, of the long period between the burial of the body and the raising of the body at the Last Judgment. I wonder how many of us think of that now?

Emily Dickinson attended Amherst Academy for Women during the time of the Second Awakening (the evangelical revivalist period in the 1850s). Students were strongly advised and counseled to publicly declare their belief in Christ. Emily was the only student who did not do so. She remained a skeptic for the rest of her life although she had many friendships (and I'll bet interesting conversations) with ministers. She stopped attending church when she was thirty. Nonetheless she spoke in the language of her culture and God enters many of her poems.

Barbara--I'm not familiar with the very very short story you mention though there is one about meeting Death under a tree that's a little longer.

Ginny--I don't know of other portrayals of Death as a Coachman though there are certainly many other guises in which he appears.

Bern--Yes, Dickinson's poetry is extremely from the inside. She had close friends and was always close to her family, but she was very much an introvert. She read widely and drew from her own imagination and thinking. She had an extraordinary inner life, didn't she?

I found an interesting description of Dickinson's poem packets online at poets.org:

"Upon her death, Dickinson's family discovered 40 handbound volumes of more than 800 of her poems, or "fascicles" as they are sometimes called. These booklets were made by folding and sewing five or six sheets of stationary paper and copying what seem to be final versions of poems in an order that many critics believe to be more than chronological. The handwritten poems show a variety of dash-like marks of various sizes and directions (some are even vertical). The poems were initially unbound and published according to the aesthetics of her many early editors, removing her unusual and varied dashes and replacing them with traditional punctuation. The current standard version replaces her dashes with a standard "n-dash," which is a closer typographical approximation of her writing. Furthermore, the original order of the works was not restored until 1981, when Ralph W. Franklin used the physical evidence of the paper itself to restore her order, relying on smudge marks, needle punctures and other clues to reassemble the packets. Since then, many critics have argued for thematic unity in these small collections, believing the ordering of the poems to be more than chronological or convenient. The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson (Belknap Press, 1981) remains the only volume that keeps the order intact."

( http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/155 )

And for those of you who are interested in houses. You can see the house where Emily was born and spent her life as well as the house of her brother, Austin, and her sister-in-law, Sue, which was next door here:

http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/mission.html

Maryal

whoops Deems posted between - this was for Ginny -- aha but what do you think -- is death a catastrophie - an end - or a kindly ride to eternity...

Barbara--I'm not sure what I think, but the idea of a long long long and COLD carriage ride with death for eternity is pretty chilling. I'm curious to know what Ginny means by seeing much irony here.

I think the word Kindly and that is why with a smile I was suggesting it is an ironic word if you think of death as an end or a catastrophe - hehehe but I never thought of it as a long cold ride - do you think that stop off at the house where the Cornice meets the ground is the place to warm up - the coffee break while waiting for those returning horses to take us on through to eternity - hehehe - I am having fun with this so please this is all said lightly -

But it's COLD in that corniced house in the ground. Not to mention lonely. Not to mention that eternity is a long time. And the fact that Death is "kindly"? It's a ruse.

The poem we are looking at is not the only one where ED has a voice speaking from beyond death. This is one of my favorites.

I heard a Fly buzz -- when I died --
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air --
Between the Heaves of Storm --

The Eyes around -- had wrung them dry --
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset -- when the King
Be witnessed -- in the Room --

I willed my Keepsakes -- Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable -- and then it was
There interposed a Fly --

With Blue -- uncertain stumbling Buzz --
Between the light -- and me --
And then the Windows failed -- and then
I could not see to see --

As for the dashes with which Dickinson punctuates. I find them fascinating because she uses them in the place of any other punctuation. I think of a dash always as a pause, somewhat longer than a comma pause, so that when reading aloud, one would pause at every dash, the ones in the middle of lines as well as the ones at the end. The poem above ends with a dash where all logic requires a period, a full stop. After all, the poem has come to an end, but even here we have a dash. They really add to the rhythm of the poem.

Well if it is cold than I guess I better start planning to bring a quilt with me and never mind dressing me up or using a shroud but dress me warm in nice cozy jogging sweats - that would be great - now lonely - ah never a problem - I like alone - but then where do we go in death - hmmm - I am beginning to wonder about other dimensions...seriously

I have a favorite quote on my all bulletin board - it says - "We surround ourselves with the reflections of our identities. All we are about is survival and gratification. We are preening inside our self built mirrored casket."

Irony? No Irony in Death "kindly" stopping? A ruse, it's a ruse? A wily subterfuge? For whom? What an interesting discussion this is. Who is being fooled, would you say, the poet or the reader?

Thank you Deems for that super explanation of the power of the dash!

What an interesting question, Barbara, is Death a long cold ride, or a catastrophe?

I would guess that most of us, with the possible exception of Billy Graham, don't think of Death as a kindness to look forward to, unless there is serious and prolonged painful illness or depression? Or do we? She is not in that condition, she makes THAT clear, she's not even able to "stop," but Death kindly stops FOR her, as Barbara says, that seemed ironic to me but I have always had a problem WITH irony. It may show? hahahaa

I dunno, I could be wrong, and often am.

On Death as the Coachman, golly I thought history was full of Death as the driver. Here's a bit from a source which is NOT .edu, so may be suspect and incorrect, caveat lector, but I keep thinking of all the old ghost stories in almost every city anywhere about Death driving the coach and four, again I could be wrong, but apparently Charon, the original ferryman/ Death personification/ transporter, moved onland, or so this site http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/s/selected_cross-cultural_&_historical_personifications_of_death.html, again with a grain of salt, says:

Modern Greek folklore has transmuted the concept of Charon into a whole new personification. Death is no longer the withered ferryman, but rather the driver of the "death coach". In many parts of Greece, it is believed that, as time passed on and men became less connected to their gods (i.e., more concerned with material gains rather than spiritual pursuits) Death had to venture into the land of the living to retrieve souls. Hence, the personification of the death-coach, a black plumed, funerary coach pulled by huge black horses and driven by a faceless driver with burning eyes, who is in effect, Death Himself.

So I dunno, seems like every coastal town in England features Death riding by in his coach, legends which predate the early 1800's. I'll try to find more, Dickenson was born in 1830, I think some of the legends precede her. She may be the first person to write about this concept in a poem in English, tho, in this way?

I also wonder, looking a tad ahead, at the particular subject placement of these poems in the book? I see Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers coming up, followed by The Second Coming, interesting!

I didn't know about the Death as Coachman, Ginny, but I do know that Dickinson was a wide reader and if all that coachman business was around when she was, she may well have known about it. Good of you to give more background. My imagination about Death stops somewhere around a tall thin man with a sickle. Is Death ever portrayed as a woman?

Just thought of one answer to my own question. There's that one of three women (the fates, the furies, the somethings from Greek mythology). One of them measures out the cloth, one of them sews it up, and the third one (this would be the personification of death) clips the thread. Something like that. Don't have time to look it up just now because I have a foot or so of bluebooks to read. By Friday morning. The plebe placement exam is upon us again. Lots of bluebooks, lots of colleagues also reading (thank heaven!)

As for the irony, yes I see the "kindly" as possible irony. I also see it as the way this lady naturally, being good mannered and all, thinks of the offer of a ride.

But I still think it's a ruse. There she is busy busy busy and suddenly a coach arrives and the coachman "kindly" offers her a ride, and she thinks of the gesture as a kind one, but of course, it isn't--it's a one-way ticket with only one other passenger, that ghostly "immortality" who resembles a fog when I try to picture him/her.

' I feel like my mind has been seduced, as in a spider’s web to …what? ' Bern, post 781. Beautiful!!

So, do you think Emily D was surprised to catch that bluebottle in the end? The one that prevented her from seeing the king, as she passed over into the next world.

I feel there is too much truth in her work to allow for much irony. On the other hand she seems to have had a great sense of humor.

That was a bit of genius - putting Immortality into the carriage, as the third passenger, along with Death. Try picturing 'I' sitting between them. Did kindly Death feel frustrated? Did 'I' feel smug? So where is 'I' spending Eternity? She's not under the mound. She's looking down at it. My world view has changed completely, after seeing that carriage go by.

Ginny, irony is such a rich word. I think Dickinson’s whole life and lifestyle was an “irony” because she seems to contradict our normal expectations about being a recluse, a woman, a poet, an “atheist?”

Her poem though, as we have demonstrated, has elicited the most interesting of observations and interpretations…especially for Pagalia herself.

By the way: here is a short, short story my students enjoy and one that illustrates all the elements of a short story.

A Short Tale of Terror by T B Aldrich

A woman is sitting in her old, shattered house. She knows that she is all alone in the whole world: every other thing is dead. The doorbell rings!

Pagalia's hyperbolic "erudite, entertaining, and infused" style is beginning "to get" to me and I am beginning to question my own "passionate engagement wit poetry." (quotes from book blurb)

e.g. "Dickinson's apocalyptic tableau of earthly devistation against and infinite skyscape prefigures the genre of intergalactic science fiction."

I mean how can one respond to her "surprising discoveries" after having experieced the imagery of this sparse 10 line poem with space between to breathe?

I did though, begin to wonder if Dickinson ever communicated with anyone who may have influenced her to keep writing but without seeking to share it with others.

Foreground & Apprenticships

I found interesting because there was a person and critic who wrote to her about her poems and she returned his letter in a way that is not surprising. The critical comments that follow, make Dickinson seem more alive too.

You have to wonder if we, by reading and heeding Paglia, are contributing to making a poem into a machanical thing

From Dylan Thomas the last stanza of In my craft or sullen art

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Not for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

I think Dickenson is reminding us more than any other poet so far to be a lover with our arms round the griefs of the ages...

My reaction to the first Emily Dickinson poem is an example of the unique value of these SeniorNet discussions. I had read the poem before, and dismissed it as being a bit precious. Reading it aloud 3 times, I saw I had totally misjudged the poem. The first 2 verses seemed somewhat the same—she is called away from her busy life to embark on the final journey. In the third verse we see some of the ordinary hustle and bustle of life we are leaving, but with a sense of remoteness.

Then, bang! a shift of reference. The setting sun passes us; things grow chill: we are somewhere else. We pause only briefly beside the house which I assume is the unneeded mausoleum, and off to whatever lies beyond.

Then I read Paglia’s commentary. As has been the case a few times before, I feel she is overinterpreting. I can’t say she is wrong, the text totally allows for her version, but I don’t go along with her description of abduction, and especially diminished consciousness. Finally, I read everyone else’s comments, and changed my ideas a little more. I particularly like the poem about the fly—it made my hair stand on end. My ideas are still settling down, but I wouldn’t have even given this poem a second chance without this discussion.

I wasn't posting during the discussions, but Paglia's discussion of Kubla Khan completely changed and enlarged how I understood the poem, and her comments on Whitman were helpful, although W is not a sympathetic poet to me.

Deems, they were three women: Clotho spun the thread of life, Lachesis assigned men their destiny, and Atropos wielded the shears that cut a man's thread.

Thank you, Pat H--I can now go to sleep tonight. Those are the women. I had it a little wrong, but at least I remembered the one who snipped the thread. How nice to have their names. Did they have a group name, like the Fates maybe?

Glad to hear that Paglia opened up some thoughts for you for "Kubla Khan." I think we were doing that one when you had the computer problems.

The good thing about Paglia's essays, whether you agree or disagree with the points she makes (and there are certainly some where she goes further afield than others), is that she helps to get the discussion going.

Also, in some instances, she really provides short cuts. It's nice not to have to look up tulle, for example. I know that it's something to do fabric, but in order to say that it is "fine netting for veils and ballet costumes" I'd have to look it up. Same thing with tippet. Again, I can tell from the context that we're dealing with some kind of garment here, but I didn't know that it was a shawl.

"'Scuse me, I have to go inside and get my tippet" is just something I've never said. Plus I don't have a shawl.

Note to self: Get (or knit or crochet) a shawl so that you can be a proper old person and also so that you can say the above sentence at some point.

Maryal

Yes, they are the Fates. You may recognize that atropine is named for Atropos. The thought of you having anything to do with a tippet strikes me as wildly unlikely.

Good to hear from you Pat. I guess we all miss your posts.

But why does the poem about the Fly make your hair stand on end? What do you see in it that makes you feel that way about it?

I wondered too, Deems, what makes it a favorite Dickinson poem for you?

I think it is very funny. And that it was meant to be. Dickinson was not in the act of dying when she composed it. She imagined the solemn moment. The formalities and the leave-taking having been concluded in an orderly way, a tremendous stillness sets in. Like the calm eye of the hurricane. Everything is going according to script. Along comes the spoiler, to ruin the party. A damn bluebottle fly eclipses the expected King. What's this. The Devil? God? The King who has come to fetch her, presumably. But we have been told that Dickinson was agnostic. So she can't be serious. In fact, or rather, in my opinion, she is displaying a great sense of humor. To combine the solemn and the ridiculous in this way is really mischievous. So unNew-Englandish.

a tippet is not really a shawl - it is more like a cape with long front ends - in the 1920s those fox things ladies wore were called Tippets and the long thin body with the head of a fox at the end hung long in the front so that the mouth of the fox could be used to as a clip to grasp other side - how gruesome is all sounds now and yet it was the height of fashion at the time.

And tulle is finer than netting and silkier than organdy but a see through usually white cloth that was prized for soft wedding dresses and first holy communion vails.

I see the same sense of the smallness and limitedness of human affairs as opposed to the vastness of the universe in both ED poems we have so far. One big difference for me is that "Because--" is very linear and "Safe" is very curved and circular. I want to read cycles into these poems (probably more me than ED) -- Because doesn't help me much, "Safe" does.

In "Because", I don't see her as losing our human life, so much as literally "passing" it -- leaving it behind, as she gets a broader and broader view of the universe. First she sees human endeavor as child's play, passes the cycles of the sun, loses the protection of her gossamer beliefs, sees human civilization in ruins. Finally she leaves behind our human sense of time as centuries pass as a day. She is in a vaster world now than our human one. She doesn't tell us what this eternity is that she is going toward. She is an agnostic, not an atheist, -- she doesn't know.

Even this is not completely linear. Human endeavor is a "recess" a pause between two sessions of school. She is returning where she came from. And as soon as she passes the setting sun, she encounters the dew, a symbol of morning.

In "Safe", only the humans are in their (rectangular) coffins. Everything else in the universe is curved or circular. Years go in crescents, worlds in arcs, human regimes are (round) dots, time is a disc of snow. Here I have my cycles, things go and return.

Just beautiful Joan - if nothing else your post is a highlight for me of reading along with this group - thanks...!

Joan, I was wondering what you would make of ED's poetry. You've given us a lot to think about in your post.

I think you have a good point with the smallness and vastness. I like to think that describes Dickinson's situation. On the one hand shutting herself up in her chamber. And on the other...well, I think she says somewhere else that the brain is bigger than the universe.

The use of 'safe' leaves me wondering if her contemplating the dead in their chambers isn't in reality an assessment of her own situation. There's more here than meets the eye. I think Paglia has deliberately given us three Dickinson poems that reflect her preoccupation with her withdrawal. A death of sorts. And she is trying to escape it. But it's like a moth to a flame.

JONATHAN: good points. Smallness and vastness does describe ED. I think you're right about her ambivalence toward her withdrawal. It makes me want to read more about her.

I'm still at work reading the plebe placement exam, alphabetizing them, rereading ones read by others, putting them in groups--validators, honors, regular, writing emphasis and remedial. So many groups, so little time.

I will stop back by later and put some thoughts about this poem.

Have you all noticed that Paglia gives this really short poem a four page essay? Somewhere I remember reading that she had either taken a course on Dickinson or taught one or taken a course on Dickinson and Whitman. We are all influenced by what we have spent lots of time on.

Maryal

Here's another Dickinson poem that I love. I lived in Maine while I was in high school and college, and I know exactly the slant of winter light that Dickinson is speaking of here.

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
'Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 'tis like the distance
On the look of death.

Why does Paglia give us only these two stanzas of Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers? Other anthologies, including the excellent, electronic Representative Poetry link, give three. There seems to be an interesting history in the making of this poem. Paglia does acknowledge the missing stanza:

'Two versions exist of the second stanza. In Dickinson's first draft, dated three years earlier, nature romps on merrily above the deep freeze of the dead: the breeze "laughs"; a bee "babbles"; "sweet" birds "pipe" - pert, pretty sounds unprocessed by the sluggish cadavers' "stolid Ear." The final version makes a stunning leap forward in power and authority. Pictorial style shifts from a frilly, pastoral rococo to rigouous abstraction, as the charming, summery scene yields to a majestic, inanimate panorama. It is the severe moments of epic vision like this that makes Dickinson unique among women poets.'

It seems from that, that Paglia is convinced that she has chosen the better of the two 'second' stanzas, and will go with that, in keeping with Dickinson's original intent.

Dickinson's first version, and therefore part of the original poetic inspiration went like this:

'Light laughs the breeze / In her Castle above them - / Babbles the Bee in stolid Ear, / Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence - / Ah, what sagacity perished here!'

Enter Emily's friend and SIL, Susan Gilbert. She was shown the poem, and it must have been her displeasure that led Dickinson to compose a second concluding stanza for her poem, and then writing Sue:

'Perhaps this verse will please you better.'

Sue replied: 'I am not suited dear Emily with the second verse. It is remarkable as the chain lightening that blinds us hot nights in the Southern sky, but it does not go with the ghostly shimmer of the first verse as well as the other one.'

The 'other' does seem so perfect, and offers the better, stark contrast between the Living and the Dead. The difference between the shut-in, the 'locked down' (as Paglia puts it) condition of the sleepers and the both simple and grand space and life from which they have shut themselves off with their 'Roof of stone'. The laughing breeze, the bees, the birds - it's such a perfect picture of a New England cemetery on a summer day.

'Diadems' and 'Doges' seem totally out of place in this setting. The grand procession of the years, worlds scooping their arcs ( a variation on ED's own little railway engine lapping the miles, and licking the valleys up) are a great in conception; but somehow I feel she got it better with the birds and the bees. There is as grand a contrast in this between living and dead as she needs to make her point. The second version, I believe, was a concession on ED's part to someone elses need for the grandiose. I feel she wrote the second version with a heavy heart.

Untouched by Morning. Untouched by Noon.

What a heartbreaking prospect for someone really alive. And to shut them out, for safety's sake - how tragic. Pity the poor sleepers. Ressurection is now.

Never to hear the laughing breeze!

Joan, that's an evening dew, not a morning dew, that brings on the chill...

JONATHAN: thanks for the correction.

Yes, Paglia seems routinely to avoid poems celebrating the beauty of nature. I don't know which I like better -- I'm glad we have them both. Are they usually presented as one three-verse poem?

Jonathan--Do you really prefer the first draft second stanza? I understand other editions publishing all three stanzas (with a note that the poem has two second stanzas, one earlier, one later) but I cannot imagine the other second stanza working in so powerful a way. All those bees and birds just don't do it for me. I'm with Paglia on this one. Also, she would simply be following what seemed to be Dickinson's second draft, her second attempt, showing that for whatever reason, Sue's displeasure or her own, she decided to rewrite.

The problem with Dickinson is that there are optional stanzas and lines for many of her poems. And because she published so few of them during her lifetime (even the count varies; I've seen 4, 6, and 10)--and because she didn't date the poems--it is impossible for the editor to know which version she wanted to stand as final.

We encounter the same problem with Shakepeare's plays because most of them were not published until after his death. Therefore he did not see them through the press and make changes if he so wished.

This is the way to print both versions of the poem. The first composed (this is a guess?) in 1859, the second in 1861.

216

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers—
Untouched my Morning
And untouched by Noon—
Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection—
Rafter of satin,
And Roof of stone.

Light laughs the breeze
In her Castle above them—
Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear,
Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence—
Ah, what sagacity perished here!

version of 1859

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers—
Untouched by Morning—
And untouched by Noon—
Lie the meek members of the Resurrection—
Rafter of Satin—and Roof of Stone!

Grand go the Years—in the Crescent—above them—
Worlds scoop their Arcs—
And Firmaments—row—
Diadems—drop—and Doges—surrender—
Soundless as dots—on a Disc of Snow—

version of 1861

OK, I went and did some homework on the internet (because my books on Dickinson are at school) to see if I could sort out the problem with editing her poems.

This is all in response to Jonathan who wanted to know why some versions of "Safe in their alabaster chambers" had three stanzas and some only two.

Dickinson died in 1886. Her sister, Lavinia, discovered the “fascicles” of handwritten poems in her room. These were sewn together books of poems. Determined to have her sister’s poems published, she sought out Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd who edited three books of Dickinson’s poetry, the first appearing in 1890. The best short description I could find online is from http://womenshistory.about.com/library/misc/bl041299c.htm (About.com’s article on Dickinson)

Here is an excerpt which explains Higginson’s connection to Dickinson as well as the editing of the first editions of her poems. Note that it was not until 1955 that a faithful version (one that preserved her odd use of dashes as well as noting variants) was edited by Thomas Johnson. There are 1775 poems in this edition.

“Higginson was part of the American literary Renaissance known as the Transcendentalist movement. He was already an recognized writer when he published in 1862, in The Atlantic Monthly, a short notice titled "Letter to a Young Contributor." In this notice, he solicited "young men and women" to submit their work, adding, "every editor is always hungering and thirsting after novelties."

"He told the story later (in The Atlantic Monthly, after her death), that on April 16, 1862, he picked up a letter at the post office. Opening it, he found "a handwriting so peculiar that it seemed as if the writer might have taken her first lessons by studying the famous fossil bird-tracks in the museum of that college town." It began with these words:

"Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is alive?"

"With that letter began a decades-long correspondence that ended only at her death. Higginson, in their long friendship (they seem only to have met in person once or twice, it was mostly by mail), urged her not to publish her poetry. Why? He doesn't say, at least not clearly. My own guess? He expected that her poems would be considered too odd by the general public to be accepted as she wrote them. And he also concluded that she would not be amenable to the changes that he thought necessary to make the poems acceptable.

"It's certainly true that after her death, her sister, Lavinia, contacted two friends of Emily's when she discovered the forty fascicles in Emily's rooms: Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. First Todd began to work on the editing; then Higginson joined her, persuaded by Lavinia. Together, they reworked the poems for publication. Over some years, they published three volumes of Emily Dickinson's poems.

"The extensive editing changes they made "regularized" Emily's odd spellings, word usage, and especially punctuation. Emily Dickinson was, for instance, very fond of dashes. Yet the Todd/Higginson volumes have included few of them. Todd was sole editor of the third volume of poems, but kept to the editing principles they'd worked out together. It's likely that Higginson and Todd were correct in their judgment, that the public could not accept the poems as they were. The daughter of Austin and Susan Dickinson, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, published her own edition of Emily Dickinson's poems in 1914.

"It remained until the 1950s, when Thomas Johnson "un-edited" Dickinson's poetry, for the general public to experience her poems more as she'd written then, and as her correspondents had received them. He compared versions in the fascicles, in her many remaining letters, and published his own edition of 1,775 poems. He also edited and published a volume of Dickinson letters, themselves literary gems.” (from About.com)

Maryal

Well is THAT not fascinating, thank you, Deems, I've spent days considering who was most death like, of the three Fates who you brought up: Clotho who spun the thread of life, Lachesis who measured it, or Atropos who cut it and they still had Charon, fascinating to contemplate, and here I come in here and find all this wonder!

LOVE all the posts, loved that bmcinnis, on Irony, and this just is the icing on the cake, who KNEW?

Amazing, wouldn't you KILL to see that fossilized bird track handwriting? Amazing, I am slack jawed.

1775 poems! I am going out to find ONE I have never heard of or read and see what I think.

LOOK what I found! From this site: http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/literature/bedlit/images/dickinson_poemlg.jpg

I don't see anything wrong with this handwriting, do you? You ought to see MINE!

On the other hand, can you read it?

What do you handwriting experts make of THAT?

O Ginny, I love the facsimile! I've seen them before and actually been able to make out words but that was in a book. Anyway, one thing I can make out in the above handwritten poem is that when Dickinson had a line that was too long, she brought the remainder of it to the left margin and then, when it was over, started a new line.

When poems are printed and a line is too long--as we saw in Whitman--the remainder of the line is indented a few spaces on a following line.

Please tell me where at Bedford-St. Martins you found this because if I could go directly to the page, I could blow it up more and read the words.

Anyhoo, I want to go sign up for a summer seminar in Dickinson myself. I have never had a course devoted strictly to her and it would be a rich experience. She is a poet who shows real development. Her early poems are quite conventional and then in the 60s she begins to pour poems out--and she begins experimenting.

To see the difference in the effect of the editing that T.W.Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd did and the poem as it was handwritten, I will give you one poem in the following post.

Deems, that link above, http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/literature/bedlit/images/dickinson_poemlg.jpg, IS the link to see the thing, I want to blow it up too!!

Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886: [I. I'm nobody! Who are you?] [from Poems (1892)]

1 I'm nobody! Who are you?
2 Are you nobody, too?
3 Then there 's a pair of us---don't tell!
4 They'd banish us, you know.

5 How dreary to be somebody!
6 How public, like a frog
7 To tell your name the livelong day
8 To an admiring bog!

Here's the poem as it appears in Thomson (1955). He undoes the editing that Higginson and Todd did and restores ED's dashes as well as her capitalization.

260

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

I have called in the handwriting support people. Blowing up the image of Dickinson's poem, we have deciphered:

What soft--Cherubic Creatures--
These Gentlewomen are--
One would as soon assault a Hush-
Or violate a Star-

I think I'll look the poem up for the remainder!

Oh my is this a letter or is this a letter - we should all dream of being so gifted - this is her first letter to T. W. Higginson / Princeton / Massachusetts. Postmarked: Jul (?) 1862.

Dickinson enclosed four poems with the letter: "Of Tribulation these are they," "Your Riches taught me poverty," "Some keep the Sabbath going to Church," and "Success is counted sweetest."

Could you believe me - without? I had no portrait, now, but am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur - and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves - Would this do just as well?

It often alarms Father - He says Death might occur, and he has Molds of all the rest - but has no Mold of me, but I noticed the Quick wore off those things, in a few days, and forestall the dishonor - You will think no caprice of me -

You said "Dark." I know the Butterfly - and the Lizard - and the Orchis -

Are not those your Countrymen?

I am happy to be your scholar, and will deserve the kindness, I cannot repay.

If you truly consent, I recite, now -

Will you tell me my fault, frankly as to yourself, for I had rather wince, than die. Men do not call the surgeon, to commend - the Bone, but to set it, Sir, and fracture within, is more critical. And for this, Preceptor, I shall bring you - Obedience - the Blossom from my Garden, and every gratitude I know. Perhaps you smile at me. I could not stop for that - My Business is Circumference - An ignorance, not of Customs, but if caught with the Dawn - or the Sunset see me - Myself the only Kangaroo among the Beauty, Sir, if you please, it afflicts me, and I thought that instruction would take it away.

Because you have much business, beside the growth of me - you will appoint, yourself, how often I shall come - without your inconvenience. And if at any time - you regret you received me, or I prove a different fabric to that you supposed - you must banish me -

When I state myself, as the Representative of the Verse - it does not mean - me - but a supposed person. You are true, about the "perfection."

Today, makes Yesterday mean.

You spoke of Pippa Passes - I never heard anybody speak of Pippa Passes - before.

You see my posture is benighted. To thank you, baffles me. Are you perfectly powerful? Had I a pleasure you had not, I could delight to bring it.

Your Scholar

I know we are finished with Walt Whitman but this is a wonderful page of some of the manuscripts to his poems - when you click on a poem the typewritten page is shown and in the corner is a link that will bring you to a pop up of his own handwritten bit Whitman Manuscripts

And this page for Dickinson shows various links with many of those links showing pages of her work in her own hand Emily Dickinson for instance this page with two sheets of a letter in her own hand Letter in additon here is the page where you can click and see a pop up in her hand Safe in their Alabaster Chambers

This is fascinating.

The handwritten "Safe" in the next to last line says "dots/in a disc of snow". Didn't our version say "drops"?

I wonder if some of the words we read have simply been misread? What about "resurrections-row"?

Thanks, Maryal, for the two versions of 'Safe', in your 814 post. Isn't it interesting that everybody may select one or the other, whichever pleases more. Like Emily's Soul selecting 'her own Society.'

I'm highly entertained by what Paglia has to say about the poem, her selection of her better second stanza. Talk about flights of oratory. Her essay is a roller coaster of poetic appreciation. Her snide, disparaging remarks about the earlier version turn me off.

I prefer the earlier, the 1859 version. It seems so right to me, that is to say, following on what I make of the first stanza.

The second stanza of the later version seems forced to me. Paglia gets into counting the d's and the s's, and seeing some poetic merit in them, but I see a little boredom creeping into ED's taxing efforts. 'Row' and 'Snow', tell me that the poet was reduced to looking for a rhyme.

Her first letter to Higginson looked for advice and serious appreciation of her poetry. It also tells me she felt unsure of herself. That would explain why she allowed herself to be swayed by Sue's criticism of the first version, spcifically, the second stanza of the earlier version.

That the laughing breeze should have a castle to play in, while the 'meek' have only their stone-roofed chamber above their heads!

'Ah, what sagacity perished here!'

That's meaningful.

'Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.'

I've tried guessing at that, but I'm left perplexed.

"'Soundless as dots on a disk of snow". I liked that a lot (although I read it "drops") -- it really hit me. Civilizations fall as quietly and matter-of-factly as drops fall on snow, leaving only a tiny mark of their passing. As I said above, I see the disc of snow as time, circular like all nature is in this poem. I especially like her descriptions of time: the centuries that pass as a day, the disc of snow (presumably empty and pure) in which the concerns of humans are dots.

I agree with Paglia: it is ED's ability to move from the small, everyday, to the vastness of the universe and the nature of time that really makes her extraordinary, especially among women poets. Both these first two poems do this. The earlier version of "Safe"does not.

I pondered and struggled with "from an ample nation" - upon re-reading several times the first says to me she chose who she was - not just her friends but her society being all that she decided to be - her essence - her values, beliefs, way of looking and receiving the universe.

The second bit she expresses her resolve - that there were riches she could enjoy by pleasing others but she made her choice and for her that integrity was more valuable than all the riches that others could bestow upon her.

But I still struggled with - "from an ample nation" and then a strange way of talking about yourself "I've known her" - then it sort of sneaked up on me - she knew herself in many circumstances - she had gone to collage - she was away from her home - she made unique choices about her spiritual life - she had ample opportunities that are not typical of most women - her ample nation is a way of saying she had ample - a great number - of opportunities that she saw herself and how it made her feel and how the various opportunities supported her chosen values that led her to a chosen lifestyle -- knowing she made choices that were her own rather than what society expressed was the path for her life.

Once she chose her life - not just her work but her values, her spiritual life, her choice of being single, how she would express her inner life, her place within her family - the total of who she was - the oneness of unity with her God -

She closed the valves - sounds like closing off her heart to anymore incoming data - she had chosen what made her complete, full, and balanced.

Peter means stone and God said he would build upon this rock. Interesting that Graphite is stone. And so she corked up her relationship with her spirit, her humanness with her God and the tools of her craft.

Don’t you think that this poem especially, is an example of Dickinson’s intended or unintended irony: this poem itself is an example because its presence makes Dickinson a member of the Community of Poets whose work, when it reaches the larger society of readers, allows them to connect, through her words, to a common source-- archetypes critics describe as “an inexhaustible source of common past and present realities which in turn creates a new image?”

Hope this doesn’t sound pretentious but right now I’m immersed in reading the critical theory of a maverick critic, Leslie Fiedler.

I wonder what would have happened if Dickinson had published one poem in her lifetime that was declared by readers and critics as “great.” A DVD documentary, “Stone Reader.” Explores this question of why some writers who, after their acclaimed first published work, choose not to publish any beyond that. It’s a great mystery story with no definitive answer—and so with Dickinson.

Paglia sees a 'declaration of independence' in The Soul selects. I'm struck by the suggestion of exclusivity. Or is it a case of New England reserve. ED says somewhere that she had not read Whitman, the specific reason eludes me at the moment. Perhaps there was something too promiscuous about Whitman. She does seem to have an inclination to shut herself in. And I'm not sure she's happy about it. What a puzzle she is. With over 1700 pieces. Trying to put her back together again should make for a wonderful Summer Course.

Doesn't she have striking first lines. They remind one of Donne's.

What wonderful comments already on "The soul selects." I agree with <n>Jonathan--these opening lines of Dickinson's are striking. And Paglia points out that unlike most of her time, Dickinson really liked the "metaphysical" poets, Donne, Herbert et al.

Bern--I remember reading Leslie Fiedler. Could you give me a title or two or his books? It would help me to jog the old memory. I don't recall that he was a maverick though. Is he the one who wrote "Come on back on the raft, Huck Honey"? It's a wonderful essay whoever wrote it.

Barbara--When I've read this poem before I've never thought about the whole meaning and you help to open it for me. As I think I mentioned before, I never had a course on Dickinson--wish I had. I did have a semester course on Whitman and I wonder now why we couldn't have done Dickinson as well. I especially like this comment, "She closed the valves - sounds like closing off her heart to anymore incoming data - she had chosen what made her complete, full, and balanced."

Dickinson was a recluse in the second part of her life, but into her thirties she continued to live a fairly full social life--and remember her closest friend, Sue, was married to her brother, Austin, and their house was right next door.

Maryal

Forgot my important notice. Ooops. Next Thursday I'm having the cataract on my left eye removed and the following Thursday the right eye. Others have told me that I will be instructed no reading and no computer for several days. I'll be here until this coming Thursday, but I'm not sure just what the best way to proceed is.

If we decide to take a short break--twice--that's fine with me. It's also OK with me if you would like to go on without me for a few days. I have the book and I can keep up with your messages once I have good vision again.

What's the consensus?

Maryal

Maryal!! Double cataract surgery? Good heavens, listen, please put your mind at ease, we'll hold the fort till you feel totally recovered, won't we, Guys? Don't give it another thought, you held the fort for me in the Hulme, we can return the favor. Don't push self!!

Oh my - I know this is no longer as frightening as it once was but still - your eyes - oh my - you are in my prayers - and yes we can go on - this is such a great group with such profound thoughts it is a joy to come to this discussion...

I also am having surgery a week from Thursday (7/21) -- hip replacement surgery. I'll be in the hospital 3-4 days, and perhaps in a rehab center after that, so I'll be gone for a while. But I'm like the bad penny -- I always come back.

(Notice the dashes -- they are becoming a habit. Now if I just had ED's genius to go with them).

Joan K--O good luck with the hip replacement. Patwest, who is doing all the headings for us here, has had that recently. Maybe she will encourage you. Isn't it astonishing what can be done these days.

Those dashes--they do get to you--don't they?

Interesting I have used dashes for years often in place of other punctuation - had no idea I was being Dickinesck

It would appear that our carriage will be making several pit stops - for repairs - for parts replacement. I have to go in myself for a CT chest scan next week. I feel fine, but I'll do it to reassure my doctor.

Why don't we take a break. We've come so far. Better still, why don't we leave a light on for the healthy among us who may get a sudden inspiration or be otherwise beMused into wanting to post something creative or critical.

I may also be away for a few days. I've heard about a homeless kitten in South Carolina, which was abandoned by its mother, but rescued from a very uncertain fate in a most extraordinary manner. I think the world should hear about it. There might even be a book in this. There certainly should be a humanitarian award. I'm very eager to provide a home for the little guy. I think I'll call him Barnaby, for reasons to be divulged on some future occassion. Perhaps on the South Lawn.

Joan, I just loved your reading of the last line of 'Safe'. 'Soundless as drops' sounds much better than 'Soundless as dots.' That also suits my criticism of the later version second stanza. It needed a bit of polishing. I may be the minority opinion on this, but there it is. As Maryal suggested, Paglia is a real discussion catalyst.

Editors, as we have heard, had real problems with all that manuscript material left behind by Dickinson. And editors sometimes edit in amusing ways. I have on my shelf an ancient anthology of poetry (c1880s), POETIC PEARLS, which has the first stanza of Edmond Wallers address to the Rose. The first two lines are:

'Go, lovely Rose! / Tell her, that wastes her time and me,'

Can you believe this. My copy reads:

'Go, lovely Rose! / Tell her, that wastes her time on me,'

If nothing else, the Yeats poem is timely and, unfortunately, eternal, as things always seem to be falling apart and the line of beasts slouching towards Bethlehem is as constant and persistant as the lines towards the supermarket cashiers throughout the world.

agony conceded with a touch of yearning...so that the gyration feels like a vortex...

I still have to read Paglia's essay, but let me say just a few things before she influences my thinking (I tend to be very impressionable).

We start out with a lovely bird image. But the bird is flying too wide; he cannot hear the bird-master any more. Our first image of things being out of control since the trained falcon is a reliable hunter and will return to his trainer (and land on one of those cool heavy leather arm brace thingies).

The signs are not good. Innocence is being drowned and perhaps even more ominously, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed (wars and rumors of wars?). At Antietam, the creek turned red because of all the dead and wounded.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

I have found this to be true in my own life--people arguing intensely for the (in my opinion of course) WRONG side. How well these lines sum the situation up. Those who should be in control--"the best"-- lack "all conviction" and therefore are silent while the others take over.

I am biting my fingers not to say something political here.

Whew.

Made it.

Suddenly "the Second Coming" springs to the poet's mind--or lips. What else is one to make of all these signs of the end.

But, a big but here, this time around the magnificent birth will not be that of the returned Christ but rather "some rough beast" who is "slouching" toward Bethlehem to be born.

These lines:

a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

Because we have recently read "Ozymandius," I am reminded of that poem with its huge broken statue. I also think of the Sphinx. And deserts--we've seen those before too. Not only in "Ozymandius" but also in "To His Coy Mistress." I'm betting that Paglia will remind us of that.

OK, that's all. I'm now going to go read Paglia's essay and see how close I came.

Of course she will say more than I have here, but I wonder if I have hit some of her points?

~Maryal

P.S. I have conferred with the tribal elders and it seems the best thing to do is to go slowly the days when I can't be on the computer because of eyes. So I have slowed the schedule a little. But we will march on nonetheless.

I just wanted to point out the obvious: this frightening poem has been mined many a time by subsequent writers for titles.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Someone Or Other (Joan Didion?)

Also, there's the famous line, "The center cannot hold" used again and again (who knows, maybe for a title of a story somewhere... don't think it's a book title, but... oh wait a minute... checked amazon and there's American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold by Harry -- I Kid You Not -- Turtledove).

The ultimate compliment to any writer is when other writers pillage your words.

Good to see you, Kevin, and thanks for reminding us of the titles. I think the Slouching one is Joan Didion but would have to look it up. I wish my last name were Turtledove. It would be fun to say, "No, realllly, that's my name. Reallly."

Better Turtledove than Maidsamilking.

Can you imagine -- Maryal Maidsamilking? Scores alliterative points and plenty of calcium, but that's about it.

Ok now that I am past my first impression - reading this again - who is the falconer - that seems to be the key to what is being suggested here - the falcon has gone further afield so that the falcon cannot hear the falconer - and because the falcon cannot hear the Falconer the center of the falcon's flight is no longer and without a center things fall apart...

If this poem lasts through the ages the center where the falconer establishes the control cannot be someone or philosophy ONLY attributed to the 1920s - is the Falconer our own moral compass - is the falconer the moral compass in the form of the church - or the older generation for they risk taking youngsters who leave tradition behind and the wisdom of the older generation - is the center who we are that can be uncovered during meditation and when we shut off our inner voice we travel further and further from living out who we are -

Because Yeats is saying, without that connection - falcon to falconer - tides of blood are let loose and innocence is gone -

He seems to be suggesting that the falcon and flaconer are part of society rather than an inner struggle when he says the best lack conviction and the worst are filled with passionate intensity - I guess it could describe the best behavior or actions we are each capable of lacks conviction when we are not in touch with our Falconer which if we choose to say the falconer is our inner core communicated with during prayer or meditation which means our passions take over - passions remind me of obsessions - and so we become intense in our obsessions. hmmm fits...in Celtic mythology the falcon opposed to the lascivious hare depicts victory over lust.

A second coming - not a first but a second coming - easy answer would be the return of Jesus - could it be personal - would the first coming be our natural birth and the second a rebirth??

Spiritus Mundi the center or axis of the universe - some even say the soul of the universe, the great memory, the center of time and space held as the universal subconscious. - so from this universal subconscious - another center - a center of all - time, space, all that is and will be there is a blip - birds again - angry birds - and reel shadows not real shadows - real - shadows of these angry birds spool around this shape in the desert with the body of a lion and the head of a man.

The androsphinx is human-headed and represents the union of intellectual and physical powers - also a human spirit overcoming animal instincts.

And so we have the androsphinx - the union of intellect and the physical - the overcoming of what is animal strengthening our spirit surrounded by the shadows, the negative of angry birds. Birds messengers from God - angry birds as darkness drops - darkness the primordial chaos - not evil, since light emerges from darkness but a spiritual darkness -

Stony - stone, again we have the symbol for the axes mundi - in primitive symbolism stones give birth to people - stones give life - stone, the symbol of Hermes, messenger of the gods - stony sleep - no messengers, no life giving births and vexed - annoyed by a rocking cradle - well this is probably the birth of Jesus don't you think...but rocking is also lives ups and downs and cradle is not naming Jesus, it is a symbol that we assume to mean Jesus - a cradle can be the ship of life rocking on the primordial ocean - new life - fresh beginning - most re-birthing is a fresh beginning therefore a symbol of Jesus strengthened with the word Bethleham and new beginnings for us is a fresh new relationship with Jesus.

Now if we are backing out and thinking of society or the youth verses older traditional generation then new beginnings can take on various modes because this rough beast is slouching toward Bethlehem where it is born and will be in that rocking cradle - part of our ups and downs in life - rough beasts can be many but the symbol suggests other possibilities of creation - freedom from the conventional - a chaotic force in our nature - a destructive force which suggests to me with the birth of this new beginning after twenty centuries with no messengers from the gods accompanying the birth will be our dark nature, the evil that lurks within all of us that was born simultaneous with the birth of the Jesus within us...

Paglia is very good on this one. Her essay is a great piece of interpetation of a very difficult poem. The poet is obviously at the top of his form. Magnificent in his prophetic mantle. Stunning in his use of metaphor. Convincing in his claim to having revelation thrust upon him. Proper obscurity in its portentous meaning. Mighty in its personae. Its politics? Far to the right, of course. And Pagan, as Wordsworth would have liked it. A strange Second Coming

Jan, how about the Cash Register as the new Center? With advertising replacing doctrine.

Its easy to see the industrial/military complex in the out-of-control falcon going after the shadowy 'desert birds'. But this poem has something for everybody.

This is a poem about apocalypse, about the loss of consciousness of what is important and decent in humanity. One of the more radical factions in Christianity sees the re-establishment of Israel is a sign of the second coming of Christ and a huge number of books have been sold about true believers preparing to be transported to heaven leaving multitudes of sinners behind. As an atheist who has been disgusted with smug believers most of his life and rather alarmed at the religious turn in the US government I find the poem particularly appropriate for our times.

One thing which nobody seems to be noticing in our current civilization is the rapid development of automatic means of production highly profitable to corporations requiring less and less workers. Although this seems to have an insane logic on the bottom line, less and less paid workers means less people with the means to purchase the final product. In other words there in an inexorable growth of a decay in the basic mechanisms of the market system. This is an economic version of the beast shambling to destruction in a system basically founded on greed. We are indeed in trouble.

Maryal—All my best wishes for your cataract surgery. My husband had this surgery in the 80’s, and found it both painless and satisfactory. They have made some incredible advances in technique since then. Afterward, he found he could see farther toward the ultraviolet (purple) end of the spectrum than before, which he found pleasant.

Starting Thursday the 21st, I will be doing a lot of fingernail chewing for JoanK’s surgery, and Sunday the 24th I will be out of town for 2 weeks, but I’ll try to participate until then. I’m glad to get a chance at Yeats—I have issues with him.

What a good discussion this is! I am learning a new way of getting at poems, and am finally understanding some familiar poems better.

Maryal, best wishes from me as well. May everything go well with you. You've got the discussion going along so well, we'll just keep coasting along until you get back.

Good to hear from you, Pat. I feel just the way you do. Paglia and the rest of you have shown me, too, how to get at a poem. I'll swear I'm getting a feel of how the poet goes about poetizing. I'd like to hear about the issues you have with Yeats.

Paglia says about Leda and the Swan:

'Because of its vast historical vision and agonizing pantomine of passion and conflict, 'Leda and the Swan' can justifiably be considered the greatest poem of the twentieth century.'

That is saying a lot. And why shouldn't it be a sonnet? But what a sonnet. It had such a modest beginning as regards matter and theme. We've seen what Shakespeare, Donne, Wordsworth and Shelley made of it. But it seems like nothing compared to what Yeats achieves with it. Whole epics in a mere fourteen lines.

Paglia has a lot to say about it. Just amazing what she makes of it. So I find it a little surprising that she doesn't mention that it has the same three motifs found in the Donne sonnet and which serve her for a title: 'A sudden BLOW'; 'THe BROKEN wall'; 'the BURNING roof'.

I am surprised by Paglia's feminist umbrage over the goings-on in the sonnet.

Thank you for the get well wishes and the good news about PatH's husband's success. I expect all to go well and not to be so blurry in the left eye after the procedure. And yes indeedy medicine is improving by the microsecond it seems. Just think of Joan K getting a new HIP. Such a procedure was undreamed of a few years ago. We have sports medicine and all those injured athletes to thank for some of this. The doctors who practice now can repair so many things that a few years ago were completely disabling.

Yeats' second poem is up, one of my favorites in the whole world. It's a SONNET please note. But Yeats has taken one of the lines and broken it into two. Appropriately it is the line with Agamemnon in it. I think that Agamemnon's name belongs in poems. Such a nice number of syllables.

It's up to those of you who are around to fully explain the rape of Leda by Zeus (that god was always taking some sort of strange form in order to cavort with human women--what a non-girly man HE was!) and the resulting progeny.

In other words, what does the story of Zeus' rape of Leda and their progeny have to do with what must be the most well-known war in all of history?

Who would have thought that a poet could get the whole Trojan War into a sonnet?

I'll be back before too long. My daughter can read me your posts and type in a reply for me.

Maryal

I am aware that the poem had its roots in standard mythology but the concept of a girl being assaulted by a swan for sexual purposes strikes me as more ludicrous than offensive. Perhaps rape by a jellyfish might strike me as funnier but this is a reasonably cockeyed expedition into idiocy. It puts me on guard for sexual invasions by overexcited mosquitoes rather than a quest for sustanence.

Well, there's no denying that mosquitoes are rapacious in their lust for blood.

I am a little dull and a tad slow, but only now gathering that Maryal is having eye troubles and Joan hip, hip, without the hooray, difficulties. My best to both of you in any procedures or convalescing you undergo.

Brownies all around! (Yes, men can cook... mostly "up trouble," but food, too).

Thank you for the brownies, Kevin. Men can cook; they just often pretend that it's beyond them.

Jan--If you think it's hard to picture a swan overcoming Leda (as Yeats does so forcefully in his language (the great wings beating still), take a look at some of the images of paintings and sculptures.

The link is too long. Go to Google, type in Leda and swan and then click on "Images" at the top of the Google page. There are many images.

Maryal

http://www.beloit.edu/~classics/main/courses/classics150/museum150/zeus/image5.htm

A more realistic image: http://www.uic.edu/depts/ahaa/classes/ah111/rubensm2.jpg

This one makes it look like a love affair. Not what Yeats has in mind.

http://spaightwoodgalleries.com/Media/Old_Masters/Beham_Leda_Swan.jpg

Here we see the great wings beating still.

http://www.johnnybeinart.citymax.com/i/Kim%20Nelson/Leda-and-the-Swan--Oil-on-p.jpg

Doesn't Donne's desire to be ravished by the Divine seem quaint and naive now?

Is Paglia's essay just a lot of feminist rant? Mother Mary commandeered by the Holy Spirit!!!

By all means. Let's have Brownies. If that's what it takes.

In "The Second Coming", Yeats is specifically referring to his own belief in a sort of cyclical universe, in which, at intervals of 2000 years, one historical era will be replaced by one of opposite type. The falcon, turning in circles, represents this. And here is the new Nativity, with evil being born instead of good.

What a magnificent description of the disintegration everyone felt after WWI! And it’s even better as prophecy, fascism overrunning Europe and leading to WWII.

For anyone who doesn’t have the book and missed Paglia’s explanation, two of Leda’s offspring were Helen and Clytemnestra. Paris’ theft of Helen from her husband Menelaus led to the Trojan War, hence the broken wall, the burning roof and tower. Clytemnestra married Agamemnon. Agamemnon survived the war, but while he was fighting, Clytemnestra, outraged at Ag. for sacrificing their daughter to get a good wind for Troy, took a lover, and when Ag. came home, she killed him. Hence Agamemnon dead.

There is no 'blessed art thou among women' for Leda in this rapturous liason between mortal woman and the king of all gods. No Prince of Peace will be the issue of this divine impregnation. The godly 'assault and battery' on Leda serves only to loose mere 'treachery and violence' into the world. The rest is history. And theater. And now poetry. From the sudden breath of the holy, to the sensuous, problematical apocalypse, to the final abandonment by an indifferent god, Leda becomes a truly tragic woman figure. Man, with 'Agamemnon dead' left, according to Paglia, as merely 'an emblem of annihilated male authority and pride', still feeling his 'loins' convulsed, continues to imitate his god, whenever he feels the 'visceral surge'.

It's impossible to describe, for those of us without the book, the justifiable rage and scorn which finds its way into the commentary on the poem. Divine meddling in human affairs, or fate, for the atheist, is met by all the fury and indignation available to the literalist stance.

Who is to say her nay? The case for victimization is clear-cut. The hurt has been done. 'His knowledge with his power' (line 13) seems never to have been realized by his victim.

No wonder then, if Zeus is recognized for what he is. A violator. A womanizer. A sadistic marauder. A fallen angel. A capriciously self-withholding god. A ruthless expression of the will to power.

Yeats too felt the tragedy of Leda. He is quoted by Paglia as saying:

'We who are poets and artists...live but for the moment when vision comes to our weariness like terrible lightning, in the humility of the brutes.'

There is much more in Paglia's brilliant essay. It's as full of tempest as the sonnet itself. With even a word of caution to the reader. Beware of being seduced. Beware of losing sight of 'honor and ethical judgment' while voyeuring this most erotic of all poems.

Jonathan, that’s clever finding break, blow, and burn in this poem too—I didn’t even notice it. I agree, it’s surprising Paglia didn’t see it; she’s so ingenious at picking up references.

My quarrel with Yeats is political, not poetic—he’s way too reactionary for me. Cyclical history is comforting to such a person; it doesn’t matter if things are getting too democratic, we’ll be back to the middle ages soon.

How much Yeats can pack into a few telling words! "Terrified, vague fingers"—Leda is so frightened her hands aren’t even working properly. "Before the indifferent beak could let her drop"—a perfect summing up of how little the encounter means to Zeus. Zeus even leaves out the thank you ma’am.

DEEMS: good luck on your surgery. Everyone I know who had it was happy with the results.

I'll be in and out til after my surgery, but had a few comments on Leda. I agree with Jonathan: it's a great poem, and I like Paglia's analysis.

No one has yet commented on the use of the old concept of the "little death" in the poem. It's hard to discuss this without being somewhat explicit, if you want to skip it.

The idea of the "little death" (I don't know where it first appeared in literature, but it's common) is that the sex act is analogous to death for the man. The male (organ) transfers his power (to make new life) to the female, and then dies (loses potency) while the female is empowered. Biologically, this makes no sense, but seems to have a strong emotional appeal to some writers.

In "Leda and the Swan" the walls (Leda's virginity) break, while Agamemnon ( the conquerer) dies. (This is the only thing I can think of that makes sense of bringing in Ag's death which happened years after the fall of Troy. He is the male in this conquest of the female Troy, and after the conquest, he dies).

The swan has transferred his power to Leda perhaps without the knowledge to know how to use it ("Did she put on his knowledge with his power").

Symbolically, the gods created human life in an act of terrifying violence, and transferred their power to humans, without the knowledge to know how to use it. Then, powerless and indifferent, they let humans "drop", left them to fend for themselves.

A powerful and terrifying message, whatever you think of it.

Sometimes I wish I wasn't a stickler for ornithological accuracy, but I am. As much as I like this poem, I feel if Yeats wanted to put in visual images, he should get them right. He's obviously hung around swans enough to have seen how they mate (hard to avoid-- they aren't shy) and wanted to put in some details (the male grasping the feathers on the female's nape). But the rest of it doesn't suit his purposes, so he twists this poor swan around to suit his poetic purposes. Good grief! Makes for a very confused image.

In general, Yeats does not like swans. He wrote another poem about them that makes that clear. If Paglia's interpretation of "The Second Coming" is correct, he uses birds in a negative way there too -- he just doesn't like them.

Note above: I said the reference to Agamemnon's death only made sense in terms of the "little death". Of course that's not true. As Paglia says, the offspring of Leda and the swan were Helen who brought about the fall of Troy and Clytemnestra who brought about Agamemnon's death. But I still stand by my interpretation.

Golly moses. What a poem and what an analysis by Paglia.

Because of its vast historical vision and agonizing pantomime of passion and conflict, "Leda and the Swan" can justifiably be considered the greatest poem of the twentieth century.

Holy smoke, Batman! Hahahaa

Surely NOT?

"Agamemnon dead" meant more to the ancients than what Paglia says. Unfortunately I no longer recall what the immense significance was, but it wasn't the death of the Age of Heroes. The story and the significance are found in the Odyssey, and whole books have been written on it.

You can't say with Agamemnon's death the age of heroes is over? Agamemnon dates supposedly from the Trojan War. Archaeology dates the fall of Troy at roughly sometime around 1250-1200 BC. There were a LOT of heroes after him and it's not sure HE was a true hero, is it, in the sense the ancients thought of their heroes. In fact, it's the juxtaposition of Odysseus and Agamemnon in hell that makes the point that the age of heroes is NOT dead.

Leda was also the mother of Castor and Polydeuces… later Pollux (the Dioscuri, often identified with Gemini, the Twins). There was also something about Leda laying an egg from whence sprung Helen and possibly Polydeuces. "Homer does not mention this egg and later Greeks disbelieved the story and made fun of it." (Oxford Companion to Classical Literature).

I'm kind of confused over the juxtaposition of the pre knowledge that Agamemnon would die while the towers of Troy were burning and the question if Leda herself took on any of this all knowing mein? There's almost nothing about Leda in mythology. You'd have to assume he means some sort of fore knowledge or?? It's interesting that Bulfinch mentions Leda as part of a panel that Arachne was spinning, along with others who had encountered Zeus in other forms, and we know what happened to HER.

I have never liked the story of Leda and the Swan and I wonder what Yeats really meant by the poem, it's not clear to me even with the explanation which makes it less clear: I am not sure I know from reading her essay. I think the bit about the Virgin Mary is a HUGE stretch.

The swan is one of many disguises that Zeus supposedly took, and is a favorite subject in ancient art, that's probably one reason that that myth sprang up. I am wondering why Paglia did not go into the other guises a bit more.

She's right about how fierce they are, if one has ever chased YOU you'd appreciate the horror of it, wasn't there one recently that drove people out of a park?

Maybe the reason it's so great as it defies understanding of why he wrote it or what it's supposed to mean?

PS I meant to say I agree with Joan K about Yeats and swans.

At any rate, Deems has emerged from her surgery in fine spirits and seeing a new world of colors, YAY for Deems.

GINNY: "I'm kind of confused over the juxtaposition of the pre knowledge that Agamemnon would die while the towers of Troy were burning and the question if Leda herself took on any of this all knowing mein? " What do you think of my theory in Post 866? Or did you skip it as too explicit?

YEAH, DEEMS is right. I'm doing less well! I posted this in the "Hips and Knees discussion:

I AM SO MAD I COULD SPIT NAILS!

Six days before my hip replacement surgery, I went for my pre-op surgeon’s visit. He says he doesn’t want to do it because of other medical reasons, reasons I discussed at length with him two months ago at my last visit. At that time, he seemed eager to go ahead. Now he says I need to see a specialist. He wouldn’t help me get an early appointment, and the earliest I can see her is August 19th. Not only am I not having the procedure next week, I won’t even find out for a month whether they think I can have it at all, or whether I need to be in pain for the rest of my life.

It’s not that I put things off, either. My hip only “gave out” months ago, and I started this process promptly. The medical concerns all pre-date the bad hip. I don’t see any reason for putting me through at least ten pre-op appointments, and very complicated arrangements for aftercare, and then stopping to think about it at the last minute.

The worst thing is my daughter, who is the only family practice doctor in her clinic, went through I-don’t-know what to reschedule her patients for two and a half weeks so she could come here from California and be with me. It’s unlikely she will be able to do it again.

I tell you one thing, if I do have it done, it will be a different surgeon!! Since I’m studying Latin on Seniornet, I’ll paraphrase the Roman satirist Martial:

 
I do not like thee, Doctor Chan 
The reason why– YOU CANNOT PLAN!. 
But this I know, and know I can, 
I do not like thee Doctor Chan!!

Happy after note: my daughter is coming anyway, though only for a week. And we are going to have a good time!!!

We've all taken a searching look at Yeat's sonnet. His view of the Leda myth is his own. And we've all shown that each of us has their own view of his sonnet. I think I enjoyed Jan's most of all...

Just the same, never trust a swan.

Pat, interesting that you should bring up Yeat's politics. There is something about the two poems of his that make one wonder about his principles. Of course it must have been easy to lose ones political bearings as a European in the Twenties and Thirties. Even the Anarchists had their own party. And they needn't have been Yeatsians.

We've got his take on Leda's spectacular conception. And Maryal left us with four links to paintings of the same. Isn't that last one, is it by Nelson, isn't it beautiful. A strange myth indeed. Here is another version before we take leave of her. Taken from Donald Richardson's GREAT ZEUS AND ALL HIS CHILDREN:

'There was a wide spot on the Eurotas River where the waters ran calm and the bank was carpeted with thick, tender grass. It was a secluded area, and on hot Spartan summer afternoons Leda, incomparably beautiful wife of King Tyndareus, would come there and with her attendants to bathe. For fear of the king no man ever dared come near the place. After enjoying the refreshing water, Leda would sit or lie on the bank and let the sun perform its duty of drying her perfect skin.

'The fact that no man ever ventured into this area does not mean, however, that the lovely Leda went unobserved by male eyes; for far away, atop Mount Olympos, the eagle-eyed Son of Cronos turned his gaze southward on thos sultry afternoons and seldom left off looking until Leda had dressed and was heading home.

'One day, when his desire for what he saw became overwhelming, Zeus took himself down to that wide spot on the Eurotas. In an instant he did this, faster than one of his eagles can dive from the sky to fasten its talons into an unsuspecting hare or fox cub that has strayed too far from its den. As soon as he touched the water, upstream a ways from the bathers, the great cloud-gathering god transformed himself into a large, handsome, majestic swan.

'Casually crisscrossing the pool from one side to the other, Zeus made his way unmenacingly ever closer to Leda and her maidens, who were now lounging on he grassy bank. All eyes were soon upon him, for never for grace and beauty had they ever seen such a swan. Leda in particular was rapidly coming under his magic, desiring to run her hands over the inviting snow-white feathers, to feel the soft downy breast against her bosom; her breathing became more pronounced and quick. Had she been asked, she could not have described the strange power the swan had over her, and surely she would have blushed if she had tried.

'When the enchantingly lovely creature came up to her, she reached out her hand to touch his extended neck, then let her hand fall slowly, caressingly to his back. The swan, drawing closer, indeed almost on top of her, brushed her cheek with his bill, to which she responded by stroking the feathers along his back with both hands, virtually embracing the magnificent white bird. In return he quite enveloped her in his huge, soft wings, his head now pressed firmly against hers.

'Thus in guise as a swan the lusty Zeus accomplished his purpose upn the beautiful wife of Tyndareus. By the time she first sensed his intent, she was so drawn into his spell that neither

Great heavenly day!! What a place for Jonathan's post to break off--in mid sentence yet. Come back, Jonathan, and finish the sentence. It shows us that there is disagreement as to whether or not Leda welcomed (or was enchanted by) the swan's advances. Yeats tells a different version.

Joan K--I am so sorry. Fight those people who are backing down. Make them put all their reasons in writing. Explain that you have already made extensive provisions for aftercare. I'm angry for you and I live not that far from you. And I am very good at arguing. Let me know who to kill and I'll go to bat for you. Doctors listen to me because I am tall and persistent. Grrrrrr. August? When you thought this was going to be Next Week? Double grrrrrrr. BAH.

Ginny--I think when Paglia writes that the age of heroes is over, she is thinking of the entire Greco-Roman period. It is a symbolic rather than an historical statement. I'll have to go read the essay more carefully and get back to you.

The really cool thing about Helen (later of Troy) is that she was so beautiful (the face that launched a thousand ships--Dr. Faustus) because she was half god and half mortal. Just not fair for purely mortal women to have to compete with her.

In addition, Leda was the mother of Clytemnestra who would marry Agamemnon and also be the cause of his death. And, apparently of the twins. Myths disagree as to whether one of them was mortal, the other immortal. I love how myths disagree. You can never get a single story from them; there are always alternative versions or additions.

I am, as Ginny reported, feeling absolutely blessed tonight. The procedure went wonderfully and I saw the doctor again today. I can return to my regular activities etc etc but the really good news is that the whole world is new. I was looking through a brownish lens that has been replaced by a completely clear lens (in my prescription) and now whites are you wouldn't believe how white and blues, especially the sky last night was robin's egg blue with my left eye (and just sort of a dull light blue with the eye that hasn't been fixed yet).

My dog, Kemper Elizabeth, a Jack Russell Terrier, is a beautiful white and not cream as I was seeing her. And I have these dishes I thought had a cream background that turn out to be white. The dishes have been around for some eight years or so.

I have no trouble reading the computer screen so I've read all your posts (I plan to return to Joan K's on the "little death" tomorrow since it is time for me to go to bed now).

Books are still a problem because I have one fixed eye and one that still needs the prescription. Books are hard to read and will be until the other eye is fixed, not next Thursday as I had thought, but the following Thursday because the doctor is on vacation next week. So I am in for two weeks of this strange half-way condition.

~Maryal

It is interesting to compare the sexual antics of Zeus with those of the Hebrew god whose intervention produced, according to the current myth, Jesus. The Greek adventure was full of sexual passion whereas Jesus seemed to be produced with all the excitement of in vitro fertilization. I imagine this is telling as to how the two cultures view sex.

Congrats, Maryal, on seeing the world again. When I first got glasses as a teen, I never realized the world could be so sharp because I didn't know better. It's like a gift, all right.

Easy to see why Paglia chose THIS poem (heh heh). No need for stretchers to get the sexual angle, at least not when wolves come in swans' clothing.

Glad everyone enjoyed the brownies. Hermits up next (grab your robes and hoods).

Oh, DEEMS, how wonderful for you. But don't wear yourself out trying to keep up with our babble!!

And you'll fight for me! How great of you. Unfortunately, it's more complicated. My surgeon seems suddenly unsure that he is competent to do it, and wants a more experienced doctor to assist. If he's not sure he's competent, boy, I sure don't want him messing with me!! I'd rather wait and seethe. The infuriating thing is that he had all the information two months ago. If he'd decided this then, it would have been no problem.

THERE Is Deems who sees WHITE! I am so excited for you!!

I'm thinking there were enough heroes in the Twin Towers and on the ill fated airplane making for the Pentagon to populate a new generation of myths.

Joan K, I am SO sorry to hear your unhappy news, my goodness and another physician involved in rearranging their own schedule, makes you want to SCREAM!

Well at least you have your wonderful daughter, so that IS a bonus!!

No I liked your 866, particulary the "little death," that startled me, I had missed it, tho I'm not sure how that fits with Agamemnon and Troy (being "she?"), who had somewhat of a big death, actually, at the hands of his wife as you and Deems have pointed out, later. That story is not told until the Odyssey. A big death, at least in terms of how the ancients saw their heroes.

But I loved your concluding paragraph, too.

I think the concept of "little death" is really intriguing, I was glad you picked up on that, tho I would have thought the sexual act was the opposite, but it may be too deep for me! hahahaha

Interesting "modern interpretation" of that old myth of Leda, Jonathan. I wonder why this particular story among all the other fantastic ones seems to fascinate people, Zeus also took other forms. Perhaps a swan seems less graphic, and more picturesque.

GINNY:"No I liked your 866, particularly the "little death," that startled me, I had missed it, tho I'm not sure how that fits with Agamemnon and Troy (being "she?"), who had somewhat of a big death, actually, at the hands of his wife as Deems points out, later. That story is not told until the Odyssey. A big death, at least in terms of how the ancients saw their heroes".

I see "The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead" as having meaning on two levels. Most literally, the union of Leda and the swan produced Helen who led to the destruction of Troy and Clytemnestra who engineered the death of Ag. But symbolically, this is the sex act as death, where Ag, the male, destroys Troy's (the female's) wall (virginity), "burns", and then dies.

Yeats sad it, not me. Never mind that Ag didn't die til years later, and only indirectly due to the Trojan war. This is poetry, not history. Like the picture of the swan, Yeats twists history (or myth rather) to suit his allegorical purposes. I see it irritates you, the way the swan irritated me.

The whole idea of sex as death seems like nonsense to me. In addition, it is often combined with a dislike, even hatred of women, who are seen as the cause of this death, or disempowerment. (Not in this poem, however). But it seems to come up a lot in literature. Perhaps DEEMS knows its history.

OK, on the "little death" that Joan K mentions. Here's the most recent reference:

"I see "The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead" as having meaning on two levels. Most literally, the union of Leda and the swan produced Helen who led to the destruction of Troy and Clytemnestra who engineered the death of Ag. But symbolically, this is the sex act as death, where Ag, the male, destroys Troy's (the female's) wall (virginity), "burns", and then dies. "

I'd say this is pretty close to how Paglia reads part of the poem. In that ejaculation of Zeus/swan, the future events are all engendered--the fall of Troy, the death of Agamemnon, and by extension (not in the poem but known to Yeats' original audience) all the other events that followed the Trojan War such as the long trip home of Odysseus.

And yes, it's poetry, not history. Making the kind of leaps that poetry so often makes.

Paglia points out that the names Leda and Zeus are not IN the poem. His original audience would have known the characters and could have easily figured it out.

As for the Trade Center towers, Ginny, I don't see those who died there as heroes. Those who survived them and who have pressed the government for such things as the 9-11 commission are acting heroically, but the dead are simply the dead. Our "heroes" today are rock stars and sports people--not Odysseus fighting mighty odds and eventually triumphing.

Paglia says the age of heroes is over in a sentence that immediately follows her remarks on the First World War, a war that many writers and poets saw as the End of the old world and the beginning of another (and lesser) age. After WWI, there were no more myths created about how glorious it was to die in battle, at least not by those who knew the truth. The generation that was sent off with visions of heroism came home having been gassed or having seen horrors or with trench foot. Those who died in the trenches were not glorified. Honored, yes, glorified, no, at least not by those who had first hand experiences with the Horror.

When Paglia makes remarks such as the above about the age of heroes being over, she is speaking in cultural terms and I agree with her.

The twentieth century was the bloodiest of all the preceeding centuries, by far.

And the twenty-first is starting off in a similar direction.

The center has not held.

There is so much in Leda to discuss, that we are neglecting Wallace Stevens. I like him very much, but I am glad I have paglia's help with his poems, especially the next one.

I've always been intrigued by this insurance executive who wrote great poetry. I heard he used to walk home from work and compose poetry on the way. Sounds just like my commute on the subway (yeah, right!).

It's true that T.S. Eliot was a banker, but I suspect he was a very bad one. Stevens must have been better, since I think he became the head of the Hartford Insurance Agency. It's heartbreaking to hear that he wanted to be a poet, but his father insisted not. I always felt that one of the cruelest things you can do to a child is take a dream away from them. Even if they decide that it was a bad dream, it is something that THEY decide. I've known several people who were forced into careers they didn't want, and they never quite recovered.

This poem is heartbreaking -- it reminds me of Eliot's "Prufrock". But how economical Stevens is in giving the feel of imagination cut off. I love the color in the poem, contrasted with the white. And the colored rings give a feeling of motion, twirling and swirling like a dance -- a dance that never happens.

I have a friend who says she loves Stevens because he's crazy. Here he is wishing the world were strange like him.

note: in reading it aloud, I wish I knew how to pronounce ceintures.

Joan, I can't understand why you find this poem heartbreaking. The way I see it, the center is still holding in Hartford. At least it was in Stevens' lifetime. Unless one is a drunken sailor.

Isn't it just like a poet to have the ghosts disillusion one? They are a sorry lot, aren't they?

Joan K--Yes, Stevens earned his living working for an insurance company, but we mustn't feel too sorry for him. There's hardly enough money in poetry to support oneself. Whenever my students suggest that a writer wrote the poem/novel/ play in order to make millions, I point out to them that those million bucks fall on very few writers--Stephen King, for example--and that most really fine writers have to do something else (or have a supportive spouse) in order to eat.

I agree that this is a sad poem. There is Stevens in Hartford where there just isn't much imagination going on. All the nightgowns are white (currently my favorite color due to recent improvements in the left eye) and as Paglia points out, those other colors are what don't exist in the surroundings.

Also I think it is very important to notice the title here and how it contributes to the meaning of the poem. The title is "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock." What's up with the poet, we wonder, that he is disillusioned? The poem tells us. Everything is dull dull dull. No purple nightgowns with green rings, no green ones with yellow rings. No lace or beads. People are not going to have interesting dreams--who but Stevens would put baboons and periwinkles in the same line--the only hope for the poet is an imagined old sailor, but he is drunk. However, he does catch tigers in red weather.

As you've noticed, Stevens loved color. He loved painting. He loved Key West. He has a wonderful, longer poem, "The Idea of Order at Key West" which I have always loved.

Although Stevens of course did it more delightfully, the same spirit drove me to write the poem:

IN THE SUBURBS

These streets are now well walked.
I know their spotted concrete patches,
Lightning cracks, tufts of wayward sprouting weeds,
Broken trees with jagged boughs, blackboned fingers
Shielding curtained windowed walls,
Corridors of cheesebox houses neatly laid
On squares of grass deployed like plastic rug.
Nets of sparrows fling across the open spaces.
A mower chews and spits a useless crop.
Preferable to inner city honeycomb,
But eaten by the same tessellation.
How does one escape this labyrinth?
The string is broken, the crumbs are all consumed.
I spiral inwards to the beast.

The poem was probably written in Hartford, insuring that Hartford is less boring than you all believe, esp. considering the imaginations people in Hartford have.

Mark Twain lived in Hartford, and I did, too. I really take eggplant exception to this curdoruy characterization of hazelnut Hartford. Look around you -- boredom and imagination dwell in equal parts in EVERY town!

Thank you,
Kaleidoscope Kevin

P.S. Hey Jan, grapefruit great poem, there. Another Pleasant Valley Sunday (written by Carole King, sung by the Monkees) all around and let's toast suburbia!

Here it is:

THE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST

And here is one I've always liked:

THE SNOWMAN

We'll take a brief break and look at a sonnet by John Keats, who somehow got left out of Paglia's book. Keats was only 25 when he died, of tuberculosis, which he contracted taking care of his brother who died of the same disease. This sonnet shows, I think, who hard it was on Keats to be nearly certain that he would die young. There was a young woman he very much loved and wanted to marry. He never got to do so because of his illness. Especially unsettling to him was the thought that he would not live long enough to get out all the poems that he felt in him.

Jan--I enjoyed your poem too. I guess that ennui is something from which we can never permanently escape. You have felt it too.

After this brief interlude, we will return to Wallace Stevens and "Anecdote of the Jar."

Thank you, Joan K for the links to other Stevens poems.

Each of us has had the feeling that as one monent builds upon another new unvisited vistas open and give the feeling that life is too short. I am approaching 80 years and have the sensation that my explorations have hardly begun. Keats puts it very well. Here is a small section of a larger poem of mine on the same subject.

THE MUSKRAT
"Here!" my older son had said,
And thumped the plastic bag on the bed.
Inside I saw the brown-red thing.
Small - rabbit sized.
Carefully I washed away the blood,
Dropped sugar milk into his mouth.
He lived.
He lived with me one summer through,
A muskrat, slapping with webbed feet
Along the hallway floor.
Nosing back behind my books
Playing, like a kid, at secret passageways.
In the yard, he paddled in a water basin,
Knawed bananas, raw fish and clams.
He returned my gentleness in equal measure.
Autumn, influenza took him off.

Why do these extra human crossings strike so deep?
It is, perhaps, that mute eye
Behind the closing door
That would, like me,
Prefer a moment more.

Hi Everyone, I'm Allie and new here. I am not a poet, although always had dreams of writing, including poetry but am more and more convinced that my purpose this time 'round is being an 'audience'...an 'appreciater' and I don't always understand but find poetry evocative.

Loved the first poem although it evoked sexual abuse images with the bird swooping and the feather and the thighs and the rumblings...the same way that people who are sexually abused feel that they are the guilty party simply because their body did what bodies do, i.e. had some response...

Jan, I really enjoyed your poem. I wish I could write one celebrating center city Philadelphia, which is my joy, and the remembrance of that joy was what your poem evoked in me.

Looking forward to reading many more poems and even more importantly, all the comments about them, which help me to understand them better.

Well ALLIEMAE, you are as welcome as can be! I'm glad that you made your way here to our discussion. We are using Paglia's BREAK, BLOW, BURN as our jumping off place for poems.

So far every poem has also been in the header of the discussion. After we finish thinking a little about Keats' sonnet, we will move on to Wallace Stevens' "Anecdote of the Jar" which will appear in the heading.

Jan--Thank you again for contributing one of your poems, or as you note, a part of one. What a lovely time you had with that muskrat before he died. I raised a baby sparrow once, on our screened-in back porch. Fed the little fellow egg yolk and cereal on a toothpick--at the time the cannibalism occured to me but I couldn't think of another protein substitute that would be as easily made and accepted.

Anyway, little Sprig grew to a full-grown sparrow who flew around the porch, perched on lampshades, left droppings everywhere, and especially loved my daughter. One day it was time to let him go--my husband opened a corner of the screen so we could get him out and we had the hardest time convincing him to leave. I don't have any idea what happened to him, but there are many sparrows in the yard that I pretend are his great great grandchildren.

Hard to know who is in town and who is away since it is July, a prime time for vacations. Whoever is here, what do you think about Keats' sonnet and Jan's poem too?

~Maryal

JAN: thank you. That's a wonderful poem. The ending says everything:

Why do these extra human crossings strike so deep?  
It is, perhaps, that mute eye 
Behind the closing door 
That would, like me, 
Prefer a moment more.

I'm so glad we got our Keats. I love the middle:

When I behold, upon the night's starred face, 
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, 
And think that I may never live to trace 
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

Do you suppose I will ever get to the point where "love and fame to nothingness do sink"?

I forgot to close my quote, so you may get scrolling. I've corrected it now.

Jan--your poem was touching and I'm sorry the raccoon died and I agree with Joan that that last line says everything...Deems--of course the little sparrows are your grandchildren...love is magic! The Poem of Keats, When I Have Fears, left me very sad. I have a story inside of me for years...actually decades, which is so consuming for me it's painful to know that since I can't write, this story will never be told because it's my story and if I don't write it it won't be written. I can see so many scenes and themes in my mind...I am many times seduced by the sights, sounds and smells...but it doesn't come out right on paper. I'm saddened that I will most likely go with this story still inside of me. I don't want to...

It was not a raccoon, it was a muskrat. I am just now raising a sparrow successfully from a baby and hope to free it in a few days. I have found a relationship with animals that in many ways is stronger than with humans because I can accept the pervading cruelty that life inflicts upon them in a purity that I find is muddled with humans. The entire poem deals with several animals and the deep tragedy I perceive in the lives of animals is their eagerness to remain alive and the incomprehension of death that humans can perceive if they maintain clear heads. But it seems that most humans prefer to deceive themselves.

Perhaps I can be excused for presenting a more positive viewpoint of the same matter.

I AM HERE

It is morning and I am here.
6 AM. The radio rattles on
About the weather. Sun and clear.
All the subways are on time.
I yawn and stretch. I am here.

Strain my eyes round as I peer
Into the bathroom mirror.
With my palm I wipe a smear.
Step into the warm shower.
Luxuriate in water. I am here.

Quickly I dress, get into gear.
A roll, a cup of coffee.
A new day. Nothing to fear.
The morning air is pleasant. Cool.
My stride is sure. I am here.

The time will come, I’ll disappear.
No trace of me will remain.
Perhaps far away. Perhaps near.
But today, I delight in life.
I breathe deeply. I am here.

Sorry Jan...yes, it was a muskrat...I think I was remembering the mother raccoon who's foot my father released from a trap as her new babies lay near her...

The "Dominion Wide Mouth" Jar said to be (by Roy Harvey Pearce) the "source" for the "Anecdote of the Jar." http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Stevens/jar.gif

Not having Paglia for reference I must make my own appreciation for the poem.

I find it peculiarly fascinating as its content is so raw and bare and (at least to me) significant of nothing but itself as a way of distorting focus upon a moment in time. The roundness of the jar gives the whole world radial symmetry just as each one of us is the center of our own universe.

I remember the exact place I was sitting when I first read this poem. Years ago--in a class sitting next to my good friend, June. I wondered if this poetry stuff really could be deciphered after all. I read the poem and reread it and reread it again and still couldn't get beyond the primary meaning: the poet places a jar somewhere in the wilderness in Tennessee; the wilderness is reflected in the jar.

But there's more here as it turns out. We have a poem about art and its ability to organize that which is jumbled or random. When the jar is placed, the wilderness rises up around it but is tamed. The jar, a manmade object, however humble, has had an effect upon the wilderness: " The wilderness rose up to it,/ And sprawled around, no longer wild."

Somehow the jar takes "dominion," becomes the most important thing, even though it is "gray and bare" on the scene. Sort of reminds me of Cristo's art works, like the most recent Saphron gates in NY City.

I will read Paglia's commentary later in the day. I have to stay away from too much reading until my second eye (as opposed to the third or fouth) is corrected because there is now too great a disparity between them.

Maryal

Jonathan--I think you wrote about what I did in fewer words, "I find it peculiarly fascinating as its content is so raw and bare and (at least to me) significant of nothing but itself as a way of distorting focus upon a moment in time. The roundness of the jar gives the whole world radial symmetry just as each one of us is the center of our own universe. "

Allie--I forgot to thank you for the photo of the Jar. Just an ordinary what I think of as Mason Jar. People in Maine, well some of them, collect old jars and bottles and put them in their windows.

oh I do know about the jars and bottles in Maine. I was born in Rockland, Maine and my dad, after he retired used to go dump raking...I still have about a dozen of the bottles that I liked the best. so good to hear about 'home'...think I'm homesick!

Thank you guys. When I read the poem, I didn't understand a word. After reading Paglia, I understood about a word and a half. Now it's beginning to make sense.

I keep calling you Jonathan and yet you are distinct people in my mind. You are a poet and live in Norway (I hope) and it was to YOU that I meant to address the above post.

I think it's the J thing. I come by it honestly. My mother always used to mix up my sister Margaret and me (Mary)--she got it right maybe three times out of 20.

I will try to do better in the future.

abashedly, Maryal

Just to set it straighter, I live in Helsinki, Finland. No offense taken.

can't wait to receive the Paglia book...am so thick regarding poetry! do think, after reading it again, that it seems rather an antithesis of the old adage 'one bad apple spoils the whole bunch'

Jan--OK, now I've got you in the wrong country! I think I'll blame the eye surgery--yup, that's the excuse of the week.

Allie--the book is only available in hard cover, having just been released last spring. Maybe your library has it?

Deems, thanks! Yes, my library is getting it for me. It's reserved and I should be able to pick it up by tomorrow. Yeah!!!

ALLIEMAE: don't think you're thick regarding poetry because you don't understand this poem!! I don't think even Paglia understands it.

The I is quickly lost in this poem and where the jar could easily be, as Paglia suggests, a container for white whisky, I am getting a deeper thought when I read this poem

A jar- especially a mason jar, is a container for all sorts of things - Lightening bugs, a caterpillar on a stick that we could never feed enough so that we could watch it would weave a cocoon – a butterfly, pennies, black eye and red eyed beans, sugar from the neighbor, a drink of water, ice tea, saved soap scrapes, preserves, jams and jellies, chow chow, turned upside down in the garden to cover seedlings, to sprout a sweet potato or snips of plants from a neighbor’s garden, with a dab of honey at the bottom to collect beetles, flies and other insects from the garden.

A wide mouth jar that can collect all sorts airborne bacteria -a container used not for valuables but for the a life giving needs of average nineteenth and early twentieth century America.

The Jar is placed in Tennessee and all around is a slovenly wilderness. A hum – it would take a Yankee to call the hills and hollows of Tennessee slovenly. Having lived in Lexington for over 12 years and having worked in the hills I knew the area well – and if you had to get every bit of your water from a pool of water a mile or more from your house at the base of some outcropping, usually covered with green algae, and your family is poor, poor since there is no way to get a crop down those mountains to market. And the stamp act of 1765 prevented these families from legally making and selling whisky, which was a way to turn crops into cash since barrels can be taken by mule down a mountain and float to a barge. And so your family lives off the land, with few roads so that you only travel when the creek beds are passable therefore, your community is isolated from the rest of the nation or - Daddy works in the coalmines – with that history you would look slovenly if that is the arbiter elegantiarum description for poor.

As to the mountains themselves looking slovenly – when they are carpeted thick in spring with Dogwood followed by Redbud and all manner of fauna cover hills and hollows - With only a slit of sun at noon the hollow can be dark by seven in mid summer – melancholy yes, but slovenly??? Ah so, to each his own…

But onward to the poem – the wilderness rose up and then is no longer wild – I see the Jar as representing not only the people of Tennessee but also all their values, beliefs, the Southern Mountain ways, songs, all that has become the identity of a Tennessean.

He placed it there because it is not about him but he placed it in his mind, he placed all he knew of Tennessee on this hill in his minds eye, a hill in the wilderness that became less wild –

dominion can be the jar but it is also, to a southerner, the center, the capitol, the apex of the culture of the South – the Dominion of Virginia – and so All that is Tennessee enveloped the area with its connections to the center of Southern Power – that was symbolized in those grey uniforms – so the jar which is all that is Tennessee is grey but now bare – this is after the Civil War and before Look Magazine opened the hills and hollows to the world when Bobby Kennedy visited.

And like a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush or [The bird in the Bush was a popular reel at the turn of the century up through WWII when even the music changed In the hills] – or the Parable “A bird in the hand is a certainty, but a bird in the bush may sing.”

This bare jar that is Tennessee with all its Southern pride and virtue was not giving a song or harvest from a bush – there was nothing else in Tennessee except this jar, standing tall like a lighthouse or, as Wallace says a port, on a hill that affected the hills and hollows so they are no longer wild hills and hollows.

A simple domestic wide round-mouth-preserving jar that we can see inside, its contents and changes - light can pass through it and with a candle, it can light the cabin- the light of Southern values and traditions shining in and out of this simple jar on a round hill - round - total, infinite, time enclosing space, resurrection.

What a lovely prose ode, Barbara, on Tennessee, the jar, the South and ways of living there.

I'm really glad you commented on "slovenly." Isn't that an unexpected word to find in a poem, especially when it's describing the wilderness. When I think of slovenly, I think of a disordered (badly so) and smelly house, apartment, room.

I still haven't read Paglia. I've been saving my reading for you guys and a few newspapers online. I can make the print quite large (Mozilla Firefox, best browser I've seen) and it makes it easy to read. For regular print I essentially have to pick which eye I want to read with--use reading glasses with the one that has been corrected--hold book really close for the nearsighted one that still has to have its cataract removed.

Thank heaven for books on CD, or in my case, on my iPod. I'm somewhere in the first quarter of McCullough's John Adams. It's wonderfully written and very well read.

thanks Joan...I feel a little better now! Can't wait to get the book though...sure hope it's in tomorrow.I do think it's strange that I understand Shakespeare's sonnets better than the 'Jar'...Being a Saggitarius isn't easy...so I hope this course will teach me to overcome my defiance of writers who write things I have to figure out. I did enjoy the Keats...

I'm a wilderness guy myself. I much prefer a wilderness, any wilderness, to an opaque poem. Such as Anecdote of the Jar. While according Stevens all due respect and praise for his distinguished place in American poetry, I nevertheless feel that he was abusing his poetic license when he started messing with Tennessee.

And from what Maryal tells us the good folks of Maine are even now putting jars and bottles in their windows with the same purpose in mind. There goes another fine wilderness.

The unimaginative burghers of Hartford, Connecticut, left the poet disillusioned. The wild and slovenly Tennesseans awakened in him a civilizing zeal, a hope of aestheticizing

'backwoods Tennessee, with its hardscrabble mountain ridges, coves, and hollers (hollows)' Paglia, p124,

with a dozen lines of poetic legerdemain.

Its needful to say that I am having more difficulty in making sense of Stevens's poem, than he had in reordering Tennessee. After giving the matter some thought, I have concluded that life is too short for the purpose. Let's go on to a consideration of W.C.W.'s Red Wheelbarrow.

I can't even make up my mind whether or not Paglia is helpful with this one. Needless to say, she makes much of it. And she does bring vast learning and incisive thinking with her critical essay. It's absorbing. Let me list a few of her allusions:

John Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn.

The paintings of Cezanne and Picasso.

Coleridge's Xanadu.

Several biblical citations from Genesis.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay 'Circles'.

Cubist principles.

Comparisons with Amish crocks and canning jars.

Still Moonshine.

Comparisons with Emily Dickinson's 'I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed.'

Paglia's conclusions are that the poem is 'cryptic', 'a bit stilted or disjointed', 'inscrutable and intractable', and 'oblique'. More positively she suggests that the poet's aim was 'a tentative exploration of thought'. An added plus is a 'coded message' in the name Tennessee.

Will we ever again be able to look at a jar without mixed feelings? Without thinking of the poor people of Tennessee.

The unimaginative burghers of Hartford, Connecticut, left the poet disillusioned. The wild and slovenly Tennesseans awakened in him a civilizing zeal, a hope of aestheticizing.

AGAIN with the slandering of Hartford! It's quite jarring, to say the least. To be frank, unimaginative burgers are no more apparent in Hartford than in Poughkeepsie, Osh Kosh, or Nashville.

Will Hartford (and by extension, Connecticut-) bashing be allowed with every Wallace Stevens poesy we readsy? Let's can it and stick it in the wilderness, shall we?

Hartford was the Publishing Capital of the World in the 19th Century, and Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were both born there (I've seen the very room).

Unimaginative...

Humbug!

Tit for tat it seems - publishing capitol or not, it was an outrage and uncalled for, to call Tennessee "slovenly"! and in print...sheesh the man has the manners of a pill bug...

Photos of "slovenly" Tennessee

waterfall hollow

Bridle Veil Cove

Upper Cumberland ~ with music

Le Conte Creek a narrow valley between the ridges high on Mount LeConte near Gatlinburg.

The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson, and America, 1801-1861

Log Cabin of Davy Crockett who died at the Alamo

Log Cabin birthplace of Cordell Hull

Shiloh

This is not a hog calling match - only that I do not think we can cheer when a poet calls the people of Tennessee or the hills and hollows of Tennessee "slovenly" even if he is from the esteemed city of Hartford, publishing capitol of America and home to Twain, Webster, Hepburn, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathen Hale and Dorothy Hamill...

If I remember my history Benedict Arnold is among that lot as well...hmmm I wonder if that is why he didn't plant a wide mouth preserving jar on a hill in Conneticut - you just see too darn much through a glass jar - something like a house with a big bay window or maybe like a glass house...

Who knew that poetry could call forth such passions, especially about places. I don't think Stevens was dissing Hartford--after all he lived there, but rather remarking on its lack of material for the imagination, its predictableness, its historical predictableness. But not disrespecting, simply approaching it as an artist--not too much scope for the imagination there.

STILL haven't read the Paglia, and Jonathan is right, we will get on to WCWilliams soon.

I don't think he's dissing Tennessee either. He's simply noting the wilderness. What strikes me as odd is "slovenly."

I think the word "slovenly" was intended for wilderness itself, not wilderness in a specific state.

And I never said that W.Stevens was dissing Hartford. I said that posters were.

Hartford forgives them, however. (Home of Humongous Hearts, Heart-ford Is).

I understand wilderness as slovenly, actually. When we moved to our farm, we had several unkempt and untended acres of vineyard which had been allowed to go wild, and every time I looked at it, it reminded me of nothing so much as a girl's hair which needed to be cut. I guess it depends on how you view the wilderness, in this case an untended vineyard is not quite the same thing as true wilderness, the wild and the free: an abandoned vineyard is just untended.

In the words of the State Plant Pathologist, "If this were mine I'd lie down and cry," so it appears I was not the only one. hahahaa

But the "wild" is something else, again, than something allowed to RUN wild, and it's interesting here, the comparison, the "slovenly" which a city dweller might apply to things in the wild beyond his control, I like this poem and what I seem to think it implies. Especially when the presence of a jar changes everything, the wilderness is "no longer wild." Love it.

Since I'm on vacation, have not read Paglia yet, but will enjoy doing so. Hope your second eye operation was as successful as the first, Deems! (By the way, I did not mean to indicate that all of the people in the World Trade Towers and the airplane headed for the Pentagon who died were heroes, simply by virtue of their having died? What I said was I think there WERE enough heroes, however, in those situations, TO qualify as real heroes, and I think they deserve that designation, and more. I can only hope I would have been one of them, should that have happened to me. I would like to think so, but the reality is, it probably would not have happened. I would not like that taken away from them by comparison).

Although I have seen "Anecdote of the Jar" in many collections and wondered about some of its reference it seems somehow a very small cage for the six hundred pound Gorilla of Paglia's critical capability to shake the bars. I would have much preferred an analysis of the very popular "Sunday Morning" http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem2017.htm

where the primate could swing through the landscape with greater freedom and perhaps larger scope.

You wrote (among many other noteworthy things) "Will we ever again be able to look at a jar without mixed feelings.?"

Love it!!!!!!!

Jan, I can't make your link work. I can get the U. of Toronto but not the poem.

Ginnyonvacation, good to see you dropping in. Interesting that you found the untended vineyard "slovenly." As you point out, the difference here is that your vineyard had once been tended whereas Stevens found Tennessee's wilderness "slovenly."

Kevin--sorry, I mistook your meaning. Hartford under attack, but by whom? Besides Hartford must have looked quite different, or some different (as we say in Maine) when he lived there. What with all the white nightgowns and such.

I often see (here by posters and elsewhere) people referencing the contrast betweeen Wallace Stevens's colorful poetry and the "staid" city of Hartford or the "boring" city of Hartford or the "conservative" city of Hartford, yada yada. If Wallace Stevens himself is on record as recording these thoughts, well and good because it's his poetry and he can say what he wants to (to the tune of "It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To").

But when posters and pundits just make a leap and decide for themselves that having an Insurance Industry (something that is quickly leaving Hartford, by the way) makes a city staid, well, that sort of generalization will not do.

(And I just saw some white nightgowns -- and such -- up in West Paris, a-yuh.)

http://www.repeatafterus.com/title.php?i=4297

I took that from the descriptive material that came with the beautiful views of Tennessee.

Thanks, Barbara. You assembled an album of fine pictures. After looking at them, and enjoying them, I've decided that Wallace Stevens has left himself open to the charge of littering. The cardinal rule for people visiting or walking in places such as this is: If you pack it in, pack it out.

However we should always go back to the poem, to make sure we're getting it right. Stevens never does mention Hartford in that poem about Disillusionment.

Back to Barbara's earlier post, to guess at what Stevens might have been carrying in the jar, before discarding it.

Places - hmmm I think we prefer a love poem or a lyrical poem or at least a dignified dirge when a town or nation or group is included in a poem [or by the critic...!]

Good grief no wonder Sunday Morning was not included - it goes on and on and on - no quick analysis with a mega length poem is there...and what a boring dilemma...

Sorry this guy is not one that I would go out of my way to read if these are three examples of his best work...onward to simplicity...

Whoops - you posted Jonathan while I was typing - I am not sure he is really discarding a jar - that I is quickly dissolved in the poem and the change is noticed in the first stave.

My take is that what is contained in the jar is a pocket of information that is a reference point in his mind - almost like pulling a file out and placing it on another desk in his head and because of the file he sees the landscape of the desk change...

The poem does not actually say there is anything that can be seen with the eye in the jar - that is why I think what is in the jar is like a collection of micro bits of ideas.

Hmmm just quick looked it up in my trusty Encyclopedia of Symbols - a Jar has a reference - a Feminine, receptive symbol, like the Vase - denoting triumph over birth and death, also spiritual triumph - for the Greeks it represents the grave burial and the underworld since grain was stored in jars underground during the season of the death of vegetation.

I didn't think he was talking about Hartford particularly in the last poem, but about middle-class life in general. Paglia's comparison with Gauguin is a good one -- he is yearning for something wild and exotic. Never mind that he would run like crazy if he ever really had to live on a South Sea island. Surely, all of us have seen our lives as boring and predictable at times.

I suppose "slovenly" wilderness is because (if Paglia is right) he feels that it is art that organizes nature. I agree with those who wonder what he wants: his middle class life is too organized and predictable, but the wilderness is too disorganized!

In "The Story of Civilization" discussion, we are looking at the following quote from Durant:

""Literary prose comes later than poetry in all literatures, as intellect matures long after fancy blooms".

What do you think, guys? Do you agree?

I just think poetry has a rhythm that allowed folks to memorize great swaths of a story so they could regal their guests with the poem/prose - to me the novel was more dependent on the printing press -

Joan K--I love your comment about Stevens finding life with white nightgowns all around too humdrum and nature too disorganized--just couldn't accept either. Good point. And I wonder how much some of us might be like that too?

Poetry does precede prose in all literature. Like Barbara I've always thought of the rhythm and (relative) ease of memorizing poetry, useful for writing that is spoken and not written down. Also when children are very young, they respond to sing song poetry, loving things like "Twinkle, twinkle little star" and all manner of others without really thinking much about what the words mean. My own children were especially fond of A.A. Milne and poems like "James James Morrison Morrison, Commonly known as Jim" and "Wherever I go there's always Pooh/ There's always Pooh and me" and

What is the matter with Mary Jane?
She's crying with all her might and main
And it's lovely rice pudding for dinner again
What is the matter with Mary Jane?

The very short and always controversial "Red Wheelbarrow" is now in the heading. Go for it!

Although both prose and poetry partake of the formalisms necessary for language to crystalize thought for communication poetry adds further formality in the presentation by adding, in many cases, rhyme and rhythm and all the other auxiliary restrictions such as alliteration, and footage restrictions etc. These restrictions can, at times, permit language to make accompanying thought so bizarre as to form a private code and a total puzzle. The sounds and odd juxtaposition of common words can dominate the thought to such an extent that the contained thought become totally cryptic. This is an unfortunate stumble, to my mind, in poetry which can be an incisive probe in new ways to use language.

I find this difficulty to be true (to me) in the poetry of Ezra Pound who is so well informed on so many languages and the cultures in those languages that I am almost totally in the dark as to what he is about. I must take on trust with what poets I respect say as to his capability.

This poem by W.C.Williams falls into that category. It focuses on a quick visual impression of vivid colors but the indication that this is important is a mere statement with no confirmation I can place a finger on. It leaves me cold.

I just get a kick out of this poem and always have - to me as I read it, the word that is alone on the line, I treat that word as an after thought - I love where my mind goes when I do that -

"so much depends" and the drift to infinity begins - all the possibilities - like Mom telling you when you are a kid, and you asked if you could go someplace not on the usual schedule - it depends - on my behavior - on if Dad works that week [depression] - if no one is ill - if there isn't a storm - if the road is not washed out - if the chickens lay their eggs and the worms leave the tomatoes alone and the goat next door does not break through and eat up the garden or the line of laundry -

But wait there is an "upon" - aha something to go to the bank with - "upon" something - maybe only one happening - "upon" and we are back to earth again, no longer with infinite possibilities.

"Upon" "a red wheel" not a green or yellow wheel - not two wheels - just one red wheel - But how big a wheel - does the wheel have spokes - is it made of wood or metal - red is an exciting color - red like fire or oak trees in autumn - hmmm I wonder dark or bright red - "a red wheel" - like the wheel at the chance tent during the church bazaar - a fire-engine wheel - oh that big old coffee grinder at the the grocery - the wheel of fate -

But wait, the red wheel is the wheel of a "barrow" - hmmm that sounds strange the wheel of a castrated pig - must mean wheelbarrow - well we at least know now approximately the size of the red wheel and that it is attached to a trough of sorts.

"So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow" - OK - I can see that if you must move more than you can carry - so what is next...

"glazed with rain" hmmm not wet with rain but "glazed with rain" - all shiny with rain - hmmm we glaze pigs when they are cooking - oh forget the pig it is a wheelbarrow that is glazed - with rain yet - well I would hate to have to clean it up if it were glazed with anything else - the paint must be fresh with little rust on this wheelbarrow if it looks glazed - almost a new wheelbarrow - maybe a child's toy wheelbarrow, well painted so that it looks "glazed with rain".

"Water" Yep, rain is water alright - hmmm water and a wheel - the waters of a Spring rain - Baptism, renewal - oh and Spring cleaning sure takes a lot of water - the rain spring-cleaning the wheelbarrow making it shine - I like this - sorta happy and PBSish for kids - but that wheel and the water is probably saying something serious to those who read through the obvious.

This "water" is "beside the white"

Maybe Wallace Stevens' white night-gowns - hehehe - OK we're back - "white" - holy, pure, innocence, a baptismal dress, a wedding dress, First Holy Communion - oh and the Communion wafer - white china is the stuff of my bathroom and my sheer curtains are white - lots of white - so "water" beside the "white" - sorta like a magnolia blooming in the rain or a pond lily on the water -

"Chicken" well saints above, a "white chicken" - lays eggs that are sometimes white - sharpens their beaks on the white cuttle on the fence -

Hmmm I guess this is a Spring story - eggs are the symbol of Beginnings and you can hardly think of a chicken without the egg - which came first is always the question - the eternal mystery - the Cosmic Egg floating on the sea of chaos - but back to this "white chicken" - well Daddy had white leghorns - nasty things, always pecking on you -

Let's see there are White Rocks and a sort of white - with some speckles A Spitzhauben Oh and how about these White Saltans and how about these White Polish Bantams get this guy or actually gal Black Crested White Polish Bantam hen and her cousin is already for the Easter Parade non-bearded White Polish and finally the babies A pair of Frizzled White Poland bantams the infamous White Leghorn

Then there is the White Cochins that are featured in movies...oh and did you ever a White Japanese Phoenix rooster of course...and yes, a Rhode Island White hen a much nicer chicken - Daddy had these as well - not as mean...and gotta finish off with a a brood of chicks"Oh my, that's a big world!"

Chickee le Pas Mardi Gras, Chickee le Pas Mardi Gras, Chickee le Pas Mardi Gras, hear what I think, see what I thank, oh what I thank, kind of a day...N'Awlinz: Dis Dat or d'Udda -- Dr. John Just scroll down and have a listen...

Strange how differently our minds function. I read the poem more or less flatly as the poet wrote it. I do not dissect each word for whatever personal significance it might have but accept that the poet had something in mind by configuring the arrangement of words in the pattern delineated and that that pattern was of ultimate significance to the poet. And I try to catch that significance. I have failed, with this poem, to do so.

ah but a word is simply a symbol of something - we mostly agree what the word symbolizes but when words are an art form then we can stretch our imagination don't you think - if art did not allow us to stretch our imagination there would not be so many different interpretations of say King Lear or several artists painting the same subject their work would all look the same wouldn't it...

With Poetry some words can be personal as you suggest and then others are symbolic - there are many authors who have collected the traditional meaning of symbols - my favorite is by J.C. Cooper - certainly words like water, wheel, and even rain - colors like red, white all have symbolic meaning that was fun to work into the understanding of the poem...

It is like finding and looking at a dollar bill - we can identify the color, feel, all the pictures, words and symbols on the dollar but most of us think of what we can do with the dollar - give it away, save to earn more or buy now - and our imagination takes off..

I admit that what donates a good deal of delight to poetry is the unfamiliar context of familiar words to renew the possibilities of expression but the thrust of a poem is, to me, a vital foundation for the existence of the poem. I write poetry because it is a quick direct form to express an idea or an emotion or a different point of view. The Williams poem gives me none of these. I could, of course, feed my own concepts into the elementary words, but I can do that with a dictionary. I don't need poetry for that.

Rothko Untitled

Is it about a box? Is this an artistic version of the red wagon do you think?

As any artist or author will say - once the work leaves their hands it is a creative endeavor between author and reader or artist and viewer - as those who look or read add their life experience to the looking and the reading...

No argument here - only that as you said in your first post - we each see something different in this poem and that is OK...we each had different life experiences...from what you have shared it sounds like you are more comfortable with focus where I am comfortable with chaos...

graphic changed to a link per SN's graphics policy

Nothing strange about how differently minds work. It's a blessing!

I like ole William Williams, but this poem was just at the right place at the right time and thus enjoyed 13 seconds of fame that happened to hang around a few decades.

It's a snapshot, a Polaroid, no more, no less, in my white-nightgowned (ghostly, in fact) opinion. Where WCW gets mileage is out of the "so much depends upon" line. Well hell. So much depends upon a LOT of things, and we all -- with our different minds -- have the ability to invest ordinary objects with considerable portions of import.

What a poem. A guy like this would eat all the plums, too, no doubt. I'm sure Paglia found the true meaning to be... sexual.

(Is someone keeping a scorecard on her? I mean, how many times her explications of poems in her book come round to the "s" word? Someone should. So much depends upon it. Pass the wheelbarrow.)

Well then, are these worthy? And if not, why not?

The ominous frog

Flicks its long

Tongue

At the nearby

Fly

And licks it

Or perhaps

A simple group

Written

With some words

Signifies

Something I

Suppose

But is it

Poetry?

You've touched on
The sweet mystery
of Life
and on
the White unfairness
of Literary
Fame

It is of no consequence to me whether a poet is famous or not. But I care whether a poem is effective or merely a random accumulation of words. It is a misuse of reputation to invest a non-clever sentence with pseudo-significance. The emperor is naked.

Beauty is in the eye/ear of the beholder -- applies to poetry as well as art.

Far be it for me to depreciate people who are easily entertained. I'm sure they have a continuously enjoyable life. Unfortunately, I am afflicted with standards.

I must say that the poem is one step above Malevich's White on White painting and John Cage's piano piece where he merely sat in front of the piano. I suppose there will eventually come a poet who publishes a blank page and there will be an appreciative audience.

Ahh. A grain of salt. Probably something of that thought ran through Lot's mind when he beheld his wife and figured God overdid it.

The pleasure I get from reading all these disparate responses is hard to describe. Suffice it to say that I've never met a group of readers of this poem who agreed on it--whether it had anything to say--if so, what was it?--whether WCWilliams was paid by the word (a strange idea my students generally come up with perhaps having heard something of Dickens having to come up with a certain length for his installments) but he already had enough money (because he was a doctor) so he could write very short stupid poems and get famous as a poet because being a doctor wasn't enough. And round and round goes the wheel of the barrow.

Barbara--You have such fun looking at how the lines are broken up--stopping at the end of each one and telling us what you think of and then going on to the remainder of the phrase--I think I'll use your method when I next teach this poem. It's short enough to write up on the blackboard and I often do when we are beginning poetry because I know that a number of people will not like it and some will. Good for discussion if nothing else.

Jan--Thanks for the new link to "Sunday Morning." This one works. I think that Paglia doesn't include any of Stevens' longer poems simply because they are long. She is choosing only short poems. I think the shortness criterion also explains her omission of Keats. She didn't want to do any of the sonnets and all of his famous poems are longer, some quite long indeed. She didn't, for example, put in "Ode on a Grecian Urn" or "Ode to a Nightingale," two of the most famous of the Romantic poems and both by Keats.

Paglia does, however, make mention of Keats' famous Urn poem in her essay on "Anecdote of the Jar," and the essay opens up at that point if you are familiar with Keats' poem.

Kevin--You always make me grin ( a good thing) what with your word play and general fun in making words dance around. Everyone, go read Kevin's latest post in "Reading Around the World." It's all about thunderstorms and changes of weather in (my old home state) Maine and the accompanying lovely morning that appeared today what with birds and scraped blue sky. Or, Kevin, why don't you just go move it from there to here? Simple way would be to copy and paste.

patwest--Ah yes, beauty is in the eye, and Williams is much concerned here with the IMAGE, what he sees, what the artist sees. Speaking of which, Barbara, thank you for the Rothko, one of my daughter's heroes.

More later.

Maryal

Okay. One last crack at detailed analysis

The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon

This obviously sets the mood. A sense of urgency is offered to prepare the reader for the earthshaking circumstances which shall shake the soul and shatter all preconceptions.

a red wheel
barrow

Here is a bit of obfuscation. An ambience of uncertainty is created. Is the wheelbarrow red or is there a barrow (a burial mound or perhaps a castrated pig) attached to a red wheel. Here the color red is prominent and everybody who has lived through the times of Communist Russia is well aware of the significance of the color red. Williams seems to be forecasting the burial of communism and slyly intimating that Stalin was a sterile pig. I am not aware of Williams’ connection to senator McCarthy but he seems to have, at minimum, sympathy for the demise of socialism. In that he is in complete accord with the aims of the cold war from the West’s point of view. Or he may have a slightly distorted reference to Hamlet “neither a lender nor a barrow be” (English had quite weird spelling in Elizabethan times).

glazed with rain
water

Glazed here refers to glass and he implies that the Communist ruse is quite transparent. Rain is a sly reference to the renal system, involved with the kidneys and thence to urine. He is implying that the communist leaders’ urine was so weak that it resembled water, a sign of total political weakness. This is indeed a polemic against the enemies of capitalism. Since Williams was deeply immersed in corporate structure it is easy to see where his sympathies lay.

beside the white
chickens

Now this couplet becomes totally clear. Corporate heads, in his day, were pretty much white men and they were chicken hearted over the possibilities that socialism might have sympathizers amongst the downtrodden colored minorities in the USA. The threat implied in the first lines comes down to the thunderous conclusion that white America might lack the courage to defend itself. Everything in the poem is now quite clear.

Jan--Ah the political reading of the poem! Do I sense exasperation with Williams? By the way, your little haiku-like poems are certainly poems however much you want them to make a different point.

We are in the period of Imagism (which made a big spash there for a brief time with Pound and his followers including H.D. ) The idea was to present, in language, an image. That's it. Probably the most famous of these poems is Pound's "In a Station of the Metro," influenced certainly by Japanese forms:

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in a crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Pound explained that he had originally written a much longer poem to set down his response to entering the subway in Paris, but that he had worked on the poem and worked on it until it reached its present form.

He's mostly a mystery to me but two of his poems are obvious. The Metro poem and the one that starts "Winter is icummin in, lud sing Goddamn" I haven't been able to locate the rest of that one.

The difference in viewpoints is amazing and fascinating!! Mine is completely different again, because I am a great lover of Japanese haiku.

None of the Western poems that are compared to haiku really are. Believe it or not, they are too wordy!! Westerners can't resist the temptation to tell the reader what to think or feel ("so much depends upon") instead of, as Paglia says "sharp physical details are presented but not explained: the images must speak for themselves".

Pound's poem:

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in a crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.

if it were a haiku would read:

 
Metro station: 
Faces- 
Petals on a black bough.

Most of the second line is noise (Even the metaphor in the third line seems forced and unnecssary).

Compare to this haiku by the 17th century poet Onitsura:

 
The autumn wind 
Blows across the fields: 
Faces

If you don't "get" this kind of poetry, it's hard to explain. Yes, it's definitely open to bad meaningless poetry, but so is any form. A great haiku (which the above isn't) "sinks in" and becomes more and more meaningful. It sinks in and and thenopens up more and more meaning in everyday things.

But WCW is not writing haiku. BARBARA: I think you got it just right in your analysis above, WCW's spacing of the words deconstructs them and forces you to consider the meaning of every word: depends, upon, wheel, barrow, water, white, chickens.

It's a delightful little piece of poetry, bringing together fortuitous circumstance and the doctor pondering the health of his patient. It's a pretty picture, with the red barrow and the rain and the white chickens coming together like that - pure chance - and so vivid. So why make it enigmatic? Why did da Vinci put the quizzical smile on the face? This is the Mona Lisa in Paglia's collection.

Jonathan--Pleasant it may be and those objects may have just come together. But the statement "so much depends upon" which precedes the images, what do you make of it?

What DEPENDS?

Paglia points out that depend means literally hang down from (think of pendulum) and that the whole poem hangs from that opening line.

She also points out that the whole poem is a single sentence (without a capital letter at the beginning, note).

I think maybe it helps to be a farmer or someone who lives in the country to appreciate this poem. A wheelbarrow is one of the most useful vehicles around a farm. And those ubiquitous white chickens--aren't they on all farms (in our minds) from Old McDonald's to whatever illustration of a farm was in your first grade reader (Dick and Jane visit a farm).

We do have the colors red white and blue (that water) in this poem. Does that make it patriotic? A political statement as Jan wryly suggested?

I am so glad to see this discussion approach my level (Dick and Jane, I mean). Dick and Jane were poetry to me, as a kid. Look, look. See Puff. Run, Sally, run!

Only now I forget who Puff was (the dog, maybe?). And whether Dick and Jane owned any white chickens or red wheelbarrows. ("Wheel, barrow, wheel!"). Maybe not. Could be the Bobbsey Twins I'm thinking (or Nancy Drew or those healthy and Hardy boys named Frank and Joe).

What WCW poem is on deck?

REview time for Kevin--You were one of those boys in my reading group who never looked at the flash cards, weren't you?

Puff was the kitty cat
Spot was the dog
I distinctly remember some relative with a farm
Grandma and Grampa?
Grandma also baked cookies and brought them out on a white plate.

Next up (I think later today) is the Plums one, "This Is Just to Say."

I seem to get more from reading other postings than I feel I could ever contribute myself.

For example, my first and very visual impression after reading WCW's The Red Wheelbarrow was that of Don Corleone finding respite from gangland's insecurities, violence and bestialities by going to his country home and sitting in the garden, looking 'round him in peace and tranquility as his little grandson played with his 'damp with early morning dew' red wagon whilst the chickens pecked about in the garden for seeds and things. Ah...the childish exuberance of red...and the purity of white. Simple times...but they were good times...

Or, the red of blood, the wetness of tears of mourning, the white of death and funerals? ...but still Don Corleone...

What depends?

First the barrow depends upon the wheel (axle) both literally and in his spacial organization of the poem. Indeed, so much depends on the wheel, practically all of our technology. So much of our agriculture and other activities depends on devices such as the wheelbarrow.

More important, poetically, is Paglia's point. The wheelbarrow, with its red glistening color focuses our attention and makes us really see this scene!! This kind of poetry is all about seeing, really seeing, what is all around us. As Blake said (help me out with the quote here) seeing the world in a (what was it? a drop of dew? It could have been anything, because the world is contained in everything). This kind of seeing is very far rom Dick and Jane. People spend their whole lives trying to see this way.

Don Corleone? The name is familiar, but that's as far as I get.

Maryal, I'm sure I wasn't among the bluebirds (98% girls, anyway) in your reading group. I was voted least likely to succeed among the blackbirds (and a few teachers would as soon I were baked in a pie along the way, too).

What was the teddy bear's name? He was Puffy, too.

P.S. I know this is off-topic, but I'm plum out of things to say about the wheelbarrow. Great imagery, as Joan points out. Just tough to talk up for 3 days.

You're out of things to say???????? If anyone believes that, I've a bridge I'd like to sell them:

so much depends 
upon 

Kevin's glorious 
puns 

glazed with razor 
wit 

beside us white 
chickens

Yes, Joan thanks for pointing that out - the whole poem is about the red wheel isn't it - the first bit sets us up and the third and forth bit is continuing to describe the look of the red wheel - in rain and what is near the red wheel.

Mechanically the wheel is one of those basic movements of man but then there are all sorts of references to a wheel including the symbolic sun revolving in the heavens - the red sun as the cosmic center an attribute of all the sun gods and their earthly delegates the sun kings.

The wheel as Time- Jain, Fate, cyclic rotation - Mithraic, the wheel of life - Baal, change, becoming, dynamism. The chariot wheel denotes sovereignty and authority, Christian emblem of Saints Catherine, Erasmus, Euphemia and Quentin. The Egyptians believe a myth that man is fashioned on the potter's wheel of Khnemu the Intellect and the Graeco Roman myths show a six spoked wheel as Zeus/Jupiter the sky god and the solar wheel depicts the sun chariot of Helios/Appollo also the emblem of Dionysos.

The wheel of law and truth, the Round of Existence, The golden wheel one of the seven treasures of the universal Ruler and appears on the Footprint of Buddha - the unmoving center wu-wei of non-action.

Don Corleone was the 'Godfather' in the movie of the same name...

I was just facetiously expanding on what truly was the visual image that came to mind after thinking about the poem.

Of course, I will have more intellectual comments perhaps after my Paglia book comes in at the library. It is registered as having been on the shelf so either it was mis-stacked, still out or someone decided that pilfering it was a better idea than leaving it in the library for others to enjoy...or agonize over...whichever the case may be.

I do believe it would behoove me to become more familiar with WCW's life and times and that is what I'll be doing till my book comes in.

I really am learning a lot from the rest of you folks...I thank you all for that. Alliemae

Alliemae, the impression you have received from the posts regarding Paglia's book as being one of agony and ecstasy is bang on. To go with the break, blow and burn.

Bringing in Don Corleone is very apt. One man's poetic impulse is another's respite.

Did you take the barnyard tour that Barbara provided about thirty posts ago. That White Rock with its brilliant red comb and wattles!!! But no wheelbarrow. And the Rhode Island White!! What a matronly look.

I feel it only fair to warn you all that while everything here looks hunky if not dory, this thread may be a mere 33 posts away from being broken, blown, and burned out of the sky. I kid you not. It happened to the RAW thread when it was 2 shy of the dreaded 1,000 post mark and you can still see smoke rising from the ashes, ashes, all fell down (poetry angle, check).

I love this poem. I almost don't want to read Paglia's explanation, I love it for what it seems to say to me. Is that what you’re supposed to do with poetry?

Of course I’m always way off beam, but having raised white chickens for years, nothing equals the White Orpington, a huge and magnificent bird. Gentle giants, they look like clouds on feet, it’s a pleasure to look at them any time of the year, but especially in winter when everything is dead. I enjoyed looking at them from the kitchen windows when we had them, but against a red wheelbarrow (notice it’s not a wagon) WOW! What a contrast.

And Deems asks why "depends," or WHAT depends and how can we answer that one? That’s a GREAT question!!!

Should we project that the poet was asked by his wife to clean out the chicken house and he didn’t and now he can’t because it’s raining, and she’s not speaking to him, thus so much depended on that wheelbarrow, which is, itself, an interesting choice of object. They are the one of the most utilitarian and most uninspiring things around the home or farm. The red ones are usually the ones we don't have, but I won't go into it. They, if used at all, are always banged up, nasty, scarred and rarely pristine, and almost never gleaming, unless with rain water.

I am so fearfully literal, who knew?

I like to think, or it’s my own projection that, it’s a reflection on our entire lives. So much depends, depending on where we each are, today on that red wheelbarrow, tomorrow on the way the wind blows, or happenstance and the next day on some other unnoticed thing which, because of our lives, takes on the most heightened importance. In the case of a death, for instance, people tend to find meanings in the smallest thing in nature, I know I have. When my father died, I actually obsessed about finding a buttercup growing near a public phone booth, go figure. A lot seemed to depend on it, to me. I have no idea what this poem is about and now I’ll read Paglia and find out.

Kevin, don’t worry, this discussion is not going anywhere, we do have a policy of making a new discussion when we hit 1,000 posts, but it will still be found archived with the others in perpetuity, (and what else can you say that about?) Wheelbarrow, chickens, and all. I actually have quite a few of the Dick and Jane readers, I’ll look for wheelbarrows, I think they used wagons more. But so much depends on symantics.

And so much depends on deep ending this poem.

Is that like Deep Sixing, Jan?

No, Jan has caught the pun thing from Kevin--Deep end/ DePend. Puns are even worse than jokes, when explained.

Except the pun is also on Deep Six, I'm pretty sure.

OH! A bon mot!! hahahah Well you know the old saying, pearls before swine. hahahaha

It depends, of course, how one depicts deep six and whether one directs or dissects the delectable or desexes the defects. An' ole man Williams, he just keep rollin' along.

and the red wine is flowing today...hahahaha - I love it -

especially love "the poet was asked by his wife to clean out the chicken house and he didn’t and now he can’t because it’s raining"

Just in the nick of time...got to see all the chix pix before they went into archive! Thanks for the tip Jonathan!! Barbara and Ginny, thanks for pix!

Now, please enlighten me if I have found this poem straightforward and obvious in meaning.

However, had the fourth line of verse one read 'YOUR icebox'...that would be quite a different thing!

As with William's
previous poem,
this example
illustrates
the concept
that you can take
any prose sentence
and chop it
into lines
resembling poetry
and present it as
poetry.

A chicken might turn it down as well as the swine. haha. Don't forget La Fontaine's little fable about the chicken scratching about in the dirt and happening on a pearl. After coming down on it several times the chicken tossed it away in disgust as being worthless. It's a pity we couldn't see past the wheelbarrow. Well, Barbara gave it a helluva try. This was her grain of sand. Awesome, Barbara.

The little note left on the fridge door presents a real problem. What was meant as a little reward for having cleaned up the hen house, has brought on a guilty feeling after the satisfactions of consuming stolen fruit. The note is nicely written, but was never meant to be more than just that, but it goes to show that if you're a poet, never, never, throw anything away. I suspect this was found among the paper, the scraps and the pieces left behind in his drawers and paperbaskets.

And now let's try to get at the kernel, or is it the pit, of this thing.

Jan, you make a good point.

Let's keep in mind that Paglia admitted in her Introduction that for her the words of a poem, seemed like little fishes in an acquarium. Must have meant that each word has a life of its own, and is constantly looking for its rightful place. Or just searching out linguistic companions. Barbara, can you make something of this?

Maybe we could synchronize things so that the thousand posts are launched, just as the shuttle leaves its pad tomorrow.

Holy Hannah I guess anything can be looked at as a sex object - sheesh - Paglia sees the juicy plum no different than a bunch of hardhats whistling at a juicy peach -

Well to each his own - I must say though that this one is so simply it is easy to discard much like a note that is supposed to make up for someone raiding the refrig...

But it is a poem - and one that is not only printed in some poets chap book [of which there are millions floating around out there] but this has been reprinted in the canon, if you would, of modern poetry - so others must see something here -

For this one I turned to a bio of Williams and it was too easy to quip - oh, as a Doctor of Medicine he has no room for frills - but what hit of course is that he is considered an Imagist - OK there it is - there is something about a Tanka in his poetry and sure enough it is a basis for the Imagists - along with French Philosophy, namely Henri Bergson - -- This bit from William James about Bergson shrieks for attention, "to give up logic, squarely and irrevocably" as a method, for he found that "reality, life, experience, concreteness, immediacy, use what word you will, exceeds our logic, overflows, and surrounds it."

And a quote from one of Bergson's books -- "In reality, the past is preserved by itself automatically. In its entirety, probably, it follows us at every instant; all that we have felt, thought and willed from our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the present which is about to join it, pressing against the portals of consciousness that would fain leave it outside."

He also said, "A situation is always comic", if it participates simultaneously in two series of events which are absolutely independent of each other, and if it can be interpreted in two quite different meanings." He saw laughter as the corrective punishment inflicted by society upon the un-social individual.

Norton's Anthology of English Lit puts the Imagist in time and so, compared to today, an example of being ironic over protocol would seem mild, at the time it was the Beginnings of celebrating the independent individual.

OK with that I'm going to start with the obvious, the Plum - my handy dandy copy of An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols by J.C.Cooper says: Plum: Longevity; Winter; beauty; purity; recluse; pupils (unripe fruit). As flowering in Winter it is strength...Chinese - the "Three Friends of Winter" are the, plum, bamboo, and pine. Christian - The fruit depicts independence; fidelity. Japanese - Plum blossom is Spring triumphant over Winter; virtue and courage triumphant over difficulties; marriage; happiness. The tree is an emblem of the Samurai.

Well we know the Imagist would describe with a minimum of words and much like a Tanka - well for it to be a Tanka the numbers [5-7-7 or 5-7-5] do not work but the minimal use of words gives an aura -

I am thinking this is supposed to be a fun piece [hehehe I can hear Jan now - funny alright - it is a big joke that the western world has tried to be so sophisticated they do not see the joke is on them] - well let's say light and amusing rather than joke - and taking the fruit without permission is independent OK - hope this is an adult and not a 12 year old trying to get away with taking a snack that Mom had planned on using for breakfast...she would delicious the 12 year old right up to their room.

The plum is cold and sweet - hmmm like independence - cold, alone, but ah how sweet - which is independence in action rather than being in the icebox - winter could be an icebox is some parts of this world -

Ice: is symbolic of rigid and well as frigid - "Ice represents the gross waters of the earth as opposed to the "fresh" and living waters of the fountain of Paradise. It also denotes hardness of heart; the coldness and absence of love.

Ah so - we are getting somewhere here - the Plum is out of the frig and back in the waters of the fountain of Paradise that must be within the one eating the Plum - of course it is delicious - recognizing Paradise within is always delicious and feeding it sweetness but tempering the sweetness with the absence of love that is part of independence - rather profound I would say...

For that matter being a beauty is a lonely path where looking for love is difficult since 'beauty' gets in the way of love versus attraction - and of course Longevity sounds great till all your friends and family are dead so again, lonely is the word - then let's see what else have we got that is symbolized by the Plum...purity; Yep, in today's world pure anything is a rarity - enough said just by the word recluse -

Hmmm virtue and courage triumphant over difficulties; marriage; happiness - hmmm maybe if they had left each other more notes of apology the difficulties would be fewer?? - I'm reaching here - well if a Plum symbolizes marriage maybe that is how Paglia came up with her thesis although she was more into the women and her juicy looks me thinks - ah so -

Well let me end this by wishing y'all a Plum good day of Happiness...eat lots of Plums now but please, leave a note if you share a frig with someone - and realize you are feeding the waters of your inner Paradise...I know corny - but a great reminder...

Good evening, all. I see that plums isn't calling forth as many responses as the wheelbarrow one. Not especially surprising to me since I too find much more to say about "so much depends." What makes that little poem so interesting to me is the statement about so much depending on a rather simple picture. It is left to the reader to imagine what that might be.

This poem indeed looks like the sort of thing a poet might just leave on the refrigerator (notice he calls it an ice box) after absconding with some plums. As for ice box, I distinctly remembering my father and mother calling the refrigerator the "ice box" long after no ice was needed. Once, people had to have ice blocks delivered to their house to keep the contents chilled, but that day was before mine.

I think I've always been in love with words because I can't remember not noticing differences. My friends mostly called their "ice boxes" "Fridges" which I thought sounded very odd indeed. Sort of like calling all tissues Kleenex which I still do (or all photocopies "xeroxes" which I also still do). Somewhere along the line, my parents switched to refrigerator, the whole long word, one I use to this day. My daughter says "Fridge" half the time, son as well.

So, back to the poem. Those plums, if not exactly sexy, certainly were sensual, so sweet and so cold.

Allie--I'm having real problems having Don Corleon and his little grandson in the garden enjoying the respite from a life of crime. I'm pretty sure the next time I read "so much depends," the Godfather himself (played by Marlon, of course) is going to jump into my head.

Jan--If you had to pick one of these two poems, which would it be?

Barbara--You have certainly given us some symbolic possibilities to think about. I'm like Ginny--everything is always literal for quite a while before I can move to the symbolic level.

I think the problem with Williams is that so much of his best poetry is long (Patterson, for example) and Paglia is going only for short poems here. These two are almost always anthologized.

I'll see if I can get patwest to put up the next poem for tomorrow.

Maryal

I've plum typed
post 1,000
before jane
could ice the thread

to pull it off
we had to rise
early
before breakfast

So jane, please
forgive us;
we're really sweet
if also bold.

~ Kevin Freeman Kevins

Plums are more interesting in an eatery,
than they are in poetry.

What destination would you have in mind for the poem I pick? This is the "when are you going to stop beating your wife?" question. Why should I concede that either one is a poem?

They are both 3M paste-it notes and deserve the fate of all those little notes.

Deem I am old enough for the ice box - oh the dramas that took place owning an ice box -

First there was the pan - the pan under the ice box that caught all the water that melted from the ice - there was supposed to be a drain but few drains ever worked on an ice box so a large dishpan was permanently under the ice box and emptied each evening - problem - in warm weather the ice melted so much faster and there was always the screams - hurry get the mop - the towels - a flood on the back porch - hurry before it gets into the house - and then, Mom would have to pull the full to the brim pan out - try to lift it without spilling half the pan as it always started to yaw back and forth, while we opened the screen door so the pan of water could be thrown down the back stairs...

Then it was - take those dresses off girls - and those wet shoes - get out there under the hose and clean up before you come in this house and then get some dry clothes on...we knew Mom was serious and overwhelmed but my sister and I thought it was funny and did all we could to hold in the laughter...of course in the middle of all this the dog always got in the way and barked up a storm with the excitement of it all - wonder Mom never threw the ice water on the dog but she didn't.

Then when the ice man came in summer he always had his son with him who showed off using the long pick to cut the block - in summer if Mom could swing the extra it was sometimes as much as 15 cents worth where it was always 10 cents worth the rest of the year - an old burlap on his back and the iceman brought the ice round back to the ice box - tipping his hat as Mom handed him the money.

When it was real hot it was my younger sister's job to ask the son [forgot his name after all these years] to help get something out of a tree or something to get him away from the cool shaded truck with the burlap sides and back that was swung up and over the roof -

My sister couldn't climb so well so she was the one who coaxed him out so that I could hop up on the wood floor and pick up any large chunks of ice that had splinted off when the block was cut - then wrap the chunks in my skirt and run behind the neighbors fence so that we could have a piece of ice to suck on - that was our way of practicing to becoming heist artists -

- never did follow through with that line of work.

Perhaps I should clarify my attitude to those two Williams poems. I have indulged in several types of artistic exercises in my life, painting, graphics, sculpture and poetry. I am fully aware of the uniqueness of every object. Any thumbtack may be indistinguishable from any other thumbtack ever manufactured but it does exist in a specific time and place and thus possesses an intrinsically unique quality and thereby a special value. But if one is to remain sane and rational and maintain a scale of values, it is imperative that certain objects be regarded more interesting than others.

Andy Warhol made a career of exhibiting mundane objects as worth consideration and this is not totally without value. A nursery rhyme is poetry of sorts, the Pepsicola jingle is music of sorts, a Campbell’s soup can is sculpture of sorts and those little creations of Williams have, in like sense, some value.

In all probability, a doctorate dissertation could be written on the sensuous value of a can of Campbell’s soup and it might be extended into the sexual possibilities of a can of soup and a banana but my own preferences move more to the configurations exhibited by Marilyn Monroe or some more current female. It is, I assume, a matter of personal taste.

Therefore, my poetic interests lie elsewhere.

Barbara, you forgot to mention the iceman's son was Italianate Gorgeous--crisp black curls, brown skin, white teeth and yes, a roving eye. Lord bless me!

hehehe - ours was blond - sorta sandy blond and later he had pimples...too full of himself and his importance to his Dad to have a roving eye -

WELL, hello there, Elizabeth--Good to see you with us. Barbara's description of the ice man coming (not to mentio that hillarious flooding) caught me up too. What fun to practice being a thief and then deciding upon sober adult reflection no doubt that it was not a proper career!

Jan--I didn't phrase the question very well, but I think you answered it anyway. I should have written something along the lines of: although you don't like either poem, do you dislike one more than the other? However, you put them on a par it seems so it's not really a legitimate question.

OK, new poem. Still American and still modern, but another place and time, "Georgia Dusk." I wasn't familiar with this poem, but I do like it.

What do you think?

I know we are on another more painful piece of poetry but I have been listening to the Proms for over a week now and Today - they just finished up the Firebird Suite and this surprise - had no Idea that Whitman wrote music - well the announcer is going on quoting the poem "The Voice of the Rain" and saying how much Whitman was admired in England - his version of the poem is longer and includes lines about eagles - I cannot find them - do any of you know the additional lines...

Here is a link to the Four Poems of Whitman's Music - Scroll down - the second poem is the one sung at the Proms...

Here is the sheet music for Voice of the Rain

Here is the Link to BBC radio - hit live Radio 3 and it takes you to what is currently playing but there is a list there of some of the back Proms - today's performance will not by listed till it is completed - the Proms start at either 7: or 7:30 their time - and so for us there is a 6 hour difference I do not know what it is on the East Coast...UK Proms BBC Radio - the past nights are kept for you to listen to for 7 days as I understand it - I have simply e-mailed the evenings performance to myself and so I have been able to keep the wonderful night they did Pinefore...now the Placido night is a 5 and a half hour opera where as the others are all two and half hour long concerts.

Barb--I couldn't get the first link to work, but the one that I opened showed the sheet music. Whitman is credited with the lyrics but not the music--music is by someone Blank (sorry, in a rush and don't have time to look back at it).

I've been busy with my visiting daughter, and so missed the plums. But I'd like to comment on them.

I really loved "Just a note to say". I see it as our first love poem since Shakespeare!! And maybe Paglia is getting to me, but I see it as very suggestive: juicy, cold and sweet. This kind of tender intimacy and sharing of the small joys of everyday life is what married love is all about. I'm disappointed that no one else liked it.

Icebox memories:

I'm too young to remember iceboxes here in the US, but we had one when we were in Israel -- boy do I remember. You would know the ice had come when you heard the iceman's donkey braying. The donkey would pull a small cart, and the man would dump big blocks of ice off the back onto the street. You had to pick it up and carry it up three flights of stairs to the apartment.

In the middle of the desert, where the temperature was over 100 most days, the ice would only last a few hours. You had to buy milk in the morning and drink it that day (The Israelis had enough sense not to drink milk, but eat cheese or yogurt instead. But we stubborn Americans wanted our morning cereal).

The pan that held the run-off was so small, it had to be emptied every hour. My husband was working, but I hadn't found a job yet. I realized I couldn't go out to work until we got a refrigerator, or we would come home to a flood every day. The icebox kept women at home as firmly as all of the "feminine mystique". My husband wanted to wait til we moved to get a refrigerator, but I insisted we get one NOW. When we did move, we hired the donkey cart to haul our refrigerator through the streets to our new apartment.

Joan, I hope the company of your daughter serves as some kind of consolation for the surgery that never was. Did you say that she is a practicing physician? What would she think of Dr Williams' prescription for the young boy who had just swallowed a mouse. An anxious mother who had phoned Dr Williams for advice, was told that her son should now swallow a cat.

That was WCW. Besides writing about plums and wheelbarrows and chickens, he also wrote about fire engines, locomotives, pregnant cats, young housewives in negligees, and water splashing about in his kitchen sink.

I'm sorry to be leaving him so soon. It's only Jan, I believe, who likes neither of the two poems. And he has given his reasons.

I'm charmed by the thought that this might be considered a love poem. I'm inclined to see 'the twirl of great events.' This guy may just have gotten himself into a ticklish domestic fix. With a lovers' quarrel turning out to be the least of his problems. The love, who's plums they are, or were, may, heaven forbid!, be like Paglia's imagined reader, inclined to prejudicial 'associations (tending to) patterns of sin and desire; female secrecy and fertility; and male aggression and violation.' (p133). How is that for a 'twirl', aka spin, in events?

I wish Paglia had told us more about the poetry writing milieu when Williams and Stevens were writing. How interesting that two professional men were helping to give poetry such a new face. Writing alongside those others in Greenwich Village. Omitting capitals was daring. Discarding rhyme was revolutionary. Actually, I've sometimes wondered if the 'capitals' thing was the influence of a new crowd who were often writing in yiddish. Or, perhaps, a subtle criticism of Capitalism per se. It certainly was a time of vigorous, novel and excitingly new poetic sensibilities.

Whatever their literary merits, these poems are good examples of a developing poesy. New directions. I'm enjoying Paglia's method, despite her occasionally extravagant takes on some poems. It almost seems to me that she is showing us what might have been, if others, like Pound and Elliot, had not come along and made it all an academic exercise.

I believe it was also Williams who said there ought to be a law against talking about poetry. Were the critics giving him a hard time?

Jonathan--I'll try, just a little, to provide some milleu for you. Pound and Williams were friends in college and for a lifetime. Pound, the expatriot, kept in touch with Williams and many others. Pound also had a close relationship with T.S. Eliot (Eliot an expatriot and later a citizen in England). Pound revised Eliot's "The Wasteland" and you can see a facsimile version of the typescript of the poem with Pound's comments in the margin. Pound's great fallying cry was "Make it new," sort of the 20th century cry of Wordsworth to write in the language commonly used by man. There were many others. I'm not sure of the connection to Stevens. I'll have to look that up. There were a number of little magazines at the time that published poetry.

Maryal

Joan K--I like Williams' poems very much, even the plum one--just can't think of much to say about it. I like looking at it as a love poem.

We best make a run for it -- the 1,000th post wins the golden ring (and maybe the whole dang carousel, making it a horse race to nowhere).

Interesting that Jean Toomer's poesy's been up for 24 hours and everyone's still chewing the cool and moist, green-yellow flesh of the sweating plums. Very interesting. Avoiding the main assignment (longer) in favor of reviewing the warm-up or bell-ringer activity, is it? Dear Jean: We read your poem and we went back to the icebox. Forgive us. So lazy and unfamiliar with sugar cane.

Well maybe a few Southerners in our midsts can better relate to the moment than I can. Whatever the occasion (the end of a work day at a sugar mill in Georgia?) Jean is trying to describe, it's mostly lost on me. Oh, yes, there are moments of pretty, alliterative language and I like the smoke curling up like the blue ghosts of trees all right, but, overall, it ain't got that swing.

And to throw Christ in -- on the very last line yet -- is almost an automatic foul. I've read much of Christ and could probably talk about him for a reasonable stretch, but I've never dreamed of him whether I was under the influence of cane or not. Cain's another matter. Mom said I was always raising him, though I swore I was too young to know a whit about child-rearing.

Nature poem, kinda. But Toomer wants more out of it than I'm willing to get. My problem, not hers.

Quickly, then, before anyone's looking. Someone post about plums, someone about peaches, someone about what 'pears to be Post #1,000. Mini-celebration (or "the wave" with each of us rising from our seats before the computer and throwing our hands in the air), then a feeling of smugness (and a poem for the occasion) as the thread goes into a deep freeze.

Working title of poems: "Ode to the Broken, Blown, and Burned."

Ok Kevin here we go - the grand entry to 1000 - if you want it we can take it - this is 998 I'll do a 999 and it is yours - are you ready...

Is the champagne iced - the balloons and confetti ready - how about a few tickle blowers -

If what he was saying wasn't so dark we could smile at the description of a Southern evening - but we are not anxious to get into folks turning on each other - reminds me of the kitchen show on TV the other night - had been watching but channel switched and there were three contestants left in a place called Hells Kitchen - the more things were bogged down without enough time they turned on each other - seems to me when there is a "not enough" fear folks turn on each other - after the Civil War the south could have been called Fear and so folks with some power turned on those without...and this guy captures that by language hidden under the beauty of nature or is it - nature can be fierce as well...

Oh well I am not analyzing poetry now am I but philosophizing about the message...

OK ready...set...go...

There have been many fine posts. For me, the most memorable one will be when Pat did such a wonderful thing in scanning the line of horrors from the Hamlet ghost poem.

Sorry, for preempting you, Kevin.

Yes, folks, we do generally roll over to a new discussion when the posts reach 1000 and will do so here pretty soon as well.

But the discussion is not closed, and you can look back at the earlier posts.

WE HAVE NOT FINISHED THE BOOK!

No one is allowed to leave yet.

Jonathan--Congratulations on actually catching the 1000th post, but don't thank me yet. who knows what horrors I may have yet in store.

As for Toomer's poem, I don't think you have to be a Southerner or raised around cane fields to appreciate its languid appreciation for the end of a summer day exactly like the one we are currently undergoing in Maryland--and which the middle west has only recently escaped from.

Georgia Dusk reminds me of jazz played late in the evening and maybe the blues as well depending on how the day and the life went.

Maryal

Huzzah! Marching bands! Balloons! But no clowns, please, they scare me!

Now we've done it and must move on to the next mountain.

And "languid" is too kind a word for the heat the country's been enduring of late. Hit the 90s in Maine yest-ahday. Ice on the fjords between Norway and South Paris are melting even as I type!

Today, however, it is only in the high 80s and there's a warm SW wind creating the sacred whispering of the pines Ms. Toomer alludes to.

Soughing, I think it's called in some quarters (and not a few dimes).

Kevin--You have the "cold" front that is theoretically (I don't believe weatherpeople because it breaks my heart) moving here tonight. It is somewhere in the ninties in D.C. but what with humidity and so forth, 104 degrees. Too hot even for the JR Terriers who beg to come back into the AC.

You're right though--"languid" won't do it. Stifling might.

Toomer lived in Georgia for a couple of years while teaching school. He was born in D.C. (26 Dec 1894), spent time at the Univ. of Wisconsin and CCNY but without earning a degree. In 1920 he went to Georgia where he taught school for two years. In 1923 his novel Cane was published--a sophisticated experimental novel, making use of interior monologue and written by a black author before Dos Passos or Faulkner. He wrote poems throughout his life.

Toomer was part of the "Harlem Renaissance" (1920s) which included such writers as Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston (If you haven't read Their Eyes Were Watching God check it out.)

HE! To show my ignorance (I keep it hidden, as a rule), I thought "Jean Toomer" was a woman.

I guess I incorrectly think Jean=woman and Gene=man.

Assumptions were made to be sacrificed on the altar of knowledge. Turn your heads if you can't stand the sight of blood!

the Jean Toomer Pages

Do check out the poems. From Deems' link, click POETRY.

appears twice in this poem, and again in his other poems. One of his books is titled "Cane". It seems to be a symbol of the Black experience. What do you all make of it.

I, too, find parts of this poem obscure (more so than the poems on his page). I assume that:

 
 some genius of the South 
    With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth, 
Surprised in making folk songs from soul-sounds.

is the victim of the "men and barking hounds" (the barbecue)? surprised while making music?

Later, the fire in the sawdust pile echos the fire where his house was burned down? ("Where only chips and stumps are left to show The solid proof of former domicile). Or am I making that up?

I don't find the mention of Christ out of place ("Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs). The men are singing hymns on their way home from work -- these hymns have always been used to express longing for a better life and an end to suffering.

Joan K--You have found the part of the poem that I find trickiest too. I think that all the men in the poem are black although I'm not sure I can explain either the hounds or the burned down house.

I took the lines as referring to the poet among the men (also black) who makes songs out of soul cries.

The stanza that gives you a burned down house is, I think,

Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile
Curls up, blue ghosts of trees, tarrying low
Where only chips and stumps are left to show
The solid proof of former domicile.

What I get here is the sawmill (where the men work) and the stumps of trees that used to surround it. Also a saw dust pile burns slowly creating (in smoke) "blue ghosts of trees>" The trees are no longer there because of being cut down. I think, and don't hold me to it, that common practice was to work an area of woods until the closeby wood was gone at which point the sawmill would be moved to another wooded area. I cannot for the life of me remember where that information comes from and it may not be correct. Over the years I've read a lot by and about Faulkner so that would be the logical place in my memory to excavate.

At any rate, it is the end of the day at the sawmill and the men sing as they walk home. I don't think the mention of Jesus is at all out of place either since as you point out, the men are singing "vespers."

There's also that fascinating preceding line:

"Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines," which I am still working on. However, suffice it to say for the moment that we have the word "virgin" in one line and "Christ" in the final line.

Tomorrow my right eye undergoes its procedure. I expect to be back among you in a day or so. Not supposed to read at once. It's really hard to think of how to amuse myself when I can't use my eyes. I'm tired of listening to books on iPod though thankful to have them.

Maryal

Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile: Curls up, blue ghosts of trees, tarrying low
Where only chips and stumps are left to show
The solid proof of former domicile

This being Georgia - blue ghosts tarrying or delaying 'low' sounds to me more like Sherman's March to the sea; while blue coats delayed leaving so they could watch the plantations they set afire, burn - the low sound of house and fields on fire and the low sounds of awe as the men watched and the lowness or baseness of their actions so that Georgia, and all that was symbolized in those homes, became the "former."

"Meanwhile the men" of all different backgrounds, experiences and memories 'sing' [sing in the broadest term to mean 'be in life making the sounds of your life'] through the swamp, the low, dank, dangerous place - a footpath with water - crossing water is to cross over from life to death where as, a footpath is a change from one place to another, a symbol of marking off a section of time, treading on worldly passions, a difficult path that transcends time, space, morality, each out for his own survival.

In the next stave the first two lines are about the white man with his "vestiges of pomp" who "Race" along the footpath with memories of king and caravan - meaning servents of the great houses who tracked prey for the table.

Where as, "High priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man" these "the chorus of cain" which is a great description of cain cutters singing out their work songs - there is a myth, that if they ate no salt than juju men, [who were priests in Africa, Cuba and Jamaica where the cain cutters came from] became a witch who interprets things, and if they were flogged by the taskmaster they get up, sang in their language, clapped their hands, just stretch out, and 'them gone-- right back-- and neeever come back.'

Pine trees. pine needles, the sacred whisper of the pines - an evergreen tree represents immortality - strength of character, silence, solitude, and is a phallic symbol. Pine is used for coffins and pine trees are usually planted in cemeteries because the pine was supposed to preserve the body from corruption.

Corn and wine as well as, corn and vines are symbols of the Eucharist as is wheat - and so being a concubine is not married to the Eucharist but prostituting the joys - and so the prayer "give" - give the whites virginity or purity, making them again Christlike, as the Christ who died for their sins, before they do, in the name of God, what they do -- and the Blacks who are the victims here are truer to the "Christ" than the actions of the "cornfield concubines."

Cornfield concubines had me flummoxed, too, but here's a lay-up:

Get well soon, maryal! Eye said so.

I'm reading Kevin's post and confused - what is this good luck - well it happened again - I hate this - when I posted last evening there was a post from you Joan and from Maryal while I was writing my post and when I posted it did not come up on the page and so I thought I followed post number 1006.

What is worse to me and this is the maddening part of this is that the other posts were talking about similar passages that I could have acknowledged and had a conversation about how differently I saw these passages because it is obvious to me from the posts we do see them differently.

And then the big issue I did not see Maryal you were having your other eye done today - truly good luck - based on what you shared about your experience last week this seems like a worthwhile endeavor that takes a few days to heal- be thinking about you...and you are in my prayers today...

I hesitate to write this as I had just about decided that I wouldn't post anymore and just watch and 'listen' and learn from all of you as you all seem so much more attuned to and knowledgeable of poetry than I.

But after reading some of the later posts about this poem I have decided to tell you what my first impression was, and that was one of a nagging anxiety when I read the second verse...almost as if inside of this poem was a double meaning.

'A feast of moon'...yes, the work is going to be over and the evening of pleasure can begin...

'...and men and barking hounds,'...an immediate image of the Ku Klux Klan [sp?] jumped into my mind making me immediately watchful of what would come next...

'An orgy for some genius of the South With blood-hot eyes' genius, in this case being used with hurt and anger and irony...and the 'blood hot eyes'...only the eyes could be seen behind those terrorizing white masks... and then the poet returns to the...

'...and cane-lipped scented mouth,' maybe thinking of the women or perhaps their children having been sucking on the sugary end of the cane, expressing the terrible dichotomy of the life of the slaves which they needed to live within in order to survive with some vestige of sanity...

'Surprised in making folk songs from soul-sounds.' 'Surprised in' is what jumped out at me...being surprised that they were able to create an entire genre of music from the crying out of their souls...

Anyway...that's the way I got it...and I'm sure it has probably nothing to do with the poet's intent...but he has already written it and I, in my role of reader, ergo participant, have so interpreted it from the rumblings of my soul...

Alliemae - glad you posted - we each have our impressions don't we based on our references to our life experiences...

I thought I remembered the expression Buzzsaw used during the Civil War and finally found it -

"Cold Harbor / Va. June 1-3, 1864 Grant Lee 12,000 1,500 Finally, Grant marched into a buzzsaw. Here about 50,000 attackers faced 30,000 defenders in trenches across a 3-mile line. Northern troops charged in a frontal assault and gunfire cut down 7,000 of them in the first few minutes of the charge. "I regret this assault more than any one I have ever ordered," Grant said. These heavy losses forced a change of tactics.

I see the poem in a wider context of what followed after the war when all that is left is the "vestiges of pomp" who hunted down some "Genius of the South." Wow, irony there...

Of late the expression Buzzsaw seems to be used by Journalists who enter the fray of reporting especailly politics and war...

Pat H called from Hawaii. She's been bitten on the finger by a stripe-bellied puffer fish, but is fine. Serves her right!! Anyone who would rather snorkel in Hawaii than read poetry with us deserves a stripe-bellied puffer fish!!

Where is everyone, anyway?

o DEAR, o Dear. Poor Pat H! But some sort of distinction to be stung by something interesting anyway. I don't think anything more interesting than a jellyfish of one kind or another has gotten me although I once saw a sand shark while I was swimming. That was exciting. Joan K--I don't know where everyone is.

We seem to be missing Jan and Bern and PatH (but we know now about her) and Barbara (although she was here recently) and Margie and those excellent brownies and HATS, but I think she still reads along with us and who else? Is Jonathan missing?

I know others are missing in action. We'll blame summer and such escapades as getting stung in Hawaii. Next summer if we study poetry, I think we should ALL go to Hawaii. PatH can point out the fish to stay away from.

I'm here I'm here - it is just that I've said all I can about this poem without fighting the Civil War all over again since we all see a different aspect of that time in history in this poem - next we've Langston Hughes with a view of the Black experience up north and then a week with Roethke...I'm ready to chug on before the summer setting sun flashes gold...

ooops, forgot Kevin. He's usually around sometimes. Hi, Barbara. New poem goes up tonight.

For those of you who don't have the book, here is the final paragraph of Paglia's four page essay on "Georgia Dusk":

The voice of Toomer's rueful pastoral is itself a victory over grim reality. After the unsettling opening stanzas, with their hallucinatory assault on the senses, the mood is one of hushed relaxation. The easy, regular rhythms (helped along by the sixth stanza's swatches of expansive dots) gradually slow our pulse until we attain a meditative serenity. Like Blake's "London," "Georgia Dusk" sets anonymous members of the working class against an epic sweep of nature and history. But it exorcises resentment: Toomer will not rage or condemn. As they break for the night, his singers enter an enchanted mental zone where spirit and sensuality commingle. With its strict rhyme scheme and courtly, flowery diction, "Georgia Dusk" more resembles Victorian than modernist poetry. Its style too is enticingly "cane-lipped," meshing with the spontaneous music making of its stoical, questing characters (139).

That's sound analysis and quite a wonderful concluding paragraph, I think.

In her essay, Paglia also points out that the local sawmill is a

"symbol of Reconstruction, when the South struggled to rebuild after the Civil War's devastation--particularly severe in Georgia after General Sherman's scorched earth march from Atlanta to the sea. . . . Toomer's mill owners, presumably white, are as remote as the recessive God of the first stanza: thus the sawmill "blows its whistle" as if by impersonal mechanical impulse. The "buzz saws stop" as the laborers quit, but those spinning, shrieking, jag-toothed blades, ferocious as the earlier "barking hounds," convey the relentless daily pressure of economic need."

Maryal