Why Is Poetry Important? Part Four

Understanding and Relating to Other People

I can see a myriad of problems when dealing with anything written or spoken that can screw up communication. For some reason, poetry seems to be one of the few things that isn't particularly inflicted by this phenomenon. It's quite simple why: poetry's not supposed to give you a straight answer and the sort of coherence and clarity we usually seek out in 'real speech' is not needed.

In order to truly appreciate how this functions, we need to look at some rather simple concepts that might not be apparent to everyone at first glance. Any sort of metrically-based poetry functions at the same time on both a paradigmatic and a syntagmatic scale. This means a line of iambic pentameter eliminates certain words from certain positions, and can exclude some words altogether, simply based on their sound. 

 An example from Alexander Pope might be in order to illustrate my point:

When Ajax strives some rock’s vast weight to throw,
The line, too, labours and the words move slow.

This line is a brilliant example of poetic diction, with an inversion of the normal syntactic order of words in the first line. When Ajax is attempting to throw the big rock, the poetic line is also struggling under this massive weight and goes significantly slower. The inversion is a necessity in Pope's poetry, because he mainly wrote in heroic couplets, a sub-genre that I have been dealing with in some detail for the past many months. End-rhymes are a necessity in heroic couplets and can overwrite the need for following accepted valency patterns. To further illuminate my argument, if we were to exchange the final word 'throw' in the first line with something appropriate, we would be forced to look at a wide range of constraints. Any word that could be a synonym of throw would be suitable for replacing it, if we were to follow the paradigmatic approach first. This means that words such as bunt, lob and hurl would be fine, but in our specific context this approach seems to be rather untenable, since they would have a hard time rhyming with slow in the following line. Instead, we could look at using the syntagmatic approac where any one-syllable word would be fine, no matter the meaning. 

Of course, poetry only exists in the proper use of both syntagmatic and paradigmatic usages.

Wordsworth wrote in his wonderful preface to the (in)famous Lyrical Ballads that they wrote poetry in the language of real men, and real men apparently spoke an extremely eloquent and varied, flowery English in 1799. Woe betide us that we do not have this style of speech or writing anymore, or perhaps it is all for the better.

By now, language is mostly understood to carry little meaning in and of itself, but rather that it takes on meaning from context. Whether you ascribe value to Grice's maxims or some other sort of linguistic model of understanding communication matters very little to me, but the gist is that while language by itself holds little meaning, the speech acts, and particularly in a conversation, hold all the meaning in the world. All of our semiotics are constantly used to make a point to either ourselves or for others.

On that note, I will highlight a little piece of advice that I gave my students today: If you have to write poetry make sure that you break most, if not, all of the rules. 

But if you don't know the rules in the first place, it is very hard to know how to break them.

How to make Denmark a better place (In Danish)

As usual, when I get pissed about Danish politics, I start ranting. Unfortunately, my wife doesn't want to hear it, so I'll be forced to throw it on the internet instead. Since I was pretty pissed, it came out in Danish.

It's about a relatively unknown politician from a new, conservative party with a zero tolerance for immigrants, where he argues that Islam is crap. So this is me calling bullshit on him. Oh, and some useless hashtags that no one will read :)

Fandt den her smøre fra Ketil Rasmussen, og tænkte om det stadig var et logisk argument, hvis man byttede "Islam" ud med religion. Jeg tænker, at det ikke blev et bedre eller dårligere argument, da den der pladder, som er udsprunget for ca. 1800 år siden i Palæstina er ligeså usammenhængende, som Islam. Jeg tænker, at det her er en opfordring til at hade folk pga. forskelle.

Hvordan forestiller Ketil sig så at vi forbedrer Danmark:

- Ved at bevare vores værdier (stoppe dem i et bur og smide nøglen væk, så vi ikke kan blive klogere, ligesom visse fundamentalistiske styrer)

- Totalitære udsagn som "vores værdier ER bedre og ER suverænt overlegne, og derfor vil vi naturligvis ikke acceptere en underlegen livsstil." (virker som en fin måde at skabe dialog "Jeg er bedre end dig")

- "Al kriminalitet, social svindel, vold eller ulovlig adfærd skal betyde udvisning efter første dom." (Det står alene, så jeg forestiller mig, at vi er ved at udvise samtlige ikke-danskere, hvis de vel at mærke har en ulovlig adfærd, hvilket kunne være, at være alt andet end socialdemokrat eller venstremand)

Med denne lille intro til Ketils retoriske evner, så er det vist på tide at se om hans smædeskrift stadig holder vand, hvis det bare er religion, der er synderen.

"Hvad er det dog, vi i Danmark bilder os ind, at religion kan bidrage med hér, som den tydeligvis ikke har kunnet bidrage med, noget andet sted i verden?

Religion har smadret alle de samfund i verden, hvor den har haft magt som den har agt.

Intet sted på kloden, har religion formået at skabe banale menneskerettigheder eller tålelige og civiliserede livvilkår for kvinder, børn, mænd - eller dyr for den sags skyld.

Religion betyder ubetinget underkastelse. Frivilligt eller under tvang. Underkastelse under tvang er undertrykkelse. Undertrykkelse er religions kerneprodukt og primære eksportvare.

Hvad er det vi tror, at religion vil hér, som religion ikke vil alle andre steder?

Lad os lige for en stund lægge den danske naivitet på hylden;

Ikke alle mennesker vil os det godt. Ikke alle kulturer er lige gode og ikke alle religioner er bestemt lige fredelige.

"Jamen, sådan var vi også selv for 1000 år siden”.

Ja, netop - for 1000 år siden. Men siden da, har vi gjort en dyd ud af at udvikle os. Siden da, er vi kravlet ud af jordhulerne og er blevet relativt civiliserede.

Vi sætter ikke længere en ære i at dyrke og kultivere barbarisme, middelalderlighed og mental afstumpethed, og vi ophøjer det bestemt ikke til en religiøs forpligtelse.

Derfor er Danmark blevet et langt bedre sted at leve, end disse middelalderlige, moralske og kulturelle jordfaldshuller, som udspyer mennesker i millionvis, der ikke selv kan se lykken i at leve i religiøse samfund, men som alligevel af uforklarlige årsager ønsker at eksportere alle herlighederne til os andre.

Vi skal sige nej tak til religion. For vores egen skyld, for vores børns skyld - ja, for alle fremtidige generationers skyld, faktisk!

Det er vores pligt!"

#NyeBorgerligefuckertydeligvisopiprioriteter #Islamerikkeond #DenkrigsførendenationDanmarkerfredelig

Outright Rebellion and Fifth Column Activity: A Short History of American Poetry

The United States of America is a quite unique experiment in nation-building. Everything American is something that is borrowed or taken from somewhere else. In this regard, American poetry developed its own voice a long time ago. Whether we are talking about Puritan poetry, Transcendentalism, American Romanticism, Modernism or Conceptualism, America is a giant in the playground. In this paper, I will attempt to give a brief account of how America's poetry evolved into a literature that did not simply mimic or copy the British styles, but became a force majeure in World literature. First, I will present the Puritans through Anne Bradstreet and move on to Transcendentalism and Romanticism, exemplified here by Whitman and Poe. Then, I will discuss how Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot used the platform that was created by these literary predecessors and how Modernist poetry was used to criticise the society that surrounded them. From there, I will present Kenneth Goldsmith and his work in Conceptual poetry and why this poetry can draw upon the lineage of the Modernists.

Beginnings of American Poetry

It seems almost impossible to ignore the importance of the Puritan poets and how they affected poetry in the English-speaking world. I will argue that the Puritans are foreshadowing events in Britain that will come to life with Romanticism through an example from Anne Bradstreet. “To my Dear and Loving Husband” is a perfect example of how poetry could be written in the 17^th century and while I would not characterise it as an independent voice that is separate from British poetry, it is still a good example of the words of common people that the Romantics would try to reproduce. Bradstreet has several lines that are both defiant and obedient at the same time and the revolutionary spirit which is found here can be followed through almost all of the great American writers and to contemporary literature. Bradstreet draws on a highly stylised version of iambic pentameter and the poem starts with three instances of anaphora, but the tone of the poem is so intensely personal that it is possible to imagine someone speaking these words at the time. The poem draws upon biblical references and a relation to the Orient as rich and exiting, but the speaker would rather have her husband's love than “all the riches that the East doth hold” (Bradstreet ll.6). Love as a central theme in poetry is hardly new, not even by 17^th century standards, but Bradstreet's register is so different from the English verse prevalent in Britain at the time. An approximate contemporary is Milton, whose style is so immaculate and his register is highly poetical, so something is up on the other side of the Atlantic. Milton constantly references classical myths and ideas, whereas we only find a glimmer of it in Bradstreet and her notion of poetry seems grounded in her experience and life, rather than being grounded in classical learning. This style can later be found in British Romantic poetry, where Wordsworth and Coleridge are rediscovering old myths and attempt to frame them in the speech of “real men”(Wordsworth 5).

American Style in Transcendentalism and Romanticism

A true American voice appears to develop around the beginning of the 19^th century with a great deal of influential writers and thinkers. It is not a coincidence that the US gains independence at this time and the development of an American language becomes a priority to the new statesmen of the Republic. Webster and other important authors were “actively concerned with

the construction of an American national identity through a shared culture of print” (Pelanda 434).

This concern is echoed by Emerson in his oft-anthologised essay “Self-reliance”, where he espouses: “Insist on yourself; never imitate” (Emerson 547). This statement is quite interesting to categorise as an integral element of American literature and poetry, especially when we turn our attention to later movements in poetry. It was seen as a necessity to develop an American literature that did not copy the sentiments and styles of Europe and to create this poetry, the topics move from the classical myths and towards experiences that are more easily identifiable as American. Walt Whitman is one of the most important figures in literature and his ground-breaking Leaves of Grass is one of the first large-scale forays into free verse. “Song of Myself” is devoid of a standard metre, but it has a very strong rhythmical “feel” to it, with anaphora scattered across many lines. As Kruse argues (with reference to another Whitman poem), Whitman follows a very special schema in his construction of verse and the criticism that it could be prose is denied by a reference to how his lines are not arranged purely by syntactic restraints (See Kruse 2012, 175-179, for a more thorough investigation of Whitman's verse). Whitman sought to become the great national bard and he has become one of the reference points in any informed discussion on the development of free verse and the impact that it has had on modern poetry.

At the same time as Whitman, another American voice emerges. Edgar Allan Poe uses a notably different style from Whitman and is hyper-metrical in his poems. Poe uses obscure words that the reader cannot be certain to know the origins of and his poetics are clearly defined in the two essays “The Poetic Principle” and “Philosophy of Composition”. Both of these essays have been subjected to harsh criticism and my interpretation is that the principles Poe sets forth in these are just as subversive as his poetry. On the surface, Poe and Whitman appear to be the extremes of how poetry can function, but the poets are quite similar in the effect that they want to produce. In another paper, I argued that Poe was using metrics to undermine the rhythm of the poem (Uri 3). This rebellion towards old styles of poetry are at the core of what I define as the American poetic voice. The best American poetry rebels against preconceived notions of what poetry is and attempts to break away from the traditions of old. In this regard, Poe and Whitman are using two methods of achieving the same end and they seem to break away from British poetry in a violent struggle; one through a fascination with the macabre, the other by transcending the boundaries of tradition. While Poe and Whitman broke with age-old traditions in their poetry, I will argue that the next development in American poetry is even more rebellious in its nature.

Modernist Poetry in Two Works

As I stated above, the American poetic voice is highly rebellious and attempts to flaunt the prejudices of its society. The highly controversial The Waste Land is no exception, but the stylistic choices that Eliot makes are unlike any seen before. The Waste Land is so full of references to literary sources that it is an almost insurmountable task to dissect the poem to clarify all of them. Several critics accused Eliot of merely copying his material from other sources and by picking the great works of other poets, he was merely producing meta-text that by the act of repetition would be mediocre poetry. I beg to differ. Eliot's wasteland is a very unique experience and it can be used as a shining example of how to write a story without giving in to the temptation of an easy way out. The poem ends with a blessing that comes from Eastern mysticism and invites an interpretation that all will be well if we adopt the spiritual teaching of the East. Although I am not entirely convinced that this reading is the correct one, I will concede that the reading is not forced. The reason that I do not agree with the reading is that The Waste Land creates meaning through perverting all that it touches. If the poem has a “happy ending”, I am unconvinced of why it goes through all of the trouble of representing the European literary canon as perverted and then argues that the Transcendentalists were right all along, with their acceptance of the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads as spiritual rejuvenators to a dying civilization. Eliot was not convinced by Transcendentalist poetry and stated that he 'did not read Whitman until much later in life, and had to conquer an aversion to his form, as well as to his matter, in order to do so' (Eliot qtd. by Kruse 178). If the poem is unresolved and does not give any positive outlook, the blessing at the end becomes a piece of dark humour that has been inserted to mislead and subvert the remaining fragments of text that are presented in the poem. That amount of humour is quite hard to find one of the other great Modernists, Ezra Pound.

Pound was a notable editor and critic of poetry and his poetic notions are very interesting. He did not seek to produce free verse poetry for the sake of free verse but rather because his topic demanded it. He claimed that poetry should always hold 'a rhythm [....] which corresponds exactly to the emotion or shade of emotion to be expressed' (Pound qtd by Bittner 84). This notion of poetics seems very relaxed when it is compared to his style, which is far from laid back. Pound is probably most well-known for his epic Cantos, an account to write a world history with a poem. As an experiment, it is probably the most awe-inspiring Modernist poem, mostly because it failed so spectacularly. First of all, it is incomplete. Pound never finished the poem and the unfinished nature gives it a distinct feel. The reader is never presented with the ultimate punchline and I do not presume to know if Pound had one. The Cantos are also extremely experimental in their use of citations and references. Pound and Eliot shared this aspect but they used it for quite different effects. Eliot's references seem calculated to present a certain point of view and the reader should be constantly on guard, when he is reading Eliot. On the other hand, Pound seems to be very truthful in his readings of original texts. Although many of his allusions are quite obscure, they present the image that they are supposed to. In “Canto XLV”, Pound names a horde of artists and places himself in their midst as another innovator that needs to be recognised. The poem circles around usury and the problems that have arisen because of it. His historical figures are representatives of new artistic movements and the statement that these figures would not have been found in a world without usury is an angry rant against capitalism. I have discussed how Pound distorts historical images to fit with his “truth” in a previous paper, but the overall impression of Pound's writing is not one where he attempts to subvert society. Pound is an active revolutionary and fights with everything he has against the injustices he sees. This revolutionary approach can also be affirmed by his trial for treason after WWII.

These two Modernists represent two ends of another spectrum than Whitman and Poe, but they are no less incompatible. While they were good friends in real life and worked closely together in the early years of their careers, their styles are very dissimilar. They share a bleak outlook on the future in their best known works, but where Eliot represents society as morally and spiritually corrupt, Pound flames against the injustices that he finds in society and spews vitriolic statements that seek to create an uprising against the injustice. Pound is a true revolutionary, who sided with the losers and got defamed for it. However, his poetry is brilliant and incredibly intelligent. Eliot draws attention to the perversion that is found in society by flaunting the errors, but his solutions seem to be of a different character than Pound's. Eliot is not providing easy solutions, but he is undermining the foundations of the society he lives in and, therefore, he is also providing a comment on literature, society and all of the same elements that seem to preoccupy Pound.

When Intention Becomes Most Important

Like many other artistic genres, verse has undergone quite a transformation from its infancy and it is hard to recognise the similarities between the Homeric tradition and Modernist poetry. They are seen as similar because of the genre conventions, but the Modernists sought to break down the old traditions by applying new guiding principles to how we read poetry. There are many interesting new developments in poetry and it is outside the scope of this essay to categorise or even list these developments. American poetry entered a new phase around the turn of the millennium with the advent of Conceptual poetry. This movement was spearheaded by another American poet, Kenneth Goldsmith. One of Goldsmith's most recognised works is Day, a complete retyping of the New York Times from September 1, 2000 and is possibly the single most dreary reading anyone has ever done (I have only read excerpts from it). The idea behind the poem is exceptional though. In a blog post, Goldsmith explains that the idea of the poem is to stamp out all creativity from himself and create something that has value simply because he has put effort into creating the text (Goldsmith n.p.). The thing that can gain the most value is something which is utterly devoid of value and '[n]othing has less value than yesterday's news' (Goldsmith). Goldsmith has created a great idea and on the basis of this idea, the trivial becomes valuable. Conceptual poetry works by presenting great ideas in the least creative manner, such as retyping a newspaper and since the process is experimental, some of the ideas might turn out to be poor. 

 

A Work in Progress Is a Proper Ending

According to Place it is important in Conceptual poetry to '[n]ote the potential for excess in allegory. Note the premise of failure, of unutterability, of exhaustion before one’s begun' (Place 16). Place is highlighting the necessity of experiments in poetry and this experimentation is at the core of what I have attempted to show. All of the poets I have dealt with in this paper, with the exception of Bradstreet, have been big personalities that demanded recognition and staged a performance that gave an impression of greatness. I believe that this style of staging oneself is a very American notion and it serves to highlight the aspiration to excel. I also see a great deal of experimentation in the differing poetic styles. These styles have created a unique American voice that has become central to English language poetry and is distinct from other poetic traditions. What struck me in dealing with these poems is how subversive or revolutionary they are. The poems constantly challenge taboos and preconceived notions, and I could easily have included Allen Ginsberg, Robert Frost or a plethora of other American poets to prove the same point. In today's society, there is a interconnection between people where geographical distance is less important but it is still possible to speak of a national identity in poetry and the American voice is going strong.

References

Bittner, Hansjörg. The Metrical Structure of Free Verse. Norwich: University of East Anglia. 1997.

Bradstreet, Anne. “To My Dear and Loving Husband”. The Norton Anthology of American

Literature. Gen. ed. Nina Baym. 7th. ed. New York: Norton, 2012. 108.

Eliot, T.S. The Wasteland. Ed: Michael North. London: Norton, 2001.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Self-Reliance”. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Gen. ed. Nina Baym. 7th. ed. New York: Norton, 2012. 532-550.

Goldsmith, Kenneth. “Uncreativity as a Creative Practice”. Eletronic Poetry Central. Buffalo, NY: State University of New York. No publication date.

Kruse, Jesper. Free Verse and the Constraints of Metre in English Poetry. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen. 2012.

Pelanda, Brian Lee. “Declarations of Cultural Independence: The Nationalistic Imperative Behind the Passage of Early American Copyright Laws, 1783-1787”. Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. 58. 431-454. 09 October 2011.

Place, Vanessa and Robert Fitterman. Notes on Conceptualism. New York: Ugly Duckling. 2009.

Uri, Jonas. “Breaking Away from Tradition: Subversion in 'The Raven'”. Unpublished. 06 May 2016.

Wordsworth, William. “Preface to Lyrical Ballads”. Harvard Classics Vol.39: Prefaces and Prologues. New York: Bartleby.com, 2001.

Pounding the Point Home: Ezra Pound's Historical Writing and Framing the Present

Ezra Pound is one of the most prominent figures in the Modernistic movement in poetry. His unrelenting style and “I'll-be-damned” approach to his work is uncompromising and it seems that he has no regard for the readers of his poetry. It is hard not to respect that sense of urgency and even though Pound is a controversial figure, as a declared fascist and his work for Mussolini during the second World War would open up to criticism, of some of his opinions. In 'Canto XLV', Pound is giving an account of what he perceives to be one of the great scourges of capitalism and he argues for a better system, where money does not feature as prominently. In this essay, my primary focus will not be to discuss Pound's world view, but focus on how history is distorted in his writings. I will start by underlining the main topos of the poem. Then, I will move on to the how Duccio is represented in this work. I want to investigate this reference to create a stronger understanding of why certain people have been singled out in the context of the poem and these persons are a window into understanding Pound's canon of art. Then, I will give my understanding of how Pound understands his own role in his own time, which will be the final segment of this essay.

'Canto XLV' is a free verse poem. The poem does not stand out in any stylistic manner from Pound's other works, who were mostly composed without metre to guide the reader. However, what does stand out is Pound's style that is uncompromising and unyielding. The poem is a relentless attack on usury, as we can see in the subtitle of the poem, 'With Usura' (Pound ll. 1). The Oxford English Dictionary defines usury as '[t]he fact or practice of lending money at interest; esp. in later use, the practice of charging, taking, or contracting to receive, excessive or illegal rates of interest for money on loan' and the latter part of the definition is one of the most criticised practices in capitalism (“Usury”). The reason that I have been saying that Pound is so unrelenting in his criticism of usury can be found in almost every single line of the poem. Whether it is lines like 'with usura, sin against nature' (ll. 14) or 'Usura is a murrain,' (ll. 25), we are convinced of Pound's objection to usury. It is important to notice how usury is personified by the name of Usura. The personification suggests that the concept can be demonised, the system is corrupt and everyone that enters into Usura's domain are corrupted by it.

The poem is filled with references and most of these are perosns or places that are significant to art in some way. In line 29, Duccio is said to be a result of something else than usury, like most other things in the poem (Pound). Duccio is one of the founding fathers of the Italian painting styles of the thirteenth century. His birth date is unknown but we know that he had died before 1319 and lived for the most part in Siena (Polzer 90). It is also likely that he learned his trade here. His importance to later painting is invaluable and he is one of the pioneers of the new style of renaissance painting that developed over the next three hundred years, and made Northern Italy one of the most important cultural centres in the entire late Medieval times and during the “golden age” of city states, such as Siena, Florence and Venice. An interesting aspect that concerns Pound's representation of history in 'Canto XLV' is his claim that with usury Duccio would not have been able to create his works. I have already established that Duccio was born somewhere in the middle of the thirteenth century and, as a result, he is predated by the Crusades by a sizeable amount of time. The Crusades were a time, when merchant bankers prospered and accumulated wealth in these city states, on a scale that mirrored the wealth of the Roman Empire. Lane argues that banks as institutions were commonplace in Florence and Milano, around the early fourteenth century (Lane 97). These banks started to appear with the consolidation of power that the Catholic church established in this period and the bankers would have been poor at their profession, if they did not take interest on the loans they issued to the crusading armies that travelled through the ports of northern Italy to the Holy Land (97). Therefore, we have established that banks thrived during Duccio's lifetime and his works were most likely funded by patrons, who indulged in banking and money-lending. I want to state that it is not certain, how Pound defines usury, but the practice that eventually leads to excessive interest on loans is in place, when Duccio is an apprentice in Siena. On the basis of this finding, we can discuss how Pound distorts history to suit his points and that does not seek Truth for its own sake. I have not found any sources from Pound's time that state the same point, so it is possible that these particulars of history were not known in the early twentieth century. In that span of time, our understanding of the Crusades has changed from a nationalistic endeavour to a pan-Christian effort and the result of expansionist policies by the Papal States, mired in racism and prejudice against Judaism and Islam (McKay 278). Of course, the money-lending that was performed in northern Italy in medieval times are not performed in the same manner today. The economy was far less defined and although it was controlled by centralised governments it does not resemble the behemoth that modern-day capitalism is. Therefore, it is possible that Pound only attacks the modern society and not the proto-capitalist elements that existed in Duccio's time.

Duccio's presence in Pound's poetry is not surprising, if we do consider the Italian painter as a pioneer of a new style of art. Pound would have been able to mould his own appearance, after Duccio, as an innovator and figurehead of the Modernists. His references to painters, Duccio, Angelico and Memling to name a few of the prominent painters present in the poem, poets and playwrights found throughout the poem with more or less obscure references, are in place to tell the reader that the old pioneers did not have to cope with usury as a limiting factor. One particular line stood out in the poem, his reference to 'Eleusis' (Pound ll. 46). The town is now a part of Athens and is most famous for being the birth place of Aeschylus, the first great Attic tragedy writer. Line 46 is ' They have brought whores for Eleusis' and this can be interpreted as the classics have been tainted by usury to a point where 'Corpses are set to banquet/ at behest of usura' (ll. 46-48). The taint is now all-pervasive and Pound does not mention his own works in this context. He could understand them as tainted by this societal corruption, but he could also see himself as a champion of righteousness and mark him as an equal to the greats. This comparison can then serve a purpose in making Pound stand out as an even greater pioneer that could rival the greats of classical and medieval times. 

I have attempted to give an account of Pound's use of history and how he distorts it to suit his own needs. This is not the only possible reading, but it is interesting to note how easily the reading conforms to this sort of discussion. I have argued that Pound's notion of usury is not the original notion of the word, but the modern version of the word (I use the word modern in its loosest sense, since usury has negative connotations from the 18^th century and onward (“Usury”)). I have also to some degree argued that Pound uses history and historiography in a subjective manner that places his values of the untainted society above the historical facts. Throughout this essay, I have attempted to stay as close to objective in my attempt to dissect and disseminate some of the historical inaccuracies of the poem. However, I must say that I had expected a higher level of accuracy from Pound and a less romanticised view of the past even in this pastoral-esque poem.

References

"Aeschylus". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2016.

Lane, Frederic Chapin and Reinhold C. Mueller. Money and banking in medieval and Renaissance Venice. American Council of Learned Societies. 1985.

Mckay, John P., Bennet D. Hill and John Buckler. A History of Western Society. 7th Edition. Boston,

MA: Houghton Mifflin. 2003.

Pound, Ezra. “Canto XLV”. The Cantos of Ezra Pound. New York, NY: New Directions, 1993.

“Usury”. Oxford English Dictionary. OED Online. Oxford University Press.

Polzer, Joseph. “Studies in Late Dugento and Early Trecento: Who Is Duccio?”. Zograf. 2005. 30.

89-110

Usurping the Classics: Citation and Storytelling in 'The Waste Land'

T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land' is a very hard piece of poetry to enter as a student of poetry. The many citations and references are a daunting prospect to attempt to decipher and create a coherent story from. It would require a “small library” to actually recreate the scope of reference that Eliot draws upon to create his fragmentary and dystopian 'Waste Land' (North in Eliot x). I would argue that it is not necessary to trace all of the references to their original sources, since other measures are used to tell the actual story of 'The Waste Land' and that these are completely in the vein of conventional storytelling and poetic discourse, so while the poem might require or allows for an individual interpretation of the internal story, it exists strictly inside the confines of tradition while, apparently, breaking away from it. I intend to show how it follows a classical schema for storytelling and how the different elements are arranged in a manner that actually aids the open-minded reader into a stronger understanding, while still retaining the text as the centre of attention.

Building a Narrative

The first line of 'The Waste Land' attempts to alienate the reader and the obvious reference to Chaucer's opening in 'The Canterbury Tales' are already a massive distortion. April is not bringing its shoures soote (Chaucer ll.1) in any positive manner here, but rather bringing Lilacs back from the wonderful dead land that was kept warm by Winter (Eliot ll. 1-7). From the very beginning, the reader is lead into Eliot's 'Waste Land' and the speaker does not grant any reprieve from the disheartening accounts or the repurposed quotes from a myriad of sources. The flirtation that we find between the 'Hyacinth girl' and the speaker in lines 35-41 dies off almost immediately and shows that the state of the world is truly undead and not living or dead (Eliot). Madame Sosostris is then introduced to give us a glimpse of Phlebas who will be central to the story further on in the poem (Eliot ll. 43-49). In this way, we are given a magical foreshadowing that we do not yet know how to understand, except as an emblem of water. Phlebas purpose is to give the reader an introduction in how the world is perceived by the speaker in the poem and give credence to an interpretation that water is not a bringer of life. In this part of the poem, we are introduced to the major characters of the poem and this serves as a quite conventional introduction, where the action is revealed, but we have only encountered the insurmountable obstacle that the protagonist must face.

Water Is Unlife

The imagery of 'The Waste Land' is at once confusing and coherent. The paradox seems to be a natural response, when something so bleak and sterile as the antebellum London needs to be described. The flirtation that we find between the 'Hyacinth girl' and the speaker in lines 35-41 dies off almost immediately and shows that the state of the world is, truly, undead. Water is almost omnipresent in the poem and the citation from Tristan and Isolde in line 42 where the ocean is empty and desolate makes us understand the sea as part of the waste land that is everywhere. The revelation that the waste land is all-encompassing makes for a very dark reading of the poem as the connecting element in the poem is water. If water is not a symbol of life, as it, so very clearly, is not in 'A Game of Chess', then what does it represent? I would argue that water functions as a perversion of life and is a representation of death. In 'Death by Water', we are introduced to Phlebas the drowned sailor. He has been dead for a fortnight and is not coming back. His bones have been picked clean and he has no recollection of either 'gulls, and the deep sea' (Eliot ll. 313). He was already introduced in the tarot deck but his significance was not clear then. Phlebas dies of drowning but Eliot does not let Phlebas stay dead. Instead, he passes 'the stages of his age and youth' (ll. 317) in a mockery of death and the sterility and aridness of the landscape is mirrored in the sea, since it is still 'Oed und leer' (ll. 42). This passage is part of the Grail myth and functions as a means of resurrecting the land and to bring prosperity and fertility back to the “kingdom”. The middle parts of the poem deepen and explain the plot and we can find a glimmer of hope that will set things right.

What the Thunder Actually Says

The overt images of Arthurian legend are strewn liberally across the pages with the mentions of the Fisher King and Tristan and Isolde. The reason that the Grail myth is so important in 'The Waste Land' is that it is a way out of the suffering and gives hope of redemption. I do not find that Eliot actually intends to give absolution to the society that he describes and it all boils down to a few select references given at dispersed intervals in the final lines of the poem. The normal reading of 'The Waste Land' is that the poem ends on a positive note, and there is hope for civilization even though it is doomed if we continue with Western religion and culture. The hope is found in the Upanishad or Eastern mysticism as the thunder brings the rain. However, as stated earlier I do not find that the rain is a bringer of life. In line 393-394, 'a damp gust/ Bringing rain' comes to the waste land, but the process is not one that suddenly turns the barren land into a living, breathing organism (Eliot). On the contrary, the very next line says that the 'Ganga was sunken' and that we are still waiting for the rain. Most of the other river references have been to the Thames and it is significant that Eliot turns to the Ganges instead. This shift marks the turning away from Western philology. We find a boat mentioned by the thunder in lines 418-422 and it is sailed by an expert (Eliot). The sea is described as calm, but the thunder is coming and although the sailor is proficient he is most likely entering a storm. Could this sailor be Phlebas in a period before drowning? If so, the bleakness found in 'Death by Water' is even darker than we first assumed. The very next line, the speaker is sitting on the shore and is fishing (Eliot 424). We have still not have any confirmation that life has returned and the drowned sailor is still echoing through the pages. 'Shall I at least set my lands in order?' functions as a focal point for the poem in the final lines of it, yet they also state that everything has not been set right (Eliot 425). The question mark is of utmost importance, since it only heightens the perception that the speaker has a choice in the matter, and he is capable of turning his back on civilization. The final citation that I will introduce is found in line 430, where the speaker states that 'These fragments I have shored against my ruins' (Eliot). If Eliot had intended to end the poem on an upbeat note, then it seems odd that this line is present in the poem. There is no apparent solution to the speakers situation and the very quotes from the multitude of sources have ended their life in the speaker's wasted mind and world. The implications to the storytelling are not reminiscent of tragedy or comedy, since the unfulfilled nature of my reading, leaves the speaker in his waste land, but I will argue that this very ending can be read into the fragmented nature of the poem.

Ending Civilization

Eliot follows a set schema for the storytelling in 'The Waste Land' and while it is extraordinary, it is still bound within this schema to provide a coherent story. I have attempted to highlight that 'The Burial of the Dead' works as an introduction, where the themes are presented, as well as the characters that have importance. We do not find out who the drowned Phonecian is in this part, but we recognise him, when he is reintroduced in 'Death by Water' and Phlebas serves as a reminder of how water has been perverted from our normal perception of it, as life-giving. Then, I continued with this view of how water's symbolism has been changed and showed that the thunder in 'What the Thunder Said' can be understood as an impotent hero, where the speaker is the final arbiter in how the world can be restored. I will grant that this reading does not fully account for all of the readings, where Eastern spirituality can replace Western religions, but the final quote serves to remind us that water can be fatal to a mortal and the fragments that have shored on the speaker's ruins offer little respite for the reader or the speaker.

References

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Internet Medieval Source Book. 1996.

Eliot, T.S. The Wasteland. Ed: Michael North. London: Norton, 2001. Print

Breaking Away from Tradition: Metrical Subversion in 'The Raven'

On the internet, there are a lot of student help pages concerning poetry and how to read it and we are often introduced to familiar concepts such as internal rhyme, metre and a wide variety of other poetic terms. When we regard the “cheatsheets” for Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven' most of these pages stress the structure of it, but end up accepting the fact that it is a trochaic octameter, without delving into the specifics of what that actually suggests for the reading. My reading of this poem is troubled by this acceptance, as the form and style of the poem attempts to subvert the metrics and rhythm of itself. I will present two different lines that stand in contrast with the highly stylised lines of trochaic octameter, to show how the poem's rhythm is constantly broken by the metrics of the poem.

'The Raven' can easily be described as rhythmically arranged, since it is possible to boil it down to a four-beat structure. Since 'The Raven' has become a cornerstone in almost any anthology concerning American poetry, there have been a movement towards a unified reading of the poem and the fact that it is probably the most famous poem composed in trochaic octameter, it is held as a shining beacon of this particular metre. The first line of the poem holds itself completely to this form, but already in the second line we find it straining against the confines of the chosen metre. Wikipedia has a scansion of the first stanza that I would argue is faulty for reasons that will be explained after introducing the scansion of the second line:

                                          | /  .   | /   .   .  | /           .  | /   . .    | /    .    | /    .  | /    .   | / | (Wikipedia)

                                          Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore (Poe ll. 2)

The heavy use of dactyls are not particularly problematic as many foot substitutions are allowed in different metres and I do not have a complete list of allowed substitutions in trochaic octameter, if such a list even exists. My main argument against this scansion is the manner in which of is analysed. It is almost unheard of to stress a function word and in this scansion, it seems as a particular interference with the reading. The rhythm of the reading does indeed give us the impression that of should be stressed, but the line would scan more easily if volume was a spondee and of for- would be a pyrrhic. In this way, there would not have to be stress on a function word.

The substitutions introduced in the second line are not a definite proof that the poem does not use trochaic octameter throughout, but we find that several lines have similar struggles with staying inside the metrical arrangement of the metre. I would argue that these lines are not a breach of metrics, but rather the poet remaining unrestrained by tradition and form. Instead, he is highlighting how metre can be subverted to serve a purpose of highlighting certain facts in a poem. The most obvious line to use for this is the opening line of stanza nine:

                                     | /        .   | /    .           .  | .    /   .    | /      .  | /      /   | /         .   | / . |

                                     Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

The line is extremely convoluted and the addition of a dactyl in the second foot and then the extremely rare amphibrach in the third. The stresses of the line highlight the words ungainly and fowl. These words hold semantic context to the complicated elements found in the metrics and, therefore, the metre gives an increased value to our understanding of the poem. The line is, of course, still acceptable in terms of metre, but it is an extreme example of how to use any sort of metrical line and it would most likely have been seen as a breach of “decorum” to use a line like this in most earlier poetry. The internal rhyme of the line is also off-centre as, ungainly and plainly are the rhyming constituents, but ungainly is the third foot and the rhyme should have been fowl with plainly. This non-rhyme is a pun on 'fowl-foul' and denotes that something has gone awry for our speaker. These subtle elements are what sets 'The Raven' apart from other poems of its age and these parcels of information that can be gleaned from paying attentive detail to the construction of the poem accentuate more diversity and poignancy in his poetic framing.

I have not shown that 'The Raven' is unmetrical, but I have attempted to highlight how subversive the use of metre has become by this point in time and I do believe that there is something uniquely rebellious and American in Poe's poetry. Poe adherence to metrics seems to be founded in something other than tradition, as we can find inventiveness in his attempt to break it away from a simple reading. His command of metrical poetry is not used to solidify form but rather to blur the meaning and the strict adherence in most of the lines of this poem suggests the very eeriness that the poet intended.

References

Poe, Edgar Allan. 'The Raven'. The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. New York:

Barnes and Noble. 2006.

'Trochaic Octameter'. Wikipedia.

Why Is Poetry Important? Part Three

What It's like to Be Human

I wanted to say that poetry needs to be understood in order to have any sort of function in the modern world, but along the way I found that I'm not in complete agreement over this point. Instead, poetry needs to touch emotions of its readers.My main point with this is that I've found literature where I have no clue what is being said (James Joyce comes to mind for some peculiar reason), but it still strikes me as absolutely brilliant. I don't need to understand every single line or even half of the words that are used to recognise a good story or a brilliant usage of sound (The Waste Land comes to mind here). I might not even agree that it's any good when looking at the theme or tropes used, but the sound alone can strike me as particularly beautiful. I vividly remember a night at the university where there was a symposium on Arabic and Persian poetry and not understanding a single word of the poems, but I was completely enthralled by the sound of them. I was mostly trying to beg a free sandwich off of the guy outside the room, but it actually turned out that I stayed for the poor guy's reading from some of the works they where discussing. So to sum things up, I am in love with poetry and how it affects me.

My love for poetry is not the only thing that I think is important though. I may like the notion of poetic beauty and the aspiration to create something to marvel at, but the point of poetry should also be to engage the reader's mind and provoke thoughts. The central element of this style of poetry is to engage me and make me wonder about my present condition. I could possibly become someone else (If I hadn't been so damn lazy), but do I aspire to be anything other than a good person in my own eyes?
I'd say no and hopefully I'll continue thinking this sort of thing, but I also need to develop as a person in order to retain my sanity. This is where provoking known symbols becomes important and why the poetic voice is usually perverting, subverting or rebelling against the "known". I've mentioned Joyce and Eliot and how on earth these people made it through with their stuff is quite remarkable. It sure took some battles with authorities to get their works published and it's incredible that they are not viewed with horror today.

By addressing our emotions and engaging our sensibilities, poetry retains its relevance and as a consequence, poetry needs to be constantly reinvented to engage the reader, but it's constantly balancing between respecting or breaking away from tradition.