The University Scholar

University of Dallas • Fall 2010 The University Scholar Contents Fall 2010 • Volume XII • Number 1

Scholarly Editors Andrew Miller Joseph Simmons Scholarly Work Creative Editors Thérèse Couture 3 Septimus’ and Clarissa’s Transcendent Jonathan Ricklis Communication in Virginia Woolf’s Art Editors RoseMary Johnson Mrs. Dalloway Sidonie Blanks Stephanie Stoeckl 19 Memory and Sympathy in Coleridge’s Assistant Editors Joshua Cole Poetic Imagination: An Exploration Nathan Helms of the Soul’s Movement from Deprivation to Joy Maura Shea Faculty Advisor Steven Stryer, D. Phil 25 Bound by Form: Marianne Moore’s Exploration of Freedom Christian Howard

Administrative Assistant Concetta Nolan Creative Work Sponsors University of Dallas P phi Beta Kappa 16 Cinqueterre Alexandra Liebenow 18 Undone Nadia Wolnisty From Synecdoche 24 The crawfish in the river John Corrales 29 Mondrian in the news John Corrales Artwork

University of Dallas • 1845 E. Northgate Dr. • Irving, TX, 75062 Front Trilogy Yesica Moran http://www.udallas.edu/academics/undergrad/majors/english/uscholar 17 My Universe Yesica Moran 23 Tray with Twigs Bethany Pederson

Front Cover: Back Cover: 28 Emergence Jessica Swanner Yesica Moran Mary Eich Back Middle Child Mary Eich Trilogy Middle Child Ceramic and oxides Stoneware, High-Fire Reduction

1 The Katherine M. Sorenson Award recognizes one student in Literary Study II whose presentation reveals him or her to be a superior reader of Dear Reader, the novel, exhibiting in his or her reading, writing, and delivery Katherine’s characteristic virtues: a precise intelligence and wit, a capacious imagination, In the spirit of humility and with a contrite heart, we offer to you and a humane learning. this lepidum novum libellum, arida modo pumice expolitum. It is, we feel, a publication of sweetness and light, a precious stone set in a silver sea. Sidonie Blanks To those few souls who have, as yet, remained outside the radius of Winner of the 2010 Sorenson Award our celebrity, we bid welcome; to returning readers of editions past, Septimus’ and Clarissa’s Transcendent Communication we extend greeting. in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway To those authors and artists both, who have poured forth at our When, at the end of Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa Dalloway is told of Septimus beseeching, their bread upon these waters, we give thanks. Smith’s suicide during her party, she thinks, “[o]h!...in the middle of my party, We, your editors, have hovered over these waters, exalting valleys, here’s death” (MD 162). What follows is a profound meditation on the meaning making mountains and hills low, and in general preparing the way. of Septimus’ suicide which constitutes the novel’s thematic climax. Clarissa’s What you see before you is the distillation of a large body of scholarly reaction here is a problem for many critics because Mrs. Dalloway presents and creative work. Not all, we feel, of those works deserving have the effects of intersecting “vectors of oppression and privilege” (Rizter 204). made it into these pages; and being little accustomed to the favors of Clarissa is a woman both victimized by patriarchal oppression and participatory the great, we are humbled by the dignity of those works which have. in the oppression of others through her privileged position within London’s Inquire within, O Reader, upon everything. Here, you shall find that upper-class; Septimus is a shell-shocked war veteran defined by masculine beauty is truth, truth beauty. Here we hold in mente et memoria the systems but without access to the privileges Clarissa’s wealth affords her. In ancient customs of our fathers. This is our escutcheon and great boast fact, almost every character in the novel simultaneously participates in and before men, the flower of our chivalry and our sword bared for war. suffers from oppressive behavior that limits their ability to know, relate to, and communicate with each other. Although Clarissa’s wealth causes many to read We trust it will satisfy your discriminating taste, and thus plus uno this climactic scene as a cheapening of Septimus’ death, Woolf insists that they maneat perenne saeclo. share a common struggle against those who try to “forc[e] your soul” (MD 163). “If this be error and upon me proved, This struggle renders Clarissa cold and divided and prompts Septimus’ plunge I never writ, nor no man ever loved.” out of the window; however, Septimus’ act of self-destruction also preserves his integrity and autonomy and transcends the barriers created by oppression The Editors and privilege, resulting in a mystical act of communication and discovery that restores Clarissa’s sense of self. In writing Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf intended to “criticise the social system, and show it at work, at its most intense” (A Writer’s Diary 56). Accordingly, the narrative acknowledges society’s “vectors of oppression and privilege,” which George Ritzer defines as “[t]he varied intersections of a number of arrangements of social inequality (gender, class, race, global location, sexual preference, and age) that serve to oppress women differentially” (Ritzer 204). This concept, broadly termed intersectionality theory, envisions society and its institutions as rendering individuals simultaneously oppressed and privileged. Intersectionality theory is particular to feminism; however, because gender is just one of many forces in society that contribute to social inequality, it applies to all people experiencing and participating in differing oppressive forces. Ultimately, it suggests that these forces are interrelated and can shape people’s perspectives, assumptions, and interactions with others in complex ways. 2 3 Because of the wide array of perspectives it portrays, Mrs. Dalloway is mystical, symbolic connection with Septimus filled with discovery not only of well suited to Bakhtinian readings; however, intersectionality theory provides the self but of another. a more specific vocabulary because conflicting perspectives in the novel result Clarissa’s feelings of relation to Septimus are provocative to the reader specifically from oppressive systems. The story-world crafted by Woolf is a because Woolf emphasizes their differences. That a rich, privileged, and diverse and lively London populated by people of differing genders, disabilities, frequently self-centered woman benefits spiritually from a poor, mad war socioeconomic statuses, and sexualities. Each character occupies a unique veteran’s suicide is indeed hard to swallow. It is not surprising that many position within the narrative’s classist, patriarchal, and heteronormative society critics find her undeserving of the visionary role assigned to her by Woolf. For and offers a unique perspective depending on that position. Woolf uses free example, Deborah Guth asserts that “Clarissa’s identification with Septimus is indirect discourse to penetrate the minds of each character, which leads to spurious” (Guth 20). Herbert Marder, although he recognizes Clarissa’s merits, numerous contested narratives, but Woolf resists privileging any voice over also finds her “moral[ly] obtuse[]” because of her connection to “fashionable another. In addition to the novel’s main characters, images of “poor mothers of society” (Marder 54, 60); and Jeremy Hawthorn claims that Woolf reaches no Westminster and their crawling babies” (MD 102), musings on “what could be conclusion because her own economic privilege blinded her to the real effects of done for female vagrants” (MD 102), and descriptions of the “exquisite passing classism. to and fro through swing doors of aproned white-capped maids” during lunch These critics find support in other characters’ opinions of Clarissa and saturate the novel and suggest a vision inclusive of London’s entire social Clarissa’s own comments. Peter accuses her of being “hard” and “sentimental” stratus (MD 91). Clearly, Woolf intentionally gives voice to London’s diverse (MD 42), and derisively labels her “the perfect hostess.” Similarly, Miss Kilman population in order to present the personal effects of socially accepted systems thinks her a “[f]ool” who deserves to be “unmask[ed]” (MD 110). Because of oppression. Clarissa is rich and they are not, it is tempting to trust these critical assessments, Yet Woolf also argues through her style that common understandings and all of which relate to the arrogance that can come with wealth. Several remarks genuine communication can and do exist. Concerning Mrs. Dalloway, she wrote, made by Clarissa also suggest insincerity, frivolity, or egoism; she states that “I shall say a great deal about [it] and my discovery: how I dig out beautiful “the veriest frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps…can’t caves behind my characters…[t]he idea is that the caves shall connect and each be dealt with, she felt positive, by Acts of Parliament for that very reason; they comes to daylight at the present moment” (A Writer’s Diary 59). Accordingly, love life” (MD 2). When asked to invite her poor cousin, Ellie Henderson, to her she carefully links the novel’s disparate characters—especially Clarissa and party, she complains to Richard, “[b]ut why should I ask all the dull women in Septimus—through repeated scenes, phrases, and images, the implications of London to my parties?” (MD 105) After Richard leaves to go to a Committee on which come together in a visionary moment at Clarissa’s party when she hears Albanians, or Armenians—she cannot remember which—she thinks, “no, she about a “young man” who “had killed himself” (MD 162). could feel nothing for the Albanians, or was it the Armenians? but she loved her Upon learning of Septimus’ suicide, Clarissa retreats into an empty room, roses (didn’t that help the Armenians?)” (MD 106). where “[t]he party’s splendour fell to the floor, so strange it was to come in alone However, Woolf promotes an intersectional understanding of society by in her finery” (MD 163). The persona of “perfect hostess” melts away (MD 5), acknowledging the injustice of Peter’s and Kilman’s socioeconomic statuses leading to an awareness of her artificiality; “party’s splendour” and “finery” while simultaneously suggesting that they try to invade the “privacy of the suggest ornament and decadence. She thinks, “[h]e had killed himself—but soul” through other means (MD 111). Despite his economic dependence on how? Always her body went through it first, when she was told, suddenly, of an others—he admits that “it was true he would have, some time or other, to see accident; her dress flamed, her body burnt…[u]p had flashed the ground; through whether Richard couldn’t help him to some job” (MD 43)—Peter exemplifies him, blundering, bruising went the rusty spikes. There he lay with a thud, thud, the oppressive effects of male privilege and heteronormative systems. He is a thud in his brain, and then a suffocation of blackness” (MD 163). Clarissa feels self-proclaimed lover of women, admitting that he “liked…above all women’s and sees his death even though she has never met him. She compares herself to society” (MD 140). Most of his thoughts and actions in the novel concentrate him with unusual insight, stating that he had preserved something essential that on chasing or fantasizing about members of the opposite sex. For example, in her life has been “wreathed about with chatter, defaced, obscured” (MD 163). after Peter leaves Clarissa’s house, an “extraordinarily attractive” young woman In contrast to the feelings of alienation or uncertainty that have plagued her catches his eye (MD 45). He imagines her as “the very woman he had always throughout the day, she finds in Septimus’ suicide stability: she sees “defiance,” had in mind,” and, “stealthily fingering his pocket-knife,” follows her for several “communication,” and “an embrace” (MD 163), all definitive words and ideas. blocks (MD 45). The pocket-knife, a phallic symbol that Woolf consistently In a passage prolific with images and allusions that have permeated the novel associates with his character, combined with his decision to follow and idealize up to this point, Clarissa concludes that “she felt somehow very like him—the this woman, highlights Peter’s oppressive tendencies, his sexual forwardness, young man who had killed himself” (MD 165). Ultimately, all signs point to a and his extreme masculinity.

4 5 These aspects of Peter’s personality affect Clarissa in devastating ways: A similar contest of narratives takes place between Clarissa and Miss her decision to adopt the persona of “the perfect hostess” ultimately coincides Kilman. Miss Kilman detests Clarissa, thinking, “she came from the most with Peter’s intrusion on her sexual privacy. He interrupts “the most exquisite worthless of all classes—the rich, with a smattering of culture” and that “she moment of her whole life” (MD 30): her kiss with Sally Seton, an interruption should have been in a factory; behind a counter; Mrs. Dalloway and all the other Clarissa feels was “like running one’s face against a granite wall in the darkness! fine ladies!” (MD 108-109). Unjustly fired during the war because “she would It was shocking; it was horrible!” (MD 30) Excepting the novel’s conclusion, not pretend that the Germans were all villains” (109), she is “degradingly poor” Clarissa’s relationship and kiss with Sally constitute her only moments of and feels that “she had a perfect right to anything that the Dalloways did for her” complete sincerity and intimacy. As Emily Jensen notes, it is in response to this because “[s]he had been cheated” (MD 108). Her poverty makes her justifiably intrusion that “Clarissa agrees to deny her love for Sally Seton, decides marriage “bitter and burning” (MD 109), and she interprets Clarissa’s attitude towards her to Peter Walsh is impossible, and chooses instead to marry Richard Dalloway as a “condescending” flaunting of wealth and social status (MD 108). and become respectable” (Jensen 162). Clarissa’s “hard” persona, then, stems However, Miss Kilman also fantasizes about achieving “a religious victory” from an encounter with an oppressor. over Clarissa; she wants to make her “soul and its mockery…feel her mastery” Woolf reinforces this point when Peter intrudes on Clarissa’s privacy on (MD 110), words which echo the sentiments of the narrative’s most powerful the day the novel takes place, paralleling his intrusion on her kiss with Sally. figures of oppression: Dr. Holmes and Dr. Bradshaw. Clarissa thinks that she The narrator describes their interaction here as a sexualized battle. As Peter represents “[l]ove and religion!...[t]he cruellest things in the world…seeing again wields his phallic knife, Clarissa “tak[es] up her needle” (MD 38), an them clumsy, hot, domineering, hypocritical, eavesdropping, jealous, infinitely image of domesticity and, as the critic Beverly Ann Schlack notes, the means cruel and unscrupulous, dressed in a mackintosh coat, on the landing” (MD 111). through which she mends the tear in her dress and symbolically maintains the Although Clarissa overlooks the role class plays in their interactions, she rightly “virginity…which clung to her like a sheet” (MD 26). Thus the passage suggests believes that Kilman uses “love and religion” to “destroy…the privacy of the Clarissa’s reluctance to engage sexually with men while characterizing Peter as soul,” and reacts to her with hostility for that reason (MD 111). the oppressive force that tries to make her do so. Clarissa describes herself here As evident from her relationship with Miss Kilman, Clarissa is privileged, as “a Queen whose guards had fallen asleep and left her unprotected…so that not “morally obtuse.” Her behavior towards Ellie Henderson coincides with any one can stroll in and have a look at her” (MD 38, emphasis mine). Peter her desire to appear as the wealthy, upper-class wife during a party attended threatens Clarissa sexually and emotionally, and she responds by labeling him an by the Prime Minister. However, Woolf emphasizes that this is still cruel and “enemy” (MD 38). suggests that Ellie is acutely aware of Clarissa’s reluctance to invite her. Her It is not surprising, then, that Clarissa rejects Peter and marries Richard statement concerning Armenians and roses highlights her privileged views, Dalloway instead. She states that “with Peter everything had to be shared; although it is curiously echoed by Sally and Peter. Peter says twice in the novel everything gone into. And it was intolerable” (MD 5); she prefers Richard that he “prefer[s] men to cauliflowers” (MD 1, 171), while at the party Sally because he allows the “gulf” between married people to remain, “a solitude… states that she “got from her flowers a peace which men and women never gave that one must respect…for one would not part with it oneself or take it, against her” (MD 171). That these sentiments correlate with gender may suggest that his will, from one’s husband, without losing one’s independence, one’s self intimacy is a freedom belonging largely to men, who have less to lose from it. respect” (MD 105). Unlike Peter, Richard allows Clarissa her “attic room” and Although Clarissa’s reasoning is simplistic, the narrative supports her notion that does not threaten her “virginity preserved through childbirth which clung to her Parliament cannot help the poor. At her party, she hears Dr. Bradshaw telling like a sheet” (MD 26). Richard that “[t]here must be some provision in the Bill” about “the deferred That Peter interprets himself and Clarissa differently only reinforces the effects of shell shock” in light of Septimus’ “case” (MD 162). Bradshaw only notion that Woolf possessed and meant to evoke a nuanced understanding of acts to increase his power over others, never to help them. Clarissa’s wealth privilege. Peter sees Clarissa as a woman he passionately loved who treated him limits, but does not erase, her ability to grasp the realities of others outside her with unwarranted coldness: she is “hard” but irresistible (MD 46), in possession class; although she knows that Parliament is useless, her “roses” are hardly a of “that woman’s gift, of making a world of her own wherever she happened viable alternative. to be” (MD 66). He believes that “[h]is relations with Clarissa…had spoilt his To protect her privacy, Clarissa divides herself into two parts: one that life” (MD 170), and although he admits that “[h]is demands upon Clarissa… conveys the characteristics of “the perfect hostess” to others and accounts were absurd” (MD 55) on the day the novel takes place, he repeatedly fails for her coldness; and the rich, vibrant personality Woolf provides the reader to recognize how his male privilege blinds him to the realities of Clarissa’s with insight into through her use of free indirect discourse and depiction of experience as a woman. Clarissa’s thoughts. By adopting a persona, Clarissa becomes wholly incapable

6 7 of intimacy: she avoids Sally, repeatedly declining invitations to visit her, and snuffing into every secret place!” (MD 130) These characters invade Septimus’ when Richard seems about to tell her he loves her, she thinks, “What? Why? privacy, just as Peter and Miss Kilman invade Clarissa’s. There were the roses” (MD 105). The arrogance that coincides with her persona In addition to these more tangible similarities that exist between Clarissa seeps into her thoughts and impulses, as seen in her privileged viewpoints. and Septimus, Woolf constructs a symbolic connection between these two These constitute real problems in Clarissa’s character which she must confront characters through her style. Repeated phrases saturate this novel, but Clarissa’s before the novel’s conclusion. However, the reader knows that where others see and Septimus’ consciousnesses overlap in ways that can only be described as foolishness in, for example, Clarissa’s parties, she sees “an offering; to combine, uncanny. For example, Woolf employs the same imagery when both characters to create”; to her, they are “a gift” (MD 107). Despite her failings, Woolf insists meditate on death; at the very beginning of the novel, Clarissa thinks, that she is far more complex than she appears. She remembered once throwing a shilling into the Serpentine. But every Septimus’ class and his mental disability exacerbate his difficulties and one remembered; what she loved was this, here, now, in front of her; the differentiate him from Clarissa; however, they share similar struggles that stem fat lady in the cab. Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards from the same oppressive structures. Septimus suffers from patriarchal systems Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this that define and categorize men as much as they do women. Before the war, he must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling was an imaginative and inquisitive young man interested in literature and eager to believe that death ended absolutely? but that somehow in the streets for greatness: he was full of “vanity, ambition, idealism, passion, loneliness, of London, on the ebb and flow of things, here, there, she survived, Peter courage, laziness, the usual seeds, which all muddled up…made him shy, and survived, lived in each other, she being part, she was positive, of the trees stammering, and anxious to improve himself, made him fall in love with Miss at home; of the house there, ugly, rambling all to bits and pieces as it was; Isabel Pole, lecturing in the Waterloo Road upon Shakespeare” (MD 74). He part of people she had never met; being laid out like a mist between the enlists “to save an England which consisted almost entirely of Shakespeare’s people she knew best, who lifted her on their branches as she had seen the plays and Miss Isabel Pole in a green dress” (MD 75). However, during the war, trees lift the mist, but it spread ever so far, her life, herself. But what was “he developed manliness” (MD 75), and after his best friend Evans dies, he she dreaming as she looked into Hatchards’ shop window? What was she realizes with terror that “he could not feel” (MD 76). As Lee R. Edwards notes, trying to recover? What image of white dawn in the country, as she read in “[h]ow odd that what a man is should not be sufficient to define him as a man” the book spread open: (Edwards 105). His society’s expectations of masculinity destroy his ability to Fear no more the heat o’ the sun express his emotions; and, as Edwards writes, “the world of culture…which had Nor the furious winter’s rages. (MD 6-7) served Septimus by giving his imagination form died in the War and can now This passage introduces several themes essential to understanding both the exert itself only as part of the paraphernalia of madness” (Edwards 105). He sees relationship between Clarissa and Septimus and the mechanism behind the phantoms, has visions, and cannot convey his reality to anyone. Septimus does novel’s thematic climax. Clarissa’s suspicion that, in death, a part of her survives not divide himself or adopt a persona as Clarissa does, and his obvious madness “on the ebb and flow of things” and is shared with “the trees” ties her directly to leaves him more vulnerable to those who would “force his soul.” Septimus and characterizes death as a fundamentally communicative act. While Clarissa contends with those who intrude on “the privacy of [her] Woolf uses the allusion to Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, first encountered in the soul,” Septimus must face the only characters unambiguously labeled as passage above, throughout the novel in connection with these two characters. oppressive and cruel: Dr. Holmes and Dr. Bradshaw, who are inhuman in their The lines are part of a dirge sung over a woman dressed as a man who appears, merciless silencing of people like Septimus. In the novel, they represent the but is not actually, dead. Therefore, the allusion connotes distortion of identity pinnacle of repression and power. It is they whom Clarissa accuses of wanting to and suggests both a living death and resurrection. The dirge begins, “force your soul” (MD 163), and it is they whom the narrator directly condemns Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, when she charges them with worshipping the goddesses Proportion—which Nor the furious winter’s rages; through Bradshaw “made England prosper, secluded her lunatics, forbade Thou thy worldly task hast done, childbirth, penalised despair” (MD 87)—and Conversion, who “feasts on the Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages: wills of the weakly” and “offers help, but desires power” (MD 88). The religious Golden lads and girls all must, language here parallels that used to describe Miss Kilman, who is also guilty As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. (Cymbeline 4.2.258-263) of the crime of conversion. These men are, however, far more menacing: it is Although different significations associated with these lines are emphasized ultimately the threat of Holmes and Bradshaw “forcing his soul” that causes in different places, the lines ultimately insist that death should be envisioned Septimus to kill himself. Before doing so, he exclaims, “[s]o he was in their as a release and thus should not be feared. Life consists of toil and suffering— power! Holmes and Bradshaw were on him! The brute with the red nostrils was suggested by “heat o’ the sun” and “furious winter’s rages”—while death results

8 9 in freedom. Woolf’s characterization of death as an act of communication, a type notes, works with the Cymbeline allusion to suggest Clarissa’s fear of death and of preservation, and a path to freedom introduced in the passage above is a vital her fear of the reality of life, qualities again mirrored in Septimus’ story. part of the novel’s primary thematic concerns. Septimus has these same thoughts before he regains lucidity, helps Rezia Woolf evokes similar images in relation to Septimus while he is trapped make a hat, and then commits suicide. Woolf writes, “[e]very power poured within the throes of madness. Septimus feels in the present an acute version of its treasures on his head, and his hand lay there on the back of the sofa, as he Clarissa’s imaginings concerning death. He thinks, had seen his hand lie when he was bathing, floating on the top of the waves, Why could he see through bodies, see into the future, when dogs will while far away on shore he heard dogs barking and barking far away. Fear no become men? It was the heat wave presumably, operating upon a brain more, says the heart in the body; fear no more” (MD 123). The repetition here made sensitive by eons of evolution. Scientifically speaking, the flesh was is remarkable. As with Clarissa, these thoughts appear before an oppressor, melted off the world. His body was macerated until only the nerve fibres Dr. Holmes, tries to enter the room. The Cymbeline allusion combines with were left. It was spread like a veil upon a rock. the image of the sun to suggest Septimus’ reentrance into activity and life He lay back in his chair…[t]he earth thrilled beneath him. Red flowers and to foreshadow his steadily approaching death. Therefore, the passage grew through his flesh; their stiff leaves rustled by his head. (MD 59) highlights the result of Septimus’ fight against oppression—his suicide—as it The image of his fleshless body as it becomes one with the natural world— does with Clarissa. That Septimus’ heart and body together proclaim “fear no “spread like a veil upon a rock” as “[r]ed flowers” grow “through his flesh”— more,” while Clarissa remains divided in that declaration, highlights Septimus’ evokes the image of Clarissa “being laid out like a mist between the people she greater unity of being throughout the narrative and correlates with the action knew best, who lifted her on their branches.” Septimus’ madness allows his of the story: Septimus, not Clarissa, experiences death. As evident from these mind to occasionally free itself from the constraints of society and even from parallel passages, the connection between these two characters cannot be the body; thus he feels a communion with nature and the dead—as seen in attributed merely to Woolf’s style or her need to make the narrative cohere; it is his repeated visions of Evans—that Clarissa hopes for only in death. Because mysterious, symbolic, and relentlessly reinforced. Septimus is still living and is thus subjected to social and physical limitations Clearly, Woolf constructed a solid basis for the novel’s thematic climax. whether he recognizes it or not, his connection to this communal, spiritual world Returning to this pivotal scene, Woolf brings together the implications of is tenuous at best. Clarissa’s and Septimus’ parallel struggles against oppression and their more Woolf parallels Septimus’ and Clarissa’s thoughts to highlight the shared spiritual connection. Clarissa’s meditations initially consist of insights and effects of oppression on both characters. When Clarissa is sewing right before comparisons possible only when two people share daily struggles. She thinks, Peter bursts in on her, she thinks, She had once thrown a shilling into the Serpentine, never anything more. So on a summer’s day waves collect, overbalance, and fall; collect and But he had flung it away. They went on living (she would have to go back; fall; and the whole world seems to be saying “that is all” more and more the rooms were still crowded; people kept on coming). They (all day she ponderously, until even the heart in the body which lies in the sun on the had been thinking of Bourton, of Peter, of Sally), they would grow old. beach says too, That is all. Fear no more, says the heart. Fear no more, says A thing there was that mattered; a thing, wreathed about with chatter, the heart, committing its burden to some sea, which sighs collectively for all defaced, obscured in her own life, let drop every day in corruption, lies, sorrows, and renews, begins, collects, lets fall. And the body alone listens to chatter. This he had preserved. Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to the passing bee; the wave breaking; the dog barking, far away barking and communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, barking. (MD 33-34) mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded; one was This metaphor evokes Clarissa’s split sense of identity, the result of her reaction alone. There was an embrace in death. (MD 163) to oppressive forces. Her “body alone” acknowledges “the passing bee; the wave Clarissa’s recollection that “[s]he had once thrown a shilling into the breaking; the dog barking,” which are images and sounds that suggest activity Serpentine” connects this passage with her meditations on death at the and daily life. Meanwhile, her heart, declaring “[t]hat is all” and “[f]ear no beginning of the novel, when she envisioned it as an act of sharing oneself. more,” releases “its burden to some sea,” which suggests a total relinquishment Clarissa immediately realizes that, while she allows part of herself to “let of the spirit to an ethereal, eternal presence. Beverly Ann Schlack observes drop every day in corruption, lies, chatter” by adopting a persona, Septimus that the allusion to Cymbeline in the context of this metaphor implies that this successfully “preserve[s]” his integrity and autonomy by killing himself. relinquishment is comparable to a kind of death, and highlights Clarissa’s Notions of “defiance,” “communication,” and “an embrace” are found in the fascination with and occasional attraction to death: characteristics she shares with passage narrating Septimus’ death: when he flings himself out of the window, Septimus. Clearly, it also reinforces Woolf’s suggestion that death is a peaceful he boldly shouts, “I’ll give it you!”; before he does so, he thinks, “[i]t was their and even liberating process. The image of the sun, as Marilyn Schauer Samuels idea of tragedy, not his or Rezia’s (for she was with him),” which connotes

10 11 the intimacy evoked by the word “embrace”; finally, the image of the window For example, Clarissa states earlier that “the supreme mystery which Kilman implies communication (MD 132). Clarissa’s acute awareness of these concepts might say she had solved, or Peter might say he had solved, but Clarissa didn’t involved in Septimus’ suicide, combined with her intuitive understanding of the believe either of them had the ghost of an idea of solving, was simply this: here implications it has for her self, suggests that death does allow both characters a was one room; there another” (MD 112). Thus they signify what Septimus and path to communion that had “mystically evaded them” throughout the novel. Clarissa labored to guard from oppressive characters like Peter, Holmes, or Clarissa then wonders, “this young man who had killed himself—had he Bradshaw, who literally and figuratively try to intrude on these rooms without plunged holding his treasure?” (MD 163). The word “treasure,” often associated consent. That Septimus leaps out of a window suggests an act communicating with Septimus, suggests the integrity of the soul. Clarissa describes her kiss with this self, and Clarissa and the old woman’s ability to see each other for the first Sally as if it were a treasure: “she felt that she had been given a present, wrapped time indicates the act of transcending barriers and peering into and achieving up, and told just to keep it, not look at it—a diamond, something infinitely communion with another’s private world. Despite their differences, Clarissa has precious” (MD 30). As stated previously, her passionate love for Sally represents successfully comprehended Septimus’ communicative act; thus Mrs. Dalloway her most sincere moment, when she was capable of intimacy, an ability which stands as a testament to the power of human communication and its ability to has since been obscured because of figures like Peter Walsh. Woolf solidifies transcend the barriers created by oppressive institutions. the association between this moment and Septimus’ “treasure” when Clarissa Like many of the novel’s other passages, Clarissa’s revelations end with the recalls the allusion to Shakespeare’s Othello, “[i]f it were now to die, ’twere now striking of the clock. Woolf writes, to be most happy” (MD 163), first stated in relation to this love affair. Clarissa The young man had killed himself; but she did not pity him; with the clock correctly believes Septimus has kept something of this magnitude in killing striking the hour, one, two, three, she did not pity him, with all this going himself that she has lost in living. on. There! the old lady had put out her light! the whole house was dark Her kiss with Sally is inextricably linked to Peter’s interruption of it; now with this going on, she repeated, and the words came back to her, thus Clarissa’s thoughts shift to the oppressive Dr. Bradshaw. She finds him Fear no more the heat of the sun. She must go back to them. But what an “obscurely evil…capable of some indescribable outrage—forcing your soul” extraordinary night! She felt somehow very like him—the young man who (MD 163). She rightfully imagines Septimus as one of “the poets and thinkers” had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away while and proposes that “if this young man had gone to him, and Sir William had they went on living. The clock was striking. The leaden circles dissolved in impressed him, like that, with his power, might he not then have said (indeed she the air. But she must go back. She must assemble. She must find Sally and felt it now) Life is made intolerable; they make life intolerable, men like that?” Peter. And she came in from the little room. (MD 165) (MD 163). She does not and should not pity Septimus because he successfully preserved This leads Clarissa into a confrontation with her privilege and its his “treasure,” the integrity of his soul. His death was not his and Rezia’s idea consequences. Becoming “the perfect hostess” as a means of protection was of tragedy, nor is it Clarissa’s. The allusion to Cymbeline repeated here after possible only because of her class. She declares it “her disaster—her disgrace… coming to terms with life and death implies that she no longer fears the entire her punishment to see sink and disappear here a man, there a woman… human experience. The phrase “the leaden circles dissolved in the air,” which in and she forced to stand here in her evening dress” (MD 164). Her attempt to the novel typically follows the striking of the clock, reminds the reader that her gain security through taking advantage of her privilege benefits people like life will continue. Because Clarissa has now rediscovered in herself the integrity Bradshaw, however indirectly; thus she sees herself as complicit in Septimus’ Septimus never lost, her feelings of relation to him seem especially appropriate. suicide. Woolf’s symbolism and stylistic structuring of the narrative characterizes Clarissa’s acknowledgment of her relation to Septimus, combined with Septimus’ suicide in and of itself as a fundamentally communicative act: death recognition of her privilege, is redemptive. She “had never been so happy. is not merely an “end”; it is also an implementation of human freedom that Nothing could be slow enough, nothing last too long. No pleasure could equal… allows one unity with man and nature. However, if Clarissa’s reception of this having done with the triumphs of youth, lost herself in the process of living, Septimus’ suicide is to be judged sincere—and thus, if the novel itself is to be to find it, with a shock of delight” (MD 164). She has rediscovered “herself,” taken seriously—the reader must be willing to acknowledge each character who she was during “the triumphs of youth” when she received her own treasure in the narrative as both oppressed and oppressor; concurrently, he or she must and could be honest with another person. recognize that even these two labels together cannot adequately describe the Woolf suggests a transcendent act of communication with and discovery of sum total of their being. It would, then, be worthwhile to consider the ethical Septimus when Clarissa looks out of her window and sees “in the room opposite implications of Mrs. Dalloway. Ultimately, Woolf’s complex and subtle the old lady star[ing] straight at her!” (MD 164) Windows and rooms have portrayal of individuals living within a hierarchical social world, which I have symbolic significance; they suggest the mysterious and private part of another. described as a representation of the implications of intersectionality theory,

12 13 extends beyond merely a method of narrative structuring; it challenges the Works Cited reader to expand their sympathies to characters like Clarissa who initially appear Edwards, Lee R. “War and Roses: The Politics of Mrs. Dalloway.” Clarissa undeserving of them. If the reader is receptive to Woolf’s suggestions, he or she Dalloway. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1990. 99-112. is allowed a vision of the novel’s characters that is comparable to the vision with Guth, Deborah. “‘What a Lark! What a Plunge!’: Fiction as Self-Evasion in Mrs. which Clarissa is provided at the novel’s climax. Dalloway.” The Modern Language Review 84.1 (1989): 18-25. I do not think it unreasonable to suggest that Woolf intended to persuade Hawthorn, Jeremy. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway: A Study in Alienation. her readers to apply this attitude outside of the context of reading the novel. London: Sussex Univ., 1975. She seems to advocate a moral approach to others that insists on accounting for Jensen, Emily. “Clarissa Dalloway’s Respectable Suicide.” Comp. Jane Marcus. their perspectives, and thus actively resists rigid categorization or definition of Virginia Woolf: A Feminist Slant. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1983. them; at the same time, the fact that Clarissa must confront her privilege before 162-79. the novel’s conclusion implies that one should be willing to recognize oneself Marder, Herbert. “Split Perspective: Types of Incongruity in Mrs. Dalloway.” as an oppressor and actively work to challenge that. Although I would not go so Papers on Language and Literature: A Journal for Scholars and Critics of far as to say that, if this outlook were implemented on a wider scale in society, it Language and Literature 22.1 (1986): 51-69. would afford everyone a view of others as profound as the one Woolf attributes Ritzer, George. Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its Classical Roots: to Clarissa through her symbolism—it appears that death is an instrumental part The Basics. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/ of that—the novel convincingly suggests that it would promote a more sincere, Languages, 2006. more empathetic world that embraces, rather than silences, men like Septimus Samuels, Marilyn Schauer. “The Symbolic Functions of the Sun in Mrs. and celebrates, rather than represses, women like Clarissa. Dalloway.” Modern Fiction Studies 18 (1972): 387-99. Mrs. Dalloway presents a sweeping vision of the difficulties faced by Schlack, Beverly Ann. “Mrs. Dalloway.” Continuing Presences: Virginia individuals attempting to live with, and relate to, others in modern society. Woolf’s Use of Literary Allusion. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, It provides not only an intense examination and criticism of that society, but 1979. 51-76. also an argument for the power of the individual to overcome the barriers put Shakespeare, William. Cymbeline. Ed. J. M. Nosworthy. New York: Methuen, in place by it. Through a careful control of stylistic devices, Woolf connects 1980. two disparate characters: Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith. To protect Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. London: Vintage, 2004. herself from oppressive forces, Clarissa adopts a persona, and although she ______. A Writer’s Diary: Being Extracts from the Diary of Virginia Woolf. Ed. maintains her privacy, she jeopardizes her integrity. Septimus commits suicide Leonard Woolf. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. and preserves both. Through his death, he communicates himself and redeems Clarissa, allowing her to reconnect with the part of her soul marred by societal institutions. Therefore, the last lines, in which the narrator defines Clarissa as a whole rather than as a combination of parts, are especially appropriate: What is this terror? what is this ecstasy? [Peter] thought to himself. What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement? It is Clarissa, he said. For there she was. (MD 172)

14 15 Alexandra Liebenow Cinqueterre

I want to grow my hair out Maybe in one wishing, swirling remembrance and, flying, swirling, swishing, of drinking in the moment like a shot of pure gin— swooshing, sweeping me up, let it take me back to the terraced earth we won’t let plump pears whose five-fingered hand touches ocean. shrivel in the June heat, but will unwrap these gifts, I want long hair and shaking it slyly, juice on our chins— finding croutons in my salad, and we will revel in it. mushrooms, a cup of wine— I want to taste herbs and minerals.

Sandals on smooth stones lake like clouded crystals, at the edge of the water I awaken echoes.

Picnic, lipstick, sprinting down the dock— jump in, frantic fish swimming at my feet like actors gesturing around their lines

Pines, and mayonnaise sandwiches, hiking, the ruffles of my skirt dancing— locks of my love moving in the wind.

Papers, the boatmen lounging, reading, speaking in Italian, love letters blowing away with afternoon towards dusky evening.

Planted napkins in packed dirt, hide the evidence, walk away— back to conundrums and corporate working zones no afternoon pauses for sleep, nor new food savored by the delighted palate— forgetting the glory of the infancy of moment.

We returned, we regressed, Yesica Moran to living in white boxes, My Universe wishing for longer linens Ceramic and glazes to throw on the closet's mess, wasting away in later lingering lulling events

16 17 Maura Shea Nadia Wolnisty Memory and Sympathy in Coleridge’s Poetic Imagination: An Exploration of the Soul’s Movement from Deprivation to Joy

Undone Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” on the occasion of the visit of some friends, during which time, due to an injury, Blocks of cathedral he was unable to accompany them as they walked outside. While they savored delete the sidewalk the natural beauty surrounding them, he remained confined to his bower. In in shadow. this complex poem, he meditates on this experience and reveals a mysterious connection between deprivation and joy, a connection he discovers through I am too bright, too uptight. his engagement with memory and sympathy. Though deprived of his friends’ I ought to have hunched back and shoulders. company and nature’s solace, Coleridge is nonetheless connected to his own past experiences of nature through memory, and connected to his friends’ present And I should weep, we should all weep, experience of nature through sympathy, both of which are contemplative acts at a force that can undo concrete. of the soul that bring the speaker out of himself and his loneliness. Coleridge’s lovingly precise descriptions of the landscapes he cannot immediately see I clutch my memories, reveal the ability of memory to treasure sensory perceptions of nature, allowing what I promise, what is promised. the soul to draw upon them in times of deprivation. Out of this recollection comes an imaginative act whereby the poet attempts to share in the present Make me small, Lord, small and colorless. beauties his friends are experiencing outside the bower, which, in turn, brings forth his sympathetic response to a particular friend’s experience of loss. The poem culminates in Coleridge’s discovery of profound and liberating joy amidst his isolated circumstances, suggesting that deprivation, when attended to by contemplative memory and sympathy, can bear the fruit of delight. This mysterious, unbidden joy is the movement of a soul nourished by nature and Selections from Synecdoche friendship. The first verse paragraph introduces the role of memory as a way of The Host participating in things absent to immediate sensory perception. The speaker You seem much too comfortable in that chair. describes his feelings of loneliness after his friends leave to go explore the Here, let me get you another. beauties of nature and laments being trapped in “this lime-tree bower my prison” (2, emphasis added). His sense of entrapment is compounded by his The Guest sense of loss: “I have lost /Beauties and feelings, such as would have been /Most I think my room is xenophobic. It stares sweet to my remembrance” (2-4). However, as we see in the next few lines, at my noise, my smells, my luggage. he has not wholly lost “beauties and feelings,” for his memory is able to recall the beautiful images so precisely that it as almost as if he is actually looking at them—though such remembrance is not yet “sweet” to him. Ruefully, perhaps even with jealousy, he imagines his friends “wander[ing] in gladness” amid the gorgeous natural landscape (8), and descending To that still roaring dell, of which I told; The roaring dell, o’erwooded, narrow, deep, And only speckled by the mid-day sun; Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock Flings arching like a bridge;—that branchless ash, Unsunned and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves Ne’er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still … (9-15)

18 19 The poet repeats certain phrases as if to suggest an echo: “that still roaring with greater desire comes a greater capacity for fulfillment, an insight that will dell…the roaring dell o’erwooded” (9 and 10), “the ash… that branchless ash”, blossom in his own experience towards the end of the poem. (12 and 13), and “yellow leaves” that “Ne’er tremble” but “tremble still” (15, Another crucial shift occurs halfway through the verse paragraph. Coleridge emphases added). The resulting echoing sounds suggest the poet’s own act of turns his attention back to the remembered natural scene, but instead of merely remembrance, which produces powerful echoes that vividly recall the sights he recounting it in detail as before, he addresses it directly, apostrophizing nature is prevented from seeing firsthand. and imploring it to be even more beautiful for the sake of his friend: In the second verse paragraph, the poet describes how his imaginative act Ah! Slowly sink of memory gives birth to an imaginative act of sympathy, and he suggests for Behind the western ridge, thou glorious sun! the first time the connection between deprivation and joy. His tone becomes Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, increasingly excited as he becomes emotionally involved in the scene he Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds! is describing, and his preoccupation with his own plight diminishes— … And kindle, thou blue ocean! So my Friend indeed, he does not mention it at all in the second verse paragraph. The poet Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood, enthusiastically engages the vast open shore his friends are encountering as he Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round remembers the “wide wide Heaven” and “the sea” with its “slip of smooth clear On the wide landscape… (32- 40, emphasis added) blue betwixt two Isles / Of purple shadow!” (21-26). He imagines his friends’ This is truly one of the loveliest parts of the poem, where we see the poet’s happy response and describes it as he did in the first verse paragraph—“Yes! imagination drawing from his memory and yet moving beyond it as he asks They wander on / In gladness all” (26-27, emphasis added)—although this nature to shine forth in greater beauty than he remembers, not as a gift for time he does not begrudge them that gladness. Here an important shift in focus himself, but for his friend. Coleridge effectively makes a kind of prayer that occurs. Coleridge’s attention turns to a particular friend in the group, Charles, Charles “may stand as I have stood.” All traces of jealousy at the good fortune whom he apostrophizes directly, discerning that this friend’s response to the of others, perceptible in verse paragraph one, have vanished. He prays that beauty of the natural scene would be even more joyful than those of the others: Charles may respond contemplatively to the sunset, that he may be “silent with … but thou, methinks, most glad swimming sense… gazing” (39-40, emphasis added). This receptive gaze is My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou has pined brought about by being “struck with deep joy” at the sight of the sun sinking And hungered after Nature, many a year, and the clouds “richlier burn[ing].” In this sense the poet gives nature a certain In the great City pent, winning thy way agency, an active nurturing capacity that can be accessed by “the gentle heart.” With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain His engagement with memory and sympathy has opened up the poet’s own And strange calamity! (27-32) imagination generously, so much so that in describing his hope that Charles will Two important transitions occur in these lines: there is a shift in voice from the be filled with joy in contemplation of the sunset, Coleridge himself intimates the first person to the second person, and there is a shift in imaginative description Divine presence: from that which is remembered to which is understood through sympathy. These … gaze till all doth seem two transitions are simultaneous and intimately connected. Coleridge’s memory Less gross than bodily; and of such hues of the scene his friends are seeing with their own eyes prompts him to imagine As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes their response, and then to perceive sympathetically that Charles’ response Spirits perceive his presence. (40-43) would be more intense than those of the others. Charles is the “most glad” of all It is the contemplative gaze that is able to discern the spiritual in the natural, them because he has experienced deprivation in a way that perhaps the others divinity in the “bodily” world. The “Almighty Spirit” reveals himself to the have not. “gentle-hearted” soul who is receptive to the beauty of nature, who can therefore In this way the poet moves beyond consideration of his own plight to “perceive his presence.” that of his friend. Interestingly, he characterizes Charles’ deprivation in the The argument of the poem, however, does not stop here. While Coleridge same way he does his own: Charles has been previously trapped in the “great is certainly advocating receptivity to nature’s beauty when it is offered, he City” just as Coleridge is now imprisoned in his bower. The poet perceives his originally began his poem by examining his own experience of deprivation, of friend’s sadness and patience of soul (31) since he has undergone “evil and pain not being offered that beauty. How does he reconcile himself to his personal / And strange calamity” (31-32). He recognizes that Charles has cultivated a experience of unfulfilled desire? The third verse paragraph returns to this interior greater desire for nature precisely because he has “hungered after [it] many a mediation by describing an unexpected experience of joy: “A delight / Comes year” while being deprived of it in the city (29). Coleridge thus suggests that sudden on my heart, and I am glad / As I myself were there!” (43-45) The act

20 21 of sympathy that the lonely poet describes in verse paragraph two has now the dusky air / Homewards” (69-70). In his delight, the poet blesses the bird yielded in him a sharing in his friend’s joy. Moreover, he discovers that his and prays that it may give that blessing to “gentle-hearted Charles,” who in his bower (which he now affectionately calls his “little lime-tree bower”) is not a suffering has cultivated that deep desire for and profound appreciation of the prison after all, and does not cut him off completely from nature; rather, he can gifts of nature’s beauty. Thus, as expressed by the flight of the bird from one now describe, not by memory but by sight, the “transparent foliage,” the “broad man to the other, he and his friend, though physically separated, are profoundly and sunny leaf” with its “shadows… dappling its sunshine,” the “richly tinged connected by their mutual appreciation of nature. The poem concludes by walnut-tree” and the “deep radiance” of the “ancient ivy” which surrounded him describing the spiritual unity of the two friends in their mutual delight: the poet all along (48-53). He discovers that while mourning his inability to accompany hopes that the humble “creeking” song of the bird will be received generously his friends outside, he has been inattentive to the bounty all around him. His new and joyfully by Charles, “to whom / No sound is dissonant which tells of Life” recognition of the natural beauties surrounding him helps him to realize (75-76), and perhaps is also hopes that his own words will be similarly received. That Nature ne’er deserts the wise and pure; No plot so narrow, be but Nature there, No waste so vacant, but may well employ Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart Awake to Love and Beauty! (60-64) Coleridge’s assertion that the “wise and pure” are never abandoned by Nature seems problematic, however, since we have been told that “gentle- hearted” Charles (who according to his epithet surely does not lack either wisdom or purity) has been nonetheless deprived of Nature for “many a year” until now. Perhaps, however, in his meditation on the response of the soul to natural beauty and its intimations of the divine, the poet is suggesting that “Nature” encompasses more than merely the natural world of trees, sunsets and landscapes—it is somehow accessible even in narrow plots and vacant wastes, such as those found in the “great city.” Charles’ heart indeed has been kept “awake to Love and Beauty,” for even in plots “so narrow” and wastes “so vacant” Nature can employ “each faculty of sense”; he has had access to Nature primarily through desire. Similarly, Coleridge’s imaginative act of recalling natural scenes through memory is a similar avenue to Nature by desire, by a longing contemplation of things absent. In some deeper way Nature has been accessible to them in their very deprivation. Perhaps Coleridge is suggesting that wisdom and purity come from a certain purification of the heart by desire. The poet realizes that the experience of deprivation itself can yield a cultivated “gentle heart” which can share in a profound delight. By sympathizing with his friend, he discovers that … sometimes ‘Tis well to be bereft of promised good, That we may lift the Soul, and contemplate With lively joy the joys we cannot share. (64-67) Indeed these lines describe the entire movement of his soul in the poem. Bethany Pederson Coleridge, in his loneliness, feels trapped and isolated, as expressed in his initial Tray with Twigs image of imprisonment; but he nonetheless lifts his soul with memory and Clay, raku fired sympathy to contemplate the joys of his friends and, in so doing, receives his own “lively joy”—and, with it, a profound freedom. This sense of freedom in the lifting up of the soul is beautifully expressed by the image of the rook soaring overhead, “beat[ing] its straight path along

22 23 Christian Howard Bound by Form: Marianne Moore’s Exploration of Freedom In “What Are Years?” Marianne Moore uses highly abstract and theoretical language to grapple with existential questions. Moore forms these questions John Corrales within a series of repetitions, parallels, and metaphors that enhance the meaning of the poem itself, allowing for layers of interpretation based upon both literal The crawfish in the river and figurative readings. These readings revolve around the concept of existence within confinement and the struggle to achieve freedom within imprisonment, and these ideas are both enhanced and resolved through the form and structure All condensing into it— of the poem itself. the introduction of crawfish, and then Over the course of the first two stanzas, Moore juxtaposes ideas that embody the struggle of man with his mortality. This tension is revealed as one it—having filled itself with meat between body and soul—the death of the former and the imprisonment of the in the river, swollen-into membrane latter. Moore emphasizes this point in the third sentence, in which the soul is upheld against death by courage: “in misfortune, even death, … [courage] stirs hardened like rock, skipping through the / the soul to be strong” (7, 9-10). This description sets up a contrast between current not knowing when it’s out death and the soul, between mortality and the limitations of the body. It is only through courage that man, a composite of body and soul, can reconcile himself of the seen through weight it’s against. Lethe, to his fate.1 Indeed, Moore confirms this idea of entrapment in the next sentence where is our experience? Without by essentially equating man’s “mortality” with “his imprisonment” (12, 13). Nevertheless, in this same sentence, Moore states that, while man cannot escape choppy rhythms carrying forward his confinement, he can achieve a level of happiness (he can be “glad”) by the I that is ours and swum toward. accepting his state of imprisonment and “ris[ing] / upon himself” (11, 13-14). But what is this rising? And how can man rise “upon himself”? Moore likens this act to the “sea in a chasm,” which, ever raging against the rocks surrounding it, continues its ebb and flow through submission to forces beyond its control (15). Moore furthers this comparison through the use of a subtle pun: when man “sees deep,” he recognizes his mortality, just as the “sea in a chasm” surrenders to its fate of remaining in a deep gorge (11). In this manner, Moore states that man must have courage to face his limitations as a mortal being; after accepting this fact, he can move on and turn to other aspects of his life.

1 Though it does not have a direct bearing on the thesis of this paper, Moore’s descrip- tion of courage is interesting to note. She calls courage “the unanswered question, / the resolute doubt,– / dumbly calling, deftly listening” (4-6). This depiction reveals that Moore understands courage to be opposed to logic and reason. Courage, in fact, is only present when one acts contrary to the promptings of the intellect—hence, courage cannot be explained or understood. It is for this reason that the nature of courage will remain an “unanswered question” and a “resolute doubt,” for man is unable to comprehend it. Moore further states that she knows not whence courage springs, even though she holds it to be a necessary factor in reconciling man to his mortality. This tension between courage and the intellect seems to testify to Moore’s belief in the insufficiency of man’s reasoning abilities, a belief that further emphasizes man’s limitations. Unfortunately, Moore’s un- derstanding of the relationship between these intellectual limitations and man’s physical limitations is beyond the scope of this essay. 24 25 On a more allegorical note, Moore employs the metaphor in the third and in its defeat, stirs / the soul to be strong?” (9-10) By including this enjambment final stanza in order to parallel the literal meaning of the poem. She describes a across stanzas, Moore blatantly defies the rules of form. Nevertheless, the bird that “steels / his form straight up” (21-22). Not only does this bird ground syllabic pattern of the lines remains unbroken: Moore achieves a freedom, the abstractness of the poem in something real and concrete, but the song of the albeit one that is forced and harsh-sounding, within the structure of the poem. bird recalls the lyrical quality of Moore’s own poetry, thereby identifying the The pinnacle of this struggle comes with the use of enjambment and internal idea of confinement with poetry itself. But how is poetry confining? With the rhyme in lines 15-16, where Moore compares man’s imprisonment to the sea unusual description of the bird who “steels / his form,” Moore indicates that the in a chasm. Moore states that both these entities are “struggling to be / free and confining aspect of poetry is, in fact, its form or structure. The actual meaning unable to be.” The enjambment brings this moment to a crescendo, causing the or message of the poem is the equivalent of man’s confined soul in the literal reader to lift up his voice just as waves peak—and then come crashing down interpretation; that which strives to attain freedom is the subject of the bird’s with a sudden and unexpected finality due to the double internal rhyme. The “mighty singing” (23). Moore further remarks that, just as man can attain a comma at the end of line 16 also contributes to this finality, for it forces the freedom within himself, poetry can attain its freedom from formal limitations or reader to pause right at the end of this moment of collapse. It is after this line, restrictions through such means as poetic devices and syntax. when Moore speaks of man’s “surrendering,” that the unnatural attempts to Having asserted the struggle between the limitations of poetry and its exercise freedom within the structure of the poem subside, for though there are freedoms, Moore exemplifies this conflict through the poem itself. The poem still instances of enjambment and caesura in the third stanza, this final stanza is is comprised of three stanzas, each of which is divided into nine lines. Though self-contained as the others are not (17). these lines vary in syllabic length, those of each stanza collectively compose In addition to being self-contained, the final stanza is rhythmically much a regular chiasmic pattern. Each stanza folds in upon itself such that the first smoother than the proceeding stanzas, due partly to the soft sibilance of the and the ninth lines, the second and the eighth lines, and so on, have the same lines (i.e. “so,” “strongly,” “feels,” “behaves,” “sings,” “steels,” “straight,” number of syllables. As such, the lines of each stanza have a syllabic pattern of “singing,” “says,” “satisfaction”). This sibilance and the repetition within these six syllables for lines one and nine, another six for lines two and eight, seven lines imitate a song, further adding to the rhythmically appealing qualities of for lines three and seven, nine for lines four and five, and five for line five (i.e. the stanza (19-24). The last two lines of this poem comprise a perfect couplet, 6, 6, 7, 9, 5, 9, 7, 6, 6). Additionally, the first and third lines of each stanza have written in the parallel structure that began the poem. Not only does this device perfect rhyme, and all three stanzas end in a rhyming couplet. This unvarying complete the musical quality of the third stanza, but it also brings the poem full pattern constitutes the strict form of the poem. Nonetheless, while following this circle, which shows the perfection of its formal structure. As at the beginning of form carefully, Moore manipulates the syntax and the grammar of the sentences the poem, the use of parallelism relates “mortality” and “eternity,” two concepts to achieve a freedom within this structure. As such, the poem is rife with that Moore has hitherto presented as quite contrary (26-27). In so doing, Moore caesurae, enjambment, repetition, and parallelism, by means of which Moore not clearly and definitively reconciles these ideas, a reconciliation that she has only demonstrates the allegorical interpretation of her poem, but also highlights attempted to make over the course of the poem. Furthermore, the overarching the particular meanings of its constituent sentences. parallelism of the poem contributes to the explanation of the initial question: Immediately in the first stanza of the poem, Moore establishes the tension “What is our innocence, / what is our guilt?” When taken with the reference to between an adhesion to the form of the poetry and a desire to break out of that nakedness in line three, these lines recall man’s initial state in the Garden of form. The first three lines of the poem are: “What is our innocence, / what is our Eden (1-2). But what does such a reference have to do with this poem? Because guilt? All are / naked, none is safe. And whence.” The first line actually follows of the poem’s chiasmic structure and parallelism, it is likely that Moore meant the conventional form, which makes it more of a surprise to the reader when to draw another parallel between the initial question and the final statement: that the next few lines defy that form so blatantly: the next two lines both contain at is, she wished to pair “eternity” with “innocence” and “mortality” with “guilt.” least one caesura, causing the reader to pause unnaturally in the middle of the This congruence further enhances the reference to Adam and Eve in the Garden line, and enjambment, forcing the reader to continue reading when they would of Eden, for before Adam and Eve had partaken of the fruit, they were innocent naturally pause. These first few lines are also startling in that their meaning is and would have lived forever, but as soon as they disobeyed God’s command, obscure, especially in relation to the rest of the poem. They do, however, serve they not only accrued guilt, but were also sentenced to die. In initially using this to establish a parallel that is maintained throughout the poem. This parallel is reference as a question, Moore sets up the problem in her poem, the struggle particularly important, since it makes connections between disparate ideas. between innocence and guilt, mortality and eternity; she then addresses this These patterns of tension within the form and the parallel of phrases and question throughout the poem before finally reconciling it in the last couplet. ideas are continued in the next stanza. In fact, there is a case of enjambment While Moore’s poem “What Are Years?” achieves a unity of meaning between stanzas one and two that particularly emphasizes this struggle: “And and form, this poem nevertheless poses a question regarding its title: Why did

26 27 Moore choose the title “What Are Years?”—especially since it seems to have no relation to the topic of the poem? “Years,” units of time, are never mentioned— in fact, the only time mentioned is unquantifiable: “eternity.” This juxtaposition further demonstrates the principle of confinement, for years essentially confine and make eternity temporal. In this manner, the title embodies the main principle of imprisonment that is expounded upon in the body of the poem, which uses enjambment, caesura, and other poetic devices to exemplify Moore’s message that a poem can achieve a natural freedom of syntax within the confines of a John Corrales strict structure. Mondrian in the news

Reduction is true news. Always leave construction to the reader. A single axiom is responsible for the best of the whole, or part of the whole’s best. Write these on a wall inside where you work, in your mind’s walls. Oh, and mind Mondrian when you lay out your page. Each good page is 66 percent visual and uniform to this set of remembrances. Now make the connection. We have informed art.

Jessica Swanner Emergence Acrylic on canvas

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