Edward Hirsch. How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999)

• „The Four Subjects of Poetry" (William Matthews) 1. I went out into the woods today, and it made me feel, you know, sort of religious. 2. We're not getting any younger. 3. It sure is cold and lonely (a) without you, honey, or (b) with you, honey. 4. Sadness seems but the other side of the coin of happiness, and vice versa, and in any case the coin is too soon spent, and on what we know not what. • I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry. (John Cage) •Victorian Poetry •Continuation of Romantic tradition •Before 19th c. poet=maker, poem=product, if discussed in terms of emotions: readers’ emotion •After Romanticism: poem=expression of poet’s emotion, poem retains umbilical link w creator, •uninspired poet: no longer out of touch w external force, but in no proper touch w his own feelings •Lyrical poetry=„spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Wordsworth) •Modernism: poem is an artefact whose existence is independent of poet’s emotions •Rhetoric: quarrel w others, arouse emotion in others vs Poetry: quarrel w ourselves, express emotion (Yeats) •Collingwood Principles of Art. Art: expression of emotions Craft: arouse emotions in others(rhetorics) •1st Romantic generation: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge •2nd generation: Byron, Shelley, Keats •3rd generation: Tennyson, Browning •4th generation: Rossetti, Morris, Swinburne Theoretical continuity • Expressive theory of art: poetry =overflow, utterance, or projection of the thought & feeling of the poet • poetry = imaginative process which modifies and synthetizes the images/thoughts/feelings of poet, • Artist = generates both artistic product and criteria by which it is to be judged (Keats. Ode on a Grecian Urn) *Thematic continuity • Romantic plot of infinite yearning „Infinite passion and the pain/ Of finite hearts that yearn” (Browning. Two in the Campagna) *Structural continuity • Opposites: art/ life, immortality/ mortality, ideal/ real • Conflict of faith & doubt, scepticism,agnosticism. • escape from utilitarianism to medievalism

--Narrative poetry: Tennyson. Lady of Shallot, Chr. Rossetti: Goblin Market --Dramatic poetry. Dramatic monologue. Tennyson: Ulysses, Browning: My Last Duchess --Aestheticism, image/text, ekphrasis The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) poet laureate, Baron 1830 Poems Chiefly Lyrical 1833 2nd book 1850 In Memoriam A.H.H (The Way of the Soul) requiem, elegy „nature red in tooth and claw” „Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.” Agnosticism+pantheism+mythological inspiration Conflict of religious faith+scientific knowledge moralizing (ideas)+ self-indulgent melancholy (mysticism) Topics: medieval legends, myths, domestic situations, nature Musicality of lgg: „The moan of doves in immemorial elms / And murmuring of innumerable bees.” Dramatic Monologue (persona poem) ULYSSES (1842) Homer’s Odyssey+ Ulisse in Dante’s Inferno *Hero faces old age: discontent, restlessness upon return to Ithaca, yearn to explore again: final line of determination: „to strive * Heroism resides in knowledge of limits+will to surpass them to seek, *soliloquy/ introduce son to public/ address mariners/ irony, to find, unreliable narrator/ clash bw contemplative vs active lifestyle/ and not to *clash of 2 voices: responsible social being+melancholic poet yield” *blank verse: iambic pentametre, but no rhyme • 4 emotional stages: 1. Reject barren life in Ithaca 2. nostalgy of Observation hill, heroic past, 3 recognize son’s governance, 4. plan another journey Antarctica, • *„I have become a name” U as textual tradition John William Waterhouse. The Lady of Shalott 1888 The Lady of Shalott (1833, 1842) Arthurian legend-based ballad Pastoral setting, mysterious lady, magic curse: weaves magic web without looking at world directly, sees only mirror reflections , „half sick of shadows” – see: Plato! Tragic love story (Lancelot&Guinevre, she wants to see reality and him even at cost of death, he fails to realize her sacrifice, can only see a pretty face) chivalric love questioned Metaphor of artistic creativity: *ivory tower: artist’s dilemma: to create work celebrating the world or live the world *creative power of gaze *the enchanted enchantress representation VS presence •Her magic song echoing down to Camelot, heard by reapers whispering about her VS tirra lirra of Sir Lancelot’s lighthearted lark song •weaving (text/ere, Moiras, Philomena, Penelope, Ariadne) •coming to writing: her name on the boat: illegible, her sacrifice doomed to be misunderstood, her floating on river: women’s writing “She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces through the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She look'd down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack'd from side to side; "The curse is come upon me," cried The Lady of Shalott.” Waterhouse. I am half-sick of shadows, said the lady of Shalott Holman Hunt. The Lady of Shalott. DG Rossetti. Holman Hunt Who is this? and what is here? /And in the lighted palace near/ Died the sound of royal cheer;/ And they cross'd themselves for fear/ All the knights at Camelot:/ But Lancelot mused a little space; He said, "She has a lovely face;/ God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott." Elisabeth (Lizzie)Siddal Robert Browning (1812-1889) • Venice, buried in Poet’s CoGod is the greater poet. • (poet:magician, prophet, philosopher) • Legendary romance w Elizabeth Barrett Browning. • Lasting creative partnership. Travels together in Italy, • buried in Westminster Abbey • Poet as subjective visionary→ objective, moral usefulness, respectable, literature of facts, synthesis + progress intertwined • To Elizabeth: „You speak out, you..I only make men & women speak, give you truth broken into prismatic hues, & fear the pure white light, even if it is in me, but I’m going to try” Dramatic monologue: speech in specific situation at critical moment, ironic interplay bw setting/action/spoken comments * Men and Women (crafstmen, travellers, collectors, enquirers) *The Ring and the Book (1868): murder case from 9 perspectives, no access to truth * Christmas Eve and Easter Day (1850) Life metaphorized as quest, adventure, pilgrimage Relation to world: state of excited, unquiet posession, yearning * Meeting at Night (1845) „two hearts beating each to each!” * Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came: knightly quest, dreamscape, suspense, dilemma of choice and will, tragic quest: find sg else than expected, open ending Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came And just as far as ever from the end! Nought in the distance but the evening, nought To point my footstep further! At the thought, A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend, Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned That brushed my cap--perchance the guide I sought.

Meeting at Night (1845) For, looking up, aware I somehow grew, 'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place The grey sea and the long black land; All round to mountains - with such name to grace And the yellow half-moon large and low; Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view. And the startled little waves that leap How thus they had surprised me, - solve it, you! In fiery ringlets from their sleep, How to get from them was no clearer case. As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i' the slushy sand. Yet half I seemed to recognise some trick Of mischief happened to me, God knows when-- Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then, Progress this way. When, in the very nick Three fields to cross till a farm appears; Of giving up, one time more, came a click A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch As when a trap shuts - you're inside the den! And blue spurt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears, Burningly it came on me all at once, Than the two hearts beating each to each! This was the place! I I wonder do you feel to-day Two in the Campagna As I have felt since, hand in hand, (from Men and Women 1855) We sat down on the grass, to stray In spirit better through the land, • Rome countryside, alternative social landscape This morn of Rome and May? • Gentle discord: Nature ↔contemplating mind II • Fleeting transcience of Nature, History, For me, I touched a thought, I know, Thoughts, Love Has tantalized me many times, (Like turns of thread the spiders throw • „Finite heart’s infinite yearning” Mocking across our path) for rhymes • Inability to ever perfectly capture ideas verbally, To catch at and let go. to grasp situation, to transcend crude III. experience of self-consciousness Help me to hold it! First it left The yellow fennel, run to seed • Chase thought through landscape There, branching from the brickwork’s cleft, • Despite helpful erotic suggestions of nature, Some old tomb’s ruin: yonder weed the total communion of lovers never achieved, Took up the floating weft, • we cannot feel other’s feeling … No. I yearn upward, touch you close, • Poetry like Love are imperfect: that makes Then stand away. I kiss your cheek, them beautiful Catch your soul’s warmth, - I pluck the rose • (see marital, autobiographical aspect) And love it more than tongue can speak- • Tradition of Romantic Weltschmerz, divine Then the good minute goes. Just when I seemed about to learn! discontent, philosophical pondering about Where is the thread now? Off again! human condition The Old trick! Only I discern- • enjambement Infinite passion, and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn. Robert Browning. My Last Duchess (1842) Ironic character sketches Monologue turned into confidential self-justification in defense of a questionable philosophy of life Victorian Catholic priest, Arab physician examining Lazarus, Shakespeare’s savage Caliban, American spiritualist medium Reflect drama in psyche: half-unconscious monologue Reader notices things speaker doesn’t intend to convey Historical location: Renaissance Italy Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso II, married Lucrezia Medici A tour of his artworks : portrait of first wife (ekphrasis) → „I gave commands, Then all smiles stopped together…” (euphemism, the haunting unsaid, a story of jealousy and tragic crime Marital prerogative→ aesthetic judgment Male desire of ownership: wife turned into art object Irony: repetition, just one in a collection, step in a tour, come see Neptune taming a seahorse Subversion? Duchess turned into icon becomes a countertext to Duke’s authority to textualize Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861. Aurora Leigh’s Dismissal of Rodney by Arthur Hughes A Curse for a Nation (pol. poetry) …Weep and write./ A curse from the depths of womanhood/ Is very salt, and bitter, and good.‘/ So thus I wrote, and mourned indeed,/ What all may read. The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point (1849) The Cry of Children (ag. child labour) Poems (1844) candidate for poeta lauraeta Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) Casa Guidi Windows (1851) sympathy for Tuscan struggle for liberty Aurora Leigh (1856) narrative poem in 9 books, play w stereotypes of Victorian novel Studious, intelligent, poetess heroine, handsome cousin proposes to her, first rejected bec he questions her artistic abilities, then grows worthy of her Reinterpret Marriage: to become a Wife=to become a perfect Artist (not subordination) Ch: fallen woman, raped girl, prostitute Influence on Dickinson and Woolf Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Aurora Leigh. 1856. • „natural things And spiritual, — who separates those two In art, in morals, or the social drift, Tears up the bond of nature and brings death, Paints futile pictures, writes unreal verse.” • „Passioned to exalt The artist's instinct in me at the cost Of putting down the woman's, I forgot No perfect artist is developed here From any imperfect woman. . . . Art is much, but love is more. O Art, my Art, thou'rt much, but Love is more! Art symbolises heaven, but Love is God And makes heaven.” [645-649; 656-659] Sonnets from the Portuguese Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

• XLIII. "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..." How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with a passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: Group of English Painters, poets, critics (1848) Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais Religion of Beauty, Cult of Personality, Aesthetic Movement: criticize Raphael’s Transfigurations, challenge classical doctrines, non-dogmatic multisensory details, synaesthesia, imagetexts archaic medieval quality, symb. ballad mode, autumn, Waking dream, reverie, melancholy: non-mimetic Beautiful, powerful, mysterious, muscular women Purity, simplicity, idealism, natural accuracy of detail Literary concerns, illustrations 1. Genuine ideas to express 2. attentive study of Nature 3. Heartfelt sympathy 4. make good Art Raphael The Transfiguration 1516-1520

Rossetti: Lilith+ Beata Beatrix Lizzie Siddal Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) • Poet, illustrator, painter, translator • Son of Italian scholar émigré • Muse Elizabeth Siddal (Millais’ Ophelia) • Symbolical, mythological images, legends • Aestheticism, idealization of beauty, eccentricity • Fleshly poetry: Nuptial Sleep: „He woke, and wondered more, for there she lay” • Seeks to contain sensual feel of fleeting moment • The Blessed Damozel (1847) • Sonnet poem at 18, altar-piece-like painting at 50 • Spiritual theme, idealization of eternal love, dead beloved looking down from Heaven, yearning • Minute details: 3 lillies in her hands, 7 stars in hair • Sensory experience: „I saw her smile/I heard her tears.” • Dante’s Vita Nuova, separated lovers • Spiritual depth of female soul, physical separation by death, infinite longing mirrored (above/below) • Painting: 1. Damself musing in Heaven 2. lover’s memories, fantasies 3. mourning lover’s chained earthly existence, thoughts Ecce Ancilla Domini Edward Burne Jones. The Beguiling of Merlin/ The Baleful Head William Morris. Queen Guinevere Burne-Jones and Morris Sir John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851

John Wiliams Waterhouse William Holman Hunt Millais. Christ in the House of his Parents Max Ernst 1926 The Blessed Virgin Chastises the Infant Jesus Before Three Witnesses: A.B., P.E. and the Artist,” Blasphemous narrative,” among the “icons of Surrealism.” Rossetti. The girlhood of Mary John Constable JMW Turner. The Fighting Temeraire JMW Turner. The Great Western Railway Christina Rossetti (1830-94)The Goblin Market (1862) •Fairy tale theme, cautionary tale of consumption •Biblical parable of temptation and sacrifice, Tree of Knowledge, Christian Eurachistie’s Transsubstantion •Betrayed expectations in love, commentary on the functioning of desire, lure of lustfulness •Hybris and redemption, crime +punishment (Ancient Mariner) •Erotic subtext: sensual imagery, rape fantasy, lesbian sexuality „She sucked and sucked and sucked the more Fruits which that unknown orchard bore, She sucked until her lips were sore, Then flung the empty rinds away” „Eat me, drink me, love me” „Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices, Squeezed from goblin fruits for you” •Split self:2 facets of Femininity: Fallen Woman vs Angel in the House: twin sisters: Mary Magdalene/Virgin Mary •Challenge misrepresentation of women: rebellious, daring, imaginative, sisterly solidarity •Come buy and buy! Consumerism, symbolics of market •End: storyteller, nostalgia, proto-feminism or correction •Romantic ideals: carpe diem ↔ vanitas mundi •Story of addiction VS ascetism •Fantasy of vampirism •From fairy tale to girls’ schoolbook to Playboy Magazine Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: “Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpeck’d cherries, Melons and raspberries, Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born cranberries, Crab-apples, dewberries, Pine-apples, blackberries, Apricots, strawberries;— All ripe together In summer weather,— Morns that pass by, Fair eves that fly; Come buy, come buy: Our grapes fresh from the vine, Pomegranates full and fine, Dates and sharp bullaces, Rare pears and greengages, Damsons and bilberries, Taste them and try: Currants and gooseberries, Bright-fire-like barberries, Figs to fill your mouth, Citrons from the South, Sweet to tongue and sound to eye; Come buy, come buy.”

• Warwick Goble, Arthur Rackham Warwick Goble Byam Liston Shaw, Richard Dadd The market as liminal space, locus of temptation, commodification of personal interaction (Neil Gaiman. Stardust)

Christina Rossetti. In an Artist’s Studio.

One face looks out from all his canvases, One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans: We found her hidden just behind those screens, That mirror gave back all her loveliness. A queen in opal or in ruby dress, A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, A saint, an angel -- every canvas means The same one meaning, neither more nor less. He feeds upon her face by day and night, And she with true kind eyes looks back on him, Fair as the moon and joyful as the light: Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim; Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright; Not as she is, but as she fills his dream. •MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-88) •On Translating Homer 1861 *Culture and Anarchy 1869: defense of liberal arts •„Dover Beach” 1867 (in New Poems) Occasional poetry: immediate experience→long-term memory symbolic landscape: elegiac brooding, metaphysical dilemmas, feelings projected on it Dramatic monologue Sea Waves outside: *symbolize Eternity, life goes on despite tragedies * romantic setting, starts w tender call to companion * Change: Ebb and flow of human misery, sea of pain loss of faith only LOVE remains as consolation, necessary for survival, for hope: „Let us be true to one another!” all the rest is illusory YET We are here on a darking plain, gloomy vision Soothing rhytmic movement of sea ↔ CHAOS in history, warfare „swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night” Thucydides’s account of Peloponnesian war, night fight at Epipolae, „mournful roar” Sophocles’s Antigone: curse by Gods Consolation and melancholy Memory of past – ancient literature– knowledge shaped by well-educated imagination— understanding—empathy—true love (last harbour) „Decadence” Charles Algernon Swinburne. Aubrey Beardsley Friedrich Nietzsche. 1882. The Birth of Tragedy Dionysos vs Apollon, creative ecstasy vs. logical order

• "Dionysic stirring arise either through the influence of those narcotic potions of which all primitive races speak in their hymns, or through the powerful approach of spring, which penetrates with joy the whole frame of nature. So stirred the individual forgets himself completely... for a brief moment we become ourselves, the primal Being, and we experience its insatiable hunger for existence. Now we see the struggle, the pain, the destruction of appearances, as necessary, because of the constant proliferation of forms pushing into life, because of the extravagant fecundity of the world will. We feel the furious prodding of this travail in the very moment in which we become one with the immense lust for life and are made aware of the eternity and indestructibility of that lust."