The Narrator of "The Blessed Damozel" Author(s): Paul Lauter Source: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 73, No. 5 (May, 1958), pp. 344-348 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3043541 . Accessed: 25/06/2014 03:58

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This content downloaded from 188.72.96.115 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 03:58:20 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions because Hester and Dimmesdalehave not yet given Boston its due meed. Pearl does so, and is no longer required to languish there but is permittedto mingle the moralitywhich Boston has imposed upon her withthe materialitywhich Boston unhealthilydenies. For The Scarlet Letterto have lived up to the theoryof romance's ethical demands,then, its Boston would have to have been much morelike the Salem whichHawthorne saw fromhis windows.He did not regret,he tells us, his initial entranceinto his duties as Surveyor of Customs. Because he had workedat Brook Farm, mingledwith Channingand Thoreau, and been influencedby Emerson and Long- fellow,it was a healthything for him to get into active life. The Inspectorwas a necessaryantidote for Alcott. He tells us this im- mediatelybefore expressing his sense of his inabilityto writea good book about the life aroundhim, in orderto absolvethe daily activity of the customhouse fromresponsibility for its apparentsterility, a responsibilitywhich, he believed,actually resided in his perception of it. The Scarlet Letter disappointshim because the materiality of the life in it is, ultimately,too close to an objectificationof the hiddenlives of its charactersso that his interpretationof the actual and the imaginaryis not matchedby its ethical counterpart. This supposed shortcomingof The Scarlet Letter explains why Hawthorne'ssubsequent romances took the directionthey did. After his firstfull-length work, the historicalpast ceases to be the scene in which Hawthorneset his work,because he wished his scene to providemore of the materialitywhich enteredinto his view of the good life than it did in The Scarlet Letter. The past, of course, remainedan importantelement of that good life, and, therefore,of the romance'ssubject-matter, but it was subordinatedto the demands of the immediateworld of the work,and shapedbut did not constitute it. The living are verymuch in controlof The House of the Seven Gables as its reachesits resolution.

University of California, Berkeley LARZER ZIFF

The Narratorof "The Blessed Damozel "

" The Blessed Damozel" has for so long been etherealizedas the expressionof "longing of the [dead lady] in heaven for her lover

344 Modern Language Notes

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.115 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 03:58:20 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions on eartlh" I that one is temptedmerely to bow reverentlybefore this apotheosisof the poemand pass quietlyon. But if, as Lafeadio Hearn suggests,2Rossetti wished only to portraya sad maiden awaitingher loverin heaven,why did he introducethat earthlylover as the " I " character? What functiondoes the ostensiblenarrator serve if this is simply a tale of maidenly woe? To regard the earthlylover's commentsas nothing more than artificialdevices of contrast or dramaticpathos admits a serious structuralweakness into the poem by implyingthat the parenthesesserve no truly integralfunction. I believea clearerview of the nature and the shortcomingsof " The Blessed Damozel " can be achievedby recognizingthat they are not onLlyorganic, but that theypresent the true nucleusof the poem. W. M. Rossettiin his Memoirfurnishes an insightinto the genesis of "The Blessed Damozel ": In 1881 Rossetti gave Mr. Caine an account of its origin, as deriving from his perusal and admiration of Edgar Poe's Raven. "I saw" (this is Mr. Caine's version of Rossetti's statement) "that Poe had done the utmost it was possible to do withl the grief of the lover on earth, and I determined to reverse the coilditions, and give utterance to the yearning of the loved one in heaven." Along with The Raven, other poems by Poe . . . were a deep well of delight to Rossetti in all these years.3

Even assumingCaine's versionof Rossetti'sthirty-four-year-old recol- lectionto be accurate,we need not accept it as the definitionof the poem's subject. We have no more reason for adopting Rossetti's perhapsimagined, certainly memory-hazed notion of his poem'sorigins than we have for acceptingPoe's rationalizationof the composition of "The Raven." But the evidencecertainly shows that Rossetti did associate Poe with " The Blessed Damozel." The aestheticprinciple underlying Rossetti'spoem is verylikely Poe's: The death . . . of a beautiful voman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world-and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such a topic are those of the bereaved lover. (" The Philosophy of Composition")

I Lafeadlio hearn, Pre-R?aphaelitesand Other Poets (New York, 1939), p. 20. 2 "c This is the story of a woman in heaven, speakingfof the man she loved on earth. She is waiting for him. She watches every new soul that comes to heaven, hoping that it may be the soul of her lover. While waiting thus, she talks to herself about what she will do to make her lover happy when he comes, how she will show him all the beautiful things in heaven, and will introduce him to the holy saints and angels. That is all." Ibid. "Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Boston, 1895), I, 107.

VOL. LXXIII, May 1958 345

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.115 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 03:58:20 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions rrliesecond part of this dictum is oftenignored, but it is actually the keystoneof Poe's poetics: the death of beauty-Lenore, Ulalume -furnishes merelythe situation for many poems, while the true subject is the mental state of the bereaved lover, the progressof disenchantmentor delusionin the mind of the speaker. The parentheticalcomments in "The Blessed Damozel" chronicle just this type of disintegrationof rationality.Immediately after the openingpicture of the Damozel, the loverbemoans his lonelinessand l)ermnitsa firsttempting suggestion of supernaturaldirect contact with her to creep into his mind. Rationallyhe rejectsthe hoped-for miracleas illusion; he is still willing (or able) to acceptthe evidence of his senses as final (11. 19-23). But seven stanzas later he wonders if othernatural phenomena-bird's song and bells-cannot actually be what he dreams they are-her voice, her step (11. 61-66). Now lhe does not rejectoutright the whisperingsof delusion; he has passed frominitial rationaldisbelief to chimericalhopefulness. When we next hear him directlyhe has fallenvictim to his desires and is actuallytalking with the imaginedpresence of his love: " Alas! We two,we two,thou say'st! " (1. 97). The splinterof irrepressible yearninghas swervedhis mind fromits groove,and it madly flies througha land of vision drawingeven the senses after. When we hear him at poem's end he sees not leaves but " her smile;" he hears not bells and a bird's song but " her tears." The passage of the lover fromsane doubt of his vision to irrationalbelief is completed. Clearlythe poem is, as it were,framed by these parentheses;but nore than that, the pictureof heaven and the Damozel is presented preciselyas the bereavedlover we have seen in the parentheseswould envisionit. The vision can be regardedentirely as the grievingand lonely lover's projection,embodying his physicalearthly preoccupa- tioiis mingled with normal religious and spiritual ideals: the lady is picturedas she appeared upon earth-but a day dead, warming the gold bar withher physicalpresence; heaven is seen as a corporeal place ofpeace and permanence,with distinct geographical relationships to the lover's bitter and mutable earth; the life after is viewed primarilyas a time for reunionof lovers. On the borderlineof delusion,the lovertransmutes his longingfor heaven into the Damozel's powerfulyearning toward earth. And, desire and suggestionhaving breachedthe levees of rationality,the loverpermits himself to be sweptinto imagininghis lady's words. As his sensoryimpressions had been convertedinto voices and steps,so

346 Modern Language Notes

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.115 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 03:58:20 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions his own thoughtsturn into the Damozel's speech; he projects into her moutha combinationof his own desiresand his own fears. The lover tries to separate his fear from his hope by restrictingdoubt to his ownmind, where it mayinterrupt the happyvision (11.97-102), but not permittingit to intrude into his imagined lady's speech, whereit will destroyall. Fear does, however,creep into the vision (e. g. 11. 72, 102), and when the Damozel reaches her request to Christ (11. 127-132), in effectthe lover's request throughher-the pure mnaiden's-mediation,the tone has grown desperateas anxiety effacesthe briefhope. The melancholywhich by now pervades the poem is not merely that of temporaryseparation to be assuaged by eternalbliss, but that of serious doubt of bliss. The lover mistrustshis qualificationsfor heaven,perhaps even disbelievesthe heavenhe wishesexists, and his projectionof the lady of course reflectsthese doubts. The key final passage, which Hearn " explains" as the lady's disappointmentthat the angels do not now bringher lover'ssoul, cannotbe so simplyand happily glossed. The last lines are bitter and sad, they leave one depressedand hopeless; and they conclude the poem by focussing upon the central subject-the earthlylover. The Damozel has put oii a false frontfor the angels, smiling as a soul in heaven should, as her lover hopes she can. But left alone she is no longer able to maintainthe frontand collapsesinto the tears whichlie at her heart and at the heart of her dreamer. His delusion,now complete,no longer can supporta wish-fulfillingvision of heaven, but dissolves into anxioustears utterlyand moroselyterrestial. We can see how the entire poem, not merelythe parentheses,is conicernedwith the bereavedlover's mind. " The Blessed Damozel " carriesPoe's examinationof the deluded lover to the point at which the delusion-the Damozel in heaven-is presentedas the reality, and thereality-the grieving lover-as a passing,shadowy parenthesis. This perhapsextreme statement does, I believe,have the virtueof focussingour attentionon the poem's true core: the dramaticpicture of delusion. Such an analysis also helps silence charges of senti mentalityand vulgarity. Such failings have been located not in the vehiclebut in the tenoras it was conceivedby criticslike Hearn -the " sentimentality" of the sad maiden and the "vulgarity" of a too-corporealheaven are really productsof interpretation,not of the poem itself. The view I have proposed does, however,open " The Blessed

VOL. LXXIII, May 1958 347

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.115 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 03:58:20 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Damozel" to anotherkind of complaint. In looking at the whole piece,I fearit mustbe admittedthat consistencyin toneand direction are perhapsmore apparent in the analysisthan in the poem. Rossetti, like his speaker, evidentlybecame fascinatedwith the lady's sad speechand concentratedmore upon its pathos than upon its correla- tion with the narrator'sstate of mind. Thus he failed to formulate the poem consistentlyeither as a Poesque studyin delusionor as the storyof a sad spiritin heaven. That the core of the poem is dramatic, I think we have seen; that the drama tends to be eclipsed by the brightvision of the Damozel, I thinkwe cannotfinally contradict.4

Dartmouth College PAUL LAUTER

Fall and Winter in Frost

The basic analogical implicationsof fall and winterhave provided RobertFrost with a ready-madescale upon whichto play innumerable metaphoricalvariations. His recurrentuse of imageryfrom these seasonsindicates a patternof formand themein whichthe end-seasons revealwhat KennethBurke calls " implicitequations " and " associa- tional clusters." Aindwe may,by examiningthis fall-winterpattern, as Burke points out, "find . . . what goes with what within this cluster,what kinds of acts and imagesand personalitiesand situations go withhis notionsof heroism,villainy, consolation, despair, etc." 1 Almost one-thirdof Frost's total poetic output employsfall or winter imagery. (Of only twenty-threespring or summerpoems, eighthave end-seasonovertones, and anotherfour are concernedwith mowingwhich may be coiisideredanalogous to the fall harvest.)2 Frost's mostcommon device for using the seasonsis an outer-inner weathermetaphor. The outer,the seasonsand theirparticular aspects, reflectsthe inner, man's psychologicaland spiritualstate. The changes signifiedin fall and the strugglesimaged in winterfrequently find resolutionin an ironicaction or an epig-rammaticdecision. In " Will-

4I wish to thank Professor William C. DeVane of Yale University for his kind aid and encourtifgementin the development of this DaDer. "Philosophy of Literary Form (Baton Rouge, 1941), p. 20. 2 Based on examination of Complete Poems (New York, 1949). All page referencesare to this volume.

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