RICHARD WILBUR'S POETRY: A CELEBRATION OF REALITY APPROVED m Mior Fro feasor Minor Processor director of 'the .Department of English Dear: of the Graduate School RICHARD WILBUR'S POETBX: A UELF.BR 4TIOM OF HEAll?'1 l n£i,j .i.o Presented to the Graduate Council uf the North Texas State University in Partial f'ulf 13 iment of the ft.equiremenr.s For the Decree of i'T/joTLr? Or' ART3 By Robert L. Snce> B. A Deu'oon, Texas l2.T:.Va, i9t'3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION ................. 1 II. A FRESH LOOK A.I REALITY. , . 9 III. FACING REALITY . 2? IV. THE CELEBRATION OF REALITY 45 V. CONCLUSION ........... 63 BIBLIOGRAPHY .... 66 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The C8J.ebration of reality in Richard Wilbur{s peetry lias significant implicat Ions .for contemporary literature and for contemporary man. In literature, hi3 celebration of reality point,s to the way out of the mood "of despair which VuS influenced irmch 01 literary thought in the twentieth century. For the individual! , the celebration c.f reality encourages man x.o turn from self to an appreciation for r e a1j t y whi c h mak e s 1i fe worIhwhi1e. Wilbur correctly describes this time as one of "... b.-id cojumunicati or3. when any seIf-transe endenc-s is hard to come by. , , .,?^ Interested mainly in themselves. people fail to communicate with others, and they fail to treat others with respect. Current problems such as the threat, of nuclear war and racial discrimination have their rootr: in the failure to have respect for other persons. Kan T s preoceupation with self and his own needs may explain the pessimistic attitude popular in current literature. T ~F.i chard hilhur, ''The Pottles Become K ew} Too,'' j^u&rterl^ Review of Literature, VII (1953 5, 185. If everything coos not si:*it the .needs of the selfish person, then be thinks that the »vorld has turned against him. In a similar way of thinking, if iran &uffei-3 hardships and finally death, then the world a»ust be antagonist i c to man or ignorant of his needs. This attitude also affects .literary criticism. In his review of Richard Wilbur's took of poetry Things of This World., Hyom Pints:"k remarks that. ''Joy Is a rare bird under any circumstances, but in our days, if our poets are 2 to bear witness, it is as elusive as a lunar rainbow."' PlutzikTs review concludes with the comment, "How can he r~ ^Wilbur "1/ be so damnably good natured in an abominable world?"-'< Such limited views as thai: of Plat zik make it difficult for one to see the world as anything but bad. Bertrand Russell recognizes the pessimistic view exempli- fied by Plutzik'c comments as common to many times in history other than the present. Ke notes that the pessimists believe -chat, they are the only ones xvho see life as it really is,^ Further examination of the pessimistic viewpoint leads Russell o *"ryam Flufcaik, "New Books in Review: Recent Poetry,n la] e Review. >11 ,VI {Wiater, J957)» 295, 3?j3ld., p. ?9(>. "'"Bei-trand Pv.sseil. The C^onqusst of Happiness (Garden City New York, 1930), p. 25- to conclude that excessive introspect:i.or) is the root of the trouble." In hi a opinion, ''Fundamental h&ppiness depends more than anything else upon what may be called a friendly- interest in things.?;W This statement agrees with Wilbur's view that satisfaction in life is found in an appreciation oi reality. The probJem of boredom is also related to an interest in things outside oneself, i!The special kind of boredom from which modern urban populations suffer is inti- mate.; y bound up with tiv'-dr separation from the life of Earth, ilusoejJ. goes on to say that &sr. derives something essential to his well-being from ccntacc with the earth. The culti- vation of pleasures which have no relation to the earth. such as gambling, leaves a person "feeling dusty and dissat- isfied, hungry for he knows not what.,r^ Dr. Eric Berne, a psychiatrist, also calls attention to man's need to relate to reality in his book Games People Play> The author regards th;- ability to be sensitive to life outside 'n/ussell, p. y3 > 6~. _ „r * ibid , ? p, 67\ V M bid, ppfl 65-66. the self as a sign of ?.2tvrity and individuality, iJe i&bels this ability "awareness." He observes that . most of the members of the hutian race have lost the capacity to be painters, poets and musiciansj and are not left the option of seeing and hearing directly even if they can afford to; they must get it secondhand. The recovery of this ability is called here "awareness. This "awareness" becomes particularly important to those who .realise that life is short and that living cannot be post- poned until a better time,-^ These statements by Russell and Berne make an interesting complement to Richard Wilbur's insistence that reality is toe important to be ignored, Appreciation is only part of a larger concern which Wilbur discusses, that of relating to .reality. Wilbur uses a rain-dancer as an example of one who successfully apprehends reality, He makes the point that though the rain-dancer may fail in his primary purpose of obtaining rain for crops or another necessary reason, there is something else which prompts him to dance again, even after failing. Wilbur uses a quotation from Susanne Langer to give the answer that . , the most important virtue of ^Eric Berne, Games People Play (New York, 196?), p. 17#. 10Ibid->.P. 1^0. the rite is not, so much it.« 'Tactical as its religious success . its power to articulate a relation between man 1 1 and nature. ." - Wilbur's interest in pan's relation to nature arises from his recognition that, wanfs selfishness has kept-man from appreciating much that is valuable in nature. ' J While insisting en the importance of relating to nature, Wilbur recognises that relating to nature is not eas7. The attempt to relate directly to the rain makes the rain-dancer's work very difficult. In fact, V/ilbur suggests it is impossible to relate directly to reality. Since reality cannot be under- stood directly, the artist nas no choice but to approach it indirectly.12 He does this out of "respect for reality," V.'ilbur says that ". , „ tiierc is no good art which is not considered oblique. If you. respect the rea.licy of the world, you know you car; only approach it by indirect means. It is the purpose of artistic form to distinguish the 'work of art iron that wmch is real so that tnere will be no confusion. The ionrial aspects of the worx indicate to the audience that ,MThis is not the wor.ld, but a pattern imposed upon the world 1 '• Wilbur, "The Bottles Become Now, !oo/T p. 1#9, -^-Ibid. or found in it; this is a partial and provisional attempt to establish relations between things.1 Richard WilburT s philosophy of poetry grows out of n:Is concern for a .relationship with reality. In his philosophy reality must always be the poet's first concern because it is from this confrontstiou with "the reality of things" that poetry derives its strength; otherwise it is likely to be ineffective.^ With reality as his raw material, the poet proceeds to find some principle which makes the organisation of this .reality possible, Wilbur's opinion is that "organiz- ing oneself and the world" is a "major" purpose of poetry,, He decided to use poetry for organizing the world when it got "cut of har.d" for him during his experience as an infantry- man in World War II in Europe. An occasional confrontation with "the threat of chaos" such as the experience of World — 16 Vvar ±1 can add vitality r,o poetry, in his opinion. Contrary to wnat some critics believe, Wilbur does not say that "the 17 t fir eat of chaos" should bo the primary concern of poetry."" ~1 f "^Richard Wilbur, "Genie in the Bottle," Writing Poetry, edited by John Holmes (Boston, I960), p. 129. «- •^Wilbur, "The Bottles Become New, Too," p, ]c7. 1 A -'"Stanley J. Kunitz, ed., Twentieth Century Authors First Supplement (New York, 1955), p. 1080. -^'Marries G. Southworth. "The Poetry of Eichard Wilbur," College English, XXII (October, i960), 29. 7 The poem functions ss a chsnnel Tor communicating the poet's view of reality ^nd his organisation oi' the world. Wilbur explains this facet of art fs relation to reality by speaking metaphorically about art as a window oi\ the world or as a door between msn and the world. The window allows man to see the world, making a "dynamic relation" possible, 1 $ but a door keeps man from seeing reality as it is. If one uses poetry as an end lr, itself while ignoring the reality it could communicate, then the poem has failed in Wilbur's opinio::. A "dynamic relation with reality" makes the poem 19 authentic. A relationship to reality makes man's life authentic, too, and adds depth to it as Berne and Russell noted. For a person not acquainted with the richness that is in nature and the reality around him, Richard Wilbur's poetry can be quite exciting. His poetry opens new perspectives on ordi- nary events and objects. Seen through Wilbur's poems, reality becomes meaningful, and t;he lines of the poem "The Sirens," !'I never knew the road /From which the whole world didn't call away," express this new awareness very well.