Poetry and Poetics–Lit 204

Marianne Moore’s “Poetry” is fascinating because it speaks to the definition of poetry, and what its purpose and value is. The poem describes how “When they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, . the same thing may be said for all of us, that we / do not admire what / we cannot understand” (ll. 8-11). This, in conjunction with the poem’s idea that poetry is “a place for the genuine” (l. 3), expresses that poetry written just for the sake of creating intelligent-sounding phrases. It reminds me of Pope’s An Essay on Criticism in its argument that poetry should have something meaningful to say. Here, I understand her to be arguing that poetry should have a language element that is intriguing and “raw,” but should also have a real meaning behind it, a concrete idea that is not a “high-sounding interpretation” (l. 7). 

The form of the poem plays into this somewhat. It is written in free verse, with no sort of meter or rhyme, and can be easily read as prose. She writes in complete sentences, with each sentence a self-contained idea, which brings about the question of what makes this work into poetry. From her argument in the poem, it seems that her answer is the ideas: that she is conveying a real idea in a format that cannot be accurately captured in another form of writing. 

“Poetry,” interestingly, was heavily revised over her lifetime. The footnote after the title says that the poem was eventually cut down to the first three lines, making the entire poem “I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle. / Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers  in / it after all, a place for the genuine.” The choice to eliminate all other lines reflects the attitude towards poetry that she expresses in the poem. She takes out everything but, it seems, the heart of her argument: that poetry may not seem something good on first look, but it has the ability to convey real meaning. She adapts her work to better fit her ideal image of poetry. 

What most intrigued me about “Beat! Beat! Drums!” (by Whitman) was how the poem related the experience of war by civilians to the audience, and how clearly he identified its incursion into everyday life. He starts by discussing hallmarks of a society: the first stanza references church, school, marriage, and farming all being disrupted by the war effort, all being stunted in some ways as the war overtakes typical activity. These choices in institutions are significant in that they are, in some ways, foundational for a society: the existence of education, religion, and food are present everywhere and express a universality in the war experience. In the second stanza, Whitman starts to note the absence of people, alluding to conscriptions to the war, and describes what was likely a well-known feeling during the Civil War when this was written, that of a family mourning the loss of a loved one sent off to war. Curiously, I think the poem also captures the feeling of people not necessarily close to you, but still regular characters in your life, disappearing–the point to people of different occupations plays into this, and again expresses the universality of war, this time in the sense of who is disappearing (people of very different trades are being described as in the same situation). Finally, the last stanza describes war taking precedence over much else–it outweighs mothers, the elderly, children–all people considered to be somewhat innocent at the time. It leads me to think that Whitman is arguing that war has victims behind the front lines, too, in the society that is losing its people and its space in mind to the war effort. 

The most interesting part of Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey,” in my opinon, was towards the end of the poem, where he makes it clear that he is speaking to his sister. Up until this point, the poem focuses on the speaker’s changing relationship with nature: he compares his youthful love of pretty, pastoral scenes to his new relationship with nature, which involves a more emotional experience and inner connection. The speaker paints this as a consequence of life’s burden, the “heavy and weary weight/of all this unintelligible world” (ll. 39-40). However, the speaker’s sister is a living reminder of his younger perception of the world. Her presence brings back his younger self – he describes, “in thy voice I catch/ The language of my former heart, and read/My former pleasures in the shooting lights/Of thy wild eyes” (ll. 116-118). I think there is an interesting tension there – it’s never made explicit whether the sister is younger or older, and I think that distinction gives weight to different interpretations. If the sister is younger than the author, then it is possible that their relationship is similar to that seen in “I Have a Young Sister” from earlier this semester – the speaker could see himself and his youthfulness in his sister and be reminded in that sense. If the sister is similar in age or older, then it lends itself to a different reading – the sister could remind the speaker of his younger self because she’s known him in both forms. In some ways, siblings are the people that you know for the longest time – you meet them (often) before having any children and say goodbye to them (again, ordinarily) after any parents. In this sense, a sister could be a living capsule of memories that would contain the speaker at every point in his life, and therefore be a living reminder of his younger self. 

“Lord Randal” was a fascinating ballad, and my favorite of this week’s readings. It has two main refrains, “For I’m wearied with hunting, and fain wad lie down” and “For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.” The change from one to the other happens after it is revealed to the audience that Lord Randal’s hounds and hawks have died, and that he is also dying (quite the dramatic turn). The ballad starts out appearing as a love song, and that quickly changes to the point where Lord Randal essentially curses his love with “hell and fire” after realizing that she is killing him. I thought it was interesting how it was his mother who was the one who cared for him as he died and realized that he was dying in the first place. It makes Lord Randal seem younger, that he has his mother make his bed for him (especially since he is a lord, and the family should have staff for that), and that she calls him her “handsome young man” throughout the ballad. It’s as though she is coaxing information out of him the entire time, almost like a parent does with a child that doesn’t want to say what they did at school that day. The question and answer form is in itself very musical–there are tons of examples in music where an instrumentalist has to address the same type of call-and-response phrasing, and it goes back even to the idea of birdsong, and the way that one bird can generate a response from another. The consistency in words and pattern bring more attention to any changes, so the sixth stanza, the only one where the mother is exclaiming rather than inquiring, becomes the most important. It’s the only moment with an exclamation point in the poem, and it adds a sense of resignation to Lord Randal, since he himself does not change in demeanor. His claim that he has found his true-love in the second stanza implies that he is not aware of his imminent death until his mother unveils it, but he does not react to the news with any great emotion, almost revealing him to be in a sort of trance. 

I also spent a long time listening to various versions of the ballad, and the one I’ve pasted below was my favorite. It has different, more modern lyrics than the original in the anthology, and it occasionally changes lyrics to the point of changing the meaning, which made it not very useful in understanding the poem itself. However, I think the main purpose of a lot of these early ballads was entertainment, and this version was the one I enjoyed the most: https://youtu.be/Dqw6Pz8tGFM?si=mNRLBAggp_vpLynJ.