There's no clean dichotomy possible here. For instance, to read
anything at all distant from us we have to make sure we know what the
words mean/meant, unless we want to impose on the work the exoticism
of ignorance (as in te extreme case of homophonic translation). And
words are never merely denotative. So, if the poem captivates us and
we become increasingly interested in the mystery inherent in it (as
opposed to the mystery of our own incomprehension) we start
digging. The mystery remains, but becomes if anything more
mysterious with increased comprehension. In Thomas' case, one's
discovery of the blitz only deepens the poem, as does an awareness of
his very public acknowledgement of Marvell. And this latter is I
think unavoidable, given Thomas' determined archaism, if one has read
any baroque poetry.
When I was at Johns Hopkins I took a course on the Romantic Poets
with Earl Wasserman. A very unpleasant man, but a great reader. What
he gave me was an understanding that some of the words had changed
meaning, and that some of them were terms in a philosophical debate
about the nature of perception, unrecognizable to us now. I owe my
love of Wordsworth to Wasserman, and my love of Coleridge was
deepened enormously.
Reading is a dynamic process (has someone said that before?), and
what we bring to it as readers becomes a part of our own history and
the poem's history for us. Otherwise it's static, an object, pretty
sounds. But the poem also brings something to us--if it's not to
remain words sitting on a shelf to be admired, it demands of us, if
it works, that we understand the words more deeply, and that leads
inevitably to context. One becomes interested in how it meant for its
primary audience.
Maybe. The adolescent's more innocent and sometimes mistaken reading
is a perfectly ok reading, and can stimulate all kinds of rare
growth. Come back to the poem--any poem--twenty years later and it's
another ok reading.
Try this: we don't need to know how old Sophocles was when he wrote
the Oedipus at Colonus, but it's changed for us if we read it in old
age. And it doesn't hurt to know about the disaster of the
Pelloponesian War. But I loved the play when I read it at 15.
Or are we promoting an aestheticist stance, by which the work of art
is uniquely separate from everything else?
"It's up to the poet as to how much referential buttressing the poem
gets" sounds like a neat trick. The poet somehow limits our
understanding or interest in context, his and ours. An impossibility, I think.
Isn't this a version of the "intentional fallacy?" Itself a pretty
limited concept. The poet's "intention" is of course unknowable,
despite even a perfect knowledge of context, but one can certainly
posit an "intentional field," into which not all ideas about the poem
are admitted.
Mark
At 11:52 AM 8/25/2007, you wrote:
>Yes, as I was walking in to town this morning I was thinking that,
>yes, some of the delights of poems are making the external
>connections, some poetics require us to make connections. I was
>thinking as to how far you could go - i think my conclusion was that
>the hinterland of the poem should be shallow. Too far, and the poem
>drowns; too near (Houseman's stuff for example, some of JHPrynnes,
>where the gnomic reference get very gnomic and almost unintelligible),
>and the reader has nothing to grasp. Consider a poem as an object
>sitting in a sea of referents. It's up to the poet as to how much
>referential buttressing the poem gets.
>
>I'm not one to explore the intentional fallacy, but say we know
>Thomas's intentions: to put his poetry outside of time. Thomas was
>before Leavis, but I guess this is where Leavis & Thomas coincide. My
>teacher was taught by Empson, btw. This poem succeeds in that
>admirably. It is quite powerful in it's own right. When I first read
>it as a teenager I had no idea about the blitz. I only vaguely
>understood Dylan Thomas, yet this piece had quite an effect on me. To
>me, this poem stands alone, it needs no historicism. No knowledge of
>the Blitz; he makes no direct reference to the Blitz, yet here we are
>coating his poem with the historicism he tried to avoid. I note
>elsewhere in the conversation, people liked this outside-of-time
>quality of Thomas's. Can't have it both ways chaps.
>
>Roger
>
>Roger
>
>On 8/25/07, MJ Walker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > I can't help adding my ha'pence worth to this discussion. I "hear" your
> > teacher as in some way espousing Leavisian attitudes, Roger - I had a
> > teacher like that (Leavis-taught himself & with Geoffrey Hill among his
> > own pupils). 50s/60s Britain, no? I tend to think like that still,
> > though the arbitrariness of the Leavisian "canon" is very foreign to me
> > now. Poetry is all go with the flow, isn't it, and the contextual or
> > historical elements are part of what delights, intrigues & provokes as
> > one reads, just as the sounds, rhythms, structure etc are: if the poetry
> > affects one, one starts looking at more e.g. on WW2 Britain, including
> > poetry or prose, Eliot or H.D., Elizabeth Bowen, Patrick Hamilton or
> > Bryher's war journal; for "factual" reporting one can advert to the huge
> > BBC People's War archive - http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ - in any
> > case, all the "immediacy" will come from one's receptivity to the traces
> > variously worked over, especially including the "working over" itself
> > (and here one might also think of the phrase "kicking over the traces",
> > to follow your "strain" and "frame", Roger - the immediacy of erasure),
> > because "immediacy" in the usual sense is in any case an illusion; even
> > for someone who lived through the Blitz, there is a radical fissure
> > between his experience of Thomas's poem and his own "experience",
> > mediated as that must be by repression & inflation (even at the point of
> > experience itself & not just post-), personal (dis-)involvement. Poems
> > are as much "information" as any other writing, more In-Formation
> > perhaps. Lynda recently put a question about "conversational poetry" -
> > Pope was as conversational as any poet who ever lived, but also
> > rhetorical, satirical, allusive, formalistic; we can read all the notes
> > to *The Dunciad* & follow them up - or not: it's a great read anyway &
> > you can't help learning from it (not necessarily what Pope meant you
> > to...) Just listening to music, too, will teach you to feel through
> > connections, though you may never learn how to expound upon the strange
> > case of the Raised Fourth.
> > mj
> >
> > Roger Day wrote:
> >
> > >"immediacy" - that's an impossibility here, isn't it? The blitz at
> > >this distance is strained through film and television, political
> > >efforts to frame the times. I have no experience of bombing. Or death
> > >by fire. The last time I saw a dead person was my great aunt in 66.
> > >There is no "immediate experience" with this poem. It is a field of
> > >text. And I don't think Thomas is straining towards such a reading.
> > >
> > >My point is that it isn't a political poem; Thomas' politics - and
> > >there's evidence that he had some, although he was more enamoured of
> > >the bottle - was never allowed into enter into his poetry. To get it
> > >into a political poem, the reader has to work at gaining context.
> > >According to you, their reading might not be the "fullest" without the
> > >context, but whose reading ever is? If you go into the context, then
> > >maybe you're more interested in history, and the poem as an historical
> > >document, rather than as a poem per se. And that maybe your interest,
> > >but by no means is it the absolute end in interpreting a poem. I think
> > >this poem stands and falls on it's own merits without historical
> > >context.
> > >
> > >Translating a poem from one language to another; context becomes
> > >over-whelming in an effort to transfer a poem from one language to
> > >another, in order to provide "readability" context becomes
> > >overwhelming; but at some point, the translator has to give up, there
> > >is no translation, just an attempt to adhere to the spirit of the
> > >piece, an attempt to understand the poem in it's own right. You will
> > >always, no matter how diligent you are, come away with an incomplete
> > >picture, no matter how "faithful" you are to the original.
> > >
> > >I remember having this argument with a favourite English teacher of
> > >mine; I couldn't see how one of Chaucer's tale could ever be
> > >interpreted without historicism intervening. He argued for an
> > >interpretation of the piece it's own right, how the elements play out.
> > >Some translation has to take place, of course, but as you point out,
> > >you can never recover the complete piece. Amusingly, I've come around
> > >to his view.
> > >
> > >I don't think I've made myself particularly clear, ah well.
> > >Mis-interpret at your convenience.
> > >
> > >Roger
> > >
> > >On 8/25/07, kasper salonen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >>damn well put Mark.
> > >>
> > >>and Roger, I took the seer/politics remark quite tongue-in-cheek. and
> > >>by no means would I ever claim that poems have or should have no
> > >>political dimension. but I prefer to talk about poems in this respect,
> > >>rather than poetry. because the extent of political awareness or voice
> > >>in one's poetry is a choice of the poet.
> > >>
> > >>KS
> > >>
> > >>On 24/08/07, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>>I think there's another issue here, one that I confront all the time
> > >>>as a translator, but operative within a given language as well.
> > >>>Frost's somewhat fatuous statement that poetry is what gets lost in
> > >>>translation--certainly not always the case--would be more accurate if
> > >>>it named the loss "context." Context is what the poet doesn't bother
> > >>>to mention but assumes that his local (geographically or
> > >>>linguistically), contemporary audience knows without being told, and,
> > >>>more intimately, what's peculiar to his own life and unconsciously
> > >>>so. And the loss is finally inevitable--a lot of daily knowledge is
> > >>>absent from even so precise a chronicler as Proust, and poetry tends
> > >>>towards far greater brevity and compression as a goal in itself.
> > >>>
> > >>>So, we read Thomas with reduced awareness of the streets he walked,
> > >>>his shopping, his education, the texture of his work day and his home
> > >>>time, and the pressure of the news. Even if we try to reclaim them
> > >>>through a heroic Braudelian effort the best we can achieve is
> > >>>incomplete and self-conscious. And he's a near-contemporary writing
> > >>>more or less the same language we speak and write. Think of the
> > >>>distance from us of Donne, Chaucer, Basho or the author of El libro
> > >>>del mio Cid. Take the Canterbury Tales, a road cycle with no
> > >>>description of a road, a horseback journey on which the horses make
> > >>>no demands and the saddle imposes no pain. Let alone the social and
> > >>>spiritual, to which Chaucer alludes but which we only have incomplete
> > >>>access to by means of scholarship.
> > >>>
> > >>>As with Chaucer, we can't really read the poem that Thomas wrote--he
> > >>>assumed the context as a part of his text that didn't need
> > >>>mentioning, just as if when one mentions the redness of a rose and
> > >>>nothing else about it one expects a reader to know about the thorns.
> > >>>
> > >>>Which is to say that reading the poem without an awareness of the
> > >>>blitz is to strip it of much of its meaning and power, reading the
> > >>>poem with that awareness is to distance oneself from the immediate
> > >>>experience of it.
> > >>>
> > >>>So it goes.
> > >>>
> > >>>Mark
> > >>>
> > >>>At 01:17 PM 8/24/2007, you wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>>Seems slightly barren to segregate politics out of poetry completely
> > >>>>... and seers, so 12th century.
> > >>>>
> > >>>>On 8/24/07, kasper salonen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>>"The poet is the seer, but the prose, the film and the radio work are
> > >>>>>more politically aware"
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>I like this distinction
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>KS
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>On 24/08/07, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>>Thomas's psychodrama played out in that poem has little do with
> > >>>>>>Sitwell's fertive spinning. He might have intended it as a political
> > >>>>>>gesture - after all, he worked for the BBC during the war - but for
> > >>>>>>Thomas, the poetry was for being the seer, the ur-worldly, biblical
> > >>>>>>prohphet so little intentionally political is in the poem. The
> > >>>>>>politics is in the context, the refusal to mourn, get on with life
> > >>>>>>during war. Without the context, it becomes something else.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>The poet is the seer, but the prose, the film and the radio work are
> > >>>>>>more politically aware; he himself kept the two apart.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>Roger
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>On 8/24/07, Jon Corelis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>"In that great poem A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire,
> of a Child
> > >>>>>>>in London, with its dark, magnificent, proud movement, we see Death
> > >>>>>>>in its reality -- as a return to the beginning of things,
> as a robing,
> > >>>>>>>a sacred investiture in those who have been our friends since the
> > >>>>>>>beginning of Time. Bird, beast, and flower have their part in the
> > >>>>>>>making of mankind. The water drop is holy, the wheat ear a place of
> > >>>>>>>prayer. The 'fathering and all-humbling darkness' itself is a
> > >>>>>>>begetting force. Even grief, even tears, are a begetting. 'The
> > >>>>>>>stations of the breath' are the stations of the Cross."
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> -- Edith Sitwell
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>Is the unstated fact that the poem is about a child who died in the
> > >>>>>>>Blitz make this a political poem? Does knowing or not knowing it
> > >>>>>>>change the poem?
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>--
> > >>>>>>>===================================
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> Jon Corelis www.geocities.com/jgcorelis/
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>===================================
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>--
> > >>>>>>My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
> > >>>>>>"In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons."
> > >>>>>>Roman Proverb
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>--
> > >>>>My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
> > >>>>"In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons."
> > >>>>Roman Proverb
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> > We went down to the sea
> > all the poets together
> > and gave ourselves up to the waters
> > in various positions of loss:
> > Nathaniel Tarn
> >
>
>
>--
>My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
>"In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons."
>Roman Proverb
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