"Reluctance"

Reluctance

By Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods

   And over the walls I have wended;

I have climbed the hills of view

   And looked at the world, and descended;

I have come by the highway home,

   And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,

   Save those that the oak is keeping

To ravel them one by one

   And let them go scraping and creeping

Out over the crusted snow,

   When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,

   No longer blown hither and thither;

The last lone aster is gone;

   The flowers of the witch hazel wither;

The heart is still aching to seek,

   But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man

   Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

   To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

   Of a love or a season?

Here in Central Minnesota we have already had a taste of winter; some of our leaves were frozen to the ground when they were picked up.  We know how this ends: fall gives way to winter just as summer gave way to fall.  “And lo, it is ended.”  But we are reluctant to accept it.  “The heart is still aching to seek, /But the feet question ‘Whither?’”

            …when to the heart of man

                        Was it ever less than a treason

            To go with the drift of things…

                        And bow and accept the end…”

Frost explicitly references the end “Of a love or a season,” but we know he also means we are reluctant to accept death, the ultimate end, as well as the loss of a love or the coming of winter.

What is striking is the way that reluctance, in this case, goes against, not only nature (at the end of a season), but also reason:

            Ah, when to the heart of man

                        Was it ever a treason

            To go with the drift of things,

                        To yield a grace to reason,

            And bow and accept the end…

Endings are, not only natural, but also inevitable, and resistance goes against reason.  However, it would be treasonous to expect “the heart of man” to “accept the end.”  Human “nature,” it seems goes against the external nature of the seasons, as well as its own power of reason. Head and heart are in conflict as we struggle to accept the inevitable.

Who among us has not experienced that struggle? Who among us cannot identify with that reluctance to accept the inevitable end?

At this time of Thanksgiving, as we celebrate all that we have to be grateful for, let us forgive ourselves our reluctance to accept the inevitable endings.  And may our gratitude for new beginnings never cease!

"The name--of it--is 'Autumn'--"

The name—of it—is "Autumn"—
The hue—of it—is Blood—
An Artery—upon the Hill—
A Vein—along the Road—

Great Globules—in the Alleys—
And Oh, the Shower of Stain—
When Winds—upset the Basin—
And spill the Scarlet Rain—

It sprinkles Bonnets—far below—
It gathers ruddy Pools—
Then—eddies like a Rose—away—
Upon Vermilion Wheels—

--Emily Dickinson

How many people do you know who would associate the spectacular red displays of fall color with blood?  The conventional view would be of nature in red apparel putting on a vivid show of beauty.

But Emily Dickinson did not see the world conventionally.  Her poems are more likely to disrupt and challenge our conventional views of reality.  (See blog posts September 2009)

“The hue of" Autumn “is Blood”; the tree line upon the hill is “an Artery”; and “along the Road” it is “a Vein.”  Fallen leaves “in the Alleys” are “Great Globules,” while falling leaves are a “shower of Stain” and “Scarlet Rain” (which, like blood, is spilled).  Is it the blood of violence and death?  Menstrual blood that sheds potential life? Is it the “stain” of human sin and guilt?

In the third stanza the imagery becomes more innocent, as leaf fall “sprinkles” ladies’ “Bonnets”; it “eddies like a Rose and whirls away “Upon Vermilion Wheels.”  But even here “It gathers ruddy Pools.”

Is this representation of fall an image of that ancient “fall” from innocence that recurs in nature and in every human life?  Is it a harbinger of the death of nature in winter yet to come?  Written in 1862, is it an image of bloody civil war?

Regardless, even the more playful images of leaves sprinkling bonnets and wheeling away on the wind, cannot save this poem from suggestions of the dark side of human experience—violence, death, evil.

Even if we interpret references to arteries and veins as images of life coursing through our bodies, this life leaves a stain when it is spilled in falling leaves.

What are we to make of this virtual riot of red?

It certainly seems to suggest that, just as Dickinson explored psychological pain as no other poet before her had done (see Sept. 19, 2009, blog post), she also explored the dark underbelly of nature’s beauty—nature red in tooth and claw, violence, death, the “fallen” side of creation (including human nature).

Another poem about Autumn, “These are the days when Birds come back,” treats Autumn as a “fraud” that can sometimes fool us into thinking summer is still with us.  She compares the reprise of summer warmth in Autumn to a “Sacrament of summer days” and a “Last Communion,” a remembrance of summer’s death, just as holy communion commemorates Christ’s sacrifice.

While Dickinson has many poems that celebrate nature, it seems the dark side was never far from her mind.

However spectacular the displays of fall color, she seems to have been ever cognizant of the coming winter.

"Summer": A Meditation

Summer is an active time of year when we spend more time outside, enjoying nature, attending outdoor events, vacationing and, despite ragweed and mosquitoes, mostly reveling in the sensory pleasures of long sunny days and a green, growing world.  In mythology summer represents the prime of nature, vitality, fertility, and the fullness of life, before the decline of nature in fall and its “death” in winter.

According to this pattern I’ve been spending my summer gardening and appreciating the backyard pleasures of birds, blooms, and nature’s bounty, as one might surmise from the neglect of this blog.  In search of an appropriate reading to end this neglect, I began looking for a “summer” poem.  One interesting observation is that there seem to be more poems about the end of summer than about its full glory, perhaps because poetry is more contemplative than active, and the end of summer reminds us of the decline and fall to come, inspiring us to poetic meditation.

Amy Lowell’s 1912 meditation on summer (see previous post), however, takes us in a different direction, making the case for the indoor life of winter, of city life over “fields and woods,” of intellectual effort over sensory delights, of human interaction, art, civilization and the life of the mind.

Lowell invokes the ancient debate over rural vs. urban, body vs. mind, nature vs. the human realm of intellect, art, and society.  Of course, it’s a false dichotomy since it is no doubt natural for humans to gather in society, to think, to create artifacts, to “improve” on nature, and seek to mitigate the dark side of “tooth and claw.”  Nature is as fraught with death and danger in summer as it is with life and growth.  And, as Lowell reminds us, the world of art and civilization in winter can be full of “the pulse and throb of life.”

Curiously, though, Lowell’s poem, while it ostensibly favors the “human world,” seems to spend as much or more effort on the pleasures of nature at full bloom in summer as it does on the “labor,” “inspiration,” and “vivid life of winter months.”  The strongest images in the poem summon “the voice of waters,” “great winds,” “sunshine and flowers,” “moonlight playing,” a “sleeping lake,” “nodding ferns,” “the blue crest of the distant mountain,” and “the green crest of the hill…”  The power of the nature imagery seems to undercut the stated preference of the poem for city life and human society.

Yet the structure and style of the poem support the value of art and civilization.  Written in traditional blank verse, the poem parallels the Greek choral structure of strophe, antistrophe, and epode.  Lines 1-12 focus on those who find “inspiration” in nature and consider the city to be “a prison house.”  Line 13 makes a turn, renouncing the preference for nature but, in the same line, announcing, “I love the earth…” Lines 14-29 develop the speaker’s love of nature in lavish detail, but in line 30, again there is a turn; and the final 12 lines develop her preference for “the human world,” which is “like a lantern shining in the night/To light me to a knowledge of myself.”

The poem could be read as contradictory, perhaps unconsciously revealing a preference for nature in an argument for human society, or it could be read as representing a fragile balance between the love of both.  Despite her love of the active, outdoor life of summer, she longs for the contemplative, indoor life of winter.

So what?  Is “Summer” merely an expression of the poet’s perhaps conflicting preferences?  Or is there more to it?

The style and structure, as well as the stated preference for art and civilization over nature suggest a classic, somewhat aristocratic, certainly upper class, perhaps elitist, perspective.  Some readers may even hear a quasi-imperialistic message of Western dominance.  Others will note how, if there is such a message, it is clearly undercut by the honorific tone in the nature imagery, with its implicit celebration of the romantic, the democratic, and all that is wild and uncultivated. 

Contemporary readers may well note that nature is gendered as “she,” a traditional way of associating women with the body, as opposed to the mind.  Some may even speculate on the possibility of a subliminal message of conflicted sexuality.

Mythologically, the poem invokes the universal contrast between youth and age, life and death, body and mind, nature and art.

However you choose to read it, Amy Lowell’s “Summer” is more than simple self-expression.  It is more like self-reflection or an extended meditation, in which the speaker develops a complex identity with a complex relationship to her world.

And with that, I return to the pleasures of my summer, with greater anticipation of and appreciation for the pleasures of winter to come.

"Summer"

Summer

Some men there are who find in nature all
Their inspiration, hers the sympathy
Which spurs them on to any great endeavor,
To them the fields and woods are closest friends,
And they hold dear communion with the hills;
The voice of waters soothes them with its fall,
And the great winds bring healing in their sound.
To them a city is a prison house
Where pent up human forces labour and strive,
Where beauty dwells not, driven forth by man;
But where in winter they must live until
Summer gives back the spaces of the hills.
To me it is not so. I love the earth
And all the gifts of her so lavish hand:
Sunshine and flowers, rivers and rushing winds,
Thick branches swaying in a winter storm,
And moonlight playing in a boat’s wide wake;
But more than these, and much, ah, how much more,
I love the very human heart of man.
Above me spreads the hot, blue mid-day sky,
Far down the hillside lies the sleeping lake
Lazily reflecting back the sun,
And scarcely ruffled by the little breeze
Which wanders idly through the nodding ferns.
The blue crest of the distant mountain, tops
The green crest of the hill on which I sit;
And it is summer, glorious, deep-toned summer,
The very crown of nature’s changing year
When all her surging life is at its full.
To me alone it is a time of pause,
A void and silent space between two worlds,
When inspiration lags, and feeling sleeps,
Gathering strength for efforts yet to come.
For life alone is creator of life,
And closest contact with the human world
Is like a lantern shining in the night
To light me to a knowledge of myself.
I love the vivid life of winter months
In constant intercourse with human minds,
When every new experience is gain
And on all sides we feel the great world’s heart;
The pulse and throb of life which makes us men!

Amy Lowell ( 1874-1925)

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"Desert Places"

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast

In a field I looked into going past,

And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,

But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it--it is theirs.

All animals are smothered in their lairs.

I am too absent-spirited to count;

The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness

Will be more lonely ere it will be less--

A blanker whiteness of benighted snow

With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars--on stars where no human race is.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.

    

It’s amazing how you can read something multiple times, then come back to it and discover something new.  I’ve often read Robert Frost’s “Desert Places” and admired it for the way it moves from an ordinary winter scene to the vastness of outer space to the familiarity of inner space.  Recently I studied it more closely and found more to appreciate. 

First, let’s note that this “nature” poem is not of the uplifting or sentimental variety.  Instead we get a stark image of human isolation and loneliness in the midst of a desolate scene in which nature is blank and expressionless.  It is striking that this northern winter image is compared to a southern “desert,” but this is but one in a series of striking contrasts.

We have white “snow” and dark “night,” both “falling fast”; “smooth” snow cover with “weeds and stubble” poking through; natural desolation and human “loneliness”; “blanker whiteness” and “benighted snow”; earthly isolation and the emptiness “between stars”; external and internal absence.  The contrasts create a psychic drama as the speaker realizes, not only his own insignificance in the vastness of nature, but also that of the human species on its lonely planet.

This existential image of human isolation is conveyed in Frost’s characteristically familiar style.  The predominately iambic meter, interlocking rhyme scheme, plain diction, sentence fragments, and use of dashes, all make the poem sound conversational, while the occasional irregularity of rhythm, reversal of word order and the use of words like “absent-spirited” and “benighted” offer a slight elevation of style.  The whole is rendered as an ordinary experience that is accompanied by an extra-ordinary shock of recognition.

The winter scene is personified as lonely in stanza two but realistically depicted in stanza three as inanimate, having “nothing to express.”  The emptiness “between planets” is associated with the emptiness of a “desert,” as both of those images, like the winter scene itself, serve as metaphors for psychic absence.  Ironically, this message of disconnection is belied by the speaker’s ability to identify with the external world and the reader’s ability to identify with the speaker. 

A poem about disconnection relies on connecting with disconnection.  The comparative devices of personification and metaphor are used to create a sense of isolation and contrast.  Earthly winter, the human individual, unearthly space, and the earthly desert are all connected by their shared disconnection.  At the heart of human experience is this unavoidable contradiction between alienation (absence) and interconnected relationship (presence).  We are connected in our isolation.

From a socio/political perspective the poem serves to elevate individualism over collectivism, yet it could be read as disrupting this false binary, suggesting that our ability to identify with and relate to what is external to us transcends our isolation and makes social relationships possible, indeed, perhaps redemptive.  As Bertrand Russell wrote, “In human relations one should penetrate to the core of loneliness in each person and speak to that” (Autobiography Vol 1, pp. 219-221).

Viewed from a mythic perspective, the poem may suggest the Fall, death, loss, even apocalypse, but again, as spring is foreshadowed in the winter solstice, so redemption, rebirth, recovery, and resurrection are foreshadowed in the mythic cycle of eternal return. 

All of this may seem to take us far afield from the original poem, but, as we connect with that poem about loneliness, we transcend our individualism; as we identify with human emptiness, we transcend our isolation.

  

Walt Whitman

Along with Emily Dickinson Walt Whitman was the most experimental and technically innovative American poet of the 19^th century (see blog post Sept. 20, 2009).  While Dickinson disrupted conventional metrics, rhyme, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar, Whitman basically threw conventional poetic meter out the window and invented a whole new form—free verse.

Many readers think free verse is verse that doesn’t rhyme, or they get it confused with “blank verse.”  Blank verse is actually unrhymed iambic pentameter.  Shakespeare used it a lot.  Free verse may or may not rhyme, but it is completely free of meter that can be scanned, counted, and labeled as iambic, trochaic, anapestic, or dactylic.  Whitman created a completely new way of achieving rhythmic effects in poetry.  He actually used grammar instead of the stressed and unstressed syllable patterns used in the conventional poetry of his time.

In 1855 he published Leaves of Grass and revolutionized the writing of poetry, dispensing with rhyme, as well as meter and regular verse forms.  Yet his poetry still had rhythm, as well as other sound effects, such as assonance, consonance, and alliteration.  What was revolutionary was his use of parallelism or repetition of grammatical structures to create rhythm.

It sounds so tame, but readers and critics alike were shocked, saying that his sprawling lines bore no resemblance to anything recognizable as poetry.  Ironically, later critics have traced Whitman’s use of parallelism to the Bible, a text that those shocked readers would probably have been very familiar with.  But in those days Biblical “prose,” no matter how rhythmic, was not considered to be in the same category as “poetry.”

Lest anyone think Whitman’s innovation was a matter of chance or accident, the opening poem in Leaves of Grass reveals Whitman’s consciousness, whether his use of parallelism was Biblically-based or not, that he was doing something different, new, and “modern.”

One’s-Self I Sing

One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person,

Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.

Of physiology from top to toe I sing,

Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far,
The Female equally with the Male I sing.

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,

Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.

The kernel structure of the poem is the inverted sentence “_________I sing,” which is repeated four times, establishing a pattern, not of meter, but of grammar.  Each separate sentence features its own extension or modification, thus creating grammatical variety, as well as repetition. 

The content of the poem asserts the modern ideas of individualism and democracy and expands those ideas to include the equality of body and “brain” and of male and female.  While individualism and democracy were well established values in 1855, the elevation of the body and of women was highly controversial, even more so when associated with “laws divine.”  Whitman uses a revolutionary poetic form to reinforce revolutionary ideas.  And he reveals his conscious intention in his final line, “The Modern Man I sing.”

If Dickinson challenged conventional views of reality (see blog post Sept. 19, 2009), Whitman challenged conventional values, especially when it came to gender and sexuality.  Not only did he assert the equality of the sexes, he celebrated the human body as much as he did nature and openly expressed both heterosexual and homosexual attraction, attachment, and desire.

While Dickinson could barely get published, Whitman’s published poems were reviled, not only as unpoetic but as obscene.  Both were too far ahead of their time to be fully appreciated in their lifetimes, but, together, they have exerted more influence on modern poetry than any other pair, and they did it by writing poetry as it had never been written before.