"Song" by Laetitia Landon

poem found here
 

First lines:
Where, O! where’s the chain to fling,
One that will bind CUPID’s wing,
 

the question of merit

 

This was originally a bit from the graduate years, to which I've given some paring and reworking. While it uses Laetitia Landon as the immediate subject, the questions asked apply across literature, especially in today's literary culture, where the question of the literary merit of texts is generally ignored in favor of anything but. (Added also to the Cabinet, here.)

 

Consider this:

This is a poem.

By most general definitions it is. Yet, the damning question: To what end? Can it be analyzed literarily? A cursory consideration recognizes the irony of its self-identification, which in turn raises the textual question of the inherent qualities that would make the snippet the object it claims to be. The primary defining characteristic would the breaking of the sentence into lines. Can anything else be said? anything more formal in nature? The sentence, considered in prose form, is naturally split into two halves: the rhythmic, semiotic unit /This is/ and the article-noun unit /a poem/. The text as written, then, is made up of an opposition of one two-word line against two one-word lines, two lines dividing a natural semiotic unit. With the first line break occurring after the verb a tension is created in the reading: what is? this is what? The second line continues that suspense in that the indefinite article is given without its naturally following subject. That the word "poem" is given its own line – as opposed to the more conventional "This is / a poem." – gives explosiveness to the revelation of the referent of the opening pronoun, and emphasis to the irony created in the self-referentiality. Perhaps I exaggerate the effects of the formal properties of the text, but the properties themselves are present and, as, shown readily revealed through a rather basic, formal examination.

But let's return to questions. Is it a poem? Yes. It uses the prototypical poetic trope, the line break, in the creation of meaning and poetic effect. Next question: Does the text have value within the discourse of "poetry"? Its only significant value – if that itself is too strong a phrase – lies in pointing out potential results of certain poetic constructs (namely, the non-insertion of a line break between 'this' and 'is', and the insertion of a line break between 'a' and 'poem'). Is it worth studying? It has some small merit, if only in pointing out those considerations so that they may be understood by readers when encountered within more complex poetic constructs. Although, it doesn't merit much more time than that which has been spent in reading these two paragraphs. At most, it is demonstrative of certain effects possible in the medium of language, though beyond that pragmatic value, there is little more that can be said for the poem. Which leads to the final question: Is it a good poem? If we take good a broad sense, it can be said that the text is a successful poem in its clean use of poetic trope. So perhaps a better question is: Is it a meritable poem?

"Cold Tea Blues" by The Cowboy Junkies

So, it has been six weeks since the last post, and it wasn't much of one. I intended to slow down but not this much. In part, the length of time lies in that I am trying put energies into other projects that refuse to take off. But in no small part I had simply stalled out, or had grown bored with the critical endeavor, if not wholly put off by the thought of looking through bad poetry – and most of the poetry out there right now is bad poetry – looking for something on which to write, good or bad. There is a point where I have had enough of yet another of Poppoetry Magazine's monthly offerings of yet-more-of-the-same (no matter how they try to convince me through gimmicked thematics it is not).

Indeed, I had stopped reading 'poetry' in the general sense altogether. What I have done is I have started rereading Finnegans Wake, this time coming at the text as I have wanted to, coupled with the endeavor to create an outline of the text's levels ideation. This includes a new drawer dedicated to the Wake in the Cabinet, which has taken some time. For sure, though, the Wake is poetic, poetry at its highest. And it has perhaps brought me back around to interest in talking about poetry on this blog. Though, I doubt posts here will increase in tempo all that much, especially during this period where a lot of my energies are going to establishing the groundwork for the Wake venture. Plus, there are those other so very obstinate projects . . . . .

 

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from Pale Sun Crescent Moon (1993)

demonstration of poetic form

 

I am going to risk an over-simplification and say that there are three aspects to a literary object:

1. the words on the page
2. the meaning of the words on the page
3. the sound of the words on the page

The reason I am risking the over-simplification is because those three are really aspects of one overarching aspect: form. None of the three are wholly independent of each other; they all speak to the form (or structure) of the work, if each from a different angle.

Before continuing with that idea, a couple of points of explication (if not correction) need to be made.

First: The use of the word meaning is problematic, because that word is generally associated with the nomic, with the prosaic, with language understood as a tool for the communication of information. This is why I generally prefer using the word "ideation," which is a broader term, one that can include nomic "meaning" without excluding symbolic language. It is not uncommon to see "idea" and "concept" distinguished in such a manner, where "concept" is relates to the rational, the factual, the hermeneutic approach to language as a means to communicate "concepts," and "idea" is the broader term, including not only theoretic language (concepts) and symbolic language but even broader, more abstract psychical experience (like the "idea" that is created by a rhyme scheme).

Second: there is also a similar issue with the use of the term structure, since that word is often used to designate particularly structures that have become established through convention. For example, examining the 'structure' of language would point to examining standard grammatical structures and variations therefrom (the discourse begins first upon established conventions and then moves out from that basis). As such, you will occasionally see the term structure set against the term form, where the former is used as just described, to label more concretized or mechanical organization, and the latter is used to address organization in the organic sense, where you start not at established convention but with the object-in-question as it defines itself. (Thus, mechanical structure and organic form. There might be a parallel there with the difference between anatomy and physiology: the former is a theoretic classification, the latter is a more organic understanding of the same object.) I will here try to follow my own general usage with form as the broader concept, which includes within itself the idea of mechanical structure. As Coleridge says, while the mechanical text (the text of Fancy) is not in itself poetic, the poetic text (the text of Imagination) nonetheless requires the use of mechanical thinking. I try to use structure when used, as in the analogy above, anatomically. (I admit up front, however, that maintain strict rigor with these is for me difficult at best.)

"'Tamburlaine': The Argument of Arms" by A.D. Hope

This I cross-post from the Adversaria, posted there as one of the "Something I Read" posts. Considering the subject and the statement, I thought it worth posting here as well.

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From A.D. Hope's "'Tamburlaine': The Argument of Arms" as found in Christopher Marlowe: Modern Critical Views (ed. Harold Bloom, Chelsea House Publishers: NY, 1986; pp 53-54); also found in A.D. Hope's collection of essays The Cave and the Spring. (The essay can be found online.)

In one sense the coherence of the play [Tamburlaine Pts I and II] resides in its poetry. Taken in terms of the action alone the play is not free of absurdity. If Tamburlaine were merely a supreme military genius, the argument which asserts his total superiority and perfection would be unconvincing. But Tamburlaine is a poet. He conceives poetry as concentrating in its highest conceivable form, the whole of beauty, imagination and music into 'one poem's period', just as he concentrates all power in himself. It is in this alliance of the poetic imagination with temporal power, in a sense of their identity, that the magnanimity of Tamburlaine consists. Poetry is his medium, as power is his nature and his genius. Poetry shares the supremacy of nature, for it is the natural language of beauty, of intellect and of power, the three perfect things. It is poetry alone which makes all three comprehensible: Wherein as in a mirror we perceive The highest reaches of a human wit— The poetry of Tamburlaine is indeed the poetry of power, and the absolute morality of power which the play exemplifies is allied to the absolute standards of poetry, which it recognizes. For poetry accepts only success, and grants lasting life only to absolute success. It recognizes no gradations and no second best. What Hazlitt, in a very curious passage for an avowed republican, says of Coriolanus, is even more apt of the poetry of Tamburlaine: The language of poetry naturally falls in with the language of power. The imagination is an exaggerating and exclusive faculty: it takes from one thing to add to another: it accumulates circumstances together to give the greatest possible effect to a favourite object. The understanding is a dividing and measuring faculty: it judges of things not according to their immediate impression on the mind, but according to their relations to one another. The one is a monopolizing faculty, which seeks the greatest quantity of present excitement by inequality and disproportion; the other is a distributive faculty, which seeks the greatest quantity of ultimate good, by justice and proportion. The one is an aristocratical, the other a republican faculty. The principle of poetry is a very anti-levelling principle. It aims at effect, it exists by contrast. It admits of no medium. It is everything by excess. It rises above the ordinary standard of sufferings and crimes. It presents a dazzling appearance. It shows its head turretted, crowned, and crested. Its front is gilt and bloodstained. Before it 'it carries noise, and behind it leaves tears.' It has its altars and its victims, sacrifices, human sacrifices. . . . It puts the individual for the species, the one above the infinite many, might before right. Those who wish to understand Tamburlaine should read and re-read this passage for its represents the Argument of Arms translated into the Argument of Poetry. And those who wish to understand the real nature of poetry would do well to have Tamburlaine by heart, for the heart of the matter is that the Argument of Arms and the Argument of Poetry are in their essence the same. [Hazlitt quotation from Characters of Shakespeare's Plays.]

 

The Argument of Arms, where it is most directly expressed (Pt I 2.7.12-29):

The thirst of reign and sweetness of a crown, That caused the eldest son of heavenly Ops To thrust his doting father from his chair And place himself in th'empyreal heaven, Moved me to manage arms against thy state. What better precedent than mighty Jove? Nature, that framed us of four elements Warring within our breasts for regiment, Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds. Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend The wondrous architecture of the world And measure very wand'ring planet's course, Still climbing after knowledge infinite And always moving as the restless spheres, Will us to wear ourselves and never rest Until we reach the ripest fruit of all, That perfect bliss and sole felicity, The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.

 

The Argument of Poetry (Pt I 5.1.160-190):

What is beauty, saith my sufferings, then? If all the pens that ever poets held Had the feeling of their masters' thoughts And every sweetness that inspired their hearts, Their minds and muses on admirèd themes; If all the heavenly quintessence they still From their immortal flowers of poesy, Wherein as in a mirror we perceive The highest reaches of a human wit; If these had made one poem's period And all combined in beauty's worthiness, Yet should there hover in their restless heads One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least, Which into words no virtue can digest. But how unseemly is it for my sex, My discipline of arms and chivalry, My nature, and the terror of my name, To harbour thoughts effeminate and faint! Save only that in beauty's just applause, With whose instinct the soul of man is touched— And every warrior that is rapt with love Of face, of valour, and of victory, Must needs have beauty beat on his conceit— I thus conceiving and subduing, both, That which hath stopped the tempest of the gods, Even from the fiery spangled veil of heaven, To feel the lovely warmth of shepherds' flames And march in cottages of strewèd weeds, Shall give the world to note, for all my birth, That virtue solely is the sum of glory And fashions men with true nobility.—

 

(Excerpts from Doctor Faustus and Other Plays, ed. David Bevington and Eric Rasmussen, Oxford UP: NY, 1995)

"My Brother's Insomnia" by Eric Pankey – Verse Daily, March 5, 2015

from Crow-Work (Milkweed Editions, 2015)
poem found here
 

First lines:
A boy ties (but will not remember how)
An intricate knot that slips at the slightest tug.
 

the action of the prosaic and poetic

 

Editing note: I am rather unsatisfied with how this post turned out. I tried to keep it short (or as short as I could manage) and now wonder if the presentation suffers for it. I plan to return to this in a few days; though I am not sure what will result. — March 20

 

Continuing in the stream of the examination of texts by way of the material and ideational axes, we have this work which came up on the Verse Daily site. It presents an opportunity to look at the ideation axis from both the prosaic and the poetic within one, short poem. Hopefully, the very local contrast will go toward developing the ideas.

The post will be in two parts. The first will focus upon that functioning of the prosaic and poetic within the text. After that, I would like to pick up a couple specific moments in the poem for exploration.

 

I divide the poem into three: the first stanza; stanzas 2 and 3; and the final part, stanzas 4-6. I believe the poem rather divides itself in this manner. Though, I could see a person making a fourth section out of the final stanza, so the division is in part motivated by how I want to talk about the poem.

I'll start in stanza 4. On the surface, in the narrative, it gives two actions by the boy, two things the boy does when he cannot sleep, both of which are operated through holding his breath. Sometimes he silences his body and pretends he is dead. Other times he silences his body to listen to the very quiet sounds of the world around him. Only, the line does not say "pretends":

"Bible Study" by Tony Hoagland, Poetry Magazine

from Poetry (March 2015)
poem found here
 

First lines:
Who would have imagined that I would have to go
a million miles away from the place where I was born
 

returning to the definition of poetry

 

The previous post, about the moment from Frozen, was meant to set up a theme for upcoming posts: texts with instances where attention to detail – or the lack thereof – has a discernible effect upon the experience and reception of the text. But you take what you get. "Bible Study" perhaps could be used to that end, but I find it might find greater use if brought as an example (or test case) for the theme that was overtly present in many of the posts over the last year: that of the question of "what is 'poetry'?"; more specifically, the verse-prose, poetic-prosaic axes that I began discussing in the post about the work "Hymn to Life" (another text found on the electronic pages of the Poetry site).

I have said it before but it bears repeating: The single most troublesome event for me in writing this blog is the use of the words poetry, poem, and poet. Since I have not (and will not) take time with every post at the first use of either word to give once again definition as they are used on this blog, it is assured that most people, when they read these posts, will wholly – and I mean entirely – misread the words. The words play within two contexts: the popular and the literary ("literary," here, as in the academic or "serious" discourse about literature). Within popular usage, it is fair to have "poetry" be defined, to be blunt, as any text that visually looks like poetry (or, even, any text that seems like poetry to the speaker). After all the popular discourse is not based in theory or participant in criticism.[FN] The word can rightly serve a most general purpose.

******************************** [FN] As well, the word function primarily within the nomic – are mostly generic, convention driven – and the discourse of poplit seems only infrequently, less so genuinely, to be concerned with the aesthetic. But that is another discussion. ********************************

But in discourse about literature qua literature, the use of the word demands some degree of basis.

"Let it Go," from Frozen

Frozen directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee
"Let It Go" sung by Idina Menzel, written and composed by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez

 

an object lesson in brilliance

 

That's right. First post in a month; second in four months, and I'm going to Frozen. Not only Frozen but "Let It Go." As I said elsewhere, deal with it. (I'll get to Wallace Stevens in the end, so don't have a fit.)

This is the official (Disney UK) sing-a-long version of the song as found on Youtube. I have no idea how it might be possible, but if you speak English and have somehow avoided familiarity with the song, or if you haven't seen the movie itself, give a listen and a watch before we continue.

 

 

Sorry if that song get's stuck in your head. It's been playing in my brain for two weeks, now.

To say, if you haven't seen Frozen it is well worth the viewing. And while you're at it, you probably haven't seen Brave either and you should see that as well (it's even better than Frozen, though it's Pixar and Frozen is Disney). It was one of the best films produced in the US that year. I never thought I'd say it, but after Tangled (which is also really good) and Frozen, it looks like Pixar hooking up with Disney was a net positive for both sides. Creatively the two films are orders of magnitude above the pablum (if not occasional stupidity) Disney had been putting out over the previous many decades (ok, Hercules has its assets). And Frozen is a complete break from the normal Disney princess story-lines. But I digress.

My point of focus here is but three notes. And I am not concerned only with the song but with the song as part of the film: the events on the screen and the integration of the song with the events on the screen are both integral to my point. What I am going to do here is not complex or a deep analysis. I simply want you to see one moment in the music and film. To see that moment will require comparing it to the other two iterations of the that moment (the opening "let it go"s of the three choruses) later in the film. Hopefully I can set the stage here so you can see what I see. Once there, I have three rather simple conclusions. Simple, even perhaps obvious, but profound within the realm of creative endeavor.