On Mar 12, 7:56 am, "Dennis M. Hammes"
arvig.net> wrote:> George Dance wrote:
>> On Mar 11, 7:00 pm, Karla
sbcNOSPAMglobal.net> wrote:>
>>>On 11 Mar 2007 10:31:36 -0700, "George Dance"
>>>wrote:
>
>>>>On Mar 3, 4:08 pm, Karla
sbcNOSPAMglobal.net> wrote:>
>>>>>Project Gutenberg includes four volumes of Sara Teasdale's poetry. This
>>>>>poem is included in two of the volumes. On the title page for LOVE SONGS,
>>>>>under "Copyright Status", Project Gutenberg informs us that this work is
>>>>>not copyrighted in the U.S.
>
>
>>>>>Here's another Sara Teasdale poem:
>
>>>>I didn't like that one. Here's one of Teasdale's more philosophical
>>>>poems:
>
>>>Admirable in that she attempts to write about nature, and not just mankind.
>>>Teasdale, in this poem, evidences some growth in consciousness. There's not
>>>the 'poor us' voice of, say, Arnold that we hear at the end of "Dover
>>>Beach":
>
>>>"Ah, love, let us be true
>>>To one another! for the world, which seems
>>>To lie before us like a land of dreams,
>>>So various, so beautiful, so new,
>>>Hath neither joy, no love, nor light,
>>>Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
>>>And we are here as on a darkling plain
>>>Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
>>>Where ignorant armies clash by night."
>
>>>Teasdale's poem still embraces that dichotomy of mankind vs. nature, a
>>>consciousness which will be the end of the whole. Nature, here, knows
>>>nothing of the ways of humans ("not one will know of the war..."; "not one
>>>would mind, neither bird nor tree, / if mankind perished utterly..."). I
>>>wonder in what camp she placed domesticated animals. My cats know and mind.
>>>Teasdale can't help herself, most noticeably in the last lines, from
>>>personifying nature ("Spring herself, when she woke at dawn / Would
>>>scarcely know that we were gone."). Yet, there's a lot of truth in that
>>>line. If we flip it, consider what we would notice if nature was gone, if
>>>such a thing is possible, we'd find out just how connected we are to
>>>'nature'. I cannot imagine not being able to see what she describes in the
>>>first three stanzas.
>
>> Thank you for analyzing this; it sounds to me as if you've a much
>> deeper familiarity with poetry than I, but that's great as it means I
>> can learn from you; so I'll try to follow along. Arnold's poem,
>> IIIRC from my school days, is an example of the 'pathetic fallacy' -
>
> The Pathetic Fallacy is the concept/assertion that nature has
> feelings -- pathos -- /at all/, which assertion Teasdale finally
> makes directly as well as implicitly.
> Arnold specifically states that the attributes he mentions do not
> give a damn for the lovers or the love, indeed that the love itself
> is no natural a phenomenon that it will have no hand in its own
> direction.
>
Sure; for Arnold, the ocean is too busy moping around, being all sad
and melancholy about the war, to notice the lovers at all.
>> humans are sad, so they imagine nature sad; which Teasdale will have
>> none of. Looking at it philosophically, I'd say that's significant.
>> Arnold's pathetic fallacy comes from his worldview, in which humans
>> have their place in nature: the lords of creation, to which
>> everything else is subject, as ordained by God. That worlview died
>> in the 20th century - Darwin's theory, relativity, the horror of WWI,
>> other thigs, were blows from which it never recovered. And I think
>> the irony Teasdale substitutes - of humans slaughtering each other in
>> that Great War, while nature goes on serene and oblivious - reflects
>> that change and the new 20th century paradigm that replaced it, of
>> humanity estranged from nature. We lost our place in the world, and
>> haven't been able to find it again.
>
>> (BTW, your comments on your pets were quite to the point on that:
>> probably a big reason people keep pets is to have a connection with
>> the natural world. My wife and I have noted that on occasion - our
>> pets are the only thing in our home, besides us, that is not
>> artificial and manmade).
>
> What about that new breed, the cross between a bull terrier and a shitzu.
>
None of those in our house. Are you saying they're really artificial
animals?
>>>For old school poetry, it's pretty good. The alliteration in the first
>>>three stanzas don't annoy. The prophetic first few words "there will come"
>>>is soothed by "soft rains and the smell of the ground". Indeed, the 'smell
>>>of the ground' is just the kind of vague phrase that works well, leaving
>>>each of us to our memory there.
>
>> I like the way she appeals to four different senses: smell as you
>> note, feel or touch ('soft' rain), hearing ('sound', 'singing',
>> 'whistling'), and sight through vivid colour ('tremulous white',
>> 'feathery fire'). It really does make you feel that you're there
>> seeing it. But though we can see it, we're not a part of it; as the
>> second lines in the last three verses remind us.
>
>> It's nice the way she emphasizes that contrast through the use of
>> meter. When she's talking about nature, she mixes iambs and anapests
>> freely, giving that part of the poem a spontaneous, anarchic feel
>> (reinforced by the word 'wild', and the way the images shift so
>> quickly). But in those second lines of the last three stanzas, where
>> she moves from sensing to thinking (about man and his concerns0, she
>> slips immediately into strict iambic tetrameter. To my mind, that
>> really reinforces our apartness from nature - our imprisonment in our
>> own troubles, as opposed to its spontaneity. We can observe, but we
>> can't be a part.
>
> You really think what she was doing was observing?
> 'Cos if you do, the rest of your philosophy follows.
> So, okay, what was she observing?
>
Trees, birds, and frogs.
>>>Spring at the end, awaking at dawn, subtly
>>>suggests a new world beginning again. I root for the line of the bats this
>>>time!
>
>>>Karla
>> I opt for the raccoons. 8) Seriously, my hope is that the 20th
>> century alienation that Teasdale seems to sense so vividly here - the
>> separateness, rigidity, and even meaningless of humanity and its
>> concerns - that's plagued us all through this past century, gets
>> addressed in the new one.
>
>>>>There Will Come Soft Rains
>
>>>>There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
>>>>And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
>
>>>>And frogs in the pools singing at night,
>>>>And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
>
>>>>Robins will wear their feathery fire,
>>>>Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
>
>>>>And not one will know of the war, not one
>>>>Will care at last when it is done.
>
>>>>Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
>>>>If mankind perished utterly;
>
>>>>And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
>>>>Would scarcely know that we were gone.
>
>>>> -- Sara Teasdale
>
