The Anatomy of Poetry (Routledge Revivals) by Boulton Marjorie

Author:Boulton, Marjorie.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-317-93649-7
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

1 The reader of poetry should dismiss all such inappropriate associations. The teacher, however, has to watch for them!

1 Louis MacNeice successfully used many words such as peanuts, pretzels, beer, clams, queues, in his fine ironical poem Bar-Room Matins.

1 Not always intellectually, in the sense that the poem can be paraphrased word-for-word; the morning-bright Apollo forbid so narrow an idea of ‘understanding’!

XIV INTELLECTUAL FORM

THE TWO MAIN PATTERNS OF IMAGERY

All garlanded with carven imag’ries

KEATS: Eve of St Agnes

In general a poem may have a series of images that support or contradict one another, or a single dominant image on which the sequence and structure of the poem depend. Burns’s A Red, Red Rose expresses passionate love by a series of simple and beautiful hyperboles; his effect is achieved by an accumulation of images that are not closely related to one another.1

O my luve is like a red, red rose,

That’s newly sprung in June;

O my luve is like the melodie,

That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

And I will love thee still, my dear,

While the sand o’ life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only luve!

And fare-thee-weel awhile!

And I will come again, my luve,

Though it were ten thousand mile.

Collections of unrelated images may also be found in Nashe’s Adieu;farewell Earth’s bliss, Crashaw’s Wishes for the Supposed Mistress, and Shelley’s When the Lamp is Shattered.

Another type of poenl, which makes a very different impression on the mind, uses a single central, dominant image and builds the whole structure of the poem around it. In George Herbert’s Love the experience of divine love is shown as the shy attendance of a consciously unworthy guest at a feast:

Love bade me welcome; yet Iny soul drew back,

Guilty ofdust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

If I lacked anything.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here.

Love said, You shall be he.

I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,

I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand and smiling made reply,

Who made the eyes but I?

Truth, Lord, but I have marred them; let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

My dear, then I will serve.

You must sit down, said Love, and taste my meat.

So I did sit and eat.

This is, in a sense, a small allegory, though the term is more often given to a larger piece of work. Clearly, here, Love is Divine Love, probably Christ as Redeemer, and the unworthy guest is George Herbert, aware of his sins; but we need not try to find allegorical meanings for the taking of the hand or the making of the eyes; “twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.’ It is possible that the poem refers to the actual partaking of the Holy Communion, but it might equally well be a poem about some other mystical experience of God outside orthodox ritual.

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