Ode to Keats

In preparation for the test, I braved the big bad world outside my home into this crazy space known as a library. I know, I'm as shocked as you are! For the majority of the year none of my courses required any outside research from the course texts or the internet, so I completely forgot what a wealth of information a library holds. So I took out a number of books, only to find out that I no longer had a test to study for. To that end I decided to put the books and their knowledge to use and write about John Keats first.

Originally he was studying to be a doctor but then realized that he had as he put it "abilities greater than most men" and therefore abandoned his profession to write poetry. He was a Romantic poet who worked at his desire to write well. He studied classical legends, which can be seen in his mythological references within his poems. Also much of his work embodies influences of other poets, authors, and artists.

Keats' Odes are collectively an exploration of:

a. the middle state that is neither heaven or earth
b. the difficulty in the co-existence of beauty and pain

The Odes also contain various material which can be associated with a number of different areas of Keats' life. The Odes are about the problems of life and how they weigh upon the human state. The format of these poems blends together the sonnet two forms, Shakespearian and Petrarchan, in an interesting fashion. Keats was dissatisfied with some of the components of form in the traditional sonnets, so he took what he felt to be the best features and applied it to his own poetry. This idea can be seen in the rhyme scheme, which begins with the traditional ABAB in the first four lines. The rhyme scheme then moves towards being something to the affect of CDECDE, but this is a more flexible pattern that Keats changes as we will see.

The Ode that I have chosen to take a closer look at is Ode to Melancholy.

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist (A)
Wolfsbane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; (B)
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed (A)
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine; (B)
Make not your rosary of yew-berries, (C)
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be (D)
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl (E)
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries; (C)
For shade to shade will come too drowsily (D)
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. (E)

But when the melancholdy fit shall fall (A)
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, (B)
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, (A)
And hides the green hill in an April shroud; (B)
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, (C)
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave, (D)
Or on the wealth of globed peonies; (E)
Or if they mistress some rich anger shows, (C)
Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave, (D)
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. (E)

She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die; (A)
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips (B)
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, (A)
Turning to Poison while the bee-mouth sips; (B)
Aye, in the very temple of Delight (C)
Veiled Melancholy has ber sov'reign shrine, (D)
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue (E)
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; (D)
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, (C)
And be among her cloudy trophies hung. (E)

As denoted at the end of each we can see that Keats does in fact stick with the rhyme scheme that I described above. With the exception of in stanza 3, where the rhyme pattern deviates to this: ABABCDEDCE. In my quest for research and in my own independent thought, I could not come up with an outstandingly intelligent reason for this deviation other than he could not make the C rhyme on the appropriate line. I don't suppose that anyone has any other ideas?

The first stanza deals with a number of elements that induce forgetfulness: Lethe, wolfsbane, nightshade and drowsily. The Lethe is a river in Hades that when drank by the dead makes them forget their human memories; thus leaving them to roam the underworld with nothing to reminisce about. Wolfsbane and nightshade are poisonous plants that were used to make sedatives, while drowsily would refer to the sensation experienced by someone who has taken a sedative. To want to forget about pain and sorrow is a natural human reaction; we tend to prefer to push aside our emotions because they are too hard to work through. There is also the first mention of poison, which is a reoccurring motif in the poem, with the mention of poisonous wine (ie. the wolfsbane and nightshade).

In the second stanza we are exposed to the notion that death is truly inescapable, and will come upon us all at some point. Further, when death does come knocking on our door it will be swift and "sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud". Yet inspite of death, we see the opportunity for rebirth through the mention of: green hill, morning rose, rainbow and wealth of globed peonies. These elements of nature are often found in the spring time, which coincide nicely with the mention of an April shroud. I took the mention of an April shroud to mean two different things. One it could mean the darkness that usually comes with April in terms of the gloom and rain which then causes nature to blossom but only after all of the gloom. Or I also thought that it could mean the shroud of Christ who was killed during the spring season and then came back to life. That one may be a bit of a stretch and probably induced by the fact that yesterday was Easter =)

The last stanza we see the juxtaposition of melancholy against beauty, joy, pleasure and delight which is done to embedded the idea that sadness and happiness go together. That both need to be present in the world in order to balance the emotions of humanity; that there must be sadness in order to achieve happiness and vice versa. There is also the return to the motif of poison that is being covered up with honey and being sipped by humanity. We are slowly being killed off, but are too busy to notice since we are enjoying the greatness that is life. Nor is it entirely clear who it is that is poisoning humanity since melancholy is veiled, thus hiding her true face but she sits in the temple of desire which would not be her normal perch.

In The Visionary Company, it was mentioned by the author Harold Bloom that Keats had excluded the following stanza, which would have acted as the first stanza of the poem:

Though you should build a bark of dead men's bones, (A)
And rear a phantom gibbet for a mast, (B)
Stitch shrouds together for a sail, with groans (A)
To fill it out, blood-stained and aghast; (B)
Although your rudder be a dragon's tail (C)
Long sever'd, yet still hard with agony, (D)
Your cordage large uprootings from the skull (E)
Of bald Medusa, certes you would fail (C)
To find Melancholy - whether she (D)
Dreameth in any isle of Lethe dull. (E)

Upon reading that excluded stanza it isn't hard to see why Keats would leave it out. The graphic imagery constructing a boat out of the parts of a dead person, is rather chilling and doesn't fit with the rest of the poem. Bloom argues that this eliminated stanza carries with it a high resonance of irony in its lines which is then absent from the remainder of the poem.

I'm not sure if I see this irony, but I am willing to say that I prefer the published version of the Ode to Melancholy minus this graphic stanza.

sv

Sources Used:

1. Harold Bloom, The Visionary Company, New York: Cornell University Press, 1971.

2. J.R. Watson, The English Poetry of the Romantic Period, 2nd Edition, New York: Addison Wesley Longman Limited, 1992.

3. www.mythweb.com/fin/index.html

Remnants of the Iliad

Recently finished reading the Iliad and thought I would post one last blog on it. So here goes:

Throughout the text, I had noticed the use of vivid imagery and have posted on a number of them previously. But the one that I shall quote and analyze below, radiated more than any of the other images that I've posted on previously.

In Book 22, lines 30-34 we find this description of Hektor being chased by Akhilleus:

And aging Priam was the first to see him
sparkling on the plain, bright as that star
in autumn rising, whose unclouded rays
shine out amid a throng of stars at dusk -
the one they call Orion's dog, most brilliant

So the image itself is beautiful! We have Hektor's armour being compared to the brilliance of a star in the night sky. Priam, the father looking upon his son in his final moments of exuberance just like a star gazer enjoying the last moments of night time before the dawn comes and extinguishes the star for the evening. Yet here in the Iliad, the dawn is embodied in Akhilleus who will come and through the use of a spear and sword extinguish Hektor's flame forever.

It also begs further research into what is being said about that constellation. So I managed to drudge up some background information on the constellation of Orion, which is really a number of different stars that make up the one larger constellation. So Orion's dog that Homer makes mention of is really the star Sirius, which is one of the brightest stars in the sky. Yet the information that I found indicated that Sirius reaches its brightest point in mid February which really isn't during the autumn months, so a bit of a conflict there. But then again the Iliad is an ancient story, so perhaps with the advent of the modern lunar calendar the time of Sirius' rising changed from what they would have considered autumn to our modern day February.

With respect to Orion himself, he was known to the Greeks circa. 500 BC as the warrior son of Poseidon. Obviously since Orion is not present in the battle at Troy, we can conclude that he was killed. I found two variations on his death.

One story involves Orion being killed by the sting of a scorpion, which doesn't really fit into him being assigned to reign from the heavens. The other story involves Orion falling in love with Apollo's sister Artemis. This relationship displeases Apollo so greatly that he conspires to trick Artemis into killing her lover. Apollo's plot is successful and Artemis shots Orion in the head with an arrow, for she mistook him to be someone else. Artemis is so consumed with grief that she places her fallen lover in the darkest part of the sky so that his star may shine brighter than all the others. Orion's dog, Sirius followed his master into death and trails behind him in the sky.

So to be compared to the brightest star in the heavens would certainly exemplify how highly thought of Hektor is by his family and countrymen. This idea is not hard to see throughout the text when he is continually called something to the affect of: the best soldier in the Trojan army, or the protector of Troy. Further his greatness can be witnessed by how hard the Trojans take his death. It was as if the sun had gone out, leaving the Trojans in a dark state with no light coming soon to rouse them from their eternal darkness.

sv

Information Taken from:

http://www.online-mythology.com/orion/
http://www.coldwater.k12.mi.us/lms/planetarium/myth/orion.html
http://www.answers.com

Spin

Normally not one to believe in fate, destiny or true love
There are just some things that you know.
A voice whispering from within
Not to let you go at all costs.
An ache in my stomach that chills me
When you're away from me.
The wafting melody that sings in my ears;
A harmony composed by the prescene of you.

Is it forever?

I have no way of knowing
But I feel like I've been found
After a long time of lying in wait
Like a diamond buried in the desert
You the adventurer uncovered a dusty, obscure me
Put me in your pocket and idolized me
I radiated from your adoration
Showing my emotions clearly.

Maybe they were too brilliant?

You seem to have reconsidered your find
Unsure of what to do with your plunder
Debating returning me to a sandy grave
Or swalling your wanderlust nature
Taming your restless heart and
Trying to contain your exploding emotions
Neatly in your breast-pocket in place of a hankerchief
Would be an alternate ending.

Only to become domesticated?

Hardly seems possible for a pair such as us!
Wild like lions on the bounding on the tundra;
Hot as the burning star or day;
Riping the seams of acceptable public actions
Until we free ourselves from the misery of constraints.
Hand in hand we float on the sea of deep explosions
Loving the other all night
Content to be forever naked.

All about consuming desire?

Tenderness surfacing when not in bed
In the guise of compassion and understanding
For we've both been burned by the fire
Desperate to make the other feel alive
Learn to enjoy the heat again and do it right.
Feebly trying to control the outcome of us.
Yet losing control as we fall deeper into the other;
Aimlessly fumbling for something to slow our spin.

But why?

sv

It's in the Cards

So today's reading of T.S. Eliot's Wasteland was not only brilliant thanks to Prof. Kuin's reading abilities, but it was also inspiring. I found it to be inspiring on a few different fronts:

a. The reference to tarot cards within the poem sparked my curiosity and actually ensured that I would stay awake for the reading and actively taking notes.
b. The layers of meaning that just don't seem to fit until someone explains them to you, or you've done hours of research on the poem.
c. Made me want to find the Four Quartets in their entirety so that I can continue reading where the Wasteland left off. Hopefully my understanding of the Four Quartets will be on, since it will potentially be the topic of my next post.

Since I actually own and dabble a bit in the use of tarot cards I was curious to find out the meaning of the cards that Madame Sosostris pulled for her client's spread and how they relate to the poem at large. But before getting to the divination part, I think that a brief history lesson on the Tarot Cards is in order!

Who invented the tarot cards is not know, but we do know that one of the first sets surfaced in Italy during the 15th century. The cards were not initially used as a form of divination but were used to play a card game similar to bridge. In fact the cards do resemble a normal pack of playing cards, with four suits (pentacles, swords, wand and cups), then court cards (King, Queen, Knight, Page/Princess) for a total of 56 cards that make up the Minor Arcana.

The difference between a tarot card deck and a normal card deck lies with what is known as the Major Arcana, which consists of 22 cards. These cards in a divinatory reading provide specific insight into the problem being read for, while for card games acted like trump cards. The Major Arcana does not have any specific suits, but are numbered starting at 0 and then proceed to 21 and are said to resemble the path of life beginning with the Fool and concluding with the World.

When the influences of the occult began to flourish in Europe (circa. 16th century), its members beginning to see the mystical proponents of the tarot deck and began to adopt the cards for divinatory purposes. Turning the cards into what most people know them for today…a gateway into seeing the future!

A number of talented artists have lent their talents to illustrating the tarot deck. As a result, there are numerous different themes that exist for the illustrations of the tarot deck. Some include: dragons, animals, fairies, vampires and then the age old variation of humans. The meaning of tarot cards is generally the same but some variations do exist based on card illustration. This variation exists since experienced tarot readers will rely solely on the images seen in the cards, plus what they remember of the card's history, rather than continually referring to a guide book like a novice would do.

There are a number of different spreads that are used when divining with tarot cards. The number of cards in a spread varies depending on the nature of the question or situation being analyzed. Often the cards used for a spread will be selected from both the Major and Minor Arcana, but there are spreads that require the specific use of the Major Arcana cards only. When reading a spread, the reader will look for common suits which would indicate a specific theme or outcome for the situation. Each suit represents a different element (earth, air, fire, water) and an emotion (sensation, thinking, intuitive, feeling), that would also contribute to making a connections between the cards and a client's overlying question. Not such an easy task!
Sometimes a signifier card is used to enhance the divination of the reading. This card is selected to reflect the person having the reading done. The card is usually a court card, but not necessarily. How the card is selected is depends on the diviner. It can be deliberately selected by the diviner to represent the astrological sign of the client, can be the first card drawn from the shuffled deck, or a card that merely slips from the deck during the shuffling process. Other times, the client will select the card to reflect his/her mood. A popular signifier card is the Knight of Cups, especially when the question is in relation to love.

Now that the history lesson is complete, and some ground work has been laid...

Within Eliot's The Wasteland, Madame Sosostris uses a signifier for her client and does what I believe to be a five card spread. I believe that a signifier is used because she says to the client: "Here...Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor"
From a bit of research I deduced that the Phoenician Sailor was to be the Knight of Cups from the Minor Arcana. I determined the suit rather easily since cups represent water and took a rather brilliant guess at it being a court card. Upon looking up what the card meant in one of my reference books I was intrigued at the description: "Sir Galahad is the knight of cups; he belongs to the world of Arthurian legend. This romantic knight is on a quest with a dream of ideal love." Well if that just doesn't sum up some of the themes of the Wasteland I don't know what does?! Reference to Arthurian legend, from whence the idea of the holy grail came from and the idea of questing for love, which the Wasteland is so barren of.

Sadly the reference to the style of spread that she did is not mentioned so I can only infer from my personal sources and some research as to which spread she actually did. Without getting into too much detail (a bit late for that eh?), in general a five card spread would deal with the cards pulled in the following manner:

Card #1: The Past (The Lady of the Rocks = The Empress)
Card #2: The Present (The Man with the three staves = 3 of Wands or Swords)
Card #3: The Future (The Wheel = The Wheel of Fortune)
Card #4: Advice (One-Eyed Merchant = ????)
Card #5: The Outcome (The Blank Card = ????)

Some of the cards from the Wasteland were easier to place than others. As you can see I was unable to determine the card that matched the one-eyed merchant and the blank card that he carries on his back which Eliot alludes to. Not matter since the other cards that I was able to place provide more than enough information on the poem.

Card #1: The Empress
The mythical history behind the Empress deals with the lush Garden of Eden before the fall from grace. In the card's picture one sees lush vegetation, rolling hills, waterfalls and flowers in bloom. The colours that the Empress wears on her gown are red and green which are seen to be colours of fertility and her boundless love for her children. She is the personification of Mother Earth who gives life and sustains humanity.

Her divine meanings include: creativity, unconditional love and sensuality.

This card indicates the past, both in terms of the tarot spread and in terms of the poem. Within the Wasteland we are faced with a shortage of water, which leads to a lack of vegetation and ultimately a lack of fertility. So the Empress has left her children to fend for themselves and they are totally unable to do so. I also think that the Empress makes another appearance in II. A Game of Chess. When the lines are read with a female sitting on a throne (lines 77-90) were read in class I instantly thought of a Queen sitting regally on her throne in all of her glory. Plus from my experience with the tarot I made the connection to the Empress, especially with such mentions as: "fruited vines, golden, flames, glitter of her jewels, and satin." Those images instantly painted for me the lush picture that is the Empress or Mother Earth, but as the image continues we see that it is in fact shattered by the brutality of a King. Paralleling the destruction of the balance between man, woman and nature which when disrupted would disturb the notion of fertility, and love.

Card #2: 3 of Wands or 3 of Swords
Within the Minor Arcana, the threes represent creative fertility and relate directly to the Empress. Eliot makes reference in his poem to the 3 of staves which means the suit of wands, but in light of the interpretation of the cards I am inclined to think that he was misguided in his selection. Consider it for yourself:

The 3 of Wands:
The card depicts an image of a woman looking out into a horizon of water with lush land behind it. The card represents good results in a business venture with opportunities to expand and a general feeling of growth. Hmmmm....no mention of business in the Wasteland. Nor is there much chance for growth due to the absence of fertility or love.

The 3 of Swords:
The card shows an image of parting lovers with somber expressions on their faces in the rain. The card symbolizes great sorrow that is not yet resolved. The rain is to have a cleansing and renewing effect of washing away painful memories. Now that sounds more like the dismal nature of our loveless Wasteland!

This idea of lost love can be seen again in II. The Game of Chess, where we have the different scenes involving lovers and matters of the heart. The overtones of these scenes despite their difference in terms of style (high, medium and low) is a somber feeling. The high style scene is an illusionary reference to Ovid's Metamorphoses with the rape of Philomela. Rape is obviously a painful memory that the rain would try to cleanse away, but this can't occur just yet since there is an absence of rain in the Wasteland. So Philomela must contend with her pain silently and alone. The middle style shows us a couple with one person being rather crazy and the other complacently replying more out of duty than love. Finally in the low style, we see two women in a local pub discussing satisfying one's husband and abortion which would relate to the theme of fertility.

Card #3: The Wheel of Fortune
This card has to do with fate and destiny. On the card is the image of three women at different stages in life and are to represent the triple goddesses known as the Moirae. The idea of fate and destiny is closely linked with feminine traits of weaving and the secrets of life, which the Moirae do for humanity. As humans we can either accept or deny the events presented to us as coincidence or fated events. As the wheel turns so does our situation in life; one moment we may be at the bottom on a low point and then in an instant that can change to being on top with an elated feeling of high.

The card's divine meaning includes: change, opportunity, risking and movement.

It indicates a time of change is soon coming so we need to be flexible and receptive to these changes because they may be tiny. We can see from the barren state of the earth in the Wasteland that we are certainly in need of a change. The opportunity for change is evident in the stanza of the poem where we see that "the arid plane behind me" referring to the idea that the Wasteland is indeed changing to become something else. Plus the idea of "Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. (Giving. Sympathy. Control)" could be alluding to the idea that in loving relationships both partners need to give and sympathize with each other. The idea of control comes into play in terms of the boundaries of the relationship and how we deal with being controlled by another. Further, the last words of the poem are peace. This could perhaps indicate that we need peace in order to survive the ordeal of missing love, and fertility. From this restored peace would return the intricate balance between man, woman, humanity and mother nature.

I'm torn between the idea that Eliot knew these mythical references for the tarot cards that he selected and that it is just blind luck! Part of me wants to believe that he was so brilliant that he carefully wove these cards into his poem as a larger part of the themes and images. But there is that small part that believes he would not have known that much about the tarot. More still I am curious to know what card refers to the one-eyed merchant and that "blank" card so that I could assert that he truly was a genius.

If anyone has any ideas please share so that I can continue the research!
sv

Resources:
Steventon, Kay. The Spiral Tarot Handguide. Stamford, CT: Us Games Systems, Inc., 1998.
http://www.psychicguild.com/tarot_history.php
http://www.angelictidings.com/spreads.html#5carda