Modern Poetry: Past; Speech; A Few Roles

Modern Poetry and the Return to the Past


The poems "Binsey Poplars" by Hopkins, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by Yeats, and "Raleigh was Right" by Williams all react to the loss of the Romantic vision of wonder, glory, and wholeness as reflected in nature.  Hopkins' and Yeats' poems have some hope for the re-attainment of that dream, but Williams' "Raleigh was Right" denies any possibility of return to the Romantic past.

"Binsey Poplars" is tinged with a tone of apprehension.  Nature is being destroyed, and the poem states, "even where we mean / To mend her we end her." (l. 17-18)  Caution is advised against the unwitting destruction of something of value and beauty; the poem warns that "after-comers cannot guess the beauty been." (l.20)  In this poem, there is no general belief in the end of the Romantic dream, but an anxiety about what will come if the destruction continues despite the warning against it.

In "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," more distance has grown between the narrator's everyday existence and the Romantic idyll.  This poem shows a strong desire to escape from the modern world and find peace in nature.  The Romantic dream is still believed to be attainable if one would leave the "roadway, on...the pavements gray" (l.11) and follow "the deep heart's core" (l.12) to Innisfree.  The narrator believes that he "shall have some peace there." (l.5) On the roadway something that fills a need has been lost and can only be regained with a return to nature.  The Romantic dream is in the past, however it is in the recent past and there is hope that it isn't gone forever.

Although "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" espouses the desire to return to the Romantic dream, "Raleigh was Right" takes the opposite viewpoint and asserts that there is no place for Romanticism in the modern world.  This poem says that "we cannot go to the country / for the country will bring us no peace." (l.1-2)  Romanticism is dead and no longer has any meaning for people living in the modern world; the wonder, glory, and wholeness that the Romantics found in nature cannot be experienced "today in the country." (l.19)

Whereas Hopkins and Yeats believe that the Romantic dream should be and can be regained, Williams says that "it was long ago!...if ever this were true." (l.9&13)  Williams argues that the past cannot be re-achieved in the modern world.


Modern Poetry and the Use of Common Speech


Modern poetry has been characterized by a prevailing use of realism, common speech, and the "unpoetic."  In Gregory Corso's "Marriage" and William Carlos Williams' "Tract," these characteristics have central prominence.

An "unpoetic" subject has been chosen in "Marriage."  Besides using an "unpoetic subject," Corso focuses on the more shallow and sordid aspects of marriage--a "realistic" rather tha romanticized approach.  When discussing the obligatory meeting with the parents of the future bride, Corso's narrator worries about when he can ask "where's the bathroom?" (ll.13 and 23)  Going to the bathroom has not traditionally been considered poetic subject matter, or even mentionable, and it shows a realistic outlook.  After discussing the wedding, the narrator imagines the horrors of the honeymoon--all of those leering, knowing stranger's eyes focused on him.  There is no mention of love until late in the poem, and then the commment is, "I forget love / not that I am incapable of love / it's just that I see love as odd as wearing shoes." (l.98-100)  Love is scuffed underfoot, which is not the traditional poetic handling.  Common language is emphasized in the sprinkilng of cliches within the poem.  At the meeting with the girlfriend's parents, the narrator wonders if he tells them what he does for a living would they accept him with, "All right get married, we're losing a daughter / but we're gaining a son," (l.21-22) the patterned response seen in old movies and soap operas.  At the wedding, "all those corny men slapping me on the back" (l.30) say, "She's all yours, boy!  Ha-ha-ha!!," (l.31), which is the stereotypical wedding response passed down through generations.  Corso's "Marriage" clearly embodies the modernist use of realism, the "unpoetic," and common language.

Similarly, in Williams' poem "Tract," the subject--"how to perform a funeral" (l.2)--is "unpoetic" and treated in a realistic manner.  The way the hearse should look, the attire and bearing of the driver, and they arrangement of the procession are all mentioned in the poem.  Death, the traditional subject, is not the focus of "Tract," which concentrates on the trapping of the funeral.  Williams' language is conversational:  "Knock the glass out! / My God--glass, my townspeaple! / For what purpose?  Is it for the dead / to look out or for us to see / how well he is housed or to see / the flowers or lack of them or what?" (l.16-22)  Besides the conversational style, the use of common interjections emphasizes the "common speechiness" of the poem.  "For Christ's sake" (l.7), "My God" (l.17), "God knows what" (l.40), and "For heaven's sake" (l.46) all are known in common speech, and their appearence in this poem serves the function of increased conversationality as well as adding an ironic touch to a funeral scene.  Williams liberally uses "unpoetic content," realism, and common language in "Tract."

"Marriage" and "Tract" exemplify the trend in modern poetry to exploit the "unpoetic" in realistic terms using the device of common language.


Modern Poetry and a Few Womens' Roles


Ezra Pound's "Portrait d'une Femme" and Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" both present an image of women that is a part of the tradition passed down in society.  In this tradition, women are defined by their environment--their identities are fragments and conglomerations of the male identites around them; they have no separate defined identity all their own.

"Portrait d'une Femme" shows a woman as an empty vessel that must be filled.  Analogous to a collection of fragmnents. the womam tales "this or that in fee" from the "bright ships" that cross her "Sargasso Sea." (l.1&2)  This fee, "ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things," (l.4) forms her "sea-hoard of deciduous things" that she "richly pays" (l.13) back to the "great minds [that] have sought [her]--lacking someone else." (l.6)  This cycle of emptiness and accompanying discourse defines women, although the description perhaps may also imply a statue; "No!  There is nothing!  In the whole and all, / Nothing that's quite your own. / Yet this is you." (l.28-30)  A woman's identity seeks to fill itself with oddments from the men around her.  She wins the attention of the men who seek her.

Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" seems to argue the same thing.  Here, the woman narrator tries desperately to regain the harsh cruel identity of her father to give her an identity and place of ther own.  The father is described as a "black shoe / In which I have lived like a foot / For thirty years." (l.2-4) "Daddy" has been dead for over twenty of these years, but the daughter's identity has been shaped by his to the degree that she must carry him around with her to define herself.  The narrator says, "Every woman adores a facist, / The boot in the face, the brute / Brute heart of a brute like you." (l.48-50)

Although the narrator fears her father, the terror of having nothing of her own without him to define herself by is more overwhelming.  The fear of nothingness is strong enough so that "at twenty I tried to die / And get back, back, back to you." (l.59-60)  Since this suicide attempt is thwarted, the narrator tries to get back to her father by "mak[ing] a model of you, / A man in black with a Meinkampf look / And a love of the rack and the screw. / And I said I do, I do." (l.64-67)  By marrying a man like her father, the woman finds a way to redefine herself through her husband.  Plath's poem also shows the view that a woman must define herself through the males around her for want of a complete identity of her own.

Both "Portrait d'une Femme" and "Daddy" embody the traditional image of women.  The wonen in these poems must struggle to define themselves in relation to the identities of the men around them.  By absorbing their male environment, these women create their self-definitions; they have personalities and are also bundles of oddments. 

FOOTNOTE:

The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, Fifth Edition, edited by Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair (W.W. Norton & Company, New York) 1976, 1979. (paperback edition)