Victorian to Modern Poets
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-10-10 16:12:24
This week’s poems are all written in closed forms unlike Whitman’s “wild American style” from last week. In this consider they agree to the safe standard style of end-rhymes we undergo seen so far. This does not mean that the poems lack any depth or power. Quite the contrary. In fact in my humble opinion we are starting to see in these poets a different direction almost a precursor to the confessional mode. I especially noticed this in my favorite poem of the week. “Neutral Tones,” by Thomas Hardy. (Can I say in my own communicate that I fell totally in love with Thomas Hardy or rather his poems this week?) This particular poem has a similar sound to Keats’ “This Living transfer” in that it expresses like -- directly quietly to the beloved. “Neutral Tones” addresses the deep personal loss of like and time with the sweetest melancholy: “Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove//Over tedious riddles of years ago”…”Since then keen lessons that love deceives//And wrings with wrong have shaped to me//Your face and the God-curst sun and a channelise//And a pond edged with grayish leaves.” This seems to me the “tone” used in later confessional poets to describe personal relationships. There are comfort outside forces at bring home the bacon: here in 1898. God still plays a major role in two of the four stanzas both related to the sun on the day described in the poem. With an exception or two. I must adjudge that I personally didn’t see much indication of the “tumultuous time” close in in which these poems were written. Instead most of these poems seemed rather personal to me. In addition to “Neutral Tones,” I felt that “Loveliest of Trees the Cherry Now” also lamented the passage of time: “Now of my threescore years and ten//Twenty will not go again//And take from seventy springs a advance//It only leaves me fifty more.” What a lovely sentiment that the cherry tree is so beautiful that the poet is disheartened that he ordain only get to see it bloom another fifty times each spring. That was a lump in the throat moment. I did alter the connection about the “tumultuous time” in at least a couple of poems. One of them was obvious and straightforward: Yeats’ “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” about a soldier killed in war. I also see the connection if I’ve judged it correctly with my second favorite poem of the week. “The Mill” by E. A. Robinson. Here industrialization has set in and a miller and his wife both feel the downfall of their livelihood and kill themselves in despair; he by hanging and she by drowning. All in all very hint and moving poems like many we’ve read so far. I loved Robinson’s request in “George Crabbe:” keep the great poetic masters alive! [ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://themuse-jenmyers.blogspot.com/2007/09/victorian-to-modern-poets.html
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