Setebos by Ted Hughes begins with the lines 'Who could play Miranda, only you/ Ferdinand only me.' Hughes uses the characters and themes of Shakespeare's The Tempest as well as the conscious stagecraft that is so important to that particular narrative. The following is a fictional response to that poem but my response uses some of the key ideas in Macbeth.
It was not Sycorax who you heard
in the wings
but the three witches on the heath
plotting in thunder and lightning and wind.
I was not, could not, play Miranda
for my innocence was lost well before
Caliban's touch.
It was the gall in my breasts
and the croak of the raven
that played the music, not Ariel's song.
And you, always the onstage hero
to those who could not know
The man who vanquished
Norway
and yet followed the darkness of Tarquin's path.
I waited, and waited, knowing
that the scorpions in your mind
were simply the serpents in mine
The blood on your hands never
yours
always mine
and the milk of human kindness
in your public soliloquies.
You cry at Sycorax, at Setebos,
at Caliban.
Yet you forgive the forest that moved at Dunsinane,
the man of no woman born
the lament of young Malcolm
whilst I remain
just behind the curtains
seeing your ghosts
desperately hoping the brief candle
will protect me from the coming of the
dark.
You grieve for tomorrow
and call for your harness
and your sword
but not your wife.
Hereafter may have seemed an option for you
but the blood
was enough
for me.
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Wednesday, 19 January 2011
Some more academic thoughts?
Mirrors of death - the reflection of Tithonus’ will to die in Tennyson’s Ulysses
Jerome H Buckley asserts that, unlike the popular interpretation of Tennyson’s Ulysses as a man longing to live life away from ‘a still hearth’, he is in fact aching to depart to ‘an Elysian retreat from life's vexations’. This immediately resonates with those familiar with poet’s depiction of Tithonus in another of his classical poems. It is therefore worth considering the values that are central in these monologues when looking at the collection of Tennyson’s poems in the ‘Aspect of Narrative’ paper. The connections suggested between texts by Section B of the paper could certainly look at these ideas of death and it is important to be aware of more than just the apparent diversity between the poems.
On a superficial level it appears that there is a great divide between the desire of Ulysses ‘not to yield’ to obstacles, of which death would presumably seem to be one, and Tithonus’ idolisation of ‘happy men that have the power to die.’ However, the attitude of the central protagonists by themselves, and therefore by Tennyson, is one that aligns them far more closely. It is clear that Ulysses knows that his journey will be his final adventure, because he disassociates himself from his previous life. This sense that ‘I am become a name’, and the dehumanising process implied by this transformation, is one also reflected in Tithonus’ declaration of himself as a ‘grey shadow, once a man.’ The sense of striving in Ulysses can therefore be seen as the same yearning that Tithonus feels: a desire for the end of a journey, not the beginning of one. As such, both protagonists can be seen as essentially as having the same longing, for finality. The over analysed context that produced both Ulysses and the early version of Tithonus (Tithon in 1836) is that the death of his best friend Arthur Hallam made Tennyson think much more about death, and this could be used to support the notion that both mythical heroes are asking to depart the known world and venture beyond its ‘quiet limit’.
The yearning for death that both protagonists voice in the dramatic monologues can be seen because they consider themselves already dead in any meaningful way. This is explicit in Tennyson’s violent description that when Tithonus transformed from a man to an immortal being, some of his humanity was destroyed. He recounts how they ‘beat me down’ because he was ‘so glorious in his beauty’. However, the real sense that Tithonus perceives this as a form of death is when he repeatedly refers to himself in the third person. It is notably not ‘my beauty’ but ‘his’ and therefore that person doesn’t exist for Tithonus as a living entity. In fact, Tennyson later draws the reader’s attention to this detachment specifically when he exclaims ‘if I be he that watched.’ The element of possibility when he says ‘if’ shows that Tithonus does not know who he is anymore. As a result, the reader feels an understanding of why the ‘kisses balmier than half opening buds’ that he experienced seem not a memory but a dream and therefore something so intangible. Readers sympathise with Tithonus’ desire to stop being a ‘white haired shadow’ as he is now, because we understand that the man who ‘seemed to his great heart none other than a God’ is already dead to him.
Applying this same logic to Ulysses then, it can be clear that Tennyson’s hero is not a man who is attempting to ‘find’ and ‘seek’ but one who has realised that he is already dead. Ulysses, like Tithonus, reflects on the glories of personal history where he has ‘enjoyed greatly.’ When Ulysses is recounting those deeds of long ago, he has to use the past tense and this distances him in some way from events. However, it is the much more powerful sense that Ulysses has undergone (like Tithonus) a fundamental change in his nature that means he cannot align himself to that identity anymore, and thus that person is dead. The image Tennyson uses to indicate Ulysses’ change is one of metal – he notes that now he is ‘to rust unburnished, not to shine in use.’ This image suggests a change in Ulysses’ chemical make-up and his function as he understood it. Like Tithonus, he sees his younger self as one who ‘strove with Gods.’ Yet the power of this image is subsumed as Ulysses notes metaphorically that the ‘long day wanes’ and therefore the inevitable approach of the end.
The decision by Tennyson to choose to have both characters appeal to the reader through first person monologues is a conscious one. This can be seen as he uses narrative recounts in other poems, such as Godiva and The Lady of Shalott. This suggests that he wants to establish a distinction between a public declaration or narrative and a personal reflection which is something incredibly relevant when comparing the narrative techniques for Section B. Within this, it is the sense of their internal honour being tarnished that causes both protagonists pain. This unhappiness in their current positions therefore features in their desire for death. Whilst not being an entirely internalised thought processes – at one point Tithonus address Aurora directly when he asks her ‘Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears’ – the choice to voice these thoughts are part of a grieving process for both Tithonus and Ulysses. It is a chance for them to come to terms with their current desires and, in a sense, make them more real. Tithonus’ use of cosmic imagery in ‘the silver star’ is later displaced by a more down to earth focus. This gives the sense therefore of how the monologue has developed Tithonus’ understanding of his own situation. His depiction of a particularly human burial like those in ‘grassy barrows of the happier dead’ suggests that he has contemplated not just the unattainable nature of death but the reality of it too.
For Ulysses, however, it is this cosmic side of death that appeals. It is his reputation and abstract sense of honour that Ulysses wants to protect in death. Whereas his son Telemachus is the epitome for him ‘common duties’ of leaders in a domestic sphere, Ulysses still wants to glorify in ‘old days’ where he ‘Moved earth and heaven.’ Though he concedes that he is ‘made weak by time’ and therefore accepts that ‘to strive’ will not include victory, it does include an ending that he is now prepared to admit. However, the concession that it is death that he seeks comes earlier in the poem when he talks of ‘that untravelled world’. This phrase has deliberate echoes of Hamlet’s ‘undiscovered country’ and therefore suggests he is contemplating death itself. Ulysses knows that ‘of one to me/Little remains’ but he desires that in his death he will be able to protect the reputation gained in previous years from ‘windy Troy.’ Like Tithonus, Ulysses articulates his thoughts on death through the cosmic simile of ‘like a sinking star’ but the awareness that his star is falling suggests an ending that he desires. The sibilance is echoed in his later description to ‘sail beyond the sunset’ which is a particularly appropriate and romanticised view of the ‘death [that] closes all.’
The narrative structures of both poems are introspective confessions, which are told through the use of iambic pentameter to reflect a real sense of speech. In making these people sound like real characters, Tennyson advocates the personal nature of the voices and their views. Ulysses and Tithonus are the most conflicted of Tennyson’s poetic heroes. The philosophical questions that they pose in their narratives concern the decisions which have dictated their entire lives and as a result, they way in which they choose to end those lives. The conclusion that both reach, that of death as a genuinely appealing option, is one guaranteed to evoke sympathy and sadness from the readers. Crucially though, the same idea is seen from both protagonists and, therefore, the desire for death should be considered in Ulysses’ words as much as in those of Tithonus.
Jerome H Buckley asserts that, unlike the popular interpretation of Tennyson’s Ulysses as a man longing to live life away from ‘a still hearth’, he is in fact aching to depart to ‘an Elysian retreat from life's vexations’. This immediately resonates with those familiar with poet’s depiction of Tithonus in another of his classical poems. It is therefore worth considering the values that are central in these monologues when looking at the collection of Tennyson’s poems in the ‘Aspect of Narrative’ paper. The connections suggested between texts by Section B of the paper could certainly look at these ideas of death and it is important to be aware of more than just the apparent diversity between the poems.
On a superficial level it appears that there is a great divide between the desire of Ulysses ‘not to yield’ to obstacles, of which death would presumably seem to be one, and Tithonus’ idolisation of ‘happy men that have the power to die.’ However, the attitude of the central protagonists by themselves, and therefore by Tennyson, is one that aligns them far more closely. It is clear that Ulysses knows that his journey will be his final adventure, because he disassociates himself from his previous life. This sense that ‘I am become a name’, and the dehumanising process implied by this transformation, is one also reflected in Tithonus’ declaration of himself as a ‘grey shadow, once a man.’ The sense of striving in Ulysses can therefore be seen as the same yearning that Tithonus feels: a desire for the end of a journey, not the beginning of one. As such, both protagonists can be seen as essentially as having the same longing, for finality. The over analysed context that produced both Ulysses and the early version of Tithonus (Tithon in 1836) is that the death of his best friend Arthur Hallam made Tennyson think much more about death, and this could be used to support the notion that both mythical heroes are asking to depart the known world and venture beyond its ‘quiet limit’.
The yearning for death that both protagonists voice in the dramatic monologues can be seen because they consider themselves already dead in any meaningful way. This is explicit in Tennyson’s violent description that when Tithonus transformed from a man to an immortal being, some of his humanity was destroyed. He recounts how they ‘beat me down’ because he was ‘so glorious in his beauty’. However, the real sense that Tithonus perceives this as a form of death is when he repeatedly refers to himself in the third person. It is notably not ‘my beauty’ but ‘his’ and therefore that person doesn’t exist for Tithonus as a living entity. In fact, Tennyson later draws the reader’s attention to this detachment specifically when he exclaims ‘if I be he that watched.’ The element of possibility when he says ‘if’ shows that Tithonus does not know who he is anymore. As a result, the reader feels an understanding of why the ‘kisses balmier than half opening buds’ that he experienced seem not a memory but a dream and therefore something so intangible. Readers sympathise with Tithonus’ desire to stop being a ‘white haired shadow’ as he is now, because we understand that the man who ‘seemed to his great heart none other than a God’ is already dead to him.
Applying this same logic to Ulysses then, it can be clear that Tennyson’s hero is not a man who is attempting to ‘find’ and ‘seek’ but one who has realised that he is already dead. Ulysses, like Tithonus, reflects on the glories of personal history where he has ‘enjoyed greatly.’ When Ulysses is recounting those deeds of long ago, he has to use the past tense and this distances him in some way from events. However, it is the much more powerful sense that Ulysses has undergone (like Tithonus) a fundamental change in his nature that means he cannot align himself to that identity anymore, and thus that person is dead. The image Tennyson uses to indicate Ulysses’ change is one of metal – he notes that now he is ‘to rust unburnished, not to shine in use.’ This image suggests a change in Ulysses’ chemical make-up and his function as he understood it. Like Tithonus, he sees his younger self as one who ‘strove with Gods.’ Yet the power of this image is subsumed as Ulysses notes metaphorically that the ‘long day wanes’ and therefore the inevitable approach of the end.
The decision by Tennyson to choose to have both characters appeal to the reader through first person monologues is a conscious one. This can be seen as he uses narrative recounts in other poems, such as Godiva and The Lady of Shalott. This suggests that he wants to establish a distinction between a public declaration or narrative and a personal reflection which is something incredibly relevant when comparing the narrative techniques for Section B. Within this, it is the sense of their internal honour being tarnished that causes both protagonists pain. This unhappiness in their current positions therefore features in their desire for death. Whilst not being an entirely internalised thought processes – at one point Tithonus address Aurora directly when he asks her ‘Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears’ – the choice to voice these thoughts are part of a grieving process for both Tithonus and Ulysses. It is a chance for them to come to terms with their current desires and, in a sense, make them more real. Tithonus’ use of cosmic imagery in ‘the silver star’ is later displaced by a more down to earth focus. This gives the sense therefore of how the monologue has developed Tithonus’ understanding of his own situation. His depiction of a particularly human burial like those in ‘grassy barrows of the happier dead’ suggests that he has contemplated not just the unattainable nature of death but the reality of it too.
For Ulysses, however, it is this cosmic side of death that appeals. It is his reputation and abstract sense of honour that Ulysses wants to protect in death. Whereas his son Telemachus is the epitome for him ‘common duties’ of leaders in a domestic sphere, Ulysses still wants to glorify in ‘old days’ where he ‘Moved earth and heaven.’ Though he concedes that he is ‘made weak by time’ and therefore accepts that ‘to strive’ will not include victory, it does include an ending that he is now prepared to admit. However, the concession that it is death that he seeks comes earlier in the poem when he talks of ‘that untravelled world’. This phrase has deliberate echoes of Hamlet’s ‘undiscovered country’ and therefore suggests he is contemplating death itself. Ulysses knows that ‘of one to me/Little remains’ but he desires that in his death he will be able to protect the reputation gained in previous years from ‘windy Troy.’ Like Tithonus, Ulysses articulates his thoughts on death through the cosmic simile of ‘like a sinking star’ but the awareness that his star is falling suggests an ending that he desires. The sibilance is echoed in his later description to ‘sail beyond the sunset’ which is a particularly appropriate and romanticised view of the ‘death [that] closes all.’
The narrative structures of both poems are introspective confessions, which are told through the use of iambic pentameter to reflect a real sense of speech. In making these people sound like real characters, Tennyson advocates the personal nature of the voices and their views. Ulysses and Tithonus are the most conflicted of Tennyson’s poetic heroes. The philosophical questions that they pose in their narratives concern the decisions which have dictated their entire lives and as a result, they way in which they choose to end those lives. The conclusion that both reach, that of death as a genuinely appealing option, is one guaranteed to evoke sympathy and sadness from the readers. Crucially though, the same idea is seen from both protagonists and, therefore, the desire for death should be considered in Ulysses’ words as much as in those of Tithonus.
Friday, 27 August 2010
Lett ers
Words at best insubstantial
Leave me without meaning
Wandering again through nouns, adjectives and verbs
The concept just more intellectual preening
I’m trapped in the alphabet
Lost in the first sub clause
Feelings hidden by the obscurity of verse
More power betrayed in the ever silent pause
The lack of expression
In even the softest glances
Fleeting touches, perhaps misconstrued
Inarticulate in my desire for you
Leave me without meaning
Wandering again through nouns, adjectives and verbs
The concept just more intellectual preening
I’m trapped in the alphabet
Lost in the first sub clause
Feelings hidden by the obscurity of verse
More power betrayed in the ever silent pause
The lack of expression
In even the softest glances
Fleeting touches, perhaps misconstrued
Inarticulate in my desire for you
Saturday, 7 August 2010
Odd Phrases - not happy with this yet though.
Butterflies – seems an odd choice to describe it
That feeling that you will never settle again
The restlessness and the excitement and the pain
Because it is not delicate, like the wings that flutter
Because it is not beautiful, like the patterns that swirl
Because it is not drawn to flowers, or nectar, or sunshine
But it does make you feel alive. And I have just come out from my cocoon.
A little bird – seems an odd choice to describe it
That feeling of knowing something you shouldn’t
The secrecy and the superiority and the surprise
Because it doesn’t chirp a friendly good morning
Because it doesn’t fly away into a distant blue sky
Because it doesn’t converse in a language you can’t understand
But it is a form of communication. And from this I always learn.
That feeling that you will never settle again
The restlessness and the excitement and the pain
Because it is not delicate, like the wings that flutter
Because it is not beautiful, like the patterns that swirl
Because it is not drawn to flowers, or nectar, or sunshine
But it does make you feel alive. And I have just come out from my cocoon.
A little bird – seems an odd choice to describe it
That feeling of knowing something you shouldn’t
The secrecy and the superiority and the surprise
Because it doesn’t chirp a friendly good morning
Because it doesn’t fly away into a distant blue sky
Because it doesn’t converse in a language you can’t understand
But it is a form of communication. And from this I always learn.
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
An older attempt...
Clear links between people
are unlikely to develop without
obstacles; obstacles mean a storm
through which love...
Grows beyond the horizon, a part from the sea.
It bends and falls and bends
and yet, the reflection in the mirror/
mirror the in reflection the
seems unaltered. To me.
and to You? I guess. Despite
your reflection, your rosy cheeks
and enticing lips will fade
and Time in his ship will repossess
that.
I love still and all love still and love is still.
are unlikely to develop without
obstacles; obstacles mean a storm
through which love...
Grows beyond the horizon, a part from the sea.
It bends and falls and bends
and yet, the reflection in the mirror/
mirror the in reflection the
seems unaltered. To me.
and to You? I guess. Despite
your reflection, your rosy cheeks
and enticing lips will fade
and Time in his ship will repossess
that.
I love still and all love still and love is still.
Friday, 16 July 2010
Jealous women
Something random inspired by a trip to the National Portrait Gallery and the odd placing of portraits of Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots together.
The body of a weak and feeble woman left me many centuries ago,
But my heart remains,
Trapped within a canvas, behind the glass,
never defined in life by man,
No Dudley, no Alencon, No Anjou,
Even my father gave up that ghost
but always and forever by her,
In the frame next to mine
I have majesty, she mystery
I command this room, I dominate
the landscape and yet...
the faceless multitude stare at us both
Seeing me in the context of her,
They change in height and dress
We never do
They glance - slightly fearful at me
Whilst they smile at her
Does she still manage the magic?
The sensual charm from her darkened eyes?
Does she draw even these men to the enseamed sheets of her luxurious bed?
Would they kill for her?
Would they die for me?
I remain here
Always aware
as in life
of her majesty, of her sisterhood, of her divinity
I'll feel it seems forever the fall of the axe at Pontefract
Can she feel the sword on the neck of my mother?
The body of a weak and feeble woman left me many centuries ago,
But my heart remains,
Trapped within a canvas, behind the glass,
never defined in life by man,
No Dudley, no Alencon, No Anjou,
Even my father gave up that ghost
but always and forever by her,
In the frame next to mine
I have majesty, she mystery
I command this room, I dominate
the landscape and yet...
the faceless multitude stare at us both
Seeing me in the context of her,
They change in height and dress
We never do
They glance - slightly fearful at me
Whilst they smile at her
Does she still manage the magic?
The sensual charm from her darkened eyes?
Does she draw even these men to the enseamed sheets of her luxurious bed?
Would they kill for her?
Would they die for me?
I remain here
Always aware
as in life
of her majesty, of her sisterhood, of her divinity
I'll feel it seems forever the fall of the axe at Pontefract
Can she feel the sword on the neck of my mother?
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Heathcliff? Hero or Villain?
Hey,
I am bound to come back to this over and over and over again because Wuthering Heights is my favourite novel. Just wondered about the general consensus on Heathcliff. Several questions;
1. Does he really wish he'd dropped Hareton?
2. Is his treatment of Isabella softened by Bronte's depiction of her as an idiot?
3. Does he commit necrophilia with Cathy's body?
4. Does the fact that he gives up on causing destruction towards the end means he is softened by Hareton and Cathy's relationship?
5. Does he cause Cathy's ghost to haunt the moor by his complaint at her death?
What do people think?
This is and always be my novel for making me feel better - if you've never read it, do so now, borrow my copy! Seriously... xxx
I am bound to come back to this over and over and over again because Wuthering Heights is my favourite novel. Just wondered about the general consensus on Heathcliff. Several questions;
1. Does he really wish he'd dropped Hareton?
2. Is his treatment of Isabella softened by Bronte's depiction of her as an idiot?
3. Does he commit necrophilia with Cathy's body?
4. Does the fact that he gives up on causing destruction towards the end means he is softened by Hareton and Cathy's relationship?
5. Does he cause Cathy's ghost to haunt the moor by his complaint at her death?
What do people think?
This is and always be my novel for making me feel better - if you've never read it, do so now, borrow my copy! Seriously... xxx
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