1 this is what i know

2 my mother went mad

3 in my fathers house

4 for want of tenderness

5 this is what i know

6 some womens days

7 are spooned out

8 in the kitchen of their lives

9 this is why i know

10 the gods

11 are men

(Clifton 29)

This untitled poem found in the “Being Heard” section of Lucille Clifton’s book is poignantly meaningful. Clifton speaks clearly through each line in her poem. In lines 1-2 she states that her mother went mad. The line “my mother went mad,” holds a soft alliteration that breathes so naturally in the poem it could pass unnoticed. In lines three through four, she briefly explains where and why. This sets the tone for the rest of the poem. Lucille goes on to explain; women’s days are “spooned out,” which is an interesting term, “in the kitchens of their lives.” The phrase, spooned out, implies that only a small amount of life is spooned at a time. The phrase, which is metaphorical, implies that someone else is spooning out the lives of women and delegating them to the kitchen. The last stanza brings her point home. She reveals that those holding the spoons are men, and those retaining their wives in the “kitchen of their lives,” are men, and consequently, because of the power they hold, are gods. It is here that she metaphorically ties gods to men declaring that “the gods//are men.” It is also worth noting that Clifton refrains from capitalizing not only her stanzas, but the pronoun I, and the word gods. Perhaps she desires to keep the poem simple, freeing it from the laws of punctuation and capitalization. This leaves the poem in its barest state, free from inhibitors, easy to digest.

sorrows

1 who would believe them winged

2 who would believe they could be

3 beautiful   who would believe

4 they could fall so in love with mortals

5 that they would attach themselves

6 as scars attach and ride the skin                  

7 sometimes we hear them in our dreams

8 rattling their skulls   clicking

9 their bony fingers

10 they have heard me beseeching

11 as i whispered into my own

12 cupped hands   enough   not me again

13 But who can distinguish

14 one human voice

15 amid such choruses

16 of desire

In “Sorrows” Clifton personifies sorrow(s) weaving a lovely metaphor: lends them wings, dubs them beautiful, and capable of falling in love. She also starts her poem with soft alliteration, “Who would…winged,” (Clifton 25). Clifton likens sorrows to “the gods” when she uses the word “mortals,” allowing her reader to contemplate the deity of sorrows briefly. Next she ties in a simile, likening sorrows to scars that attach to the skin. She does not leave off with attachment through, she shows that they also ride the skin. Lucille Clifton implies that sorrows speak, and haunt our dreams. Rattling skulls imply that the sorrows are old, and long dead, but their clicking’s can still be heard when we move their skeletons. Clifton reveals that she has begged the sorrows to leave her, not to visit her, but her last lines lament: “who can distinguish// one human voice//amid such choruses of desire,”(Clifton 25). The meaning of this line is: if sorrows are gods, how can they hear her one plea, when so many others are begging for the same thing?

1 my grandfather’s lullaby

2 pretty little nappy baby

3 rockin in that chair

4 theys a world outside

5 the window

6 and somebody in it hates you

7 let me hold you baby

8 and love you all i can

9 better to hear it from papa

10 than learn it all alone

Clifton’s “my grandfather’s lullaby,” is not at all what one would expect a lullaby to be. Lullabies are generally employed to put little children to sleep. This one seems to be designed to wake one up. Her grandfather’s lullaby issues a warning, “there are people in the world outside the window that hate you.” It is, however, reassuring: the first lines affirm the beauty of the child, lend a hint of comfort. “Pretty little nappy baby,” the words ring with assonance. The word “nappy”, usually with a negative connotation, is made neutral by the positive words around it. In a paradoxical way, this lullaby is soothing and comforting in that it issues a warning. It allows the listener to be prepared for the world outside the window. It offers the safety of the world behind the window. The lullaby does not let a child go out into the world unaware, to get hurt by the hateful mobs alone.  It is interesting to note that the word “nappy,” will most likely be used by those “somebody’s” who will hate the child. The lullaby almost takes the sting out of the word by introducing it to the young child as a positive word, one to be proud of, not ashamed to bear. “Nappy,” the first stanza breathes, “is good, cute, and pretty.”  Her last line holds a hint of alliteration, “than learn it all alone,” (Clifton 22). Clifton’s lullaby is both cautionary, and comforting in that it issues a warning while building up self-esteem and pride in natural beauty.

            In “Sympathy,” imagery is the frame from which the poem hangs. Dunbar wastes no time in jumping into his imagery detail. His first stanza opens with scenes of freedom and life.

                        I know what the caged bird feels, alas!

                        When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;

                        When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass

                        And the river flows like a stream of glass;

                        When the first bird sings and the first bud opes

                        And the faint perfume from its chalice steals–(Dunbar 1).

            Dunbar’s descriptions of the bright sun and upland slopes paint a pleasant carefree picture of what the caged bird is restrained from enjoying. Dunbar builds longing for these images by portraying the soft wind stirring the springing grass and the glassy river flowing serenely. By the last stanza the reader undoubtedly wishes to sample the “faint perfume” from the first opened bud. Consequently, Dunbar’s imagery is effective in translating the feelings of the caged bird to the reader; likewise, his imagery is effective in translating Dunbar’s feelings to the reader as well. Dunbar continues to use imagery in his next stanza, appealing to the readers senses of sight and touch.

                        I know why the caged bird beats his wing

                        Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;

                        For he must fly back to his perch and cling…

                        And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars…

I know why he beats his wing! (Dunbar 1).

            Here, the images of red blood and a bird beating his wing against cold cruel bars not only appeals to the readers’ sense of sight, but pity. Dunbar guides the poem a little further by next appealing to the readers’ sense of touch. His lines, “and a pain still throbs in the old, old scars…” are reminiscent of old battle wounds that hurt every once and awhile, long after the war. The line also alludes to the fact that the bird has been beating his wing against the bars for a time longer than that shown in the poem. By appealing to the senses through imagery, Dunbar effectively drives his meaning home.

            Imagery is not, however, the only tool Dunbar uses to shape his poem and relate its message to his readers; rhyme also is important. In this poem Dunbar uses an ABAABCC, DEDDEDD, FGFFGDD scheme throughout his poem. The rhyme, instead of lending the poem a nursery-rhyme feel adds a wistful lilt to the verse.

                        I know what the caged bird feels, alas!

                        When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;

                        When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,

                        And the river flows like a stream of glass… (Dunbar 1).

            The soft, easy flowing rhyme serves to induce a feeling of longing in the reader that matches both the bird and Dunbar’s own personal sentiments. Dunbar tightens his rhyme in his first stanza in lines two-six by regulating each line to ten syllables. In line seven he breaks the pattern with seven syllables. By introducing a specific syllable length for his lines, Dunbar creates unity and a continuum of occurrences that the caged bird misses. The rhythm of the lines is also tighter because of this syllable structure paired expertly with the rhyme. By employing this tool, Dunbar effectively implies that the small bird is missing a host of events and occurrences.

            Finally, Dunbar also shapes his poem through repetition. Dunbar’s repetition of “I know,” “When” and “but” in his poem not only add an element of rhythm, but make insistent statements about Dunbar’s message. “I know what the caged bird feels…I know what…I know why…I know why…I know why…I know why,” (Dunbar 1) the poet writes. The repetition firmly states that the poet truly, intimately knows why the caged bird acts the way it does. Next Dunbar repeats a series of “when’s:”

                        When the sun is bright…

                        When the wind stirs soft…

                        When the first bird sings…

                        When he fain would be…

                        When his wing is bruised

                        When he beats his wing… (Dunbar 1).

            This repetition, while adding an element of rhythm to the poem, adds a feel of melancholy longing as well. The sheer number of “when” statements add to the importance of what the bird has missed. Dunbar also uses repetition in his final stanza, “It is not a carol of joy or glee,//But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,//But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings–,”(Dunbar 1). Here the repetition reinforces what Dunbar has already stated. The little bird’s song is not a joyful carol, he insists, but a sorrowful prayer. By using repetition throughout his poem, Dunbar adamantly states his message.

            In conclusion, imagery, rhyme, and repetition are the three shaping factors that effectively deliver Dunbar’s message to his readers. By using imagery, Dunbar induces a feeling of longing in his readers. Implementing rhyme, Dunbar heightens this wistful feeling. Finally, by introducing repetition throughout his poem, Dunbar drives his message home. “Sympathy” is undoubtedly, a remarkable poem that will be cherished appreciated for years to come.

            Though not always employed, rhyme is a powerful element of poetry when present. Dunbar knows this and uses it to effectively propel his poem. His opening stanza:

                        We wear the mask that grins and lies,

                        It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,–

                        This debt we pay to human guile;

                        With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

                        And mouth with myriad subtleties (Dunbar 1),

shows Dunbar’s end rhyme; the scheme he employs: aabbc, aabd, aabbad. End rhyme, in this poem, serves to effectively pull the reader through to the end of the poem. By pairing it with lines restricted to eight syllables, Dunbar creates an almost nursery-rhyme like rhythm. In his third stanza however, his last line, cutting short of eight syllables, stands with an emphatic four syllables. Again, in his last stanza, Dunbar utilizes the same technique for the last line of the poem. Dunbar’s awareness of rhyme and syllable structure provides the perfect bone structure for his poem’s rhythm.

            Rhythm, however is not the only driving force in “We Wear the Mask;” repetition also has its influence in the poem. From the start, Dunbar introduces the repetition of his statements of “we:”  “We wear…we smile…we wear…we smile…we sing…we wear,” (Dunbar 1). These statements create a type of solidarity in the poem. Not only does Dunbar introduce harmony in his lines through repetition, but he also creates a tone of grim determination. “We wear,” is by nature more emphatic than, “we might wear,” or “we should wear,” or “we have worn.” By stating that “we wear the mask,” Dunbar forces the statement home, drilling it relentlessly. This insistence is linked to the determination to keep the mask on. The repetition of this statement is almost like a call to arms; “wear the mask,” do not let it down. Dunbar’s last line is almost a triumphant declaration: “We wear the mask!” (Dunbar 1). Dunbar also favors “w” sounds in his poem, employing alliteration: “We wear the mask…why should the world be overwise…while we wear the mask…world dream otherwise, we wear the mask!” (Dunbar 1). This form of repetition and rhyme also pushes the poem forward.

            Dunbar’s use of repetition, rhyme and syllable structure all combine to shape his extended metaphor.  The poet’s most repeated line, “we wear the mask,” also serves as Dunbar’s metaphor. The mask Dunbar speaks of most likely is the “black face” mask: the mask “that grins and lies// hides…cheeks and shades…eyes.”  Dunbar’s poem speaks of the masquerade of black people in America, who may not wear a literal mask, but do wear a figurative one. Dunbar is comparing black Americans in general to black performers on stage who, “sing,” and wear the “black face” while silently their “cries…from tortured souls arise,” (Dunbar 1). His poem speaks to the black masses who wear a mask, hiding their true selves behind grins and lies, a theme his readers undoubtedly understood.

            In conclusion, Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem, “We Wear the Mask,” effectively draws the reader through the poem by implementing end rhyme paired closely with a set number of syllables, repetition, and a powerful extended metaphor. Dunbar’s poem will forever live on as a classic for what it offers and represents. The echoes of rhythm, the insistence of repetition, and the clarity of the metaphor will continue to touch readers for centuries, as it has in the past. Paul Laurence Dunbar’s portrayal of the black community in his time is priceless. America will continue to learn from what his eyes and pen reveal in verse.

The poem dates back to the days when Rome was still ruled by kings, particularly one Tarquin the Proud, who is the villain. Having established his position, Tarquin seeks to enjoy his position and, when he hears one of his soldiers (Collatine) boasting about the virtues and beauty of his wife Lucrece, he resolves to find out whether she is the equal of this praise. The reader, hearing Collatine’s praise, will surely be mentally urging him to shut up since it is well-known that pride (of which boasting is a form) comes before a fall and, bearing in mind the title of the poem, it seems clear who is going to suffer most. And this, of course, is exactly how the plot plays itself out: Tarquin insinuates himself into Collatine’s house and begins his appraisal of the unfortunate eponymous heroine. After interaction and observation, he accepts that Collatine if anything did not go far enough in praising her. He also resolves to have sexual intimacy with her whether she will or not. That night he enters her bedchamber and forces himself upon her. Lucrece is destroyed mentally (we can ignore the pre-modern spiritual element) and, eventually, reveals the truth to her husband while stabbing herself. Collatine in turn resolves to root out the evil of Tarquin and his brood by putting together what might be considered a posse and rounding up the king and his supporters and running them out of Rome. Henceforth, the city will be governed as a republic – which was a complex conclusion to reach during the reign of Elizabeth I (the poem was written by 1594 when the queen was ageing but still deadly). It is possible to consider deeper, political and indeed historical meanings in the narrative and Shakespeare’s language and allusions inspire all manners of other consideration.

The form of the poem is a revenger’s tragedy, since it ends with bodies strewn across the page as a result of the fault of one of the protagonists (Collatine’s boasting) combined with the propensity to evil of the villain, against whom vengeance is finally wrought. Acts of violence under the pretext of revenge remain one of the central tropes of art up to the twenty-first century.

The trio-team of rhyme, repetition, and rhythm is essential to the poem as a whole, as it effectively leads the reader from the dramatic start to the powerful end. Noyes employs a rhyme scheme of AABCCB throughout his poem. Sandwiched neatly between the first B rhyme and the last B rhyme is a string of repetition, effectively rhyming the C words by repeating them thrice. This double rhyme creates an insistent pace to the poem, almost like the cantor of a horse as it runs. Noyes also understands that the repetition of the words adds a whispered urgency to the poem. In his first line, Noyes uses a touch of alliteration: “The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees// the moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,” (Noyes 1). The alliteration of the “g” sounds lends the tone a gritty, grotesque, gothic feeling. Tying in the hushed whispered tone, Noyes jumps quickly to his string of repetition:

                        The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees,

                        The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,

                        The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor,

                        And the highwayman came riding—

                        Riding—riding

                        The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door (Noyes 1).

The breath spaces between “riding—riding—riding,” once again force the tone of urgency in the poem. Also, Noyes pushes his rhythm a step further by regulating his lines to fifteen syllables for the first three lines, and shortening to a waning-waxing rhythm of eight, four, and then thirteen syllables in each of the following lines drawing his reader like the ocean pulls the swimmer out to sea.

Noyes keeps his fingers on the pulse of his poem not only by tapping into rhyme, rhythm, and repetition, but by his dramatic use of onomatopoeia. In his later stanzas, near the ending of the poem he repeats the onomatopoeia over two stanzas.

 Tlot tlot, tlot tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hooves, ringing clear;

Tlot tlot, tlot tlot! In the distance… Down the ribbon of moonlight…

            The highwayman came riding—

            Riding—riding

            The redcoats looked to their priming! She stood up straight and still.

            Tlot tlot, in the frosty silence, tlot tlot, in the echoing night! (Noyes 2).

By pushing the beat of “tlots” Noyes heightens the tension of the poem quite effectively.

Noyes does not stop with artful onomatopoeia and rhythm however; he also employs figurative language, namely similes and metaphors. Noyes wastes no time jumping in to his metaphors opening his poem with three in quick succession: “The wind was a torrent of darkness…the moon was a ghostly galleon…the road was a ribbon of moonlight,” (Noyes 1).  Again near the ending of his narrative poem, he repeats the same metaphors, reinforcing the images in the reader’s minds. Noyes also describes the characters in his poem with similes, for example, he portrays Tim the “ostler” as having, “hair like moldy hay.” These vivid descriptions keep the reader’s attention right down to the last lines when Noyes describes the fallen protagonist as a dead dog in the highway.

In conclusion, Noyes poem “The Highwayman” is a thrilling read because of its use of rhythm, rhyme and repetition, onomatopoeia, and metaphors and similes. Over all, the poem is a classic masterpiece; the syllable construction, alliteration, repetition, and rhyme scheme all fall under rhythm’s scepter aiding the development of the poem. Noyes powerful metaphors and similes effectively captivate the readers, ensuring their utmost attention right through to the last line and the final placement of punctuation. “The Highwayman” is undoubtedly Noyes best work; it will live on forever as, his last lines implies, the action in the poem does: “And still on a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees…a highwayman comes riding—riding—riding—a highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door,”(Noyes 2).

In her first poem in this section, Clifton opens with the image of hands. “They are still,” she tells her reader, affectively implanting the image of two still hands. She goes on to paint the picture of them, allowing her reader to feel the readiness of the hands: ready to rise and turn. In the next poem, she shows a change in the hands. She paints a picture of hands, slightly touching. Clifton also mentions a change in the oxen. Her lines, “The silence has released something like a name//they move away I follow//It is the summons from the ox,” (Clifton 44) clearly show that the animals have a deeper relationship with their herder as her first poem stated: “they (the hands) know// they belong to the ox,” (Clifton 43).  In these lines, Clifton has observed the pictures of an ox herder searching for his oxen. She uses the images, sticking to the fine details, touching fingertips, silences, and movement.

Her next poem, “2nd Picture: Seeing the Traces,” works further on the foundation Clifton has laid in the earlier poems. Clifton uses the tracks in the snow, the lack of changes in the scenery, and the solitude to work her themes in. She likens the lack of changes in the scenery to a mirror and personifies the hands, giving them the ability to think. Next, Clifton describes the solitude and the wind that she feels is in the picture as “Voices whispering//in a room where no one sits//except myself,” (Clifton 45).

In her next poem, Clifton uses an extended metaphor. The ox, she presents, is a state of being. The state of being is a state that is and is also “undefined.” She states this when she lists what the silent “it” is not.

            Not the flesh

            Not the Image

            Of the flesh

            Not the bone

            Nor the clicking

            Of the bone

            Not the brain

            Wearing its mask… (Clifton 46).

She brings her point home when she writes, “no thing is defined//we are coming to the ox,”(Clifton 46). The following poem, “4th Picture: Catching the Ox,” is very telling. Clifton blurs the lines between Ox herder and Oxen, making a claim that the animals and the hands are one, or nearly one. Clifton shows the herder whispering to his animals. “Something comes,” she writes, “I am cautioned by the hands.” Clifton shows the deeper connection through both the brevity of the lines and the implied intuition of the herder and the animals. Though the ox herder has whispered, his oxen have heard him and move toward him. Sensing their movement, the ox herder’s hands alert him that they are coming.

In “5th Picture: Herding the Ox,” Clifton reveals herself as the ox herder. Now she shows her hands, “sitting” in their pockets, pulling on personification. She paints a picture of herself standing, speaking to the oxen. Once again, keeping to her theme, Clifton mentions that she is warned by the hands. Oxen, her hands warn her, cannot be tamed.

Her next poem shows her coming home on the ox’s back. Here, Clifton draws on diction to paint the picture. Words like “shamble,” “inflated,” “captured,” and “supports,” show the way they move together and their relationship to each other.  The relationship is that of captor to captive, though the captive supports the captor.

The two meet someone who finally defines the ox; the ox is now the state of being defined. The man claims the ox. Clifton states here that only when one with authority defines a state of being, can they own it. Clifton claims the man, and alludes to marriage.  Clifton then jumps to the future, and paints a picture of her life without the ox. She shows parents, children, and lovers walking with her. She paints a picture of her hands shivering in their pockets, missing the ox.

In “8th Picture: The Ox and The Man Both Gone Out Of Sight,” Clifton strives to define three beings: herself, the man, and the ox. She comes to a paradoxical conclusion: “No thing is ox// All things are ox,” (Clifton 51).  In her next poem, Clifton begins to qualify her statement. She shows that the word ox, does not start with the word, but with the silence before the word, and ends with the ox herder touching fingertips to fingertips, the way her first poem began.

Her second to last poem in the collection: “10th Picture: Entering the city With Bliss-bestowing Hands,” tells of the travelers as they reach the city. Clifton describes herself as she realizes that she has wronged her hands by surrendering the ox, and the meaning of ox to the man. Now when they rise to touch each other, ox cannot come. Her final poem, entitled End of Meditation once again describes the ox: “What is ox//ox is//what,” (Clifton 54) stating what she has been hinting to all along. Ox is a state of being, ox is what is. Ox is now.

 Through her simple images, Clifton brings her meaning home. Clifton uses the images of silence, hands, the man, the ox, and the fingertips to drive home what Ox means. By the end of the poem the reader begins to understand that ox was the silence, the touching of the fingertips, the present and the moment. Ox is not individual, “all things are ox”.

The poem itself consists of 1,194 lines divided into 199 six line verses. Shakespeare used iambic pentameter for the poem, which is the same metre used for the majority of his dramatic work. An iamb is a two-syllable piece of language with the stress placed on the second syllable. The pentameter part means that this two-syllable group is repeated so that it happens five times per line. For example, in the line ‘If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,’ the stresses fall on love, lent, twen, thou, tongues. The regular verse structure and metre give a rhythmical feel to the poem and help both in reading aloud (and, in some cases, singing) and in understanding the main points. It is also easier to remember the lines, which is more important for the plays, when actors need to memorize their lines. The rhyming scheme is ababcc, meaning that the first and third lines rhyme, as do the second and fourth and the fifth and sixth.

The story of the poem is one which would probably have been well-known to contemporary readers. It is derived from the Metamorphoses of Ovid and also appears in different versions in various other places. In its original form, the goddess Venus falls in love with the mortal youth Adonis and they become lovers until the latter is killed by a boar, which they had been jointly hunting. In Shakespeare’s version, Adonis is reluctant to reciprocate the goddess’s advances and she spends some time trying to convince him of the benefits of a liaison. At its simplest level, therefore, this is love story with some proto-psychological elements and a humane approach to the two characters – the action concerns only the two lovers and is framed approximately according to the classical Greek unities. It is easy to see deeper levels of meaning, including for example a spiritual layer of meaning in which nature (the boar) rejects and destroys an unnatural union of man and the divine (i.e. Adonis and Venus). Whether the reader enjoys deeper meanings or nor, the vision of the lustful goddess trying to seduce the bashful youth is an entertaining and entrancing one.

G. L. Kittredge writes, “As the Temptation appears in the English poem, it is a trial of Gawain’s fidelity to his host and of his loyalty to the chivalric ideal of ‘truth’ (Kittredge 76).”  And indeed, in the first two days in which the lady of the castle appears in Gawain’s chamber to tempt him, he graciously resists her, allowing himself only a small number of kisses (which he accordingly gives the lord at the end of each night) and therefore preserving his knightly and Christian ideals.  However, on the third day, the lady offers him two gifts: first, a ring, which Gawain steadfastly refuses, and then a green girdle, the lady’s description of which helps to sway Gawain’s original stance of not accepting any gifts: “‘For the man that possesses this piece of silk, / If he bore it on his body, belted about, / There is no hand under heaven that could hew him down, / For he could not be killed by any craft on earth (Boroff 58).’”  Gawain, upon hearing this information, quickly acquiesces to the lady’s request: “Then the man began to muse, and mainly he thought / It was a pearl for his plight, the peril to come / When he gains the Green Chapel to get his reward: / Could he escape unscathed, the scheme were noble (Boroff 58)!”  It is clear from these lines that Gawain is not necessarily succumbing to the womanly wiles of the lady of the castle, but rather taking his own life into consideration.  The lady’s assurance that the secret will be kept is only more motivation for Gawain to hide the girdle from his host.  This is evidenced by Ad Putter, who writes, “Gawain is under an obligation to return the gift to his host, but what if the host does not know?  His ignorance enables Gawain to hang on to what he believes is a life-saver.   …the Lady of the Castle’s assurance of secrecy means that Gawain can save his life without his honour being implicated (Putter 181).”

Regardless of how Gawain originally views his transgression, the events at the Green Chapel seem to open his eyes to how serious it actually was (at least, in relation to his own ideology).  After the Green Knight nicks him on the neck and gives him his rebuke, Gawain goes on to lament, “Accursed be a cowardly and covetous heart! / …Your cut taught me cowardice, care for my life, / And coveting came after, contrary both / To largesse and loyalty belonging to knights (Boroff 71).”  The “coveting” that Gawain is referring to is, as described by David Farley Hills, “… a state of inordinate love for oneself, and it is just such a disposition that Gawain has shown in accepting the girdle to save his life.”  He goes on to say, “In not [handing over the green girdle to Bertilak] because he loved his life too much he was placing his love for himself above his love for truth and therefore God—a classical example of [covetousness] in this ‘general’ sense (Hills 129).”  But, as it turns out, the Green Knight is quick to forgive him and absolve him of all wrongdoing, and when Gawain returns to King Arthur’s court and tells them the tale of his misdeed, the monarch and the other lords and ladies present have a good laugh and then commission that each of them have made a green girdle to wear not as a reminder of Gawain’s error but rather as a sort of testament to him and his knightly heroism.  This is the clearest evidence that the poet does not intend for Gawain’s error to be viewed as a serious breach of etiquette; the good knight does, however, learn a lesson: “…that however daunting the path of honesty may seem, one must stick to it, even if one can cut corners without being seen (Putter 183).”  This indicates that the poet meant to teach more of a broad moral lesson than one of strict Christian, or even knightly, virtue; this lesson can easily be assimilated by anyone, knight or no.

Gerald Morgan has written this about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: “We need not doubt that the virtue of fidelity is specifically present, and not by way of mere implication… it is a central part of the deep significance that the poet attaches to [fellowship] (Morgan 5).”  Nevertheless, while the poem’s anonymous author does put much emphasis on this (and other virtues), he (or she) did not intend for the poem to be an unrelenting theological assault upon its medieval readers.  Rather, it is presented as more of a fable, with a far-reaching moral lesson that can be learned by all.

Works Cited

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight / Patience / Pearl: Verse Translations.  Translated by Marie Boroff.  New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001.

Putter, Ad.  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and French Arthurian Romance.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Kittredge, George Lyman.  Study of Gawain and the Green Knight.  Gloucester, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960.

Morgan, Gerald.  “The Validity of Gawain’s Confession in ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.’”  The Review of English Studies.  Vol. 36, No. 141 (Feb. 1985): pp. 1-18.

Hills, David Farley.  “Gawain’s Fault in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.”  The Review of English Studies.  Vol. 14, No. 54 (May 1963): pp. 124-131.

Burrow, John.  “The Two Confession Scenes in ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.’”  Modern Philology.  Vol. 57, No. 2 (Nov. 1959): pp. 73-79.

In “A Carcass,” Baudelaire first introduces us to his particular views of death, beginning the poem with an account of a lovely stroll down a sunlit path in the summertime:

“Remember, my love, the object we saw
That beautiful morning in June:
By a bend in the path a carcass reclined
On a bed sown with pebbles and stones;

Her legs were spread out like a lecherous whore
Sweating out poisonous fumes,
Who opened in slick invitational style
Her stinking and festering womb” (Oxford 59).

Baudelaire goes on to describe the carcass in grotesquely detailed form while interspersing bright, lively images, blurring the lines between life and death:

“And this whole teeming world made a musical sound
Like a babbling brook and the breeze,
Or the grain that a man with a winnowing-fan
Turns with a rhythmical ease” (Oxford 61).

It is clear that, with the first corpse poem in The Flowers of Evil, Baudelaire is pointing out the fact that life and death are one: where there is death, there is also life, but where there is life, so too must there be death.  The poet even goes on to explain to his female companion that even she, the “angel” of the poem, will eventually die and decay just like the poem’s nauseating namesake:

“Yes, such will you be, o regent of grace,
After the rites have been read,
Under the weeds, under blossoming grass
As you moulder with bones of the dead” (Oxford 63).

Life feeds on life; nature dictates that at some point in time we all must die in order to feed the “blossoming grass.”  Baudelaire is simply stating a basic fact of life that we oftentimes gloss over while going about our daily lives, and of which we are reminded only when we attend funerals.

Baudelaire further scorns humankind’s ignorance of its own mortality in “Danse Macabre,” a lengthy and ironic vision of a feminine skeleton attending a ball that draws references to Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” and almost joyfully mocks our attempts to “escape” from death:

“‘From steamy Ganges to the freezing Seine
The troop of mortals leaps and swoons, and does
Not see the Angel’s trumpet aimed at them
Down through the ceiling, that black blunderbuss.

In every climate Death admires you
In your contortions, o Humanity,
And perfuming herself as you would do,
Into your madness blends her irony!’” (Oxford 201).

Here, Baudelaire is making the argument that, no matter how much metaphorical perfume and makeup we hide behind, death will still find us, and will watch gleefully as we dance, completely unaware of its long, skeletal fingers coming to rest on our shoulders.  This poem, along with “A Carcass,” is Baudelaire’s version of a wake-up call, urging us to be mindful of our own mortality and live accordingly, lest in our arrogance we lose touch with our reality and die before we are truly prepared.

 Baudelaire was no hypocrite, however.  His perspective on death appears in The Flowers of Evil as well; pessimistic but also gleefully accepting, he writes of death as simply an escape from life, although possibly not as restful as one might like, as seen in “The Happy Corpse:”

“O worms! dark playmates minus ear or eye
Prepare to meet a free and happy corpse;
Droll philosophes, children of rottenness,

Go then along my ruin guiltlessly,
And say if any torture still exists
For this old soulless corpse, dead with the dead!” (Oxford 143).

From the carefree yet slightly sobered musings of “The Happy Corpse,” Baudelaire switches to a different tone in “Skeletons Digging:”

“Do you (our dreadful fate seems clear
In your design) intend to show
That in the pit we may not know
The sleep we have been promised there;

Non-being will not keep its faith;
That even Death can tell a lie,
And that, Alas! eternally
It falls to us, perhaps, at death

In some anonymous retreat
To see the stubborn land is flayed
By pushing the reluctant spade
Under our bare and bleeding feet?” (Oxford 191).

Here, Baudelaire reveals that although he has no real fear of death, he does indeed harbor uneasiness about what lies ahead.  This shows that he, too, admits he is only human, and has his own misgivings about death.  The difference that he makes between himself and the rest of humanity is that he is accepting of, and possibly looks forward to, the death that inevitably awaits us all.

One of the main themes throughout The Flowers of Evil is that of the Spleen and the poet’s constant struggle for escape from this metaphysical downdraft that drags the creative mind from its possible transcendental state.  The fear of death is one of the contributors to this condition; if one is unable to accept his own mortality, he will constantly be distracted by his attempts to prolong his life and avoid what cannot be avoided, and he will never achieve the true spiritual form that Baudelaire strove for.  The corpse poems are Baudelaire’s way of trying to help us release ourselves from the chains of fear and rise to that state of acceptance which we unfortunately have yet to reach.  If Baudelaire was able to come to peace with the prospect of mortality, perhaps we can as well.

Works Cited

Baudelaire, Charles.  The Flowers of Evil.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

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Literature changes as time progresses onward. Looking over the period of history and examining poetry in general is very interesting. Poets have always defined the rules in describing a personal perspective to life. This doesn’t necessary mean that poetic forms are restricted to a style or format. What this means is that the mind needs to be more flexible with styles of the old and new.

While some people enjoy Robert Frost and Shakespeare, others may tend to stick with modern authors like Fleur Adcock and Elizabeth Bishop. The poetry is an undergoing change in feeling and a storyline for the readers to be drenched in. While the practice on traditional poetry is rampant in music and in the social scene, the new age style is quickly leaving the underground and moving into the mainstream with a glorious torch.

Why is modern poetry a revolution? Modern poetry deals with more free thinking than restrictive stanzas of a particular scheme or pattern of the traditional sense. Free verse poetry and art infused poetry allows the perception to be different to every reader. This doesn’t make traditional poetry bad; it’s like a fine wine and requires an acquired taste. Even though in some classical formats there is freedom to explore wordplay and dictionary strength. The real art is writing out the correct scheme and style with effort finally placed into the words and storyline itself. With the freedom of the modern style, the author creates their own template with each poem they write. This can be frustrating in a short run but the beauty is often more raw and abundant.

The art infused style of poetry that is running wild is interesting to study. The picture with a few descriptive phrases blends the world of painting with the art of words pleasantly. This form is not set in stone but is left to the individual author. I’ve seen designs done by the word themselves and it has a really cool appeal. I’ve even unintentional done designs by writing a stanza or so, they came to be a bell shaped design. The nice thing about this particular style, the unintentional effort leads to some outrageous but nice landscapes or what nots. I believe we should accept modern styles of poetry with open minds and hearts and wait to see. What is the next evolution in the world of poetic literature?