Answer TWO of the
following:
Q1: In Fitzgerald’s
Introduction to the First Edition of the poem, he writes, “No doubt many of
these Quatrains [four line verses] seem unaccountable unless mystically
interpreted; but many more as unaccountable unless literally.” Discuss a
passage which helps you decide how to read this work: as an extended metaphor
for different stages of life, or as a literal “carpe diem” poem about the here
and now.
Q2: In stanza XXIII,
Fitzgerald writes, “Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,/Sans wine, sans
Song, sans Singer, and—sand End.” This sentiment is echoed throughout the poem
in different forms, but with the same general meaning. Is this message one of
overwhelming fatalism and pessimism? Or is it another way of ignoring the
“finger” for the “moon”?
Q3: Though this is a loose
translation of an 11th century poem, it is also very much a 19th century
English poem as well. Where do we hear echoes of the Romantics in the poem? How
was Fitzgerald writing an ‘exotic’ poem that also responded to the works of
Keats, Coleridge, and others?
Q4: Fitzgerald often plays verbal games in his poem, deliberately tricking the reader with
sounds and syntax. Consider Stanza XXX for example,
What, without asking,
hither hurried whence?
And, without asking, whither
hurried hence!
Another and another Cup to drown
The Memory of this
Impertinence!
How can you translate the
general meaning of this stanza? How do the sounds of this poem (esp. the
alliteration) disguise and frustrate its literal meaning? Why does he often
employ this strategy in the poem?
2.) While the message does sound someone pessimistic or "glass half empty," I also think it is a far more beautiful and optimistic message at the same time. It is the complete understanding of knowing nothing and coming to terms with the fact that death leads the human body into becoming dust. While the narrator definitely seems distressed, they are willing themselves to understand that their sadness is all arbitrary and within their own fate for the brief time they have because no one comes back from the grave to report what happens after death.
ReplyDelete3.) The poem echoes the Romantics in that it takes what should be a commonplace event and turns it far more sublime. While we hate the idea that death is common and will happen to us, the poem does an excellent job illustrating how the bodies of the deceased continue on through generations after them. The tones of nature and godliness also help add to the romanticism. Nature plays a huge part in this poem, as it is seen as what every human being will turn into and basically what we are already.
That's a great point--sadness is arbitrary, since sadness is about loss, and for the poet, loss is seeing life as torn between past and future. If neither truly exists, and everything is 'now' , then there's nothing to lament. Sorrow comes from the illusion of separation, which cannot exist if you don't see yourself as having lost anything, or if you don't always want to gain something. You have it already.
DeleteElyse Marquardt
ReplyDeleteQ2: This is definitely a depressing passage, but it is a very realistic and therefore beautiful passage as well. The poet is realizing the fleeting nature of life, and he is impressing upon his readers how they must appreciate life for what if offers them NOW. The finger is pointing at the moon: the moon in this case is the fact that death comes to all and that nobody knows what happens afterward. The message states that we must "make the most of what we may yet spend." The young are encouraged to enjoy life while it lasts and not to worry about what comes later, for nobody knows; so there is no point in worrying.
Q3: This is very much a 19th century Romantic, English poem. The point of many of the stanzas is that life is over in the blink of an eye. Death is heralded as an inevitable fact of life, and consequently the enjoyment of every moment is emphasized. Nature also heavily comes into play, which is always a big part of mostly any Romantic work. The very first stanza introduces the sun as "the Hunter of the East." This personification is seen in many Romantic English poems and gives nature a larger-than-life sense. Melodrama abounds in this poem, and that is a huge part of the Romantic period of poetry.
Elyse Marquardt
Yes, great connections to the period and to the Romantic ideas of art and reality. The poet isn't interested in making life and death into an object of artistic worship, which is cold and lifeless; rather, he would have you life with it as a companion, something here and now, rather than something to be enjoyed "hither." Otherwise, you may never enjoy it at all.
DeleteQ2:I don't think it is pessimistic at all, especially when read in context with the other stanzas. He is advocating living life while it lasts, because the pleasures of life are fleeting, and once they are gone, they are gone forever.
ReplyDeleteQ4: He is basically saying he moved about in his life, going from one place to the other, without any real meaning or adding any value to his life. The linguistic tricks employed add to the literal meaning, mirroring the pointlessness and confusion it describes.
Yes, the pleasures are gone once they're gone, so you should enjoy them now rather than trying to hoard them, or stressing over them, or getting jealous over them, etc. For the poet, storing up for the future is vain, since there really is no future--you could die tomorrow (or today). Life for today, or more accurately, see that there is no yesterday, today, or tomorrow. This is an illusion which makes you lord over an illusion of time--an empire which turns to dust in your sleep!
DeleteI had much longer responses written out, but it somehow got deleted, and I had to quickly rewrite my thoughts. I hope I got my major points across.
ReplyDeleteSorry! But yes, this makes sense.
DeleteAshley Bean
ReplyDelete2. I think the message itself is not very pessimistic, like everyone else has noted, it’s about living life to the fullest each day. However, how the message is said is a bit dark. It would be easy to read it in an entirely pessimistic way, with the repeated phrases about dust and death. Death is kind of a pessimistic subject, so it only makes sense to word it so, while emphasizing the beauty and joy of life, and how we often overlook it.
3. Several times in the poem, he equates the body to nature. The body is nature, in this poem, and life is as sublime as a mountain. He is taking the sublimity of life and shoving it in our faces, so maybe we’ll stop and think about it for a minute and not take it for granted. It seems kind of like a critique of typical Romantic poetry, how they put too much thought into nature and not enough into human life, perhaps.
Great points: he tries to rub death in your face so you stop obsessing about it. It's not something to be avoided "over there," since it's already here. But if it's here, you will never die, in a sense; death isn't a destination but a state of being. So is life. If we can see ourselves in both, we can be there 'now' and not be distracted by "hither and thither."
DeleteSteven Shelley
ReplyDeleteQ1: One of the best examples is in stanza XXX when it says “another and another Cup to drown The Memory of this Impertinence.” This could be taken in many ways. As a college student I think it just makes sense to translate this verse as to drown your sorrows by drinking to forget them. A lot of people did this over spring break. I don’t believe he meant this in a literal way. I believe he meant this in a much more figurative and metaphorical way.
Q3: This poem deals life and death and this is very romantic idea. They believed that when a person “died” when they lost their innocents and not an actual death as in a way this poem states it. When I read stanza LX and LXIII really reminded me of Blake’s poem “The Tyger.” Just like in the tyger when the speaker is asking why would someone create something so evil, the vessel that was ungainly make is asking the same question, it is asking why someone would make me so messed up?
Yes, it's a lot like The Tyger, isn't it? Why would the pot be misshapen? Is it wrong? Only if we have one ideal for the pot...otherwise, we have to question what a pot is, and who the potter is, and why he might want to make a "misshapen" pot.
DeleteQ3: Romantics were concerned with losing the meaning of life to the hustle and bustle of everyday activity. The poem also expresses the same anxiety, but also some solutions to it. In stanza 28, for example, Fitzgerald writes "with them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,/ And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:/ And this was all the Harvest I reap'd-/ "I came like Water, and like Wind I go." I think this passage underlines something important. When we focus too much on gaining wisdom and confining ourselves in strict, rigid lines we are at the mercy of an uncertain future. We can disappear as easily as the wind blows, despite how good or how bad we are.
ReplyDeleteQ4: The alliteration in this poem is so extensive that it can be distracting for the reader. It creates a whir of sound and implies literal activity within those few lines. By making this particular stanza so difficult to read, Fitzgerald succeeds in getting his readers to stop and think about the actual meaning of the words.
Yes, great reading: if all we think about is the end result of something, we're not really learning or living--we're living in the future which never is, or else trying to escape the past, which no longer is. The purpose of study is only the moment of reading, not the benefits of this reading. It's a meditation on the purpose of life itself--hither, or thither, or here?
DeleteQ3: This poem gives off a Romantic vibe pretty regularly, such as in “The Quarrel of the Universe” and references to a potter, each with their appeals to the sublime. Fitzgerald pretty much stated that no matter how hard we protest we will lose a lot of what we love, which is a sentiment found in Romantic works that mourn the loss of innocence or a breaking in a connection with nature.
ReplyDeleteQ4: From what I can gather of these almost nonsensical sentences, it’s almost like he is asking “What just randomly left and faded away? I shall drown out these unpleasant memories!” His extensive use of alliteration turns this stanza into such a tongue twister that it even messes with our heads. You get turned around with what it is trying to say and it takes several tries just to get a clue. By using this he gets us to stop and think about what we are reading as we try our best to decipher what in the world this man was trying to say.
Yes, the extreme trickery of these lines suggests not only that things aren't what they seem, but that life itself is a beautiful riddle: one that can only be solved slowly, poem by poem. Or we can just dismiss it and say, "it's just about getting drunk."
DeleteQ3. I see it as though he's trying to say that we have all this going on around us that leads to death that we forget to realize that we have all these things around us right now and we haven't reached death. Appreciate the now. It seems to fit in with the more modern stuff because they were very romantic and sentimental about these things; nature vs human is always a reoccurring thing.
ReplyDeleteQ4. It's a pun. Honestly, I think he just wanted something in his poetry to stand out from the rest. Whether the rest be other poems or the other stanzas. “What, without asking, was hurried here from what? And, without asking, is being hurried where?” We are being rushed, not only in life but through these lines, and where are we going? What is the point of going somewhere if you don't know where you came or what your goal is? Perhaps this has a religious annotation, too.
Good responses...though more than just 'appreciate the now,' I think the poet wants us to question why we regret the past and hope for the future. Seeing life as a pair of opposites like this, neither one of which we can ever have, is pointless. Better to focus on the current moment and experience life through what is, rather what can never be (an almost Keatsian idea, too).
ReplyDelete