THE LONGING SOUL IN VESPERS (#3) BY LOUISE GLÜCK

Transcription

1 THE LONGING SOUL IN VESPERS (#3) BY LOUISE GLÜCK AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters By MUHAMMAD DIRGANTARA ESA VALENTINO AM Student Number: ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2017

2 THE LONGING SOUL IN VESPERS (#3) BY LOUISE GLÜCK AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters By MUHAMMAD DIRGANTARA ESA VALENTINO AM Student Number: ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2017 ii

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5 LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma Nama Nomor Mahasiswa : : Muhammad Dirgantara Esa Valentino AM Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul THE LONGING SOUL IN VESPERS (#3) BY LOUISE GLÜCK beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasinnya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin kepada saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis. Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta Pada tanggal 24 Agustus 2017 Yang menyatakan, Muhammad Dirgantara Esa Valentino AM v

6 STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I certify that this undergraduate thesis contains no material which has been previously submitted for the award of any degree at any university, and that, to the best of my knowledge, this undergraduate thesis contains no material previously written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text of the undergraduate thesis. Yogyakarta, August 24, 2017 Muhammad Dirgantara Esa Valentino AM vi

7 The obligation of a critic [is] to mediate, through an informed subjectivity, the totality of the artwork as he [or she] intuits its reasons for being as it is. Helen Vendler vii

8 To Dra. Sumarni Tahir viii

9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This journey is a lengthy and laborious one. That finally I made it through is not solely the fruit of my own labor and power. On this instance, thus, I would like to express my gratitude to several pairs of helping hands. My advisor, E. Arti Wulandari, who guides, argument by argument, the writing of this thesis. My coadvisor, A. B. Sri Mulyani, who reads the draft in its entirety and gives corrections and suggestions. My previous advisor, F. X. Siswadi, to whom I owe the insight to Vespers (#3) connection with Job. And my examiner, G. Fajar Sasmita Aji for his praise and critique during the viva voce. Next, I want to thank too Helen Vendler of Harvard University for her generosity in granting my request of her article. Also to Van Deventer Maas-Stitching for the generous monthly grants I had received during most of my study. Likewise, I thank the Library of Sanata Dharma University for providing such an enormous resource. (This is the best part of the university, in my opinion.) Finally, I want to thank my family, who support me financially; and my friends (Stella Noviani, Laura Sianturi, Sapphira Wardani, Adenda Astriningtyas, Galih Priambodo and Niko Ginting) and especially my companion, M. Agus Hardiansyah, who support me emotionally. They had been, indirectly, an important part in every step of this journey. M. D. ix

10 TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE... ii APPROVAL PAGE... iii ACCEPTANCE PAGE... iv LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH.. v STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY... vi EPIGRAPH... vii DEDICATION PAGE... viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS... ix TABLE OF CONTENTS... x ABSTRACT... xi ABSTRAK... xii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION... 1 A. Background of the Study... 1 B. Problem Formulation... 6 C. Objectives of the Study... 7 CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE... 8 A. Review of Related Studies... 8 B. Review of Related Theories C. Theoretical Framework CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY A. Object of the Study B. Approach of the Study C. Method of the Study CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS A. The Content of Vespers (#3) B. The Forms of Vespers (#3) CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION A. Conclusion B. Suggestions BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDIX: Vespers (#3) x

11 ABSTRACT AM, MUHAMMAD DIRGANTARA ESA VALENTINO. The Longing Soul in Vespers (#3) by Louise Glück. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, Until now, the bulk of studies on The Wild Iris has been overwhelmingly focused on general topics, moving across poems without paying enough attention to the details of each. This study, in general, fills this critical gap as the book is a major poetical work by a major contemporary American poet, Louise Glück. In specific, it studies, both in content and forms, Vespers (#3), one of the poems occupying a central thematic and structural position in the book. This study has two problems. In the first one, it deals with the content aspects of Vespers (#3). In the second, it grapples with the poem s various forms and its contribution to the content. The content, to clarify, is put first in the order as the particular poem demands it to be such. As a library research, employing the scalpel of New Critical approach advocated by Helen Vendler, this study primary source is Glück s Vespers (#3). Its secondary sources, meanwhile, are relevant books, audio-visual media, and articles. In the meantime, there are three general steps completed to arrive at the study s present shape. First, the poem was paraphrased to formulate its contentrelated aspects: subject matter and theme. Next, the poem s various forms are identified and seen in connection to the content. Finally, the findings are reported in the written form. This study argues that the poem is an expression of longing. Specifically, it shows a human speaker longing to know the reason for her suffering. Together with the paraphrase, this is the content-related aspect of the poem. The various forms and its contribution to the content, meanwhile, are as follows. The diction, imageries, rhetorical devices, syntax, rhythm, rhyme, stanza form, and intertextuality emphasize the content of the poem. On the other hand, together with the tenses, the diction and rhetorical devices also extend the content of the poem. xi

12 ABSTRAK AM, MUHAMMAD DIRGANTARA ESA VALENTINO. The Longing Soul in Vespers (#3) by Louise Glück. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, Sampai saat ini, studi-studi mengenai The Wild Iris, sebuah buku penting dari salah satu penyair terpenting kontemporer Amerika, terlalu fokus pada isu umum. Hal ini seakan membuat kritikus-kritikus kurang memperhatikan detaildetail setiap puisi. Studi ini secara umum mengisi kekosongan ini. Lebih spesifik lagi, studi ini meneliti secara mendetail Vespers (#3), baik dari segi isi maupun bentuk. Sebabnya, puisi ini merupakan bagian penting The Wild Iris, baik secara tema maupun struktur. Studi ini menjawab dua masalah. Di masalah pertama, isi Vespers (#3) diungkapkan. Sementara itu, di masalah kedua, bentuk dan hubungan bentuk ke isi puisi diuraikan. Isi dibahas lebih dahulu daripada bentuk karena puisi bersangkutan menuntut demikian. Sebagai studi pustaka yang menggunakan pisau bedah New Criticism Helen Vendler, sumber textual utama studi ini adalah Vespers (#3). Sementara itu, sumber kedua studi ini adalah buku-buku, media-media audio-visual, dan artikelartikel yang bersangkut-paut. Guna sampai pada bentuknya yang sekarang, ada tiga langkah yang ditempuh. Pertama, puisi yang menjadi objek studi diuraikan secara literal. Selanjutnya, macam-macam bentuk puisi diidentifikasi untuk kemudian dihubungkan dengan isi tersebut. Akhirnya, penemun-penemuan dari studi ini dilaporkan dalam bentuk tertulis ini. Studi ini membuktikan bahwa Vespers (#3) adalah sebuah ekspresi merindu. Lebih spesifiknya, puisi ini menunjukkan seseorang yang begitu rindu mengetahui jawaban mengapa dia menderita. Ini adalah aspek isi dari puisi ini. Di lain sisi, aspek bentuknya adalah sebagai berikut. Diksi, citraan, majas, sintaksis, ritme, rima, bentuk bait, dan intertextualitasnya menekankan isi puisi. Sementara itu, bersama dengan penanda waktu, diksi dan majas juga memperluas isi puisi. xii

13 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study This is a New Critical study on Vespers (#3) from The Wild Iris (1993), a book of poetic-sequence by Louise Glück. Specifically subscribing to Helen Vendler s critical methods and principles, this study accounts fully the poem s details in representing the feeling of longing through its content and forms. As such, this is an original contribution to the oeuvres of criticism on Glück s works in the critical vein of Vendler s The Art of Shakespeare Sonnets (1997) and Dickinson (2010a). Glück is a highly acclaimed poet of contemporary American literature. Aside from having won visibly all the major awards a poet can dream to win in the US, she has also been praised by a group of diverse critics and fellow poets. Vendler (1995a: 16) praises her as a poet of strong and haunting presence, whereas Daniel Morris (2006: 1) labels her as poet who is considered among America s foremost contemporary lyric poets. Don Chiasson (2012), meanwhile, commenting on his summary of Glück s Collected Poems, pronounces none of this would matter if Glück were not among the most moving poets of our era, even while remaining the most [aesthetically] disabusing. These praises, along with the many awards she has won, are a testament to the high regards of contemporary American literati to Glück s works. 1

14 2 In a spawn of six decades ( ), Glück has published eleven books of poems, among which is the aforementioned The Wild Iris. To this date, according to many critics, it is among her most accomplished books ( Louise Glück ). Comprised of 54 individual poems, this poetic-sequence presents a trio of voices addressing one another, expressing among others their believes, disappointments, and longings in a variety of tone, ranging from sympathetic to condescending, from disdainful to elegiac. Manifested in 14 poems, the first of the voice is god speaking to human, mostly through ephemeral natural phenomena (e.g. clarity of morning, spring snow, end of winter, and so on). The second voice, with total of 22 poems, is that of the human speaker either addressing god in the prayer poems (7 Matins and 10 Vespers ); addressing no one in Love in Moonlight, Song, Heaven and Earth, and The Doorway ; or addressing another person as in Presque Isle. As for the last voice, it is a group of vegetation addressing the human speaker. The titles of the 18 poems under this heading indicates the speakers, which are mostly flowers (e.g. The Wild Iris, Lamium, Trilium, and so on). The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1993, this slender book has been studied and reviewed in a bulk of literary journals, newspapers, and postgraduate theses. Linda Gregerson (in Bloom, 2010: ) and Bobbie Nadal (1993: ) have characterized the nature and effect of the tripartite voices in the book, a topic many others also have dealt with. Meanwhile, Morris (2006: ), in his book-length study on Glück s poetic-sequences, foregrounds the nature of the interacting voices, the intertextuality of the poems, and also the

15 3 emotional/thought development the praying human speaker undergoes as the poems progress. Similar to Morris, Cyril Mun (2008: 37-48) in her master thesis also traces the plot of the speaker s thought development. Together with the other studies not mentioned here, The Wild Iris has indeed gain much critical attentions. There is a lacunae, however, among these various topic-centered studies, wherein the critics pick up a general topic from the book and argue for it by snippets of illustrating sections: each individual poems discussed never fully get its due as complete single whole. More concretely, the content and the forms of the poems do not get the critical attention they deserve. Even Morris, who claims that his book is the first close-reading of Glück s poetic-sequences, in fact does not provide a detailed poem by poem analysis of The Wild Iris in the way Vendler does when dealing with Dickinson s lyrics or Shakespeare s sonnets. Not only does Morris reading inadequate in details, his is also more content-focused most of the time, giving the impression that the poems could have been written in prose. Sacrificing the details of each poem needs not be the case: studying the general does not necessarily mean the particular have to be glossed over. Vendler (1995a: 16-22) has demonstrated exactly this point when in noting about the working of the tripartite voices like Gregerson and Nadal, showing how one speaker s belief on a specific issue is juxtaposed to the other speakers believes, she provides a zoomed-in explication of the poems she chooses to discuss. Though her review is also topic-centered, she is very meticulous in her analysis of

16 4 the poems. On Scilla for example, although brief from the demand of the medium, is very specific as it goes in to the minute internal structure of the poem: [It] is arranged on a few strings: one is the necklace of ings (thing, nothing, standing, planning, things, looking, seeing, hearing, singing) nine of them in seventeen short lines. The four successive questions comprise another string, and yet another is linked by water: waves of sky blue, some image of water, waves, waves. (1995a: 19). The latent priority connoted by the decision of these studies (except Vendler s), that the general is more important than the particular, is antagonistic to my own standpoint. Vendler has implied in her book on William Shakespeare (1997) and Emily Dickinson (2010a) that the particular is as important as the general: after providing a general comment on the poems as whole, she proceeds to do a detailed poem by poem analysis, demonstrating the possible coexistence of topic-centered and poem-centered criticism. The piling up of topic-centered criticism on the one side, and the thinness of poem-centered criticism on the other is regrettable. The problem is not that topiccentered criticism is wrong, after all it helps our broadening our understanding of the generality of the book; but that it is all there is. Since Vendler s preliminary finding, there has not been any study on the poems in The Wild Iris which analyzes poems details one by one. This study aspires to fill this gap. As a tool to make that possible this study uses the scalpel of New Criticism, specifically that of Vendler. Not only does it lends itself perfectly to the study of specificity in individual poem, but also it accounts fully for the two components which makes a poem a poem: the content and the forms. The pieces in The Wild

17 5 Iris are poems and, therefore, needs to receive its due as such: not only its content, but also its forms must be considered. Let me, here, however, temper down my high aspiration. It is true that a thorough study in the mode of Vendler to The Wild Iris must account for every poem in the book. However, realizing the limitation of time on my part to conduct this research, it is improbable to deal with the entire 54 poems while still holding fast to my words to pay attention to every detail in each poem. Therefore, this study discusses only Vespers (#3). As has been noted by Vendler (1995a: 16) and Morris (2006: 201), the back bone of the book is that of the prayer poems. The other poems, in the meantime, rotate around this backbone, giving it flesh. Hence, the narrowing down to either Matins or Vespers to be selected. As to the further narrowing down to the specific prayer poem is Vespers (#3) thematic centrality. The poems in The Wild Iris mostly deals with the theme of human s mortality, human s relation with god and nature, and human s suffering. Vespers (#3), while part of the book s backbone, also contributes to the manifestation of one of aforementioned themes: human suffering, specifically human s longing for an explanation on his/her suffering, as I hope to show in Chapter IV. These are the rationales for only studying Vespers (#3). There are of course other possible selections from The Wild Iris with similarly strong rationales. To give an example: selecting a group of poems by different speakers dealing with a similar theme. Poems such as The Wild Iris, Trillium, Matins (#3), Field Flowers, and The White Rose are all dealing with the theme of mortality with different perspective but nevertheless meaningful

18 6 interactions. A selection on this basis would have been able to show how the voices in the book interact with each other, a subject that this study s selection probably cannot show. Another possibility is to study the development of the speaker as the prayer poems progress, selecting either Matins (#1-#7) or Vespers (#1-#10) to focus on. Again, this subject is also underrepresented here. However, choosing both of these possibilities would only extend other researches findings: Gregerson and Vendler for the former; Morris and Wun for the later. In the face of either extending the researches of other or making an original contribution to the criticism of The Wild Iris, I choose the later one. This study, admittedly, is very limited in scope. However, in is concentrated scope, it hopes to provides a full account of the interrelatedness of Vespers (#3)- s content (the matter expressed) and forms (the contribution of the formal features to that matter). In such a small slice in the wide field-like expanse of The Wild Iris, this study aspires borrowing Levinson s comment (in Scott, 1991) on Vendler to leaves no rift unfilled. In doing so, I hope to present the packed richness of the poem. B. Problem Formulation As noted, this is a New Critical reading of Vespers (#3) with the guiding of Vendler s theory. As such, it examines both the content and forms of the poem with the analytical steps of Vendler. Transposing this into questions, this study asks: 1. What is the content of Vespers (#3)? 2. What is the forms contribution to the content of Vespers (#3)?

19 7 C. Objectives of the Study This study has two objectives. One is to articulate the content Vespers (#3). The other is to details the contribution of the poem s forms to that content..

20 CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE A. Review of Related Studies Representative of other related studies, the following two are reviewed to complement this research. The first one is Errand in the Spiritual Wilderness, a section in Daniel Morris pioneering book, The Poetry of Louise Glück (2006). Morris presents the generality of The Wild Iris an important one to note as the present study tends to overlook this particular aspect as well as a one-by-one close reading of the prayer poems, including Vespers (#3). The second related study is Flower Power (1993) by Helen Vendler, originally a review on The New Republic but later anthologized in Soul Says (1995a). Vendler similarly discusses the generality of the book, but also provides some remarks on some poem s specific features. 1. Morris Errand in the Spiritual Wilderness Morris (2006) reads The Wild Iris twice. At first reading (2006: ), he presents a general reading in which he attempts to contextualize The Wild Iris in Glück s creative oeuvre, concluding that the book recall[s] the nature lyrics in The House on Marshland as well as the mourning of a daughter for her father in Ararat while also anticipating the high-low experiment of Meadowland and that the book coordinates an eclectic grab bag of multicultural resources and then combines it into a series of meditative religious poems in which the speaker experiences intimation of immortality. At the same time, he reads it also with a 8

21 9 Bloomian perspective, concluding that the book shows Glück in agon with the voice of Yahweh of The Old Testament. In other words, Glück is revising the writing of her strong precursor, in this case the author(s) of the Hebrew Bible, through her poems in The Wild Iris. At his second reading, Morris close-reads the prayer sequence ( Matins & Vespers ) and some of the flower and god s poems, finding the narrative as well as the lyrical interest of the sequence. Encapsulating both interests, Morris writes [Through Vespers and Matins,] Glück can focus on the gardener-poet s unfulfilled spiritual desires, her yearning for affection, as her moods shift during the day, and in the gardener s different seasons of cultivation, fruition, aftermath, and desire for renewal after her withering garden has, metaphorically, suggested the limits to any human endeavor. (2006: 202) The first syntactical part of the extract summarizes the lyrical interest of the sequence according to Morris, whereas the second one the narrative interest ( as her moods shift [ ] ). Specifically on Vespers (#3), Morris (2006: ) finds, in its elegiac description of a late point in the gardening season, as well as, by analogy, lateness in the sequence of lyric mediations, both an expression of suffering similar to Job of the Old Testament and also an encoded act of skeptical selfcommentary on the overall project Glück has done in The Wild Iris. Furthermore, Morris also notes that Vespers (#3) recalls Matins (#6) in its similar portrayal of the human speaker as worse off than the other creations. Needless to say, Morris study is relevant to my research as it studies the same objects of study. More than that, the relevance is increased as he also

22 10 expresses several points I find true. For example, his contention that Vespers (#3) has a content similarity to Job and that it echoes the sentiment of Matins (#6) are correct in my opinion. To these points of agreement, my research is then a modification and elaboration of his rather brief discussion. There also are points of disagreement, however. Most vital of all, I find his implicit assumption of the triviality of forms unacceptable. It is very apparent through his reading that he overlooks, or takes for granted, the formal features of the poem. In either case, that he provides very scant analysis of the significance of the formal features to the content is unsatisfying. Here, my reading supplies what Morris fails to do. One last point. Stemming from our different focus, Morris and I assign a different role for the poem s speaker in our reading. Morris gives the human speaker, which he identifies as Glück, a twofold role: one is as the speaker of the prayer poems; two is as the speaker of also the god and flower poems. In the book, according to Morris, Glück is indulging herself in an imaginative ventriloquism; asking and responding to her own questions through the self-made persona of flowers and god. This assumption is not wrong: of course the poet is the one behind all those various characters, but for the purpose of the present research which aspires only to explain what the book does as oppose to what the poet does through the book, such assumption is unnecessary. My own position thus is to assume that in the book, the speaker is a fictional character who speaks only through the prayer poems. The other poems, in the meantime, instead of spoken by the persona of Glück herself, assuming the masks of flowers and god, are really spoken by talking flowers and a responding god. However, I follow

23 11 Morris in considering that the speaker can strongly be identified as Glück s own persona as the textual evidence from the prayer sequence, elaborated in Chapter IV, clearly shows. 2. Vendler s Flower Power Preceding Morris by 13 years, in the second related study, Vendler points out several points of interest in The Wild Iris. Unlike Morris, her study does not directly touch on Vespers (#3). Her study is still relevant, nonetheless, as it outlines not only the generalities complementing what Morris has also observed, but also the specificity of the poems it discusses, opening a path for subsequent specific close-reading of the poems. In a nutshell, Vendler s review (1995a: 21) can be summarized as aiming to show [The Wild Iris s] didactic and dialectical nature, its dimensions, its mythical means. Agreed on by the majority of commentators, Vendler (1995a: 18-22) illustrates dialectical nature of the poems in book by taking as an example a group of three poems: Scilla spoken by a flower, Retreating Wind by god, and Love in Moonlight by the human speaker. In Scilla, the bed of flowers contends that individual uniqueness of the soul is unimportant. Accordingly, what the individual soul has had, such as erotic life, is also unimportant. Rather than mourning for it, human being, on the contrary should live communally like plants, undifferentiated. In Retreating Wind, god corrects scilla point of view by saying that human being cannot live like plants for the linearity of human life is entirely different from the cyclic life of plants. Finally, the human speakers in Love in Moonlight contributes to this dialectic by embodying all that the erotic

24 12 life has meant, could mean, did mean in a beautiful image of the world showered with moonlight, a metaphor for the memory of the now lost erotic life. Still closely related to this dialectic is the didactic nature of the poems, which rises out the speakers different contentions: each of the argument forwarded by the speakers persuades the reader to take each single view. For instance, the didactic nature of scilla is their proposition that human being should, as Vendler (1995a: 20) puts it, live like plants. Next, Vendler alludes to what she calls the dimensions of the poem. There are two ways to see this. The first one is dimensions as the specific structure and features of each poems she chooses to exemplify. For example, in Scilla, she sees linking chain of ings happening nine times in seventeen short lines as the specific structure of the poem. In addition, she also sees as specific structures the chains of question constructions and water-related words ( waves of sky blue, some image of water, waves, waves, waves ). In April, meanwhile, Vendler sees the significance of the formal features of rhyme (i.e. alliteration, assonance) in the wild scilla, white/ the wood violet, which functions to act out its content. As for the second way to see dimensions is as the poem intertextual aspect. In the flower poems, Vendler (1995a: 17) sees Glück joining the tradition of poets using flowers as the image of the soul. The pioneer, Vendler implies, is George Herbert who first identify the soul with a flower. After him is Emily Dickinson who in Through the Dark Sod as Education does the same. Only after that comes Glück of the flower poems.

25 13 The last point from the review is the mythical means by which the The Wild Iris conveys its content. As Vendler (1995a: 17) notes, Glück is here revisiting again the myth of the Eden which she has rewritten in an earlier sequence called The Garden. Still assuming in this earlier poem that Eden is still intact, in The Wild Iris, Eden has collapsed. The garden of the book, therefore, is a different garden situated on earth but pretty much the same in physical appearance with the now lost Eden. The function of this mythical element is to constitute the setting in which the lyrical expressions and narrative elements takes place. Having written thus, it is clear that my study benefits from her as well as Morris outlining of the generality of The Wild Iris as my study tends to overlook this aspect. Furthermore, her pioneering close-reading of the specific formal features of two of the poems, Scilla and April, opens the path for subsequent similar study. In the midst of overwhelming number of topic-centered criticism on The Wild Iris, one would have to be so daring to start a poemcentered criticism if there were none doing a similar thing. Path-opening as it is, Vendler s discussion of the specific structure of Scilla, nevertheless, is not yet satisfying. Contrary to her usually practice, she does not elaborate what significance is there in the poem s overlapping structures; she stops at pointing out each of them. It is matter of regret for me, therefore, that she does not do what she could have done convincingly had she chosen to. As response to this, my study seeks to go into more details in its analysis of content and forms as well as their interrelatedness. Finally, my study also differs from Vendler s in terms of its specific object of study as she nowhere mentions Vespers (#3).

26 14 B. Review of Related Theories In this section I discuss the theoretical backbone and practical guiding-step underlying my study. The first sub-section elaborates the key critical terms used in this study, namely content and forms. Not less important, on the second subsection, Vendler s relevant critical assumptions and her interpretive methodology are discussed. My discussion on Chapter VI relies its premises on Vendler s assumptions and follows her analytical steps. 1. Content and Forms a. What is content; What are forms? Edward Quinn (2006: 97) has implied that content and forms are the two fundamental concepts of modern literary criticism. As expected from such position, they have been defined by various scholars with also various expressions. Even the mere terms also come with similarly various alternatives: matter & manner, meaning & matter, body and meaning, subject matter & style, and thematic & formal elements. Yet, among the various definitions, there is a red line to be pulled out: generally speaking, content is the abstract ideas expressed; form is the concrete expression of that ideas. In M. H. Abrams (2012) terms, for example, forms are the material body, whereas content is the immaterial meaning. Content, to put bluntly, is beyond the page; forms are all there are on the page. Selecting from various scholars making a similar point either explicitly or implicitly to the above general differentiation of content and form (e.g. Childs and Fowler, 2006: 91; Vendler, 1997: 4 & 12; Quinn, 2006: 170, Brooks and

27 15 Warren, 1960: 76, X. J. Tyson (2011: 41)), here are two representatives: Michael Ryan (2012: 2) defines content as the things stories are about & what a work of art is about (3) and form as the arrangement of that content (1). In Ryan s definition, things and what are put in the place of ideas; and arrangement is put in place of how the ideas are expressed. Similarly, Cuddon and Habib (2013: 285) write that content is the substance or what it is about ; whereas forms are the manner in which [an artwork] is made. What they mean is that the former is the abstract substance of an artwork; whereas the form is the particular manner in which that substance are expressed. Different though in their expressions, Ryan s and Cuddon Habib definitions as well as those of the other scholars mentioned nevertheless express the same idea with the above general definition: content is what is expressed and forms are the expression of content. Now, this definition that s just passed stays at the general and abstract plane. As such, it is not readily applicable to a practical criticism such as this one. Therefore, in the following I focus on a more precise and practically viable definition of content and forms which nevertheless falls under the umbrella of the previously discussed general definition. In her book on Shakespeare s sonnets, making a point on what a poem should do, Vendler (1997: 4) writes: the theme must be freshly imagined, the genre must be renewed, and the words must surprise and satisfy from the point of view of proportion, musicality, and lexical vivacity. Here, she implies that the content of a poem amounts to the theme; the forms, on the other hand, amount to genre (intertextuality, syntax, rhythm, rhyme, stanza form), proportion (structure), musicality (rhyme, rhythm), and word

28 16 (diction). More from Vendler: on different page of the same book she provides a further look at content and forms, saying that content also consists of subject matter ( paraphrasable statements (14); propositional statements (40)); whereas forms additionally consist of imagery and rhetorical devices (13). Still more, in her two other books, Vendler adds that tenses (2010b: 127; 1995b: 71) and syntax (word order/ lineation) (1995b: 71) are also included in forms. To end with, adding to Vendler are Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson (2009: 640), who, aside from specifying that the content of poetry must be materials of life (events, feeling, ideas), complement another element of forms, and that is, intertextuality ( allusion ). Vendler, Arp, and Johnson are not alone in saying thus. In agreement with them on what constitutes content and forms with various degree of similarity on details are scholars such as Abrams & Harpham (on content = subject matter) (2009: 125), Quinn (on content = subject matter & theme) (2006: 97), Edgar V. Roberts & Henry E. Jacobs (on content = subject matter ( summary ) & theme ( subject, topic, idea ) (1986: ), Diana Gioa & X. J. Kennedy (on content = theme & subject matter) (2002: 8), Katie Wales (on content = subject matter; forms = rhyme, rhythm, lineation, rhetorical devices) (2004: 169), Childs & Fowler (on content = subject matter; on forms = structure ( temporal form ), rhyme & rhythm ( musical quality), and diction & rhetorical devices ( lexical & syntactic quality)) (2006: 93), Frank Madden (on forms = structure, rhyme, and rhythm) (2002: 60), John Hollander (on forms = syntax (word order/ lineation) (2014: 3), and Shira Wolosky (on forms = diction, syntax

29 17 (lineation/word order), imagery, rhetorical devices, stanza form, intertextuality, rhythm, and rhyme)) (2001: vii). With these many scholars in a relatively unanimous opinion, it can be said with a fairly firm ground that content consists of subject matter roughly the paraphrase of the poem and theme the general idea implied by that subject matter; and that forms consist of diction, structure, tenses, imagery, rhetorical devices, syntax, rhythm, rhyme, stanza form, and intertextuality. b. Forms Having come to the conclusion at this point of what constitutes content and forms, the second one, is still need further elaboration. In the following, thus, I provide short description for each of the various forms relevant to this study. i. Diction Diction is word selection with a significant selection s reason(s). Wolosky writes (2001: 200): diction is a selection of individual words according to their level of formality, ordinary context, and so on. Here, she points to the notion that it is motivated by a purpose, two examples of which are either to imply formality or banality. Barnet, Burto, and Cain (2008: 652) provide another reason by pointing out that diction may serve to identify a particular aspect of identity a speaker has. They also add, diction may serves to reveal the tone of a poem, that is, both the abstract attitude of the speaker to what s/he talks about or to whom s/he talks to; and the concrete method of elucidation had an ideal reader recite the poem. For example, in my discussion on Vespers (#3), I argue that the reason why in the second part of the poem the word lambs is used instead of sheep to

30 18 refer to the same entity, is because the speaker has changed her attitude toward the subject of her speech from feeling superior to inferior. Accordingly, the imagined method of recitation the ideal reader of the poem should have is that which expresses first superior protestation and then inferior desperation. Finally, as some word carries with them not only denotative meanings, but also connotative meanings, added and carried along as culture progresses, in discussing diction, these two meanings are both taken into consideration. The previous example of lambs - sheep can serve as an example: the former unmistakably carries a different added meaning compared with the later, explained in details on Chapter IV. ii. Structure In A. R. Ammons poem of finding moral lesson in nature (in Vendler, 2010b: 372), The City Limits, there apparent the logical When This Then That pattern which organizes the whole poem. Put differently, when seen in its light, nothing in the poem is left out. It is this kind of organizing pattern that this study called the structure of a poem. Vendler (2010b: 86) offer the only definition I know of this concept, writing that it is the intellectual or logical shapes into which its thoughts are dynamically organized. Adding several dozen pages later calling it this time as Inner Structural Form that it is the dynamic shapes, which derives from the curve traced by the emotions of the poem as they change over its duration (123). With such definition, Vendler implies that structure gives shapes to an amoebic thought; that as an effect, it can be intellectually perceived; and that it reflects the modulation of feeling in the poem.

31 19 Finally, perceiving the structure of a poem is of major importance. One, a poem is easier to deal with when it is broke-down into smaller parts and noticing the structure is the way to do this (131). Two, structure is the foremost door to enter a poem s meaning as it is the skeletal backbone. iii. Tenses Coming from the Old French tens, meaning time, or more relevantly "tense of a verb" ( Tenses ), tenses are functional elements of language giving information of the time an action happens or a state exists. Wales (2011: 418) put as a category in grammar of the verb phrase expressing relations of time. In traditional English grammar book such as Understanding and Using English Grammar (1998), there are three kinds of tenses in English: past, present, and future tenses; which are further divided into four sub-kind for each: simple, progressive, perfect, and perfect progressive. For reason of space, description of the specific function of all sixteen disparate tenses are not given here. Instead, only those that are directly relevant to this study are inserted in the discussion on Chapter VI. iv. Imagery Imagery is a word or a group of words producing a mental image, the kind people daily gets from sensual experiences. Madden (2002: 62) defines imagery as words prompting mental picture. Vendler (2010b: 92), meanwhile, has it as nouns or phrases referring to something that an artist could represent by graphic means. Still more, Abrams and Harpham (2009: 151) write, imagery is used [ ] to signify only specific descriptions of visible objects and scenes,

32 20 especially if the description is vivid and particularized. Different though in form, these three scholars basically express the same point as mine. In addition, Abrams and Harpham s makes a very important point as it further differentiates between what is imagery and what is not, since all concrete nouns are actually imageprojecting words. Yet, these definitions, in its face, are too limited. Rather than keeping in line with the original sense of image, imagery can produce not merely visual images. Elaborating the subject further, Abrams and Harpham (151) detail seven categories of image which this study also assumes: visual, corresponding to the sensual experience of seeing; auditory to hearing; tactile to touch; olfactory to smell; gustatory to taste; kinesthetic to movement; and thermal to heat/cold. Finally, the function of imagery are not merely for illustrative or decorative purposes, but further generally speaking to contribute significantly to content of the poem (Brooks and Warren, 1960: 269). As an example is my discussion on Vespers (#3) wherein the imagery serves to reinforce what the diction has revealed: the change of the speaker s attitude a central thematic aspect. v. Rhetorical Devices Alternatively called as figures of speech, rhetoric, or figurative language, disregarding the quarrel between theorists on the further division between tropes and scheme, rhetorical devices are instances of prescribed language use which defies everyday use of language. Explaining Heinrich Plett s definition, Wales (2011: 162) defines it as a practice of language departing from the linguistic norms of everyday language in some way, whether semantically,

33 21 or syntactically, including both rule-breaking and over-regular practice of language. To the same point, Cuddon and Habib (2013: 279) delineate it as that which departs from everyday language: He hared down the street or He ran like a hare down the street are figurative. He ran very quickly down the street is literal. Used mostly for its organizing possibility or its persuasive impact, there are countless instances of rhetorical device. For the purpose of this study, however, only the relevant one is defined when used in Chapter IV. vi. Syntax In the study of language, syntax claims sentence structure and its formation as its focus of inquiry (Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams, 2011: 78; Yule, 2010: 96). In the study of poetry, however, it covers related but nevertheless different issues. First, syntax refers to the way syntactically recognized units (a phrase, a clause, a sentence) are put to use in a poem. For example, in Dickinson s Because I could not stop for Death, the use of repeated parallel clauses in the third stanza reflects the tranquil optimism of the speaker as her journey to the supposed afterlife proceeds; however, when suddenly in the fourth stanza the clause structure changes, the reader knows that the speaker has realized that she is going nowhere but to a limitless eternity; that what was a tranquil optimism has changed into a state of panic apprehension (Vendler, 2010a: 227). Secondly, syntax in poetics refers to one principle of poetic line-breaking (Wolosky, 2002: 17). In poetry to put it differently a line becomes as it is because of syntactical principle. One telling example is an illustrative verse in the vein of Alexander Pope by Hollander:

34 22 One form this one makes each line a grammatical unit. This can be a clause Which has a subject and a predicate, Or a phrase. (2014: 26, line 6-10). Here, like the verse itself says, the organizing principle is syntactical units. In other words, every line consist of a unit recognized in the field of syntax: a sentence (line 1), a clause (line 2), a relative clause (line 3), and a phrase (line 4). The purpose of which, notes Hollander, is to create a visual music on the page. But syntax is not the sole organizer of poetic line, it can also be determined by its rhythm, which is discussed further below; and in the case of free verse, by an imitative principle, which is discussed right after this period. The imitative principle is a principle of line organization arising from the tendency of form to imitate the content in free verse. Vendler (2010b: 667) contends, free verse must justify its reasons for breaking a line here rather than there. The justification in this case is that the line breaking imitates the content of the poem. As an example, Vendler (2010b: 668) discusses William Carlos William s The Red Wheelbarrow, saying that the current lineation of the poem gives symmetry as the second line of each stanza consist of a two-syllable words; and, acts out the content of the line of something depending on something else. In stanza one, the word upon literary depends on depends, and so is the rest (wheel barrow, rain water), building a pattern of expectation that the entity described are all inanimate (wheelbarrow, rainwater). But, in last stanza, continuing the pattern still, it surprisingly pairs white with an animate entity: chicken, making a case that if the eyes didn t see something inviting in the landscape there would be nothing to write about. Here then, the lineation follows neither syntactical nor

35 23 rhythmical principle, but an imitative principle to emphasize its content, so often occurs in free verse. vii. Rhythm The rising and falling pattern of stressed and unstressed syllable in English is called rhythm. Wales (2004: 372) writes, rhythm is generally described as the perceptual pattern of accented or stressed and unaccented or unstressed syllables in a language. In agreement with Wales, Madden (2002: 71), alternatively calling it as meter, describes rhythm as the pattern of stressed ([/]) and unstressed syllable ([X]) in a line. There are many different systems of rhythm. Of the relevant systems to English poetry, Hollander (2014: 4-5) provides a comprehensive classification. However, out of five systems pointed out by Hollander, one, the quantitative system of Greek and Latin, is arguably negligible (as he himself notes). Hence, actually only four are really relevant to English poetry: pure accentual (counting the beats disregarding the syllable of a line) like Samuel Coleridge s Christabel I (Hollander, 2014: 88), accentual-syllabic (counting both the syllable and the beat of a line) like Shakespeare sonnets, pure syllabic (the opposite of pure accentual) like John Hollander s English haiku A Bright Line Shines in the West, and free verse system (following no received system, but inventing one in accordance to the need at hand). Marjorie Perloff (2004: 253) provides a good example of this last system in her analysis of Jorie Graham s Evolution. In that poem, the irregularity of much of the poem flows into the metrical regularity of

36 24 the last two lines, which are the conclusive conclusion to the question being asked at the beginning. Determining the rhythm of a line of poetry is a tricky matter, especially for those coming from a different language system with the poem discussed as myself. Luckily, several scholars provides a ready-made rules to do so. First of all, Wolosky: 1. A single syllable word that carries weight, that is, that takes emphasis, usually has the accent. Single syllable nouns are such a case. 2. Words that do not carry weight or significant emphasis, such as articles and prepositions, usually are not accented. 3. Parts of words such as prefixes and suffixes usually do not take the accent. 4. The more accents there are, the slower the pace of the line. (2002: 140). Next comes Hollander (2014: 5) who contends that syllable usually keep their word accent the accent they would have in phrases in normal speech; and that because very often every line would not follow a metrical scheme strictly, in order to know its overall rhythm, a line can only be scanned in relation to the surrounding lines. In agreement with him on his second point is Vendler (2010b: 81-82) who say that there is the so called undersong the overall rhythm, and the oversong the actual spoken rhythm of a line. In relation to this, implicitly assumed by both Hollander and Vendler, is the notion that the general rhythm is the quantitatively dominant one. All in all, these rules are followed in analyzing the rhythm of Vespers (#3) in Chapter IV. Most basic of all, to give musical pleasure is function of rhythm. Vendler (2010b: 78) writes, [T]he first and most elementary pleasure in all poetry is rhythm. More than this, moreover, rhythm is also used as a device for emphasis.

37 25 As Brooks and Warren (1960: 126) puts it when talking about rhythm: The skillful poet finds in a verse a most subtle instrument for regulating emphasis, for underlining the connection between ideas, for pointing up contrast.. Vendler (2010b: 79) also, in the context of free verse, contends the same point by writing good free verse always matches its rhythms to the emotional content of its utterances. In fact, in other place Vendler contends that the discussion of rhythm must always consider how it is related to the content of the poem, an opinion she shares with Wolosky (2002: 136). (A purely formal discussion of rhythm, Vendler (1996) says acerbically, is hardly useful [ ], as unintelligible as Iroquois.) For example, as noted by Vendler (2010b: 78), in T. S. Eliot s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, where the theme is the feeling of paradoxical attitude to experience (specifically sexual experience), the rhythm is that of initial stress skip (XX/) followed right after with the normal iambic meter (X/). Here, the first reflects the excitement of the speaker to experience as it skipped hurriedly the stressed syllable, whereas the second rhythm reflects the dying out of the excitement as it return to its normal pace. In short, the rhythm enacts the theme and hence emphasizing it. viii. Rhyme Rhyme is generally understood as only limited to end rhyme, that is, the repetition, in the rhyming words, of the stressed vowel and of all the speech sounds following that vowel (Abrams and Harpham, 2009: 316). Around this common knowledge, there are various clustering notions. There is, first of all, the further differentiation of its components degree of identicality into perfect (full,

38 26 true) rhyme and imperfect (partial, near, slant, para-) rhyme. When the stressed vowel and the following sounds matches identically in kind and number, it is the former; but when it matches only approximately, it is the later. There is also the differentiation focusing only on the number of sound. When the rhyming words consist of single stressed syllable, it is called masculine rhyme; otherwise, it is called feminine rhyme. Meanwhile, aside from end rhyme, there is also the so called internal rhyme, which differs in definition from end rhyme by its position only: if end rhymes occurred at the end of lines, internal rhyme occurs inside a line. To illustrate the application of some these concepts, here is an extract from Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens, a poem of comic provocation to the European s scorn of American skills, as Vendler (2007) ingenuously reveals: I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air. (1971: 76, stanza 1-2, lines 1-8). Here, in the first stanza, we see a masculine and perfect end rhyme (hill (/ˈhɪl/) hill (/ˈhɪl/)) and an imperfect internal rhyme (round (/ˈraʊnd/) upon (/əˈpɑːn/)). In the second stanza, there is the perfect and masculine internal rhyme (round (/ˈraʊnd/) ground (/ˈgraʊnd/)). Also, beside the already noted round upon, there is the imperfect internal rhyme of upon (/əˈpɑːn/) ground (/ˈgraʊnd/). Furthermore, contrary to the familiar notion of rhyme that just passed, much less understood is the inclusion of other forms of sound repetition under the same