You notice that the first three stanzas describe the material object, the last one states its analogy in the spiritual world. Stanza 1. The first metaphor governs the diction of the first stanza and two lines of the second. There was an old belief that this little creature could put out a membrane for a sail, and ride over the seas like a ship. So "poets have feigned." Choose all the words brought into these nine lines because of this metaphor. "Pearl" refers to the beautiful, many-colored effect of the inner shell; see "irised" in line 14; find out from your mythology who Iris was, and why irised should mean "many-colored." Explain unshadowed as "unvisited," or "lonely;" why? Why "venturous"? On the metaphor which forms the base of the stanza is superimposed another: the sails are called "wings." This comparison has always been a common one; our AngloSaxon ancestors used the simile, "a ship likest a bird." The description of the lovely, mysterious, legend-haunted tropic seas adds greatly to the beauty of the poem. Stanza 2. The ship metaphor extends through the first two lines of stanza 2, in description of the broken, deserted shell. The remainder of the second stanza and the whole of the third is governed by the house metaphor; list all the words that are used in this figure. The "dim, dreaming" life refers to the low order of nervous development in this creature. The shell must be broken in order to reveal the internal structure. Stanza 3. Make a particularly careful study of the third stanza. Understand thoroughly before you go on the habit of the nautilus and the metaphor comparing the enlarging of the shell to the enlarging of a building. Stanza 4. The fourth stanza opens with an apostrophe. What are the shell and the sea compared to in the second and third lines? "Dead" refers to the condition described in stanza 2. The "note" is the "message." For "Triton" see your mythology. Triton's trumpet was a spiral "wreathed" shell. Other poets have applied the same epithet to this trumpet: "And hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn." (Wordsworth.) "Caves" is a figure drawn from the rocky coast, whither the reference to Triton has carried us. Stanza 5. This is the message of the broken shell to the poet's soul. Its metaphor brings in the words "build," "mansions," "low-vaulted," "temple," "dome." The thought of these lines is a thought of building, and this, with its metaphor, carries us back to stanza 3, where the nautilus is spoken of as a builder, preparing for himself each year a larger dwelling. The sight of this preparation for growth and larger development admonishes the poet to give his soul room for constant growth; to make his ideals more 'spacious year by year; to push away the limitations that shut him down to earth such limitations as ignorance and sin. As long as he lives in this world he will be subject to some limitation - he cannot fully develop here either mentally or spiritually; but he should make the limitations as few and as little confining as possible (line 5); and he can look forward to the time (lines 6 and 7) when these limitations shall be put off, with the life to which they belong. The last line returns in its metaphor to the material subject of the poem the shell of the nautilus, broken and abandoned, represents the limitations that belong to this life, outgrown and left behind. Think over once more the teaching of the poem. Relate the last stanza again to the third. Then read again the paragraph with which the Autocrat introduced his poem to the family at the Breakfast-Table. Do you understand now what he meant? III. Study line and stanza-structure. Describe the rimeplan. Go through the poem for alliteration and other devices for producing melody. Where do you find the best music? Make a list of the most effective epithets used in the poem. IV. Read the poem aloud. Try to express with your voice all you know and feel about it. THE VOICELESS tell us, and I. The Voiceless is another of the poems printed in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. The paragraph that introduces it reads as follows: "Read what the singing women one to ten thousand of the suffering women think of the griefs that die unspoken! Nature is in earnest when she makes a woman; and there are women enough lying in the next church-yard with very common-place blue slate-stones at their head and feet, for whom it was just as true that 'all sounds of life assumed one tone of love,' as for Letitia Landon, of whom Elizabeth Browning said it; but she could give words to her grief, and they cannot. Will you hear a few stanzas of mine?" Letitia Elizabeth Landon, better known as L. E. L., was an English poetess and novelist (1802-1838). Her writings are full of "gentle melancholy and romantic sentiment." She is a minor writer, but was admired by the much greater Mrs. Browning. This poem is an expression of sympathy for those who, feeling intensely, have no power to express what they feel. The writer thinks there is material for poetry in every heart, though many are dumb. The custom of speaking of a poet as a singer dates back to ancient times, when, since books were exceedingly rare, the poet chanted his production before an audience to the accompaniment of the lyre or the harp. The opposite of the singer, or poet, would be "the voiceless,” the "silent sister," etc. The first two stanzas compare the singer and the voiceless in alternating groups of two lines. The third stanza is devoted entirely to those for whose sake the poem was written. II. Study the poem in detail. The more difficult lines are paraphrased or explained below. Line 1: Flowers, carefully arranged in the symbolic shape of a broken lyre, decorate the graves of famous poets; we linger over them and count these tokens of regard. But the neglected grave of "the voiceless" is covered only by wildflowers, to which no person gives any attention. Line 12: The "cross" stands for suffering; the "crown" for the reward of fame and appreciation. Name the figure. Lines 13, 14: The Greek poetess Sappho (about 600 B. C.) is said to have thrown herself from the promontory of Leucadia into the sea for love of Phaon, who had rejected her. Lines 19, 20: Explain the figure. III. Study the line and stanza construction of the poem. Go through it also for devices used to produce melody and harmony. IV. Read the poem aloud. CHAPTER XVIII NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE REFERENCE BIOGRAPHIES Hawthorne and His Wife, 2 Vol., by Julian Hawthorne; Boston, 1895. Life, by Henry James, Jr.; New York, 1897. Personal Recollections, by Horatio Bridge; New York, 1893. SUPPLEMENTARY READING Grandfather's Chair, Mosses from an Old Manse (I and II), TwiceTold Tales (I and II), The Snow Image and Other Tales. See Appendix I, titles 47 to 55 inclusive. THE GREAT STONE FACE I. Read the story through with the following outline and notes. Study with it the picture of the Face. 1. Introduction. a. The boy. b. The Valley and its inhabitants. c. The Face: which is emphasized in the description, the features or the expression? What does the boy's feeling for it tell you about it? |