"There is nothing awful here, nothing melancholy, nothing grand."

Chapter 9:

"They entered.  Fanny's imagination had prepared her for something grander than a mere, spacious, oblong room, fitted up for the purpose of devotion...'but I have not yet left Oxford long enough to forget what chapel prayers are.'"

Such a passage discusses the revolution in consciousness that had undergone in British society.  Grace, salvation, and authority lay no longer in Christ, but in the pound.  In Jane Austen's time, the gradations of society and its well-ordering seems now to lay against a wholly secular template, as evidenced by the opinions of Miss Crawford, as well as the exacting, monetary language that courses through the entire text.

A study of the shift from non-secular to secular society, as presented in Mansfield Park, can raise interesting topics in the close reading of mythological language specifically.  A lot of talk in the novel is focused on harmony and distance: with more distance, temporally (and perhaps spatially), characters in the novel are able to better understand the processes of harmony that characterize points of deferance [should I be using difference here, or should I leave Derrida alone, refresher please?!].  Likewise, we read MP from a vantage point of differance; our more liberalized state exposes the monetary myth latent in Austen's language.

This myth surfaces powerfully in the way that the narrator is not necessarily omniscient; while the narrator cannot really read private thoughts, the narration makes assertions which would depend on wholly submitting to a certain mythological system of reading the world.  By not making this recognition explicit, the mythological status of the language and the thoughts employed by the characters becomes ever stronger.  Oftentimes, disharmony arises when they, the characters, become lost in the heat of myth and are unable to take a distance from social norms and recognize the harmonizing attempts of that system.

So, in the initial disharmony between Edmund and Mary, we see Mary unable to step outside of her time and place and recognize the harmonizing effects of the church in a bygone Age.

Coming Out

In Chapter 3, on page 58 of Mansfield Park Mrs. Crawford raises the question of whether Fanny is out or not. Fanny, the reader assumes, is not out. To an outsider like Mrs. Crawford, however, it is difficult to discern because of Fanny’s quiet nature that conflicts with the fact that she dines along with her cousins who are. The state of being out is an important one to establish because in this era marriage is a given for all women, lest they be social pariah. While mention of out-ness appears a few times throughout the novel, there is never a formal coming out for Fanny. This reader was surprised to discover in Chapter 22, that “her being out was known only to her two aunts.” I had assumed that there were formal “coming out” parties during the Regency Era, just as there were popular just a few decades ago in the upper crust of American Society (my friend’s mum, for instance). The closest sort of coming out occasion that we see for Fanny occurs at the Mansfield ball that Sir Thomas throws for her and William, where she and Mr. Crawford led the dance. The question of Fanny’s outness coincides with her growth in personal constitution and courage. With further research, I’d hope to find the particulars of the coming out ritual (if there was one during the Regency Era) and how this was to affect the behaviors of women and potentially interested men.

"Lovers' Vows" in Austen's Work

A significant part of the text is taken up with the intended performance of the play "Lover's Vows". Having very briefly read the synopsis of the play, and considering the "scandalous" nature of the play in the eyes of Austen's characters, researching contemporary criticism on the impropriety of the play may offer interesting interpretations on what the characters in Austen's work think of as improper. Furthermore, in looking at the actual plot and meaning of the play, the casting of certain characters, like Edmund as Anhalt might provide further insight into Austen's portrayals of the characters. My research then would consider the play itself, and perhaps the reception it received upon its initial release and in its subsequent translation into English. The edition of Austen's text that I was given also has a footnote revealing that the supposedly improper subject matter of the play was typically perceived of German plays of the time. As each of the characters in Austen's work have varying degrees of perception on what is proper, notably those of Henry and Maria vs. Fanny and Edmund, the actual perceptions of Austen's day may reveal much about the logic of their oppositions.

Fanny's Coming Out

At the end of chapter five, Ms. Crawford and Edmund have a conversation about whether Fanny is “out” or not. Based on Fanny’s class, age, dress, and sense of propriety, Mary Crawford seems to be confused about Fanny’s status in the family and society. The fact that Fanny has never been to a ball affirms to Ms. Crawford that she clearly is not.

The question of what it means to come out seems to be strongly related to social class, since it implies that the young lady is marketable for marriage or at least independent enough to make her own decisions about her behavior in public. For Fanny this is more complicated since, on one hand, she must always see herself as lower than her cousins, and on the other hand, she attracts the attentions of upper class men like Henry Crawford and eventually Edmund Bertram. The narrator also neglects to ever specifically tell us whether Fanny is officially “out” or not and at what point she makes that shift.

Historically, what does it mean to be “out” or not? Does it only apply to women? As long as you’re out does that put you on equal footing with other women who are out? Is Fanny even qualified to be out given her poor background? Ms. Crawford is often very flippant about her opinions and so far, we only have her opinion. Knowing the context would help explain the gender politics active throughout the novel and shed light on where exactly Fanny fits in her community. Can the novel be read as Austen’s critique on “coming out” as societal norm?

Circulating Libraries and Their Influence on the Publishing Industry

In chapter 40, while living with her parents in Portsmouth, Fanny uses some of the money she was given by her uncle to purchase a subscription to a “circulating library” for her and Susan. My edition of Mansfield Park includes a note on circulating libraries, writing that free libraries were rare and books prohibitively expensive to purchase. Therefore these circulating libraries “exerted enormous influence over the kinds of books that could be published.”

The proprietors of these libraries being in control of what literature was made available to the public would have certainly affected the form and content of Austen’s writing. It may be fruitful to examine the author’s background and beliefs as well as those of the library administrators.

The mention of the reading of Quarterly Reviews as a typical evening activity could further elucidate the leanings of the novel’s characters from researching the topics and stances taken on political issues by the publication during the period.

"her strange severity, her extreme courtesy" vs. "the image of stark and uncomprimising severity"

Spotlight on James:
"Since he belonged, even at the age of six, to that great clan which cannot keep this feeling seperate from that, but must let future prospects, with their joys and sorrows, cloud what is actually at hand... he appeared the image of stark and uncomprimising severity, with his high forehead and his fierce blue eyes, impeccably candid and pure, frowning slightly at the sight of human frailty"

Spotlight on Mrs. Ramsay:
"She was now formidable to behold, and it was only in silence, looking up from their plates, after she had spoken so severely about Charles Tansley... her strange severity, her extreme courtesy, like a Queen's raising from the mud to wash a beggar's dirty foot, when thus she admonished them so very severely about that wretched atheist who had chased them--or speaking accurately, been invited to stay with them--in the Isles of Skye."

OED on Severity: 1. Strictness or sternness in dealing with others; stern or rigorous disposition or behaviour; rigour in treatment, discipline, punishment, or the like.

In the opening passages of To the Lighthouse, the concept of 'severity' is placed between Mr. Ramsay, his wife, and his son James, and this placement creates interesting spectra and paradoxes.

Mrs. Ramsay exemplifies the first kind of severity mentioned in the OED.  She strictly adheres to English customs, making sure always to display chivalry by allowing many of her husbands fans to stay over.   She likewise keeps a tight hold on her daughters so that they will receive and reflect this English severity.  Her strict adherence to custom paradoxically leads her towards circumstances of high judgement and criticism; hence, she judges Tansley severely, though her customs bid her keep him at her guest house.  Thus we may read 'severity' through Mrs. Ramsay as pure and almost fanatical attachment to chivalrous tradition, even when this attachment is contradictory.

James Ramsay exemplifies severity from the opposite spectrum.  At his young age, he yet displays childish wisdom by belonging to that 'great clan' of young wizards.  They understand, sans accuracy, that 'the moment at hand' is fleeting and cannot ever quite be captured, and that it is the prospect for the future that will always shade the present moment.  He frowns severely in his judgement upon the frail figures of the recent past--his father, the analytic philosopher--for attempting to capture reality exactingly and with public language.  Thus he exemplifies the third kind of severity mentioned in the OED, and he hopes to punish--with a hot poker perhaps--those calculating souls who are 'stern or rigorous in disposition or behavior.'  

"He was incapable of untruth..."

On page 11 of "To the Lighthouse," Woolf describes Mr. Ramsay as being "incapable of untruth, never tampered with a fact; never altered a disagreeable word to suit the pleasure or convenience of any mortal being, least of all at his own children, who, sprung from his loins, should be aware from childhood that life is difficult..." The entirety of the first chapter revolves around this "untruth," as Mr. Ramsay informs James that he will not be able to go to the lighthouse like he had planned before, even though his mother had promised him that this would be a possibility. The OED provides several definitions for the word "untruth," including "unfaithfulness, unbelief, falsehood, and inexactness.  Mr. Ramsay's character believes in the "inexactness" aspect of these several definitions, which is what makes his own children despise him. Childhood should be about celebrating that life then, isn't as difficult as Mr. Ramsay makes i t out to be, but he is overbearing and convinced that informing them of life's future pains is the best way to go about it. This definition of "inexactness," is one of the newest and most evolved definitions of untruth, as one of the first was the idea of "unfaithfulness." In a way, Mr. Ramsay is doing this to be faithful to his children in the way he feels is the most effective, to refrain from telling lies about the plausibility of events. Knowing that definition adds depth to the word and sentence, as he is not only incapable of being unfaithful but he is also incapable of inexactness, much to his children's dismay.

Ramsey's Reliance on "Nonsense"

In chapter VIII Mr. Ramsey considers the fleeting nature of human presence and unavoidability of human ignorance. While weighing these lofty ideas in his mind, he is guiltily lead off topic to consider the “trifles” of his own life that give him genuine happiness. The narration begins to list off the many seemingly trivial sources of this happiness: “he had his wife; he had his children; he had promised in six weeks’ time to talk ‘some nonsense’ to the young men...all had to be deprecated and concealed under the phrase ‘talk nonsense,’ because, in effect, he had not done the thing he might have done” (44-45). Mr. Ramsey’s reliance upon this concealment leads to a questioning of his character: whether the criticisms of William Bankes and Lily Briscoe are properly founded. The OED provides two primary definitions for “nonsense” and suggests that both have existed concomitantly with little historical precedence given to one or the other. “Nonsense” can be defined as either that which is lacking sense or absurd; or as foolishness, silliness, lacking proper behavior. Thus Mr. Ramsey’s use of “nonsense” may either instill the reader with a sense of pity, insofar as Ramsey is unable to reconcile his philosophical life with his corporeal life and is forced to rely on the deprecation of his philosophy, or merely as William and Lily see him as too “timid in life” to do “the thing he might have done”. The former reading is undoubtedly the more generous, as the narration presents him as an eminent philosopher that is just short of greatness. Perhaps it is his unavoidable reversion to the absurd form of “nonsense” that both enables him his familial happiness and hinders his advancement in thought. If, however, “nonsense” is read as silliness or foolishness, then Ramsey is no longer foregoing what he may indeed have been capable of for the appreciation of his family, but is rather mentally unequipped to deal with the unconcealed “all”.

"she holding her parasol erect"

On page 25 of “To the Lighthouse” by Woolf, is (at least) the second mention of the erect parasol. Upon my first reading, I understood the word “erect” to have the denotative meaning of “upright,” to reflect the proud air with which Mrs. Ramsay carries self—self-confidence that all of her male guests seem to, in addition to her beauty, be so attracted to. The choice of the word erect is unusual for in literature, umbrellas or parasols are usually described as being held “upright.” Today’s strong sexual connotation of erect though, clouded this reader’s initial interpretation. By Woolf’s second usage of the word, we see that erect is very appropriate indeed in reflecting Charles Tansley’s invigorated romantic feelings for Mrs. Ramsay. Following the description of erect parasol, Tansley “for the first time in his life [he] felt an extraordinary pride” a phrase which is repeated twice in the paragraph. Erect also connotes the erect tail or tuft of feathers of animals. This secondary connotation compounds the peculiar sight of Mrs. Ramsay with her erect umbrella. Umbrellas are generally held against the shoulder so that they may rest there and protect the back of the head. So, instead of being seen as confident, perhaps Mrs. Ramsay appears arrogant and bizarre like a rooster strutting about with her male friend holding her bag. The animal connotation of erect adds a texture of irony for it is Tansley who feels proud walking beside this seemingly beautiful woman.

"Some one had blundered."

This line is uttered by Mr. Ramsay and reiterated multiple times in the first few sections of To The Lighthouse, so it is worth giving extra attention. The two most recent quotations in the OED for the verb "blunder" correspond to the definition "To bring or cause to fall into a state by clumsy or inept behaviour." This is the common usage we encounter, with a blunder being a mistake resulting from carelessness or some other oversight.

However, the older definitions of "To confound, distract (in understanding)," and " To confound (in one's mind) stupidly," offer a much different meaning of the sentence. The implication is of being mentally overthrown, destroyed. In this case, there is no clumsy behavior. The blunderer is simply overpowered in his or her understanding.

Reading this statement coming from a character who is a philosopher may shed some light on the episode that takes place in the beginning of the novel. "The Ramsays were not rich, and it was a wonder how they managed to contrive it all." Mr. Ramsay raised his eight children on philosophy alone. If he were to suffer a defeat in his reasoning or understanding, it would be catastrophic to his livelihood. If the blunder was perpetrated by some other philosopher whom Ramsay based his own work off, it could create a philosophical crisis for him -- what he based his life on could be disassembled at a moment's notice.

"exceptionally able" young men and the Ramsays

“…she could not bear incivility to her guests, to young men in particular, who were poor as churchmice, "exceptionally able," her husband said, his great admirers, and come there for a holiday.”

In describing the numerous house guests that Mrs. Ramsay brings in, Mr. Ramsay uses the word able. At first glance this would sound like a compliment, since now the word is used as a synonym for someone who is competent and has a high capacity for achievement. In context, this would make sense, since Mr. Ramsay uses it to describe his own admirers. By complimenting them, he indirectly compliments himself. However, according to the OED, able in the 14th and 15th centuries meant facile—simplistic, shallow, or easily attained—and complaisant. Other obsolete meanings encompass the idea of decorum (including suitable, proper and appropriate) and advantageous possessions such as wealth, influence and power.

Knowing these definitions makes Mr. Ramsay’s usage of it both ironic and reinforcing. It’s ironic because Mr. Ramsay is indirectly showing himself to be a self-centered authority, surrounding himself with weaker men to make himself look relatively better. The wealth and influence part is especially ironic considering that these men are “poor as churchmice.” The men themselves might not be very impressive, but they fulfill a need in both Mr. Ramsay and his wife. For Mrs. Ramsay, the hint of her male guests’ complaisance and simplicity justify her need to protect them. For Mr. Ramsay it explains the kind of admirers he attracts. He describes his guests the way he would like to be perceived, powerful, influential and proper, but the word carries much more.

Week 7 Posting

By midnight on Sunday (3/1), please post about Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. Look up a word from the novel in the Oxford English Dictionary (type "OED" into the library search engine and it will come up in the electronic database section). How does understanding the word's meanings (and the historical shift they have or have not undergone) inform your interpretation of the novel, or at least the portion we've read so far?

Deconstructionist Reading of Keats

The use of the word “form” in the very first line undermines the possibility a cohesive unity to the poem as a whole. Read superficially, the speaker seems to wish to be male so that her/his/its message may have the appropriate effect upon the listener. However, in wishing for “a man’s fair form” the speaker is, perhaps unconsciously, obfuscating the potential for any meaning within the desire. The word form, which is derived from the ancient Latin forma, has come to include nearly antithetical meanings. In its earlier sense it means a primary shape or configuration; later on its meanings came to include an image, representation, or likeness. Such a duality of almost dichotomous meanings calls the speaker’s actual desire into question. Taking the word in its binary state, the speaker seems to desire either the fundamental essence of manhood or, rather, merely representative characteristics of manhood. Such a Structuralist division no doubt sufficiently complicates the nature of the longing, but it misses the impossibility of separating manhood and manly characteristics. From this then, the question of what characterizes the “essence” of manhood is raised. For if the speaker wishes to possess a sufficient quantity of the representative characteristics of manhood, then surely this “sufficiency” can only be had under a complete transformation into a man. Of further note is Aristotle’s division of all entities into two elements: form, that with which it has in differs from others, and matter, that with which it is similar to others. Form then, is taken to be the thing that cannot be missing in order to be considered a certain something: in this case, a man. Furthermore, in theological considerations of the sacrament, the bread and wine are labeled the matter, whereas the form is the essential formulary words. Both the philosophical and theological definitions of form lead to the belief that it encapsulates a certain something that is essential to distinctive existence. Then the speaker’s desire to possess merely the “form” of man begs the question of why the speaker does not seek to be a man. If, on the other hand, we take the contrary definition of form, that meaning an image or representation, then the desire to possess the form of man may indicate that it is a non-organic speaker, most feasibly the poem itself. Such a deconstruction of the poem renders the meaning nearly unintelligible, as the antithetical definitions of form lead to many possible interpretations that any possibility of accuracy of portrayal is completely foregone.

In this piece, there is a sense of absence, even from the beginning., with the blotting out of letters in the name of the person the piece is being written for. There is a lack of identity there, an absence of person. This in turn, makes the piece more universal in ways, but holistically less personal and unidentifiable in terms of placement. It also creates a gap in presence, whether or not the poem was originally intended for anyone specific is unclear.  Keats spends the entire poem talking about himself if he were someone else, there is never a sense of definitiveness in identity in himself or in whomever he is speaking to. ("Had I a man's fair form", "I am no happy sheperd of the dell") There are references to "thee," which are not specific, predicting future happenings such as "I'll gather some by spells, and incantation," which are uncertain as well. His desire towards this person marks another spacing between, as they are seemingly not together and there must exist reasons for why they are not, why the poet decided to blot out the name of the person he was speaking to.

Putting the Wo- back in Man

In Keats' sonnet the opening line, "Had I a man's fair form," sets the poem up to be a statement of the logos of the primacy of the male over the female. If the speaker were a man, then the speaker would be able to adequately express his or her love and act on it. However, even in those first six words, the poem begins to unravel its own thesis through the use of feminine language when describing the masculine.

Describing a man's form as "fair" calls up the idea of beauty, "chiefly with reference to the face, almost exclusively of women"(OED). Sighs also belong to the realm of women. The strong male concepts that appear in the poem are presented in negation -- "no knight," "no...shepherd." Knight also possesses the meaning of "one devoted to the service of a lady as her attendant." No armor is found on the speaker's "bosom's swell," an allusion to the breasts of a woman.

"Dell" possess the alternative definition of "a wench," and maiden also refers to a man without experience in sexual intercourse. Using these definitions, the "shepherd of the dell / Whose lips have trembled with a maiden's eyes" can be read as a role reversal -- now the man is filled with fear of the sexual prowess of the woman as opposed to the traditional idea of the contrary.

By the end of the poem, the purported primacy of the male has undermined itself by deferring to the language of the female to describe itself.

A Short Deconstruction of a Keats' Sonnet

In Keats’ sonnet "Had I a man's fair form..." the word "meet" in the antepenultimate line is an inherent binarism. Upon an initial reading, I assumed that “meet” was a noun--perhaps a pun on "meat" as to echo the phrase before it, "I will taste the dew." The verb form of meet “to encounter or experience" is generally the privileged form or definition, for example, “I will meet her here at 3 o’ clock”. However in this case, the adjective meaning of “meet” as "proper, fitting or suitable" is privileged for it makes the most contextual sense—tasting the dew is proper, perhaps pleasant. These two meanings of “meet” though, are not naturally hierarchized oppositions but are constructed, implied by the poem’s usage. For to meet someone, as given in the example, often suggests the harmonious, face-to-face gathering of two people. This positive connotation is suggestive of the union of two similar or complementary elements that are compatible with each other as to be “proper, fitting or suitable”. The two definitions are dependent on each other. The adjective denotation and connotation of “meet” is strained however, by the previous line where the dew is referred to as “rich to intoxication” but remains “meet’ to the speaker. Intoxication has a negative connotation of infatuation or obsession with a person or object, which thereby distances you from others and disrupts emotional balance.

Deconstructing Keats

For Keats’ love sonnet (and most other love sonnets), the most basic binary structuring the poem is male/female. Heterosexual desire drives the man to address the nameless woman and woo her with his words. However, through the underlying purpose of the sonnet is to bridge absence between lovers, neither of them are clearly present in the poem. As a paradoxically invisible addressee, the woman is merely denoted as a series of asterisks, showing from the outset of the poem that the binary may not be as clearly defined as the structure and assumptions behind the poetic form might suggest. For the man, rather than describe himself as what he is, he spends the poem explaining what he is not and the actions that will occur in the future rather than the present. This implies a lack even within the stable category of “man” that, in a patriarchal society, is always privileged above the woman.

He begins the poem, “Had I a man’s fair form, then might my sighs/ be echoed.” From the outset, he blurs the distinctions between male and female. The quality of being “fair” as well as “sighs” are not instinctively associated with men, but with women. According to the OED, fair is often applied to women, expressing a quality characteristic to their sex (i.e. the fair sex). Here in the poem, the speaker applies it to himself in addition to the sighs that define feminine sentimentality. The very negation of reality created by “Had I…” describes a masculine insufficiency in the speaker that he will perpetuate throughout the poem. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is when he evokes the knight/maiden complementary pairing. “I am no knight,” but at the same time, his lips do not tremble “with a maiden’s eyes.” He is neither maiden nor knight. But he has shown from the outset, that the privileging of one sex over the other is unstable, since he contains attributes of both and emphasizes his effeminate manhood. Yet, heterosexual passion requires both male and female, so in deconstructing gender, the speaker also can be said to deconstruct the idea of love as a unified entity.

((Keats))

To ******: to the unnamable Essence, but why six asterisks? Perhaps to draw together completeness and in-completeness, thereby dispelling the dichotomy. Six signifies Earthliness, a totally bound system, as one divides into two, two couples with one to make three, and three interacts with two to make six, and ad infinitum; Seven is the crown, somehow set off from six, yet the asymptotic goal beyond that system, constantly drawing it near (these ideas come from Philo).

So let’s imagine an aquarium. Fish swim about in the water, eating food and each other, copulating, moving about amongst the coral and anemone. Objects interact, but water holds them. Water is the ethereal Essence, and its waves and vibrations control all action, paradoxically, by receiving all action. Water captures the interactions that are ungraspable, since they unfold in time and space, yet water is eternal and cannot be captured. As the crown of Seven receives all asymptotic strivings of the six-systems, yet they never reach Seven. Moreover, objects interact only because Seven exists beyond the boundary.

The sonnet, then, is the water of the fishbowl: ungraspable yet unified, lucid, clear, and tasteless. Concepts hang suspended like water, unable to reach out, only able to receive and react to movements as a pure matrix.

“Had I a man’s fair form,” the sonnet says, “then might my sighs/ Be echoed swiftly through that ivory shell/ Thine ear, and find they gentle heart.” Had water some source of will, it would move fish, yet fish move themselves only by pushing against water. Thus the sighs of the sonnet cannot echo but may only receive the thoughts of the reader, out there in the Ether, as he throws a stone into its pond, making ripples. Some irony surfaces: men are but shells, as are their ears.

To place Essence in passionate communication-out-there—speaking, stabbing (“I am no knight whose foeman dies”), wearing armor—because it reaches the frail, temporary heart is to miss the point.

“Essence” is the inability of matter to fuse essentially, no matter how hard the atoms fuse. Real fusion occurs through metaphor, in the literary space of the poetic matrix, separated off into the Crown of Seven through differance. Thus, the shepherds lips may only tremble with maiden’s eyes, and not into them.

The shepherd offers the maiden the poem (“Yet must I [the sonnet] dote on thee”) as if he could offer her water in an envelope, or a pond in his hand. It can only give to her what she throws into the deep, and each rippling never occurs the same way twice. The poem can call her “Sweeter by far than Hybla’s honied roses/ When steep’d in dew rich to intoxication.” Only the poem captures metaphor; only the poem can fuse matter in the set-off space of Essential Concept. Yet the Essence falls away without isolated objects. Objects give meaning to the Essence by reaching wildly into its infinitely receptive waters. When the interior Earth-world reaches for the isolated, eternal, unified space of metaphor and difference, the differance reaches back with incantations and the ‘face of the moon.’

Week 6 Posting

Please post by midnight on Sunday (2/22) your deconstructive (post-structuralist) reading of Keat's sonnet, "To *****."

As we discussed in class, you might look to Derrida's reading of Rousseau or J. Hillis Miller's reading of M.H. Abrams's critical essay for models, but remember: these are readings of critical, or meta-languages and so the goal of Derrida's or Miller's reading is to show how such languages' structuring oppositions (speech/writing, copulation/masturbation, host/parasite) are untenable. The languages of science, philosophy, criticism, and so on (meta-languages in that they purport to speak "about" something) suppress differance where literary language calls attention to it. And so, your reading of Keats might focus on how this poem itself meditates on differance -- what it has to teach us about the writtenness, absence, deferral, difference -- differance -- of all language.

Brooks and Stevens

Michael Kleinman
Engl 261 Essay 1

“The Emperor of Ice Cream”

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

-Wallace Stevens

Wallace Steven’ The Emperor of Ice Cream, when analyzed from a Brooksian perspective, creates in the mind a central tension between vibrant concupiscence and austere decay. A close reading reveals two interrelated paradoxes: that mold and decay generates all pleasure and, conversely, that the greatest pleasure is knowing the source of mold and decay. By critically unifying two highly energized and paradoxical scenes, readers experience feelings of satirical irony, shocking repulsion, and finally, enlightened appreciation of the Now Moment.

In order to procure these paradoxes, we must first live within the experience of the poem. By this I mean that we must feel how the different connotative meanings of the poem support one another, as if to draw a defined space for our mind. Now, to procure this ‘architectural meaning,’ it would be wise to look for structural similarities. We have before us two stanzas of nearly identical shape, each containing the same ending line. The two stanzas then procure a same sense, albeit in a different way. Thus they are like two beams supporting the same roof, or two rooms sharing the same house. Ultimately, our goal is to look at the ceiling and feel inspired.

Living in the first room feels like a party, but we sense some paradoxical tension:

“Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds”

The speaker calls out to the reader to fetch a Latino cigar roller. He uses haughty, proper language. Imperialist, aristocratic words like bid, cigar, and concupiscent mix with slave-like words: muscular and whip. The speaker-and-reader, sharing this linguistic bond, yet participates in the party (strange indeed). We let ‘the wenches’ dawdle in housedresses, and we let the ‘boys’ bring flowers wrapped in newspapers. So that when we let be be finale of seem, we are admitting something. Dropping all pretensions, we pay homage to utility and celebrate the democracies of pleasure. Thus, fraternity shines behind paternalism, and the bonds strengthen paradoxically for the fact that paternalism still exists.

But we have to leave the party room, and so we mysteriously enter a bedroom:

“Take from the dresser of deal.
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once”

The lower-class theme continues: the dresser of deal consists of cheap wood, the knobs have fallen out, the sheet hosts the humble embroidery of someone skilled in manual labor. Perhaps the sheet is for a tablecloth: we don’t want ice cream melting all over the table. But now comes the shocker and the poem’s main dramatic movement. We, the readers, are to take the sheet and cover the face of a cold, pronate woman: a corpse! The language reflects the drama of our discovery: the feet protrude just as we, the readers, discover the nature of our circumstance. We’re reveling at a wake, so let the lamp affix its beam saith the speaker ironically, not only to the democracy of pleasure, but to the totality of concupiscence.

Our curtain lifted for us, we begin to draw metaphorical connections along a structural framework, and the irony only strengthens and bites harder. For instance, the first three lines of each stanza signify an imperative action. Calling the cigar-roller insists indulgence, while preparing the sheet insists resolution, and both actions assume equal significance. Our justified lust “shakes the knobs from the dresser” as the three nails fall from the cross. In this house, we fear not the sins of concupiscence. Further, while the wenches dawdle and the boys bring flowers, the corpse lies stiff. Too bad for her, the ‘dumb’ broad; she had her chance at ‘horniness.’ Now she must have her face covered while her living relatives enjoy exposing themselves.

To tie up a loose end: We may be asking at this point, “Why the class-discussion from the first stanza?” Just to satirize the aristocratic tendency to conceal the unsavory, biological aspects of highly-charged human moments. The wenches display sexual familiarity and slurp down ice cream while dawdling at a wake. This image contrasts sharply with the aristocratic counterpart. There the guests would wear suits and eat hors d’oeuvres with toothpicks. As the upper class aestheticizes death and sex, the lower class draws little distinction, thereby displaying a more open disposition generally toward the crudeness of human realities.

Through all this talk, something draws us closer to that ceiling; we want to really inhabit the space of that affixed lamp; we want to dig deeper into the meaning of let be be finale of seem. That couplet becomes our space of poetic unification, and we read outwards from that point as the reflective line between an object and its image. Sounds nice, but soon our pleasant irony turns disgustingly sour.

The wenches dawdle in such dress as they are used to wear; maybe grandma embroidered some of their clothing. As they wear grandma’s spirit, we begin to see them dawdling in the far future: as senile folk, even corpses dawdling underground. Underneath the affixed beam of the poetic lamp, a suspended moment of young lust becomes unbound from time. We see future carrion engaging in a revolting display of carnality. And it gets worse. Grandma’s human face is covered, but her ‘horny’ feet protrude. Her skin being pale, the feet look kind of like globules of ice cream. Naturally, the ‘concupiscence’ of the ice cream links with the ‘horniness’ of the feet, and sweet food fuses with carrion into a unified Frankensteinian flesh. Now that the ice cream reminds us of flesh, the cigars remind us of phalluses. The anticipated ‘concupiscent’ curds recall semen. Finally, Grandma’s corpse appears as the later stages of huge ejaculation. Let be be finale of seem: ‘knowing’ life requires experiencing it as the drawn-out echo of an un-graspable orgasm. Makes sense, because that’s how life starts. Still, what a revolting way to expose the mold and decay behind all life and pleasure.

This can’t be it: we are doing poetry, and poetry is beautiful. Our lamps affixed on runny, messy comedown, we scramble away from science to the poetic source of the orgasm. Soon we will know, beyond words, the unifying meaning of let be be finale of seem.

Scientific lamps often shine on the corpse, on the semen, on the
metaphysical ‘ice cream’ of reality. In poetry, however, the lamp shines on the whipping of curds, the beautiful dawdling of ladies, the incomprehensible miracle of love that produces Grandmother. Let “be” be [always the] finale of SEEM: allow so-called being to always appear as the constantly unfolding finale of ‘seem,’ which is the ungraspable NOW of perpetual orgasm. Cover the ‘Corpse’s’ face with a sheet and enjoy your ice cream in the moment, before it melts.

Which takes us to the over-looked image: let the boys bring flowers in last month’s newspapers. NOW we see it; it’s not the ice cream, it’s the flower! Wrapped in last month’s newspaper, it feeds off the death printed on the pages as it yet shines forth brilliantly. When it dies, more flowers spring up from the dead carrion. And this is existence. Viewing the flower wrapped up this way, we come asymptotically close to capturing in an image the Godly love-explosion, the life-wrapped-in death and the death-wrapped-in-life.

A final word on poetry: given that ‘reality’ is only the runny, messy residue of divine whipping, what is the poem on the page? Is it just an unholy ejaculation? A cigar rolled up to be smoked? Is it ice cream slowly melting and molding? Yes, it is all three, but it becomes newly alive through close, meditative reading.