Appunti di letteratura inglese - Seminario del prof. Casella

IV

Where one small orange cup amassed

Five beetles,—blind and green they grope

Among the honey-meal: and last,

Everywhere on the grassy slope

I traced it. Hold it fast!

V

The champaign with its endless fleece

Of feathery grasses everywhere!

Silence and passion, joy and peace,

An everlasting wash of air—

Rome's ghost since her decease.

VI

Such life here, through such lengths of hours,

Such miracles performed in play,

Such primal naked forms of flowers,

Such letting nature have her way

While heaven looks from its towers!

VII

How say you? Let us, O my dove,

Let us be unashamed of soul,

As earth lies bare to heaven above!

How is it under our control

To love or not to love?

VIII

I would that you were all to me,

You that are just so much, no more.

Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!

Where does the fault lie? What the core

O' the wound, since wound must be?

IX

I would I could adopt your will,

See with your eyes, and set my heart

Beating by yours, and drink my fill

At your soul's springs,—your part my part

In life, for good and ill.

X

No. I yearn upward, touch you close,

Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,

Catch your soul's warmth,—I pluck the rose

And love it more than tongue can speak—

Then the good minute goes.

XI

Already how am I so far

Out of that minute? Must I go

Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,

Onward, whenever light winds blow,

Fixed by no friendly star?

XII

Just when I seemed about to learn!

Where is the thread now? Off again!

The old trick! Only I discern—

Infinite passion, and the pain

Of finite hearts that yearn.

Twelve stanzas. Trip in the roman campagna in May 1854, he went there with his wife. This is a love lyric.

Focused on the landscape and its characteristics. The poet is meditating with himself.

Stanzas 1-5

Sat down on the grass. There are two modalities to go to a place: walking or ride on a horse, but they prefer

to walk. Morning in the outskirts of Rome, richest month of spring.

The poet is trying to find out the right images and words to fix this moment. Uses a simile: spider’s webs,

myth of Ariadne's thread.

Ruins of some old tomb, theme of ruins. Following this thread, the poet wanders, following his own

memories and thoughts.

The fleeting spider web goes everywhere and is to be found everywhere on the grassy slope.

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Asks her wife to help him to hold it circularity between end of stanza 3 and beginning of stanza 4.

Then it opens up to a wider horizon, campaign. Visual perspective shifts to a wider panorama. Oral image

and visual image at the same time.

Feelings of the poet himself, feelings suggested by this peaceful landscape. Usually the rain washes the

landscape, in this case it is the air itself that rendered everything pure and beautiful. Theme of the ruins:

ghost, what remains after two thousand years of glory, after Rome’s decease.

Stanza 6

Expression of wonder, admiration of the beauty of the landscape, metaphysical, celestial aspect. Nature is

still uncorrupted, still pure, not polluted by human actions of artefacts. Only artefacts are the ruins and the

ghost of a nation of a past civilization. The poet doesn’t mention ancient gods, the tower is a metaphor of

ancient gods looking at this natural performance.

Stanza 7

Addresses his beloved with “you”, asks a rhetorical question. “Love or not to love” echo from Shakespeare,

declined into positive, the answer will only be positive. As if he were having a dialogue with his beloved.

The whole poem is a flashback. Doves were sacred to a particular goddess, Aphrodite, goddess of love.

Literal, symbolical and mythological love. Another echo of a famous metaphor: terra spoglia sotto il cielo.

Abandon ourselves to this powerful feeling, passion.

Stanza 8

Series of rhetorical questions about the fleeting nature of this feeling, passion that is love. Strong and all-

linking but at the same time ephemeral, ambivalent nature of the love feeling. Always a place of incomplete

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union to be accomplished. “Nor yours nor mine”: metaphor conveyed with two pronouns once we have

overcome the aspect of yours and of mine, the two hemispheres are united again. Difficulty of reaching the

moment of perfect union. It is a fault, but not a moral fault, there is something still missing. Spiritual

wound, non physical.

Stanza 9

Emblematic of the foolishness of the dialogue between lovers. Identifying with the will of the other,

experience the same point of view. Perfect syntony, two hearts beating at the same rhythm. “For good and

ill” is the same of “for better and worse” in the wedding formula.

Stanza 10

The rhythm seems changed, with this dramatic “no” followed by a full stop. Union and separation,

continuous balance. Rose typical flower of love and passion. Inadequacy of human language and poets who

are experts in language recognize that the language is always inadequate to convey the full meaning of

what a man wants to convey. Pure language, physical, and body language are not enough to convey this

passion. Perfection is limited, can’t last forever.

Stanza 11

Series of questions without an answer. After the perfect moment everything returns as before. Typical

topos of human perception, human way of interpreting reality: friendly star. Fixed star that guides the

course of human life. Like spider thread, thistle ball, there are no stars to guide us, they are unstable,

impossible to fix them forever. Mutability, uncertainty of human life and feelings.

Stanza 12

Questions and exclamations at the same time. “Seemed about to learn”: doesn’t say that he has learned,

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he was going to learn theme of uncertainty. The thread disappeared, unable to catch it forever. Only

message, lesson he seems to have learned is that passion either in positive or negative can’t be measured,

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fixed, is always infinite: love, pain, sympathy uncountable. Final ambiguity on the last word: infinite

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passion kept confined in finite hearts accomplish unconsciously a precise action: yearn (bramano,

desiderano, also means filare), linguistic, semantical trick. At the same time they spin an infinite thread,

circularity between spider thread at the beginning and this verb at the end. Endless circle, return, arts are

yarning because they desire.

Theme of grand tour: marginal theme in this lyric. Fundamental function of grand tour is representing the

backdrop, scenery of this poem. Roman campagna was typical subjects for painters, poets and even

musicians.

“Rome” - Ezra Pound

O thou newcomer who seek’st Rome in Rome

And find’st in Rome no thing thou canst call Roman;

Arches worn old and palaces made common

Rome’s name alone within these walls keeps home.

Behold how pride and ruin can befall

One who hath set the whole world ’neath her laws,

All-conquering, now conquerèd, because

She is Time’s prey, and Time consumeth all.

Rome that art Rome’s one sole last monument,

Rome that alone hast conquered Rome the town,

Tiber alone, transient and seaward bent,

Remains of Rome. O world, thou unconstant mime!

That which stands firm in thee Time batters down,

And that which fleeteth doth outrun swift Time.

Modernist sonnet, quite uncommon because sonnet was not appreciated by modernist poets. Ezra Pound,

th

born at end of 19 century, emigrated to Europe, involved with creation of most important literary

movements like Imagism, Vorticism/Vortex and Modernism (the most important one). Particular sonnet

because it was not invented by Pound, but translated and made modern from a French sonnet of Joachim

Du Bellay. Theme of passing of time, romantic ruins and particular atmosphere, which they convey and

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emanate. Tempus edax, all devouring time one of the most important themes in this sonnet.

First quatrain of the sonnet

Whom is it addressed to? A visitor in general, a newcomer. Paradoxical statements: “who seek’st Rome in

Rome”. This landscape, among these ruins there is nothing that can be called roman. There is nothing

belonging to Rome, this is a contradiction. The only thing that remains here is the name of the city itself.

There are nothing but ruins and crumbling buildings.

Second quatrain

Incipit, beginning: warning. The visitor, searching for the atmosphere of an ancient city, now is invited to

behold, to look, consider, think. Pride and ruins are two nouns almost antithetical. Through the centuries,

this is the destiny of a great empire, ruins. Couple of opposite antithetical phrases: all-

conquering/conquered. Conquered not by barbarian invasions, but conquered by time. “Consumeth” is

“consumes” in actual English. Correspondence between the theme and the way of expressing it. The poet is

able to mirror, repeat the rhyme scheme: ABBA CDDC, pattern typical of sonnets.

Finale sextet

It is supposed to teach a lesson, draw the morale lesson of the two quatrains. They respect the tradition

(Pound and Joachim Du Bellay). One of the main aims of the visitors, travellers who accomplish the Grand

Tour in Europe: wanted to visit Italy. Monuments were Greek and roman, classical ones: left in Rome. Only

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the name survives after the transformation of time. “Her name”: of Rome. Tiber = Tevere directed

towards the sea. Only thing that remains of the city, seems another paradox, contradiction. Great cities of

the past (like Paris, London) were close to a great river. Paradox that the only thing remaining is a river and

not the monuments. The poet addresses to another entity: “o world”, impersonal being, entity. The world

is defined as inconstant, mutable, fleeting, something that mimes. The protagonist of the final couplet is

Time. Final lines are the key both semantically and as regards images and themes conveyed in the previous

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stanzas sextet draws the lesson introduced in the first two quatrains. Ciò che sta fermo è sconfitto dal

tempo, e ciò che scorre supera il tempo rapido (“swift time” is one of the connotations of time). Stand still

= walls, ruins, monuments, the town. Fleeteth = the river, compared to human life. Solid ruins are battered

down by time. Final lesson of ruins and time: a paradox. Time is defeated in his own field: quello dello

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scorrere. Of ancient ruins remain only the name Final phrase seems suitable conclusion of this poem.

Time’s prey: Roman Empire used to prey other empires, now the city itself is time’s prey; from active

subject to passive.

“Honeymoon” - Thomas Stearns Eliot

They have seen the Low Countries, they are going back to Terre Haute;

But one summer night finding them in Ravenna, at ease

Between two sheets in the home of two hundred bugs,

The sweat of summer, and the smell of a bitch