Edmund Spenser: One day i wrote her name upon the sand (MA Eng 1st Semester)

Edmund Spenser: One day i wrote her name upon the sand

Edmund Spenser

One Day I wrote Her Name Upon the Sand

This poem by Edmund Spenser is about capturing not just a singular moment but a whole lifetime as he attempts to immortalise his loved one, despite her protestations and accusations of his vanity for trying to achieve the impossible. But as marks in the sand are washed away and the sands of time will too eventually run out, Spenser’s verse does ‘eternize’ her and them both and comes as a fine example of how poetry may just come the closest to ensuring that moments of glorious emotion and intensity do indeed last forever. This sonnet is part of one of Spenser’s most famous works, Amoretti, a sonnet cycle consisting of 89 sonnets which describe his courtship and wedding to Elizabeth Boyle (who was immortalised to an extent which she could never have imagined). It also utilises Spenser’s own distinctive verse form – termed, as you may or may not expect, a Spenserian sonnet – which like a typical Shakespearean sonnet, features three quatrains and a couplet and also employs the problem/reflection/comment pattern of the Petrarchan sonnet.

One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon The Strand

One day I wrote her name upon the strand
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalise!
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so quoth I, let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name;
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)

With Amoretti Spenser descended on the permanent paradox, namely the principle of change inherent in nature that causes merciless mutations to everything in this world. This is a paradox which baffled the European intellectuals historically since Ovid. The problem became acute with Renaissance thinkers as they were mainly concerned with the glorification of the self and were seeking to hold onto something that could give resistance to the effacement of the personality caused by time. The popularity of Neo-Platonism can be accounted for by the fact that it provided a clean way out of the clutches of time or the temporal. The urge to seek the resolution can be also found in the artistic scheme of the poets, deliberately making the structure symbolic of certain specific doctrine. This is no less evident in Spenser’s Amoretti, which can be read as a symbolic structure in which the lover’s attainment of his beloved is symbolic of the manifestation of divine beauty.

The sonnet no. 75 (One Day I wrote Her Name…) derives its singular belief from Ovid’s Metamorphosis, where he claimed to have found permanence in the monument created by art. Spenser begins the sonnet with a simple yet archetypal and obsessive and symbolic act on the part of a lover:

“One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away…”

Undeterred the poet tried for the second time; but in the same way his second attempt was futile. Seeing her name thus being repeatedly wiped out, the beloved reminded him that he was trying to immortalize a mortal thing as like her name she would also one day be wiped out from this world:

“Vain man”, said she, “that dost in vain assay”

A motal thing so to immortalize…”

Unusually for a Renaissance lady, the beloved has been given a voice here, and she seems to understand the symbolic and archetypal significance of the waves leveling the sand. The evidence of the destructive properties of time available in the natural world has been grafted on to the context of the human world by the beloved. Not only that, she does reproach the lover for this. This provides the poet with the intellectual necessity to answer her in the sestet.

In the sestet the lover hurries forth to silence the beloved and resolve the tensions created in the octave. Typical with a renaissance poet, the answer lies in the Neo-Platonic idealization of the beloved. The speaker starts with a belief of the renaissance alchemy that baser elements naturally perish in the dust. For Spenser, however, “baser things” symbolize the earthly things subject to decay and death. What he seeks to immortalize is not the physical beauty of the beloved, but those spiritual qualities which provide the beloved with spiritual beauty. The poet is hopeful that his verses will be able to eternize the memory of the beauty of the beloved and transfigure her into a heavenly being.

“…you shall live by fame

My verse your virtues write your glorious name.”

Thus he thinks that he will be successful in preserving her name even after the world is destroyed in the Apocalypse.

The most important assertion, however, comes in the concluding line, in which the poet wants to use this kind of idealization as a way to preserving and immortalizing their love. He hopes further that this will help them to transcend their mundane existence and find a permanent place in the divine scheme of things:

“Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew.”

Spenser: Amoretti LXXV (MA Eng 1st Semester)

Of Italian origin, the sonnet was introduced into the English literature by Wyatt and Surrey in the early sixteenth century, but it was not until the 1590s that this form reached its peak of popularity among Elizabethan poets. This decade and the following witnessed the publication of many sonnet sequences: Sidney's Astrophel and Stella(1591), Daniel's Delia (1592), Lodge's Phillis (1593), Constable's Diana (1594), Drayton'sIdeas's Mirror (1594), Spenser's Amoretti (1595) and Shakespeare's sonnets (1609).

The theme was love, and often these poems were direct translations of Petrarch's sonnets to Laura. Among the conventional subjects which all sonnet sequences included there figured the notion that the poet could immortalize the beauty of his beloved through his verse. We shall analyze two different examples of the treatment of this motif, one by Spenser and the other by Shakespeare.

Spenser: Amoretti LXXV

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
   but came the waves and washèd it away:
   agayne I wrote it with a second hand,
   but came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray.
Vayne man, sayd she, that doest in vaine assay,
   a mortall thing so to immortalize,
   for I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
   and eek my name bee wypèd out lykewize.
Not so, (quod I) let baser things devize
   to dy in dust, but you shall live by fame:
   my verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
   and in the hevens wryte your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,
   our love shall live, and later life renew.

There are two main types of sonnet forms in the English literature: one is the Petrarchan, which consists of an octave rhyming abba abba followed by a sestet which combines two or three different rhymes; the other is the Shakespearean, organized into three quatrains and one couplet that follow the pattern abab cdcd efef gg. While Italian is a language rich in perfect rhymes, English poets find it difficult to meet the requirements of the Petrarchan rhyme system. Therefore the Shakespearean form, also known as the English sonnet, is the more frequently used of the two.

However, as we can see in Amoretti, Spenser tries to combine both the Italian and the English model. Fourteen iambic pentameters rhyming abab bcbc cdcd ee complete his sonnet. Each quatrain is linked with the preceeding one by a common ryme. In determining the units of content and form within the poem, we should note some indications that point to the idea that Spenser conforms to the English arrangement in three quatrains and one couplet, but there are also evidences that show an octave-sestet division as a more plausible description.

The variations from the iambic pattern are, in this sense, significant. The presence of spondees ("óne dáy/, Váyne mán/, Nót só/, Whére whén/as") at the opening of each quatrain and of the final couplet clearly marks the divisions of the poem when it is read aloud. This, together with the graphic distribution of the lines on the paper (notice the indenture), seems to corroborate the idea that the sonnet can be divided into four parts.

The first quatrain narrates the poet's useless attempt to perpetuate his lady's name by writing it on the sand. The second reproduces the young woman's mild reproof for the futility of this effort. The next four lines contain the poet's reply claiming that his poetry will succeed in bringing her an everlasting admiration. And finally, the closing couplet states that their love will outlive the world itself thanks to this poem.

This analysis does not invalidate the opinion that the sonnet can also be divided into two main parts: an octave which develops an idea (in this case, the conviction that the lady is mortal) and a sestet which shows the poet's response to that subject (poetry has the power to immortalize her and their love).

It is true that, with regard to content, this sonnet LXXV from Amoretti is much more simple that Shakespeare's sonnet LV, which, as we shall see, is characterized by a greater compression of ideas. This simplicity is due to the fact that Spenser's main concern is musicality rather than ingenuity in handling concepts, and multiple devices contribute to that musical quality:

• Repetion of words, as in the case of name, live or shall. There are also examples of polyptoton, i.e. the use of different grammatical forms of the same stem:wrote-wryte, vayne-vain, mortal-immortalize, thing-things. Even the word lykein the second quatrain reappears only a line later, not as itself but as part of the adverb lykewize.
• Abundance of nasal and liquid sounds, which produces an impresion of softness. There is no single line in the poem which does not contain at least one nasal. The hissing sounds are noteworthy as well.
• Alliteration: waves-washèd-away, paynes-pray, wypèd-lykewize, dy-dust, verse-vertues, where-whenas-world, love-live-later-life.
• Assonance [ei] throughout the whole composition: day-name / came-waves-away / agayne / came-made-paynes-pray / vayne-vain-assay / ... / decay / name / baser / fame / ... / name / ... / later.
• Consonance: second-hand, tyde-made, shall-all. In the case of love-live what we observe is an example of pararhyme: initial and final consonants coincide, while the vowel sound distinguishes both words.
• Internal rhyme: name-came.

The sonnet reproduces a conversation between the poet and his lady. But this kind of dialogue is no more than a literary convention, an artifice that permits the author a clever exposition of the central subject of a poem. No real woman would say what this lady says when she discovers that her lover is drawing her name in the beach. We immediately realize that she is fictitious, that these lines are merely an exercise of verbal wit.

But let us examine the poem part by part. The opening quatrain is built upon a verbal parallelism ("I wrote ... / but came the ... and ...") that suggests the speaker's constancy in the face of the difficulties he comes across when he strives to perpetuate the name of his beloved. Once the sea has wiped off what he has written, he moves away from it and tries anew ("agayne ... with a second hand," stressing the poet's perseverance). But all his efforts are futile, for eventually the tide comes in and destroys his strokes on the sand.

The alliteration with [w] in line 2 ("waves ... washèd it away") causes an onomatopoeic effect. With the help of the sibilant consonants these words evoke the foam that the successive waves produce in the beach.

The fourth line closes with a metaphor: "the tyde ... made my paynes his pray." If we say an animal makes another creature its pray, we mean it hunts it, and this constitutes a conventional vehicle to mean that something (in this case "my paynes") is absorbed by something else (the tide). The context implies that the tenor of "my paynes" is the lady's name, which in turn stands metaphorically for the young woman herself: she is the cause of the poet's pains.

The expressions "sayd she" (line 5) and "quod I" (line 9) occupy equivalent positions in their respective quatrains. But this is not the only parallelism that exists between the two structures. If the lady predicts her own death in the third line of the quatrain and the oblivion of her name in the fourth, the sonneteer's reply follows the same pattern and promises first her personal immortality by fame, and then the eternity of her "glorious name" in the fourth line. (A further parallelism can be found in the analogous coordination with and in lines 8 and 12.)

A linguistic pecularity of this conversation that should be noted is the use of the second person. While the poet continually addresses his fried as you, she chooses a verbal form (doest) that corresponds to the pronoun thou. Thou was reserved, from the thirteenth up to the sixteenth century (when it finally disappeared from polite speech), for the conversation with intimates or people of lower rank, while you(originally plural) was used as a sign of respect towards the interlocutor.

Although by the time Amoretti was published you had for the most part taken the place of thou, Spenser retains the latter form for the lady's reproof. This gives her speech a touch of intimacy and softens the reproach. She treats the poet as if his efforts to immortalize her name on the sand were no more than a boyish lark.

A closer analysis of the second quatrain will reveal at least two instances of Spenser's interest for musicality at the expense of lexical richness:

• In line 6 the same stem appears twice (in mortall and in immortalize). The deliberate contrast of meaning between the two terms serves to make evident the fruitlessness of the sonneteer's attempts to perpetuate what is temporal. But the reader cannot but feel that the main purpose of the repetition is to exploit the nasal and the liquid sounds present in these words.
• Rhythm takes precedence over semantic precision, and this priority accounts for the pleonasm in line 8, where eek and lykewyze mean virtually the same.

Apart from the slight enjambment in lines 9-10, the only remarkable feature of the third quatrain is the inversion of adjective and noun in "vertues rare". Usually this alteration of the natural order seeks the effect of foregrounding the quality expressed by the adjective. Yet, in this case the musical impact of the sequence "my verse yourvertues..." justifies in itself the inversion. Actually, Spenser resorts to hyperbaton throughout the whole sonnet in order to keep rhyme and rhythm, so this line constitutes no exception.

In line 12 the lover promises that his poem will write the lady's name in the heavens (where no sea can "wash it away"). This constrast between our mortality as human individuals ("death shall all the world subdue") and the perdurability of poetry is the core of the composition.

In the expression "death shall all the world subdue," besides the conventional personification of death, we observe an example of metonymy. The poet refers to all his contemporaries when he mentions the world: when everybody who is alive today has died, this poem will still be read by those who live a "later life", says the author.

A new element is introduced in the last line of the poem: love. Poetry not only preserves the memory of the lady beyond her death; it has also the ability to perpetuate love. Curiously enough, the sonnet by Shakespeare that we shall examine next also finishes by assuring that his friend will eternally "dwell in lovers' eyes."

A Sonnet (MA Eng 1st Semester)

Definition of A Sonnet

The word sonnet comes from the Italian word “sonetto” which means “little song”.

A sonnet has come to be known generally as a poem containing fourteen lines of iambic pentameter.

Traditionally, sonnets have been classified into groups based on the ryhme scheme. William Shakespeare wrote his sonnets to rhyme: abab cdcd efef gg. Sonnets which follow this rhyme scheme are called Shakespearean Sonnets. There are also Petrarchan and Spenserian Sonnets which are based on rhyme schemes used by Edmund Spenser and Francesco Petrarca respectively.

Sonnets also generally contain a volta, or turn. This is a subtle device used to distract the reader from the monotonous beat of the iambic pentameter. When you turn from a set direction while driving, you may only veer a little to the left or right. You may turn 90 degrees right or left. Or, you may do a 180 degree u-turn. Likewise, the volta may be a subtle shift or a complete reversal of direction. Writers have used various devices to indicate the turn as well as placing the turn in different places. The Shakespearean Sonnet generally places the volta after the eighth line.

Sonnet Types

The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet is named for the 14th century Italian poet Francesco Petrarch who popularized the sonnet form.

The petrarchan sonnet has a set rhyme scheme. The first eight lines, or octet, rhyme as follows:

abba abba

The last six lines, or sestet, can have various rhyme schemes.

The beginning of the sestet marks the volta, or turn in the sonnet. The sestet is often viewed as the solution to a problem posed in the octet.

A Shakespearean sonnet is written in iambic pentameter, which means that each line is 10 syllables long. The rhythm of each line should be like this:

soft-LOUD-soft-LOUD-soft-LOUD-soft-LOUD-soft-LOUD

All sonnets have fourteen lines. A Shakespearean sonnet rhymes like this:

Line 1 rhymes with line 3
Line 2 rhymes with line 4
Line 3 rhymes with line 1
Line 4 rhymes with line 2
Line 5 rhymes with line 7
Line 6 rhymes with line 8
Line 7 rhymes with line 5
Line 8 rhymes with line 6
Line 9 rhymes with line 11
Line 10 rhymes with line 12
Line 11 rhymes with line 9
Line 12 rhymes with line 10
Line 13 rhymes with line 14
Line 14 rhymes with line 13

Last, most sonnets have a volta, or a turning point. In a Shakespearean sonnet the volta usually begins at line 9.

An easy example of a turning point would be, lines 1-8 ask a question or series of questions and lines 9-14 answer the question or questions.

The Modern Sonnet

Although the traditional sonnet follows a strict form consisting of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, many writers from the 20th century to the present day have sought to expand the sonnet form by “loosening” some of the requirements of the traditional sonnet.

These “modern sonnets” are typically still short, lyric poems in the spirit of the traditional sonnet.  So, the name sonnet, which means “little song” can still be said to apply to them.  However, not all short, lyric poems are sonnets, modern or traditional.

How then, do we identify the modern sonnet?

Generally, modern sonnet writers attempt to keep some of the traditional sonnet forms while abandoning others.  The most common modern sonnet is a fourteen lined lyric poem that does not employ iambic pentameter or a set rhyme scheme.

Other modern sonnets might use ten or twelve lines of iambic pentameter instead of fourteen.  Often these “shortened” sonnets will still follow a set rhyme scheme or contain a distinct volta.

Blank verse sonnets might also be considered modern.  A blank verse sonnet employs iambic pentameter, but does not rhyme.

I find it useful to think of a sonnet as a house.  Traditionally a house has windows, doors, a roof and walls.  But, what if a house of the future found it could do without doors or windows?  What if the roof or walls could be replaced by some sort of energy field?  Would it still be recognizable as a house?  It might seem strange at first, but after living in it for a while, you would probably come to think of it as a house just the same.

Try “living” in a modern sonnet for a while.  If it starts to feel like a sonnet to you, then it probably is one.  At least you should be able to make a good argument for it in your poetry class!

One way I like to “live” in a sonnet is to give it the “out loud test.”  Sonnets, being lyrical in nature, were meant to be read out loud.  A sonnet that doesn’t sound good out loud to me is probably not really worthy of the title of sonnet.  Of course this is a very subjective test, but subjectivity is a big part of interpreting poetry.

One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon The Strand (MA Eng 1st Sem.)

Featured Poem: One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon The Strand by Edmund Spenser

It’s a fact, if a rather disheartening one, that nothing lasts forever. In some respects this is a good thing; for the times when there appears to be a metaphorical rain cloud directly above your head (worse if an actual one happens to appear in the skies above as well) and when every little thing that can go spectacularly wrong does, it’s comforting to know it’s only a phase and that better times will be just around the corner. But it’s not so good when the bright spots in life, the small but satisfying occurrences – a very relaxing bubble bath, a delicious meal or, preferably for a sweet-toothed person such as myself, a substantial slab of chocolate cake – as well as the altogether more momentous events can’t be extended, despite best efforts. Although of course life is all about light and shade, yin and yang…it would be much harder for us to appreciate the highs without the lows. But it would be nice for the scales to be weighted ever so slightly…

Despite this it seems that now more than ever we go out of our way to try, beyond all logic and reason sometimes, to make the temporal permanent, to not just hold a thing as forever accessible in memory but to make it so in a tangible form. Perhaps it’s an instinctive reaction to a society that appears to be increasingly concerned with fickle fads and fashions or alternatively just something that makes us feel better about things flashing by in the blink of an eye. There’s no shortage of mediums for which we can document every second of our existences; photographs, video recordings, blogs, our very own personal social networking pages, good old fashioned journals and letters. If you so desire, you can mark a particularly significant moment in time by having words, symbols or images etched upon your skin to eternally remain (unless you later decide that displaying a name of a former admirer or a rather obscure and misconstrued Chinese character perhaps doesn’t send out the best impression). The possibilities are, it does indeed seem, endless. So maybe we’d better think again; maybe ‘forever’ can be achieved. Even if it is somewhat artificial, surely that is better than nothing? Or perhaps it’s better to learn to savour and really live in the moment, without worrying too much about preserving it and clinging on tight so as to not watch it slip away.

Of course that’s easier said than done, and most of us will continue to frantically record and hold in place those things that matter and even those that don’t that much in the grand scheme of things. Each different method of freezing what is almost unstoppably fluid in time has its advantages (though I personally struggle to find any when it comes to the art of tattooing). For me, any form of writing always has and always will hold privilege. Not to say I don’t appreciate the visual – I can spend a great deal of time musing over collections of beautifully staged photographs – but there is something undeniably powerful about the written word. And especially about poetry. In terms of encapsulating a specific moment, a poem may not always be completely accurate as other formats, being perhaps prone to idealising. But for revealing what may at the time not have been noticed, for offering different perspectives each time it is revisited and for simply being read over again, the moment it captures is infinitely extended.

 This poem byEdmund Spenser is about capturing not just a singular moment but a whole lifetime as he attempts to immortalise his loved one, despite her protestations and accusations of his vanity for trying to achieve the impossible. But as marks in the sand are washed away and the sands of time will too eventually run out, Spenser’s verse does ‘eternize’ her and them both and comes as a fine example of how poetry may just come the closest to ensuring that moments of glorious emotion and intensity do indeed last forever. This sonnet is part of one of Spenser’s most famous works,Amoretti, a sonnet cycle consisting of 89 sonnets which describe his courtship and wedding to Elizabeth Boyle (who was immortalised to an extent which she could never have imagined). It also utilises Spenser’s own distinctive verse form – termed, as you may or may not expect, a Spenserian sonnet – which like a typical Shakespearean sonnet, features three quatrains and a couplet and also employs the problem/reflection/comment pattern of the Petrarchan sonnet.

One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon The Strand

One day I wrote her name upon the strand
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalise!
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so quoth I, let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name;
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)

introduction to Sonnet (1st Sem)

The Sonnet

A sonnet is a one-stanza poem of fourteen lines, written in iambic pentameter. One way to describe a verse line is to talk about how many stressed and unstressed syllables are in the line. A simple grouping of syllables, some stressed, some unstressed, is called a foot. The iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Pentameter means there are five feet in the line. "Iambic Pentameter," then, means a line of ten syllables, which alternates unstressed and stressed syllables according to the iambic rhythm.
The rhyme scheme of a sonnet refers to the pattern formed by the rhyming words at the end of each line. Each end-rhyme is assigned a letter, and the fourteen letters assigned to the sonnet describe the rhyme scheme. Different kinds of sonnets have different rhyme schemes.
The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet, named after the fourteenth century Italian poet Petrarch, has the rhyme scheme ABBAABBA CDECDE. [You might imagine the end-rhymes represented by the letters to be something like cat log hog bat, rat bog tog fat, long neck noose, song heck loose]. The first eight lines, which all end in either rhyme A [at] or B [og], form the octave. The last six lines, which end in C [ong], D [eck], or E [oose], form the sestet. Variant rhyme schemes for the sestet also include CDCDCD and CDEDCE. There is usually a pause or break in thought between the octave and sestet called the volta, or turn. Traditionally, one main thought or problem is set out in the octave and brought to a resolution in the sestet.
The Shakespearean or English sonnet was actually developed in the sixteenth century by the Earl of Surrey, but is named after Shakespeare because of his great sonnet sequence (a series of sonnets all exploring the same theme) printed in 1609 . The Shakespearean sonnet has the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, forming three quatrains (four lines in a group) and a closing couplet (two rhymed lines). The problem is usually developed in the first three quatrains, each quatrain with a new idea growing out of the previous one. Sometimes the first two quatrains are devoted to the same thought, resembling the octave of the Petrarchan sonnet, and followed by a similar volta. Most strikingly unlike the Petrarchan version, the Shakespearean sonnet is brought to a punchy resolution in the epigrammatic final couplet.
The Spenserian sonnet is a variation of the English sonnet with the rhyme scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE, in which the quatrains are linked by a continuation of one end-rhyme from the previous quatrain. The Miltonic sonnet is a Petrarchan sonnet which omits the volta. Wordsworth often used the Petrarchan form, but changed the octave to ABBA ACCA because it is harder to find rhyming words in English than in Italian.
The traditional subject of the sonnet has primarily been Love. Petrarch wrote his great sonnet sequence to his beloved, Laura. Many of Shakespeare's sonnets are also about Love, but Shakespeare mocked the standard worshipful attitude of the Petrarchan sonnet in his famous "My Mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun." Development of the English sonnet led to consideration of other topics, including mortality, mutability, politics, and writing itself. Donne turned from the secular subject of Love to consideration of sacred themes in a group of nineteen Holy Sonnets. Milton, instead of writing a sequence about Love, wrote individual sonnets about serious ideas, political themes, or public occasions. After Milton the sonnet declined in popularity--until it was taken up again with fervor during the Romantic period.

One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand (1st Sem)

One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand

Edmund Spenser (1552–1599)

ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washèd it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide and made my pains his prey. Vain man (said she) that dost in vain assay         5 A mortal thing so to immortalise; For I myself shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wipèd out likewise. Not so (quod I); let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;         10 My verse your virtues rare shall eternise, And in the heavens write your glorious name:   Where, when as Death shall all the world subdue,   Our love shall live, and later life renew.

If grief for grief can touch thee (3rd Sem)

If grief for grief can touch thee

If grief for grief can touch thee,
If answering woe for woe,
If any truth can melt thee
Come to me now!

I cannot be more lonely,
More drear I cannot be!
My worn heart beats so wildly
'Twill break for thee--

And when the world despises--
When Heaven repels my prayer--
Will not mine angel comfort?
Mine idol hear?

Yes, by the tears I'm poured,
By all my hours of pain
O I shall surely win thee,
Beloved, again! 

Emily Bronte, The Person and the Poet (3rd Sem)

Emily Bronte, The Person and the Poet

Emily Bronte and John Keats are my household gods, and one of my goals with this blog to promote their poetry; Keats needs it less than Bronte, however, who is not generally known as a poet, but as the author of  Wuthering Heights. Knowing something about Emily Brontë adds to the appreciation of her poetry because the person behind the words was an unusual, iconoclastic, enigmatic individual, and a literary genius. Further, as a general matter, it is important to get to know the poet to round out the poetry-reading experience, particularly when reading a body of work, rather than a few random poems. More than prose fiction, poetry is a personal matter that invites the reader to feel a rapport with the author, who can become a compatriot soul and sharer of sentiments. I relate to her biography, in large part, because she was a nonconformist, developed her own system of spiritual thought, experienced the era-transcending difficulties of an alcoholic in the family, and failed in her attempts to attract a publisher and gain popular acclaim.

As for the outward incidents of her life, Emily Bronte lived for twenty-nine years, from 1818 to 1848, which period saw the close of the Romantic era and included the early Victorian era. Her father, extremely intelligent, caring, and hardworking, was the minister of the Anglican Church in Haworth, having risen from the extreme poverty of his boyhood in Ireland to become an ordained minister and consequently an English gentleman—although, a poor one. Her mother died when Emily was three, leaving six children: Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne. Her two oldest sisters died in 1825, at the ages of eleven and ten, after a disastrous stay at Cowan Bridge School, a boarding institution for the daughters of poor clergymen, which turned out to be a harsh, cold, and unhealthy place. Charlotte and Emily were also there at the time their sisters became ill, Emily, at five, being the youngest student on the premises. Tuberculosis caused the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth and eventually claimed Emily and Anne, who died within five months of each other. It also most likely caused or contributed to Branwell’s death, three months before Emily died, and Charlotte’s, in 1855. Mr. Brontë lived to the age of 84.

Except for a very few brief periods when Emily was away at school or at a boarding school attempting to teach, she was at the parsonage, her beloved home, situated at the edge of Haworth, England, and a stone’s throw across a crowded cemetery from her father’s church. The back door of the two-story brick parsonage opened onto the moors, vast, open rolling, brown earth, tufted with wild grass–a wilderness of hills, masses of boulders, and springs in green valleys bordered by trees, all of which Emily knew like a long-tenured game-keeper. Her home still stands today, maintained by the Brontë Society, with rooms of Brontë artifacts–a place well-worth the visit. Emily never married. None of the Brontë children did except Charlotte, but her marriage ended with her death after only nine months.

When the three sisters were in their twenties, the necessity of making a living preyed upon them. Once their father died, they would be without a home. There was no annuity or savings; Mr. Brontë, although frugal, had never had sufficient means to do more than survive. It might be difficult for the modern mind to imagine the solid and impenetrable lack of opportunity that surrounded the Victorian woman. Particularly for a “lady,” which Emily would have been considered since her father was a clergyman, there were no paths to pursue except marriage, living as a dependent on a family member, or teaching, whether as a governess or in a boarding school. These choices were grim for Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. None of the three seemed likely to marry. In fact, historically, there was a shortage of men in England at the time, and Haworth was not a social hotspot. Branwell, the son, was not going to support his sisters; his attempts at various careers ended in failure. Charlotte and Anne had tried to accept the fate of a governess, although with the utmost hatred; but Emily could not bear to be away from home, much less interact with strangers in the subservient role of governess. They would attempt at one point to operate their own school in the parsonage, but would not receive a single expression of interest. The Brontë sisters also were not suited to follow the path of women who immigrated, where in the comparative freedom and opportunity of Australia or America they could better make their own way, such as by owning a shop. One very slight opportunity existed for a few remarkable women–writing and publishing a novel. Poetry and theater were male bastions, but the novel was fairly new to the time, and women, such as Anne Radcliff, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen had successfully exploited the opportunity.

As the question of their financial future grew desperate, one surprising twist to the plot of their lives occurred. Their mother’s sister, who had lived at the parsonage since the time of Mrs. Brontë’s death, left, upon her death, a small sum to the three sisters. It was astonishing to all, and although the sum was not enough to live on for long, it did give them the funds to publish a volume of poetry in 1846, containing poems by Charlotte, Emily and Anne, using their pseudonyms for the first time: Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. One reviewer noted the beauty of Emily’s lyrical voice, and Charlotte and Anne acknowledged Emily as the most gifted poet among them. Despite the merit of Emily’s poems, the volume went unnoticed, selling only three copies. Poetry was the family hobby; Mr. Brontë had written and had published some poems, many of a religious nature, although he also would include a clever and thoughtful poem to a friend in a letter. Charlotte and Anne, as noted, had poems handy to contribute when Charlotte discovered Emily’s poems one day and promoted the idea of the volume containing the work of all three sisters. Branwell yearned to be a poet, but he met with no success in any of his endeavors, owing in large part to his addiction to alcohol and opium. His presence in the parsonage, frequently raving drunk and in debt, created great unhappiness and tension.

After the failure of the volume of poetry, the legacy left by their aunt also allowed them to attempt to become novelists and be free, at least for a while, of the dreaded prospect of serving as governesses. Every night after Mr. Brontë went to bed at nine o’clock, the three sisters gathered at the table in the parlor. With ink wells, nib-tipped pens, and reams of paper, which constituted a considerable expense, they wrote their lengthy novels by the firelight from the grate and the glow of candles. At the end of 1847, Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s Agnes Grey appeared in print together as a three-volume set. Emily and Anne, after numerous rejections by publishers, had paid a large sum of money to publish their novels, greatly diminishing their meager legacy. Charlotte’s first novel, The Professor, was not accepted for publication even at her own expense, and she had turned her attention to writing her second novel, Jane Eyre. It appeared even before her sisters’ novels because Charlotte’s publisher was far more reputable and productive than Emily and Anne’s. Jane Eyre was a great success, and the financial worries would have been allayed; however, one can wonder how much that mitigated for Emily the failure of Wuthering Heights, as unappreciated as her poetry had been. Her sisters, critics, and the public disliked and, apparently, failed to understand it. A year after its publication, Emily died and was laid to rest in Haworth Church under the stone slab that served as the family burial vault.

Those are the facts, in a condensed format. To arrive at any greater detail, biographers of Brontё must deduce and suppose from the bare incidents because there is an amazing lack of information about her. In an era notable for letter writers, she wrote only a couple of notes to her sister Anne and a few brief lines once to a friend of Charlotte. She did not keep a diary, and she had almost no acquaintances outside of her family. The few who had met her never knew her well because she kept to herself, and, of course, they would not have known at the time that she would be worth remembering. The source for much of the information about Emily comes from Charlotte, who wrote letters, knew and conversed with people, and even became a person of renown before her death. Yet, the more I have learned about Charlotte, the less I trust her view of Emily, and, upon further reflection, the unreliability of a sibling’s account should not be a surprise. Charlotte and Emily had very different natures, and there is reason to believe that they did not see eye to eye on many things, despite the fact that all three sisters were very close.

Looking to the unbiased outward incidents of her life and reflecting upon her writing, one gleans much about her formative experiences, intellect, frustrations, religious beliefs, sense of humor, preoccupations, joy, and sorrow. For a start, it would be in keeping with Emily Bronte’s philosophy to assume that her childhood experiences—the loss of her mother and her two sisters and the near isolation at the parsonage, almost entirely in the sole company of her family—had a tremendous impact on her personality because she depicted in Wuthering Heights and in her poems the everlasting imprint of childhood on a lifetime. From a twenty-first century perspective the importance of childhood might sound axiomatic; yet, consider that Emily Bronte lived a hundred years before Freud pronounced the request, “Tell me about your childhood.” In her time, the idea predominated that breeding, pedigree, lineage, and blood were, like for racehorses, the important factors in determining a person. Also current was the notion that a person’s outlook and actions could be determined by following Christian precepts. From the expression in her work of the importance of childhood, then, we can deduce not only that her childhood affected her, but can also see a recurring and salient aspect of Emily Brontë: she was a great forward thinker, as her insights and ideas, expressed in her literary work, were ahead of her time. She wrote a novel that must owe part of its negative reception to the fact that it was not appropriate to its time and place: the story has many scenes of domestic abuse, drunkenness, and violence, presents as its central figure an anti-hero, lacks didactic moral content, does not extol Christian virtue, and depicts a frank and unflattering portrayal of various forms of love. Regarding that last topic, the plot of the novel also lacks a traditional love story trajectory so popular with the Victorians.

In further exploring her thoughts, one can wonder if Brontë was distraught by the negative reception of her novel. The facts suggest that she was. Charlotte and Anne took up a second novel promptly at the lack of success of their first. After Charlotte’s first novel, The Professor, was not accepted for publication under any terms, she rather promptly wrote Jane Eyre, and Anne turned her attention from a flagging Agnes Grey to write The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. There is only speculation that Emily had made some sort of start on another novel at the time of her death, and it is likely that she had not. Perhaps she was more doggedly attached to her novel to give-up on it and write another; or she might have been disgusted with the experience of rejection. In any event, the “failure” did seem to affect her differently than it did her sisters. Failure as a novelist, however, did not keep her from writing poetry; even though her poems had never sold more than three volumes she continued writing poetry up to her illness, from which one easily concludes the importance of poetry to her life. In summation, the facts speak of a person who was deeply affected by her early years, who developed psychological and literary ideas ahead of her time, who was probably troubled or disgusted by the failure of her work, but who always found her consolation in her “slave, her comrade and her king,” her alter egos for imagination, and I think particularly imagination voiced in poetry.

Looking at her novel and her poetry for clues to her personality, we see from her novel that she must have had a sense of humor—satiric and dry, but nearly irrepressible at times, contrary to the view one might have of a shy, reclusive, spinster for life. To create the sermon of Jabes Branderham in Lockwood’s dream, she must have had a sharp satirical sense of humor, eager to poke fun at sermonizing ministers. Also, I have to imagine her chuckling to herself when she wrote the scene recounted in the letter of Isabella of her exasperating encounter with Joseph upon her arrival at Wuthering Heights in her newly acquired state of Mrs. Heathcliff. Likewise, when Joseph complains to Heathcliff about the loss of some shrubs and laments that he might actually have to think about “leaving the old place” Shakespearean comic relief comes to mind. Speaking of Joseph, we know also that Brontë had an uncanny ability to recreate the accents and speech of others and had to be an acute observer and listener. Also, she did not seem to be the sentimental type, as she depicts three instances of love as downright foolish–Edgar’s for Catherine, Isabella’s for Heathcliff, and Young Catherine’s for Linton. Even Hindley’s and Frances’s deep affection for each other as newlyweds is described as a bit silly. Heathcliff’s attachment to Catherine is explicable given his unloved and outcast situation, but his love only achieves tragic and great proportions once he is a mourner. Which brings me to another feature of her personality revealed by the novel–death must have occupied a large part of Bronte’s thoughts; how could it not, given that in her novel she has twelve characters die and creates the greatest mourner in literary history, who is driven to unearth and embrace a corpse even after eighteen years. She explored in the novel, like no novelist had done before and perhaps none have done since, the topics of death and grief like (quite naturally) a poet.

As noted at the beginning of this piece, knowing about the poet adds to the understanding of the poetry, and, to complete the circle, by reading the poetry one comes to know the author. Therefore, Brontë’s poetry, like her novel, reveals a lot about her. There is a caveat to that statement, but only in part. Not every poetic expression of a sentiment can be strictly speaking attributed to Brontë as her own. She wrote poems from various perspectives, developing themes from several facets of a topic. Critics have recognized that approach as her “negative culpability,” a term that the poet John Keats originated to describe the ability of a poet to be outside himself and in the minds of other people or even creatures. Also, many of her poems have an underlying fictional world called Gondal that she and Anne invented as children and continued imagining in discussions, in poetry, and perhaps also in prose stories throughout their lives. Therefore, proper names that appear in poems are Gondolian, and often the emotions expressed are attributed to a character. For biographical purposes, that she looked at events and ideas from various angles and expressed a variety of emotions reveals a fascinating and unusual aspect of her personality as a poet and a person: she was highly empathetic and sympathetic. In any event, Gondal does not subsume her voice; in reading her entire body of poetry, her personal expressions are discernable, separate from the fictitious dramatic monologues in certain poems. Perhaps her “negative capability,” or simply her imagination, underlies expressions of romantic love in her poems. Some fans of Emily Brontë have been desperate to find a love interest for her. I have never felt that she needed one to write what she wrote, nor is neither any factual evidence of one.

Brontë’s poetry garners rich stores of information about her, but for an initial, broad sketch of the person from the poetry, I will note a few features. She was an intense lover of nature, and a person who developed her own sense of spirituality and her own guiding notion of eternity, but who had little use for conventional religion. She could not deny omnipresent hardship and suffering and at times had a grim and sorrowful view of human nature and daily life, but she faced her reality not without compensations—nature, associations formed in childhood and, most notably, the power of imagination, which could defeat even death.

Emily Brontë; “The night is darkening round me” (3rd Sem)

Emily Brontë; “The night is darkening round me”

 “The night is darkening round me” by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me

The night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me,

And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending

Their bare boughs weighed with snow;

The storm is fast descending,

And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,

Wastes beyond wastes below;

But nothing drear can move me;

I will not, cannot go.

The poem “The night is darkening round me” was written by Emily Brontë in 1837. The poem consists of three stanzas, all of which are rhyming quatrains following the rhyme pattern of ABAB. The A-lines all contain three unstressed + stressed syllable pairs, and end with an extra unstressed syllable. The B-lines contain only the three unstressed + stressed syllable pairs, and thus end in a stressed syllable. The exception to this rule are the two first lines of the third stanza, which jump over the first unstressed syllable, but otherwise follow the usual pattern. This change, even though it seems small, breaks the rhythm of the rest of the poem, since it needs to be read differently, and therefore cause more attention to be paid there.

Summary:
In the first stanza, we meet a character, who remains unidentified throughout the whole of the poem. We don’t even get any clues on whether the speaker is a man or a woman; all we know is that they are bound by a “tyrant spell”, which prevents them from leaving the place they are in – something that stays unclear as well. What we are told here, is that night is approaching fast, and there is a cold wind blowing.
In the second stanza, the nature and the approaching storm are described in further detail. We learn that it is winter, as the “giant trees” have “their bare boughs weighed with snow”, and that the wind is so strong the trees are bending with it. And despite the harshness of all this, the speaker still states that they “cannot go”.
In the third and final stanza, the devastation is taken even further, as there are “clouds beyond clouds” on the sky and “wastes beyond wastes” on the ground. And once more the character states that they “cannot go” since “nothing drear can move” them. However, now we notice a slight change in the way this inability is portrayed, for they add the notion of ‘will’ (“I will not, cannot go.”) This addition changes the whole tone of the poem, as we learn now that the speaker is actually not even wanting to leave; they are satisfied (or if not satisfied, in terms with) their incarceration or bewitching, or whatever it is that keeps them in that place, no matter how the forces of nature try to shake them (or their will).

Commentary:
The poem is part of Emily Brontë’s personal poems (since her poems can be basically grouped into two categories; those more personal and those based on the imaginary world of Gondal created by Emily and her sister Anne). However, some researchers seem to think that it might have originally been a part of a longer context based on the world of Gondal, which would further explain both the character and the situation.
The poem includes a lot of negative, harsh imagery, caused by the use of words such as ‘wild’, ‘cold’, ‘dark, ‘bare’, all of which would seen common in Emily Brontë’s poetry. Repetition is also an important aspect of the poem’s language: the last line of all stanzas, even with their variations, and the two first lines of the third stanza – “clouds beyond clouds” and “wastes beyond wastes”. This is also an important point of opposition, where the clouds and wastes signify heaven and earth, respectively. Here, it seems, the character suggest that no matter what, nothing above nor below them can “move” them, make them change their mind.
The poem seems appears to focus on the idea of a stormy night (in brief relation to ‘me’), with only the last lines concentration on the person present. There is a sort of storyline, a progression of some sort, within these lines as well. The speaker goes from ‘absolutely not being able to go’, to ‘there is a possibility that I could go, but I am still stuck here’, to ‘I could go, but I don’t want to’. The last point turns the first one on its head, and instead of ‘not being able to go somewhere’, we can interpret it as ‘not being able to tear oneself away from this place’.
In the first stanza, we could think that it is merely this coming storm that has got the speaker locked up somewhere, maybe, until we come to the notion of a “tyrant spell”. This notion is not further developed in itself, but the last line reveals something important. So what is this “tyrant spell”? This part seems essential in unlocking the meaning of the poem. However, even if we remember the last line of the poem, it still remains a very open poem. Here are some possibilities, all based on recurring themes of Emily Brontë’s work.

1.       death – death has come upon me, and there is no escape, but then again, I am actually not even afraid of it (OR, maybe not as strong as death, but a big problem in life, a great struggle. Not ‘we cannot escape death’ but ‘we shouldn’t escape our problems’.)

2.       love – it does not matter what life throws on me, I love this place (or person?) so that I will never leave (tyrant as in something big, huge, greater than oneself, as love often is described)

3.       imagination – I am stuck with a burst of imagination, and I cannot escape it, and would not even want to

4.       nature – the appreciation I feel for nature has struck me senseless as I’m watching the stormy night, and even though it might frighten me, I want to stay and contemplate

The poem could be linked with other works by Emily Brontë. For example, in the poem “I’ll come when thou art saddest”, the author seems to present a similar atmosphere, but from another point of view. It is as if we could, perhaps, read these two poems as two sides to the same story. The only exception is that this poem has a slight hint of happiness – or content, at least, – which is not present in the other. Although, the speaker of the second might just not be aware of this willingness of the first, since Emily Brontë seems to always reduce her poems to a narrower perspective – one mind, of one speaker.
Another example would be the novel, Wuthering Heights, which has a lot of the same language, vocabulary and imagery of storms, urgency, and the opposition of wanting and not being able to do something (as in Catherine’s love for Heathcliff and Edgar Linton). 

Emily Brontë, Poet of Solitude (3rd Sem)

Emily Brontë, Poet of Solitude

English writer Emily Bronte (1818-1848) is remembered primarily for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, and her sibling Charlotte Bronte, author of Jane Eyre. But Emily clearly stands as a unique writer in her singularly evocative poetry. One compiler has assembled representative poems under the apt title of "Poems of Solitude," and solitude is indeed Emily Bronte's outstanding theme as a thinker and artist. She is preeminently a poet of self-conscious expression, of an interior life focused on observation, imagination and introspection. And Emily's life was that of a representative solitary.

Making of a Solitary

Among the elements in Emily Bronte's life that shaped her solitude must be counted:

• the death of her mother when Emily was age two;
• the death from typhoid of her two older sisters Maria and Elizabeth when Emily was six;
• her upbringing on the bleak and desolate moors of Yorkshire;
• her independent learning and intense intellectual and creative interests without formal schooling or socialization;
• the benevolent toleration of her father, a village clergyman of modest social and monetary means who encouraged the independent thinking of his children.

Early in youth, Emily developed her imagination around the influence of her natural setting as a keen observer of sky, animals, plants, rocks, soil, and water, but also around romantic contrivances of fictional worlds influenced by her reading. Her world of Gondal, developed with her older sister Charlotte and younger sister Anne, was a far-away land peopled with medieval-like and romantic-era characters: kings and consorts, princes and princesses, generals and rebels, implacable foes, irreconcilable traitors, and flawed lovers. Their land and seascapes were filled with castles, cathedrals, dungeons, warships and forest battles.

Though all three sisters and even brother Branwell partook of these childhood pastimes, Emily preserved, extended and matured these scenarios into adulthood. About half of her poetry she labeled Gondal poems.

The Gondal poems clearly overlap with her own sensibilities. She explores emotions and settings through the increasingly more complex characters who become personal masks for her own engagement with society and human behavior. No mere projection of an isolated life, the Gondal poems stand on their own as a vivid commentary on the world and human nature.

Among intellectual resources during Emily's day were the rising romantic voices like Lord Byron to complement her knowledge of folklore and local color. Byron's style and heroic sentiments, his "metaphysical rebelliousness," as one Bronte observer puts it, were an early influence to complement the nostalgic and non-intellectual Walter Scott.

Emily captured the zeitgeist of romanticism despite her physical and cultural isolation. Her father was an avid reader who regularly borrowed books from colleagues and brought them home -- not merely clerical tracts but the latest in literature, politics, art, and culture. Patrick Bronte subscribed to Blackwood's and other magazines of higher culture of the time and read them aloud with his children. He indulged Emily's refusal to teach Sunday school or even to attend Sunday services. He was proud of his daughters' intellectual achievements and the closeness of his family, even to the exclusion of outsiders.

Commentator Gérin summarizes Emily's youth and character:

In the solitude of the moors, and of the tiny room, in long uninterrupted communings with herself, she formed a character as much in advance of her age in some aspects as it remained childish in others -- this her diary-papers attest. The hermit's life of that uncomplicated household developed in her fearless questioning mind a natural bent towards metaphysical speculation.

And as Charlotte put it succinctly concerning Emily's relation to nature, Emily was "a solitude-loving raven, no gentle dove."

She found in the bleak solitude [of the moors] many and clear delights, and not the least and best-loved was liberty. ... Liberty was the breath of Emily's nostrils; without it she perished.

Thus while Emily's nature poems are based on direct experience, absent the contrived romanticism of the speculator, they reflect beauty and a sense of enchantment precisely because they bring aesthetic joy but also mirror the liberty or autonomy she valued so much. One of Emily's more famous poems strikes this note perfectly:

Riches I hold in light esteem
And love I laugh to scorn
And lust of Fame was but a dream
That vanished with the morn --

And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is -- "Leave the heart that now I bear
And give me liberty."

Yes, as my swift days near their goal
'Tis all that I implore --
Through life and death, a chainless soul
With courage to endure!¹

Another set of factors in the making of Emily's character and solitude was her observation of people and the world. It is not only what Gerin observes, that "the conditions Emily hated were not the domestic conditions of her life but the human condition itself deprived of its spiritual dimensions." It was further that each experience with the world was a profound disillusionment for her.

On Emily's first occasion to attend school, she felt so stifled by the atmosphere of rules, authority, insensitive schoolmates, drab lessons and suffocating interiors that she fell seriously ill and was withdrawn, only to quickly recover at home. Emily missed the companionship of her younger sister Anne and the liberty of her home.

But it was Emily's observation throughout youth and adulthood of the fracas of personal relationships in acquaintances and others that truly confirmed her philosophy of life. Coveting her privacy and completely freed of public ambition, Emily was mortified by Charlotte's discovery and reading of her poems, only worsened when Charlotte sought to have them published, if only under a pseudonym. Emily was disillusioned by the publishers' fraud and complacence. When she obtained a position as a school-teacher, and as a governess, these lasted only several months, for Emily was unable to put up with the circumstances and demands of others. Further, she witnessed her brother Branwell's ambitions in art and writing eventually collapse, first in a series of temporary jobs from tutor to railway clerk, then in a descent into gin and opium -- and finally death.

Another disillusionment was the unmitigated panning of her novel Wuthering Heights, labeled too crude, violent, and masculine by literary critics who only knew its author as the pseudonymous Ellis Bell. Together with her publisher's fraud, Emily virtually gave up on the world, and, more tragically, seemed to lose her spirit, her inspirational muse, her refuge in imagination and creativity. Emily Bronte died at the age of thirty, only several months after catching a wintry chill at her brother's untimely funeral.

Poetry of Solitude

Emily Bronte began keeping her poems at eighteen years of age. As mentioned, she was to neatly divide them between the Gondal poems and the rest. The Gondal poems were identifiable at any rate by their ascription to a Gondal character using initials, for example "A.G.A." for Agusta Geraldine Almeda, queen of Gondal.

The Gondal poems allowed Emily exotic settings and sentiments through which see could experiment with her own feelings. Thus the failures of love and passion are charted first in these poems, and, of course, culminate in their treatment in Wuthering Heights. Likewise, the sense of loneliness and isolation, betrayal, revenge, pride, and arrogance. Gondal characters experience imprisonment, exile, desertion, despair, suicide. The Gondal poems are integrally ancillary to the personal poems, but with the provision that they are to the modern reader often sketches and experiments even as they stand alone in theme and quality.

A chronological approach has been the consensus of Bronte observers studying the poems, not only because of the short life of Emily but because she worked progressively, incorporating new experiences and feelings into new poems. Ultimately, the poems form a trajectory, a mystical spiral that deepens, refines, and perfects not just her life but her philosophy of solitude.

Earlier period

In an early poem at 18, Emily Bronte announced the birth of solitude. Here is a fragment:

My heart is not enraptured now,
My eyes are full of tears,
And constant sorrow on my brow
Has done the work of years.

It was not hope that wrecked at once
The spirits calm in storm
But a long life of solitude,
Hopes quenched and rising thoughts subdued,
A bleak November's calms.

What woke it then? A little child
Strayed from its father's cottage door,
And in the hour of moonlight wild
Laid lonely on the desert moor.

I heard it then, you heart it too,
And seraph sweet it sang to you;
But like the shriek of misery
That wild, wild music wailed to me.²

This early anthem of solitude identifies in her first retained poem a childhood incident (Emily's home at Haworth was not, of course, a cottage). The poem is structured on an impressive natural setting, and a decisive mystical moment. The poet was to thereafter identify the seraph, the angelic presence, the muse of imagination, as her guide, inspiration, and spiritual resource.

Interweaving of natural images with poetic assertions is also thereafter characteristic. A poem shortly after this one introduces an early spring evening without frost or snow but where, after long toil "in learning's golden mine," the poet walks in the growing warmth and moonlight of her beloved grounds.

O may I never lose the peace
That lulls me gently now,
Though time should change my youthful face,
And years should shade my brow!

True to myself, and true to all,
May I be healthful still,
And turn away from passions call,
And curb my own wild will.³

At this early stage, Emily is working out her place in the world.

I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask, no eye would mourn;
I never cause a thought of gloom,
A smile of joy, since I was born. ...

'Twas grief enough to think mankind
All hollow, servile, insincere;
But worse to trust to my own mind
And find the same corruption there.⁴

By the end of her life, in a late Gondal poem, Emily's assessment of society and the world was adamant:

Men knelt to God and worshipped crime,
And crushed the helpless ... ⁵

Solitude is not drear, especially when transformed with her private muse. Here is an excellent example of the mingling of nature and sentiment.

I'm happiest when most away
I can bear my soul from its home of clay
On a windy night when the moon is bright
And the eye can wander through worlds of light --

When I am not and none beside --
Nor earth nor sea nor cloudless sky --
But other spirit wandering wide
Through infinite immensity. ⁶

One senses that this intermingling is not just a poetic device but that nature inspires and animates the poet.

The themes explored through Gondal characters are Emily's own bold forays beyond her own sense of contentment. She takes the mask of tragic character to great effect, as in these fragments:

But the hearts that once adored me
Have long forgot their vow;
And the friends that mustered round me
Have all foresaken now ... ⁷

And in the heath on mountains far
From human eye and human care,
With thoughtful heart and tearful eye
I sadly watched that solemn sky. ⁸

Soon the Gondal poems announce a preoccupation with death, as in these fragments:

Deep deep down in the silent grave,
With none to mourn above. ... ⁹

In hut or hall there was no resting place;
There was no resting place but one -- the tomb! ¹⁰

These poems resonate with the spirit of romanticism that dominates the literature and arts of these years. Part of the poet's skill in interweaving self and themes is the difficulty of extracting the poet as person from the poet as artist and experimenter in sound, images, and atmosphere.

And for at least a year later, the style of Gondal dominates Emily's poems. But who can distinguish this style from the growing inner sensibilities she perceived in solitude?

She dried her rears, and they did smile
To see her cheeks returning glow;
Nor did discern how all the while
That full heart throbbed to overflow.

With that sweet look and lively tone,
And bright eye shining all the day,
They could not guess, at midnight lone
How she would weep the time away. ¹¹

 It is difficult, then, to distinguish the masks of Emily Bronte. But Emily reveals a stolid and consistent strength in dealing with the exigencies of daily life, a practicality of mind in dealing with the various personal and social crises around her. For example, when the Brontes' long-term domestic servant broke a leg and returned to work months later considerably older and weaker, Emily stepped into the role of what her sisters affectionately call "The Major" and ran the household, from daily bread-baking to washing, cleaning, and managing Haworth.

In this period, Emily's poetry breathes the air of liberty, maturing now not merely as autonomy and certainly not indifference but as union with nature, the embodiment of the opposite of contrivance.

And like myself lone, wholly lone,
It sees the days long sunshine glow;
And like myself it makes its mean
In unexhausted woe.

Give me the hills our equal prayer:
Earth's breezy hills and heaven's blue sea;
We ask for nothing further here
But our own hearts and liberty. ... ¹²

And again in the poem Charlotte entitled "The Old Stoic," beginning with "Riches I hold in light esteem" quoted earlier. And in the following poem, aptly described by Charlotte:

The Genius of a solitary region seems to address his wandering and wayward votary, and to recall within his influence the proud mind which rebelled at times against what it most loved.

Here is a ending portion of the poem:

Yes, I could swear that glorious wind
Has swept the world aside,
Has dashed its memory from thy mind
Like foam-bells from the tide --

And thou art now a spirit pouring
They presence into all --
The essence of the Tempest's roaring
And of the Tempest's fall --

A universal influence
From Thine own influence free;
A principle of life, intense,
Lost to immortality.

Thus truly when that breast is cold
Thy prisoned soul shall rise,
The dungeon mingles with the mould --
The captive with the skies. ¹³

This poem synthesizes several favorite themes. The spiritual presence that animates and dispels temporal cares is reflected in the windswept storm. That presence transcends everything, freeing the imprisoned soul and mingling life and death within a single nature.

Together with the nature poems, Emily moves swiftly towards the reconciliation of life and imagination, the latter a vehicle for the soul's understanding as it escapes the misery of daily life, of earthly life. Emily never read the mystics, and her imagery is not overtly Christian, yet, as Gerin puts it, "The degrees by which she attained her soul's release, and the agony of its recapture, are in essence the same as theirs [i.e., the mystics']."

Later period

A succession of brilliant poems emerge in this period to develop this theme. In a poem (entitled by Charlotte) "How Clear She Shines," the night is the abode of dreams and the descent of the poet's muse, the occasion of mystical insight. Night contrasts with melancholy daytime,

Where Pleasure still will lead to wrong,
And helpless Reason warn in vain;
And Truth is weak and Treachery strong,
And Joy the shortest path to Pain;

And Peace, the lethargy of grief;
And Hope, a phantom of the soul;
And Life, a labour void and brief;
And Death, the despot of the whole! ¹⁴

In "The Comforter" is contrasted society and the world against that which the muse would bring:

Around me, wretches uttering praise,
Or howling o'er their hopeless days,
And each with Frenzy's tongue --

A Brotherhood of misery
With smiles as sad as sighs;
Their madness daily maddening me,
And turning into agony
The Bliss before my eyes. ...

But the world that vexes Emily falls away before the descent of her muse:

What sweet thing can match with thee,
My thoughtful Comforter ...

The poet supplicates the muse that it may soothe her distress:

And yet a little long speak,
Calm this resentful mood,
And while the savage heart grows meek,
For other token do not seek,
But let the tear upon my cheek
Evince my gratitude. ¹⁵

The sense of a division between the world and her spirit, her solitude, was helped by Emily's reading of Shelley at this time. But a casual eyewitness confirms that her mystical sensibility was not just poetic. John Greenwood, a neighbor and long-time resident, recorded an encounter with Emily returning from the moors (quoted by Gerin). It is an invaluable documentation:

Her countenance was lit up with a divine light. Had she been holding converse with Angels, it would not have shone brighter. It appeared to me holy, heavenly.

Probably the evocative sequence of poems from this era begins with "To Imagination", with its exquisite invocation of Emily's inner muse, and its famous lines on solitude:

So hopeless is the world without,
The world within I doubly prize;
Thy world where guile and hate and doubt
And cold suspicion never rise;
Where thou and I and Liberty
Have undisputed sovereignty. ¹⁶

Solitude, purity of mind, inspiration, and liberty, dwell together in an inviolable place. But Emily must work to maintain this harmony, or, rather, must work to maintain herself against its easy dissipation. A short while after composing the poem, she rues the disappearance of her elusive muse, which leaves her restless and inconsolable.

Am I wrong to worship where
Faith cannot doubt nor Hope despair
Since my own soul can grant my prayer?
Speak, God of Visions, plead for me
And tell why I have chosen thee! ¹⁷

Thus prisons and death scenes from Gondal cluster in this period, as in "Remembrance" with its haunting first lines:

Cold in the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee!
Far, far removed, cold in he dreary grave! ¹⁸

Then, again, the mood shifts, buoyed by restoration of the mercurial vision:

How beautiful the Earth is still
To thee -- how full of Happiness; ...

The more unjust seems present fate
The more my Spirit springs elate
Strong in they strength, to anticipate
Rewarding Destiny! ¹⁹

Of this latter poem, Charlotte wrote: "Never was better stuff penned."

During this period came a series of important events that shaped Emily's point of view about social and worldly dealings. These centered around the reluctant (to Emily) publication (by Charlotte) of selected poems, largely ignored by critics and public, and the writing ofWuthering Heights.

But instructive events were not confined to these. Emily may have been convinced to pursue writing of the novel in witnessing the indecorous fiasco of Charlotte's infatuation with the Belgian headmaster of the Brussels school Emily and Charlotte had attended for nine months. Emily saw in this event the ultimate ruin of love and passion. She would have added to the novel the Gondal and personal insights that made the protagonists of Wuthering Heights so memorable.

Next came the failure of the sisters' plans for a school to be based at Haworth to enable them to be gainfully employed without having to leave their home. This even must have convinced Emily of the impossible reconciliation of her life and that of worldly necessities.

But the death of their aunt at this time left the sisters a sufficient inheritance for them to live without pursuing outside work. These funds gave them needed security as their father grew older and his eyesight failed.

The sisters witnessed in helplessness their brother Branwell's ruin. This event, too, pointed to the tragedy of art when thrust into the marketplace, plus the tragedy of moral weakness when confronted with ambition and failure.

Charlotte's attempts to edit and market the writings of her intransient sister Emily strained relations between them, especially, as mentioned, when the publisher Charlotte selected turned out to be unscrupulous, and the critics were largely hostile.

As Emily grew more taciturn, Charlotte complained: "I wish I knew her state of mind. ... I wish I knew her feelings more clearly ... but she will not give an explanation of her feelings." Emily was not simply reserved but was firm-minded about her social dealings. As Gerin puts it, "She had not seen much of the world, but she had seen enough to dislike its conventions."

The last years of her life were critical to the art of Emily Bronte. The theme of death come to dominate her personal and Gondal poems. She perceived that the blessed impersonality of nature is identifiable with the finality of death itself. She struggled to identify a creative region between "three gods," mundanity, vision, and death, as in this fragment from the poem called "The Philosopher":

Three Gods within this little frame
Are warring night and day ...

Emily strives to incorporate the vision that has guided her life, but that muse, battered by time and vicissitudes, is increasingly eluding her.

Even for that Spirit, Seer,
I've watched and sought my lifetime long,
Sought Him in Heaven, Heal, Earth, and Air,
An endless search -- and always wrong! ²⁰

The poet laments that at least if she could see the vision once, she could take heart and carry on despite the tragedies around her. But this possibility closes quickly in the struggle of power and will against her, leaving only Hope. And still, in childlike innocence, Emily records a day trip with Anne in which they banter about Gondal characters, play their roles, and speculate about what these characters -- and the sisters themselves -- will be doing in a few years.

And then, after writing Wuthering Heights from October 1845 to June 1846, Emily suddenly stops composing poetry. Had she forever given up hope that the muse and messenger would return? Her last poems had dwelt upon death and taken on the Gondal mask of imprisonment and dungeons and spiritual despair -- reflections of her own soul.

In Emily's last poem, she fearless decries the world as without redemption. Humanity, she cries defiantly, is peopled with

Foot-kissers of triumphant crime
Crushers of helpless misery,
Crushing down Justice, honouring Wrong ...
Shedders of blood, shedders of tears ... ²¹

Emily avers that she has remained triumphantly a solitary soul who, in the midst of the world's arbitrary violence, "fought neither for my home nor God."

But her greatest poem, perhaps known best by its first line, "No coward soul is mine," is Emily Bronte's anthem. Charlotte claimed that it was the last poem Emily wrote. Its voice is full of confidence in a chosen path, regardless of the vagaries of muse and messenger, vicissitudes and sorrows.

The poem includes pointed social commentary, as in its statement "Vain are the thousand creeds," but referring more specifically to the notion of the solitary who cannot be beholden to their inadequacies. The creeds are as "worthless as withered words / Or idlest froth amid the boundless main."

Only the faith in one's own solitary enlightenment, one's own insight, brings certitude, even after the struggles with despair and the allure of death. It is not God but "God within my breast" that reveals itself, that animates, pervades, broods, changes, sustains, dissolves, and creates. One can sense Emily's enduring resolution and fearless will in this poem.

No coward soul is mine
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere
I see Heaven's glories shine
And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear

O God within my breast
Almighty, ever-present Deity
Life, that in me has rest
As I Undying Life, have power in Thee

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts, unutterably vain,
Worthless as withered weeds
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by thy infinity
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of Immortality

With wide-embracing love
Thy spirit animates eternal years
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears

Though Earth and moon were gone
And suns and universes ceased to be
And thou wert left alone
Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death
Nor atom that his might could render void
Since thou art Being and Breath
And what thou art may never be destroyed. ²² 

In September 1848, Branwell dies a broken man. Emily had know of his condition for months and was his only confidant. She took his decline as emblematic of mingling with the world and desiring its fortune and blessing, what she once scornfully dubbed "lust of fame."

At the funeral she caught a chill and fell sick of a pulmonary illness, (various describes as pneumonia or tuberculosis) which worsened over the months, in part due to her refusal to permit a physician to see her. "She barricaded herself behind a wall of silence, inaccessible to human influence," notes Gerin.

Emily had always seen death not as dreadful but as complementary, leveling the personality to the elements of nature, a solidarity or deep sympathy with all the other creatures of the earth sharing mortality in mute acceptance. She often spoke regretfully of Heaven, preferring Earth as her eternal resting place, to abide within the nature so akin to her spirit.

That she had exhausted her creativity, her imagination, and life itself, therein welcoming death, has been suggested by many observers. The assumption gives a power to Emily that is plausible though simplistic.

Emily Bronte died in December 1848 at the age of 30. Her close sister Anne died five months later of the same apparent cause.

Conclusion

To a posthumous 1850 anthology of Emily's poems, Charlotte added what she claimed to be an undated poem of Emily, though it has been judged by observers to have been Charlotte's own composition. Charlotte had taken other license, as is well known. She claimed to have selected this poem because it seemed so representative of Emily's ideal of solitude and liberty. Indeed, the fragment is descriptive of Emily's character and spirit, however short the poem falls in style.

I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded Forms of long-past History.

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading;
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side. ²³