Subject
CHW, Monroe, merits of Shade’s poem
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Matthew Roth responding to Charles and others:
Charles,
I agree with you that Shade would have done better had he written in
blank
verse. The heroic couplets are, of course, a bouquet thrown with
admiration
to Pope, but the form simply doesn't converse with the content in "PF,"
except
as it relates to elegy. But the majority of the poem isn't elegaic;
neither is it
particularly witty, a trait Pope accentuates through the pithy play of
the
heroic rhyme. For me, the choice of heroic couplets is the poem's
biggest
fault--though I admire the feat all the same.
That said, I can't agree (like you, all this is "imho") with your
reading of ll. 488-500.
I like your note about adjectives-as-padding in the pentameter (I'm
going to us
that with my creative writing students) but these adjectives (zesty,
special),
combined with the x-to-y pun, have method in them.
1. 489-490 provide a necessary, and brief, moment of weightlessness
between the
preceding anxiety and succeeding heavy resolution. The lines show how
that place
was once associated with lightness, as we see the bright skaters gliding
across the
ice. Shade gives us that image, but it is palimpsest, thin ice, and we
soon see the dark
water seeping through.
2. Zesty gives us the Z to go with X and Y.
3. The sounds in Neck, Zesty, Exe, and Special are musically allied.
It's the same sound,
as well as a similar emotional effect, as we get in "festive blaze" a
few lines earlier. The
playfulness is rueful, almost hysterical. After these lines, the vowel
sounds grow much
darker and longer, the only like exception being "excitement" in 495.
I'm not sure why you have an issue with "and some say," which seems to
me a perfectly
reasonable follow-up to "Others supposed" and "People have thought" in
the previous
lines. "Night of blow" is a bit fanciful, but it chimes with the "great
excitement" in the
next line--a very authentic way, I think, of describing the belated
change from winter
to spring in northern Appalachia. So I guess I found it both skilful and
convincing enough.
Indeed, I don't find this section bathetic in the least. It might be my
favorite section of
the poem.
*---------------------------
Nick Grundy picked up on one of my comments about Shade calling himself
fat. Nick said:
"part of the explanation for Shade's disappointment in his daughter is
that she's similar to
him."
Yes, that is how I've always read it. The reason Shade dwells so much on
Hazel's appearance
is not because he is vain; rather, it's because a) she got her looks
from him, and b) he
suspects that she killed herself at least in part because of her social
ineptness, which was
largely attributable to her looks. I suspect that his dwelling on her
appearance is only
so accentuated in retrospect. If my daughter, God forbid, were ever to
kill herself, I no
doubt would attempt to find a reason, and once I found that reason I
would no doubt
become obsessive about it. So I think the sections that dwell on
Hazel's appearance
reveal Shade's guilt, not his vanity or cruelty.
Matthew Roth
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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Charles,
I agree with you that Shade would have done better had he written in
blank
verse. The heroic couplets are, of course, a bouquet thrown with
admiration
to Pope, but the form simply doesn't converse with the content in "PF,"
except
as it relates to elegy. But the majority of the poem isn't elegaic;
neither is it
particularly witty, a trait Pope accentuates through the pithy play of
the
heroic rhyme. For me, the choice of heroic couplets is the poem's
biggest
fault--though I admire the feat all the same.
That said, I can't agree (like you, all this is "imho") with your
reading of ll. 488-500.
I like your note about adjectives-as-padding in the pentameter (I'm
going to us
that with my creative writing students) but these adjectives (zesty,
special),
combined with the x-to-y pun, have method in them.
1. 489-490 provide a necessary, and brief, moment of weightlessness
between the
preceding anxiety and succeeding heavy resolution. The lines show how
that place
was once associated with lightness, as we see the bright skaters gliding
across the
ice. Shade gives us that image, but it is palimpsest, thin ice, and we
soon see the dark
water seeping through.
2. Zesty gives us the Z to go with X and Y.
3. The sounds in Neck, Zesty, Exe, and Special are musically allied.
It's the same sound,
as well as a similar emotional effect, as we get in "festive blaze" a
few lines earlier. The
playfulness is rueful, almost hysterical. After these lines, the vowel
sounds grow much
darker and longer, the only like exception being "excitement" in 495.
I'm not sure why you have an issue with "and some say," which seems to
me a perfectly
reasonable follow-up to "Others supposed" and "People have thought" in
the previous
lines. "Night of blow" is a bit fanciful, but it chimes with the "great
excitement" in the
next line--a very authentic way, I think, of describing the belated
change from winter
to spring in northern Appalachia. So I guess I found it both skilful and
convincing enough.
Indeed, I don't find this section bathetic in the least. It might be my
favorite section of
the poem.
*---------------------------
Nick Grundy picked up on one of my comments about Shade calling himself
fat. Nick said:
"part of the explanation for Shade's disappointment in his daughter is
that she's similar to
him."
Yes, that is how I've always read it. The reason Shade dwells so much on
Hazel's appearance
is not because he is vain; rather, it's because a) she got her looks
from him, and b) he
suspects that she killed herself at least in part because of her social
ineptness, which was
largely attributable to her looks. I suspect that his dwelling on her
appearance is only
so accentuated in retrospect. If my daughter, God forbid, were ever to
kill herself, I no
doubt would attempt to find a reason, and once I found that reason I
would no doubt
become obsessive about it. So I think the sections that dwell on
Hazel's appearance
reveal Shade's guilt, not his vanity or cruelty.
Matthew Roth
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm