Villanelle - William Empson
Karla
It is the pain, it is the pain endures.
Your chemic beauty burned my muscles through.
Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.
What later purge from this deep toxin cures?
What kindness now could the old salve renew?
It is the pain, it is the pain endures.
The infection slept (custom or changes inures)
And when pain's secondary phase was due
Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.
How safe I felt, whom memory assures,
Rich that your grace safely by heart I knew.
It is the pain, it is the pain endures.
My stare drank deep beauty that still allures.
My heart pumps yet the poison draught of you.
Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.
You are still kind whom the same shape immures.
Kind and beyond adieu. We miss our cue.
It is the pain, it is the pain endures.
Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.
-- William Empson
The February 19, 2007 issue of The Nation reviews two new books by John
Haffenden about William Empson (William Empson: Volume I: Among the
Mandarins. William Empson: Volume II: Against the Christians.) in Stefan
Collini's "The Close Reader". For anyone sick and tired of the artificial
way we've been convinced to read poetry by teachers held in sway by the the
New Critics, I recommend this article. (I can't recommend the books yet as
I haven't read them.) Collini writes: "Textbook surveys...sometimes
classify [Empson] as a British outrider of the New Critics. But this is a
fundamental error. Indeed, Empson spent much of his later career vigorously
polemicizing against the New Critics, who, he believed, were attempting
artificially to constrain criticism by declaring illegitimate any
inferences from our knowledge of the author and his intentions, or our
knowledge of the intellectual assumptions of the period, or of its generic
conventions, and so on. The artificial purity of the exclusive
concentration on "the words on the page" meant, in his view, trying to rule
out "a process which all persons not insane are using in all their social
experience." Common "social experience" was the final court of appeal in
Empson's criticism."
The Nation, February 19, 2007. "The Close Reader" by Stefan Collini. pp.
23-28.
Later, in the same review, Collini quotes John Crowe Ransom as saying in
1952, "Empson will rank as the leading literary critic of our time." What
happened? How did we buy into the New Critics?
Empson wrote quite a few villanelles. Here is a link to another villanelle
often anthologized:
Missing Dates: http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/202.html
Karla
Diana
> Villanelle
>
> It is the pain, it is the pain endures.
> Your chemic beauty burned my muscles through.
> Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.
>
> What later purge from this deep toxin cures?
> What kindness now could the old salve renew?
> It is the pain, it is the pain endures.
>
> The infection slept (custom or changes inures)
> And when pain's secondary phase was due
> Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.
>
> How safe I felt, whom memory assures,
> Rich that your grace safely by heart I knew.
> It is the pain, it is the pain endures.
>
> My stare drank deep beauty that still allures.
> My heart pumps yet the poison draught of you.
> Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.
>
> You are still kind whom the same shape immures.
> Kind and beyond adieu. We miss our cue.
> It is the pain, it is the pain endures.
> Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.
>
> -- William Empson
That is painful. Very. Empson's poem reminds me a tiny bit, only for
the "we miss our cue" of Dire Straits' Romeo and Juliet(it may miss
something that seems to go a bit deeper in Empson's villanelle):
a lovestruck romeo sings a streetsuss serenade
laying everybody low with a lovesong that he made
finds a convenient streetlight steps out of the shade
says something like you and me babe how about it?
juliet says hey it's romeo you nearly gimme a heart attack
he's underneath the window she's singing hey la my boyfriend's back
you shoudn't come around here singing up at people like that
anyway what you gonna do about it?
juliet the dice were loaded from the start
and i bet and you exploded in my heart
and i forget i forget the movie song
when you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong juliet?
come up on different streets they both were streets of shame
both dirty both mean yes and the dream was just the same
and i dreamed your dream for you and now your dream is real
how can you look at me as i was just another one of your deals?
when you can fall for chains of silver you can fall for chains of gold
you can fall for pretty strangers and the promises they hold
you promised me everything you promised me thick and thin
now you just say oh romeo yeah you know i used to have a scene with
him
juliet when we made love you used to cry
you said i love you like the stars above i'll love you till i die
there's a place for us you know the movie song
when you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong?
i can't do the talk like they talking on the tv
and i can't do a love song like the way its meant to be
i can't do everything but i'd do anything for you
i can't do anything except be in love with you
and all i do is miss you and the way we used to be
all i do is keep the beat and bad company
all i do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme
julie i'd do the stars with you any time
juliet when we made love you used to cry
you said i love you like the stars above i'll love you till i die
there's a place for us you know the movie song
when you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong?
Still, it doesn't quite get at that pain that Empson seems to be
describing.
Maybe the salve is here:
THE ECSTACY.
by John Donne
WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,
A pregnant bank swell'd up, to rest
The violet's reclining head,
Sat we two, one another's best.
Our hands were firmly cemented
By a fast balm, which thence did spring ;
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
Our eyes upon one double string.
So to engraft our hands, as yet
Was all the means to make us one ;
And pictures in our eyes to get
Was all our propagation.
As, 'twixt two equal armies, Fate
Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls-which to advance their state,
Were gone out-hung 'twixt her and me.
And whilst our souls negotiate there,
We like sepulchral statues lay ;
All day, the same our postures were,
And we said nothing, all the day.
If any, so by love refined,
That he soul's language understood,
And by good love were grown all mind,
Within convenient distance stood,
He-though he knew not which soul spake,
Because both meant, both spake the same-
Might thence a new concoction take,
And part far purer than he came.
This ecstasy doth unperplex
(We said) and tell us what we love ;
We see by this, it was not sex ;
We see, we saw not, what did move :
But as all several souls contain
Mixture of things they know not what,
Love these mix'd souls doth mix again,
And makes both one, each this, and that.
A single violet transplant,
The strength, the colour, and the size-
All which before was poor and scant-
Redoubles still, and multiplies.
When love with one another so
Interanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controls.
We then, who are this new soul, know,
Of what we are composed, and made,
For th' atomies of which we grow
Are souls, whom no change can invade.
But, O alas ! so long, so far,
Our bodies why do we forbear?
They are ours, though not we ; we are
Th' intelligences, they the spheres.
We owe them thanks, because they thus
Did us, to us, at first convey,
Yielded their senses' force to us,
Nor are dross to us, but allay.
On man heaven's influence works not so,
But that it first imprints the air ;
For soul into the soul may flow,
Though it to body first repair.
As our blood labours to beget
Spirits, as like souls as it can ;
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtle knot, which makes us man ;
So must pure lovers' souls descend
To affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
Else a great prince in prison lies.
To our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love reveal'd may look ;
Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.
And if some lover, such as we,
Have heard this dialogue of one,
Let him still mark us, he shall see
Small change when we're to bodies gone.
And they know that dialog of one. Perhaps they can be whole, and move
on.
Thanks for the post, Karla.
(I might have e-mailed you this reply. I still have trouble with
Google's way sometimes.)
Diana
Sorry. I'm tiired and should be in bed. To clarify: I meant they
became whole and perhaps moved on.
Thanks again for all the good stuff you posted tonight.
Diana
Graceland Sugir
all of the crap poetry. Your cirquits are overload.
Stick to your day job, an he trinkies, FAT-tranny
--
-------------------------------------------
AJ - http://ClitIns.Com e In.
(800 folders. -- kiddie-filtered -- FREE,
Usenet Porn.)
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AJ - http://ClitIns.Com e In.
(800 folders. -- kiddie-filtered -- FREE,
Usenet Porn.)"Karla" <kar...@sbcNOSPAMglobal.net> wrote in message news:fo2gt29r2rtdou6da...@4ax.com...
Diana
> You must know
> all of the crap poetry. Your cirquits are overload.
>
> Stick to your day job, an he trinkies, FAT-tranny
I'm going to third that dog whistle award. For someone who annoys you
so much, you can't bear to kill-file them. Tom, you are
so funny. You know as well as I, that Karla is phat not fat. You are
an ant to a peony.
Diana
Karla
wrote:
Hi Diana,
I read either in The Nation or online about Empson that he's reminiscent of
Donne. How cool is that!
I'm not sure I understand how you're reading The Ecstasy. Who are 'they'
and how do they become whole? What do you mean that they perhaps moved on?
I think that it's difficult for us to understand without research what
Donne meant by ecstasy or 'extasie'. And even in his own time, he was
misunderstood. Is The Ecstasy a working out of his own philosophical ideas
or a more elaborate seduction similar to The Flea? Perhaps the chivalrous
knight waxing within the code? Or a polished prayer seeking God's blessing
on unwed bliss? Donne may have written "[t]his ecstasy doth unperplex" but
he obviously wasn't referring to his poem.
Karla
Peter J Ross
<kar...@sbcNOSPAMglobal.net> wrote in rec.arts.poems:
[untitled]
The ages change, and they impose their rules.
It would not do much good to miss the bus.
We must endure, and stand between two fools.
Two colonies of Europe now form schools
Holding absolute power, both of them fatuous.
The ages change, and they impose their rules.
One claims the State is naked between ghouls
The other makes it total Octopus.
We must endure, and stand between two fools.
A says No Bath not Superheated Steam. B cools
This off by Only Solid Ice. For us
The ages change, and they impose their rules.
Both base their pride upon ill-gotten tools
And boast their history an Exodus.
We must endure, and stand between two fools.
There is world and time; the Fates have got large spools;
There need not only Europe make a fuss.
The ages change, and they impose their rules.
We must endure, and stand between two fools.
-- William Empson, 1949
According to the 20th-century's second-greatest poet himself, this was
a reaction to the impending victory of the Communists in the civil war
between the Nationalists and the Communists in China, where Empson was
living and teaching at the time. It's one of his last poems, and not
one of his best villanelles, but it's still as masterfully grim as
grim can be.
And for those (i.e. Karla) who suppose that the Villanelle form was
first fitted into iambic pentameter form by Brits, here's the first
notable villanelle ever written by an inhabitant of the British Isles.
Note that the metre is tetrameter!
Theocritus: A Villanelle
------------------------
O singer of Persephone!
In the dim meadows desolate
Dost thou remember Sicily?
Still through the ivy flits the bee
Where Amaryllis lies in state;
O Singer of Persephone!
Simaetha calls on Hecate
And hears the wild dogs at the gate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?
Still by the light and laughing sea
Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate:
O Singer of Persephone!
And still in boyish rivalry
Young Daphnis challenges his mate:
Dost thou remember Sicily?
Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,
For thee the jocund shepherds wait,
O Singer of Persephone!
Dost thou remember Sicily?
-- Oscar Wilde
--
PJR :-)
Michael Cook
"Peter J Ross" <p...@example.invalid> wrote in message
news:slrnetkes...@pjr.gotdns.org...
interesting stuff, thanks to the posters
mdc
Graceland Sugir
"Michael Cook" <cook@personanongrata .net> wrote in message
> interesting stuff, thanks to the posters
> mdc
FOAD, thief. You would like to dance away from
your LARTing and criminal cyberstalking, but here I am
to tell everyone you are a moron from a ghetto.
Picture thief for the sole purpose of harassment.
Remember this:
http://mikeys-famous-pics.blogspot.com/
Sexual harassment???
Then your moron brit buddy hosted it till he
got LARTed.
Barbara's Cat
> Villanelle
[ snipped for brevity ]
> -- William Empson
From the Department of This Has Nothing To Do With
William Empson or How We're Suppose to Read Poetry:
I've been reading /Poet's Choice/ by Edward Hirsh.
Yesterday, I reached the end of its Part 1 where
I found an unusual villanelle by Reetika Vazirani.
I thought you might like to read it.
*It's Me, I'm Not Home*
It's late in the city and I'm asleep.
You will call again? Did I hear
(please leave a message after the beep)
Chekhov? A loves B. I clap
for joy. B loves C. C won't answer.
In the city it's late, I'm asleep,
and if your face nears me like a familiar map
of homelessness: old world, new hemisphere
(it's me leave a message after the beep),
then romance flies in the final lap
of the relay, I pass the baton you disappear
into the city, it's late and I'm asleep
with marriages again, they tend to drop
by, faithful to us for about a year,
leave a message after the beep,
I'll leave a key for you, play the tape
when you come in, or pick up the receiver.
It's late in the city and I'm asleep.
Please leave a message after the beep.
- Reetika Vazirani (1962-2003)
--
Cm~
Diana
> On 18 Feb 2007 03:12:31 -0800, "Diana" <Diana_of_the_h...@excite.com>
It's pretty darned cool, actually! I think I've only heard Empson's
name once or twice in all of my poetry reading, which is a shame. So,
thank you for posting one of his villanelles. After reading your
reply, I did a little research and found that Empson wrote _Essays on
Renaissance Literature: Volume 1, Donne And The New Philosophy_ But,
alas, it is too expensive! Even in used condition it's around
$60.00. My local library is umm... let's just say, I'll have to use the
interlibrary loan option.
>
> I'm not sure I understand how you're reading The Ecstasy. Who are 'they'
> and how do they become whole? What do you mean that they perhaps moved on?
I was tired, so was reading Empson's piece more for meaning, rather
than appreciating both structure and meaning. Meaning-wise it reminded
me a bit of the Dire Strait's song and Donne's "Ecstacy" (though
Donne's doesn't contain the enduring pain). And in that tired way, I
was looking at "they" as a universal "they". I know, I know, it's a
funny way to look at/read a poem.
>
> I think that it's difficult for us to understand without research what
> Donne meant by ecstasy or 'extasie'. And even in his own time, he was
> misunderstood. Is The Ecstasy a working out of his own philosophical ideas
> or a more elaborate seduction similar to The Flea? Perhaps the chivalrous
> knight waxing within the code? Or a polished prayer seeking God's blessing
> on unwed bliss? Donne may have written "[t]his ecstasy doth unperplex" but
> he obviously wasn't referring to his poem.
>
> Karla
Here's a link to The Flea for anyone else following the discussion:
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/flea.php
My take/opine on the poem:
I don't really read an 'elaborate seduction' in The Ecstacy. It
doesn't seem as if either one of the people in the poem are trying to
persuade the other. The closest persuasion I read is with the "out-
hung" souls. And even then, they (souls) are equal, held negotiations,
mingled, and became one and "might thence a new concoction take, and
part far purer than he came." So I think both won. "If you can't beat
'em, join 'em". IMO, it's the perfection of the flea conceit.
And watch what happens to the violets throughout the poem, and how it
can be compared to the couple, and to a universal "they"!
And as to the body, it is not "we":
To our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love reveal'd may look ;
Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.
Diana
<snip>
Diana
but as to our bodies:
> >> We owe them thanks, because they thus
> >> Did us, to us, at first convey,
> >> Yielded their senses' force to us,
> >> Nor are dross to us, but allay.
>
> Diana
Unh. Nobody saw my laziness in the last part of this, did they?
> <snip>