Practical Criticism: They Flee From Me

Here goes for my first attempt at practical criticism: analysis of a poem without prior knowledge of the author/context. I chose “They flee from me, that sometime did me seek”, which I’ve just found out was written by Sir Thomas Wyatt, on the simple basis that it was the first poem to come up when I typed “practical criticism poem” into Google; it was only afterwards I realised with trepidation how it centered around sex. I did the analysis/annotation part in my free period over about half an hour, and will now try to turn that into something more like an essay. Please do tell me what you think, or any different interpretations you have found.

They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.

From the starting word, “they”, we are presented with ambiguity: about whom is the speaker referring? Reading just the first stanza, it appears “they” are creatures of some sort: “wild” and “tame” are words commonly linked to animals. As they “take bread at my head”, it seems as if they have become domesticated, for example, wild horses which have been broken in. In the light of the rest of the poem, it becomes clear with the references to “she” that the poet is describing women who have left him in the past. However, by preserving the uncertainty throughout the stanza, the poet creates a particularly strong image for gender relations.

The stanza as a whole seems to have a pensive, perplexed tone. This is achieved partly by time phrases such as “sometime” and the phrase “I have seen them” which distance the poet from his memories, so he seems confused rather than angry. The enjambment between “remember” and “that sometime…” adds to the effect as the lengthy pause mimics the speaker trailing off in recollection.

The poet makes effective use of contrast in this stanza, which shows both the difference between “they” and “me” and their changing relationship. When they were in a relationship, the women were “tame”, subservient to their partner, but without one they are “wild”. The poet shows his disapproval of the women’s behavior through the connotations of “wild” as dangerous and reckless. He reinforces this by linking “tame” to “gentle” and “meek”: both words replete with suggestions of virtue. Thus the poet suggests women should be submissive, mere prey for the men to catch. However, “they” are also described as “stalking” the poet, which conversely gives a sense of them as predators. We wonder: are they the hunters or the hunted? A solution to this might be found in the reference to “my chamber”: the second stanza seems to indicate that, as far as sexual relations are concerned, women are in control. Furthermore, that it is through gaining this power that they have the ability to escape the relationship. We’d expect sex to be the ultimate moment of togetherness for the couple: instead it precipitates their separation. So while the hunter/hunted dynamic would lead us to believe that those who “flee” are powerless while those who “seek” are powerful, on closer examination the opposite is the case.

The phrases “flee from me” and “did me seek” are linked together by the common “ee” sounds, and the similarity in this respect heightens the effect of the disparity in their meaning: we sense the poet’s confusion that such a complete change has taken place, despite the fact that the people themselves remain the same. There is a similar instance of assonance towards the end of the stanza. The poem follows a tight ABABBCC rhyme scheme, but here “danger”, “range” and “change” are linked with internal rhyme. This is effective in creating an undercurrent of threat in the last clause as the reader is forced to question whether the women are still in “danger”, and they are only “busily seeking” a “change” in a vain effort to escape this. Alternately, it could be that “continual change” is a reference to a wider context where gender roles are being redefined.
In the rest of the poem, the focus lies on a particular woman. The second stanza details an erotic encounter between the speaker and the mysterious “she”. This is introduced with the phrase “thanked be fortune, it hath been otherwise/ twenty times better”, which I found to have the most confusing syntax in poem. Initially, it seemed as if the poet was saying that the scene outlined immediately after was not sexually satisfying: an interpretation which seemed to jar with the clear erotic tone. However it seems more likely that he is instead communicating that while this particular scene was not, objectively, the ‘best’, it had a poignancy which makes it stick in the speaker’s mind: it is “special”. “Twenty times” could also be taken to mean ‘on twenty different occasions’, or ‘twenty times more pleasurable’; I believe the former fits better with my interpretation.

The poet uses caesura particularly effectively in this section. The shortness of the clause “but once” immediately draws the reader’s focus to the scene to be recounted and each subsequent clause lengthens, which gathers tension towards “when her loose gown... did fall”. The enjambment after “fall” similarly adds to the suspense before “and she caught me in her arms long and small”, where the poet uses monosyllabic words to show this is the climax of the scene. The use of the word “caught” links back to the issues of power and hunting which were raised in the first stanza - except here it is the woman who entraps and assumes authority over the male, rather than visa versa.

Sibilance towards the end of the stanza intensifies the effect of words such as “softly said” and “sweetly”, by the giving the section a slow and gentle tone; it thereby adds to our impression that the “kiss” and “this” (the scene entire) are similarly sweet. Initially therefore the question (“dear heart, how like you this?”) seems playful and inviting, but when linked to the third stanza it also carries a suggestion of hostility. This is because towards the end of the last stanza the speaker uses a series of sarcastically sweet phrases to emphasise his anger at his treatment: “I have leave to go of her goodness”. The line seems to mock the woman by adopting what appears to be her interpretation of affairs: clearly the speaker himself does not regard her as good any longer. Perhaps therefore the last line of the second stanza forebodes ? the eventual breakup by suggesting raising the question prematurely in the reader’s mind of whether the speaker remains contented in the relationship: paving the way for a answer in the negative.

The last stanza opens particularly bluntly: “It was no dream: I lay broad waking”. This mirrors the behaviour of the reader as up until now the poem’s enigmatic tone has given us a confused, dream-like lack of focus, but perhaps now we too will awake and have some answers revealed to us. The colon adds emphasis as both sections stand entire, without the interference of a conjunction.

Two conflicting interpretations seem to present themselves for this stanza. The first we have already touched upon: that the speaker is angry and sarcastic. Thus the word “newfangleness” suggests his disdain for the fact the woman must always seek for novelty, without properly valuing what she has or forming any lasting relationship. “But since I am so kindly served” is sarcastic, as is clear when ‘kindly’ is read with particular emphasis. The result of this is that the last line “I would fain know what she hath deserved” becomes ominous as we are forced to wonder if the speaker is enacting the revenge which we assume he believes she now deserves.

However, the last line can also be read as if the speaker, hurt and bewildered, is asking himself how he could have kept this woman he loved; whether he did the best he could for her; why all women leave him likewise confused and in pain. Thus “goodness” can carry its original meaning as he still bemoans her loss. This gives the lines a sense of powerlessness which fits with the change the speaker has undergone since the start of the poem from the figure of authority to the one who suffers from the actions of others. Also, we can believe that the speaker has the “gentleness” he claims; whereas were he angry, this would clearly not be the case. Under the first interpretation therefore the reader is made to question if “gentleness” if supposed to have a similarly sarcastic tone to “goodness”, which seems unlikely. Thus it perhaps makes more sense for neither word to be taken as sarcastic. The use of the word “strange” also seems to show a sense of perplexity on the part of the speaker.

Personally, I prefer the second interpretation as it ties in better with the tone of the first stanza which is very much one of confusion and impotence. However, there are limitations and strengths with both and what makes the section so effective is the ambiguity it maintains.

Indeed, this ambiguity is key to understanding the poem as a whole. Through the poet's use of contrast; the double meaning both of specific phrases and larger sections; and the uncertainty that pervades the poem's entirety, we are presented with the issue of power and subservience in gender relations which takes a wider relevance than that of the poet's personal recollections on a woman who has rejected him in the past.

Tomas Tranströmer announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

Tomas Tranströmer, a Swedish poet, has won the Nobel prize for Literature. I didn't have any idea who he was until I saw the link to the below poem, which I remember from Mum's handwritten collection. The judges claimed that "condensed translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality", which I think this illustrates perfectly:

Tracks

2 am: moonlight. The train has stopped

out in the middle of the plain. Far away, points of light in a town,

flickering coldly at the horizon.

As when a man has gone into a dream so deep

he'll never remember having been there

when he comes back to his room.

As when someone has gone into an illness so deep

everything his days were becomes a few flickering points, a swarm,

cold and tiny at the horizon.

The train is standing quite still.

2 am: bright moonlight, few stars.

Review: We Are Three Sisters

Sorry for the delay: turns out the gap from GCSE to A level was only slightly exaggerated.

The night before last I went to Bristol to see We Are Three Sisters: Blake Morrison’s reworking of Chekhov’s The Three Sisters to fit the lives of the Bronte sisters in Haworth. Unfortunately, it was a disappointment, although I seem to me in the minority thinking so. It was rife with inaccuracies and liberties with their true story, which would perhaps have been forgivable had it contained any artistic merit separate from being a biographical account of their lives; as it was, it had no intrinsic beauty, no strength of message and no real plot arc. In an attempt to cram in factual references to the Brontës and allusions to Chekhov, Morrison seemed to have lost the play's identity. I could easily spot excerpts from Charlotte Brontë’s letters, partly as they made such a refreshing change to the rest. That is not to say there were no touching moments: Emily’s description of Haworth’s graveyard setting struck home, and Tabby was particularly well acted. It seems I will have to wait till the school trip to Haworth (yay!) to get a stronger visual impression of their situation, however.

Colin Firth

Lovely Extract

"Now and then there are readings that make the hairs on the neck stand on end and tremble, when every word burns and shines hard and clear and infinite and exact, like stones of fire, like points of stars in the dark... In these readings, a sense that the text has appeared to be wholly new, never before seen, is followed, almost immediately, by the sense that it was always there."

AS Byatt, Possession

Literature itself

I'm kicking off with a post that goes a little against the grain of most of my literary analysis, and talks more about literature itself. Please do tell me what you think - personally, I'm not sure if I disagree with what I'm saying more than I agree!

This blog is indebted to my best friend Jess, whose art analysis blog I have shamelessly copied (check it out here). In one her most recent posts she more or less argued that what is most important about a piece of art work is what it means to the artist (or, in our case, writer) and their intentions.

I tend to disagree. It is probably the case that to its writer a text will be at its greatest in connection to their original thoughts, but this doesn’t necessarily hold true for the reader. There are a myriad of ways you can read a text – and while some may be more ‘correct’ than others, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the best way for that particular reader, at that particular time.

Let’s take the last few lines of TS Eliot’s Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock as an example:

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown

There are so many ways you can read it. On a fairly shallow level, I could read it when I’m feeling depressed about guys, and see it speaking to be about how tantalizing, yet ultimately unattainable, having a boyfriend is. But I could also read it and see the power of art; or the ultimate futility of art. I could see the alienation of any particular individual of subsection of society I chose to associate with. I could see it as expressing the struggle to live a meaningful existence in the modern world – and that could be in the sense of the underpinning modernist cry for help at the time Eliot was writing (early 20^th century), which would probably be deemed the most 'correct' interpretation; or it could be in relation to today, or society even in 300 years time. If I read those lines in conjunction to the whole poem then again I may come to a different interpretation.

I could recognize an allusion to Plato’s cave and theory of the Forms because of what I’ve just been studying in Philosophy; also, I have a vague recollection that one of the lines alludes to a poem by Laforgue, a French symbolist poet, and that could lead me to a different interpretation. I could see the mermaids as representing Prufrock’s fear of sexual impotence and rejection. I could take a more Freudian approach and suggest that what makes a mermaid such a powerful yet alien image is the phallic aspect of their tails. I could link the “white hair” to the lines immediately preceding the section I’ve pulled out, and see Prufrock’s fears over ageing. I could even not feel any negative emotion at all: I could see it as a triumph over the illusionary; or the beauty of the image could uplift me.

Some days Prufrock might be me; some days he might be a certain a group of people; some days he might be everyone; and some days he might just be Prufrock.

To quote AS Byatt, “think of this - that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other”. Every time we read a text we bring to it a part of ourselves and our past experiences, our prejudices and preconceptions. We should gain from it a similar insight into the writer; and from these two halves a meaning and a feeling is created which is, if almost imperceptibly, unique to that particular reading.

Between all these different interpretations one thing stays constant: the poem itself.

Eliot said himself that “real poetry can communicate before it is understood” and one of the reasons I chose to use those lines is that the first few times I read the poem I didn’t think about what they meant at all. When I first realised that I felt bad: I’m an English Lit student, I’m supposed to do that sort of thing naturally. But I think it was really a mark of their power: the emotion they triggered was too raw.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that the poem itself isn't in the interpretations. It is in the rhyme scheme; it is in the repetition in the penultimate stanza; it is in the cadence of single words like “lingered” or “combing”; it is in the pervasive sounds of the sea.

That isn’t to say that the words themselves are more important than the emotion or meaning they convey. In fact, I’d argue for the opposite. What makes something remarkable, in my view, is the effect it has: on the reader, the writer, or a particular time period. I just think there are times when you need to remind yourself of the text itself. This is sounding heretical for a self-professed English Lit geek, but it isn’t really. I love English because I love asking questions about a text and digging deeper behind it. I love how literature can draw from every aspect of knowledge and how, in learning more about a text, we are really learning more about ourselves.

Ultimately however, I don’t read a text to analyse it, but to simply to read it. Let’s return to Eliot for a moment and to the end, not of Prufrock, but of The Waste Land: “shantih, shantih, shantih”. Literally translated, my name means “the peace with passes understanding”. Perhaps it’s just egotism, but I can’t help but feel this fits well with English Literature: its very core really does "pass understanding".

At it's heart Literature is more than a representation of life, or a means to understand it: it has a life itself.

Related Literature: Terry Eagleton, An Introduction to Literary Theory; TS Eliot, Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land; AS Byatt, Possession

Hello

I'm not really expecting anyone to read this as I'm really writing for myself. But if you are - hello! Please do make yourself feel at home.

I'm Shanti, I'm 16, a proud Ravenclaw and a bit of a literature geek*; and generally a pretty ordinary human being. I'll be using this space to write down any lit-related thoughts I have. That may be general rambling; or based around something I've read/seen at theatre recently; or related to my AS English Lit course (Victorian Literature), or my Extended Project (hopefully centered on Paradise Lost). I'll try and do some close analysis of unseen texts as well.

*When I say a 'bit', I'm using it in the 'very big - you should probably run away now before I get obsessive' sense of the word.