I've always thought of the romantics as having a strong investment and appreciation for nature, but now after our discussion this last Tuesday I'm not so sure about the character of that appreciation. There's a certain self-absorption in all these works (that I never noticed on my own) that really precludes the idea of their authors seeing "human interest... [as not] the only legitimate interest." The texts we read seem to be ALL about the poet, and leave room for little beyond that, so I don't really see "human accountability to the environment" as playing any big "part [in] the text's ethical orientation." I always thought of the romantics as poets who went outside themselves to delve into the wonders of the world; now I see them more as writings about themselves and their own responses to, and the inspirations they receive from, nature.
At the same time, I can't help but see these texts / authors as strong precursors to current environmental movements. They do suggest a certain awe of and reverence for the natural world--even if they seem to uphold the feelings of awe and reverence above the subjects causing those feelings. For me, this was especially true in Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale." I don't know if the environment / nightingale was meant to become more than a framing device for the poet to explore his own poetical / artistic longings, but the natural images are so powerful, so immediate that they do seem to take on a life of their own apart from the poet's own egocentric meditations.
Thus, Keats begins his nightingale poem by focusing on his own responses--his aching heart, his numbed/pained senses, and just the way he feels in general (whether envious or happy) about the nightingale and her song (1-6)--but then he inserts this image in our heads of an almost magical creature, a dryad (7), a little goddess or fairy spirit of the tree, who somehow comes alive in a few short lines and stays with us even as the poet returns again to his own reflections and feelings and experience. And later, just when he seems to have left that which inspired him far behind and flies through the clouds in an almost drunken ecstacy of imagination, he comes back to her, telling us that all this while she has been singing and "Still woudst...sing" and that despite his intoxicating flights of fancy he is unable to capture / recreate her song himself (60). This seems to suggest the superiority of nature over man--even the poetic man.
And yet...
And yet the speaker actually appears to regulate the natural world itself to being an invention of human imagination when he wonders at the end, "Was it a vision, or a waking dream? / Fled is that music--do I wake or sleep?" (79-80). Here it seems that the speaker credits the elusiveness of the song not to the superiority of nature, but to the poet's inability to translate his own vision/dream/feeling to the physical world.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
i definitely have noticed a sometimes annoying contradiction in some of these poems in the sense that the poets seem willing to acknowledge the ebb and flow and the fickleness of nature, but at the same time constantly lament that it doesn't favor them as much as it might. not really sure what to make of that...
This is a really thoughtful comment. I like the way you consider both sides of the "accountability" question in relation to the Nightingale. I also like the writerly voice you have going here, the way you yourself, as a reader and writer, allow us to become intimate with your own thought processes.
i really think that this is an appropriate response, both to buell's list and the poetry we've read so far. perhaps that is what buell was fighting against with such inclusive language. as it is, poets certainly wish (or at least, it seems as if they do) for the word to bow down to the poem and the crafting of words, not the other way around.
Post a Comment