Our Hearty wishes

                      

                                                

          

  Though time moves on you ever remain the same

    Same gentle nature with same liberal mind

    Ever encouraging others, helpful and kind

    Working for others, not for wealth or fame

    Others’ faults you never try to find or blame

     In making others happy true joy you find;

     In fulfilling your duties, you never lag behind;

     To blend life with art seems your noble aim.

     Our hearty wishes to you we earnestly convey

     Be happy and peaceful wherever you stay.

                                   *************************

(wishing you many happy returns of the day)

   24th March,  2021                         Somaseshu Gutala

THE TALE OF MR. HITLER

   

         

                                                                       

                                                            

                             ( I )

            

He is better known as Hitler than by his name

A rigid strict taskmaster, he earned much fame;

He maintained time as precise as a clock

He is too bold and defiant as a solid rock

To keep his dignity, he did not smile

Dressed in brown coat with tie in style

Not a moment of leisure did he permit

He did not tolerate any humor or wit

He earned name as a man of merit and grit

A terror and terrific scourge he seemed to lazy staff;

He treated them with scorn as worthless chaff;

No pitiful excuses did he entertain

He spurned them away with royal disdain;

No political pressure made him yield

He ruled his domain like Achilles in the field;

Though he moved in career like a rolling stone

He never lost his mettle or felt helpless lone;                     

Well-versed in rules and procedures due

He bluntly refused any deviations new;

Ever dedicated to his office routine

He maintained his office tidy and clean;

                         ( I I )

In spite of his firm stringent attitude

At heart he is not so unkind and crude;

To save his staff he strove as far as he could

To set right their flaws by their side he stood

He never acted foul or hit below their belt

In his bosom a lot of concern for them he felt

He reprimanded them with stinging style

He curbed their greedy acts with suppressed smile

He estimated his office prestige and name with care

Negligence and laxity, he did not spare;

                     ( I I I )

Yet power like riches at one place will not stay

One has to vacate one’s chair on one day;

Same thing happened to our officer wise

He has to retire from his seat—no surprise;

And once he left his esteemed seat

None greeted him; none came to meet;

Like a fish out of water he felt alone

He felt neglected like a wayside stone;

And yet to get his post-service gains

The fruits of his long career he had to strain

From pillar to post he moved many a time

So many hurdles without reason or rhyme

Came in his way his patience to test;

No more is he the lord, but a casual guest;

A wandering ex-officer hanging around

No sympathy or support he has found;

Like an old king he felt his kingdom lost

A ranting Lear caught in the stormy blast;

The place where he did reign like a mighty king

Now he limps like a bird with broken wing;

No stringent command could he roar

None bowed before him and opened the door;

With a sense of shame and gloom and sweating brow

He waited long with dragging steps too slow;

No more his powers can he exercise

His present feeble state he did realize;

He can’t impose his rigid rules and laws

He had to bear with others’ whims and flaws;

He had to satisfy their wishes and needs;

Who would defend him and defy their lawless deeds?

He had to move alone to get his pending dues

He had to find a way through puzzling clues.

                  *********************

       15th March, 2021                 Somaseshu Gutala

 Ref : Achilles in the field - A brave Greek warrior in Trojan war.

 Ranting Lear --- A legendary British king who was cheated

 by his flattering daughters and lost his kingdom.

 

 

 

 

 

I AM HERE !

 

                                      

1)       When my journey seems too weary and long

When problems in plenty seem to throng

When future seems too misty and bleak

When I feel exhausted, vexed and weak

Thy voice whispers, “I am here, why fear?”

 

2)       When my path is not so clear and sure

When my thoughts seem too hazy and obscure

When life’s puzzles seem too complex to solve

When and what way to take I can’t resolve

Thy voice whispers,” I am here, why fear?”

 

3)       When doubts assail my feeble, wavering mind

When earnest help and support I fail to find

When hurdles rise in life’s uncertain way

When gleaming hopes appear too far and grey

Thy voice whispers, “I am here, why fear?

 

4)       When my distracting mind leads me astray

Yielding to selfish ego and passions’ sway

Going out of the way with notions false

A victim to every tempting chance

Thy voice whispers, “I am here, why fear?” 

 

5)       When dearest bonds of kinship are lost

When life’s vessel tosses in oceans vast

When relationships turn sour and loose

When I find my way too difficult to choose

Thy voice whispers,” I am here, why fear?”

 

6)        When loads of praises and insults I got

When swollen with pride Thy help I forgot

When with dismal despair my heart is fraught

When I faltered in brutal passions caught

Thy voice whispers, “I am here, why fear?”

 

7)         When I struggle to be free from worldly hold

 When I struggle with ailments as I grow old

 When I struggle to seek thy holy feet

 When I struggle to feel Thy mercy sweet

 Thy voice whispers, “I am here, why fear?”

 

     8)           Whatever we deserve you give indeed

       All lives Thy mighty powers feed and lead

       In our joys and woes, you alone never leave

      Though your omnipresence we can’t perceive

      Thy voice whispers, “I am here, why fear?”

             *************************

  2nd March, 2021                                     Somaseshu Gutala

 

 

Where are they now?

     

 

                                                      (  I  )

                    Where are they now? I mused in vain;

                    My friends with whom I talked so many days

                    With whom I chatted in a casual way

                    With whom I rocked with laughter at their teasing vibes

                    With whom I exchanged subtle witty words

                    With whom I shared my feelings though few

                    From whom I got help unsought in a friendly way

                    From whom I learnt much from their wisdom profound

                    From whom I got guidance and inspiring advice

                    Whose up rise made my heart rise with mirthful sprite

                    Whose soaring fame added wings to my humble flight;

                                             ( I I )

                 Where are they now? I mused in vain;

                 Some blew hot and cold to keep themselves safe

                 Some played double to get rid of their troubles

                 Some vanished too early like sinking stars

                 Though their witty remarks and laughs still ring

                 Within my bosom and in my dreamy world;

                                     ( I I I )

                Where are they now? I mused in vain

                Some stayed far away out of contact

                Some busy with their own personal affairs

                Some thought maybe not of much use

               To revive long lost relationships;

               Some chose paths different from my own ways

               Some quite forgot my name in their long list

               Of many chance acquaintances just like we meet

               During our trips to spend our idle hours;

               Like scattered leaves in a stormy gale

               Or people washed away in glacier burst at once

               In torrential floods of flowing time;

               Like a flight of birds they are no more seen;

              We are lost to one another or confined

              To our own daily routine and growing age:

              No more can we regain such dynamic touch

              To play brisk role in socializing ways; 

                                  ( I  V )

            Where are they now? I mused in vain;

            Their wise sayings and ideals still inspire

            Their benevolent and liberal views

            Still guide me through my life’s winding ways

            Their artistic and creative accomplishments

            Their sudden dramatic rise still shines like lofty stars

            Beyond my reach, gives me immense delight;

            All these memories gleam like distant flecks of light

            In my dreamy world back to those days again.

                         *********************

      19th February, 2021                                  Somaseshu Gutala

Hell And Heaven

                     

                         

1)        I found myself in the darkest hell

   Where brutal violence asserts its power supreme

   Where power and wealth wield their evil spell

   Where corruption reaches its level supreme

   No sense of morality there one can find

   Only crooked vile thoughts and acts unkind.

 

2)        Where innocents are victimized by might

    Where murders and rapes a common sight

    Where people struggle for bread day and night

    In cruel pastimes where people find delight

    Where vices rule people without any restraint

    Where deceit dons the mask of holy saint.

 

3)        Where suffering lot in silence remain

    Where none cares to assuage others in pain

    Where victims are treated with callous disdain

    Where none against injustice dares to complain

    Where weakest justice drags at slowest pace

    Where people’s woes are met with callous disgrace.

 

4)         Where power conspires with greed and narrow creeds

     Where nature is despoiled for selfish gains

     Where industries pollution rampant breed

     Where people struggle in slums with stress and strain

     Where cities grew like weeds with no control

     Encroaching every inch with no vision or goal.

 

5.)      Where women are tortured by drunken brutes

          Where poor persons are deprived of their rights

          Where tradition turns men blind and mute

          Where men by wayside spend miserable nights;

          Where wars are fought with devastation vast

          Where dire diseases rage and lives are lost.

 

6)         A glimpse of heaven I find in baby’s sleeping smiles 

    A glimpse of heaven in lover’s welcoming gaze

    A glimpse of heaven in shining sylvan isle  

    A glimpse of heaven in poet’s inspiring page;

    A glimpse of heaven in and God’s guiding grace

    A glimpse of heaven in dawn’s blooming rays.

 

7)        A glimpse of heaven in men that strive with zeal

    To comfort people in distress with selfless service

    A glimpse of heaven in mother’s affection I feel

    A glimpse of heaven in lakes, vales and trees

    A glimpse of heaven in farmers who work in farms

    A glimpse of heaven in soldiers' patriotic arms.

 

8)        Where people serve with love and liberal mind

    Where people move free with no sense of fear

    Where birds and beasts are cared with feelings kind

    Where lakes and rivers are made clean and crystal clear

    Where trees and plants are nourished with loving care.

    Where rulers strive selfless for social welfare.

 

9)         Where men live with no prejudice and pride

     With no barriers of sex, colour, creed and race

     Where morals are deemed as esteemed guide

     Where people live in peace, and not in crazy race

     Where people are not enslaved to lifeless tools

     Wasting their lives in idle pursuits like fools. 

 

10       Where due value is given to humanizing arts

     Where people waste not wealth and precious days

     Where people respect time-honoured rural crafts

     Where people choose to live in simple, natural days

     Where people try to live in harmonious state

      Without envy and mutual destructive hate.

 

11        Where religions teach universal love

     Where nations realize wars as waste and vile

     Where all live like multi-coloured rain-bow;

     Where all support victims and make them smile

     Where all prefer to live with contented glee

     Where all keep nature pure and pollution-free.

 

  12)    A glimpse of hell and heaven here we see

      In our own lives and world around  

      The pangs of violence, tensions and jealousy   

      Revenge, destruction and anger profound

      Far worse than hellish fires of mythical lore

      Pure love and mercy make us feel the heavenly core. 

               *************************

    8th February, 2021                     Somaseshu Gutala

    

         

        

 

 

     

      

       

        

   

 

 

A Note on Steven’s “SUNDAY MORNING”

This poem was published in part in November 1915 issue of “Poetry” journal and later in full in “Harmonium” the first collection of Steven’s poems in 1923. Many of Steven’s poems deal with use of Nature, death, religion, art and philosophy to explore profound themes. This poem consists of eight fifteen-line stanzas written in loose blank verse of a power unmatched by any English poet since Wordsworth except Robert Browning. This poem is full of vivid imagery, Biblical allusions and challenging syntax.

 This poem deals with the ultimate question of the meaning of human existence. The poem begins with the scene of an old woman sitting comfortably over a late breakfast on a Sunday morning musing over crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The woman relaxes in her chair enjoying her morning. She felt like a green parrot. She dreams about Christ’s crucifixion which belonged to mute past times. She dreams of going back to Palestine crossing the silent waters of time. The ancient country where Christ dwelt represented death, tombs and bloodshed. The pleasant domestic feeling of the old woman dressed in peignoir relaxing in a chair on the carpet with the painted figure of a green cockatoo suggests the woman flouting the norms of her era by skipping church and preferring to stay at home enjoying her morning breakfast. This type of nonconformity to tradition or convention is seen in poems of Emily Dickinson and Romantic poets who preferred naturalism over religion. T.E. Hulme defines naturalism as the “spilt religion” which provides a secular spirituality as a backdrop to this poem. Stevens employs a sonorous and sensuous diction suggesting the dreamy mood, fantasy and vision of Romantics like Coleridge, Blake and Keats.

 

In the second stanza the woman questions the validity of the vague concept of religion without any concrete promise and palpable feelings. “Why should she give her bounty to the dead?”. Her bounty comprises herself—her mind, body and her heart. Why should she pledge these to dead gods and beliefs, to the kind of divinity which manifests itself briefly and ambiguously? She tries to find religion within her own self. The responses and experiences of herself to the warm sun, ripe fruit, green parrots and other scenes evoke a religious feeling within her.  “Divinity must live within herself” assimilating all the pleasures and pains if earthly experiences around her.

 

 The third stanza repeats the mythical existence of Jove who is the master but not understood. He moved among us until our blood interacted with heaven.  He descended from his superhuman level to experience like humans by commingling his blood with persons as seen in ancient tales of gods seducing humans. (Jove in the form of a swan seduced Leda, a Spartan queen. He fell in love with Europa, a princess and carried her disguised as a beautiful white bull). This commingling suggests the virginal birth of Jesus. The star represents the star of Bethlehem. The poet questions whether this will lead to humans deposing and discarding their gods and forming a friendly and harmonious relationship with Nature. By means of this relationship we can turn earth into a paradise. Then the sky seems no more a dividing barrier but a friendly gateway sharing our pleasure and pain, the inseparable parts of human existence. “The sky will be much friendlier now/Not this dividing and indifferent blue.” The death of numerous myths justify that they have lost their relevance and value. 

The fourth stanza presents a catalogue of intangible objects of tradition and fictions of immortality that have lost their relevance to earthly reality. M.H. Abrahams said that this passage resembled Wordsworth’s thoughts in “Recluse” who tried to salvage paradise doomed to be a fiction by locating it in “the common day.” The chimera, the prophets, the underworld, the melodious isle and the visionary south cannot be experienced as April’s green as image of world’s continuity. The flying swallows represent change and movement. The woman finds consummation of her feelings in watching earthly sights. The bird’s sweet questionings challenging the misty fields confirm the woman’s doubts about the death of Jesus and the birth of Jove in the cloudy sky. Her vivid apprehension of the world even in retrospect or prospect is more powerful than imaginary creation.

 In the fourth stanza the poet affirms that the woman’s personal memories and desires will retain their potency longer than any vision of paradise. “Like her remembrance of awakened birds/Or her desire for June and evening, tipped/By the consummation of the swallow’s wings.”

 The fifth stanza depicts the earthly sensuality just like Keats did in “The Eve of St. Agnes Eve”. The woman feels imperishable bliss in the world of temporary pleasures. She finds answer in death who offers us fulfilment. She is called “the mother of beauty” who motivates people to enjoy the present and their senses are sharpened with the knowledge of inevitable death. Our lives are wanderings in a wood and our achievements and our mistakes will be buried with our bodies. The words “strews, stray and littering” suggest the possibility of many oaths and randomness of life with a sense of mystery. The trembling willow leaves represent changing nature of worldly reality. The plums and pears just gathered from grass and picked from the trees show how every moment comes to fruition and pass into oblivion.  The image of maidens sitting and gazing on the grass and the boys piling plums and pears on the plate suggest the earthly experiences which pass into oblivion soon. Yet they derive satisfaction in these transient things though they know that they are not permanent. The famous line “Death is the mother of beauty” recalls Keats’ lines “Now much more than ever seems it rich to die” in “Ode to a Nightingale” and “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” in Keats’ “Endymion”. Like terminally ill Keats Stevens recognized that the foreknowledge of mortality and loss fosters our most intense sensations- the mingled pleasure and pain- we experience as beauty.

The sixth stanza shows the static beauty of the paradise without change. The sterile unchanging heaven evokes the frozen scene in Keats’ famous poem “Ode on a Grecian urn.” There the ripe fruit never falls and there is no need for lutes since there is no place for melancholy in paradise. The poet has no fascination for such a place where rivers do not flow to join the sea. The woman’s needs can be answered only by the world’s temporal beauty and for her paradise is another version of our caring mother. The burning bosom refers to the beauty creating finality of death beyond any logic. “Death is the mother of beauty, mystical/Within whose burning bosom we devise/Our earthly mothers waiting sleeplessly.”

In the seventh stanza the woman experiences earthly paradise. The pagan form of worship participating in the joy of creation suggests the need for harmonious relationship with nature. The vanishing dew suggests the brief existence of our relationships. The collective chanting of men indicates their desire to be close to their god. To them sun is not a god. It is a sign of divinity. Paradise is their desire to be greeted in death by their earthly mothers. The sun as a symbol of divinity refers to the narrator’s attempt to go back to primordial condition.

In the last poem the woman comes out of her daydream and returns to the world of reality. The woman hears a voice that cries that the death of Jesus was like any other death and that his tomb is merely a grave, and not the threshold of another world. Dream gives way to reality. This earth is created out of the chaos and depends only on the sun’s appearance and disappearance. Our world is a solitary place without any superhuman or supernatural presence. Imagination alone imposes order on it. To feel free in this world we should have primitive faith in Nature and trust Her who protects us like her own children. The images of deer walking upon the mountains, the whistling quails, the sweet berries in wilderness indicate the friendliness of our environment and freedom of earthly reality. The ambiguous movements of flying pigeons suggest the unknowable and incomplete search for divinity. The woman‘s desire to go back to Palestine indicates that paradise, inner divinity and imperishable bliss depend upon the restoration of some primordial state.

These lines reveal the narrator’s sceptic view of resurrection and religious concept of heaven. The narrator prefers inner divinity and a friendlier sky without mythical gods. Though the real world seems chaotic with a sense of isolation, one feels free with so many sources of delight. The vision of dancing men celebrating their devotion to the sun represents humanity stripped of pretensions and illusions.   The lines “whence they came and whither they shall go/The dew upon their feet shall manifest” suggest a kind of redemption by way of reabsorption into Nature.  “Their chant shall be a chant of paradise/Out of their blood, returning to the sky.“

This poem shows the poet as a hedonist who believes in earthly religion. The sensuous images and graceful rhythm show his preference for worldly pleasures and pains rather than mysterious dreamy concept of paradise. Steven’s poems are questionings and enquiries. More than disbelief it is this irresolution that marks the poem as modern. The celebration of freedom and spontaneity are quintessentially American. This poem is partly metaphysical and partly romantic and explores the idea of the origin and end of the human belief. The belief in supernatural gods is breaking down. So humans have to re-invent fresh modes of belief based on reality. The Christian belief in fear and guilt, sacrifice and future rewards need to be balanced by sensual experience in the real, tangible world. Stevens felt that it was the job of poetry to fill this void left by the melt down of religious faith. Using the influence of French symbolists and French painters and the use of imagination the poet tried to shape a new reality to help replace the old supernatural beliefs.

This poem looks at the history of religious gods and the human relationship with them.  Mythical gods are beyond the human sphere and now gods are to be found within each individual human being. “Divinity must live within herself.” Steven explores the contrast between our beautiful perishing reality and static fantasy land we struggle to imagine. Keats in his “Ode on Grecian Urn” likewise contrasts the static cold pastoral and pagan celebration with dynamic flux of life. This poem bears out Stevens’ claim” the poem is simply an expression of paganism.” The literary critic Yvor Winters considered “Sunday Morning” as “the greatest poem of the twentieth century….. and one of the greatest contemplative poems in English.”  Helen Vendler summarized the poem as Stevens’s search for “a systematic truth that could replace the Christianity of his churchgoing boyhood.” Robert Buttel opines that both Stevens and Henri Matisse, the French painter tried “to transform a pagan joy of life into highly civilized terms.”

                                         **************************

       28th January, 2021                                    Somaseshu Gutala

 

 

 

 

 

A Note On “Peter Quince At The Clavier"

    

 Like other symbolist poets Stevens also uses the image of music and musical terminology. The titles of many of his poems evoke a world beyond the world of facts, a world rich in legend and sensuous meanings. This poem is based on an anecdote from the apocryphal book of Daniel. Susanna (which means “lily” in Hebrew) was the beautiful and virtuous wife of Joakim in Babylon. Susanna fails to be seduced by court officials who spy upon her bathing in the garden. They accuse her as an adulteress and pass death sentence on her. She was about to be put to death. Just then a young man, Daniel, exposed the villainous nature of elders and saved Susanna. The elders were punished with death for their false accusations.

  In Shakespeare’s “A midsummer night’s dream”, Peter Quince, a carpenter with literary pretentions presents an interlude with his unskilled actors on the occasion of the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. In Steven’s poem Peter Quince is a serious thinker on the relationship between music and feeling. He is seen presenting a musical rendering of Susanna’s story on a clavier (a keyboard musical instrument). Stevens framed this poem just like sonata, a musical symphony with four parts; exposition, development, recapitulation and conclusion or coda. The four distinct parts with formal features and rhythms reveal the changes in mood, tempo and emphasis. This poem is suggestive of Keats’s famous lines “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” 

The first part shows the lustful and sensual attitude of the elders who were fascinated by Susanna’s body when she was bathing in a pool. The second part describes the pure aesthetic delight felt by Susanna while she was bathing and enjoying the cool touch of refreshing waters and the touch of dew on green leaves. She hears music in various sounds of Nature and senses a unity in everything around her. Only the last two lines hint at the cruel authority which tries to destroy her serene mood. (A cymbal crashed/ and roaring horns.”)

 In the third part in five tightly rhymed couplets the point of view of her weak-willed attendants who arrived too late to help her is shown. The last part shifts from brief and concise nature of Susanna’s story to deeply reflective and philosophical tone. The sixteen rhymed lines of this part show the tight and reasoned argument and logic of a sonnet.

Though beauty is momentary it is immortal in our minds. The narrator on seeing his beloved reflects on the beauty of Susanna whose beauty lives in his beloved and in Quince’s musical attempt to consecrate Susanna’s beauty by re-telling her story. The last six lines are said to be the most gorgeous in English language and place Stevens in the company of great poets like Sappho, Shakespeare and Keats. The poem develops the theme that music is feeling by combining poetic devices like alliteration, assonance and consonance. The phrase “pulse pizicatti of Hosanna” mimics the plucking of strings. (piozzicato means in Italian "to pluck the strings of a stringed instrument")

 Stevens uses carefully selected and arranged colours to frame the physical and temporal context of the two different segments of the poem. The blue-shadowed silk suggests the beauty of his beloved and his power of imagination. The green evening and the green water indicate the natural and pure charm of Susanna and her chaste heart. The phrase “red-eyed elders” suggest the lustful attitude of elders. Similarly, “the bawdy strings of those white elders” in contrast to green life suggest a condition deprived of colour and warmth. The phrase “clear viol of her memory” indicates a beauty removed from senses to immortal level. Thus, the colours are symbolic of characters’ attitudes and they set up a framework for plot development. 

 Music, according to the poet, is not sounds but acts on spirit producing feelings. So, the lovely feelings aroused in the poet on contemplation of his beloved’s beauty is like the heart-throbbing music. Here the poet refers to the beauty of Susanna bathing in green waters of the garden which aroused similar feelings in the red eyes of elders who secretly watched her. The chords of their bosoms were plucked by her bewitching beauty. Susanna too felt refreshed by touching the springs of fresh water and experienced calmness by the touch of dew on green leaves. As she walked upon the grass the winds accompanied her like timid maids to cover her body. She felt the hot breath on her hand and turned with awe. Her sense of panic is suggested by the sounds of crashing cymbals and roaring ng horns. The attendants entered soon with the sound of loud tambourines. The elders’ voices accusing Susanna swept like whispering sound of rain through willows. The attendants uplifted their flames and beheld the bare body of Susanna. They fled away with loud sound of tambourines. 

 Here the poet praises the concept of beauty concretely expressed or manifested through body. It always lives like the beauty of evening or a wave continuously flowing. The abstract beauty is vague like a momentary flash seen through a portal. A maiden’s beauty always remains in memory like the fragrance of the garden after the plants die. It lingers like the scent of flowers in bleak winter. The poet compares the death of lovely maidens to choral celebrations as their beauty lives immortalized in art. Death’s ironic scraping sound will not atop her beauty being praised by art, which is as holy as sacrament, a kind of purificatory rite. The elders with their villainy exposed had to listen to the harsh sound of death. Susanna’s beauty is immortalized by Peter Quince’s music which represents art. The whole poem is a musical architecture which organically serves to portray the thematic and emotional feelings. The style is very sensuous and lyrical with smooth flowing rhythm.

Thus, the poet in this poem shows the relationship between art and beauty. Art in this poem is represented by music played by Peter Quince. Beauty is represented by Susanna. Beauty and art are interdependent. “Beauty is momentary in mind—/The fitful tracing of a portal; /But in flesh it is immortal.” The vague notion of beauty in mind cannot be felt whereas the physical beauty is sensuous and can be experienced by senses and by heart. “The body dies; the body’s beauty lives” reiterates the permanence of physical beauty immortalized by art and fond memories in mind. Beauty is sanctified like the auroral celebration of a maiden’s choral and is made a sacrament (a sacred rite) by the magic touch of art and music. The poet uses religious terms to indicate the noble influence of chaste beauty and art. The poet believes that art and imagination can impose order on this chaotic world. In his view true harmony is achieved through a transformation of factual reality into poetic reality. Poetry for him is like a missal (a book of prayers) and is verily a substitute for religion in the modern world which has lost faith.

                           ***********************************

   18th January, 2021                                        Somaseshu Gutala

 

A Note On “ The Emperor of Ice Cream”

"The Emperor of ice cream” was published in Wallace Steven’s first collection of Poetry “Harmonium” in 1922. According to Paul Mariani, Steven’s biographer, this is one of the personal favourite poems of the poet.

The title of the poem may appear quite strange and incongruous. Wallace Stevens like a ringmaster performs feats with unusual word combinations. The poem has two stanzas which depict two different aspects of our life. The poet sets up a contrast between earthly pleasures and death, between appearance and stark reality. The first part describes the earthly pleasures, routine pleasures and activities. An unseen character orders a muscular person who rolls cigars to whip ice cream and curds in kitchen cups. The roller of big cigars and ice cream cups represent earthly pleasures. The words “muscular” and “concupiscent” (lustful) suggest sensual aspects of life. The sentence “Let the wenches dawdle in such dress as they are used to wear” suggest the drab aspect and disillusionment of reality in spite of its sensual pleasures. The word “wenches” again suggests something cheap and sensual. The sentence “Let the boys bring flowers in the last month’s newspapers” again suggest the transient nature of earthly pleasures just like newspapers which have become useful only as wrapping covers. The ambiguous line “Let be be the finale of seem” refers to the end of appearances rather than things that are actually are.

 All our earthly activities are like scenes in a play. They are fleeting experiences without any solid existence. The image of “Ice cream” represents the dual aspect of our existence. It is very tasty and pleasant but at the same time it melts away gradually just like our lives. The coldness also suggests the finality of dissolution and death. “The only emperor is the emperor of the ice cream” suggests the almighty controlling power of Time which changes everything. The cold ice cream also suggests the impending death and dissolution. In this part of the poem the poet describes the festive celebration of death observed in some Canadian or red Indian American tribes at the time of a person’s death. 

The second part of the poem portrays the gloomy scene of a dead woman wrapped in a shroud. The shroud was previously embroidered with flowers by the dead woman The cupboard (“the dresser of deal lacking the three glass knobs”) with three knobs missing the  kitchen cups and the cheap dress worn by girls suggest the poor background of the dead woman. Her horny protruding feet indicate her hard life and stark reality which triumphs over illusory and gaudy appearances. “Let the lamp affix its beam” reiterates this fact that reality cannot be hidden and one should clearly see and accept one’s own destiny or real condition. The line “The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream” is reiterated to emphasize the controlling power of time. The mysterious person who gives orders to others reveals the dual aspect of dynamic life (embodied in the symbol of melting ice cream, flowers and burning cigars) and static death both of which are inseparable parts of our lives.

Stevens uses striking, original imagery with profound meaning and symbolic significance. The tone is quite impersonal and balanced without any passionate effusion. The style is quite simple with smooth, flowing rhythm. Though it is written in free verse the lines are quite balanced and musical as the poet used rhetorical devices like alliteration (concupiscent curds), assonance (Let be be finale of seem). The poet portrays the earthly joys of life though they are transient. The poet seems to give equal importance to earthly pleasures of life and ultimate reality as he believes that “A poem should stimulate the sense of living and be of being alive.”

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  11th January, 2021                               Somaseshu Gutala