While speaking on simplicity in his book, The Natural House, Frank Lloyd Wright made reference to the book of Matthew in the New Testament: "Any wild flower is truly simple... Clarity of design and perfect significance both are first essentials of the spontaneous born simplicity of the lilies of the field... Jesus wrote the supreme essay on simplicity in this, 'Consider the lilies of the field.'" In this same book of the Bible, only a few verses earlier the "birds of the air" are invoked in Shelly's "To a Skylark." Similar to the donna angelica as a model of heavenly beauty, the skylark is seen as a model of artistic simplicity. "From Heaven... pourest" the heart of the bird an "unpremeditated art." An odd ending to the stanza, here Shelly's poem is demonstrative of the clumsiness of human construction and the simplicity of the birds state of being. The bird does not need to meditate like a poet, it simply is artistic.
The skylark is also repeatedly positioned next to heavenly bodies in the poem. "Like a star of Heaven," "that silver sphere," and singing in the "golden lightning/ Of the silken sun."
"Like a poet hidden.../Singing hymns unbidden," the donna angelica is even invoked within the poem:
"Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower."
In comparing the bird to heavenly images, and the already tropological donna angelica the poet holds the skylark in a similar place of thought to the "high-born maiden." Like the donna angelica the bird simply is a beautiful artistic being without any effort. Coinciding with the verses in Matthew as well this simplicity establishes the bird as a figure indeed worthy of imitation by the poet, just as Jesus instructed his own audience in their lifestyle.
I agree with your over all idea but after looking at Matthew 6,28 (KJV) I got the feeling that "they (lilies) toil not, neither do they spin" are naturally beautiful because they do not/ cannot sin. So for Shelley to view the Skylark as nature without sin he tries to infuse himself through the bird's song but cannot because he toils and spins. I get the impression that Shelley is searching for the skylark's song through his other poems such as "Ode to he West Wind" because he knows that the old, mad, blind, and dying King is Ozymandias whom is man in his natural form: detached from the song cursed to prepare himself to listen after the song finishes. Then again I am just spit balling.
ReplyDeletethis draws out a fundamental condition suggested by Collin's post: if the Skylark is pure, then the poet is fallen--or put another way, the poet understands the human condition as fundamentally flawed. This, however, doesn't quite line up with Shelley's philosophical position: unlike Byron, who saw humans as inevitably stuck in the mire of life, Shelley was more of an idealist. His position was more that humans *allow* themselves to be miserable: "It is our will / That thus enchains us to permitted ill. / We might be otherwise, we might be all / We dream of happy, high, majestical" (Julian and Maddalo, ll. 170-2). Considering this, we might see the Skylark as Shelley's ideal form of human song, an expression of our imaginative potential. The question remains: does Shelley believe we can actually reach this potential?
DeleteI think it's interesting that you saw Biblical references in Shelley's poem, considering he was an atheist and wrote about the subject, right? I'm not saying you're wrong, it's pretty obvious you make a good case for it--I'm just curious as to what you think his motivations for using these references might be. I guess maybe he looked at the Bible as poetry? It's not like the Bible can't be read secularly, of course.
ReplyDeleteI'd argue that being an atheist in the early 1800's wouldn't preclude a use of the Bible as a source of inspiration for two reasons. Just like Finch was put down for being "too radical", an atheist poet would perhaps suffer even more so for speaking out openly. It would become necessary then to hide in plain sight as it were and play along. Another note it that mythology is still a powerful source of inspiration even today, although the religion(s) that the myths came from have fallen out of favor. The same principle could be applied to Shelly. Though he wasn't a Christian he still might have found good use (and relevancy) using Christian images.
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