As Rebecca already showed, the wolf and the children she is nursing are direct references to the foundation myth of Rome, namely to how the twins Romulus and Remus were nursed by a she-wolf when they were left to die. This saves me the trouble of having to anchor the poem, mostly because I wanted to take a step further in my reading.
It's not too different though; much like Rebecca's, it has to deal with the idea of the wolf and an extended metaphor for the decay of the state. However, I wanted to go a step deeper and observe the legendary figures fed by the wolf. Despite the fact that Romulus and Remus were no doubt a fiction created by the earlier settlers of Rome to give a divine notion to their establishment. And as the republic grew, Romulus attained deific status, becoming a god in the eyes of the people. This was especially prevalent near the end days of the republic, as people such as Cicero looked back to Rome's glory days.
This same phenomenon is happening right now with figures of America's past. By all accounts an general of average ability, George Washington has essentially become the patron god of many in America, especially romantics who see in the past America's glory days, an all too attractive sight given the bloated self-serving bureaucracies of today.
While Kelly could have used any number of ways to make a metaphor for decay, in my eyes, her specific use of this myth to me shows a criticism of this sort of mentality; while the country (the wolf) decays and dies, we escape into fantasy and glorify the heroes of our past, to ignore the crumbling world around us.
Interesting assessment, Alex. For me, however, while the atmosphere of decay is prevalent, the message of futility is stronger. The Roman myth about Romulus and Remus is, above the modern message that people regress towards fantasy/legend in the wake of national decay, one of the futility of myth itself. Kelly criticizes the ancient Roman attempt to link itself both with the perceived fierceness of the natural world (wolf) and ancient Greek traditions thereby creating purpose for their many exploits. By way of critiquing Rome, she critiques all governments--or if we want to remain true to your post, America in particular--of their "myth weaving," i.e., attempts to justify their actions through identification with ideals, images, tropes, and stories of the past.
ReplyDeleteThe wolf represented a mixture of strength and cold maternity key to Rome's justification of imperialistic conquest of the Mediterranean. As Rome decayed on the very principles of strength that had been her formation (viz. the unification of Latin peoples in Italy), myth became more ironic than anything else. This is the futility, that a strong image that once united a world order could not keep it together.
The futility also contains a subtle irony. The strong image once essential to Rome's founding ethos exists long after its creators and devotees (the Roman people) have ceased to be. For me, Kelly, by way of this, comments on a further futility of myth, that it serves no real purpose other than to convince people of something impermanent. In the case of Rome, this would be their strength and militarism, the very things that crumbled.