“Can
I Borrow a Feeling?”
Often, when we
want to describe the effect of an
experience that is intransitive by its very nature, we discuss the qualities of
the experience in terms of affectation,
or feeling. This, according to scholar-poet Brenda Hillman, is the role, “the
obligation,” of poetry, “to try to express what cannot be expressed.”
(Hillman). Poetry relies on the abstraction of transcendent symbols in order to
create images that reflect ineffable experiences. That is, the poet seeks to
complicate our understanding of a particular emotion by inducing this feeling
in the reader through the structure and style of the poem. Poetic analysis
gives us the tools to understand the devices by which a particular feeling is inflected
in the poem. However, insofar as the experience of reading the poem is unique
to each reader, the analysis produced by each reader is itself an abstract
description of feeling in the same way as a poem. What is interesting about
this process is that although the implicit subject of the poem might be
intangible and abstract, the reader is able to describe the feeling of this
subject explicitly in the analysis. The ambiguous nature of language in
general, compounded by the double abstraction of poetic analysis, means that we
can and should expect a multiplicity of feelings and interpretations to arise
from any given poem. In fact, bearing in mind this unique features of poems and
poetic analysis, it should be nearly impossible to arrive at any sort of consensus
at all, with regard to feeling. However, whether the feeling is emotional,
psychological, physical, spatial, or political, we find that poems are very
often a space wherein the experience and expression of the feeling is shared. Poetic
analysis, then, no matter how technical, in an empathic process rather than an
empirical one. I believe that it is this feature of poetry analysis that makes
the blog such an effective intellectual exercise. We are able to engage with
our peers and notice the similarities and differences between how poems make us
feel. Otherwise stated, through collective poetic analysis, we are able to “borrow
the feeling” of a poem from various readers and respond in way that deepen our
understanding of feelings in general. In this post, I will use posts and poems
from the blog to show how ineffable experiences are transformed into coherent,
empathic feelings through poetic analysis.
Of particular
interest to me are poems that announce themselves to be on the subject of
feeling. Shelley’s “The Sensitive Plant” is perfect example. According to the
Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the most common and general definition of
sensitive is “having the function of sensation or sensuous perception.”
However, most posts made in reference to the poem seem to favor definitions
that deal with the capacity to be “easily touched to emotion” or “having quick
and intense perception of pain or pleasure” (OED). Many posts included images
and videos of “Mimosa Pudica,” a plant that is informally referred to as “the
sensitive plant” by virtue of its leaves, which respond to touch by curling
into themselves. These posts played on the similarities between the material
operations of the plant and the symbolic rendering of emotional pain. The “companionless”
plant, in its isolation, curls into itself when it becomes overwhelmed, much
like we as sensitive beings, recoil from pain and suffering and become isolated.
It is interesting to note that the text
itself does not ever specify that “Mimosa Pudica” is the plant to which the
author is referring. In fact, there are some details about the Sensitive Plant
of the poem that contradict the plant as it exists in the material world.
First, it is described as “companionless”. In the illustration provided in the
1899 publication, we even see the plant enshrined in solitude, as if on a pedestal.
In reality, the Mimosa Pudica is a weed, and a weed difficult to hem in at
that. Further, the plant is described as being capable of giving “small fruit,”
but having “no bright flower.” Ironically, Mimosa Pudica produces small, white
flowers, but no fruit (KEW). Perhaps most intriguing is the fact that the term “sensitive
plant” at the time was a more general term for plants that respond to stimuli
(OED). The more specific and popular name for Mimosa Pudica was the “shameful
plant,” which doesn’t match the tone of the poem as closely as “sensitive.” The
reader discerns that Mimosa Pudica is being implied not from the explicit
description of the plant, but rather from the feelings implied in the poem. Rather,
the author relies on the reader feeling empathy for the plant, and in that
empathy, perceiving the folding into oneself that suggests the motion of Mimosa
Pudica.
“Two Boys” by
Brigit Pegeen Kelly is similarly interested the feelings that we share in
response to certain stimuli or events. The suicide and suicidal motive of the
boy that drowned in the bog is not explicitly stated. However, the reader is
able to discern, unambiguously, that the subject of the poem is one boy coming
upon the body of another boy, who has killed himself. The enjambment used in
the poem mirrors the dislocation one feels in the wake of a suicide. As noted
in a post from Rebecca Hohn, the imagery used in the poem such as the “dog
fighting its own strangulation, and the difficulty of stamping out a fire”
underscores the “unsettling” tone of the poem. The repeated use of rhetorical
questions heightens the sense of confusion and powerlessness, characteristic to
most any emotional crisis, but especially in the case of processing a suicide. Through
the perspective of the living boy, we develop empathy for the corpse in the
bog. However, at the same time, Kelly develops the readers’ emotional
attachment to the living boy. The italicized questions that are set apart from
the rest of the poem seem to signal that we are encountering the boy’s internal
dialogue in the moment he finds the body. The successive questions posed by the
author represent the ways in which the original question will grow and develop
throughout his life, the way these questions “would have” developed in the boy
that committed suicide.
The final poem
we will treat in terms of feeling is “Sailing to Byzantium.” This poem is no
less popular on our blog than it is in the Western poetic cannon in general. Not
only did this poem resonate with a majority of the class, but it seems that the
posts on “Byzantium” coalesced specifically around issues of mortality, ageing,
and the cycle of life. I find this interesting for two reasons: First, because
the literal subject of the poem, sailing to Byzantium, is so distant, culturally,
geographically, and historically, from the norms of our classroom, and second,
because we are “the young in one another’s arms,” described in the poem that “neglect
monuments of unageing intellect,” such as this poem. And yet, it does not seem
as though anyone in the class was offended by this characterization or even
noticed the irony of our analyzing an iconic poem about the youth as
iconoclasts. Rather, posts tended to focus on the images and forms of the poem
used to produce the feeling of belonging to a generation and watching that
generation disappear. Our class became so swept up in the “cyclical nature of
time” communicated in the poem, that they are able to read the poem as if they are
already old men and women.
Through poetic
analysis, we are able to draw out explicitly the feelings implied in the stlye,
tone, and structure of the poem. The complexities of the poem drawn out in
poetic analysis are often unified in terms of feelings that can be expressed
and shared in finite and coherent ways. These complexities, rather than
dividing us further, help invoke empathy, which transcends historical,
political, and even psychological periods. In this way, the reading and
analyzing of poems helps to create a society more connected and more attuned to
the feelings and experiences that structure our perception of the world.
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