Purposeful Uncertainty

Rebecca Howard

Final Project

Purposeful Uncertainty

Throughout the history of poetry, certain elements flow from one historical period to another. They are not always the same from period to period, but they are still there. One of these elements of poetry is the author purposely not making the meaning of the poem entirely clear to the reader, a purposeful uncertainty. Uncertainty is the state of not being definitely known or perfectly clear; doubtfulness or vagueness. (OED, def. 2a). The motives for this purposeful uncertainty vary, but overall, it is put there to allow for multiple interpretations and to draw the reader into the poem in order to find out the meaning.

In Robert Frost’s poem “Home Burial”, Frost purposely creates a feeling of uncertainty through his use of enjambments. Despite the text being one more narrative based than abstract like some poems, the poem still manages to leave the reader feeling uncertain about the meaning and the situation of the poem.

The poem which revolves around a husband and a wife having an argument in the fall out of the death of their child relies on uncertainty in order for the meaning of the poem to get across to the reader. The poem begins with the enjambment “He saw her from the bottom of the stairs/ Before she saw him.” (line 1-2). From the start of the poem, the reader’s idea of what is going on is shaken. It is not clear at this point why the fact that he saw her before she saw him is significant, but the astute reader will assume that it means that there is some conflict going on with the couple, that the wife is trying to avoid the husband for some reason. From that first enjambment, the conflict and uncertainty keep on growing. Even once the source of the conflict is revealed to be that the husband and wife are having much different reactions to their child’s death and it is driving them apart, things are still not clear. The wife asks the husband “What had how long it takes a birch to rot/ To do with what was in the darkened parlor? (lines 97-98) in reference to what he said at the child’s makeshift funeral, accusing him of not even caring that the husband died while earlier in the poem the husband is imploring his wife to tell her of her grief in an attempt to reconnect them. Even when the poem is finished, the reader is not sure of the true feelings of the subjects in the poem, and the conflict of the poem relies on the fact that the husband and wife are uncertain of what the other feels.

Frost purposefully put uncertainty in to make the reader as uncertain about the situation as the couple. This makes the readers think about the themes such a death and the grieving process, how people handle grief differently, and how oftentimes it is hard for others to understand how another person’s grieving works, often pushing them apart from one another. The uncertainty is purposefully placed there to provide conflict for the poem and to allow the readers to come up with differing interpretations.

In Algernon Charles Swinburne’s poem “A Forsaken Garden”, there is a lot of purposeful uncertainty in dealing with the subject, which depending on the interpretation the reader reaches, is also uncertain. What lends to this uncertainty in this particular poem is his extended imagery, which often leaves the reader with complex images. One such example of his extended imagery is the last one with “Here now in his triumph where all things falter, /Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread, / As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, / Death lies dead.” (lines 77-80). Death lying dead is a very hard image to imagine and what it exactly means is elusive. Swinburne seems to suggest eventually that even Death will eventually pass away, although it could be interpreted to mean that everything has an end and that what is left after that is nothingness, which is a complex idea to handle.

Swinburne’s purposeful uncertainty maybe a reference to his own uncertainty about his own life and the direction it was travel. The poem was written in 1876, a few years before he suffered from a dangerous illness and his publisher decided to intervene by cutting him off from alcohol and from his old friends that supported his bad habits. Swinburne was prone to alcoholism and from a condition that caused him to have accidents, often leaving him with bruises or unconsciousness. (Swinburne Biography, Poetryfoundation.org) Perhaps the uncertainty of his life at that time was reflected in his poetry. Swinburne purposeful placed uncertainty in this poem to make the readers question what they know about Death and the afterlife (or lack thereof) and to think more deeply about what eternity means as far as the destruction of all things go. It allows the reader to come up with interpretations of their own instead of just outright telling them how the poem should be read and what the poet is trying to tell the readers.

And traveling even further back in time, one can find that even in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 55 there is a purposeful uncertainty that Shakespeare has injected into the poem. While sonnets are nowhere near as abstract as say a modernist or post-modernist poem, they still have to be read multiple times in order to get the meaning of what the author is saying.

This particular sonnet is a bit different from the rest of Shakespeare’s procreation sonnets. Sonnet 55 appears to be one talking about the preservation of the beloved’s beauty like the rest, but this one takes a step further and confirms that it is the written word that will be the thing that immortalizes the beloved. As the poet claims, “Not marble, nor the gilded monuments/ Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;” (lines 1-2).

As one can see in the picture, the marble is eroded due to weather and other forces. Even during Shakespeare’s time people noticed the decay of physical works such as statues and art, therefore allowing the written word to rise as a vehicle of immortality since it will not wear away.

The poem is almost more about the art of writing itself than the beloved. That is not clear unless one looks at the lines closely and the casual reader might gloss over the point that Shakespeare is trying to get at. Also this sonnet leaves out pronouns, which is Shakespeare making the subject of the poem uncertain. This uncertainty that is created may be Shakespeare’s push back against Petrarchan sonnets, which exclusively expressed affection towards women. (The Elizabethan Sonnet, Fyre) By purposefully putting in this uncertainty, Shakespeare is shifting the conventions of sonnets at his time and making his own. Other poets during the same time would go on to do the same thing, each putting their own spin on the sonnet to create their own varieties.

            All of the poems have elements of uncertainty and uncertain meanings. That uncertainty did not end up there on accident. Through the use of language, grammar, and changing conventions, the poets purposefully place uncertainty into their poems. This uncertainty allows for the poems to be interpreted in different ways depending on the reader, and calls for closer reading of the poem when compared to prose works. This uncertainty is essential to poetry and will still be a part of poems in the future.

References

Swinburne Biography-  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/algernon-charles-swinburne

The Elizabethan Sonnet- http://www.sonnets.org/frye.htm

Picture source- http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/antiquity/roman-sculpture.htm

Uncertainty, def. 2a-  www.oed.com