THE LONGING SOUL IN “VESPERS” (#3) BY LOUISE GLÜCK · ii THE LONGING SOUL IN “VESPERS” (#3) BY LOUISE GLÜCK AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the

THE LONGING SOUL

IN “VESPERS” (#3) BY LOUISE GLÜCK

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

in English Letters

By

MUHAMMAD DIRGANTARA ESA VALENTINO AM

Student Number: 134214148

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAM

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2017

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ii

THE LONGING SOUL

IN “VESPERS” (#3) BY LOUISE GLÜCK

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

in English Letters

By

MUHAMMAD DIRGANTARA ESA VALENTINO AM

Student Number: 134214148

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAM

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2017


iii


iv


v

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH

UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma

Nama : Muhammad Dirgantara Esa Valentino AM

Nomor Mahasiswa : 134214148

Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan

Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul

THE LONGING SOUL IN “VESPERS” (#3) BY LOUISE GLÜCK

beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan

kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan,

mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan

data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasinnya di internet atau

media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin kepada saya

maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya

sebagai penulis.

Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

Dibuat di Yogyakarta

Pada tanggal 24 Agustus 2017

Yang menyatakan,

Muhammad Dirgantara Esa Valentino AM


vi

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

I certify that this undergraduate thesis contains no material which has been

previously submitted for the award of any degree at any university, and that, to the

best of my knowledge, this undergraduate thesis contains no material previously

written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text of the

undergraduate thesis.

Yogyakarta, August 24, 2017

Muhammad Dirgantara Esa Valentino AM


vii

“The obligation of a critic [is] to

mediate, through an informed

subjectivity, the totality of the

artwork as he [or she] intuits its

reasons for being as it is.”

Helen Vendler


viii

To Dra. Sumarni Tahir


ix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This journey is a lengthy and laborious one. That finally I made it through is

not solely the fruit of my own labor and power. On this instance, thus, I would

like to express my gratitude to several pairs of helping hands. My advisor, E. Arti

Wulandari, who guides, argument by argument, the writing of this thesis. My co-

advisor, A. B. Sri Mulyani, who reads the draft in its entirety and gives

corrections and suggestions. My previous advisor, F. X. Siswadi, to whom I owe

the insight to “Vespers” (#3) connection with “Job”. And my examiner, G. Fajar

Sasmita Aji for his praise and critique during the viva voce. Next, I want to thank

too Helen Vendler of Harvard University for her generosity in granting my

request of her article. Also to Van Deventer Maas-Stitching for the generous

monthly grants I had received during most of my study. Likewise, I thank the

Library of Sanata Dharma University for providing such an enormous resource.

(This is the best part of the university, in my opinion.) Finally, I want to thank my

family, who support me financially; and my friends (Stella Noviani, Laura

Sianturi, Sapphira Wardani, Adenda Astriningtyas, Galih Priambodo and Niko

Ginting) and—especially—my companion, M. Agus Hardiansyah, who support

me emotionally. They had been, indirectly, an important part in every step of this

journey.

M. D.


x

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE ...................................................................................................... ii

APPROVAL PAGE ........................................................................................... iii

ACCEPTANCE PAGE ...................................................................................... iv

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH .. v

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ................................................................. vi

EPIGRAPH ........................................................................................................ vii

DEDICATION PAGE ...................................................................................... viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................... ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................... x

ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................ xi

ABSTRAK ........................................................................................................... xii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 1

A. Background of the Study ....................................................................... 1

B. Problem Formulation ............................................................................ 6

C. Objectives of the Study ......................................................................... 7

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ................................................... 8

A. Review of Related Studies .................................................................... 8

B. Review of Related Theories ................................................................ 14

C. Theoretical Framework ....................................................................... 44

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ................................................................. 45

A. Object of the Study.............................................................................. 45

B. Approach of the Study ........................................................................ 47

C. Method of the Study ............................................................................ 47

CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ............................................................................... 49

A. The Content of “Vespers” (#3) ........................................................... 49

B. The Forms of “Vespers” (#3) .............................................................. 51

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ....................................................................... 113

A. Conclusion ........................................................................................ 113

B. Suggestions ....................................................................................... 115

BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................ 117

APPENDIX: “Vespers” (#3) .............................................................................. 122


xi

ABSTRACT

AM, MUHAMMAD DIRGANTARA ESA VALENTINO. The Longing Soul in

“Vespers” (#3) by Louise Glück. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters,

Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2017.

Until now, the bulk of studies on The Wild Iris has been overwhelmingly

focused on general topics, moving across poems without paying enough attention

to the details of each. This study, in general, fills this critical gap as the book is a

major poetical work by a major contemporary American poet, Louise Glück. In

specific, it studies, both in content and forms, “Vespers” (#3), one of the poems

occupying a central thematic and structural position in the book.

This study has two problems. In the first one, it deals with the content

aspects of “Vespers” (#3). In the second, it grapples with the poem’s various

forms and its contribution to the content. The content, to clarify, is put first in the

order as the particular poem demands it to be such.

As a library research, employing the scalpel of New Critical approach

advocated by Helen Vendler, this study primary source is Glück’s “Vespers” (#3).

Its secondary sources, meanwhile, are relevant books, audio-visual media, and

articles. In the meantime, there are three general steps completed to arrive at the

study’s present shape. First, the poem was paraphrased to formulate its content-

related aspects: subject matter and theme. Next, the poem’s various forms are

identified and seen in connection to the content. Finally, the findings are reported

in the written form.

This study argues that the poem is an expression of longing. Specifically, it

shows a human speaker longing to know the reason for her suffering. Together

with the paraphrase, this is the content-related aspect of the poem. The various

forms and its contribution to the content, meanwhile, are as follows. The diction,

imageries, rhetorical devices, syntax, rhythm, rhyme, stanza form, and

intertextuality emphasize the content of the poem. On the other hand, together

with the tenses, the diction and rhetorical devices also extend the content of the

poem.


xii

ABSTRAK

AM, MUHAMMAD DIRGANTARA ESA VALENTINO. The Longing Soul in

“Vespers” (#3) by Louise Glück. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Sastra Inggris,

Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2017.

Sampai saat ini, studi-studi mengenai The Wild Iris, sebuah buku penting

dari salah satu penyair terpenting kontemporer Amerika, terlalu fokus pada isu

umum. Hal ini seakan membuat kritikus-kritikus kurang memperhatikan detail-

detail setiap puisi. Studi ini secara umum mengisi kekosongan ini. Lebih spesifik

lagi, studi ini meneliti secara mendetail “Vespers” (#3), baik dari segi isi maupun

bentuk. Sebabnya, puisi ini merupakan bagian penting The Wild Iris, baik secara

tema maupun struktur.

Studi ini menjawab dua masalah. Di masalah pertama, isi “Vespers” (#3)

diungkapkan. Sementara itu, di masalah kedua, bentuk dan hubungan bentuk ke

isi puisi diuraikan. Isi dibahas lebih dahulu daripada bentuk karena puisi

bersangkutan menuntut demikian.

Sebagai studi pustaka yang menggunakan pisau bedah New Criticism Helen

Vendler, sumber textual utama studi ini adalah “Vespers (#3). Sementara itu,

sumber kedua studi ini adalah buku-buku, media-media audio-visual, dan artikel-

artikel yang bersangkut-paut. Guna sampai pada bentuknya yang sekarang, ada

tiga langkah yang ditempuh. Pertama, puisi yang menjadi objek studi diuraikan

secara literal. Selanjutnya, macam-macam bentuk puisi diidentifikasi untuk

kemudian dihubungkan dengan isi tersebut. Akhirnya, penemun-penemuan dari

studi ini dilaporkan dalam bentuk tertulis ini.

Studi ini membuktikan bahwa “Vespers (#3) adalah sebuah ekspresi

merindu. Lebih spesifiknya, puisi ini menunjukkan seseorang yang begitu rindu

mengetahui jawaban mengapa dia menderita. Ini adalah aspek isi dari puisi ini. Di

lain sisi, aspek bentuknya adalah sebagai berikut. Diksi, citraan, majas, sintaksis,

ritme, rima, bentuk bait, dan intertextualitasnya menekankan isi puisi. Sementara

itu, bersama dengan penanda waktu, diksi dan majas juga memperluas isi puisi.


1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

This is a New Critical study on “Vespers” (#3) from The Wild Iris (1993), a

book of poetic-sequence by Louise Glück. Specifically subscribing to Helen

Vendler’s critical methods and principles, this study accounts fully the poem’s

details in representing the feeling of longing through its content and forms. As

such, this is an original contribution to the oeuvres of criticism on Glück’s works

in the critical vein of Vendler’s The Art of Shakespeare Sonnets (1997) and

Dickinson (2010a).

Glück is a highly acclaimed poet of contemporary American literature.

Aside from having won visibly all the major awards a poet can dream to win in

the US, she has also been praised by a group of diverse critics and fellow poets.

Vendler (1995a: 16) praises her as “a poet of strong and haunting presence”,

whereas Daniel Morris (2006: 1) labels her as poet who is “considered among

America’s foremost contemporary lyric poets”. Don Chiasson (2012), meanwhile,

commenting on his summary of Glück’s Collected Poems, pronounces “none of

this would matter if Glück were not among the most moving poets of our era,

even while remaining the most [aesthetically] disabusing”. These praises, along

with the many awards she has won, are a testament to the high regards of

contemporary American literati to Glück’s works.


2

In a spawn of six decades (1968-2012), Glück has published eleven books

of poems, among which is the aforementioned The Wild Iris. To this date,

according to many critics, it is among her most accomplished books (“Louise

Glück”). Comprised of 54 individual poems, this poetic-sequence presents a trio

of voices addressing one another, expressing—among others—their believes,

disappointments, and longings in a variety of tone, ranging from sympathetic to

condescending, from disdainful to elegiac. Manifested in 14 poems, the first of the

voice is god speaking to human, mostly through ephemeral natural phenomena

(e.g. clarity of morning, spring snow, end of winter, and so on). The second voice,

with total of 22 poems, is that of the human speaker either addressing god in the

prayer poems (7 “Matins” and 10 “Vespers”); addressing no one in “Love in

Moonlight”, “Song”, “Heaven and Earth”, and “The Doorway”; or addressing

another person as in “Presque Isle”. As for the last voice, it is a group of

vegetation addressing the human speaker. The titles of the 18 poems under this

heading indicates the speakers, which are mostly flowers (e.g. “The Wild Iris”,

“Lamium”, “Trilium”, and so on).

The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1993, this slender book has

been studied and reviewed in a bulk of literary journals, newspapers, and post-

graduate theses. Linda Gregerson (in Bloom, 2010: 109-121) and Bobbie Nadal

(1993: 178-179) have characterized the nature and effect of the tripartite voices in

the book, a topic many others also have dealt with. Meanwhile, Morris (2006:

191-230), in his book-length study on Glück’s poetic-sequences, foregrounds the

nature of the interacting voices, the intertextuality of the poems, and also the


3

emotional/thought development the praying human speaker undergoes as the

poems progress. Similar to Morris, Cyril Mun (2008: 37-48) in her master thesis

also traces the ‘plot’ of the speaker’s thought development. Together with the

other studies not mentioned here, The Wild Iris has indeed gain much critical

attentions.

There is a lacunae, however, among these various topic-centered studies,

wherein the critics pick up a general topic from the book and argue for it by

snippets of illustrating sections: each individual poems discussed never fully get

its due as complete single whole. More concretely, the content and the forms of

the poems do not get the critical attention they deserve. Even Morris, who claims

that his book is the first close-reading of Glück’s poetic-sequences, in fact does

not provide a detailed poem by poem analysis of The Wild Iris in the way Vendler

does when dealing with Dickinson’s lyrics or Shakespeare’s sonnets. Not only

does Morris reading inadequate in details, his is also more content-focused most

of the time, giving the impression that the poems could have been written in

prose.

Sacrificing the details of each poem needs not be the case: studying the

general does not necessarily mean the particular have to be glossed over. Vendler

(1995a: 16-22) has demonstrated exactly this point when in noting about the

working of the tripartite voices like Gregerson and Nadal, showing how one

speaker’s belief on a specific issue is juxtaposed to the other speakers’ believes,

she provides a zoomed-in explication of the poems she chooses to discuss.

Though her review is also topic-centered, she is very meticulous in her analysis of


4

the poems. On “Scilla” for example, although brief from the demand of the

medium, is very specific as it goes in to the minute internal structure of the poem:

[It] is arranged on a few strings: one is the necklace of –ings (thing, nothing,

standing, planning, things, looking, seeing, hearing, singing)—nine of them

in seventeen short lines. The four successive questions comprise another

string, and yet another is linked by water: “waves of sky blue,” “some image

of water,” “waves,” “waves.”

(1995a: 19).

The latent priority connoted by the decision of these studies (except

Vendler’s), that the general is more important than the particular, is antagonistic

to my own standpoint. Vendler has implied in her book on William Shakespeare

(1997) and Emily Dickinson (2010a) that the particular is as important as the

general: after providing a general comment on the poems as whole, she proceeds

to do a detailed poem by poem analysis, demonstrating the possible coexistence of

topic-centered and poem-centered criticism.

The piling up of topic-centered criticism on the one side, and the thinness of

poem-centered criticism on the other is regrettable. The problem is not that topic-

centered criticism is wrong, after all it helps our broadening our understanding of

the generality of the book; but that it is all there is. Since Vendler’s preliminary

finding, there has not been any study on the poems in The Wild Iris which

analyzes poems’ details one by one. This study aspires to fill this gap.

As a tool to make that possible this study uses the scalpel of New Criticism,

specifically that of Vendler. Not only does it lends itself perfectly to the study of

specificity in individual poem, but also it accounts fully for the two components

which makes a poem a poem: the content and the forms. The pieces in The Wild


5

Iris are poems and, therefore, needs to receive its due as such: not only its content,

but also its forms must be considered.

Let me, here, however, temper down my high aspiration. It is true that a

thorough study in the mode of Vendler to The Wild Iris must account for every

poem in the book. However, realizing the limitation of time on my part to conduct

this research, it is improbable to deal with the entire 54 poems while still holding

fast to my words to pay attention to every detail in each poem. Therefore, this

study discusses only “Vespers” (#3). As has been noted by Vendler (1995a: 16)

and Morris (2006: 201), the back bone of the book is that of the prayer poems.

The other poems, in the meantime, rotate around this backbone, giving it flesh.

Hence, the narrowing down to either “Matins” or “Vespers” to be selected. As to

the further narrowing down to the specific prayer poem is “Vespers” (#3) thematic

centrality. The poems in The Wild Iris mostly deals with the theme of human’s

mortality, human’s relation with god and nature, and human’s suffering.

“Vespers” (#3), while part of the book’s backbone, also contributes to the

manifestation of one of aforementioned themes: human suffering, specifically

human’s longing for an explanation on his/her suffering, as I hope to show in

Chapter IV. These are the rationales for only studying “Vespers” (#3).

There are of course other possible selections from The Wild Iris with

similarly strong rationales. To give an example: selecting a group of poems by

different speakers dealing with a similar theme. Poems such as “The Wild Iris”,

“Trillium”, “Matins” (#3), “Field Flowers”, and “The White Rose” are all dealing

with the theme of mortality with different perspective but nevertheless meaningful


6

interactions. A selection on this basis would have been able to show how the

voices in the book interact with each other, a subject that this study’s selection

probably cannot show. Another possibility is to study the development of the

speaker as the prayer poems progress, selecting either Matins (#1-#7) or Vespers

(#1-#10) to focus on. Again, this subject is also underrepresented here. However,

choosing both of these possibilities would only extend other researches findings:

Gregerson and Vendler for the former; Morris and Wun for the later. In the face of

either extending the researches of other or making an original contribution to the

criticism of The Wild Iris, I choose the later one.

This study, admittedly, is very limited in scope. However, in is concentrated

scope, it hopes to provides a full account of the interrelatedness of “Vespers”

(#3)-‘s content (the matter expressed) and forms (the contribution of the formal

features to that matter). In such a small slice in the wide field-like expanse of The

Wild Iris, this study aspires—borrowing Levinson’s comment (in Scott, 1991) on

Vendler—to “leaves no rift unfilled.” In doing so, I hope to present the packed

richness of the poem.

B. Problem Formulation

As noted, this is a New Critical reading of “Vespers” (#3) with the guiding

of Vendler’s theory. As such, it examines both the content and forms of the poem

with the analytical steps of Vendler. Transposing this into questions, this study

asks:

1. What is the content of “Vespers” (#3)?

2. What is the forms’ contribution to the content of “Vespers” (#3)?


7

C. Objectives of the Study

This study has two objectives. One is to articulate the content “Vespers”

(#3). The other is to details the contribution of the poem’s forms to that content..


8

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

A. Review of Related Studies

Representative of other related studies, the following two are reviewed to

complement this research. The first one is “Errand in the Spiritual Wilderness”, a

section in Daniel Morris’ pioneering book, The Poetry of Louise Glück (2006).

Morris presents the generality of The Wild Iris—an important one to note as the

present study tends to overlook this particular aspect—as well as a one-by-one

close reading of the prayer poems, including “Vespers” (#3). The second related

study is “Flower Power” (1993) by Helen Vendler, originally a review on The

New Republic but later anthologized in Soul Says (1995a). Vendler similarly

discusses the generality of the book, but also provides some remarks on some

poem’s specific features.

1. Morris’ “Errand in the Spiritual Wilderness”

Morris (2006) reads The Wild Iris twice. At first reading (2006: 191-192),

he presents a general reading in which he attempts to contextualize The Wild Iris

in Glück’s creative oeuvre, concluding that the book “recall[s] the nature lyrics in

The House on Marshland as well as the mourning of a daughter for her father in

Ararat while also anticipating the ‘high-low’ experiment of Meadowland” and

that the book “coordinates an eclectic grab bag of multicultural resources” and

then combines it into “a series of meditative religious poems in which the speaker

experiences intimation of immortality.” At the same time, he reads it also with a


9

Bloomian perspective, concluding that the book shows Glück in agon with the

voice of Yahweh of The Old Testament. In other words, Glück is revising the

writing of her strong precursor, in this case the author(s) of the Hebrew Bible,

through her poems in The Wild Iris.

At his second reading, Morris ‘close-reads’ the prayer sequence (“Matins”

& “Vespers”) and some of the flower and god’s poems, finding the narrative as

well as the lyrical interest of the sequence. Encapsulating both interests, Morris

writes

[Through Vespers and Matins,] Glück can focus on the gardener-poet’s

unfulfilled spiritual desires, her yearning for affection, as her moods shift

during the day, and in the gardener’s different seasons of cultivation,

fruition, aftermath, and desire for renewal after her withering garden has,

metaphorically, suggested the limits to any human endeavor.

(2006: 202)

The first syntactical part of the extract summarizes the lyrical interest of the

sequence according to Morris, whereas the second one the narrative interest (“as

her moods shift […]”).

Specifically on “Vespers” (#3), Morris (2006: 205-206) finds, in its elegiac

description of “a late point in the gardening season, as well as, by analogy,

lateness in the sequence of lyric mediations”, both an expression of suffering

similar to Job of the Old Testament and also an encoded act of skeptical self-

commentary on the overall project Glück has done in The Wild Iris. Furthermore,

Morris also notes that “Vespers” (#3) recalls “Matins” (#6) in its similar portrayal

of the human speaker as worse off than the other creations.

Needless to say, Morris’ study is relevant to my research as it studies the

same objects of study. More than that, the relevance is increased as he also


10

expresses several points I find true. For example, his contention that “Vespers”

(#3) has a content similarity to “Job” and that it echoes the sentiment of “Matins”

(#6) are correct in my opinion. To these points of agreement, my research is then a

modification and elaboration of his rather brief discussion. There also are points

of disagreement, however. Most vital of all, I find his implicit assumption of the

triviality of forms unacceptable. It is very apparent through his reading that he

overlooks, or takes for granted, the formal features of the poem. In either case,

that he provides very scant analysis of the significance of the formal features to

the content is unsatisfying. Here, my reading supplies what Morris fails to do.

One last point. Stemming from our different focus, Morris and I assign a

different role for the poem’s speaker in our reading. Morris gives the human

speaker, which he identifies as Glück, a twofold role: one is as the speaker of the

prayer poems; two is as the speaker of also the god and flower poems. In the

book, according to Morris, Glück is indulging herself in an imaginative

ventriloquism; asking and responding to her own questions through the self-made

persona of flowers and god. This assumption is not wrong: of course the poet is

the one behind all those various characters, but for the purpose of the present

research which aspires only to explain what the book does as oppose to what the

poet does through the book, such assumption is unnecessary. My own position

thus is to assume that in the book, the speaker is a fictional character who speaks

only through the prayer poems. The other poems, in the meantime, instead of

spoken by the persona of Glück herself, assuming the masks of flowers and god,

are really spoken by talking flowers and a responding god. However, I follow


11

Morris in considering that the speaker can strongly be identified as Glück’s own

persona as the textual evidence from the prayer sequence, elaborated in Chapter

IV, clearly shows.

2. Vendler’s “Flower Power”

Preceding Morris by 13 years, in the second related study, Vendler points

out several points of interest in The Wild Iris. Unlike Morris’, her study does not

directly touch on “Vespers” (#3). Her study is still relevant, nonetheless, as it

outlines not only the generalities—complementing what Morris has also observed,

but also the specificity of the poems it discusses, opening a path for subsequent

specific close-reading of the poems. In a nutshell, Vendler’s review (1995a: 21)

can be summarized as aiming to “show [The Wild Iris’s] didactic and dialectical

nature, its dimensions, its mythical means”.

Agreed on by the majority of commentators, Vendler (1995a: 18-22)

illustrates dialectical nature of the poems in book by taking as an example a group

of three poems: “Scilla” spoken by a flower, “Retreating Wind” by god, and

“Love in Moonlight” by the human speaker. In “Scilla”, the bed of flowers

contends that individual uniqueness of the soul is unimportant. Accordingly, what

the individual soul has had, such as erotic life, is also unimportant. Rather than

mourning for it, human being, on the contrary should live communally like plants,

“undifferentiated”. In “Retreating Wind”, god corrects scilla point of view by

saying that human being cannot live like plants for the linearity of human life is

entirely different from the cyclic life of plants. Finally, the human speakers in

“Love in Moonlight” contributes to this dialectic by embodying “all that the erotic


12

life has meant, could mean, did mean” in a beautiful image of the world showered

with moonlight, a metaphor for the memory of the now lost erotic life. Still

closely related to this dialectic is the didactic nature of the poems, which rises out

the speakers’ different contentions: each of the argument forwarded by the

speakers persuades the reader to take each single view. For instance, the didactic

nature of scilla is their proposition that human being should, as Vendler (1995a:

20) puts it, “live like plants”.

Next, Vendler alludes to what she calls the dimensions of the poem. There

are two ways to see this. The first one is dimensions as the specific structure and

features of each poems she chooses to exemplify. For example, in “Scilla”, she

sees linking chain of ‘–ings’—happening nine times in seventeen short lines—as

the specific structure of the poem. In addition, she also sees as specific structures

the chains of question constructions and water-related words (“waves of sky

blue”, “some image of water”, “waves”, “waves”, “waves”). In “April”,

meanwhile, Vendler sees the significance of the formal features of rhyme (i.e.

alliteration, assonance) in “the wild scilla, white/ the wood violet”, which

functions to act out its content. As for the second way to see dimensions is as the

poem intertextual aspect. In the flower poems, Vendler (1995a: 17) sees Glück

joining the tradition of poets “using flowers as the image of the soul”. The

pioneer, Vendler implies, is George Herbert who first identify the soul with a

flower. After him is Emily Dickinson who in “Through the Dark Sod –as

Education –“ does the same. Only after that comes Glück of the flower poems.


13

The last point from the review is the mythical means by which the The Wild

Iris conveys its content. As Vendler (1995a: 17) notes, Glück is here revisiting

again the myth of the Eden which she has rewritten in an earlier sequence called

“The Garden”. Still assuming in this earlier poem that Eden is still intact, in The

Wild Iris, Eden has collapsed. The garden of the book, therefore, is a different

garden situated on earth but pretty much the same in physical appearance with the

now lost Eden. The function of this mythical element is to constitute the setting in

which the lyrical expressions and narrative elements takes place.

Having written thus, it is clear that my study benefits from her—as well as

Morris’—outlining of the generality of The Wild Iris as my study tends to

overlook this aspect. Furthermore, her pioneering close-reading of the specific

formal features of two of the poems, “Scilla” and “April”, opens the path for

subsequent similar study. In the midst of overwhelming number of topic-centered

criticism on The Wild Iris, one would have to be so daring to start a poem-

centered criticism if there were none doing a similar thing. Path-opening as it is,

Vendler’s discussion of the specific structure of “Scilla”, nevertheless, is not yet

satisfying. Contrary to her usually practice, she does not elaborate what

significance is there in the poem’s overlapping structures; she stops at pointing

out each of them. It is matter of regret for me, therefore, that she does not do what

she could have done convincingly had she chosen to. As response to this, my

study seeks to go into more details in its analysis of content and forms as well as

their interrelatedness. Finally, my study also differs from Vendler’s in terms of its

specific object of study as she nowhere mentions “Vespers” (#3).


14

B. Review of Related Theories

In this section I discuss the theoretical backbone and practical guiding-step

underlying my study. The first sub-section elaborates the key critical terms used in

this study, namely content and forms. Not less important, on the second sub-

section, Vendler’s relevant critical assumptions and her interpretive methodology

are discussed. My discussion on Chapter VI relies its premises on Vendler’s

assumptions and follows her analytical steps.

1. Content and Forms

a. What is content; What are forms?

Edward Quinn (2006: 97) has implied that content and forms are the two

fundamental concepts of modern literary criticism. As expected from such

position, they have been defined by various scholars with also various

expressions. Even the mere terms also come with similarly various alternatives:

matter & manner, meaning & matter, body and meaning, subject matter & style,

and thematic & formal elements. Yet, among the various definitions, there is a red

line to be pulled out: generally speaking, content is the abstract ideas expressed;

form is the concrete expression of that ideas. In M. H. Abrams (2012) terms, for

example, forms are “the material body”, whereas content is “the immaterial

meaning”. Content, to put bluntly, is beyond the page; forms are all there are on

the page.

Selecting from various scholars making a similar point—either explicitly or

implicitly—to the above general differentiation of content and form (e.g. Childs

and Fowler, 2006: 91; Vendler, 1997: 4 & 12; Quinn, 2006: 170, Brooks and


15

Warren, 1960: 76, X. J. Tyson (2011: 41)), here are two representatives: Michael

Ryan (2012: 2) defines content as “the things stories are about” & “what a work

of art is about” (3) and form as the arrangement of that content (1). In Ryan’s

definition, “things” and “what” are put in the place of ideas; and “arrangement” is

put in place of how the ideas are expressed. Similarly, Cuddon and Habib (2013:

285) write that content is “the substance or what it is about”; whereas forms are

“the manner in which [an artwork] is made”. What they mean is that the former is

the abstract substance of an artwork; whereas the form is the particular manner in

which that substance are expressed. Different though in their expressions, Ryan’s

and Cuddon–Habib definitions—as well as those of the other scholars

mentioned—nevertheless express the same idea with the above general definition:

content is what is expressed and forms are the expression of content.

Now, this definition that’s just passed stays at the general and abstract

plane. As such, it is not readily applicable to a practical criticism such as this one.

Therefore, in the following I focus on a more precise and practically viable

definition of content and forms which nevertheless falls under the umbrella of the

previously discussed general definition. In her book on Shakespeare’s sonnets,

making a point on what a poem should do, Vendler (1997: 4) writes: “the theme

must be freshly imagined, the genre must be renewed, and the words must

surprise and satisfy from the point of view of proportion, musicality, and lexical

vivacity”. Here, she implies that the content of a poem amounts to the theme; the

forms, on the other hand, amount to genre (intertextuality, syntax, rhythm, rhyme,

stanza form), proportion (structure), musicality (rhyme, rhythm), and word


16

(diction). More from Vendler: on different page of the same book she provides a

further look at content and forms, saying that content also consists of subject

matter (“paraphrasable statements” (14); “propositional statements” (40));

whereas forms additionally consist of imagery and rhetorical devices (13). Still

more, in her two other books, Vendler adds that tenses (2010b: 127; 1995b: 71)

and syntax (word order/ lineation) (1995b: 71) are also included in forms. To end

with, adding to Vendler are Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson (2009: 640), who,

aside from specifying that the content of poetry must be materials of life (events,

feeling, ideas), complement another element of forms, and that is, intertextuality

(“allusion”).

Vendler, Arp, and Johnson are not alone in saying thus. In agreement with

them on what constitutes content and forms with various degree of similarity on

details are scholars such as Abrams & Harpham (on content = subject matter)

(2009: 125), Quinn (on content = subject matter & theme) (2006: 97), Edgar V.

Roberts & Henry E. Jacobs (on content = subject matter (“summary”) & theme

(“subject, topic, idea”) (1986: 318-319), Diana Gioa & X. J. Kennedy (on content

= theme & subject matter) (2002: 8), Katie Wales (on content = subject matter;

forms = rhyme, rhythm, lineation, rhetorical devices) (2004: 169), Childs &

Fowler (on content = subject matter; on forms = structure (“temporal form”),

rhyme & rhythm (“musical” quality), and diction & rhetorical devices (“lexical”

& “syntactic” quality)) (2006: 93), Frank Madden (on forms = structure, rhyme,

and rhythm) (2002: 60), John Hollander (on forms = syntax (word order/

lineation) (2014: 3), and Shira Wolosky (on forms = diction, syntax


17

(lineation/word order), imagery, rhetorical devices, stanza form, intertextuality,

rhythm, and rhyme)) (2001: vii). With these many scholars in a relatively

unanimous opinion, it can be said with a fairly firm ground that content consists

of subject matter—roughly the paraphrase of the poem—and theme—the general

idea implied by that subject matter; and that forms consist of diction, structure,

tenses, imagery, rhetorical devices, syntax, rhythm, rhyme, stanza form, and

intertextuality.

b. Forms

Having come to the conclusion at this point of what constitutes content and

forms, the second one, is still need further elaboration. In the following, thus, I

provide short description for each of the various forms relevant to this study.

i. Diction

Diction is word selection with a significant selection’s reason(s). Wolosky

writes (2001: 200): diction is a “selection of individual words according to their

level of formality, ordinary context, and so on”. Here, she points to the notion that

it is motivated by a purpose, two examples of which are either to imply formality

or banality. Barnet, Burto, and Cain (2008: 652) provide another reason by

pointing out that diction may serve to identify a particular aspect of identity a

speaker has. They also add, diction may serves to reveal the tone of a poem, that

is, both the abstract attitude of the speaker to what s/he talks about or to whom

s/he talks to; and the concrete method of elucidation had an ideal reader recite the

poem. For example, in my discussion on “Vespers” (#3), I argue that the reason

why in the second part of the poem the word ‘lambs’ is used instead of ‘sheep’ to


18

refer to the same entity, is because the speaker has changed her attitude toward the

subject of her speech from feeling superior to inferior. Accordingly, the imagined

method of recitation the ideal reader of the poem should have is that which

expresses first superior protestation and then inferior desperation. Finally, as some

word carries with them not only denotative meanings, but also connotative

meanings, added and carried along as culture progresses, in discussing diction,

these two meanings are both taken into consideration. The previous example of

‘lambs’-‘sheep’ can serve as an example: the former unmistakably carries a

different added meaning compared with the later, explained in details on Chapter

IV.

ii. Structure

In A. R. Ammons’ poem of finding moral lesson in nature (in Vendler,

2010b: 372), “The City Limits”, there apparent the logical When This – Then That

pattern which organizes the whole poem. Put differently, when seen in its light,

nothing in the poem is left out. It is this kind of organizing pattern that this study

called the structure of a poem. Vendler (2010b: 86) offer the only definition I

know of this concept, writing that it is “the intellectual or logical shapes into

which its thoughts are dynamically organized”. Adding several dozen pages

later—calling it this time as “Inner Structural Form”—that it is the “dynamic

shapes, which derives from the curve traced by the emotions of the poem as they

change over its duration” (123). With such definition, Vendler implies that

structure gives shapes to an amoebic thought; that as an effect, it can be

intellectually perceived; and that it reflects the modulation of feeling in the poem.


19

Finally, perceiving the structure of a poem is of major importance. One, a poem is

easier to deal with when it is broke-down into smaller parts and noticing the

structure is the way to do this (131). Two, structure is the foremost door to enter a

poem’s meaning as it is the skeletal backbone.

iii. Tenses

Coming from the Old French ‘tens’, meaning ‘time’, or more relevantly

"tense of a verb" (“Tenses”), tenses are functional elements of language giving

information of the time an action happens or a state exists. Wales (2011: 418) put

as “a category in grammar of the verb phrase expressing relations of time”. In

traditional English grammar book such as Understanding and Using English

Grammar (1998), there are three kinds of tenses in English: past, present, and

future tenses; which are further divided into four sub-kind for each: simple,

progressive, perfect, and perfect progressive. For reason of space, description of

the specific function of all sixteen disparate tenses are not given here. Instead,

only those that are directly relevant to this study are inserted in the discussion on

Chapter VI.

iv. Imagery

Imagery is a word—or a group of words—producing a mental image, the

kind people daily gets from sensual experiences. Madden (2002: 62) defines

imagery as words prompting mental picture. Vendler (2010b: 92), meanwhile, has

it as nouns or phrases referring to something that an artist could represent by

graphic means. Still more, Abrams and Harpham (2009: 151) write, “imagery is

used […] to signify only specific descriptions of visible objects and scenes,


20

especially if the description is vivid and particularized”. Different though in form,

these three scholars basically express the same point as mine. In addition, Abrams

and Harpham’s makes a very important point as it further differentiates between

what is imagery and what is not, since all concrete nouns are actually image-

projecting words.

Yet, these definitions, in its face, are too limited. Rather than keeping in line

with the original sense of ‘image’, imagery can produce not merely visual images.

Elaborating the subject further, Abrams and Harpham (151) detail seven

categories of image which this study also assumes: visual, corresponding to the

sensual experience of seeing; auditory to hearing; tactile to touch; olfactory to

smell; gustatory to taste; kinesthetic to movement; and thermal to heat/cold.

Finally, the function of imagery are not merely for illustrative or decorative

purposes, but further—generally speaking—to contribute significantly to content

of the poem (Brooks and Warren, 1960: 269). As an example is my discussion on

“Vespers” (#3) wherein the imagery serves to reinforce what the diction has

revealed: the change of the speaker’s attitude—a central thematic aspect.

v. Rhetorical Devices

Alternatively called as ‘figures of speech’, ‘rhetoric’, or ‘figurative

language’, disregarding the quarrel between theorists on the further division

between tropes and scheme, rhetorical devices are instances of prescribed

language use which defies everyday use of language. Explaining Heinrich Plett’s

definition, Wales (2011: 162) defines it as a practice of language departing “from

the linguistic ‘norms’ of everyday language in some way, whether semantically,


21

or syntactically”, including both “rule-breaking” and “over-regular” practice of

language. To the same point, Cuddon and Habib (2013: 279) delineate it as that

which departs from everyday language: “’He hared down the street’ or ‘He ran

like a hare down the street’ are figurative. ‘He ran very quickly down the street’ is

literal”. Used mostly for its organizing possibility or its persuasive impact, there

are countless instances of rhetorical device. For the purpose of this study,

however, only the relevant one is defined when used in Chapter IV.

vi. Syntax

In the study of language, syntax claims sentence structure and its formation

as its focus of inquiry (Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams, 2011: 78; Yule, 2010: 96).

In the study of poetry, however, it covers related but nevertheless different issues.

First, syntax refers to the way syntactically recognized units (a phrase, a clause, a

sentence) are put to use in a poem. For example, in Dickinson’s “Because I could

not stop for Death —“, the use of repeated parallel clauses in the third stanza

reflects the tranquil optimism of the speaker as her journey to the supposed after-

life proceeds; however, when suddenly in the fourth stanza the clause structure

changes, the reader knows that the speaker has realized that she is going nowhere

but to a limitless eternity; that what was a tranquil optimism has changed into a

state of panic apprehension (Vendler, 2010a: 227).

Secondly, syntax in poetics refers to one principle of poetic line-breaking

(Wolosky, 2002: 17). In poetry—to put it differently—a line becomes as it is

because of syntactical principle. One telling example is an illustrative verse in the

vein of Alexander Pope by Hollander:


22

One form—this one—makes each line a grammatical unit.

This can be a clause

Which has a subject and a predicate,

Or a phrase.

(2014: 26, line 6-10).

Here, like the verse itself says, the organizing principle is syntactical units. In

other words, every line consist of a unit recognized in the field of syntax: a

sentence (line 1), a clause (line 2), a relative clause (line 3), and a phrase (line 4).

The purpose of which, notes Hollander, is to create a visual music on the page.

But syntax is not the sole organizer of poetic line, it can also be determined

by its rhythm, which is discussed further below; and in the case of free verse, by

an imitative principle, which is discussed right after this period. The imitative

principle is a principle of line organization arising from the tendency of form to

imitate the content in free verse. Vendler (2010b: 667) contends, “free verse must

justify its reasons for breaking a line here rather than there”. The justification in

this case is that the line breaking imitates the content of the poem. As an example,

Vendler (2010b: 668) discusses William Carlos William’s “The Red

Wheelbarrow”, saying that the current lineation of the poem gives symmetry as

the second line of each stanza consist of a two-syllable words; and, acts out the

content of the line of “something depending on something else”. In stanza one, the

word “upon” literary depends on “depends”, and so is the rest (wheel – barrow,

rain – water), building a pattern of expectation that the entity described are all

inanimate (wheelbarrow, rainwater). But, in last stanza, continuing the pattern

still, it surprisingly pairs “white” with an animate entity: chicken, making a case

that “if the eyes didn’t see something inviting in the landscape there would be

nothing to write about”. Here then, the lineation follows neither syntactical nor


23

rhythmical principle, but an imitative principle to emphasize its content, so often

occurs in free verse.

vii. Rhythm

The rising and falling pattern of stressed and unstressed syllable in English

is called rhythm. Wales (2004: 372) writes, “rhythm is generally described as the

perceptual pattern of accented or stressed and unaccented or unstressed syllables

in a language”. In agreement with Wales, Madden (2002: 71), alternatively calling

it as “meter”, describes rhythm as “the pattern of stressed ([/]) and unstressed

syllable ([X]) in a line”.

There are many different systems of rhythm. Of the relevant systems to

English poetry, Hollander (2014: 4-5) provides a comprehensive classification.

However, out of five systems pointed out by Hollander, one, the quantitative

system of Greek and Latin, is arguably negligible (as he himself notes). Hence,

actually only four are really relevant to English poetry: pure accentual (counting

the beats – disregarding the syllable of a line) like Samuel Coleridge’s “Christabel

I” (Hollander, 2014: 88), accentual-syllabic (counting both the syllable and the

beat of a line) like Shakespeare sonnets, pure syllabic (the opposite of pure

accentual) like John Hollander’s English haiku “A Bright Line Shines in the

West”, and free verse system (following no received system, but inventing one in

accordance to the need at hand). Marjorie Perloff (2004: 253) provides a good

example of this last system in her analysis of Jorie Graham’s “Evolution”. In that

poem, the irregularity of much of the poem flows into the metrical regularity of


24

the last two lines, which are the conclusive conclusion to the question being asked

at the beginning.

Determining the rhythm of a line of poetry is a tricky matter, especially for

those coming from a different language system with the poem discussed as

myself. Luckily, several scholars provides a ready-made rules to do so. First of

all, Wolosky:

1. A single syllable word that carries weight, that is, that takes emphasis,

usually has the accent. Single syllable nouns are such a case.

2. Words that do not carry weight or significant emphasis, such as articles

and prepositions, usually are not accented.

3. Parts of words such as prefixes and suffixes usually do not take the

accent.

4. The more accents there are, the slower the pace of the line.

(2002: 140).

Next comes Hollander (2014: 5) who contends that syllable usually keep their

word accent—the accent they would have in phrases in normal speech; and that

because very often every line would not follow a metrical scheme strictly, in order

to know its overall rhythm, a line can only be scanned in relation to the

surrounding lines. In agreement with him on his second point is Vendler (2010b:

81-82) who say that there is the so called “undersong”—the overall rhythm, and

the oversong—the actual spoken rhythm of a line. In relation to this, implicitly

assumed by both Hollander and Vendler, is the notion that the general rhythm is

the quantitatively dominant one. All in all, these rules are followed in analyzing

the rhythm of “Vespers” (#3) in Chapter IV.

Most basic of all, to give musical pleasure is function of rhythm. Vendler

(2010b: 78) writes, “[T]he first and most elementary pleasure in all poetry is

rhythm”. More than this, moreover, rhythm is also used as a device for emphasis.


25

As Brooks and Warren (1960: 126) puts it when talking about rhythm: “The

skillful poet finds in a verse a most subtle instrument for regulating emphasis, for

underlining the connection between ideas, for pointing up contrast.”. Vendler

(2010b: 79) also, in the context of free verse, contends the same point by writing

“good free verse always matches its rhythms to the emotional content of its

utterances”. In fact, in other place Vendler contends that the discussion of rhythm

must always consider how it is related to the content of the poem, an opinion she

shares with Wolosky (2002: 136). (A purely formal discussion of rhythm, Vendler

(1996) says acerbically, is “hardly useful […], as unintelligible as Iroquois”.) For

example, as noted by Vendler (2010b: 78), in T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J.

Alfred Prufrock”, where the theme is the feeling of paradoxical attitude to

experience (specifically sexual experience), the rhythm is that of initial stress skip

(XX/) followed right after with the normal iambic meter (X/). Here, the first

reflects the excitement of the speaker to experience as it skipped hurriedly the

stressed syllable, whereas the second rhythm reflects the dying out of the

excitement as it return to its normal pace. In short, the rhythm enacts the theme

and hence emphasizing it.

viii. Rhyme

Rhyme is generally understood as only limited to end rhyme, that is, “the

repetition, in the rhyming words, of the stressed vowel and of all the speech

sounds following that vowel” (Abrams and Harpham, 2009: 316). Around this

common knowledge, there are various clustering notions. There is, first of all, the

further differentiation of its components degree of identicality into perfect (full,


26

true) rhyme and imperfect (partial, near, slant, para-) rhyme. When the stressed

vowel and the following sounds matches identically in kind and number, it is the

former; but when it matches only approximately, it is the later. There is also the

differentiation focusing only on the number of sound. When the rhyming words

consist of single stressed syllable, it is called masculine rhyme; otherwise, it is

called feminine rhyme. Meanwhile, aside from end rhyme, there is also the so

called internal rhyme, which differs in definition from end rhyme by its position

only: if end rhymes occurred at the end of lines, internal rhyme occurs inside a

line. To illustrate the application of some these concepts, here is an extract from

“Anecdote of the Jar” by Wallace Stevens, a poem of comic provocation to the

“European’s scorn of American skills”, as Vendler (2007) ingenuously reveals:

I placed a jar in Tennessee,

And round it was, upon a hill.

It made the slovenly wilderness

Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around, no longer wild.

The jar was round upon the ground

And tall and of a port in air.

(1971: 76, stanza 1-2, lines 1-8).

Here, in the first stanza, we see a masculine and perfect end rhyme (hill (/ˈhɪl/) –

hill (/ˈhɪl/)) and an imperfect internal rhyme (round (/ˈraʊnd/) – upon (/əˈpɑːn/)).

In the second stanza, there is the perfect and masculine internal rhyme (round

(/ˈraʊnd/) – ground (/ˈgraʊnd/)). Also, beside the already noted round – upon,

there is the imperfect internal rhyme of upon (/əˈpɑːn/) – ground (/ˈgraʊnd/).

Furthermore, contrary to the familiar notion of rhyme that just passed, much

less understood is the inclusion of other forms of sound repetition under the same


27

umbrella term. But as Brooks and Warren (1960: 565) notes, other forms of sound

repetition can also be considered as rhyme. To avoid making an extra section on

sound devices, this study follows these scholars’ view. The first of these forms are

assonance, or the repetition of vowel sounds within a line, especially in the

stressed syllable of a line’s accented words. The example, as provided by Abrams

and Harpham (2012: 11), is the beginning of “Ode to Grecian Urn” by Keats:

“Thou still unravished bride of quietness,/ Thou foster child of silence and slow

time”. The assonances here come from the diphthong /aɪ/, which is repeated twice

in the first line (/ˈbraɪd/, /ˈkwaɪt/) and thrice in the second one (/ˈtʃaɪld/,

/ˈsaɪ.lənts/, and /ˈtaɪm/). The other form is alliteration, or the repetition of a

consonant sound in the initial stressed syllable of a line’s accented words. A good

example of which is a line from Stevens: “Was blackamoor to bear your blazing

tail” (in Wolosky, 2002: 152), wherein the /b/ sound is repeated in the initial

position of the accented words to make rich the musical quality of the poem.

There are some scholars who further differentiates between alliteration and

consonance, but for the purpose of this study such differentiation is unnecessary

as “Vespers” (#3) itself is a poem of scant sounds play.

All these forms of rhyme discussed function first of all musically as rhythm

function first of all musically: it gives distinctive musical pleasure (Vendler,

2010b: 83; Brooks and Warren, 1960: 566). More than that, it can also function as

foregrounding device to point meaning-connection between its components by

binding them in a noticeable phonetic connection (Vendler, 2010b: 153; Brooks

and Warren, 1960: 566). This binding, too, serves to give a sense of belong-ness


28

between the components (Vendler, 2010b: 153) and thus giving a sense choice

inevitability to the poem. It too, as Wales (2004: 15) notes, serves to ease the

reader’s memorization of the poem, ultimately helping reader to internalize the

meaning of a poem.

ix. Stanza Form

Stanza form is the rhythmic and rhyme pattern of a poem which shapes both

its visual and musical aspects. In general, there are two kinds of stanza form. One

is imposed form, which has been used for so long by various poets with various

subject matters. The examples of this one are sonnets, villanelle, terza rima, and

haiku, all of which has their own specific regulations and restrictions. The other

stanza form is the free verse. Vendler defines it as “verse in which the lines are of

different widths, and which does not rhyme in any regular way” (2010b: 667). As

such, it covers a multiplicity of forms usually used for only a particular poem by a

particular poet.

Regarding free verse, Vendler (2010b: 667) has noted several crucial

matters. First, every free verse, contrary to its name, is not entirely free or

formless. As such, she sides herself with many poets and critics voicing similar

view, for example Winters and Eliot. Instead, Vendler says, “it must justify its

reasons for breaking a line here rather than there”. It is such justification which is

the form of free verse. Secondly, this relatively recent invention in the panoply of

poetic history

admits an element of chance; it offers a model not of a teleological or

providential universe but of an aleatory one, where the casual, rather than

the fated, holds way.

(667).


29

The underlying logic is because in an imposed form the pattern is predetermined,

it reflects the view of predetermined universe where fate/divine providence rules.

In contrast, in free verse the form is unexpected and as such it reflects the view

that Vendler explains.

x. Intertextuality

Intertextuality is an umbrella term for the many ways a text can refer to

another text. To this point, Abrams and Harpham (2012: 401) write that it is “the

multiple ways in which any one literary text is in fact made up of other texts”. In

“Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams” by Kenneth Koch (in

Vendler, 2010b: 510), it cannot escapes the reader that the poem is a quadruple

parody of Williams’ famous poem, “This Is Just to Say” (in Vendler, 2010b: 634-

635). A parody, for the record, is a form of imitation by one text to another by

ironically displaced the other texts characteristic features into a lowly or comic

subjects (Abrams and Harpham, 2012: 38). This is one example of a way one text

can refer to another text. But, as scholars have pointed out (Abrams and Harpham,

2012: 401; Lodge, 1993: 98), there are still many other ways a text can refer to

another text, among which are pastiche (the pasting of different styles to make a

text (Quinn, 2006: 315)), direct quotation (a reference with the highest degree of

certainty), allusion (a reference with a middle degree of certainty, has major effect

on the interpretation of the alluding text), echo (a reference with the least degree

of certainty, has minor effect on the interpretation of the echoing text (Hylen,

2005: 52), and structural parallelism.


30

The function of intertextuality, as David Lodge (1993: 98) notes, is “to

shape, or add resonance” to a text. This structuring function can be seen in

Glück’s loose borrowing of “Job”-‘s poetic structure in The Wild Iris. Another

function of intertextuality, as noted by Wales (2014: 236), is to act as a frame of

reference which helps reader to understand a text more clearly. Without knowing

what significance the allusions to Austerlitz, Waterloo, Gettysburg, Ypres, and

Verdun has, for example, the anti-war quality of Carl Sandburg’s “Grass” (in

Vendler, 2010b: 119-120) is likely be lost. Correspondingly, from the perspective

of the writer, intertextuality acts as a short-cut device so that s/he can convey

meaning more spatially succinct and aesthetically powerful.

A final point on intertextuality, a specific one to this study. In Chapter IV,

intertextuality takes two faces. In one face, intertextuality is unmistakably a

formal feature: a poem is connected to preceding texts by striking resemblance of

formal features. For example, the diction “beasts of the field” in “Vespers” (#3)

connects it to the myth of the garden from the Old Testament where that phrase

first occurs in Western literature. In its other face, intertextuality is more of

content-related than formal issues, which means a poem is connected to preceding

texts by a similar subject matter and/or theme. For example, the use of liturgical

prayer discourse in the poem connects it to several preceding poems using also the

same discourse. Moreover, tough sometimes the two faces can be clearly

delineated, in some other times the two can collide and interspersed. In such

interspersion, the discussion of it accordingly mixes consideration of content and

forms.


31

2. Vendler and Poetry Criticism

a. Vendler’s Critical Assumptions

As many have noted (e.g. Richard D. Jordan (1978), Marilyn Butler (1984),

and T. Gardner (2012: 269)), Vendler is a contemporary heir of the now waning

but once powerful New Criticism. Like the previous New Critics who continues a

line of thought from Aristotle, she assumes the coexistence of content (the matter)

and form (the manner) in a poem. Such assertion proves to be true by considering

closely two extracts juxtaposed as follows. On talking about Seamus Heaney’s

breaking of style—only partially remarked on by other critics—Vendler writes

“[t]he macrostories of content are already familiar, the microstories of style

[forms] less so” (1995b: 60). With this, aside from implying that content is the

more general aspect of a poem, she also implies that a poem consists of the pair

content and forms. Now, here is Brooks and Warren implying this duality of a

poem:

In treating the poems in earlier sections of this book we have continually

referred to the idea, the meaning, [and] the theme. It could not be otherwise,

for we cannot long consider rhythm, imagery, or tone in isolation. […] The

theme is as inevitable to poetry as are words.

(1960: 340).

Idea, meaning, and theme are all content-related features and sometimes used

synonymously. Meanwhile, rhythm, imagery’s arrangement, tone, words are

formal features. That they should mention only these two aspects in discussing

about poetry in general connotes their view of the dualistic nature of a poem.

More than this, the extract also illustrates Brooks and Warren’s belief of the

almost inextricable interconnectedness of content and forms, a view also shared

by Vendler. That she holds this view is most memorably expressed in the


32

introduction to her study of Shakespeare’s sonnets: “Form is content-as-arranged;

content is form-as deployed” (1997: 14), emphasizing through this almost

tautological definition the closely knit relation of content and from.

A logical extension of this stance is the assumption that when one is

studying a poem, its two aspects must be taken into account. In an exchange in

The New York Review of Books (Gubar, Gilbert, Bonaparte, Paglia, and Vendler,

1990), Vendler dismisses Camille Paglia’s reading of several English poets in

Sexual Personae as “not a poetry criticism”, as she is—according to Vendler—

“always silent on the ways in which a poem is not assimilable to its bare content”.

This judgment reflects Vendler’s view that any study of poetry which only

account for one of its two aspects is not yet a poetry criticism. In the case of

Paglia, since she only accounts for the content of the poem, she has not written a

poetry criticism. And it is not only once does Vendler express this view of her in

similar tone of dismissal:

But any respectable account of a poem ought to have considered closely its

chief formal features. A set of remarks on a poem which would be equally

true of a prose paraphrase of that poem is not, by my standards,

interpretation at all. Commentary on the prepositional content of the poem is

something entirely different from the interpretation of a poem, which must

take into account the poem’s linguistic strategies as well as its propositional

statements.

(1997: 40).

Aside from expressing the need for poetry criticism to account for both content

and forms because of its interconnectedness, this quotation also confirms again

Vendler’s view on the dual aspect of a poem discussed previously. Still more, the

quotation also touches on Vendler’s attitude on criticism mainly dealing with the

content-related aspects of a poem. She is particularly unflinching in expressing


33

that the paraphrase of a poem is not equal to the poem itself, a view she shares

with Brooks (1947: 192-214) who coined the term “the heresy of paraphrase”.

Vendler is also similar to Brooks and Warren (1960: 84) in believing that

every poem has a guiding principle of totality. Contra Deconstruction, she

believes that a poem has a center. In acknowledging the massive contribution of

Booth to the study of the Sonnets, Vendler (1997: 13) expresses her reserve to

what she sees as Stephen Booth’s “too ready surrender to hermeneutic suspicion”;

that is, his failing to decide which of the many overlapping structures he has

found on the Sonnets is its most “fundamental gestalt”:

Yet in stressing the richness of implication of Shakespeare’s language over

the firmness of implied authorial instruction, Booth gives up on the

possibility of reliable internal guides for interpretation. […] Any account of

a poem ought to contemplate […] implicit authorial instructions. […] Even

in the richness of Shakespeare’s language, we are not left afloat on an

uninterpretable set of “ideational static,” not when the formal features of the

Sonnets are there to guide us.

(1997: 40).

This illustrates her view of the inevitable presence a total principle in a poem.

More than this, of course, it also displays her firm believe in the self-revealing

nature of a poem, that every poem reveals implicitly through its formal features its

principle of totality.

Also in agreement with Brooks and Warren (1960: 78), Vendler believes

that the every choice implicitly made in the poem is a motivated one, and thus

begs the critic to interpret its import. It is in fact the foremost job of a critic to

reveal, though conjectural to some degree, the reason(s) of the each choice. In

response to Andrew Butterfield’s review on Leo Steinberg’s Last Supper, Vendler

(2012) writes that “the obligation of a critic [is] to mediate, through an informed


34

subjectivity, the totality of the artwork as [s/he] intuits its reasons for being as it

is”. Making the same point in different context, she also writes:

All the answer to such questions must be conjectural, but the analyst’s aim

is to make the conjectural answers as plausible as possible, so that they

“account for” those patterns in which the composing poet, and the

responsive reader, take pleasure.

(2010b: 90).

That a study on a poem might be conjectural to some degree and that it is the job

of a critic to explain each choice manifested into a pattern are clear from this

extract. In this context, what she means is that the critic will never know that what

s/he says about a certain feature of the poem is the final word, the interpretation. It

is nevertheless her/his job to explain the significance of a feature, of why an

artwork be as it is, as convincingly as possible.

Nonetheless, Vendler is not in total agreement with the New Critics.

Vendler differs from Yvor Winters, another figure of New Critics, on the matter

of verbal mimesis. Winters (1947: 61-62) thinks that assuming the forms imitate

the content—musically or visually—is a fallacy, coining the term “fallacy of

expressive or imitative form” to encapsulate his view. Vendler, on the contrary,

totally assumes this position, invoking it again and again in her criticism. For

example, in Poets. Poems. Poetry. (2010b), she sees on “Hours Continuing Long”

by Walt Whitman a visual verbal mimesis by the seven long line beginning with

“Hours”. In her own words:

Certainly the successive long weary lines […] act out the theme of the

poem. […] we can say that the first seven lines of the poem make us see and

feel, by series of statements exhaustedly resembling one another, the inertia

of the weary hours.

(2010b: 41-42).


35

To her, the visual aspect of the lines mimics the theme of the poem, which is

“how long the hours seem to the one forsaken [by love]”. This assumption of

Vendler joins her to the side of critics (e.g. Brooks and Warren (1960: 24)) who

believe that forms are not a mere embellishment or container of content, but rather

an essential, equally significant aspect, as content is essential and significant.

Emphasizing that the forms and content are mutually dependent and equally

important, that forms are capable of enacting the content poignantly; conclusion

must not come, however, to the idea that every formal features bear the same

weight of contribution to the content, and each, thus, must be elaborated in an

equal length of exposition. It must not be thought that every formal aspects of

“Hours Continuing Long” has the same degree of significance to the content as

the verbal mimesis of the lineation is. Put differently, it is going to make sense to

study the grammatical form and asserts that it is equal to the lineation

significance. Yet, it is a complete non-sense to demand that the rhyme of the

poem—which is non-existent—be explained too. Let alone demanding that the

explanation demonstrates how it is as significant as the lineation or grammatical

form is. The most fitting stance on this matter is then, as Vendler (1997: xiv)

herself puts it, to let each poem “dictates what seemed most essential to discuss”.

This is why, in addition, Vendler entreats her reader thus:

To be accustomed to looking, in any poem, at several levels—the sound, the

rhythms and rhymes, the grammar, the images, the sentences, the allusions,

the self-contradictions.

(2010b: 91).


36

This confirms again her view that not all features of the poem bear the similar

amount of significance and thus critic must be receptive to dwell on features

having the most weight of import to the poem.

The following final point on Vendler’s assumption, though seemingly in

opposition to the general conception on New Criticism, is in fact not. The frequent

characterization of New Criticism, especially on critical theory-text book, has

invariably been that it disregards context, be it historical, intertextual, or

biographical. However, this is a gross mischaracterization of New Criticism. On

the contrary, New Critics believes on the possible importance of context in

understanding a poem. Brooks (1984: 43) writes: “a study of the biographical and

historical background may do much to clarify interpretation”. What the New

Critics disagrees is to give the context too much importance as to make the critic

actually put it in the place of the poem. Brooks (1984: 43) continues: “But these

things should be considered as means and not as ends”. The context, he means, is

only a mean to arrive at an interpretation of a poem, and not the other way around.

The poem itself, in every step, must stays as the main focus: it conditions, shapes,

and limits the interpretive perspective of the critic. To a similar end, John Crowe

Ransom (1937), who coins the term New Criticism, also writes: “The critic may

well inform himself to these materials [the context outside the poem] as possessed

by the artist, but his business as critic is to discuss the literary assimilation of

them”. Ostensible in her critical writings, Vendler sides with these New Critics.

She draws, when necessary, from biographical, intertextual, or historical context

to support her reading of a poem. For example, in her reading of Adrianne Rich’s


37

“Mother-in-Law”, Vendler (2010b: 214-217) draws from Rich’s biographical

facts (a woman, a lesbian, a daughter-in-law, a widow, a younger generation, a

mother, a person living alone) to strengthen her identification of the speaker of the

poem as Rich herself. Furthermore, she also notes the repeated double-address

peculiarly used in the poem as coming from the famous ballad “Edward, Edward”.

With these, therefore, Vendler has drawn from both the biographical and

intertextual context of the poem in her analysis, confirming my assertion of her

critical stance on this matter. As to her drawing from historical context of the

poem can be found, among others, in her study on Heaney’s (1998) and Herman

Melville’s poetry (2015: 144-159).

By now, I have gathered all of Vendler’s relevant critical assumptions.

Since this study announces itself to be subscribing to Vendler’s New Critical

approach, what she assumes, I also assume. In trying to unfold the longing soul in

the “Vespers” (#3), in other words, all of Vendler critical assumptions are

considered to be true. However, abstract assumptions without concrete steps is

never enough. Thus, I continue the discussion with Vendler’s critical method in

studying a poem.

b. Vendler’s Critical Methods

Vendler is not a theoretical critic. Outside of disparate general conclusions

about the nature of poetry she inserts here and there in her criticism, she is not a

critic who inductively distills the nature of literature, synthetizing it into a

systematic whole, and formulated in details the method of studying literature. She

is, instead, a practical critic who by-passes the spelling out of her critical method


38

and jumps right to studying the specificity of a poem or a poet one after another.

Therefore, her whole methodology is never completely and systematically

formulated. This is not a big barrier, however, for anyone who wants to follow her

paths, because her critical method is clearly implied in her practical criticisms.

But before unearthing her critical method, possible objection to the assertion

that Vendler never spells out her critical method is better cleared away here. In

Poems. Poets. Poetry (2010b), an undergraduate introductory text-book for

reading poetry, Vendler provides a clear cut methodology to study poetry. The

things to notice in a poems in chronological order—according to her— is as

follows:

1. Meaning

2. Antecedent scenario

3. Division into parts

4. The climax

5. The other parts

6. Find the skeleton

7. Games with the skeleton

8. Language

9. Tone

10. Agency and its speech acts

11. Roads not taken

12. Genres

13. The imagination

(2010b: 138).

It is true, as she herself has shown when applying the steps to John Keats’ “On

First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” (Vendler, 2010b: 130-137), that this

method can be practically employed. However, specific to the present study, the

method, when followed strictly, is practically not feasible as this study is

constricted by a departmental formatting. Here is to illustrate the incompatibly of

Vendler’s method and the formatting: Vendler’s introductory method entails that


39

the problem formulation consist of thirteen points; whereas the formatting

requires that the problem formulations range from one to three. The incompatibly

is beyond question.

Moreover, it can be said that the above is Vendler’s, but it is not the whole

of her. Vendler does not always follow this method her criticism. This is apparent

from the absence of similar sectioning in her other—indeed more ‘serious’—

works of criticism. It is closer to the truth, instead, to say that the main points is a

checklist of elements in the poem which helps the path of studying a poem. In the

written manifestation, however, the thirteen points do not have to manifest

themselves with section on their own.

To return to issue of unearthing Vendler’s critical method, I take as my

samples her critical essay on “Because I could not stop for Death —“from

Dickinson (2010a) and “Sonnet 19” from The Art of Shakespeare Sonnets (1997).

In the following, I discuss the implied critical methodology within those essay. In

the process, there are both conjectural and definitive aspects of my discussion. It

is definitive in its categorization of elements in the poem studied by Vendler,

namely content and forms. It easy to see what aspect she is studying because she

writes very clearly. The conjectural aspect, on the other hand, is in its sequential

ordering of Vendler’s analytical steps. Vendler’s essays are written with no

demand of formatting. She, thus, writes very freely, oscillating between features

of the text. My only justification for the ordering is the rule of thumb that in

analyzing a work of literature, the critic must start from the general pictures

before going into the details. Vendler, moreover, seems to be not in any


40

contradiction with this. As apparent, in her method from Poem. Poets. Poetry.

(2010b) mentioned above, she puts the general first before the particular (meaning

> division into parts (structure) > language features). Therefore, to my ordering of

Vendler critical method, I extrapolate this general-to-specific rule.

The first essay, after pointing out in brief the most striking and telling

formal features of the poem, continues by establishing the content-related

elements of the poem:

The point of the poem is to describe the moment when the concept of

personal “Immortality” was shocked into disappearing from the speaker’s

consciousness—although, at the outset, it had been comfortably ensconced

with her in the Carriage of Death.

[…] Nothing could be more misleading with respect to Dickinson’s

poem, which is about the apprehension of real death, offering no rescue.

[…]

Until that stanza, Dickinson has pretended—in her assumed naïve

voice—that she had no objection to her journey in Death’s Carriage. Death

“kindly stopped,” and his passenger had willingly put aside all her

occupations—whether of labor or of leisure—for His “Civility.”

(2010a: 225-226).

The extracts displays her version the theme (“The apprehension of real death”),

the paraphrase summary (“Until that stanza […]”), and the pragmatic purpose of

the poem (“The point of the poem is […]”). Though in the previous section I have

mentions Vendler distastes for criticism dealing with the paraphrase of a poem, it

must be kept in mind that it is not the paraphrase per se that Vendler hates. In fact,

like Brooks and Warren (1960: 343), Vendler (2010b: 130) considers

paraphrasing as an essential first step to understand a poem. It is rather the

absence of any other consideration of a poem aside from the paraphrase that

Vendler is against.


41

Next, to validate her view while also demonstrating how forms contribute to

the content, Vendler provides analysis of the poem’s formal features. However,

before going into details, she formulates what she believes to be the general

structure of the poem. Vendler usually uses diagram to chart a general structure,

but in this essay she does not. Instead, she conflates it with her paraphrase

summary of the poem:

In the fiction of the poem, the naïve speaker of the poem had been, till this

event, youthfully interested in the concept of Death, without making any

personal application of it to her own life. After the first stanza, the separate

pronouns “I” and “He” have fused in the untroubled mutuality of “We,” the

pronoun presumably including the third passenger in the Carriage,

“Immortality.” Only the shock “We” of the penultimate stanza frightens the

speaker out of the comfortably spoken “We” back into an appalled “I.”

(2010a: 226-227).

Only after the content-related elements and general structure does she

commence to study the diction (“The substitution of “Eternity” for “Immortality”

[…] the other closing it.”) (225), intertextuality (“The last kiss is given to the

void,” Yeats wrote […] That I might look on Thee?’”) (229), rhetorical figures

(“She has described her clothing in a telling alliterative semantic chiasmus”)

(229), imagery (“The Carriage rides replicated the stages of life”) (227), rhyme

(“Finally, Dickinson’s deliberately rhyming of […] body but the earth.”) (229),

rhythm and stanza form (“It is the only one which is not arranged as ballad stanza

[…] He passed Us —“.) (226), syntax (“The poet chronicles the journey with a

series of parallel clauses”) (227) and (“This sustained conclusion with every line

enjambed […] journey to death.”) (228). She further supports her position by

incorporating the poem’s history of textual revision (“When this poem was first

published […] ‘The Chariot.’”) (226). Having done all these, here and there


42

Vendler express her value judgment on the merits of the poem (“single most

striking invention”) (225). The analysis, then, ends; it does not go on to relate the

poem to any issues of power-relation in gender, race, or class context.

Providing yet another substantiation to my analysis of Vendler’s critical

method, I turn now to analyze her essay (1997: 124-126) on Shakespeare’s

“Sonnet 19”. Similar to the first essay, the second, after pointing out an issue it

will dealt on later, formulated a brief paraphrase of the work and outlines its

general structure. Unlike the previous essay wherein a graphic is not used, here

Vendler charts the structure—together with the paraphrase—with the following:

Do not carve my love’s brow. That is the most heinous crime I can

imagine you committing.

What would be the hierarchical order of Time’s crimes?

Ordinary crimes 1. to make sorry seasons (we always want only glad

of Time’s ones)

Swiftness 2. to make the world’s sweets fade

3. to erode the world itself

(But these acts are tame, and fall within the laws of nature. We know

these crimes. What even worse transgressions can we imag-ine Time

undertaking?) Well, Time could act contra Naturam: it could undo

nature’s laws:

Crimes 1. blunt the lion’s paws

Contra 2. make the earth devour her own brood

Naturam 3. defang the tiger

4. kill the phoenix

(But though these are acts directed against the “noblest” species [lion,

tiger, phoenix, earth’s sweet children], there is a yet nobler creature, the

young man, who is a member of no species but rather the Platonic

pattern for a species—mankind.)


43

Crime against

form by So the highest crime is pattern-destruction.

Devouring Time

(1997: 124-125).

Also similar to the first essay is the next step taken. After the paraphrase and

the general structure, the essay moves to the formal features of the poem. Those

are diction (“The second quatrain attempt to do Shakespearean justice [...] glad as

well sorry seasons.”) (126), intertextuality (“To begin with the proverbial and

Ovidian topos of devouring Time”) (125), rhythm (“with the frequent trochaic and

spondaic emphasis”) (126), rhyme (“untainted—resembling antique in some

phonetic respects—also suggests”) (126), and rhetorical devices (“But here

[Time] does, in the first quatrain, exclusively unnatural things”) (125). Note that

some of the features present on the first essay are not discussed on the second

essay. But that is not a problem, as the point I want to make here the continuing

general thread between the first and second essay: both deals with the content

first; only after that, they deal with the forms.

At this point, I have analyzed two critical essays by Vendler in order to

unearth her critical method. The finding is that in analyzing a poem, the content

(the general aspect) is studied first, only after this is the forms (the specific aspect)

studied. Adopting this method, this study focus its attention first to the content of

the “Vespers” (#3), making the first part of Chapter IV. Only after that, in the

second part of the analysis, the forms, which make a poem a poem, is also given

similar—if not greater—amount of attention.

The analytical steps of Vendler, it has to be made clear, is not similar to

what is usually considered as a New Critical methodology. In Vendler’s, the New


44

Critical concept of ambiguity, tension, paradox, or irony is not used. In other

words, she does not proceed, like Brooks (1947), from identifying any conflicting

part of a poem and then unify or resolve it meaningfully in the end while also

incorporating all the formal elements of the poem along the way. That being said,

it is nonetheless the case that Vendler’s assumptions and steps are still New

Critical in nature, as many have observed (Richard D. Jordan (1978), Marilyn

Butler (1984), and T. Gardner (2012: 269)). Most of her assumptions are similar

to the New Critics for one thing. Her steps, connecting meaningfully the forms

and content of a poem, is also basically New Critical in nature.

C. Theoretical Framework

The present study is titled “The Longing Soul in ‘Vespers’ (#3) by Louise

Glück”. Stressing the explication of the poem’s details, it aims at examining the

poem’s content and forms contribution to it.

To attain this this aim, I subscribe to the New Critical methodology of

Vendler. In other words, I assumes Vendler’s critical assumptions and method:

the assumptions underlie all my arguments; the method guides my reading and

structures its written manifestation. Such method is used as it lends itself easily to

the study of both content and forms. Meanwhile, the other studies reviewed are

used to complement where this study lacks and to lay the ground from which it

develops.

The preliminary finding of the study is that “Vespers” (#3) is about the

speaker’s longing to know god’s reason to give her suffering. This is apparently

embodied in its diction, rhetorical device, and imagery.


45

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

A. Object of the Study

The Wild Iris is a collection of poems written by Louise Glück and

published in 1992 by ecco, a New York-based imprint of HarperCollins Publisher

Inc. It is arguably Glück’s most popular and critically-acclaimed work. In 1992

and 1993, for instance, the 64-page book is awarded—respectively—a William

Carlos William Award and a Pulitzer Prize for poetry, seconding John Ashbery’s

Hotel Lautreamont and James Merril’s Selected Poems 1946-1985 for the second

prize.

Unlike the more common poetry collection, The Wild Iris, consisting of 54

free-verse poems and dealing with such perennial themes as human’s mortality,

suffering, and longing, is a poetic sequence spoken intermittently by a human

speaker, various vegetation, and an anthropomorphic god. Although each poem

can stand as a totality on its own (some of the poems are published independently

before the book saw publication), it is best read in the light of the surrounding

poems as the poem interacts with each other in a ‘dialectics’. For example,

whereas one poem shows a human speaker desperately not wanting to die

(“Matins” (#4)), another poem, in contrast, shows a flower explaining its cyclic,

therefore, immortal life in a fervent manner (“The Wild Iris”). This dialectic, in

fact, involves not only two, but the three speakers, which brings us to the major

organizing principle of The Wild Iris: the speaking voices.


46

Other than The Wild Iris, Glück has also published eleven books of poems

and a book of essay. Typical in Glück’s works are the recurrent themes of

mortality, family dynamic, & love; and her assimilation of various “backstories”

from such wide-ranging genres as Homeric epics, Biblical myths, Grimmian

fairytales, and Arthurian legend. In addition to these, she is also known for her

consistent endeavor, from Triumph of Achilles on, to write a book of poetic

sequence.

Glück’s lifetime works has rewarded her with various awards. In addition

to the Pulitzer Prize and William Carlos William Award, Glück has won visibly

all other major awards for poetry in the United States. The National Book Critic

Circle Award (for The Triumph of Achilles), Bobbit National Prize for Poetry (for

Ararat, shared with Mark Strand’s The Continuous Life), Yale’s Bollingen Prize

(for Vita Nova), Wallace Steven’s Award (for a lifetime achievement), and the

National Book Award (for Faithful and Virtuous Night) are some of her notable

triumphs. Additionally, she has also been awarded the National Humanities

Award in 2015 for her poetry. The citation reads: Glück “giv[es] lyrical

expression to our inner conflicts. [Her] use of verse connects us to the myths of

the ancients, the magic of the natural world, and the essence of who we are”

(“President Obama to Award”).

Selecting from the poems of the first paperback edition of The Wild Iris, I

take as my specific object of study “Vespers” (#3). The rationales, as have been

mentioned in Chapter I, is the poem’s thematic and structural centrality, as well as

my own time consideration. The poem itself is one of the evening prayer poems,


47

spoken from the first-person perspective addressing god. In its single stanza body,

the poem consists of twenty dominantly unrhymed lines with varying length and

rhythm. The bracketed number after the poems’ title, originally non-existent in the

book, is added for ease of reference as many of the poems in the book have

identical title. “Vespers” (#3), for example, is the third poem called “Vespers” out

of the total ten in the book.

B. Approach of the Study

In exploring the content and forms of “Vespers” (#3), I use the New Critical

approach of Helen Vendler. Her approach to poetry, a continuation of the New

Critics before her, is used as it considers as paramount the interrelatedness of

content and forms. The approach, thus, lends itself fittingly to a study aspiring to

foreground the specificity of a poem such as this one. It is true that Vendler’s

approach is not exactly identical with the commonly known New Critical

approach. Nevertheless, despite such differences as have been noted in Chapter II,

she is still a New Critic. In using her approach, however, I do not follow the clear-

cut methodology from her poetry textbook. Instead, I use the implicit

methodology found, among others, in her study of Shakespeare and Dickinson,

previously elaborated in Chapter II. Furthermore, on the matter of Vendler’s

assumptions, only the relevant ones are adopted in my study.

C. Method of the Study

This is a library research. Its primary text is “Vespers” (#3) from Glück’s

The Wild Iris. The secondary texts, meanwhile, are mostly critical books by

Vendler, specifically Dickinson (2010a), The Art of Shakespeare Sonnets (1999),


48

and Poems. Poets. Poetry. (2010b). Other than these, also used are numerous

books and articles, both printed and published online, by various authors.

The analysis itself was done in three steps. The first was to paraphrase the

poem, resulting in the abstract content both in the poem’s paraphrase as well as its

theme. The next step was to switch focus to the forms of the poem and analyze

how each features contributes to the already established content. After this, the

findings were elaborated in the present written form.


49

CHAPTER IV

ANALYSIS

Parallel to the formulated problems in Chapter I, this chapter is divided into

two sections. In the first one, I seek to establish the content of

“Vespers” (#3) by paraphrasing. In the second one, meanwhile, I identify the

formal features of the poem and interpret their contribution to the poem’s content.

As such, the sub-section of the second one would have been divided in parallel

number with the formal features. However, to satisfy the demand of coherence

and clarity in my elaboration, there are some variations on the division, both in

order as well as in number.

A. The Content of “Vespers” (#3)

“Vespers” (#3) is a speech distributed into four sentences, marked,

respectively with a period, period, question mark, and period again. The human

speaker of this speech is a female one. Vendler (2010: 123-214 & 129) has

implied that when the speaker of a poem does not overtly indicate otherwise, it

can be assumed that the speaker is a persona of the poet itself. In “Vespers” (#3)’s

case, the rationale is even stronger as the prayer sequence to which the poem

belongs indicates overtly that the poem is spoken by a female supplicant,

specifically Glück’s persona herself. In “Vespers” (#1), the speaker says:

Once I believed in you; I planted a fig tree.

Here, in Vermont, country

of no summer. It was a test: if the tree lived,

it would mean you existed.

[…]


50

[H]ere, we barely see

the hem of your garment. I have to discipline myself

to share with John and Noah the tomato crop.

(Glück, 1992: 36, stanza 1 and 2).

Here, two similarities between the speaker and Glück can clearly be seen. Both

the speaker and Glück have lived in Vermont. Also, Glück’s husband (now ex-

husband) and son is called John and Noah respectively, which is the case with the

speaker too. Furthermore, in another poem spoken by a human being from The

Wild Iris, “Heaven and Earth”, the speaker overtly says:

John stands at the horizon: he wants

both at once, he wants

everything at once.

[…]

How can I leave my husband

standing in the garden

dreaming this sort of thing,


Here, “John”, the speaker’s husband, unites the speaker of the prayer poems with

the speaker of this poem. Building on this, it is then clear that John is the

speaker’s husband, which means that the speaker is Glück’s own persona. It is

then justifiable to say that the speaker is a human being and a ‘she’,

In the first sentence, the human speaker starts with a statement of her

knowledge that god loves the other creations more than her. After that, it

continues to the second one with a case-making by the speaker for her questioning

god’s act: she believes that she is better than the other creations, but still, god

loves her less. Next, in the third sentence, comes the questioning: “Why/ torment

me?” (Glück, 1992: 38, line 9-10). Finally, in the fourth—the major part of the

poem—the speaker imparts her on-going activity: restudying the other creations


51

(first, new kinds of vegetation—hawkweed and buttercup—and then, those she

already studied—sheep, chicory, aster). As results of these, the speaker comes up

with two possibilities on god’s unfathomable reason for giving torment and pain

to her: one, god gives suffering to make her realize that she needs god, even

though she does not think it is necessary; the other, her suffering comes because

god has abandoned her in favor of the other creations. On this mere paraphrasing

level, the theme of the poem emerges which is the speaker’s longing. Two

indications of the speaker’s longing can be noted. The question in the third

sentence is a crystal clear expression of longing from the speaker. Coupled to that

is the unresolved splitting possibilities of why god torments her on the last

sentence. To the end, the speaker is unable to intimate why god torments her. Her

longing, thus, remains.

B. The Forms of “Vespers” (#3)

1. Diction: Title

The word ‘vespers’ comes from the PIE word ‘wes-pero’ (evening, night)

which descends to the Greek’s ‘hespero’ and Latin’s ‘vespera’ (evening).

Through Old French ’vesper’ (evening, nightfall) it comes into English at first in

the 14th century, carrying the meaning of “the evening star”. Later at 17th century,

the sense “evening” and “evening prayer” cater itself to the word (“Vespers”).

This second sense, furthermore, is closely related to the tradition of Catholicism

as vespers (or evensong) is one of the seven canonical hours (horae canonicae)

for the Catholic daily mass prayer, the other being prime, terce, sext, nones,

compline, lauds/matins.


52

In the poem, both of these latest senses are relevant. The first indicates that

evening is the time background when the poem is uttered, which the poem itself

testifies when the word “twilight” appears (Glück, 1992: 38, line 18). The second

one, on the other hand, points to the fact that the poem speaker is a human being

and that the one being spoken to is god. The additional association of this second

sense, furthermore, reveals that the human speaker specifically comes from the

religious tradition of Catholicism. It is true that in itself, the title does not

contribute directly to the representation of longing. However, the title perfectly

locates the stage for poem with its three significances: the first locates its time

setting; the second identify its ‘dramatist personae’; the third its cultural setting.

2. Tenses

There is a lot to the expression of longing in the poem than what’s first

meets the eyes. By reconstructing the antecedent scenarios, which Vendler

(2010b: 130) defines as that which “has been happening before the poem starts

[and] has disturbed the status quo and set the poem in motion”, the longing

becomes more apparent. Shedding its clue through the tenses, the first of the

events is the state in which god still cares about the human speaker. This is seen

when the human speaker concludes the poem: “or have you abandoned me”

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 16). The present perfect (have + past participle) confirms

that there was a time when the human speaker, at the least, was not abandoned.

The function of present perfect is to “express the idea that something happened

before now in an indefinite time in the past” (Azar, 1999: 36). In the quotation,

that which happens before now is god’s abandonment. It follows from this that


53

earlier before the abandonment there was the state of not being abandoned. The

contrast of abandon/favor and the speaker/other creations might further suggest

that the present state might very well be the reverse of the past one: once, god

favors the human speaker. However, final words on this cannot be decided for

there is no other supporting evidence. In any case nonetheless, that there was a

time when the speaker feels not abandoned, and thus can be said to be contented

with her state, still holds water.

Then the status quo is disturbed: torment comes for her. The human

speaker’s utterance, using simple present tense, points to this:

Then why

torment me?

[…]

is pain

your gift to make me

conscious in my need of you

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 9-14).

The tense does not only show that the torment happens now, but also, in

accordance to the nature of simple present tense, indicates that it has been there

before the present state. In addition, since every poem arises out of a disturbed

status quo, as Vendler observes (2010b: 130), and since in the context of this

poem contentment is the status quo; therefore, the state after it has been disturbed

is the opposite of that. Had the human speaker’s contentment lasted, there is no

reason for her saying what she says in the poem.

In the meantime, after the discontentment starts, events under this state also

occur. First of all, the human speaker starts to ask god for an explanation. This is

the earliest questioning and likely similar to the one she says in present state:

“Why/ torment me?” (Glück, 1992: 38, line 9-10). To support this point, a


54

consideration of the next event is needed; thus, I will proceed and go back to this

point soon.

After the initial question, presumably after many such question, the human

speaker, understandably, looks for the answer on her own. The manner, as it is, is

by comparing herself to the other creations:

I have compared myself

to those flowers, their range of feeling

so much smaller and without issue; also to white sheep,

actually gray: I am uniquely

suited to praise you. […]

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 5-9).

That the answer she actually finds from the comparison, instead of satisfying her,

baffles her the more is beside the point; the point is that she looks for the answer

on her own. And to return to the previous point: the act of looking for an answer

entails the initial act of asking a question. In addition, the act of self-answering

implies that god does not provide answer for the human speaker’s question.

Therefore, it can be concluded that before the speaker compares herself to the

other creations, she has asked question and has not got an answer.

After the state of contentment, the start of discontentment, the act of

asking question, and the act of looking for answer, the poem begins. To give a

clear picture of the scenarios here is the timeline graphic:

Contentment Discontentment

Asking god Looking on her own “Vespers” (#3)

This antecedent scenarios articulates the longing of the human speaker by

implying that she has been so desperate in waiting for the answer so that finally


55

she looks for it on her own. Considered solely from this poem, god never comes

to answer her.

3. Diction: Denotation

Meanwhile, the longing also manifests in the present time; when the speaker

utters the poem. The first sentence encapsulates what the rest reinforces: the

human speaker’s indeterminate conviction to the answer she has found for her

own question. She is in doubt while at the same time seemingly certain.

Answering the question of why god torments her, she says, reporting to god:

More than you love me, very possibly

you love the beasts of the field, even,

possibly, the field itself, in August dotted

with wild chicory and aster:

I know. […]

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 1-5).

On the doubt’s side, she uses the double adverbs “possibly,” which is a clear

expression of doubt. Meanwhile, on the certainty’s side, the dose of doubt from

the first “possibly” is counterbalanced by the intensifier adverb “very.” As for the

second “possibly”, the specifying adverb “even” is the counterbalance. The

human speaker here seems to be convinced that what she just said is true that she

dares to be more exact about it (from “beasts of the field” to “field itself”).

Additionally, the certainty’s side also has the strong assertion of “I know.” Further

reinforced by the use of colon (“:”), indicating not only that what comes before is

what the human speaker “know[s]”, but also that what comes after this

punctuation gets the more emphasis; the certainty’s side seems to have the laurel

wreath.


56

This seems to be case when in the next sentence the element of doubt

completely disappears; the human speaker’s certainty appears to reign. Making

clear whence her question in the third sentence comes, she says:





suited to praise you. […]

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 5-9).

Concluding from the comparison she has done, she firmly believes her

observation that the other creations (the “flowers” and the “sheep”) are much

more inferior to her. The use of the adverb “uniquely”, coming from the adjective

‘unique’, points to this conviction. And since colon “is like a sign on the highway,

announcing that something important is coming” (“Semicolons, Colons, and

Dashes”), similar to the case in the first sentence, the use of colon (“:”) also give

more emphasis to what follows it; hence, a bolder mark of conviction.

However, when the question of the third sentence comes, reappearing

alongside conviction is doubt. Logically connected with the second sentence

(indicated by the adverb “then”), the uttering of the question on the one hand

reinforces the human speaker’s conviction of her superiority already clear in the

previous sentence. This is strong when noting that she builds her question above

the premise of the second sentence; hence, affirming it. On the other hand,

paradoxically, the question also indicates her doubt. This is especially obvious

when the next sentence comes. Again, I will proceed first and return to this

shortly.


57

After the total conviction of sentence two and affirmation by the question in

sentence three, it is this question which also triggers the human speaker to doubt

her own conviction in sentence four. Getting no answer and so returning to her

observation, the human speaker expresses the result:

[…] is pain


conscious in my need of you […]

or have you abandoned me

in favor of the field, […]

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 12-20).

This part of the longest sentence in the poem is permeated with uncertainty. The

two independent clauses making up the part (“is pain […]” and “have you […]”),

expressing the possible reasons god torments her, are joined with the conjunction

“or.”, pointing to the distinct possibilities, and thus uncertainty, faced by the

human speaker as answers to her question. Discussed further on my section on

syntax, the question forms, in addition, also adds to reveal the human speaker’s

element of doubt.

In the meantime, to return to the previous point: though logicians warns us

again post hoc fallacy, this warn must not prevent us from concluding that the

human speaker’s doubt is the very consequence of her ‘concluding’ question: the

question, getting no answer from the one being asked, catapults the speaker back

into doubt which manifests itself in the fourth sentence just elaborated above.

Besides, though in reality a ball falling to the floor just before an earth quake

cannot be concluded as the cause of the earth quake, in art, the rules of reality

cannot be applied directly. The fact that an author chooses to the put the scene of

the ball falling before the earth quake must have a significance.


58

Back to the point: the last sentence has its element of conviction, too. It

reveals itself from the use of the anomalous period (“.”) at the end of the sentence.

The clauses construction preceding that is in question form (“is pain […]” and

“have you […]”); therefore it is expected that the punctuation used would be a

question mark. This is not the case, however. What comes through this anomaly is

the element of conviction on the speaker. The question form shows her doubt,

while the period her conviction. She is questioning, but not really questioning; she

is in doubt, but also quite sure.

As the poem proceeds, as explicated above, the back and forth movement

between doubt mingling with conviction and total conviction on the human

speaker’s part emerges. Following is the visualization:

Doubt-Conviction (Sentence 1)

Conviction (Sentence 2)



This pattern embodies the longing of the speaker to know the reason for her

suffering in that it poignantly mimics the freewheeling, fleeting, slipping

oscillation between doubt and conviction on the speaker’s part because the

absence of a center. And that center is the incontestable answer of god. To the

speaker of “Vespers” (#3), finite answer has not yet come, and until then, doubt

and conviction mingle in a painful longing.


59

4. The Structure

After the paraphrase summary, antecedent and present scenarios are

elaborated, the major structure of the poem emerges: the poem is structured on the

comparisons the speaker has done. As noted, before the poem starts the speaker

has done at least one comparison to the other creations. The conclusion she draws

is that she is better than them. Hence, god loves them irrationally, which also

means she suffers because of god’s irrational decision. However, immediately

doubting about her own conclusion, she starts one set of comparisons: the first

half to new kind of creations (buttercup and hawkweed), the second half to those

she already studied earlier (aster, chicory, and sheep). The result of the first half is

that she suffers because god wants to make her realize that she needs him,

whereas the result of the other one is that she suffers because god has abandoned

her in favor of the other creation (aster, chicory, and sheep). This overarching

structure can be best charted as follows:

First Comparison to sheep, aster, and god irrationally loves the other

chicory (Implied). creations (line 1-9).

Second Comparison (Line 10-20)

first half to buttercup and hawkweed god gives pain to make her aware

(line 10 12). in her need of god (line 12-15).

second half to sheep, chicory, aster pain comes from god’s

(implied). abandonment, favoring the other

creations. God’s love is rational after

all (line 16-20).


60

This pointing out of the major structure of the poem is necessary to provide the

basis against which the other parts of the poem are explained. Therefore, I will

refer to this structure continually in the rest of my analysis.

5. Diction: Connotation

There is a suggestive pattern of lexical contrast emerging as “Vespers” (#3)

progresses, corresponding to the changes of sentiment on the speaker’s part. In the

beginning of the poem, undoubtedly as a result of the first comparison the speaker

has done to look for the answer on her suffering, she labels the other creations

with pejorative terms and concludes with how far better she is in being god

supplicant:

the beasts of the field, even,



I know. I have compared myself




suited to praise you.

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 2-9).

For the animals, first she uses the word “beasts” (line 2). Literally meaning “a

four-footed mammal as distinguished from a human being” (“Beast”), the word

nevertheless has negative connotations attached to it. It can mean “a contemptible

person”, which is clearly carries negative value; it can also mean “something

formidably difficult to control or deal with”, which in this context of supplicant-

god relation is also negative (“Beast”).

Specifying what type of beasts they are and also foreshadowing the

speaker’s positive final attitude to them, the speaker then narrows down the term

to “sheep” (line 7). This word, aside from literally meaning “any of various


61

hollow-horned typically gregarious ruminant mammals related to goats but

stockier and lacking a beard in the male”, carries negative connotations also,

though not as negative as the previous one. It can mean “a timid defenseless

creature” or “one easily influenced or led” (“Sheep”). The first one is clearly

negative. As for the second, it is negative in that it shows the communal mindset

of the sheep; whereas god, according to the speaker, values individuality. This is

seen when the speaker ‘reminds’ god that the other creation’s “range of feeling/

[is] so much smaller and without issue” (line 6-7). Whether or not god really do

values individuality is beside the point, since it is the speaker’s sentiment that

matters here.

In addition to the word “sheep” itself, the speaker also shows how far worse

the animal in her view by correcting its adjectival modifier from one carrying

positive value to one carrying a clearly negative one. Whereas “white” (line 7) can

mean “marked by upright fairness” and “free from moral impurity” (“White”);

“gray” (line 8), in contrast, carries the meanings of “lacking cheer or brightness in

mood, outlook, style, or flavor” and “uninteresting” (“Gray”). It is ostensible from

these pejorative words that the speaker deems the animals to be worse than

herself.

But the speaker’s negative labelling does not stop at the animals; the field

and its vegetation also get a share. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker uses

the verb “dotted” (line 3) to link the “field” (line 3) with “chicory”/“aster” (line

4), which carries not only the neutral meaning of marked by “small round marks”,

but also the negative meaning of marred by “speck” (“Dot”). In other words, the


62

speaker is saying that “chicory” and “aster” are specks, which is negative. In

addition, “chicory” and “aster” are also modified by the adjectives “wild” (line 4)

which neutrally means “living in a state of nature and not ordinarily tame or

domesticated”, but can also mean “not subject to restraint or regulation”, “marked

with turbulent agitation”, “uncivilized”, and “barbaric” (“Wild”). Aside from

these, of course, the speaker expresses her sentiment directly. Those “flowers”,

according to the speaker, is worse than her because they do not have much “range

of feeling” and “issue” from those feeling (line 6-7).

As with the animal, the speaker places the field together with its vegetation

lower than herself. At this point, one interrelatedness of content and forms

emerges: not only does the speaker’s sentiment is clearly articulated in line 8-9: “I

am uniquely/ suited to praise you”, it is also embodied in her use of pejorative

words denoting the animal and vegetation of the field. This embodiment

emphasizes what is said clearly on the surface. In relation to the findings on the

speaker mixes of doubt and conviction previously discussed on study of

denotation and punctuation, this findings from the study of connotation reinforces

the conviction aspect of the speaker as it reflects her firm believe on her

superiority. As can be concluded from the paraphrase and the denotation and

punctuation, the speaker does not only express through the content of her speech

her self-proclaimed superiority, but also through the formal feature of denotation

and punctuation. It turns out, along with these former formal features, the

connotation also reinforces her conviction. This interaction between the content

and this specific form in “Vespers” (#3) can be illustrated as follows:


63




Doubt-Conviction (Sentence 4) Diction from the First Comparison

Meanwhile, believing now that she is better than the other creations, it is

baffling for the speaker to know that it she that god torments. When she asks

“Why/ torment me?” (Glück, 1992: 38, line 9-10), the speaker is adamant that god

decision to torment her is completely irrational. But it is not for long that the

speaker holds this view. When the speaker enters the second comparison, the

diction she uses to denote the same entities labelled pejoratively in the first

comparison, changes completely:

the field, the stoic lambs turning

silver in twilight; waves of wild aster and chicory shining

pale blue and deep blue, since you already know

how like your raiment it is.

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 16-20).

At first labelling the animal as “beasts” and then “white sheep,/ actually gray,” the

speaker finally labels it as silvery “stoic lambs” (line 16-17). Most conspicuous of

all in representing the change in the speaker sentiment is the alteration from

“beasts” to “sheep” to “lambs.” Strikingly contrasted to the earlier versions, the

final one does not only carry the meanings of “youth”, “dear”, “gentle” (“Lamb”)

and “innocence” (Ferber, 200: 191), but also a highly religious association as

Jesus Christ himself is referred to as The Lamb of God (Cambridge Advance

Learner’s Dictionary 3rd Edition, “lamb”). Given the poem’s context of god-

human relation, these attributes are definitely positive.


64

In addition, the modifier is also transmuted. At first described as “actually

gray” (line 8), suggesting dullness, in the final version the animals are then

described as lustrous “silver” (line 18), which is much related with beauty and

high value (“Silver”). What's more to these transmutations is that the speaker also

observes quality in the lambs which have not any counterpart on her first

observation: stoicism. This too is a positive quality. It is not seldom we hear

people praise individuals for their stoicism, encompassing endurance, patient, and

perseverance. The animals, in short, are elevated in the speaker’s eyes from pit to

the crucifix.

The vegetation too are elevated. At first considered as specks without

much variety of feeling, in the second comparison the flowers are described as

“shinning” (line 18) and resembling god’s “raiment” (line 20). The first modifier

does not only gives the attributes of “emitting of reflecting light” but also the

connotative “bright and often splendid in appearance” and “possessing a

distinguished quality” (“Shining”). As for the second, it does not only means

“clothing” (“Raiment”), but also, when traced to its untrimmed form “arrayment”,

carries the more specific association of “rich or beautiful apparel” (“Array”). It

might be objected that in contrast, ‘raiment’ suggests dispensability or

inessentiality instead: it is basically a clothing, the one who wears it—god in this

case—is still essentially the same with or without it. However, in the face of this

overlapping connotation, the first one is favored as the poem provides an internal

interpretive guide. The comparison between the beautiful apparel and the flowers

suggests the beauty of the flowers. The two qualities, being similar to god


65

clothing and being full of light, are then positive in that it present the flowers as

beautiful. At the end of the poem, the speaker has elevated the position of not only

the animal, but also the vegetation. In doing so, she has also elevated the field

itself.

The contribution of the connotation to the content on the second comparison

is similar to the first as it also emphasizes the conviction of the speaker. It differs,

however, from the first comparison in two ways. Instead of emphasizing the

conviction of the speaker on her superiority, the diction emphasizes her conviction

on her inferiority: the undesirable one is now herself. By extension, whereas in the

first she believes that god is irrational, by now she believes that god is completely

rational in making his choice: god favors his other creations because they are

more beautiful than the speaker. This is the first difference. The second is that the

speaker does not express directly on the surface her sentiment to the other

creations now. She does not say anything like: “They are uniquely suited to praise

you” or “They are prettier than I am.” Therefore, the connotation is the single

access to this sentiment, making the contribution of forms to content more

obvious. Here is to illustrate this important contribution:




Doubt-Conviction (Sentence 4) Diction from the Second Comparison


66

It has to be noted here, however, that the adjectival modifier “wild” (line

18), carrying negative connotation, is still present in the second comparison. Does

this means that the speaker still thinks in the end that the flowers has negative

qualities? Likely not. In addition to the beauty-infusing modifier noted above, the

oceanic visual imagery attributed to the flower in the second comparison also adds

to naturalize the possible nullifying effect of the word “wild”. (A fuller discussion

on this image can be found my section on imagery.) Moreover, the speaker’s use

of chiasmus-like structure in line 7-8 and 18: “white sheep,/ actually gray […]

wild aster and chicory shining” (Positive : Negative :: Negative : Positive) to

foreground her change of attitude also makes this claim stronger. (A fuller

discussion on this device can be found in the section on rhetorical devices.) The

speaker indeed undergoes a change. To show this, following is the most concise

and clear demonstration of the change.

Animal Vegetation

the beasts of the field (line 2) dotted/ with wild chicory and aster

(line 3-4)

white sheep,/ actually gray wild aster and chicory shining/ […]

(line 7-8) raiment (line 18-20)

the stoic lambs (line 17)

However, there are still other creations not included in this discussion of

lexical contrast: the hawkweed and buttercup. The reason for excluding them in

this discussion is obvious: they are absent in the first comparison thus cannot be

said to have altered in the second. Unlike the aster and chicory, they are new


67

vegetation introduced by the speaker only in the second comparison. However,

there are still other creations not included in this discussion of lexical contrast: the

hawkweed and buttercup. The reason for excluding them in this discussion is

obvious: they are absent at the first comparison thus cannot be said to have altered

at the second. Unlike the aster and chicory, they are new vegetation introduced by

the speaker only in the second comparison. What is, then, their significance to the

poem? What contribution, to put the question another way, these two specific

names of flower give to the content of the poem? The answer has nothing to do

with their connotation.

Instead, it has to do with the fact that they propels the speaker to her first

optional conclusion. This conclusion cannot be derived from just any types of

flowers; it must possess the quality of being independent of pain. Since the

buttercup and hawkweed are poisonous and thus not edible, it seems, for the

speaker, to be not pained. (The speaker’s logic here is that being eaten by herds is

painful.) Therefore, it is logically sound that these flowers propel the speaker to

conclude:

is pain


conscious in my need of you

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 12-14).

In relation to the general topic of this research, the diction of hawkweed and

buttercup contributes to stress the conviction of thef speaker in the second

comparison. After all, it is by comparing herself to these flowers that the speaker

derives her conclusion. It is thus similar in function to the other dictions (lambs,

chicory, and aster) of the second comparison.


68

In the above discussion of connotation, it is clear that the choice of words

describing the other creations contributes to my earlier discussion on the speaker’s

wavering feeling of doubt and conviction. Both the contrast of the first & second

comparisons and also the specific flowers chosen (hawkweed and buttercup)

contribute to the aspect of conviction on the speaker’s part. In addition, it also

demonstrates the speaker’s sentiment change, not only on the other creations

(from worse to better), but also on her own self (from better to worse). Even

though in the first comparison the speaker spells it out unmistakably, in the

second, she only embodies it—among others—through her diction. Ironically, her

conviction on the second part of the comparison about her inferiority is more

likely to make her longing more intense. All these demonstrate obviously how

forms contribute to the content.

A final point to make: these seems to be a handful of new aspects

emphasizing the aspect of conviction on the speaker. However, bringing the

diction into discussion does not neutralize the doubt aspect of the speaker. Indeed,

it is still there in her use of the ostensible conjunction “or” and question form

construction. She, to the end of the poem, is still longing for a definite answer.

6. Diction: Animals and Vegetation

In “Vespers” (#3), there are mentioned several kinds of specific animals and

vegetation with their own selection rationale. Therefore, the question that is being

asked in this section, one that has been accounted fully in the previous discussion

on diction, is why these specific words, denoting the animal and vegetation

groups, are put to use? Here are both groups:


69

Animals Vegetation

the beasts of the field (line 2) dotted/ with wild chicory and aster

(line 3-4)

white sheep,/ actually gray I study the hawkweed,

(line 7-8) the buttercup (line 10-11)

the stoic lambs (line 17) wild aster and chicory shining/ […]

(line 18)

It is true that much of the answer to the question is already implied. In my

section on connotation, I have mentioned that the string of animal group (beasts,

sheep, lambs) are used to marked the change of the speaker’s attitude as they

provide different words with different connotations to refer to the same entity. In

the case of the last two, it is even more marked as the two words are synonymous

in denotative meaning but antonymous in connotative meaning. Similarly,

regarding the vegetation group, the reason of choosing hawkweed and buttercup

has also been discussed: they are poisonous and thus become a perfect fit for a

conclusion showing the speaker’s observation about being independent or

dependent from pain as poison is seen by the speaker as a gift of protective shield.

However, the reason for choosing the other flowers, namely chicory and

aster, has not been accounted for. It is this that I am dealing with in this section.

Chicory and aster are both composite herbs with blue-colored flowers found easily

living in wild state near domestic life or in home garden cultivation in Europe and

U.S. The flowers are chosen first of all for to satisfy the demand of realism; they


70

are easily encountered in North America, where the garden of the poem sequence

is set:

Once I believed in you; I planted a fig tree.

Here, in Vermont, country

of no summer.


To put it another way, it would be too much for the poem to ask from the reader’s

negative capability if the flowers were hard to encounter in U.S. or endemic to

other countries. Moreover, with regards to its color, the flower are chosen as the

symbolic association of blue color fits the scheme of imagery employed in the

second comparison. It would not do if the flowers were red, or black, or grey.

(This point is discussed fully in the next section.) Added to these is the fact that

both flowers are ‘lowly’ herbs, found mostly in wild state or—when they are

cultivated—in a garden planted directly in the dirt. They are not in the same

prestige, in other words, like orchid or roses which are not commonly found living

in wild state near from domestic life. The significance of the fact that they are

‘lowly’ herbs made the speaker change of attitude in the first and in the second

comparison believable. In the first, the speaker, intimating from her everyday

encounter with the flowers the mundane quality of the flower, disregarding its

‘hidden beauty’, thought that she is far more superior to them. On the contrary,

after conducting her second comparison, which implies a more sustained

observation, the speaker finally realize that they are beautiful in their blueness.

(This conclusion is discussed more fully in my section on connotation and

imagery). In short, the flowers were chosen as they contribute to the content of the

poem.


71

7. Imagery

I have intimated earlier that the imagery on the second part of the

comparison nullifies the negative aspect of the word “wild” in the context of god-

supplicant relationship, so that it can be said that the flowers are not seen as

undesirable anymore. Returning later to this, first I want to map out the imageries

and deal with each chronologically. There are three imageries in the poem, all

visual. The first image occurs in the first part: “the field itself, in August dotted/

with wild chicory and aster” (Glück, 1992: 38, line 3-4). As I have discussed

earlier under a different focus, on this part the speaker deems the other creations

to be inferior to herself. Looking it now through the focus of imagery, the speaker

is implying the same point: the image of the field full of thriving chicory and

aster, making it look like specks on an otherwise spotless expanse, is an image of

the undesirable.

On the contrary, the imageries in the second part of the poem are making the

opposite point. The two images are both mesmerizing visual imageries presenting

the vegetation and animal as desirable. One is on the animal: “the stoic lambs

turning/ silver in twilight” (Glück, 1992: 38, line 17-18). The silvery glittering

color of the animal from the light of the evening gives them lustrous beauty. And

this assertion becomes stronger when it is noted that in another poem from The

Wild Iris, “Love in Moonlight”, a similar evening light-related imagery is also

employed to give the quality of beauty. Only here, it is moonlight—twilight’s

kin—which gives beauty:


72

Outside, a summer evening, a whole world

thrown away on the moon: groups of silver forms

which might be building or trees, the narrow garden

where the cat hides, rolling on its back in the dust,

the rose, the coreopsis, and in the dark, the gold

dome of the capitol

converted to an alloy of moonlight

(Glück, 1992: 19, line 5-11).

Here, moonlight, which since the ancient time has been said as a symbol of

beauty, beautifies the objects it shines upon. The twilight in “Vespers” (#3) too

serves such function. The second image is the one I have put aside earlier on the

vegetation. Similar to the one on the animal, this too serves to beautify its object

of description: “waves of wild aster and chicory shinning/ pale blue and deep

blue” (Glück, 1992: 38, line 3-4). Here, two images: that of the ocean waves and

that of the bed of flowers, are conflated into an oceanic bed of flowers. Visually,

this suggests an image of beauty; kinesthetically, it is the same: the flowers

become a symphonic bluish waves intermittently exhibiting their colors.

Moreover, the color chosen—or the blue flowers chosen for that matter—also

adds to intensify this quality. Long has been fixed in literary convention—among

other things—as the symbol of heaven (Farber, 2007: 31), blue in this context

signifies heavenly qualities, one of which is beauty. One “blue” is sufficient, but

the repetition of the word twice, further intensify the beauty of the other creations.

Thus, at the end of the poem, the speaker has changed her belief on who is more

superior in terms of beauty.

Arriving here, it is clear that the imagery works in the same way as the

diction: at first presenting the other creations as undesirable, it then elevates them

to the position of the beautiful. As such, the imagery can be said to contribute to


73

the conviction of the speaker: first at the other creations’ inferiority, second at

their superiority.

8. Rhetorical Devices

There are six individual rhetorical devices in “Vespers” (#3. The first one is

a correctio, or the “correction of a word or a phrase used previously” (Lanham,

1991: 42). This figure occurs when the speaker is describing the animals in a state

of full conviction: “also to white sheep/ actually gray” (Glück, 1992: 38, line 7-8).

The telling correction from “white” to “gray” bridged by the word ”actually”

expresses the speaker’s intense level of conviction on her superiority. In relation

to the overall design of the poem, this figure marks the moment when the speaker

is placing herself in an ivory tower above the animal. Yet, it very soon becomes

her bane that she feels thus as in the later part of the poem the speaker experiences

a moment of painful realization: in terms of beauty, she is in fact inferior to them.

Surely, the downfall is far agonizing when it is from an ivory tower straight to that

muddy bottom. Had the speaker never thought of herself as supreme, the pain

would have not been much.

More than that, this figure implies that the speaker views god as

incompetent judge of his own creation: she is indicating that god cannot even see

the true color of the sheep. To follow this to conclusion, it must be kept in mind

that (1) sheep seem to be white in color when looked at from a far-away distance,

and gray when looked at a close distance; and that (2) in the cosmos of the poem,

god exists but is far away; and finally that (3) the speaker is addressing god in the

poem. When at first she says “white sheep”, she is consenting to her own


74

imagining of god’s perception. She thinks because god is far away, he can only

see that the sheep is white. Accordingly, when she says “actually gray”, she is

correcting god. This sardonic condescension of the speaker reflects her view that

god is incapable of judging his own creation; that he is incapable of differentiating

which of the two (the speaker and the sheep) is the better creation. The speaker at

this point, of course, believes wholeheartedly that she is the better one.

The second figure is another correctio. It is, however, the polar opposite of

the first one. Used to describe the vegetation now, it first negatively modifies it

first only to elevate it immediately: “wild aster and chicory shining” (Glück, 1992:

38, line 18). “Wild”—as I have noted in my discussion on diction—is a negative

attribute in this particular context. However, it is followed immediately by the

elevation of “shining”. It works, therefore, to highlight the highly superior

position the vegetation has now in the speaker’s eyes.

The third figure is actually the last one to occur on the poem, but because it

is highly related to the above one, its discussion is moved here. On the last two

lines of the poem: “since you already know/ how like your raiment it is” (Glück,

1992: 38, line 19-20), occurs a simile, or an explicit comparison using preposition

such as “like” (Lanham, 1991: 140). What is compared to what is that of the

oceanic bed of flowers to the clothing of god. God here, the speaker implies,

wears a garment similar to that of the bed of flowers: bluish and moves as the

wind moves. Decidedly similar in effect to the correctio on the vegetation, this

simile suggests that the vegetation has been elevated by the speaker at the ending


75

of the poem to such a high position as to be comparable to god’s attribute itself,

corroborating one of the conclusions from my discussion on the poem’s imagery.

Meanwhile, going back to the first and second figure, there is a suggestive

possibility of a chiasmus-like device. A chiasmus usually occurs within a single

sentence, such as when Samuel Johnson remarks on a young author’s manuscript:

"[Yours] is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the

part that is original is not good" (Good : Original :: Original : Good) (in Lanham,

1991: 33). In the poem, however, not only does the chiasmus is of the attributes’

value (i.e. whether it is negative or positive modification of the creations), its two

components are also put so far apart: whereas the first component occurs in line 7-

8: “White sheep,/ actually gray”, the second occurs only ten lines later in line 18:

“wild aster and chicory shining”. Already noted before, the X-ing of the

attributes’ values (Positive : Negative :: Negative : Positive) on the animal and

vegetation serves to foreground clearly the change of attitude on the speaker’s

part.

Paradoxically, the completion of this chiasmus-like pattern seems to sit

uneasily with the incompletion of another seemingly similar one. I will return to

this after I present the following necessary explanation on the fourth and fifth

rhetorical devices. In the beginning of the poem, occurs another chiasmus-like

device, differing in nature from the one just discussed. This time, the X-ed

components are not the attribute values of vegetation and animal, but the words

denoting them. Consider the following:


76







actually gray:

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 2-8).

Here, consisting of “beasts”, “field” (associated closely with vegetation, both

in general, and also in poem), “flowers”, and “sheep”, the chiasmus-like

device is (Animal: Vegetation :: Vegetation : Animal). Note that neither the

word “field” (line 2) nor the words “wild chicory and aster” (line 4) are

considered to be in the device as they are not similar in syntactic nature to the

four words considered relevant: whereas the relevant words are all the heads

of their respective noun phrases, these two are not. “[F]ield” (line 2) is

attached to the word “beasts” (line 2) and “wild chicory and aster” (line 4) is

attached to the word “field” (line 3). In itself, this chiasmus-like device has not

much of significance other than binding the lines and justifying the first

sentence syntactical order, discussed fully on my section on syntactical

ordering. But it does not stand on itself.

At the end of the poem, there occurs the fifth rhetorical device: another

chiasmus-like device similar in nature with the fourth device. Unlike the fourth,

however, it is incomplete:


in favor of the field, the stoic lambs turning


(Glück, 1992: 23, line 16-18).


77

The device, involving “field”, “lambs”, and “aster and chicory”, is supposed to

be this way: (Vegetation: Animal :: Animal : Vegetation). In the actual,

however, the second animal component is missing: (Vegetation: Animal ::

[Missing] : Vegetation), so that the device is incomplete. Now, more than the

previous one, this device is insignificant—even useless—on its own. But when

it is combined with that previous one, they form an internal foregrounding

pattern: an expectation is built only to be broken later for a certain purpose.

Here, the expectation is the complete chiasmus-like device of the poem’s

beginning; whereas the breaking of expectation is the occurrence of the

incomplete one in the poem’s ending.

All these, to what purpose? It is used in the poem to signify the

speaker’s distraught as she intimated the painful possible answer to her own

question. In the second part of the poem, the speaker intimates two possible

answers for her question. The first possibility is that god gives her suffering so

that the speaker realizes her need for him, which the speaker thinks

unnecessary as she already realizes completely her need of god. The second

possibility, meanwhile, is that god gives suffering because he has abandoned

the speaker for his other more beautiful creations. When compared, through

the perspective of the speaker, the second one is worse than the first. The first

does not only put the blame on god (unnecessarily, suffering is given to make

her conscious), but it also gives speaker the chance to make up for it (she can

make it more clear to god that she realizes she need him). The second one, on

the contrary, leaves the speaker in a hopeless situation (if god finds the other


78

creations more beautiful, there is no way she can change god’s opinion).

Unfortunately for the speaker, it is this second possibility that rings a louder

bell in her. By showing, at the end of the poem, the speaker’s inability to make

another chiasmus—an elaborate device she successfully created in the poem’s

beginning—the poem demonstrates how the speaker has been affected

tremendously by her own answer. In other words, she is far too disturbed

mentally to make another chiasmus. (This observation is reinforced by a

similar inner logic in the matter of syntax: sentence construction and

lineation).

Now, returning to what I have called the paradoxical relation between

the two chiasmus-like devices making up the internal foregrounding and the

other chiasmus-like device discussed as the third rhetorical device, it is now

clear that they seem to be at odd with each other. If the internal foregrounding

depends upon incompletion to signify a significance, doesn’t it contradictory

that another chiasmus is proven to be complete at the vicinity of the

incomplete one? It is true that they are all chiasmus-like, but they are different

still. Their components are different: whereas the two chiasmus-like devices

making up the internal foregrounding consist of words denoting the other

creations (e.g. “field” and “beasts”), the other one consists of words denoting

the attribute values of those creations (e.g. “white” and “gray”). Their

components distributions too are different: whereas the components of former

cluster around a part (e.g. at the beginning or at the end), the components of

the later are distributed in both direction (i.e. both at the beginning and at the


79

end). Because of this categorical dissimilarity, therefore, it is not possible that

one contradicts the other.

Finally, as the last sixth device comes a verbal irony, or a figure of meaning

quite another from what is said (Lanham, 1991: 92). This common figure of

poetry takes place in the setting of line 11-14:

is pain


conscious in my need of you, as though

I must need you to worship you

(Glück, 1992: 38).

The irony here centers on the word “gift”. When read without considering its

complexities, it is very clear from the extract what logic the speaker attaches to

god: god gives pain so that the speaker would inevitably turn to him; also, god

thinks she would not worship him if she does not need him to soothe her pain.

However, “gift” in this context is a complex case, complicating this first level of

reading. The word first of all means an incredible present. Of all imaginable

variety of such thing, “pain” is certainly not included. A gift too is given without

any expectation of compensation on the giver’s part. The speaker, however, thinks

that the gift is for a purpose. There is then a twofold discrepancy of meanings

packed into this single verbal irony. In accordance to these discrepancies, the

verbal irony of the poem reveals two significances. One, the speaker thinks that

god is a kind of usurer who gives to get something in return. Two, that god might

err in his judgment about “pain”. God, the speaker seem seems to think, might

wrongly considers that pain is a pleasant thing for human being. The implication

of this, of course, is that god—probably because of his distance as in the case of


80

the sheep’s color—has committed a misjudgment at the expense of the speaker.

Taken together, these two significances reveals that in the eyes of the speaker god

is an imperfect creator: one who might err in judgment and who craves to be

worshipped. The verbal irony, to repeat, serves to reveal how the speaker

characterizes god. It is not at all unexpected for the poem to make such gesture.

On the whole, this is the general gesture found in the other prayer poems, such as

“Matins” (#2), “Matins” (#3), “Matins” (#5).

This characterization finally point to one last thing. It is possible that the

speaker at last comes up with that notion as result of her suffering and god’s

unwillingness to answer her. At first, the speaker might think that god is an

embodiment of all goodness, immune to the error of human being. After some

time, though, she experiences a disillusionment and realizes that god is very

similar to human being. This assertion is highly conjectural as the text does not

give a hinge to unmistakably support it: in the text, what we encounter is the

present characteristics of god with no hint to the earlier one. But neither do the

text contradicts this. What’s more: the text provides a parallel scenario to make it

seems a plausible assertion to make. As noted on my discussion on antecedent

scenario, at first the speaker optimistically hopes that the god will answer her

question, but when the answer never comes, she looks for it herself. She changes

from a person who waits to the person who acts. This parallel plot of

disillusionment makes this purely conjectural conclusion justifiable to be noted,

suggesting that such is the longing of the speaker that it changes her view of god.


81

9. Syntax: Sentence Construction and Lineation

There are four sentences in “Vespers” (#3)—as I have noted, distributed

into twenty lines. In all four sentence, the clauses are all in active construction,

except for the stative case in sentence two:

Active Passive

1st sentence [Y]ou love […]

I know […]

2nd sentence I have compared […]

I am uniquely suited

[…]

3rd sentence […] Why [do you] torment me?

4th sentence I study […]

[I]s pain your gift to make me […]

[H]ave you abandoned […]

These dominant active constructions points to the fact that the poem wants,

through this specific device, to emphasize the subject’s agency in each clause. As

I discuss also in the following section, it wants to stress the fact that ‘god loves’

more than that ‘who is loved’ as it wants to stress that the ‘speaker know’ more

that ‘what she knows’. Similarly, it wants the fact that “she has compared” and

that it is god “who torment her” get the emphasis instead of the alternatives “a

comparison has been carried out” and “I am tormented”. And the same is true for

the rest. Meanwhile, the sole passive construction is by no means disfiguring this

pattern as it is not an ordinary passive case. Semantically speaking, the


82

construction has no emphasis for agency as there is no agent/doer in a stative

construction.

Having dwell on the active-passive construction of the poem, I am moving

to the sentence distribution. In “Vespers (#3), this aspect is by no means a regular

one, but is purposeful nonetheless in its irregularity. The first and second sentence

can be fairly said to be similar in length: the first one consist of 29 words, while

the second 30 words, and each occupying more or less five lines. This similarity

made them structurally inconspicuous. The third and the second, on the other

hand, is the opposite case. They branch off into two ‘extreme’ directions: one is a

simple sentence occupying only two lines with only four words, whereas the other

is a complex sentence stretching for eleven lines with a cluster of 75 words. This

make them structurally conspicuous in the vicinity of the moderate previous

sentences. The two sentences, thus, are internally foregrounded, giving their

content a formal emphasis. This move is especially reasonable when noting that

the third sentence marks the pivotal moment between the first and the second

comparison the speaker does in the poem. In that moment, the speaker doubts all

over again the result of her previous observation and begins in a moment another

one. As for the fourth one, it is similarly sensible as it is at this point that the

speaker undergoes an epiphanic moment of faux understanding on the answer of

her own question. That this is the case is supported by the fact that a similar

technique of foregrounding occurs in one of the flower poems criticizing the

human speaker for her tendency to blame others for her own bad fortune,

“Witchgrass” (Glück, 1992: 22), in which the last sentence of confident


83

declaration is emphasized by writing it in the fewest words (five) and distributing

it to the shortest line (one) of the poem.

In addition, in “Witchgrass” (Glück, 1992: 22), the last line also received an

emphasis from its line construction: not only it is the only line making up a whole

stanza of its own, it is also the only line consisting of solely an independent

clause. In “Vespers” (#3) too, such aspect of syntactical emphasis is put to use. In

almost every line of the poem, an independent syntactic unit is either enjambed in

the middle or put side to side with another syntactic structure, making each line is

almost never occupied by an independent syntactical unit. Take, for example, line

1 to 5:


[Dependent clause] [Independent Clause]


[Independent Clause cont.] [Conjoined Phrase]


[Conjoined Phrase cont.] [Modifying Phrase]


[Modifying Phrase cont.]


[Independent Clause] [Independent Clause]

(Glück, 1992: 38).

This principle is followed almost completely, except in line 16 where the clause

“or have abandoned me” (Glück, 1992: 38) occupies a line of its own, suggesting

that this momentary lapse is purposeful. The purpose of which course—as with

the foregrounding in “Withcgrass” (Glück, 1992: 22)—is to stress more emphasis

on the content of that line: the speaker’s second alternative to the cause of her

suffering. Furthermore, the lapse similarly suggests that the speaker is distraught


84

as she intimates the second alternative, which is far worse than the first, as I have

noted in my discussion on rhetorical devices. That is why it is reasonable to

construe that after this point, the speaker starts her downward escalation into

despair as she details in the next lines the superior favored beauty of the other

creations. At the same time as these significances, finally, this principle of

lineation justifies “Vespers” (#3) demand to be read as a poem. In other words, it

could not have written as a prose without losing its present significances.

It must not be forgotten, however, that in the final analysis, the speaker is by

no means thoroughly sure of the first or even the second alternatives. Noted

briefly my section on denotation, the sentence construction of the clauses in

sentence four indicates the element of doubt in the speaker. Rather than using

statement form (S + V), which would indicates certainty; it contends itself to the

use of the question form (V + S), suggesting uncertainty. It is from here I can

conclude the speaker has not made up her mind on why god torments her. Her

longing to know the cause of her suffering, thus, until the poem ends, remains.

And as at the last moment her tentative conclusion is anchored at the second

alternative, receiving the more syntactical emphasis, her longing thus is

complicated with the desperation of being inferior and abandoned.

10. Syntax: Ordering

One element in the discussion of poetic syntax is the ordering of syntactical

elements in a poem: in such discussion, the question of how significance the

present ordering of the poem to its content is being asked. Often time, in

supporting this significance, the alternative ordering of the poem which the poet


85

could have chosen without changing much of the basic content is also provided.

Here, therefore, I discuss the present ordering of “Vespers” (#3) while

incorporating the other possible ordering to support my argument.

Since “Vespers” (#3) is a temporal poem (then, now, later), not a spatial one

such as George Herbert’s “Prayer” (1907: 51) (is A, is B, is C), there can be no

alternative ordering of “Vespers” (#3) in the level of sentence without a

significant change in the level of its basic content. Note for example, if the poem’s

sentences were inverted: Sentence 1, Sentence 2, Sentence 3, Sentence 4

Sentence 4, Sentence 3, Sentence 2, Sentence 1, the poem would have

transformed altogether. Instead of two comparisons, there would have been only

one left as the implied first is now lost after being put in second. As for longing,

though still there, it would have been resolved at the end of the poem with a

definitive conviction by the speaker. Sentence ordering, therefore, is not discussed

in my study.

Next comes clause ordering. In the first sentence of the poem, there are

three clauses: two independent one connected with a colon standing for ‘it is this

that’ and one dependent one connected to its subordinator with the conjunction

‘more than’. Let me begin with the independent clauses, whose alternative

ordering is as follows:

I know: more than you love me, very possibly

[Independent Clause] [Dependent Clause] [Independent Clause]


[Independent Clause cont.]




86

with wild chicory and aster.


(Glück, 1992: 38, line 1-4).

Though still retaining the basic content of the lines, this ordering is not chosen

nonetheless. The most likely reason for this is because it would have eliminated

the emphasis received by the dependent clause, both in placement and rhythm,

making the information that there is other entities god loves more than the speaker

less prioritized. Instead, the clause receiving emphasis is the first (“I know”) and

the third (“Very possibly”). For the second clause, this annulling effect chiefly

comes from the fact the subordinated clause is put in the middle of two

independent clauses, to the effect that, following its name, it is subordinated.

Furthermore, the unmistakable emphasis put on the first clause by its short form

and opening position, leaves no emphasis for the second clause as it stands rightly

next to it.

On the contrary, with the present ordering, not only the dependent clause

receives emphasis from its heady opening rhythm (discussed in its corresponding

section), but also from its opening position which compensates for its subordinate

syntactical status. Meanwhile, “I know”, whose emphasis comes from the sudden

change from the long and winding previous independent clause to its short and

sudden two-syllable clause gives this later an emphatic effect, can similarly retain

its emphasis without sacrificing the emphasis of the dependent clause as it is put

not side by side. In short, with the present ordering, that she knows and what it is

that she knows are made important.


87

Another alternative ordering of the first sentence is when the dependent

clause attached to the first independent one is changed as follows:

Very possibly you love the beasts of the field, even,

[Independent Clause]



with wild chicory and aster


more than you love me.

[Dependent Clause]

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 1-4).

Here, it is clear that the emphasis shifts from that-god-loves-something-more-

than-the-speaker to what-god-loves as the independent clause is given the

privileging position of an opening. The dependent clause, meanwhile, is given no

emphasis whatsoever.

The poem’s insistence to put emphasis on the fact that god loves something

more than the speaker and that the speaker knows this, seen in the above

discussion, begs the question of why it must be so. The answer, it turns out, comes

from the fact the poem needs a credible springboard to leap to the second sentence

wherein the speaker challenges god decision to love the other creations.

Emphasizing the speaker knows god loves something more than her provides such

a credible springboard.

In the second sentence, there are two independent clauses—as in the first

sentence—connected with a colon, in this case meaning ‘from this I conclude’.

The alternative ordering is as follows:


88

I am uniquely suited


to praise you: I have compared myself

[Independent Clause cont.] [Independent Clause]

to those flowers, their range of feeling […]


(Glück, 1992: 38, line 5-9).

By contrasting this alternative ordering with the present one, it is clear that the

effect of the later is the enactment of inductive thinking process with its placement

of the individual details before the taking of a conclusion. On the contrary, the

alternative one enacts deductive thinking, in which the general theory comes

before the particular details. This choice perfectly suits the poem as inductive

thinking emphasizing the self-discovery nature of the conclusion. In a poem

which shows that god never answer a the speaker question though she yearns for

it, so that finally she conducts her own answer-seeking, it is only true to the poem

spirit that the independent nature of the process of the discovery is foregrounded.

In the third sentence, which is a simple sentence, there can be no alternative

ordering to be postulated in the level of clause. But nor can be any alternative

ordering in the level of phrase as it contains not a single multi-component phrase.

Therefore, I am moving directly to the last sentence. This most complex sentence

of all in the poem consists of three clauses. Two of which—as in the first and

second sentence—are connected with a colon, here roughly stands for ‘from this I

can ask’. Meanwhile, the other clause is in conjunction with one of these two,

using “or”. Let us look at these one by one.


89

On its most obvious level, the fourth sentence is divided into two main

components: the independent clause beginning with “I study” and the independent

clause beginning with “[I]s pain”, ending as the poem ends. This is the original

ordering. The alternative, in the meantime, is the inverted version:

[I]s pain


your gift to make me […]


I study the hawkweed,


the buttercup protected from the grazing herd


(Glück, 1992: 38, line 10-12).

Contrasting the two, the effect present in the present ordering but absent in the

alternative one is similar to the second sentence’s inductive thinking enactment:

the first one is the observation, the second the conclusion. In contrast, in the

alternative ordering, this logical flow is absent. Instead, there is—at the least—

disjunction by putting two causally unrelated matter side by side, foreshadowing a

post-poem scenarios, or—at the most—incomprehensibility. With the present

ordering, therefore, the poem stresses the individual effort the speaker has done to

satisfy her own longing. This is only fitting as in the fourth sentence the speaker is

re-observing again the other creations when her answer from the previous

observation has not satisfied her.

The two clauses joined with the conjunction “or” also has an alternative

ordering, and that is the inversion of the present one:


90

[H]ave you abandoned me




[…] or is pain




(Glück, 1992: 38, line 12-17).

Looking at this alternative ordering it is clear that what has changed is the

emphasis on the most likely answer. Spatially, the conjunction “or” distributes the

same emphasis on the two clauses: it is either this or that. Temporally, however,

the one after the conjunction receives the emphasis as the most likely answer: if it

is not that, then it is likely this. As Vendler (2010b: 92) has pointed out in the

context of imagery, among alternative choices, the latest one receives the temporal

emphasis. Here, then, between pain as a gift and god rational abandonment, the

speaker is more prone to believe that the latter is the cause of her suffering. This is

exactly similar to the emphasis it gets from sentence construction internal

foregrounding discussed in the previous section. As such, it shows the speaker’s

distraught at realizing that the probable reason for her suffering is god’s

abandonment in favor of the other, more beautiful, creations.

Now, comes ordering at phrasal level. In “Vespers” (#3), most alternative

ordering on this level have to do with other poetic features, both already passed

(rhetorical devices) or still to come (rhythm and rhyme). In relation to this, when

such cases happen, I discuss only the inevitable syntactical ordering which makes

that other features possible. For example, when a particular ordering makes a


91

particular rhyme possible, it is only that ordering which is discussed fully and not

the significance of the rhyme as this is discussed on its respective section.

The first of such case occurs in first clause of the first sentence. As noted, in

my section on rhetorical devices, the first sentence already initiates a chiasmus-

like device, binding the other creation with which the speaker compares herself to

in the beginning and at the end of the poem. Starting from the beasts and the field

with its chicory & aster, half of the structure is formed, waiting for completion:

(Animal : Vegetation :). However, if the ordering of the phrases were changed, it

would have mangled with this structure. Consider the following:

very possibly

you love the field […], in August dotted

[Noun Phrase]

with wild chicory and aster, even,

possibly, the beasts of the field:

[Noun Phrase]

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 1-4).

In such alternative ordering, the vegetation comes first, followed by the animals,

initiating a pattern of (Vegetation : Animal :). Per se, there is no problem with

this. Yet, when the next sentence is considered, it is obvious that the poem intends

to make a chiasmus-like device, which the alternative ordering would have

distorted.

Accordingly, the reason the phrases in the second sentence are ordered as

they are, is because they complete the structure initiated in the first sentence.

Adding again the flower component (“flower”) and then the animal component

(“white sheep”), the chiasmus-like device is finished in the second sentence:


92

(Animal : Vegetation :: Vegetation : Animal :). As in the first sentence, had the

second sentence were ordered differently as this:


to [the] white sheep, actually gray;

[Noun Phrase]

also to those flowers, their range of feeling

[Noun Phrase]

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 5-8).

the chiasmus like device would similarly be mangled. Here, an objection might be

raised on why the structure must be an ABBA, instead of a parallel ABAB. To

such objection the internal foregrounding purpose of the paired chiasmus-like

devices discussed in my section on rhetorical devices, of which this one is the first

half, is an adequate response. In relation to this, in the fourth sentence, comes

another chiasmus-like device. However, because it is used as an internal

foregrounding device by purposefully deviates the complete chiasmus in

beginning of the poem, the present chiasmus does not only reorder but also erase

one of its components. It is, in other words, an incomplete chiasmus: (Vegetation:

Animal :: [Missing] : Vegetation).

Yet, this chiasmus-like device is not the only ordering factor of this part.

The other one, an ordering feature important in itself, is needed by the poem to

show the escalating realization of the speaker on the beauty of the other creations

(the animal, the field and its vegetation) as she, paradoxically, experiences a down

escalation into despair, as I have noted in the significance of the lineation in the

previous section. The “field”, with no beautifying modifier, is the least beautiful

of the three. After this comes the “stoic lambs” with its radiant modifier, already


93

beautiful. But this is less compared with the richest of them, actually a revision to

the barren “field”: waves of flowers with its lustrous and oceanic beauty. In

summary, the present ordering comes into being as the poem needs the incomplete

chiasmus and the realization of the escalating beauty to be noticed.

Finally, there is another ordering important in itself in addition to the one

above. Occurring in the second sentence, it serves to shows the speaker’s

conviction on her superiority above the other creations by a subtle yet proud

intensification. The ordering of the phrases modifying “range of feeling” can be

alternatively put thus: “their range of feeling / [is] without issue and so much

smaller”. However, the ordering is not thus because it wouldn’t have the present

ordering’s intensification from “smaller” to “without”, signifying conviction of

superiority on the speaker. In other words, it has exactly the same logic and effect

as the correctio of “white” to “gray” discussed rhetorical devices section. To

further support this, a passage from Camille Paglia negative criticism on Marjorie

Garber’s book, in which she makes a point about Garber’s lack of substation can

serve as a corroborator:

The remarks about Madonna, attributed to another academic, are

fragmentary and distorted; the description of Michael Jackson doesn’t move

us beyond Entertainment Tonight; the passing sentences about Prince, about

whom Garber clearly knows nothing, are quotes from published sources.

The female illusionist Jim Bailey is barely mentioned, and the brilliant

Jimmy James not at all.

(1992: 99).

The movement from “fragmentary and distorted” to “doesn’t move us beyond” to

“the passing sentences” to “published sources” to “barely mentioned” and finally

to “not at all” points to the use of a similar technique of intensification. It is this

kind of technique which the above alternative ordering lacks. In fact, it gives an


94

altogether the polar opposite effect as it inverts the order, starting from nothing to

small. That is, instead of showing the speaker conviction, it would have altogether

suggested that the speaker is in doubt about her superiority at a point where it

weren’t supposed to. The present ordering, in short, is the poem’s best ordering.

11. The Rhythm of “Vespers” (#3)

“Vespers” (#3) is not written in any received rhythmic system. Its lines’

width vary irregularly so that both accentual-syllabic and purely-syllabic are not

possible:

More than you love me, ver y poss i bly

/ X | X / X || / X | / X X

you love the beasts of the field, e ven,

X / | X / | X X / || / X

poss i bly, the field it self, in Au gust dott ed

/ X X || X / | X / | X / X | / X

with wild chi co ry and as ter:

X / | / X X | X / X

I know. I have com pared my self

X / || X / | X / | X /

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 1-5).

In the excerpt, the first line is of one width (ten-syllable), the second is of another

(nine-syllable), and the next is yet of other (twelve-, eight-, and eight-syllable).

Nor does the poem written in purely accentual system as it varies in beats from

line to line. Consider the irregular beats of the above excerpt:

1st line 4 beats

2nd line 4 beats

3rd line 5 beats

4th line 3 beats

5th line 4 beats

What is left, then, is that “Vespers” (#3) is written in a free rhythmic

system. In Chapter II, I mention that Marjorie Perloff sees “Evolution”-‘s rhythm

as moving from a 25 lines of irregularity to two regular iambic hexameters lines


95

as its moves from problem-solving process to a fixed conclusion. Here, as the

highly wrought patterning clearly suggest, the irregularity of the lines mimics the

not yet fixed answer on the speaker’s part, the thread not yet unloosened, as the

regularity enacts the fixed answer, the thread loosened. “Vespers” (#3) too has a

parallel, though quite different, rhythmical inner logic. Similar to “Evolution”,

this logic is visible when the poem is scanned in accentual-syllabic perspective.

Consider the following summary of the poem’s scansion:

1st line trochee, amphibrach, trochee, dactyl

2nd line iamb, iamb, anapest, trochee

3rd line dactyl, iamb, iamb, amphimacer

4th line iamb, dactyl, amphibrach

5th line iamb, iamb, iamb, iamb.

6th line pyric, trochee, iamb, amphibrach

7th line pyric, trochee, anapest, trochee, trochee, anapest

8th line choriamb, pyric, amphibrach

9th line trochee, amphibrach, iamb

10th line dactyl, amphibrach, amphibrach

11th line iamb, pyric, amphibrach, pyric, amphimacer

12th line amphibrach, dactyl, iamb

13th line iamb, amphibrach

14th line trochee, anapest, iamb, iamb

15th line pyric, choriamb, pyric

16th line amphimacer, iamb, pyric


96

17th line amphibrach, anapest, anapest, trochee

18th line trochee, amphibrach, trochee, amphibrach, iamb, pyric,

trochee

19th line iamb, anapest, trochee, iamb, iamb

20th line iamb, amphibrach, pyric

As can clearly be seen, nineteen out of twenty lines of the poem are written very

irregularly, but line 5 stands out in its iambic tetrameter rhythmical regularity.

What, then, happens in line 5 so as to make it necessary for the poem to call

attention to it with its regular rhythm? It is in line for that the speaker starts

suspending her doubt, and begins the process of entering a state of full conviction.

As I have discussed in my treatment of the poem’s denotation, it is on this part

(second sentence) that the conviction is such so as manage to keep doubt away.

Like Graham’s “Evolution”, regular rhythm mimics this stability so as to make

the reader aware of the speaker’s inner state as well as to make a credible

presentation of that feeling.

Yet, unlike “Evolution”, in “Vespers” (#3) the stability is destabilized.

Immediately after, in line 6, the rhythm returns to its irregularity, signaling that

the speaker is now doubting her conviction again. That is, the irregularity, the

very indeterminacy of the rhythm can be seen as dramatizing a vital core of the

poem: the speaker’s indeterminacy on which of the possible reasons she has

comes up with is the actual reason for her suffering. Again, the rhythm contributes

greatly to makes the speaker’s feeling of longing to know very credibly and

powerfully presented.


97

The use of a major device such as rhythm to emphasis this element of doubt

is not without reason. I note in my discussion of connotation, imagery, and syntax,

that in sentence four, where the speaker comes up with two alternatives, she seems

to be quite sure of the second one. Anticipating this, lest the reader concludes that

the speaker has finally resolved her mind at the end, the poem shows through its

irregular rhythm, that it is not so. On the contrary, until the end of the poem, the

speaker is never really sure about the answer. Of course this is not surprising since

only god can actually answer the speaker’s question. Had he done so, the poem

would have been ended up with a closing regular rhythm similar to “Evolution”.

Returning for a moment to the point on the rhythmic stability of line 5, there

is consequently is a contradiction between the contribution of denotation and

rhythm. The denotation reveals that in all part of the second sentence the speaker

is in full conviction. The rhythm, on the other hand, reveals that it is not the whole

sentence, but only on when the speaker’s uttered “I have compared” as the next

part is immediately irregular again. To put it differently, in the former, the

conviction has a larger portion. What significance, then, to be gained from here?

Foremost of all, it modifies the portion of conviction on the speaker’s part. Instead

of half-to-half proportion, it is closer to the truth to say that it is one-third to two-

third proportion, so to speak. It also demonstrates how important it is to see the

totality of the poem’s formal feature as one type of form can modify, reinforces,

or contradicts meaningfully the contribution of another one.

To end the discussion on rhythm, there are two last things to note. One is the

musicality of such irregular rhythm as “Vespers” (#3). As is expected from a


98

poem with little rhythmic regularity, there is little to no pleasure offered to reader

in terms of rhythm. In other words, “Vespers” (#3) is not a particularly musical

poem. The second one is the rhythmic significances of the opening. The poem

starts headily with the thoracic “[m]ore than” (a falling-rhythm), a gesture which

gives a strong rhythmical emphasis when it is put in the beginning of a poem.

Now, a falling rhythm does not by itself gives emphasis: after all, in “Vespers”

(#3) there are other occurrences of falling rhythm which does not serve any

emphatic purpose, for instance in the trochaic “conscious”. However, when a

falling rhythm is put in the beginning of a poem, it gives a strong emphasis on the

content of that part. Consider the beginning of John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet 10”:

Batt er my heart, three-per soned God; for You

/ X | X / | X / | X / | X /

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend

X / | X / | / / | X / | X /

That I may rise and stand, o’er throw me^and bend

X / | X / | X / | X / | X /

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

X / | X / | / / | X / | X /

(2010: 554, line 1-4).

This unconventional Renaissance sonnet, written in an underlying iambic

pentameter basis, starts with a trochaic bang (/ X). The use of this device plunges

its reader into a bang right away as it mimics the sound a battering ram produces

when it is put to use on a castle gate, specifically on a midnight incursion. Thus,

the heady start rhythmically emphasizes the corresponding content. Similarly in

“Vespers” (#3), the trochaic beginning emphasizes its content, and that is the fact

that god loves another creation more, an emphasis already reinforced by the

poem’s syntax discussed in the previous section.


99

12. Rhyme

It is true that rhyme sometimes is the point of a poem, as in Stevens’

“Anecdote of the Jar”, noted in Chapter II; it is also true that sometimes it serves a

powerfully dramatic function, as in George Herbert’s “Denial”, noted by Wolosky

(2001: 158). Nevertheless, it is equally true that in some other times, rhyme serves

only its elemental functions as a musical and binding device, giving musical

pleasure, sense of choice inevitability, and a tool to ease reader’s memorization.

This, with different degree of validity for each rhyme type, is mostly the case in

“Vespers” (#3).

Consider first the ending rhymes of the poem. Occurring only two times: as

a full masculine rhyme in lines 13 & 16 and as a half rhyme in lines 17 & 18, the

ending rhymes of the poem is very slight. It gives, therefore, not much of a

musical pleasure. However, as a binding device it gives a significant sense of

‘belong-ness’ to the part it binds. In the full rhyme, the word “me” binds the

following line:


[…]


(Glück, 1992: 38, line 13-16).

Line 13—joined with the bits from line 12 (“Is pain”)—is the beginning of the

first alternative answers the speaker presents herself with. Line 16, predictably, is

the beginning of the second of the two answers. Hence, by binding the two lines

with a rhyme, the poem points to the parallel position the two line serves. The two

lines and what they are about, in short, belong together. This effect is similar to

the spatial one given by the conjunction “or” which points to the hierarchically


100

similar position between the first and the second alternative answers. It is,

however, the polar opposite to the effect given by the poem’s imagery, rhetorical

devices, and syntax which point to the fact that the speaker leans more to the

second answer. Again, the existence of these two forces in which one is more

visibly strong than the other does not merely point to the comingling of doubt and

conviction on the speaker’s part as expected, but also to the fact that it is the

second answer that the speaker believes more. In addition, the rhyme also serves

to help readers memorize this part of the poem as s/he will remember that there

occurs two similar words at the end of line 13 and 16.

Similar to the previous one, the half rhyme occurring in line 17 and 18 also

binds two similar entities: [I]n favor of the field, the stoic lambs turning/ silver in

twilight; waves of wild aster and chicory shining” (Glück, 1992: 38). This time,

however, the entities are not lines, but only the half-rhyming words themselves,

which is similar in nature to Dickinson’s perfect rhyming of “ground” and

“ground” noted in Chapter II. “[t]urning” in line 17—together with is complement

“silver”—is the verb signifying the beautiful quality of the other creations. This

exactly the case of the verb “shining” in the next line. If the full rhyme and half

rhyme are similar in nature, the effects are also similar: in the half rhyme, the

binding gives the two beautifying acts a sense of belong-ness, which in turn

contributes to the sense of poem’s inevitability in the relevant parts—it cannot be

written in any other way. Too, the recurrence of the sound /nɪŋ/ also acts to ease

reader’s memorization of these lines. In all cases of ending rhyme, therefore, the


101

functions served are to give musical pleasure as well as a sense of belong-ness,

point connection by linking two components, and to aid reader’s memorization.

In the case of internal rhyme too such functions are observable, even though

only to a lesser degree. In the poem, there are three cases of internal rhyme: one

legible, while the other two meaningful. The former one occurs in the second line:

“you love the beasts of the field, even,” (Glück, 1992: 38). Here, the word “love”

(/lʌv/) internally half-rhymes with the preposition “of” (/əv/). However, as I said,

this is negligible: it gives what is at best a very slight cadence, and nor is the

words linked have a significant connection. Compare this to a case of musically

significant internal rhyming such as this line from Hart Crane: “My word I

poured. But was it cognate, scored” (1946: 136, stanza 6, line 21), in which the

word “word” (/wɝːd/) internally half-rhymes with “poured” (/pɔːrd/) and “scored”

(/skɔːrd/), which in turn in a full internal rhyme with each other; and the

negligibility becomes quite obvious. All that can be said about “love” and “of” is

that their relationship is most likely incidental.

This is not the case with the later internal half rhyme of “silver” (/sɪl.vɚ/)

and “aster” (/æs.tɚ/) occurring in line 18: “silver in twilight; waves of wild aster

and chicory shining” (Glück, 1992: 38). Because this rhyme occurs in the line

accented words—similar to Crane’s line—their cadence is still noticeable even

though they are separated by a caesura or middle pause. Moreover, the line

significance also lies in its linking phonetically two already closely related words

(one being the part of the animal, whereas the other the vegetation), thus,


102

reinforcing the belong-ness of the two creations. In addition too, this link aids the

reader’s memorization of the line.

Negligibility is also not the case with the internal full rhyme of “blue” /bluː/

with its twin in line 19: “pale blue and deep blue, since you already know”

(Glück, 1992: 38). Nonetheless, it has an additional effect unlike the preceding

cases. Although it too gives musical pleasure as well binding effect (aster and

chicory linked by their mutual modifier: “blue”), the repetition of the word forces

the reader to pronounce—at least silently—the consonant /l/ twice. This physical

act gives the reader a direct sensual pleasure. As M. H. Abrams (2012: 1-29)

implies, reader derives physical pleasure (“tactile sensation”) in enunciating

certain consonants in two occasions: one is when the enunciation dramatizes the

content of a poem as the continuant /w/ performs the windy content of Percy B.

Shelly’s “O, wild West Wind” or William Shakespeare’s “Blow, blow, thy winter

wind,”; and two, when the consonant itself gives direct sensual pleasure regardless

of its word meaning. This later is the case of the /l/ phoneme. Vladimir Nabokov’s

Lolita, as Abrams notes (2012: 1-2), has understood this well when it opens:

“Lolita light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the

tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three on the teeth”.

Thus, in pronouncing the word “blue” twice, the reader derives pleasure from the

phoneme /l/ as the tip of the tongue touches lightly the mouth’s palate. Add this to

the pleasure already given by the image of beauty described in the same part of

the poem, the two reinforces each other.


103

Meanwhile, the cases of alliteration and assonance are not so much different

in functions from the rhyme cases. The alliteration manifests three times, all quite

significant; whereas the assonance occurs five times, all insignificant. The first of

the alliteration occurs in line 6: “to those flowers, their range of feeling” (Glück,

1992: 38): the /f/ of “flowers” and “feeling” alliterates. Seen from its musicality,

there is not much to it: set that line side to side with any line from this stanza from

Crane and it is instantly obvious:

O harp and altar, of the fury fused,

(How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!)

Terrific threshold of the prophet's pledge,

Prayer of pariah, and the lover's cry,—

(1946: 4, stanza 8, line 32-36).

However, the three cases of alliteration does not serve only musical purpose. The

/f/ of “flowers” and “feeling” links the two words phonetically to emphasize their

syntactic link: feeling is attributed to the flowers. Vendler (2010b: 153) has noted

a parallel case when she points out that Robert Frost‘s line “When I see birches

bend to left and right” links the syntactically related “birches” and “bend” by a

phonetic mean. The next alliteration occurs in line 12: “by being poisonous: is

pain” (Glück, 1992: 38), the /p/ of “poisonous” and “pain” links the two

phonetically as they are also links semantically: poison causes pain. The phonetic

link, therefore, reinforces this sematic one. Finally, the fourth alliteration in

“Vespers” (#3) occurs in line 17: “in favor of the field, the stoic lambs turning”

(Glück, 1992: 38). Here, the /f/ of “favor” and “field” links the two phonetically,

and as in as in the first case of alliteration, reinforcing their syntactic link: among

the favored entities is the field together with its vegetation.


104

In the meantime, the assonances—all negligible—occur in line 2, 3, 7, and

18. In line 3: “possibly, the field itself, in August dotted” (Glück, 1992: 38), the

most musical of all, the vowel /ɑː/ is repeated three times in “possibly”, “August”

and “dotted”. And for comparison sake, here is also line 18: “silver in twilight;

waves of wild aster and chicory shining” (Glück, 1992: 38) wherein the segments

/ɪ/ and /aɪ/ are repeated twice each. At best, what these vowel plays serve is to

give a slight cadence to the line, especially in the closely neighboring words of

line 3. Slight because when such cases are juxtaposed to the assonance of John

Keats noted in Chapter II, it is obvious that the assonances are insignificant. In

“Vespers” (3), the assonance are—for the most part—not put tightly together. In

the line 3 for example, after the word “possibly” there interrupting one irrelevant

accented word, resulting on the echo of vowel /ɑː/ dying out before it is later

picked up again in the accented “August”. In contrast, in Keats’s line, the

assonance are marked due to its tight positioning. In the second line for example,

there is no interrupting accented word: right after “child” comes “silence” and

then “time”. With such case as this, the reader cannot fail to notice the repeated

diphthong /aɪ/. Marked-ness is especially important for sound play because for it

to serve other functions, it must be musically noticeable in the first place.

Having arrived here, bearing in my discussion of the poem’s rhythm also, it

is arguably fair to say that “Vespers” (#3) is not a particularly musical poem.

Neither the ending nor the internal rhyme; and neither the alliteration nor the

assonance give abundant pleasure to the ears. This is not a surprising observation

at all: Glück, to speak generally, is not a particularly musical poet. That being


105

said, “Vespers” (#3), in its linking both closely related components, in its giving a

sense of the inevitability, in its aiding reader’s memorization, shows its effort to

employ this form called rhyme nevertheless.

13. Stanza Form: Free Verse

As free verse has become the new convention, it is probable that “Vespers”

(3)—or The Wild Iris, for that matter—might be written in free verse simply

because everybody else is writing in this form too. However, several points in

“Vespers” (#3) can be used to argue against such view. First of all, the free verse

poem allows the rhythm, as has been discussed in my section on rhythm, to mimic

the inconsistency of conviction on the speaker’s part. Having a prescribed form

would have to entail a regularity of rhythm so as the poem would lose its

rhythmical emphasis. Secondly, as the free verse poem ‘endorses’ the aleatory

view of universe, like Vendler (2010b: 667) notes, in which fate or any god

distributing predetermined fate to every creature is denied a place, the free verse

poem expresses the pessimistic attitude of the speaker towards the existence of

god, which is only implicitly found in the content of “Vesper” (#3) when she

finally decided to find for the answer herself. As such, the stanza form joins the

poem to the other poems in the prayer sequence, many of them are highly

skeptical of the god existence. Good examples of this group are “Matins” (#2) are

“Vespers” (1#). Were “Vespers” (#3) written in a received form, the implicit

endorsement of predetermined world, and thus god, would have gone against the

overall nuance of prayer sequence.


106

14. Intertextuality: The Wild Iris

The Wild Iris echoes and incorporates various western literary heritages

(Morris, 2006: 198). Most prominent is its borrowing from “Job” the general

structuring device. In the poetic section of Job’s story (Book 3 – Book 42), the

overarching structure is the debate between Job, the titular character; his four

‘friends’, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, & later, Elihu; and God. Adopting this, The

Wild Iris transposes it into a parallel structure: the human speaker of the prayer

poems becomes Job, the friends become the speaking flowers, and the majestic

God becomes the more anthropomorphized god. Furthermore, in Chapter 38 of

“Job”, God speaks through a whirlwind, an ephemeral natural phenomenon.

Adopting this, The Wild Iris has its god speaks, as noted first by David Morris

(2006: 202, n20), through such phenomena as “Clear Morning”, “Spring Snow”,

“End of Winter”, “Retreating Wind”, “Sunset”, and others, making clear the traces

of “Job”-‘s influence to the book.

In addition to these formal parallelism, the two also resembles each other in

two general content-related matter. The first is of the two is that both in “Job” and

in The Wild Iris, the speeches of the second and third interlocutors are full of

reprove to the first speaker. In “Job”, the hero, in agreement with the authoritative

narrator of the framing prose sections and God himself, believes in his complete

innocence prior to his suffering: his suffering is not the result of any wickedness.

On the contrary, the hero’s friends contend that Job’s suffering comes because of

his sin. In their deuteronomistic world view of cosmic retributive justice, as

Christina Hayes (2012) has argued, the friends have taken suffering as a proof of


107

sin. Believing firmly on this notion, Hayes further explains, the friends grows

from delivering only implicit judgment as in Eliphaz the Temanite’s “Remember,

I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut

off?” (King James Version, Job. 4. 7.) to an ever increasing bluntness and

antagonism as in Zophar the Naamathite’s “Know therefore that God exacteth of

thee less than thine iniquity deserveth” (King James Version, Job. 11. 6.).

Furthermore, on a different matter, God too delivers an admonition to Job who

has come to the belief that God is an incompetent organizer of the world because

He lets the innocence suffers. In a long-winding series of rhetorical questions

(King James Version, Job. 38-39.), God implies that human understanding cannot

possibly measure up to His, and therefore Job should not have the impudence to

direct such accusation out of ignorance to Him. Correspondingly, in The Wild Iris,

the majority of the flower poems and a great number of the god’s poems are

basically reproaches to the human speaker: “Witchgrass” on the human speaker’s

tendency to blame others for her haplessness, “Field Flowers” on her desire for

immortality, “Daisies” on human being self-denying condescension to the natural

world are examples of the flowers critique. Meanwhile, “End of Winter” on the

human speaker’s ignorance that her alienation from god is the result of her own

choice, “Retreating Wind” on her desire to live a circular life like the plants, and

“April” on her ignorance of human grief’s raison d’etre serve as examples of

god’s critique.

The second way The Wild Iris echoes “Job”-‘s content is in its

representation of human soul longing to know the reason for his/her suffering. In


108

“Job”, triggered by Satan, God lets Job suffers a series of terrible losses: first his

livestock and his servants to robbers, then his sons and daughters to natural

catastrophe. Added to these, finally, is his “bone and […] flesh” to a ghastly

illness (King James Version, Job. 2.). The reader knows why: God wants to test

Job, proving to the Satan how exemplary servant he is; but Job knows not. After a

week of silence accompanied by his friends, Job laments his fate in a prolonged

series of exhortation, cursing the day he was born, and series rhetorical questions,

expressing his dismay at getting the undeserved suffering. After this, as the

dialogue between Job and his friends proceeds, the hero’s insistence on his

innocence together with his longing to know why he suffers becomes more and

more visible. Of which, the later one finally culminates in his direct call to God to

answer him: “Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire is, that the Almighty

would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book” (King James

Version, Job. 31. 35). This is even clearer in the New International Version: “Oh,

that I had someone to hear me! I sign now my defense—let the Almighty answer

me; let my accuser put his indictment in writing” (New International Version, Job.

31. 35)

15. Intertextuality: “Vespers” (#3)

In The Wild Iris, a similar feeling of longing as discussed in the previous

section can be noticed in some of the prayer poems, as Morris has noted (2006:

193). Especially in “Vespers” (#3), the specific object of my research, the

resemblance is striking. Though less concrete, in the poem as in “Job”, the

speaker is suffering. Moreover, as in Job, the speaker of the poem also longs


109

desperately to know why she is suffering. Add these together, the reader knows

that they have a very similar bleak longing. However, there is a relevant and no

less striking difference between the two. In the “Job”, God finally answers Job

directly, whereas in “Vespers” (#3), a speaking whirlwind never comes. What this

means is that Job gets the answer he longs for, and that is the fact that in the world

there is neither existing, nor supposed to be existing, a retributive justice system,

as Hayes (2012) noted. The speaker of the poem, on the contrary, is left in

uncertainty. In this sense, then, the speaker of the poem is at a more disadvantage

position.

To a lesser degree, not least because the absence of any suffering, “Genesis”

is also echoed in content-related respect by “Vespers” (#3). As with Job, the

speaker of “Vespers” (#3) longs to know something. A feeling, as Glück (1994:

34) has noted, which resembles hunger in that it cannot be ignored for long until it

is satisfied. As it happens, this feeling has frequently been revisited in the western

literary tradition. The oldest known work depicting the same feeling is “Genesis

3” (520–515 BCE (Stevenson, 2010: 533)). In that story, God has finished

creating the universe, Adam/Eve, and other creatures, including a tree of

knowledge of good & evil and a mischievous snake. In addition, He has told

Adam, who later tells Eve, not to eat the one forbidden fruit of the garden. Now,

the cunning serpent approaches Eve, who receives the warning only second-

handedly, bringing to boil the thought of the forbidden fruit on her mind. For

sometimes before the infamous incident, it is probable that Eve has been

wondering about the fruit, but does not act on her desire as Adam’s words still has


110

a preventive power on her. Only when the snake tempts her cunningly, misquoting

God by intention (“Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden” (King James

Version. Genesis. 3.1), telling her that the fruit will open their eyes and makes

them as God who knows good and evil, showing her that “the tree was good for

food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes”; that Eve acts on what has become a

longing to know what the fruit of the tree tastes like and what will it make her be.

A hunger to know is also a major force in “Genesis 19”, which tells the

story of Lot, his wife & children, and the destruction of city of Sodom. God wants

to save his servants from the despicable cities, thus he sends a pair of angels to

visit Lot’s house in human guise, telling Lot to take his family and leave the city

first thing in the morning. Specifically added to this command, is that they are not

to look back while hurrying away. “[Yet] his wife looked back from behind him,

and she became a pillar of salt” (King James Version. Genesis. 19.26). Many

modern poets have complicated the reason for her turning back, but one of the

most probable reasons is that she has a hunger to know that which is forbidden:

how does the destruction looks like, how is it done. On this respect, Lot’s wife of

“Genesis 19” resembles Eve of “Genesis 3” more than she resembles the speakers

of “Vespers” (#3) and “Job”. Having said that, they are, nonetheless, share the

same content-related element of depicting the feeling of longing to know.

In addition to this content-related echoes, there is an explicit formal

allusion. “Vespers” (#3), aside from taking advantage of the connotation of the

word “beasts”, markedly alludes to the diction of “Genesis 2-3” in King James

Version when it uses “the beasts of the field” in line 2 (Glück, 1992: 38) to refer


111

to the animals. It has been noted in Chapter II that Vendler sees in The Wild Iris a

revisiting of the myth of Eden. Furthermore, Morris also making the same point

when he writes “the morning and evening prayer […] resonates with the Jewish

Bible through the Garden story of paradise and explosion in Genesis” (2006: 193).

It is on this matter that the allusion works: together with details from the other

poems, “Vespers” (#3) summons up the setting of “Genesis 2-3”, and adapts it as

its own setting. Put differently, “Genesis 2-3” and poems from The Wild Iris,

including “Vespers” (#3), are two different dramas with a quite similar stage:

there are the animals as there are vegetation, the god, and the human. It must be

kept in mind, however, that though the poems’ garden resembles Eden, it is only

an earthy replica of that mythical garden. In “Matins” (#2), speaking in collective

“we”, the speaker says:

Unreachable father, when we were first

exiled from heaven, you made

a replica, a place in one sense

different from heaven, being

designed to teach a lesson: otherwise

the same—beauty on either side, beauty

without alternative—

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 1-7).

In this borrowing of setting, “Vespers” (#3)—or for that matter The Wild Iris—

achieves resonance within the western culture as it put to use a dominant part of

the collective imagination. In other words, it emphasizes the feeling depicted in

the poem as not a mere expression of an individual, but gives it a sense of general

importance.

Arriving here, I want to stress the fact that my study of “Vespers” (#3)

interaction with other literary works is by no means complete. There are probably


112

countless literary work in the whole chronology of western literary history that

can be read as having interaction with the poem. (An example not discussed in my

study is the resemblance of “Vespers” (#3) to the myth of Eros and Psyche in their

similar depiction of the hunger to know.) One thing that I hope to achieve here,

after all, is not an exhaustive study of western literary tradition in relation to

“Vespers” (#3), but an elaboration of the rather sketchy assertions of Morris and

Vendler, noted in Chapter II, on the poem relation to The Old Testament.


113

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

A. Conclusion

This study starts with the aim of explicating “Vespers” (#3) in all its aspects

as a poem: both its content as well as its various forms. In doing so, I hope to

account for most its significant details, left covered in dust by previous scholars

despite the fact that the poem occupies a quite central position in The Wild Iris,

both structurally and thematically.

At this point, I hope that my analysis has convincingly demonstrates—be it

in whole or in part—that “Vespers” (#3) is an expression of longing to know the

reason for the speaker’s suffering. This central thesis finds it proof first of all in

the easily perceivable content of the poem: the paraphrase which implies the

theme. As the analysis has demonstrated, moreover, it also finds its vehicle in the

complex interconnectedness of the various forms the poem has.

The forms both emphasize and extend the content of the poem. The title

locates the poem settings and ‘dramatist personae’. The tenses reveal the past

longing of the human speaker through the poem’s antecedent scenarios. The

denotation reveals the manifestation the speaker’s present longing in the

commingling of doubt and conviction. The poem’s general structure shows in full

picture how the poem’s parts fall into its places, making the discussion of the

parts more organized. The connotation together with the imagery, meanwhile,

show the human speaker’s desperation as she reevaluates her position in the


114

hierarchic ladder of creations. Additionally, aside from showing the change of

attitude on the human speaker, the choice of animals and vegetation also makes

that change of attitude believable. The rhetorical devices in several cases work in

the same way as the connotation and the imagery, but in some other cases work to

reveal how the speaker characterizes god. In addition, the rhetorical devices also

shows the speaker distraught at realizing the more likely possibility that god has

abandoned as well as pointing out the painful backstory the speaker might have

gone through before she arrives at her present condition. Meanwhile, the syntax,

covering sentence construction, lineation, and ordering, work mostly as devices of

emphasis, foregrounding certain necessary aspects to arrive at the poem’s

interpretation. Corollary to this, the discussion of syntax shows how as a free

verse poem, “Vespers” (#3) justifies its present ordering. Furthermore, the poem’s

rhythm fittingly enacts the instability of conviction on the speaker’s part through

its irregular free verse rhythm, aside from being a device of emphasis also in the

beginning. The rhythm, however, is not a significant musical device as its

irregularity bars any chance of rhythmic cadence. This is similarly the case with

the rhyme which is very scant in musicality. The rhyme, nonetheless, works to

emphasize connections between words while linking them together phonetically.

Meanwhile, the free verse stanza form of the poem, aside allowing the irregularity

of rhythm which reflects the content of the poem, joins it to the larger structure of

the prayer sequence as it endorses the aleatory view of the universe which implies

skepticism of the god existence. Finally, the discussion on intertextuality reveals

how “Vespers” (#3) is a part of a long history of western literary tradition in its


115

depiction of the longing to know. Moreover, in its echoing and borrowing from

major literary monuments, already deeply embedded in the consciousness of

western culture, the intertextuality emphasis the poem’s significance in its private

expression of longing.

As with the New Critics before her, Vendler espouses that there are so much

more to a poem than the immediately perceivable content. The formal elements,

too, are meaning-charged: they can emphasize, extend, or meaningfully contradict

the content. Working together, content and forms make an interconnected whole

which is the sum of the poem. “Vespers” (#3), with its longing speaker, is no

exception.

B. Suggestions

Helen Vendler (2010b: 340) writes, “[t]here may be a part of the poem that

you simply can’t fit into your overview. If so, admit it and go on.” Here, then, are

several of such parts in “Vespers” (#3). On my discussion of the poem’s phrasal

ordering, I have not yet found a convincing argument as to why the following

lines must be thus and not otherwise:

I study the hawkweed,


by being poisonous:

(Glück, 1992: 38, line 10-12).

Furthermore, my theoretical formulation of sound plays are rather limited.

Consequently, other possible sound effects found in the poems are likely be

overlooked. Next, even though I deem satisfactory on global scope, my discussion

on the poem’s rhythm in local scope is not yet so. Finally, in my discussion of the

poem’s intertextuality, I have not yet incorporated consideration of “Psalm”—one


116

of the chief inspirations of liturgical poems, the interaction between “Vespers”

(#3) with other works depicting theme of hunger to know, such as the “Myth of

Eros and Psyche”, as well as its dialogue with other similar evening prayer poems.

In addition to these, I have not been able also to trace the source of several

assumptions evident in the poem. For example, the one that of all values, god

favors beauty. These being said, I suggest that the subsequent researchers will

address these specific details in addition to evaluating details I have dealt with in

this study.


117

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abrams, M. H. The Fourth Dimensions of a Poem and Other Essays. New York:

W. W. Norton, 2012.

Abrams, M. H. and Geoffrey Galt Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 9th ed.

Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009.

——————————————————. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 10th

ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010.

“Array”. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. 2003.

Arp, Thomas R. and Greg Johnson. Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and

Sense. 10th ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009.

Azar, Betty Schrampfer. Understanding and Using English Grammar. 3rd ed. New

York: Pearson Education, 1999.

Barnet, Sylvan, William Burto, and William E. Cain. An Introduction to

Literature: Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 15th ed. New York:

Pearson/Longman, 2008.

“Beast”. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. 2003.

Brooks, Cleanth. “In Search of New Criticism”. The American Scholar. Vol. 53.

No. 1 (Winter, 1984): pp. 41-53.

——————–. The Well-Wrought Urn. New York: A Harvest Book / Harcourt,

Brace & World, Inc, 1947.

Brooks, Cleanth and Robert Penn Warren. Understanding Poetry. 3rd ed. New

York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960.

Butler, Marilyn. “Reconstructing Keats”. The Hudson Review, Vol. 37, No. 1

(Spring, 1984): pp. 143-150.

Chatman, Seymour. The Language of Poetry. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

Company, 1968.

Chiasson, Don. “The Body Artist”. The New Yorker. November 12, 2012: n.p. n.a.

(http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/11/12/the-body-artist). July 16,

2017.

Childs, Peter and Roger Fowler. The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms.

Oxon: Routledge, 2006.

Crane, Hart. The Collected Poems. New York: Liveright Publishing Company,

1946.


118

Cuddon. J. A. and M. H. R. Habib. A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary

Theory. Chichester: A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication, 2013.

Donne, John. The Complete Poems. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2010.

“Dot”. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. 2003.

Ferber, Michael. A Dictionary of Literary Symbols. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2007.

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams. An Introduction to

Language. 9th ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengange Learning, 2011.

Gardner, T. “Close Reading”. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.

4th ed. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2012.

“Gray”. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. 2003.

Gregerson, Linda. “The Sower against Garden” in Contemporary Poets. Ed.

Harold Bloom. New York: Bloom’s Literary Criticism, 2010.

Glück, Louise. The Wild Iris. New York: ecco, 1992.

––———–––. Proofs & Theories: Essays on Poetry. New York: ecco, 1994.

Gubar, Susan, Sandra M. Gilbert, Felicia Bonaparte, Camillie Paglia, and Helen

Vendler. "Feminism and Literature: An Exchange." New York Review of

Books. August 14, 1990: n.p. n.a.

(http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1990/08/16/feminism-and-literature-an-

exchange/). December 18, 2015.

Hayes, Christina. “Lecture 20. Responses to Suffering and Evil: Lamentations and

Wisdom Literature”. Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible).

Youtube. December 6, 2017.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxENRH-v0Xk). July 18, 2014.

Hollander, John. Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse. 4th ed. New Haven:

Yale University Press, 2014.

Hylen, Susan. Allusion and Meaning in John 6. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005.

Johnson, Samuel in Richard A. Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. 2nd ed.

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Jordan, Richard D. “Review”. The Modern Language Review. Vol. 73. No. 4

(October, 1978): pp. 881-883.

Kennedy, X. J. and Diana Gioia. An Introduction to Poetry. 10th ed. New York:

Longman, 2002.

“Lamb”. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. 2003.

Lanham, Richard A.. A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University

of California Press, 1991.


119

Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. “The Critic's Notebook; The 4 Deadly Fallacies,

Pathetic and Otherwise.” New York Times. June 9, 1986.

Levinson, Marjorie in Grant F. Scott. n.t. Criticism. Vol 33, No. 3 (Summer,

1991): pp. 408-410.

Lodge, David. The Art of Fiction. New York: Viking Penguin, 1993.

“Louise Glück”. Poetry Foundation. n.d.

(http://poetryfoundation.org/poets/louise-gluck) August 10, 2017.

Madden, Frank. Exploring Poetry. London: Longman, 2002.

Morris, Daniel. The Poetry of Louise Glück: A Thematic Introduction. Columbia:

University of Missouri Press, 2006.

Mun, Cyril Wong Yit. “From Ararat to Averno: an Analysis of Plot in Louise

Glück’s Poetry”. Thesis. Singapore: National University of Singapore,

2008.

Nadal, Bobbie Su. “Review”. Harvard Review. No. 3 (Winter, 1993): pp. 178-

179.

Paglia, Camillie. Sex, Art, and American Culture. New York: Vintage Books,

1992.

Perloff, Marjorie. Differentials: Poetry, Poetics, Pedagogy. Tuscaloosa: The

University of Alabama Press, 2004.

“President Obama to Award 2015 National Humanities Medals”. National

Endowment for the Humanities. September 13, 2016.

(https://www.neh.gov/news/press-release/2016-09-14). August 17, 2017.

Quinn, Edward. A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms. 2nd. New York:

Facts On File, Inc., 2006.

Ransom, John Crowe. “Critcism, Inc.”. Virgina Quarterly Review. Vol. 13. No. 4

(Autumn, 1937): n.p.

“Raiment”. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. 2003.

Robert, Edgar V and Henry E. Jacobs. Fiction: An Introduction to Reading and

Writing. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1987.

Ryan, Michael. An Introduction to Criticism: Film/Literature/Culture. West

Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

Schall, Joe. “Semicolons, Colons, and Dashes”. Effective Technical Writing in the

Information Age. John A. Dutton E-Education Institute. 2015.

(http://www.e-education.psu.edu/styleforstudents/c2_p5.html). April 20,

2017.

“Silver”. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. 2003.


120

“Shining”. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. 2003.

“Sheep”. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. 2003.

Stevens, Wallace. The Collected Poems. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971.

“Tenses”. Online Etymology Dictionary. n.p. n.d.

(http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tense). July 16, 2017.

The Holy Bible: King James Version. Bible Gateway. Web. July 18, 2017.

The Holy Bible: New International Version. Bible Gateway. Web. July 18, 2017.

Tyson, Lois. Using Critical Theory: How to Read and Write about Literature.

Oxon: Routledge, 2011.

Vendler, Helen. Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentary. Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 2010a.

——————. Invisible Listener. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005.

——————. Poems, Poets, Poetry: An Introduction and Anthology. 3rd ed.

Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010b.

——————. Seamus Heaney. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.

——————. Soul Says. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995a.

——————. The Art of Shakespeare Sonnets. Cambridge: Harvard University

Press, 1997.

——————. The Breaking of Style. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,

1995b.

——————. The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar. Cambridge: Harvard


——————. “The Booby Trap”. The New Republic. October 7, 1996.

——————. “Wallace Stevens: The Poet as Painter”. Interpretive Resources.

Art Institute of Chicago. October 18, 2007.

(http://www.artic.edu/aic/resources/resource/685?search_id=1). May 8,

2014.

“Vespers”. Online Etymology Dictionary. . n.p. n.d.

(http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=vesper). July 16, 2017.

Wales, Katie. A Dictionary of Stylistics. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2014.

“Wild”. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. 2003.

“White”. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. 2003.

Winter, Yvor. In Defence of Reason. 3rd ed. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

Ltd, 1947.


121

Wolosky, Shira. The Art of Poetry: How to Read a Poem. New York: Oxford


Yule, George. The Study of Language. 4th ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2010.


122

APPENDIX

“Vespers” (#3)









suited to praise you. Then why

torment me? I study the hawkweed,


by being poisonous: is pain


conscious in my need of you, as though

I must need you to worship you,




pale blue and deep blue, since you already know

how like your raiment it is.


Documents

THE LONGING SOUL IN “VESPERS” (#3) BY LOUISE GLÜCK · ii THE LONGING SOUL IN “VESPERS” (#3) BY LOUISE GLÜCK AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the