Michelangelo's Dusk and Dawn, Night and DayA Poem on Michelangelo’s Dusk and Dawn, Night and Day, by Margaret Coats The Society May 12, 2022 Beauty, Ekphrastic, Poetry 30 Comments . Moments in Marble from Michelangelo’s sculptures; above from left are depicted Dusk, Dawn, Night, and Day Day hustles up, impelled to humanize His world of work by wary energy, To make hours grow, outstripping blowzy noon, With muscles rippling out of royal rest Unneeded, once it ripens reasoned thought, The rich domain of daily enterprise. Impending potent Dusk can civilize His realm in time’s judicious sovereignty; Experience and expertise attune Well-earned success to pleasure self-possessed, Extending gains achieved by battles fought With fresh exertions forging friendships wise. Unconscious Night inclines to tranquilize Emotion’s aspirations, setting free A temper unrestrained to slip and swoon Into her brooding psyche shadow-tressed, Where unsuspected mysteries inwrought Anticipate dreams’ charming compromise. Dawn tempts the light foreseen to iridize Awakened earth into activity, And polish what past artistry has hewn, Through prime imagination, to be dressed In concepts coming moments will have caught As sweet and bitter vistas meet her eyes. . . Margaret Coats lives in California. She holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University. She has retired from a career of teaching literature, languages, and writing that included considerable work in homeschooling for her own family and others. NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. CODEC Stories:Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) 30 Responses John Detwiler May 12, 2022 That’s good. I appreciate the glory given to the four different aspects of man’s life, highlighting the good of each part. More still, the very last line shows that the poet is not ignorant of the dark parts of world. (Dark like sin and death, obviously, not like the God-created night.) I think that touch of bitterness transforms the poem from an interesting and charming exercise with an unusual rhyme scheme into a serious fount of meditation. Thank you! Reply Margaret Coats May 12, 2022 Thank you, John, for a perceptive analysis of the poem. I am glad you see the focus on promising potential in each portion of a life. I did mean the last line to be a rational outlook on the mixed possibilities each day can bring. You are right that day and night as God gives them are not flawed, but human failings can obstruct our efforts and test our resolve. Reply Mike Bryant May 12, 2022 Margaret, I’m sure that Michelangelo would appreciate your beautiful and thought-provoking tribute. I didn’t know about this work, but I’m glad you’ve highlighted it so fittingly. You have done it, and the sculptor, every justice. Reply Margaret Coats May 12, 2022 Thanks, Mike! As I was composing the poem, I found that the statue of Night already has a literary history. Giovanni Strozzi, a contemporary of Michelangelo, wrote a quatrain on it, and Michelangelo made a reply in verse. Much later, Baudelaire made Night the ultimate beauty in his sonnet, “L’Ideal.” But I don’t know of poems, other than mine, about all four sculptures. The Wikipedia article “Medici Chapel” has the other poems, as well as more views of all the sculpture. Reply R M Moore July 18, 2022 Dear Margaret, I was going to take my time in reading this. I am sorry for that. I should not have wished to miss the following, considering that I know of someone that identifies with it. : ”Unconscious Night inclines to tranquilize Emotion’s aspirations, setting free A temper unrestrained to slip and swoon Into her brooding psyche shadow-tressed, Where unsuspected mysteries inwrought Anticipate dreams’ charming compromise.” And I agree with Dr. Salemi on his choice of favorite words. Thank you! Margaret Coats August 5, 2022 Thank you for your comment! A poem about the Night statue shows that Michelangelo himself identified with it–though maybe not in the way I describe it. You can see his poem at the Wikipedia article “Medici Chapel.” And yet his life was full of daytime accomplishments. He didn’t sink into psychological torpor, but must have used that part of himself as a refreshingly creative storehouse. My interpretation of Night really needs to be considered as one of the four times we all cycle through repeatedly. Probably everyone has a preference for one aspect of passing time, but it’s impossible to stay there! And preferences may vary as we work through our ever-changing lives. Joseph S. Salemi May 12, 2022 This is a tour de force of sustained rhyme. Also, each six-line stanza is a complete sentence (with a compound sentence in the second stanza). That requires one helluva command of syntactical dexterity! My two favorite words here: “Inwrought” and “iridize.” Reply Margaret Coats May 12, 2022 One sentence-stanza per individual piece of sculpture seemed the right way to pay tribute to these works. The rhyme, sustained throughout the poem, brings them together as a group. I did think three times about using the rare word “iridize.” But speaking of dawn offers an opportunity to use it in its useful, natural meaning of causing all colors to appear. Thank you for your appreciation! Reply James A. Tweedie May 12, 2022 Margaret, I consider these works to be among the master’s finest and more than worthy of your poetic attention. I can affirm that they are even more impressive when seen up close and personal–as it true for all so-called “great art.” I suppose each of us might read a different psychological profile into each of the four divisions of the 24-hour day (or metaphorically, the span of our life–they are, after all, funeral decoration). But you have presented your own interpretation in both an artful and cogent manner. Well done! Out of curiosity, I would query the use of the word “it” in the first stanza where both the statue–and earlier in that same stanza–“Day” has been personified as “he.” (“Day” being my favorite statue of the four.) Reply Margaret Coats May 12, 2022 I am so glad you have been able to see these sculptures, James. The poem is a wishful-thinking tribute on my part. I would encourage anyone who’s interested to look at many online photos. These are masterpieces from all angles–and each angle opens up new ideas. My poem departs somewhat from Michelangelo, to whom these were pairs of statues for different Medici tombs. As you have noticed, I make them four parts of the day or of a life. In the first stanza, “it” refers back to “rest.” Rest is unneeded after sleep “ripens reasoned thought.” And reasoned thought is the “domain of daily enterprise,” while unreasoning dreams belong to night. I savor the dreams, but if I get enough good sleep, I happily find that my reasoning faculties are refreshed! Reply Cynthia Erlandson May 12, 2022 Such a creative rhyme scheme! And I love your personifications of each part of the day’s cycle. Reply Margaret Coats May 12, 2022 Thanks, Cynthia! The personality details come from looking at the faces and postures of the sculptures, but I didn’t want the poem to be dependent on seeing pictures of them. Thus I include symbolism of parts of the day as parts of a human life–and I am very pleased that the combination comes across as four vivid individuals. Reply Brian Yapko May 13, 2022 Margaret, what a wonderful poem! It is, in some ways, four separate ekphrastic poems – one for each sculpture, but inextricably intertwined into a unity. I love the intricacy of your language and the contrasts you give to each division of the day. But even more, I love the well planned structuring of your piece. First, as in Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel, you present two sets of sculptures. However, Michelangelo linked them as Day & Night and, separately, Dusk & Dawn. You, however, have recast the piece into Day, Dusk, Night and Dawn in order to lead the reader through an entire day. With that decision you’ve committed to presenting four movements in one piece, much like the movements in a symphony. (I’m especially reminded of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, although each of his seasons was in three parts. The cleverness of your chosen form is then vastly magnified by your rhyme scheme: a-b-c-d-e-a – with the same repeating rhymes in each stanza. This connects each stanza to the next in a deep way, yet the return to “a” at the end of each individual stanza creates a certain circularity – it takes us through something like a clock-cycle – from midnight to midnight as it were. I’m certain there’s more here to unpack but (ironically) time is calling me. Let me just say that Michelangelo’s work is a great favorite of mine and this is quite stunning work, Margaret! Reply Margaret Coats May 13, 2022 Thank you for everything you’ve said, Brian, and I hope time will call you back! You’ve approached the greater theme of Michelangelo’s work, as well as how the form of my poem considers it. I have a function word for what each of the sculptures does, beginning with “humanize” as what Day does to the inexorable flow of time with human work. Surely we see Michelangelo wanting to humanize time with these works of art, as he helps the Medici mourn the loss of family members whose time is at an end. As you remark, my poem cycles through time in 24 lines, the number of lines being the number of hours in a day. I had first chosen the muted rhyme scheme of abcdef, but found that I could make each stanza announce each quarter of the day more audibly by opening and closing with the same sound. Still, you will notice that the final “a” in each abcdea stanza is a noun or adjective, settling out the “a” verb at the beginning. I hope this provides an aural tension or space, comparable to the spatial tension the sculptures in the Medici Chapel have, with the two tombs across from one another. A visitor can see all four if he stands to the back or front of them, but can frontally face only two, and closely contemplate only one at a time. Reply Jeff Eardley May 13, 2022 Margaret, your wonderful poem has sent me back to our week spent in Florence in 2002 when we first saw these sculptures. Thank you for increasing my vocabulary with “inwrought” and “iridize.” I am no expert but I think that this is a very special piece indeed. Thank you. Reply Margaret Coats May 13, 2022 Jeff, I’m very happy that the poem can call up a 20-year-old memory of these superlative sculptural masterpieces and add something special to it. Thank you! Reply C.B. Anderson May 13, 2022 Wow! You’ve taken care of everything. This is the kind of very detailed and finely wrought poetry I really like to read. If Richard Wilbur were alive, he might have wished he had written it. Reply Margaret Coats May 13, 2022 Thank you for this great compliment on my sculpting! I like Wilbur’s “Praise in Summer” and “In the Smoking Car,” among others. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant May 14, 2022 Margaret, what fine example of accomplished poetry chock full of alliteration and allure. I particularly like: “outstripping blowzy noon, / With muscles rippling out of royal rest/ Unneeded, once it ripens reasoned thought… ” – a masterclass in literary splendor. Thank you for your constant inspiration! Reply Margaret Coats May 14, 2022 Thank you, Susan. We belong to the same school; I remember your “phlox and foxglove scene”! The Michelangelo statues appeal to different viewers in different ways, and I like the Dusk and Dawn pair better because they seem more relaxed. I had to re-write the Day stanza you quote because it was a lackluster workaday beginning. Therefore I’m pleased to hear that the new wording is a favorite to such a connoisseur as yourself! Reply James Sale May 15, 2022 A poem of massive artistry – perhaps, as Joe himself notes, its most accomplished aspect being syntactical. This is the most underrated and under-observed aspect of all great writing. As Winifred Nowottny noted: ‘…syntax is important to poet and critic because it produces strong effects by stealth; these remain ‘inexplicable’ so long as the power of syntax goes undetected.’ Exactly – but we have them here manifest. So well done – this is fabulous poetry – and let’s not forget the ingenious rhyming too. Great stuff. Reply Margaret Coats May 16, 2022 Thank you, James. I learned syntactic skills through long experience in close analytical reading of poetry. Even before I started writing much original poetry, I could always write an expository essay faster if the topic allowed for close analysis of grammar, vocabulary, imagery, and logic. When teaching poetry, close reading takes a great deal of time, but knowledge of this skill is essential for readers to fully appreciate the art. I’m glad to have your close reading approve my art! Reply James Sale May 16, 2022 Margaret – I certainly do approve! It is through syntax more than any other feature that the most subtle distinctions and utterances are embedded, albeit sometimes almost invisibly. The great master to whom we can all aspire in this is, of course, Milton – check out his syntax! But the trouble is, if we write in blank verse, we come under his Charybdian pull!!! I digress – that’s a topic for an essay – your poem is wonderful; thank you. Margaret Coats May 17, 2022 Never thought of studying Milton in order to imitate his syntax–but your Charybdis comment is intriguing! Have you found imitators (18th century, 19th century) who sank in the whirlpool? Or some great writer who learned Miltonic blank verse but made his way out? James Sale May 19, 2022 Ah!!! This is where one needs a big article to reply to your comment!!! Suffice to say, briefly, I think the greatest example of this from the early C19th is Keats: his first Hyperion fragment is outstanding, beginning Deep in the shady sadness of a vale … His Muse is on fire, but we find that as he progresses to the third unfinished canto, the Charybdian drag of Milton verse proves too powerful – he has to stop because his poetry is becoming too derivative and artificial; too Miltonic in a bad sense. But he picks up the threads again in his Revised Hyperion, sometimes called The Fall of Hyperion, beginning with the line, Fanatics have a dream whereby they weave a paradise for a sect … This is astonishingly ‘new’ writing and interesting he has been studying Dante by way of preparation. However, there are two problems: one, incorporating material he has already written, so that it ‘fits’, and two, he dies before we can see what he is really capable of. The latter problem is, of course, terminal and there is no way round it. But this is where we see clearly the whirlpool in operation. Actually, we see it too in the C18th whereby from Dryden onwards the poets default to heroic couplets precisely to avoid the power of Milton’s wash. It takes the Romantic revolution to again ask, what does it mean to write an epic, and how can that be done in blank verse? (Answer: it most likely can’t!) It should come as no surprise to you, therefore, given these deliberations, that my own attempt in HellWard to write an epic have used Dante as the model, not Milton, though I personally love Milton and PL. Margaret Coats May 19, 2022 James Sale, I see why you took Dante as a model, if so great a poet as Keats was overwhelmed by Milton. And why your son went to Spenser. I have no epic inclinations myself, thinking instead of a lyric sequence, should I want to treat a theme in an extended way. The sequence leaves out so much that it does not suit a narrative, although readers (and sometimes critics) try to find the story in the sequence. I suppose if we thought even earlier (Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon battle and sea and wandering narratives, and those on Biblical topics), we might come up with other fruitful ways to approach epic. Cynewulf and companions were certainly not afraid to take on divine and sublime material. But there would still be a need to employ a form potentially acceptable to modern readers. Thanks for your generosity in continuing this discussion. It seems you may have a book rather than an essay in mind. Reply Clare Tierney May 19, 2022 I like finishing the 24 hours by looking forward with Dawn. But I wonder if she also looks backward and then very far ahead. A little confusing. Reply Margaret Coats May 20, 2022 The time scheme in the Dawn stanza is complicated. She (1) looks forward to the day just beginning, (2) backward to past artistry that will be polished today, (3) far forward to useful concepts she “will have caught” as (4) vistas not yet known meet her eyes. Dawn is not just the start of a day, but an opportunity for carrying on the past in ways the immediate future will suggest. Day and Dusk and Night stand in comparable relations to the passage of time, but because of hopeful anticipation usually associated with Dawn, it seems more natural and beautiful to make a little sketch of how Time passes here. I’m glad you agree with Dawn ending these 24 hours of mine, and hope this explanation clarifies anything confusing! Reply Clare Tierney May 21, 2022 I would still like to ask about “will have caught,” meaning and how it fits in. Most of the verse is clearer now, thank you. Margaret Coats May 22, 2022 That is future perfect tense, meaning something that will be completely done at some time in the future! “Caught” is “received” or “understood,” as in “I get it!” The “coming moments” of the future do not yet understand what “concepts” or ideas will be caught as Dawn sees vistas of the new day. But when these are known, they can add to the already-known artistry of the past, by dressing older arts in these new concepts. Leave a Reply to Margaret Coats Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Captcha loading...In order to pass the CAPTCHA please enable JavaScript. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
John Detwiler May 12, 2022 That’s good. I appreciate the glory given to the four different aspects of man’s life, highlighting the good of each part. More still, the very last line shows that the poet is not ignorant of the dark parts of world. (Dark like sin and death, obviously, not like the God-created night.) I think that touch of bitterness transforms the poem from an interesting and charming exercise with an unusual rhyme scheme into a serious fount of meditation. Thank you! Reply
Margaret Coats May 12, 2022 Thank you, John, for a perceptive analysis of the poem. I am glad you see the focus on promising potential in each portion of a life. I did mean the last line to be a rational outlook on the mixed possibilities each day can bring. You are right that day and night as God gives them are not flawed, but human failings can obstruct our efforts and test our resolve. Reply
Mike Bryant May 12, 2022 Margaret, I’m sure that Michelangelo would appreciate your beautiful and thought-provoking tribute. I didn’t know about this work, but I’m glad you’ve highlighted it so fittingly. You have done it, and the sculptor, every justice. Reply
Margaret Coats May 12, 2022 Thanks, Mike! As I was composing the poem, I found that the statue of Night already has a literary history. Giovanni Strozzi, a contemporary of Michelangelo, wrote a quatrain on it, and Michelangelo made a reply in verse. Much later, Baudelaire made Night the ultimate beauty in his sonnet, “L’Ideal.” But I don’t know of poems, other than mine, about all four sculptures. The Wikipedia article “Medici Chapel” has the other poems, as well as more views of all the sculpture. Reply
R M Moore July 18, 2022 Dear Margaret, I was going to take my time in reading this. I am sorry for that. I should not have wished to miss the following, considering that I know of someone that identifies with it. : ”Unconscious Night inclines to tranquilize Emotion’s aspirations, setting free A temper unrestrained to slip and swoon Into her brooding psyche shadow-tressed, Where unsuspected mysteries inwrought Anticipate dreams’ charming compromise.” And I agree with Dr. Salemi on his choice of favorite words. Thank you!
Margaret Coats August 5, 2022 Thank you for your comment! A poem about the Night statue shows that Michelangelo himself identified with it–though maybe not in the way I describe it. You can see his poem at the Wikipedia article “Medici Chapel.” And yet his life was full of daytime accomplishments. He didn’t sink into psychological torpor, but must have used that part of himself as a refreshingly creative storehouse. My interpretation of Night really needs to be considered as one of the four times we all cycle through repeatedly. Probably everyone has a preference for one aspect of passing time, but it’s impossible to stay there! And preferences may vary as we work through our ever-changing lives.
Joseph S. Salemi May 12, 2022 This is a tour de force of sustained rhyme. Also, each six-line stanza is a complete sentence (with a compound sentence in the second stanza). That requires one helluva command of syntactical dexterity! My two favorite words here: “Inwrought” and “iridize.” Reply
Margaret Coats May 12, 2022 One sentence-stanza per individual piece of sculpture seemed the right way to pay tribute to these works. The rhyme, sustained throughout the poem, brings them together as a group. I did think three times about using the rare word “iridize.” But speaking of dawn offers an opportunity to use it in its useful, natural meaning of causing all colors to appear. Thank you for your appreciation! Reply
James A. Tweedie May 12, 2022 Margaret, I consider these works to be among the master’s finest and more than worthy of your poetic attention. I can affirm that they are even more impressive when seen up close and personal–as it true for all so-called “great art.” I suppose each of us might read a different psychological profile into each of the four divisions of the 24-hour day (or metaphorically, the span of our life–they are, after all, funeral decoration). But you have presented your own interpretation in both an artful and cogent manner. Well done! Out of curiosity, I would query the use of the word “it” in the first stanza where both the statue–and earlier in that same stanza–“Day” has been personified as “he.” (“Day” being my favorite statue of the four.) Reply
Margaret Coats May 12, 2022 I am so glad you have been able to see these sculptures, James. The poem is a wishful-thinking tribute on my part. I would encourage anyone who’s interested to look at many online photos. These are masterpieces from all angles–and each angle opens up new ideas. My poem departs somewhat from Michelangelo, to whom these were pairs of statues for different Medici tombs. As you have noticed, I make them four parts of the day or of a life. In the first stanza, “it” refers back to “rest.” Rest is unneeded after sleep “ripens reasoned thought.” And reasoned thought is the “domain of daily enterprise,” while unreasoning dreams belong to night. I savor the dreams, but if I get enough good sleep, I happily find that my reasoning faculties are refreshed! Reply
Cynthia Erlandson May 12, 2022 Such a creative rhyme scheme! And I love your personifications of each part of the day’s cycle. Reply
Margaret Coats May 12, 2022 Thanks, Cynthia! The personality details come from looking at the faces and postures of the sculptures, but I didn’t want the poem to be dependent on seeing pictures of them. Thus I include symbolism of parts of the day as parts of a human life–and I am very pleased that the combination comes across as four vivid individuals. Reply
Brian Yapko May 13, 2022 Margaret, what a wonderful poem! It is, in some ways, four separate ekphrastic poems – one for each sculpture, but inextricably intertwined into a unity. I love the intricacy of your language and the contrasts you give to each division of the day. But even more, I love the well planned structuring of your piece. First, as in Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel, you present two sets of sculptures. However, Michelangelo linked them as Day & Night and, separately, Dusk & Dawn. You, however, have recast the piece into Day, Dusk, Night and Dawn in order to lead the reader through an entire day. With that decision you’ve committed to presenting four movements in one piece, much like the movements in a symphony. (I’m especially reminded of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, although each of his seasons was in three parts. The cleverness of your chosen form is then vastly magnified by your rhyme scheme: a-b-c-d-e-a – with the same repeating rhymes in each stanza. This connects each stanza to the next in a deep way, yet the return to “a” at the end of each individual stanza creates a certain circularity – it takes us through something like a clock-cycle – from midnight to midnight as it were. I’m certain there’s more here to unpack but (ironically) time is calling me. Let me just say that Michelangelo’s work is a great favorite of mine and this is quite stunning work, Margaret! Reply
Margaret Coats May 13, 2022 Thank you for everything you’ve said, Brian, and I hope time will call you back! You’ve approached the greater theme of Michelangelo’s work, as well as how the form of my poem considers it. I have a function word for what each of the sculptures does, beginning with “humanize” as what Day does to the inexorable flow of time with human work. Surely we see Michelangelo wanting to humanize time with these works of art, as he helps the Medici mourn the loss of family members whose time is at an end. As you remark, my poem cycles through time in 24 lines, the number of lines being the number of hours in a day. I had first chosen the muted rhyme scheme of abcdef, but found that I could make each stanza announce each quarter of the day more audibly by opening and closing with the same sound. Still, you will notice that the final “a” in each abcdea stanza is a noun or adjective, settling out the “a” verb at the beginning. I hope this provides an aural tension or space, comparable to the spatial tension the sculptures in the Medici Chapel have, with the two tombs across from one another. A visitor can see all four if he stands to the back or front of them, but can frontally face only two, and closely contemplate only one at a time. Reply
Jeff Eardley May 13, 2022 Margaret, your wonderful poem has sent me back to our week spent in Florence in 2002 when we first saw these sculptures. Thank you for increasing my vocabulary with “inwrought” and “iridize.” I am no expert but I think that this is a very special piece indeed. Thank you. Reply
Margaret Coats May 13, 2022 Jeff, I’m very happy that the poem can call up a 20-year-old memory of these superlative sculptural masterpieces and add something special to it. Thank you! Reply
C.B. Anderson May 13, 2022 Wow! You’ve taken care of everything. This is the kind of very detailed and finely wrought poetry I really like to read. If Richard Wilbur were alive, he might have wished he had written it. Reply
Margaret Coats May 13, 2022 Thank you for this great compliment on my sculpting! I like Wilbur’s “Praise in Summer” and “In the Smoking Car,” among others. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant May 14, 2022 Margaret, what fine example of accomplished poetry chock full of alliteration and allure. I particularly like: “outstripping blowzy noon, / With muscles rippling out of royal rest/ Unneeded, once it ripens reasoned thought… ” – a masterclass in literary splendor. Thank you for your constant inspiration! Reply
Margaret Coats May 14, 2022 Thank you, Susan. We belong to the same school; I remember your “phlox and foxglove scene”! The Michelangelo statues appeal to different viewers in different ways, and I like the Dusk and Dawn pair better because they seem more relaxed. I had to re-write the Day stanza you quote because it was a lackluster workaday beginning. Therefore I’m pleased to hear that the new wording is a favorite to such a connoisseur as yourself! Reply
James Sale May 15, 2022 A poem of massive artistry – perhaps, as Joe himself notes, its most accomplished aspect being syntactical. This is the most underrated and under-observed aspect of all great writing. As Winifred Nowottny noted: ‘…syntax is important to poet and critic because it produces strong effects by stealth; these remain ‘inexplicable’ so long as the power of syntax goes undetected.’ Exactly – but we have them here manifest. So well done – this is fabulous poetry – and let’s not forget the ingenious rhyming too. Great stuff. Reply
Margaret Coats May 16, 2022 Thank you, James. I learned syntactic skills through long experience in close analytical reading of poetry. Even before I started writing much original poetry, I could always write an expository essay faster if the topic allowed for close analysis of grammar, vocabulary, imagery, and logic. When teaching poetry, close reading takes a great deal of time, but knowledge of this skill is essential for readers to fully appreciate the art. I’m glad to have your close reading approve my art! Reply
James Sale May 16, 2022 Margaret – I certainly do approve! It is through syntax more than any other feature that the most subtle distinctions and utterances are embedded, albeit sometimes almost invisibly. The great master to whom we can all aspire in this is, of course, Milton – check out his syntax! But the trouble is, if we write in blank verse, we come under his Charybdian pull!!! I digress – that’s a topic for an essay – your poem is wonderful; thank you.
Margaret Coats May 17, 2022 Never thought of studying Milton in order to imitate his syntax–but your Charybdis comment is intriguing! Have you found imitators (18th century, 19th century) who sank in the whirlpool? Or some great writer who learned Miltonic blank verse but made his way out?
James Sale May 19, 2022 Ah!!! This is where one needs a big article to reply to your comment!!! Suffice to say, briefly, I think the greatest example of this from the early C19th is Keats: his first Hyperion fragment is outstanding, beginning Deep in the shady sadness of a vale … His Muse is on fire, but we find that as he progresses to the third unfinished canto, the Charybdian drag of Milton verse proves too powerful – he has to stop because his poetry is becoming too derivative and artificial; too Miltonic in a bad sense. But he picks up the threads again in his Revised Hyperion, sometimes called The Fall of Hyperion, beginning with the line, Fanatics have a dream whereby they weave a paradise for a sect … This is astonishingly ‘new’ writing and interesting he has been studying Dante by way of preparation. However, there are two problems: one, incorporating material he has already written, so that it ‘fits’, and two, he dies before we can see what he is really capable of. The latter problem is, of course, terminal and there is no way round it. But this is where we see clearly the whirlpool in operation. Actually, we see it too in the C18th whereby from Dryden onwards the poets default to heroic couplets precisely to avoid the power of Milton’s wash. It takes the Romantic revolution to again ask, what does it mean to write an epic, and how can that be done in blank verse? (Answer: it most likely can’t!) It should come as no surprise to you, therefore, given these deliberations, that my own attempt in HellWard to write an epic have used Dante as the model, not Milton, though I personally love Milton and PL.
Margaret Coats May 19, 2022 James Sale, I see why you took Dante as a model, if so great a poet as Keats was overwhelmed by Milton. And why your son went to Spenser. I have no epic inclinations myself, thinking instead of a lyric sequence, should I want to treat a theme in an extended way. The sequence leaves out so much that it does not suit a narrative, although readers (and sometimes critics) try to find the story in the sequence. I suppose if we thought even earlier (Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon battle and sea and wandering narratives, and those on Biblical topics), we might come up with other fruitful ways to approach epic. Cynewulf and companions were certainly not afraid to take on divine and sublime material. But there would still be a need to employ a form potentially acceptable to modern readers. Thanks for your generosity in continuing this discussion. It seems you may have a book rather than an essay in mind. Reply
Clare Tierney May 19, 2022 I like finishing the 24 hours by looking forward with Dawn. But I wonder if she also looks backward and then very far ahead. A little confusing. Reply
Margaret Coats May 20, 2022 The time scheme in the Dawn stanza is complicated. She (1) looks forward to the day just beginning, (2) backward to past artistry that will be polished today, (3) far forward to useful concepts she “will have caught” as (4) vistas not yet known meet her eyes. Dawn is not just the start of a day, but an opportunity for carrying on the past in ways the immediate future will suggest. Day and Dusk and Night stand in comparable relations to the passage of time, but because of hopeful anticipation usually associated with Dawn, it seems more natural and beautiful to make a little sketch of how Time passes here. I’m glad you agree with Dawn ending these 24 hours of mine, and hope this explanation clarifies anything confusing! Reply
Clare Tierney May 21, 2022 I would still like to ask about “will have caught,” meaning and how it fits in. Most of the verse is clearer now, thank you.
Margaret Coats May 22, 2022 That is future perfect tense, meaning something that will be completely done at some time in the future! “Caught” is “received” or “understood,” as in “I get it!” The “coming moments” of the future do not yet understand what “concepts” or ideas will be caught as Dawn sees vistas of the new day. But when these are known, they can add to the already-known artistry of the past, by dressing older arts in these new concepts.
