Somewhere in my distant past (I am now old enough for much of my past to be distant . . .) I had read that Hardy turned to poetry because of the awful reception of _Jude_ . . . It was so reviled when it came out that he decided to quit that form and do poetry instead. Whatever his reason, I'm glad he did, as I enjoy his poetry much more than his prose. This poem, too, was on my must-teach list for Intro to Poetry -- fascinating imagery and juxtaposition of man and nature.
" A poem, by contrast, allows both poet and reader to stop in one place; it allows a relatively small field of concern to expand and accrue meaning without having to move in time.". Wonderfully succinct and the essence of the turn of the worm.
I've never liked the ending of this, Sally. My own fault, no doubt, but the Metaphysical Poets kind of play with "hemisphere" as "twin halves" is weakened for me by the punning meaning of England and America, in different global hemispheres, as both being jarred by the collision.
Is he invoking Blake's "Tyger" in IX, with the mortals' attempt at framing symmetry with welded steel dashed against the Immortal's hand and eye framing time and "welding ... history"?
Oh, that's interesting, and I didn't even think of it. I've been a little fixated, after the fact, on Frost's "Design" (though it wasn't written until 1922), and how "Convergence" (though it precedes Frost's poem by ten years) is like a large answer to the question that poem raises: "What if the universe really is this fixed?"
Somewhere in my distant past (I am now old enough for much of my past to be distant . . .) I had read that Hardy turned to poetry because of the awful reception of _Jude_ . . . It was so reviled when it came out that he decided to quit that form and do poetry instead. Whatever his reason, I'm glad he did, as I enjoy his poetry much more than his prose. This poem, too, was on my must-teach list for Intro to Poetry -- fascinating imagery and juxtaposition of man and nature.
Really like verse three.
" A poem, by contrast, allows both poet and reader to stop in one place; it allows a relatively small field of concern to expand and accrue meaning without having to move in time.". Wonderfully succinct and the essence of the turn of the worm.
I've never liked the ending of this, Sally. My own fault, no doubt, but the Metaphysical Poets kind of play with "hemisphere" as "twin halves" is weakened for me by the punning meaning of England and America, in different global hemispheres, as both being jarred by the collision.
Is he invoking Blake's "Tyger" in IX, with the mortals' attempt at framing symmetry with welded steel dashed against the Immortal's hand and eye framing time and "welding ... history"?
"Mortal eye" is striking enough that I think this could well be right, Justin.
Oh, that's interesting, and I didn't even think of it. I've been a little fixated, after the fact, on Frost's "Design" (though it wasn't written until 1922), and how "Convergence" (though it precedes Frost's poem by ten years) is like a large answer to the question that poem raises: "What if the universe really is this fixed?"
But yes, that allusion would be completely in keeping with this whole vision of human pride, as seen through the underwater lens of a terrible fall.
And not all the King's horses or all the King's men could put it together again.