Sometimes You Have to Give A Second Look

Sometimes You Have to Give  a Second Look /Moonstone

 

It would seem to me that the dated style of the prologue and some of the scrolling exposition in "The Moonstone," would be a major deterrent to a modern audience.  As readers, we are looking for a more interactive experience right away.  In fact, how often do you open a book these days and find a prologue and pages and pages of exposition? A modern audience expects the author to jump right into the action and give us the entrée, we aren’t looking for tapas, and to be frank, I suppose that we are a little spoiled. I appreciate the way that Hemingway left so much of his story telling to subtext.  You got so much of the story by what he wasn’t telling you.  No one likes to be beat over the head with exposition. Lol.  Modern readers want to skip right over the exposition and the rising action.  We want to jump in without dipping our toes in the water. We want to see a climax or something that hooks us right away.  As I read “The Moonstone” and plugged away through the somewhat dry and dragging out of numerous pages of exposition, I traversed a line of endearment and frustration. I had to fight with myself to give the prologue a chance and for that matter, to give old Gabriel Betteredge the opportunity to tell me a story; even if he had to digress here and there and mosey around to get to his point.  It is somewhat of an endearing trait because it seems honest.  If an elderly man were to tell you a story, he might stereotypically get sidetracked here and there making sure you have all the information and backstory you need to understand the current story he is trying to share with you.  In that respect, I found myself liking Betteredge and kind of laughing to myself about the crazy old timer who cannot seem to stay on point.  Mostly, I was feeling a little frustrated because, the constant veering off course from the main story was starting to feel a bit confusing.  It made me laugh when Betteredge’s daughter, Penelope, who is reading what he is writing, even tells her father to get to the point; to tell the story of the moonstone and not his own story.

 

After our class discussion, I thought to myself, why do my classmates see him as an endearing old man?  Weren’t they annoyed at how dry the first twenty pages were?  Luckily, being the diligent student that I am, I felt guilty for not seeing Betteredge as endearing and for being so annoyed with him.  I decided that I better read it again and that perhaps my modern expectation had tainted my first read.   After I reread the prologue and first chapters and found myself much less annoyed because I was able to pick up on the nuances and quirks in Betteredge’s personality and Wilkes actually uses documents (really creative, especially given the time and the lack of mystery novel prototype to follow) to feed us much of the exposition that as a reader, I will need to know if I am to follow the mystery of the moonstone.  However, the first go round when I had no idea what I was reading about, I felt mostly annoyed.  I wanted to tell Betteredge to stop beating around the bush and get to the point.  Rereading it made me appreciate it and enjoy it more.  It seems like “The Moonstone” will be one of those novels that gets better each time you read it because you pick up on something new each time that you hadn’t previously noticed or maybe even perhaps that on a second or third read, when the characters are concreted in your mind and the facts are easy to keep straight.  As the book continues, it gets considerably better to read by each turn of the page. I am not usually a mystery kind of girl, but despite my best efforts to dislike the novel, I am really enjoying it!

Wordsworth vs Coleridge

Wordsworth and Coleridge are so different in their belief system regarding poetry. I have a difficult time imagining how they ever got along. The duo of British romantic poets teamed up to write the lyrical ballads as an experiment to change the face of poetry and literature. Only four of the poems were written by Coleridge though and the text was dominated by Wordsworth. This seems fitting, knowing the fundamental difference and principle beliefs, regarding poetry, of the two men.

 

Coleridge says that in the beginning of the relationship between the two men, they would discuss “the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by modifying colours of the imagination.” A mutual respect and love of nature and the written word and its effect on human nature birthed the Lyrical Ballads, but Wordsworth’s poems geared towards nature and truth whereas Coleridge focused on the supernatural.  It is evident in “Biographia Literaria” that Coleridge had a vastly different opinion of poetry than Wordsworth. He said that Wordsworth’s approach of dumbing down the literature to be accessible to the masses was a sacrifice of quality of the poetry.  He says that “the language of these men is adopted . . . because from their rank in society, and the sameness and narrow circle o their intercourse, being less under the action of social vanity, they convey their feeling and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions” The lower class has no skill set to comprehend the beauty of language in poetry.  The poetic experience should be elevated, visceral and based on pleasure.

 

Contradictory to Colerdige, Wordsworth said that poetry should be understandable that it would serve the material and the audience best to be presented in “the very language of men.”  He says of his works in the lyrical ballads that “the reader will find that personification of abstract ideas rarely occur in these volumes; and, I hope, are utterly rejected as an ordinary device to elevate style, and raise it above prose.”  Elevating the language to a formal place and using poetic devises detract from the essential quality of a poem. Language should match the subject matter. It should be real. It should be about nature and centered on truth. It should be a way to let emotions out; a verbal expression of emotion. And who better to feel connected to the real suffering and truth of the world but the rural lower class. He says that men of low and rustic origin live in such a truth that “condition the essential passions of the heart and find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer more emphatic language.” By being of a lower class these men are in tune with suffering and truth in the world. Words worth says that in the lower class the “condition the passion of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.”  They have a more inherent ability to connect with true emotions. 



I find myself feeling an approval and appreciation for Wordsworth. He wants the whole world to feel connected through poetry, to read, connect and understand human nature through text that is accessible to all man is admirable and I think a version of truth itself.  A traditional paper might not give me the opportunity that this blog allows, my informal opinion: I think that stuffy, snobbish writers, like Coleridge, who believe the only way to achieve a great work is to elevate the language until the audience needs a decoder pen detract from the real beauty of what the written art of poetry has means to do.  What good is a brilliant piece of thought and reflection if the language is so elevated that the majority of men can’t share it and experience it?  By discriminating your audience, the writer is then limiting the idea; keeping it in a box and not sharing it with the world. Will the work transcend the small audience it is then intended for and make an impact on the world?

 

 Not to say, I can’t appreciate the craftsmanship, insight and talent it takes to craft a poem of such elevated skill level and master craftsmanship of poetic devises.  I love poetry and deconstructing it and finding the layers within.  As a writer, myself, I can greatly appreciate and admire such skill especially within the restricted parameters lent by the time period.  However, I say, hats off to Wordsworth!

Sonnets are beautiful but too ridgid

“On the Sonnet” by John Keats

If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness,
Let us find, if we must be constrain'd,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of Poetry:
Let us inspect the Lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd
By ear industrious, and attention meet;
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
She will be bound with garlands of her own.

                In “On the Sonnet” by John Keats, the rhyme scheme is not traditional.  It is a-b-c-a-b-d-c-a-b-c-d-e-f-g.  By playing with the rhyme scheme in a poem titled “On the Sonnet,” and keeping the form close to a sonnet, Keats accomplished two things in one piece.  He pays homage to the “loveliness” (3) of the form of the sonnet as well as challenging that its ridged structure denies a creative license to let the material dictate the form.  He points out the limitations of restricting a piece to a rigid form and to truly create works, form must be changed to suit the piece.  He is a writer speaking to not only readers of his time but also writers.  He himself is a poet living in a time where artistic expression was extremely limited to strict traditional forms and the material was about many ideas and concepts that are abstract and non-conformable.   If anything, these abstract ideas need more room to expand and be examined than the tight structure of the sonnet really allows. 

                Although John Keats appreciates the tradition of the “sonnet sweet” (2) and the beautiful expression or “pained loveliness” (3) that was birthed in the form of the sonnet, he argues the strict boundaries of the traditional form of the sonnet keep poetry confined.  The tradition of the sonnet, he implies, leaves little room for growth and expression in poetry.   Poetry was not meant to be restrained, like Andromeda who was shackled and bound to a rock, left to be swallowed by the sea.  Poetry by its very nature is creative and complex and should be innovative.  The English language and art of poetic expression is drastically limited by adhering to a strict form of rhyme scheme and meter.   To limit creative expression to a strict form, limits the poet from growing, changing and expressing ideas in new and interesting ways which is the very nature of poetry.  If poetry through the English language is not free to break the bounds of strict form it too will perish.  The analogy of finding “sandals more interwoven and complete/ to fit the naked foot of Poetry” (5, 6) is an interesting one.  Poets must be free to try no forms to express their views in the ever-changing world.    If we are “misers of sound and syllable,” (10) let our art meet a similar down fall to that of Midas.   If we don’t let the “muse be free,” (13) or the words be free to take their own form, the will be “bound by garlands of her own” or stifled.

                Keats strays from a traditional rhyme scheme of the sonnet while talking about the limitations of the sonnet and, while beautiful, stifles creativity and growth in art proving that beautiful poetry can be created while deviating from the strict boundaries set by the sonnet.  He does not discredit the sonnet by saying that it has not created beautiful timeless art, but does seem to express a desire for the limitations to be lifted to allow freedom of expression through form.