Re: "Adam's Curse," Yeats, Poetry and Self Knowledge"
by
Galatea
11/05/2009, 6:04 PM #
Artemesia:
I read a subtext in “Adam’s Curse,” in which the ‘love triangle’ is a metaphor for Yeats, our incomparable bard, writing a poem about poetry itself. The three characters begin here:
”We sat together at one summer's end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.”
The beautiful mild woman is the Muse he drew upon and loved in so many poems of his, but he is moving on into a new age. This old Muse, that beautiful mild woman, will be left behind, as she was poetry of decades past and not to be relevant as he foresees the coming decades.
The summer’s end and that beautiful mild woman are one. She is the Muse of those decades of poetry that “walked in beauty like the night,” ..she is chivalry, romanticism and the poetry of myth..”La belle dame sans merci,” etc…She is what was. When she speaks of ‘woman’ she speaks of woman as poetry when:
”That beautiful mild woman for whose sake
There's many a one shall find out all heartache
On finding that her voice is sweet and low
Replied, "To be born woman is to know—
Although they do not talk of it at school—
That we must labour to be beautiful."
Beauty was once an issue, a concern, a philosophy and very much part of the zeitgeist of 18th and 19th century poetry and art. Today, beauty is barely recognized as though the splinter of the literal was used to replace ‘beauty, music and cadence’ with a vengeance. In fact, I think that if Yeats’ poem “Adams Curse” ..unknown and submitted anonymously to 95% of today’s poetry journals, it would be rejected for being too iambic, too rhymed and either not clear enough, or not cryptic or ‘new’ enough.
Once upon a time, poets did ‘labour to be beautiful, ’ as the mild lady said. Then Yeats, the narrator repeats her sentiment in his own words:
”It's certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
Precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough."
The idle trade is poetry.
Then the narrator segues into time present about beauty, poetry, love:
”We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.”
Although poetry as they had known it is passing out of fashion, still, in the name of love..poetry, they saw the moon, separated from the imprint of love and poetry; he saw the moon as timekeeper, shorn and worn of its duties as the harbinger of love..
Then the narrator dares to acknowledge that he has changed just as his allegiance to his old Muse has waned, he no longer loves in the way of high romance. No longer can he fit his heart into the old forms, the old molds for chivalry and conditioned responses in life or in art. This poem ends on a threshold, a surrendering of the past that has depleted itself:
”I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.
For the narrator, (Yeats) love, creation and poetry are one. I think “Adam’s Curse,” is the curse of knowledge, self knowledge. In his art, the poet as bard, lives to define and embody love for the generation in which he appears.
A
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Hello Artemesia,
I enjoyed your critique very much and the comments the thread inspired.
It was a treat to find Yeats here via Pinsky.
I too am pleased to see your well deserved checkmark.
Glad I took a peek this week . . .
