A Poetics of Space:
Opening Up a World Through Vessel Metaphors in Modern and Contemporary Poetry
Lili Pariser
Candidate for Honors in English
DeSales Harrison, Thesis Advisor
Spring 2012
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A poetics of space with the nature of the object-metaphor, the interior and the exterior.
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A Poetics of Space:
Opening Up a World Through Vessel Metaphors in Modern and Contemporary Poetry Lili Pariser Candidate for Honors in English DeSales Harrison, Thesis Advisor Spring 2012
A Poetics of Space: Opening Up a World Through Vessel Metaphors in Modern and Contemporary Poetry It is pictures rather than propositions, metaphors rather than statements, which determine most of our philosophical convictions. ~Richard Rorty^1 To name an object more mundane, more stunningly utilitarian or plain than a jar or a bottle would be a challenge. When we consider those things that inspire creative expressions of poetry or painting, an object like a jar or bottle will never be the first or most insistent suggestion in our thoughts. And yet, there exists a strangely consistent fascination in modern and contemporary poetry with this image. From Wallace Stevens’ “jar [placed] in Tennessee,” to “That vase” of Philip Larkin or James Merrill’s “clear vase of dry leaves vibrating on and on,” even so far back in literary history as the shapely “Grecian Urn” of John Keats’ famous ode among numerous others, the genre is teeming with various forms of this kind of vessel. But why the lyrically profound focus on something so commonplace? In beginning our efforts to answer this question, let us take a brief look at one contemporary example of a vessel as it appears in a poetic context: the vase in James Merrill’s “A Renewal.” This poem will prove to be one of many in which there is something extraordinary going on with this object, and where the way that it is used is, in fact, far from commonplace. Consider the poem’s second and final stanza: […] You nod assent. Autumn turns windy, huge, A clear vase of dry leaves vibrating on and on. We sit, watching. When I next speak Love buries itself in me, up to the hilt.^2 (^1) Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1980. 12.
imaginative). The linguistic apparatus of metaphor itself is a construction that inherently embodies this same kind of movement. This is because metaphor is commonly thought of as a kind of “transference…in which a word or phrase is shifted from its normal uses to a context where it evokes new meanings.”^4 This transfer alludes to a sort of traveling through space, wherein the poles at either end of the trajectory are what make the metaphorical transfer of meaning possible. These two poles are 1) the “thing meant,” or the underlying meaning or subject of the metaphor (known technically as the tenor), and
- the “thing said” (the vehicle) which holds or expresses the tenor through the creation of that analogical transfer ( NPE 1268 ). Consider the example of Shakespeare’s famous metaphor, “All the world’s a stage,” in which “the world” is compared to “a stage.” The former (as the thing being described) is the tenor and the latter (the thing whose attributes are being borrowed) is the vehicle. According to literary critic and poet I. A. Richards, the “special powers of poetic metaphor [can be] credited to the way the v. [vehicle] brings with it, because it derives from an aspect of experience outside of or different from the literal experience in the poem, a host of implicit associations which, although circumscribed by the t. [tenor], are never quite shut out entirely” ( NPE 1268). With vessel object-metaphors, these “implicit associations” involve space. Accordingly, its “special powers” come from both its nature as a metaphor that participates in this act of transference between two conceptual points, and its unique spatiality as a containing vessel that is physically characterized by outside and inside spaces (these spaces are what make it possible for such objects to hold things). For our (^4) The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Ed. Alex Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. 760. This encyclopedia will be referred to as NPE in all future citations.
purposes, this complex engagement with outside and inside—or exterior and interior spaces—is best described in the terms of French philosopher, Gaston Bachelard. In his essay “The Dialectics of Outside and Inside” from The Poetics of Space , Bachelard examines how the geometrical opposition between outside and inside—a “dialectic of division” as he calls it— shapes and restricts our experience of space. While his general focus in this book is on house and home spaces, his approach proves fruitful in framing how we think about our particular object-metaphor’s spatial relations. The dialectic of outside and inside that he describes is a harsh one, and one that he claims inhabits much of contemporary thought. “It has the sharpness of the dialectics of yes and no , which decides everything,”^5 creating an absolutist/extremist conception of space wherein an object or concept is either in or out without any possibility for gray space or halfway. Similarly, Bachelard describes our modern obsession with circumscribing things, whereby we geometrize everything by cutting it up and dividing it into isolated spaces (i.e. outside and inside). This is how we tend to think of vessels; things or substances may locate themselves either inside or outside of a jar, and these two spaces are distinctly isolated from one another. He calls this “geometrical cancerization,” which makes “everything [take] form, even infinity” (212).^6 For Bachelard, the geometry implicit in this understanding of space has far more severe consequences than just the creation of (albeit inaccurate) spatial distinctions. With such a strong characterization as “geometrical cancerization ” [emphasis added] alluding (^5) Bachelard, Gaston. “The Dialectics of Outside and Inside.” The Poetics of Space. Trans. Maria Jolas. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994. 211. All further citations of Bachelard in this essay will refer to this edition. (^6) Bachelard goes so far as to describe the characteristics that are commonly ascribed to inner and outer spaces, i.e. the inside is limited and concrete vs. the vast and unlimited outside. He claims that philosophers geometricize in this same extreme way when they think in terms of being and non-being, which roots metaphysics in this same oppositional spatiality.
expression, it opens up” (222). Coincidentally, this is the same terminology that German philosopher Martin Heidegger uses when talking about the possibilities of poetry: Poetry…is no aimless of whimsicalities, and no flight of mere representations and fancies into the unreal. What poetry, as clearing projection, unfolds of unconcealment and projects into the rift within the figure is the open; poetry allows this to happen in such a way, indeed, that now, for the first time, in the midst of beings, it brings them to shine and sound.^7 Poetry, for Heidegger, is more than merely “a frivolous mooning and vaporizing into the unknown, and a flight into dreamland,” as he similarly articulates in his essay “…Poetically Man Dwells…”^8 Rather, poetry accomplishes something unique; it “open[s]” up a world in which entities show up meaningfully and intelligibly for us, where they are “[brought] to shine and sound” for the very first time so that we may notice their true natures or essences.^9 Heidegger even goes so far as to say that “All (^7) “The Origin of the Work of Art.” Off the Beaten Track. Ed. and trans. Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 45. (^8) This essay can be found in Poetry, Language, Thought. Trans. Albert Hofstadter. New York, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1971. 211. This volume will henceforth be referred to as PLT. (^9) This is something that Heidegger explicates much more thoroughly in relation to art in general—by which he refers to something that is more than an object, but rather, something that we do, an activity or a process that we engage in. In fact, this “show[ing] up” or disclosing of “the being of entities” is something that is impossible without art. Furthermore, the way that Heidegger’s means many of his terms here— including but not limited to ones such as world , being, and entity —are exceedingly particular and complex. By “world,” for example, he means “not the mere collection of the countable or uncountable, familiar and unfamiliar things that are just there...The world worlds , and it more fully in being than the tangible and perceptible realm in which we believe ourselves to be at home...Wherever those decisions of our history that relate to our very being are made, are taken up and abandoned by us, go unrecognized and are rediscovered by new inquiry, there the world worlds…The peasant woman, on the other hand, has a world because she dwells in the overtness of beings, of the things that are. Her equipment, in its reliability, gives to this world a necessity and nearness of its own. By the opening up of a world, all things gain their lingering and hastening, their remoteness and nearness, their scope and limits” ( Ibid. 43 - 44). My borrowing of Heidegger’s terms throughout the formulation of this paper is done with the intent of their being used with greater flexibility and forgiveness than he allows. It is for this reason that I do not spend more time defining such terms in the detail that they require when used in the context of Heidegger’s own philosophical undertakings.
art...is, in essence, poetry....From out of the poeticizing essence of truth it happens that an open place is thrown open, a place in which everything is other than what it was.”^10 In thinking about both Bachelard and Heidegger’s use of the term “open” to describe the possibilities of poetry, it begins to make sense why numerous modern and contemporary poets employ vessel object-metaphors in their work. The kinetic act of opening is not only representative of the way in which poetry reveals its subjects in new ways, but is also a literal representation of the way in which vessels move in space. That is to say, vessels can be opened (or shut) in order to gain access to (or close off) their interior spaces and whatever is contained there.^11 Because of its nature as an object that can be physically opened up, as well as its formal identity as a device of poetic expression that opens up meaning, the vessel object-metaphor permits the opening up of a world in which things become intelligible for us in new ways. Just as science opens up a world where atoms show up and are used to help us get at the question of being,^12 so can our object-metaphor disclose poetic words in which we can get at the much debated question of whether or not the poetic is related to any non-poetic reality, and/or how an interior subjective life is connected to its external objective world. Answering these questions begins with imagining a world in which outside and inside spaces are closely intersecting and imaginatively interrelating, which Merrill, Stevens, Larkin, and Keats all do to varying degrees in their respective uses of our vessel object-metaphor. (^10) Ibid. 44 (^11) I think here, for instance, of a cookie jar. We can open or close the lid of the jar depending on whether or not we want a cookie. We seal off its interior space to keep the cookies fresh, or open it up to share with our friends. Both possibilities are inherently available in this kind of object. (^12) Scientific discoveries bring to light new entities in the world; before certain discoveries in physics, we lived in a world in which atoms did not “show up.” So, science disclosed atoms as entities in the world.
way to break outside of it while still thinking about the world in an organized way. This is because the thinking human being is, according to Wittgenstein, a “fly [trapped inside the] fly bottle.” We are flies, always buzzing around within the bounds of our human- made linguistic system. But “shew” here does not imply that the philosopher aims to escape language altogether—of course that would be impossible. Rather, it suggests that our goal is to re-conceptualize how we think about the connection between thought and language so that we may more objectively understand our relationship to it. Put perhaps more simply, the purpose of philosophy is to extricate us from our linguistic limitations— from the fly bottle—to the extent that is possible as we continue to operate within language. The metaphor of the fly bottle is the tool that allows Wittgenstein to reflect on the human relationship to language, and thus, on his objective as a philosopher of language. By seeing ourselves as flies stuck within this metaphorical fly bottle of language we are able to conceptually position ourselves outside of it (even while, realistically, we are still functioning and maneuvering completely within it). In this way, Wittgenstein’s metaphor opens up the possibility for a sort of movement between the contained interior space of language and an external outside-of-language space that we would otherwise never encounter. The philosopher’s use of metaphor here illuminates something essential about our own inquiries. There is a blatantly analogous relationship between his approach and the way that poets use vessel object-metaphors to reflect on their own projects. Just as the fly bottle metaphor provides Wittgenstein a means of expanding the limits of language while still working within its bounds, vessel object-metaphors allow poets the opportunity to think critically about the nature of their work while staying within the
bounds of their medium. We will investigate how and why this is possible as we delve further into the various poetic instances of this kind of work. The Approach While this project is undeniably literary in terms of its inquiries and motivations, our approach to understanding the role of the vessel object-metaphor has thus far been primarily philosophical in nature. This is because the two disciplines are inevitably and inextricably tied when it comes to the study of metaphor. As literary critic Charles Altieri explains in the opening of his 1983 article on Wallace Stevens, …Metaphor exemplifies the complex properties of duplicity that allow us to suspend meanings, operate on several levels of discourse at once, to hear the play of our desires resonate from within our descriptions. Given this complexity, it may be the case that an adequate account of metaphor must itself be metaphoric. Then, in this area at least, philosophy must ultimately take poetic form.^15 The tremendous complexity of metaphor necessitates that this project straddle the line between the disciplines of literature and philosophy. Our account of metaphor will “itself be metaphoric” as we engage in a close analysis of the various instances of vessels in several modern and contemporary poems. More specifically, our analyses will reflect the spatial trajectory of the object-metaphor itself, examining the three main topographical components that constitute all vessels. These physical elements, also the three sections of this paper, are 1) the vessel’s contained interior space, 2) the realm surrounding or exterior to the object, and 3) its creatively constructed surface which functions as the physical boundary between the other two spaces. As each poet focuses primarily on one spatial component versus another, they reveal different things about the nuanced relationship between poetry and a non-poetic reality on the one hand, and between an (^15) Altieri, Charles. “Wallace Stevens’ Metaphors Of Metaphor: Poetry As Theory.” Amer. Poetry 1. (1983): 27-48.
examining the vessel object-metaphor’s relationship to space as something that “disclose[s] aspects of the being of humans and their worlds”^17 will open up new possibilities for our understanding of poetry. The way the object-metaphor is treated in these poems will guide us in thinking critically about how different kinds of exterior and interior spaces interact with one another and what that means for both poets and readers. This will compel us to reflect on a larger human reality that extends beyond the contained realm of the purely poetic. And so, the boundary between literature and philosophy overlaps in a way that makes a phenomenological method perhaps the only viable one for this project. (^17) Ibid. This is one of several ways in which phenomenological theories of literature regard works of art.
CHAPTER ONE: The Interior Often it is from the very fact of concentration in the most restricted intimate space that the dialectics of inside and outside draws its strength. ~Gaston Bachelard (229) For Martin Heidegger, vessels are defined by their interior space, what he calls the void: “The emptiness, the void, is what does the vessel’s holding. The empty space, this nothing of the jug, is what the jug is as the holding vessel.” ( PLT 167) This interior void is actually or potentially filled, which gives it a distinctive sort of potential—a holding potential. Whether the object is full of wine, water, ashes in the case of an urn, or simply air, its inherent potential for containment in this interior cavity is what gives it its identity and purpose as a vessel, actually making the object into what it is. The fact that vessels carry with them this intrinsic element of interiority is the reason that many poets make such prolific metaphorical use of it. The vessel’s interior space—the space the Heidegger refers to as “the emptiness, the void”—is extremely useful because of its ability to hold something external to it. For contemporary confessional poets such as James Merrill, this interior void becomes a space in which they can project, and thus contain, their deeply subjective experiences. This act of containment opens up two new possibilities for them: 1) it allows the poet (and/or speaker) to scrutinize their subjective experiences much more closely by gaining some distance from them and 2) helps them to control, or at the very least come to terms with, a complex emotional interior that is otherwise chaotic or overwhelming. In this sense, the poem itself becomes a structure for holding some deeper internal reality or emotional state.
his subjective world with the use of “you.” While he uses this second person address to speak directly to his lover and expresses his deep distress about their relationship, it has the effect of placing readers in the position of that lover themselves, to witness the speaker’s heavy address firsthand. There is an almost overwhelming sense of helplessness and exhaustion that permeates the speaker’s emotional state in this address. Having unsuccessfully attempted various approaches to get the attention of his lover— namely deceit, weakness, and even strong emotion—he has tired all possibilities, and so is left with nothing left to do but end the relationship, to make a “clean break.” Alternatively, “to shake you” could refer to the speaker’s desire to rid himself of his lover and his feelings for him. Both interpretations here sustain the need for a “clean break” from the lover. This is the peak of the speaker’s emotional helplessness in this relationship. The “clean break” that must be made between the two lovers is the center of the inner turbulence of this poem. With the word “break,” the speaker hints at a certain violence that is underlying throughout the poem; there is a sudden snap or a severing that needs to occur between the two lovers that the speaker must be responsible for. This becomes the source (albeit willingly) of great guilt for him. And while this split is a violent one—it is a “break” rather than a more gently phrased separation or parting of ways— it is also a “clean” one. That is to say, it is one done with little confusion, complication, or messiness. This is mimicked by the formal structure of the poem here; the line break between the two stanzas provides a small separation between the two characters, even an implied moment of silence for the lover to process what has happened before responding as he does at the start of the second stanza. Only after the formal break
does the lover react. In this sense, the two characters (and thus the relationship) are already separated from one another in the physical form of the poem. This formal “clean break” between the two characters also mimics the clear emotional distance between their experiences and the way they express their innermost thoughts. The lover answers the speaker silently, rather than fighting him or even verbally protesting at all; he merely “nod[s] assent.” This relatively easy accession of the lover in the opening of the second quatrain is quite disparate from the vulnerable, desperate, guilt-ridden, and revelatory expression of the speaker in the first. The emotional turmoil that the speaker is experiencing in this poem is so heavy, overwhelming, and impassioned that it overflows beyond his own private, internal space. As Charles Altieri claims, “Strong poets make the world as an extension of their emotional energies,” (34) and this is precisely what Merrill accomplishes here. He does this by bringing the surrounding natural environment into the poem in the second quatrain, where it becomes clear that there is something extraordinary about it: “…Autumn turns windy, huge, / A clear vase of dry leaves vibrating on and on. / We sit, watching.”^18 This is the first time in the poem that an external background is revealed: that of autumn. This is not just a clarification of the seasonal conditions surrounding the speaker, however. Rather, this external world is a reflection of the speaker’s emotional life. We know this because autumn changes the moment the emotional state of the speaker changes; the “turn[ing]” of autumn happens right after the lover “nod[s] assent,” (^18) These lines are wonderfully reminiscent of Wallace Stevens’ “Domination of Black,” in which “…the leaves themselves / [Turn] in the wind” as the words “leaves,” “wind,” and variations of the verb “turn” are repeated throughout the thirty six lines. Because of Merrill’s known interest in Stevens, this connection would be an intriguing opening for further investigation, one that unfortunately goes beyond the scope of this paper. “Domination of Black” can be found in Wallace Stevens: Selected Poems. Ed. John N. Serio. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. 6.
is in this pain that “…the two spaces of inside and outside exchange their dizziness” (Bachelard 221). The fusing together of outside and inside spaces in this poem is facilitated by the object-metaphor of the “clear vase of dry leaves vibrating on and on.” Merrill does this by dissolving the boundary that exists between the two. This is represented by the physical boundary of the vase (more specifically, the walls of that vase) that separates its inner and outer spaces. By making them “clear,” the separation disappears entirely, allowing outside and inside worlds to merge together and exchange their contents, or their “dizziness.” And these contents are in fact dizzy: the dry leaves vibrate within the vase, perpetuating this sense of agitated movement. Contained in this object-metaphor is a strange sort of encrypted vitality; despite its dryness, it is vibrating “on and on” of some extraordinary force. This serves as a metaphorical representation of the intense emotion that is contained in the speaker’s body and mind, one that is so strong, so present and overwhelming to him that it trembles (seemingly) indefinitely. But because this vibrating emotional energy is contained within the metaphorical vessel of autumn, there are several possibilities opened up for the speaker. Because the speaker is able to contain his agitated internal experience, he is able to deal with it quite differently than would otherwise be the case. By projecting the almost violent emotion that he feels inside outward onto nature, and containing that nature in the vase, allows him to gain some amount of distance from it. Rather than being described as “vibrating” or shaking himself, the speaker instead is able to “sit, watching” as the leaves tremble in his place. There is an implied moment of silence after the period in the middle of the line, “We sit, watching. When I next speak…” wherein the speaker
seems to be contemplating, observing, and even scrutinizing his vacillating interior as it moves in front of him. In this sense, the speaker “watch[es]” as his own tumultuous inner state becomes, quite literally, an object that he can study as his sits transfixed by love.^20 This seems to lessen the extreme helplessness that the speaker is experiencing in the poem. By allowing the “windy, huge” autumnal exterior into his inner world and making it a feature of that interior, he is able to control it. This calms his own emotional burden, at least to the point that he may “sit” next to his lover without being completely consumed by what he is feeling in that instant. The speaker attempts to take action in the last sentence of the poem, and as a result, the “clear vase” is no longer able to contain his passions: the moment he “next speak[s] / Love buries itself in [him], up to the hilt.” With the absence of the “clear vase,” the scene feels suddenly bleak for the speaker who is once again overwhelmed by a much more violent passion, even an eroticism. His interior is now filled completely by “love,” but a love that is not welcome. “Buries” implies an eternally permanent and heavy, death- filled fullness which makes his inner space feel desolate, rather than full of the vibrating vitality that filled it previously. Furthermore, the fact that love fills the speaker “up to the hilt,” suggests that he must be armed against it, again emphasizing a violent quality. The speaker is no longer connected to the freeing external world of autumn but rather, (^20) In this same way, the vase may also be used as a larger metaphor for poetry itself. If we think of a poem as a similar sort of object that contains a kind of subjective/artistic/expressive (poetic) interior, the poet can gain a little distance from that space in which they work, in the same way that the speaker of “A Renewal” does. This allows the poet to scrutinize and deliberate on their medium, even as they operate and express themselves within it. It is in this sense that the poem itself operates as a structure of holding prior to any movement towards interpretation. A number of potential questions arise here, such as the extent to which language contains meaning prior to interpretation by the reader, of the possibility of self-evidence or complete transparency in poetry, and where and how the intentions of the poet come into play in all of this, among many others. These are all important questions worth considering more thoroughly both in analyzing this poem, and in thinking about literary study more generally.