Poet's Time Research Articles

An Atmospherics of the City: Baudelaire and the Poetics of Noise by Ross Chambers

Reviewed by: An Atmospherics of the City: Baudelaire and the Poetics of Noise by Ross Chambers Elisabeth Cardonne-Arlyck Chambers, Ross. An Atmospherics of the City: Baudelaire and the Poetics of Noise. New York, Fordham UP, 2015. Pp. 208. $35.00 US hardcover. Ross Chambers's penetrating essay focuses on Baudelaire's late works: the major verse poems of Tableaux parisiens, which were included in the second edition of Les Fleurs du mal in 1861, and the prose poems of Le Spleen de Paris, an unfinished project at the time of Baudelaire's death in 1867. While still holding artistic beauty as a transcendent value (what Chambers terms "fetish aesthetics") like his contemporaries Gautier and Nerval, Baudelaire evolved in these late works towards a new conception of "supernaturalism" that moved from the natural world and the sublime to the artificial city and its strident chaos. The "natural supernaturalism" that, according to M.H. Abrams, characterizes Romantic aesthetics is thus subverted into a paradoxical "urban supernaturalism." Historically, this turn in Baudelaire's poetics corresponds with the poet's disenchantment with politics, after the brutal crushing of the 1848 revolution and Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's coup d'état of 1852; it also coincides with Paris's increasing overpopulation and poverty, and with the dramatic destruction of old neighbour-hoods under Haussmann's modernization project. Ever present in Baudelaire's late verse and prose poems, noise is an overwhelming fact of daily urban life, which anchors the works in the harsh reality of the poet's time. Chambers reads time in Baudelaire's poetry on several interwoven levels: as the inner experience of ineluctable passing; as the continuous weight of violent historical events on that experience; and as absolute Evil, the destructive force of "le Mal," which Chambers strikingly equates with entropy. In Baudelaire's poems, he argues, subjective time and historical time are metaphorically interconnected with the weather, which, as scorching sun or violent storm, bears down on urban activities (notably on the flâneur's walks) and moods-a connection Chambers encapsulates in the phrase "the weather of time." Far from neutral, this connection is permeated with unease, [End Page 673] the diffuse sense that the everyday, though familiar, is strange and inscrutable. The inability to know what is familiar, precisely because it is familiar, a notion Chambers borrows from Hegel, saturates the atmosphere of the city: an alienating otherness lurks in the physical, emotional, and moral milieu that surrounds its inhabitants. In making the reader aware of this secret otherness, the poetics of noise, Chambers argues, has a disalienating effect. In the great poems of Tableaux parisiens written between 1859 and 1861, the agent of disalienation is allegory, a trope that, in itself, enacts otherness. Chambers offers complex readings of some of these enigmatic and often discussed poems, "Le Cygne," "Les sept vieillards," and "A une passante" in particular, and shows how specific formal disruptions function as poetic noise, unsettling our reading and alerting us to the limits of our understanding. In these poems, fleeting encounters with perturbing figures amongst the deafening din, disorder, or stormy weather of the city weave together noise, atmospheric phenomena, and emotional shock into a melancholic recognition that the "empty sky" leaves us at the mercy of the malevolent action of time and death, the downward movement of history. The prose poems of Le Spleen de Paris move from supernaturalism to irony. God's withdrawal from the world, Chambers argues, has abandoned it to an invisibly ironic and impenetrable immanence. Anonymity governs daily social relations. This "cruel but transparent irony that haunts the everyday" is made visible in the prose poems, in which seemingly transparent anecdotes of urban life turn ironically on to themselves, introducing interfering noise into interpretation. In "Perte d'auréole" and "Le Mauvais vitrier," for example, Chambers shows how, in the course of the poem, irony shifts undecidedly between the poet and the man he encounters (a fellow poet, a glazier), so that the lofty figure of the poet, and our reading assurance, end up lost in the gutter or shattered. Social distinctions are tumbled in a "poetics of anonymity." Chambers pays particular attention to the fact that...

George Herbert's Bravery

‘THE CHURCH-PORCH’, George Herbert's proverb-laden and elegantly contradictory introduction to The Temple, comes to its end with the pithy counsel, ‘In brief, acquit thee bravely’ (line 457).1 It seems a strange summary to the poem and to the sequence it prefaces, both of which tend finally to assert human and poetic humility rather than bravery. Yet the aesthetic and ethical power of Herbert's verse is crucially driven by a carefully negotiated if risky defiance of God – a defiance which reconciles, however precariously, the masculine codes of Renaissance England with the dominant theological strains of the poet's time. The word ‘brave’ captures two key aspects of Renaissance thinking: the need to assert oneself in the face of power, and the need to appear elegant. Herbert's own family was deeply attuned to both elements of this. His brother Edward (from 1629 Lord Herbert of Cherbury) observes in his autobiography, which is full of accounts of violent quarrels, that the family was prone to irascibility, and that George was as subject to this temperamental trouble as any of them.2 George himself writes of his ‘fierce youth’, suggesting that people might think him ‘eager, hot, and undertaking’ (‘The Answer’, ll. 3, 6). Edward's Life is also full of disingenuously discreet anecdotes boasting of important women's tendency to fall in love with him; and his care for his own appearance is evident from Isaac Oliver's portrait. Though George has a less gaudily masculine reputation than his own brother or than Donne (and seems to have been a lot less interested in women), he manipulates these fierce and beautiful aspects of Renaissance manliness in his engagement with the divinity. They enable him to acquit himself in the court of his own heart and in the judgement of God.

Kin-Groups in the Homeric Epics

Nineteenth-century theories about the progression of primitive societies (including the Greeks) from a "social organization" made up of small kinship units (clans) and tribes to the "political organization" of the city-state were fundamentally disproved by the demonstration, in the 1970s, that the historical subdivisions of the polis were not derived from clans, phratries, and tribes, as anthropologists defined them, but were new groups that served new purposes. Walter Donlan's paper reexamines the reasons why evidence of supra-familial groups is negligible in the Homeric epics, although at the poet's time they must have existed, and what use the epic poet makes of concepts such as genos/geneē and phrētrē.

The Lancastrian Gower and the Limits of Exemplarity

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Lancastrian Gower and the Limits of ExemplarityFrank GradyFrank Grady Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 70, Number 3Jul., 1995 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2865270 Views: 9Total views on this site Citations: 9Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1995 Medieval AcademyPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Matthew W. Irvin Gower: English Poetry, (Aug 2017): 1–5.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118396957.wbemlb389 Sebastian Sobecki Ecce patet tensus: The Trentham Manuscript, In Praise of Peace, and John Gower's Autograph Hand, Speculum 90, no.44 (Oct 2015): 925–959.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713415002316John M. Ganim Gower, Liminality, and the Politics of Space, Exemplaria 19, no.11 (Jul 2013): 90–116.https://doi.org/10.1179/175330707X203246Maura Nolan John Lydgate and the Making of Public Culture, 33 (Sep 2009).https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511483387Elizabeth Allen The Costs of Exemplary History in the Confessio Amantis, (Jan 2005): 53–82.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-04479-2_3Robert Epstein Prisoners of Reflection: The Fifteenth-Century Poetry of Exile and Imprisonment, Exemplaria 15, no.11 (Jul 2013): 159–198.https://doi.org/10.1179/exm.2003.15.1.159 Matthew Giancarlo Murder, Lies, and Storytelling: The Manipulation of Justice(s) in the Parliaments of 1397 and 1399, Speculum 77, no.11 (Oct 2015): 76–112.https://doi.org/10.2307/2903787David Wallace The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, 34 (Mar 2008).https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521444200Winthrop Wetherbee John Gower, (Jan 1999): 589–609.https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521444200.027

The Poet's Time: Politics and Religion in the Work of Andrew Marvell

The Poet's Time: Politics and Religion in the Work of Andrew Marvell

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: The Story of Israel between Settlement and Exile. By A.D.H. Mayes. Deuteronomic History. By Terence E. Fretheim. Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament: The Ordering of Life in Israel and Early Judaism. By Joseph Blenkinsopp. Jesus Son of Man. By Barnabas Lindars. The Message of Mark. By Morna D. Hooker. The Legend and the Apostle: The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon. By Dennis Ronald MacDonald. Studies of the Church in History: Essays in Honor of Robert S. Paul on his Sixty‐Fifth Birthday. Edited by Morton Davies. Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors. By George A. Kennedy. Cyril of Alexandria: Select Letters. Edited and translated by Lionel R. Wickham. Gregory Palamas: The Triads. Edited with an introduction by John Meyendorff, translation by Nicholas Gendle, preface by Jaroslav Pelikan. John Climacus: The Ladder of Divine Ascent. Translated by Colm Luibheid and Norman Russell (with notes by Norman Russell), introduction by Kallistos Ware, preface by Colm Luibheid. Akathistos, Byzantine Hymn to the Mother of God. Translated for chant and choral recitation by Paul M. Addison. John Climacus: The Ladder of Divine Ascent. Translated by Colm Luibheid and Norman Russell (with notes by Norman Russell), introduction by Kallistos Ware, preface by Colm Luibheid. Akathistos, Byzantine Hymn to the Mother of God. Translated for chant and choral recitation by Paul M. Addison. The Cistercian Alternative. By Andre Louf. The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. By Brian Stock. Politics, Finance and the Church in the Reign of Edward II: Walter Stapledon Treasurer of England. By Mark Buck. The Common Lawyers of Pre‐Reformation England: Thomas Kebell, A Case Study. By E.W. Ives. My Dear Peter:‘The Ars Poetica’and Hermeneutics for More's Utopia. By Elizabeth McCutcheon The Sack of Rome, 1527. By André Chastel. The Poet's Time: Politics and Religion in the Work of Andrew Marvell. By Warren L. Chernaik. The Anglican Spiritual Tradition. By John R.H. Moorman. Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth‐Century England: a Study of the Relationships between Natural Science, Religion, History, Law, and Literature. By Barbara J. Shapiro. A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, Vol. 3. Edited by R. Davies, A.R. George and G. Rupp. Evangelicals United: Ecumenical Stirrings in Pre‐Victorian Britain, 1795–1830. By Roger H. Martin. Beethoven and the Voice of God. By Wilfrid Mellers. Developments in the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland 1789–1829. By Christine Johnson. The Sectarian Spirit: Sectarianism, Society, and Politics in Victorian Cotton Towns. By Paul J. Phillips. Revivalism, Social Conscience and Community in the Burned‐Over District: The Trial of Rhoda Bement. By Glenn C. Altschuler and Jan M. Saltzgaber. Old Catholics and Anglicans, 1931–1981. Edited by Gordon Huelin. What Ever Happened to Vatican II? By Michael Winter. Oscar Romero: Bishop and Manyr. By James R. Brockman. Catholics in Apartheid Society. Edited by Andrew Prior. Theologie im 20. Jahrhundert: Stand und Aufgaben. Edited by George Strecker. Why Believe in God? By Michael Goulder and John Hick. The Second Christianity. By John Hick. God Among Us: The Gospel Proclaimed. By Edward Schillebeeckx. God Is New Each Moment. By Edward Schillebeeckx. From Christ to God. By David G.A. Calvert. Interpreting Jesus. By Gerald O'Collins. Son of Man and Son of God. By John C. Dwyer. In Quest of Jesus: A Guidebook. By W. Barnes Tatum. Logos‐Symbol in the Christology of Karl Rahner. By Joseph H.P. Wong. Christo‐Psychology. By Morton T. Kelsey. Sacraments as God's Self‐Giving: Sacramental Practice and Faith. By James F. White. Priesthood and Ministry: Ecumenical Research. By Max Thurian. Authority in the Church. Edited by Piet F. Fransen. Papal Infallibility: An Application of Lonergan ‘s Theological Method. Edited by Terry J. Tekippe. Christian Moral Reasoning. By Garth Hallett. Baron Friedrich von Hügel's Philosophy of Religion By James J. Kelly. Three Faces of Hermeneutics: An Introduction to Current Theories of Understanding. By Roy J. Howard. Science Deified and Science Defied: The Historical Significance of Science in Western Culture from the Bronze Age to the Beginnings of the Modern Era. By Raymond Olson. On History and other Essays. By Michael Oakeshott. Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy. By Leo Strauss with an introduction by Thomas L. Pangle. Myth and Thought Among the Greeks. By Jean‐Pierre Vernant. The Early Greek Concept of the Soul. By Jan Bremmer. Viraha‐Bhakti: The early history of Krsna Devotion in South India. By Friedhelm Hardy. The Outline of Sanity: A Biography of G. K. Chesterton. By Alzina Stone Dale.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

Book reviewed in this article: Parliament and community. Edited by Art Cosgrove and J.I. McGuire. English Lordship in Ireland 1318–1361. By Robin Frame. The Statesman and the Fanatic: Thomas Wolsey and Thomas More. By Jasper Ridley. The Axe of Elizabeth: England under the Later Tudors 1547–1603. By D.M. Palliser. Calendar of tha Correspondernce of the Smyth Family of Ashton Court 1548–1642. Edited by J.H. Bettey. Faith by Statute: Parliament and the Settlement of Religion 1559. By Norman L. Jones. De Republica Anglorum by Sir Thomas Smith. Edited by Mary Dewar. Charles I: The Personal Monarch. By Charles Carlton. Charles I and the Popish Plot. By Caroline M. Hibbard. The English Republic 1649–3660. By Toby Barnard. England without a King 3649–1660. By Austin Woolrych. The Poet's Time: Politics and Religion in the Work of Andrew Marvell. By Warren L. Chernaik. William Molyneux of Dublin 1656–1698. By J.G. Simms. Edited by P.H. Kelly. The Glorious Revolution. By John Miller. Hell‐Fire Duke: The Lije of tlie Duke of Wharton. By Mark Blackett‐Ord. Lord Bolingbroke: Contributions to the Craftsman. Edited by Simon Varey. Pvoceedinp and Debates of the Brifish Parliament Rcspecfirg North America 1754‐1 781.Edited by R.C. Simmons and P.D.G. Thomas. The Emergence of the British Two‐Party System 1760–1832. By Frank O'Gorman. A Great and Necessary Measure: George Grenville and the Genesis of the Stamp Act 1763–1765. By John L. Bullion. Peaceable Kingdom: Stability and Change in Modern Britain. By Brian Harrison. Palmerston: The Early Years 1784–1841. By Kenneth Bournc. Selections from the Papers of the London Corresponding Society 1792–1799. Edited by Mary Thale. The Great Reform Act of 1832. By Eric J. Evans. Lord Aberdeen: A Political Biography. By Muriel E. Chamberlain. A Political Odyssey: Thornas O'Donnell M.P. for West Kerry 1900–1918. By J. Anthony Gaughan. Britain and Ireland 1914–23. By Sheila Lawlor.

The Poet's Time: Politics and Religion in the Work of Andrew Marvell

Acknowledgements 1. The two worlds 2. Power and conscience: Marvell and the English revolution 3. In the arena 4. Christian liberty 5. Marvell's satires: the search for form Appendix Notes Index.

The Poet's Time: Politics and Religion in the Work of Andrew Marvell

The Poet's Time: Politics and Religion in the Work of Andrew Marvell