one line, one sentence, unpunctuated, but proclaimed an interro ts. Often, they are combinations of these and other modes of address. To take

grammar and syntax-what makes it a poem? Certainly without its obvious example, the dramatic monologue in the hands of Robert Browning

not be a poem; but neither would the title alone constitute a poetic ike a speech from a play (though u,ually more elongated than most such

the two together simply make a poem by themselves. Given the eeches). But to "read" such a monologue we must imagine the setting, the situ.

text, the render is encouraged to make a poem. He is not forced t n, the context, and SO on. The dramatic monologue is "like" a play but gives

there is not else he can do with this material, and certainly no ess information of certain sorts than a play would, requiring us to provide that

rewarding. (I will use the masculine pronoun here to refer to the re rmation by decoding the clues in the monologue itself in the light of our ul,-

cause all readers are male but because I am, and my hypothetical re anding of the generic model. Most short poems work this way. They require

pure construct but an idealized version of myself.) special knowledge and special skills to be "read."

H~~ do we make a poem out of this text? There are only two To understand "Elegy" we must construct a situation out of the clues pro-

on, the title and the question posed by the single, colloquial line. d. The "it" in "Who would I show it to" is of course the elegy itself, The i 6 ~ 1 1

simply colloquial, it is prosaic; with no words of more than one SY e potential writer of the elegy. The "Who" is the audience for the poem. ~~t

by a preposition, it is within the utterance range of every sP verb phrase "would . . . show to" indicates a condition contrary to fact. w h o

It is, in a sense, completely intelligible. But in another sense uld I show it to $1 were to write it? This implies in turn that for the potential

mysterious. Its three pronouns-who, I, it-pose problems of refere lac poet there is one person whose appreciation means more than that of all ditional verb phrase-would. . . show to-poses a problem of sit rest of the potential audience for the poem he might write, and it further iln- context that would supply the information required to make that es that the death of this particular person is the one imagined in the poem. ~f tence meaningful as well as intelligible is not there. It must be SUP 1s Person were dead, the poet suggests, SO would his inspiration be dead. With

reader. one to write for, no poem would be forthcoming. This poem is not only a To make a poem of this text the reader must not only know a1 to mourn," like that of Dylan Thomas, it is a refusal to elegize. The whole

must know a poetic code as well: the code of the funeral elem, as egiac tradition, like its cousin the funeral oration, turns finally away

English from the Renaissance to the present time. The "words on g toward acceptance, revival, renewal, a return to the concerns of life, not constitute a poetic "work," complete and self-sufficient, bu ed by the very writing of the poem. Life goes on; there is an audience; sketch or outline that must be completed by the active participatio ourned Person will live through accomplishments, influence, descen- equipped with the right sort of information. In this case part of that ts, and also (not least) in the elegiac poem itself. Merwin rejects all that. 1f1 consists of an acquaintance with the elegiac tradition: its procedu te an elegy for X, the person for whom I have always written, X would not be tions, devices, and values. One needs to know works like Milton e to read it; therefore, there is no reason to write an elegy for the one person Shelley's llAdonais," Tennyson's !'In Memoriam," Whitman's "Wh my life who most deserves one; therefore, there is no reason to write any elegy, in the Dooryard Bloomed," Thomas's "Refusal to M o m the Dear more, ever. Finally, and of course, this poem called "Elegy1' is not an elegy. Child in London," and so on, in order to "read this simple poem Semiotics and interpretation fact, it could be argued that the more elegies one can bring to bear of this one, the better, richer poem this one becomes. I would go suggesting that a knowledge of the critical tradition-of Dr. Job CONSTRUCTIONIST CRITICISM tions to "Lycidas," for instance, or Wordsworth's critique of poetic onstructionist criticism rejects the traditional assumption that language can also enhance one's reading of this poem. For the poem is, of co rately represent reality. Language, according to deconstructionists, is a fun- elegy, a refusal not simply to mourn, but to write a sonorous, eloqu entally unstable medium; consequently, literary texts, which are made up of but finally acquiescent, accepting-in a word, "elegiac"-poem at s, have no fixed, single meaning. Deconstructionists insist, according to

Reading the poem involves, then, a special knowledge of i Paul de Man, on "the impossibility of making the actual expression coin. also involves a special interpretive skill. The forms of the short, w e with what has to be expressed, of making the actual signs coincide with they have developed in English over the past few centuries can b is signified." Since they believe that literature cannot definitively express as compressed, truncated, or fragmented imitations of other verbs matter, deconstructionists tend to shift their attention away froln what cially the play, story, public oration, and personal essay. The reas0 ing said to how language is being used in a text. too complicated for consideration here, but the fact will be appare Paradoxically, deconstructionist criticism often resembles formalist criti- reflect upon the matter. Our short poems are almost always elliptic ; both methods usually involve close reading. But while a formalist usually what can easily be conceived of as dramatic, narrative, oratorical, 0 to demonstrate how the diverse elements of a text cohere into meaning, the

deconstructionist approach attempts to show how t of a stocking) at every point and at every level, but there is nothing be-

is, how it can be broken down-by a skeptical critic able positions. A biographical or historical critic might seek to est thor's intention as a means to interpreting a literary work, b reject the notion that the critic should endorse the myth over language. Deconstructionist critics like Roland Barthes an cault have therefore called for "the death of the aut , an activity that is truly revolutionary since to refuse to fix meaning is, in

the assumption that the author, no matter how inge meaning of a text. They have also announced the de Translated by Stephen Heath category of writing. In their view, poems and novels "The Death of the Author"

that deserve no privileged status as art; all texts are created equal trustworthy, that is.

Deconstructionists focus on how language is used to achieve they believe, in the words of critic David Lehman, that "the rival interpretations," deconstructionists try to understand tations" come to be regarded as truth. A major goal of decons demonstrate how those supposed truths are at best provisio tradictory.

Deconstruction, as you may have inferred, calls for intellectual skill. If you pursue your literary studies beyond the introd want to become more familiar with its assumptions. Deconstructio A slumber did my spirit seal;

you as a negative, even destructive, critical approach, and yet its I had n o human fears:

tioners are adept at exposing the inadequacy of much conv She seemed a thing that could not feel

patient analysis, they can sometimes open up the most familiar text The touch of earthly years.

expected significance. No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, Roland Barthes (1915-1980) With rocks, and stones, and trees.

THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR does not matter whether you interpret the second stanza (especially its last Succeeding the Author, the scriptor n o longer bears within him e) as tending toward affirmation, or resignation, or a grief verging on bitter. mours, feelings, impressions, but rather this immense di s. The tonal assignment of one rather than another possible meaning, to re- draws a writing that can know no halt: life never does more tha at Susanne Langer" on musical form, is curiously open or beside the point. Yet book, and the book itself is only a tissue of signs, an i e lyric does not quite support Langer's general position, that "Articulation is nitely deferred.

Once the Author is removed, the claim to decipher a text be tile. T o give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to a final signified, to close the writing. Such a conception suits critic on mean in that case? Articulation is not anti-assertive here; indeed the the latter then allotting itself the important task of f closure is so strong that it thematizes itself in the very first line. its hypostases: society, history, psyche, liberty) beneat thor has been found, the text is "explained"-victory td the critic. is no surprise in the fact that, historically, the reign of the Author that of the Critic, nor again in the fact that criticism mined along with the Author. In the multiplicity of writing, eve That it is a kind of epitaph is relevant, of course. We recognize, even if disentangled, nothing deciphered; the structure can be followed, nre is not insisted on, that Wordsworth's style is laconic, even lapidary. There

? . -

may be a mimetic or formal motive related to the ideal of epitaphic the motive may also be, in a precise way, meta-epitaphic. marks the closure of a life that has never opened up: Lu poems to a hidden flower or the evening star. Setting overshadows her mode of existence is inherently inward, westering. I will suppose Wordsworth was at some level giving expression to th wish: Let the earth rest lightly on the deceased. If SO, his conversion taphic formula is so complete that to trace the process of conversion LITERARY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS gratuitous, The formula, a trite if deeply grounded figure alyzed out of existence. Here it is formula itself, or better, t

Kim Addonizio: "First Poem for You." Copyright 1994 by Kim Addonizio. Reprinted from The Philoso-

the mourner that lie lightly on the girl and everyone who is pher's Club by Kim Addonizio, with the permission of

I come back, then, to the "aesthetic" sense of a burden 1 BOA Editions, Ltd., Rochester, NY.

nied. A heavy element is made lighter. One may still fee Francisco X. Alarc6n: "The X in My Name" from No

is inappropriate in this context; yet elation is, as a moo first stanza. For the mood described is love or desire w person, when it makes her a star-like being that ' ' ~ 0 ~ 1 Dick Allen: "Night Drivingv from Flight and pursuit, earthly years." This naive elation, this spontaneous m Poem by Dick Allen. Copyright O 1987 by Dick

ward, is reversed in the downturn or cata-strophe of the second stanz Allen. Reprinted by permission of ~ouisiana-state

stanza does not close out the illusion; it preserves it wi Julia Alvarez: "33" and "The Women on My ~ 0 t h ~ ~ ' ~ illusion is elated, in our use of the word: aufgehobeno s Side Were Known" from "33" in Homecoming by ]&a

the girl is still, and all the more, what she seemed to be: bey Alvarez. Copyright 0 1984, 1996 by lulia Alvarez.

if the earth in its daily motion is a planetary and erring rather than a Published bv Plume, an imprint of DuttonSignet, a di- vision of Penguin USA; originally published by Grove

and if all on this star of earth must ~artake of its sublunar, mortal, Press. Reprinted by permission of Susan Bergholr Lit,

nature. emry Services, New York. All rights reserved.

* * * * A. R. Ammons: "Coward." Reprinted by permission of

To sum up: In Wordsworth's lyric the specific gravity the balance of each stanza; and this balance is as much a j the context of our mortality as it is a meaningful response to the Permission of Louisiana State University Press. death. At the limit of the medium of words, and close to John Ashbey "The Cathedral IS" from ~r we K~~~ by

purged is not concreteness, or the empirical sphere of the John Ashbery. Copyright O 1979 by John Ashbery.

illusion, trauma, recognition, grief, atonement-what has been purge Reprinted by permission of Penguin USA. u ~ t ~~~~h Farm" from A Wave by John Ashbery. Copyright 0

of flashy schematisms and false or partial mediations: artificial plot, in 1984 by John Ashbery. Originally appeared in ~h~ solatory rhetoric, the coercive absolutes of logic or faith. New Yorker. Reprinted by permission of Georges

"Elation in Hegel and W.

ON WORDSWORTH'S "A SLUMBER DID MY SP~R~T SEAL." Smanne Langer: Langer (1895-19 American philosopher who discussed the relationship between aesthetics and art Aufgfgehoben: German for "taken up" or "lifted up," but this term can also mean "canceled' Houghton Mifflin Co. and Oxford University Press,

fied." Har tman uses the term for its double meaning. Canada. 0 Margaret Atwood 1990. rights re- served. "Siren Song" from Selected Poem 1966-1984 by Margaret Atwood. Copyright O 1990 by Margaret Atwood. Reprinted by permission of Oxford Univer- sity Press Canada. "you fit into me" from Power

by Margaret Atwood. Copyright Q 1971 by Mar. ga~e t Atwood. (House of Anansi Press ~ t d . ) . Reprinted by permission. H. Auden: "lames Watt" from Academic GyafFti by

W. H. Auden and F. Sonjuste. Copyright 1971 by W. H. Auden and F. Sonjuste. "The Unknown Cit- izen," "Musde des Beaux Arts," "As I walked out

One Evening," and "Stop All the Clocks" fror H. Aden: Colkcted Poems. Copyright O 1940ar newed 1968 by W. H. Auden. Reprinted by pe sion of Random House, Inc. and Faber and Fabe1

David R. Axelrod: "The Dead Have No Respect" The Chi of Poetry. Reprinted by permissio Bimham Wood Graphics.

Roland Barthes: "The Death of the Author" ImagelMusidText by Roland Barthes, translate Stephen Heath. English translation Q 197; Stephen Heath. Reprinted by permission of Hill Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus 6. Giroux, Inc. HarperCollins Publishers Limited.

Max Beerbohm: O n the imprint of the first English tion of The Works of Max Beerbohm. Final two l inscribed by Max Beerbohm in a presentation cog his book. Used by permission of Sir Geoffrey Key

Hilaire Belloc: "The HippopotamusM from Cautio~ Verses by Hilaire Belloc. Reprinted by permissio Peters Fraser & Dunlop.

Bruce Bennett: "The Lady Speaks Again" from Ta, Off by Bruce Bennett (Orchises Press). Copyrigh 1992 by Bruce Bennett. Reprinted by pennissio~ the author.

Edmund Clerihew Bentley: "Sir Christopher Wr from Clerihews Complete by E. C. Bentley, O E. Bentley. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Bra Ltd., London.

John Betjeman: "In Westminster Abbey" from Collec Poems. Reprinted by permission of John Mur (Publishers) Ltd.

Elizabeth Bishop: "The Fish," "Sestina," "Fillling S tion," and "One Art" from The Complete Poe 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop. Copyright O 19' 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel. Reprinted by p mission of Farrar, Straus 6. Giroux, Inc.

Harold Bloom: "Poetic Influence" from A Map of M rending by Harold Bloom. Copyright O 1975 by C ford University Press, Inc. Reprinted by permissic

Robert Bly: "Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letta from Silence in the Snow Fields by Robert Bly (Wt leyan University Press). Copyright O 1959, 196 1961, 1962 by Robert Bly. Reprinted by permission the author.

Louise Bogan: "The Dream" from The Blue Estmries I Louise Bogan. Copyright O 1968 by Louise Boga Copyright renewed O 1996 by Ruth Limme Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Girou Inc.