Carole Berry and Janet Lewison Tusitala Conversation (extract)
Janet
Both poems significantly give representation to intensely realized spaces/places where human beings are imprisoned or enslaved by nature, society and even or especially the mind. Little wonder that one of Blake’s most famous lines in London refers to ‘mind forg’d manacles‘ ‘ These manacles are the effect of social pressures and brought about by oppressive institutions and environments. Such a phrase captures the terrible internal workings and psychology of those people observed by Blake in the poem. Whilst we do not feel the ‘manacles’ are of the same origin in Spellbound, we do feel that in this poem too, the poet feels that her circumstances have inflicted some unnerving type of control upon her. The poet is bewitched or enslaved by her environment and as in London , whilst the emotions created are difficult, the creative act itself seems inspired. Such is the ambivalence of place in these two poems!
The poems are both intense, psychological dramas of the mind and senses using ‘place’ as an inspiration or trigger for reflective thought. We gain insights into the psychological drama of the individual speakers through their readings of place. The extremity of the situations under scrutiny in both poems encourages the speakers to reflect upon their relationship to the spaces they inhabit, however temporarily. The creative act is thus triggered by external ‘prompts’ that become the sources of their writing.
I suppose the creative act has to be provoked by something and intense confrontations with a storm or a corrupt city seem very probable sources! We do find a strong sense of emotional turbulence or turmoil in both poems.
I suppose that is why I think the poems are emotionally authentic.
In Emily Bronte’s poem Spellbound we find that the speaker is in thrall to
nature’s natural predilection for violence. By contrast, in Blake’s
London we find the poet is lucky enough to enjoy the freedom to ‘wander’ and
that his living state is very different from the terrible conditions endured by his
fellow human beings in this sprawling, imprisoning city where he observes :’in every face I
meet/Marks of weakness, marks of woe.’ Religion has abandoned these
people leaving only the ironic ‘stigmata’ of disease, starvation and
suffering.No one except the observing poet seems able to quit this place , and
interestingly Bronte’s poem is preoccupied with not being able to
leave; ‘And I cannot, cannot go...’ and we puzzle as to why and how much choice is
involved and indeed if the ‘Spellbound‘ aspect of the not leaving and
being held in thrall, inspires ironic pleasure too.
What do you feel about the representation of place in each poem Carole?
Where would you rather be?
Carole
From an observational point of view, i would prefer Blake’s London and
indeed, as you point out, the poet is free to wander and observe and
‘report’ in poetry his fellow Londoners’ suffering and enslavement., their lack
of liberty’ – even the streets are owned ‘chartered’….this is such an unsettling and revealing word.
Janet
Yes, the word ‘chartr’d’ is very revealing. It resonates with me as
suggests everything is owned and even geography become a commodity.
London relentless for its accumulations of horror. Definitely social commentary
but as you say, the poet can turn around and leave. He is a missionary?
Anticipating Dickens? Spellbound seems odd and I am not sure how
pleasurable and exciting the poet finds the whole business of enslavement. How many
songs and poems explore the enchantment of love in this way?
Carole
Blake as a missionary highlights the sense of historical ‘place’, it’s
past but also it’s possible future if things don’t change. He hints at
more ‘blood’ and ‘the marriage hearse’ (church and state). ‘ancestral voices
prophesying war’ – the people of London may rise up against their masters
as did the people of Paris! The tone is much more vehement at the end of the
poem?
Janet
Yes it is about the future too and as you say we can detect Kubla Khan
too about the poem’s heart. The ending of London deeply disturbing. Sex kills
seems to be the message. Horrible oxymoron ‘marriage hearse’, worthy of
an arch pessimist like George Gissing though latter later.
Do you think Bronte too has a missionary zeal but her zeal is all about
rebellion and transgression? Bronte invents herself as a poet(not unlike
the female in Kubla Khan) perhaps in Spellbound through a language which
unsettles as it won’t rest?
Carole
The spirit won’t be laid to rest in Spellbound. She is both ‘eternal ‘like the rocks..’ and eternity herself? She is the place too of course…
Janet
So she is the place. I like that. It resonates somehow. Hence the poem shapes itself around her. The wandering poet is very different in London as he doesn’t want to absorb the taint of degradation but it haunts his mind, his very sensibility.
Carole
Do think there is an echo of Wuthering Heights in Spellbound and yes the to Kubla Khan too. Remember the ‘woman wailing …’. The simplistic verse reveals and recalls so much!
The reader is also bound by the poem’s spell. Interesting how Kubla Khan is a
tangible element in both poems. That too, is a poem about enslavement and
powerlessness. Blake’s ‘harlot’ and Coleridge’s cloying ‘woman wailing‘. But
now moving onto different aspects. I have digressed somewhat. Place is the
thing!
Janet
But ‘place’ is psychological too and I doubt very much we could pinpoint
where Spellbound takes place? It seems more a mental ‘place’ or ‘space’ at
times? Perhaps that is what unites both poems? The poets move between inside
states and those places outside…through the triggers of language and the
resonance of sensory impressions?
It is the very compression of the language in both poems that haunts? High
degree of selectivity as poems reveal the places where feelings become
paramount?
Carole
In Bronte’s poem it is indeed, a mental place but inspired by a beloved
physical landscape. Bronte’s is arguablly a landscape of the mind, from
which, she cannot physically escape, cannot leave ‘still I cannot go‘.However,interestingly, one also feels that Blake cannot leave the physical world of
his ‘London‘ and the ‘marks of ‘weakness/marks of woe’ are what he also
bears in his ‘own mind’ and which profoundly haunts his psyche. The pain and
suffering he observes in ‘every face he sees’ are a mirror image of his own
sense of helplessness and loss of hope for the fellow human beings, men,
women and children he encounters. He is also a ‘marked’ man and their
‘manacles’ are also his own ‘mind-forged‘ – stronger than mere physical
chains….
Janet
Really interesting Carole. I think one is a landscape as you say born out of love
and exhilaration at such a passionate eternal connection and the other
reminds the poet of the terrible compromising degradation of urbanization and
modernization. Humans build their own private and public ‘mind forg’d
manacles’ of hell.’Both poets seem ghostly presences haunting their chosen ‘places’ and the
simplicity of Bronte perhaps because nature she finds more transparent whilst
the challenge of ‘London’ is the dense complexity of its lexis?
More to come in full version of this Tusitala Conversation about Blake’s London and Bronte’s Spellbound, both poems of place.
Love what you’ve done!! It really works!!!!