标题: The Garden－Andrew Marvell [打印本页] 作者: 楚狂 时间: 2006-6-27 16:54 标题: The Garden－Andrew Marvell How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
And their uncessant labours see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow vergèd shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid,
While all flow'rs and all trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose.
Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men.
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow.
Society is all but rude,
To this delicious solitude.
No white nor red was ever seen
So am'rous as this lovely green.
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress' name.
Little, alas, they know, or heed,
How far these beauties hers exceed!
Fair trees! Wheres'e'er your barks I wound,
No name shall but your own be found.
When we have run our passion's heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat.
The gods, that mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race.
Apollo hunted Daphne so,
Only that she might laurel grow.
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.
What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarene, and curious peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness:
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find,
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas,
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide:
There like a bird it sits, and sings,
Then whets, and combs its silver wings;
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.
Such was the happy garden-state,
While man there walked without a mate:
After a place so pure, and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there:
Two paradises 'twere in one
To live in paradise alone.
How well the skilful gardener drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new,
Where from above the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run;
And, as it works, the industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and whilesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers!作者: 楚狂 时间: 2006-6-27 16:58 标题: notes 1.plam,oak,bay are crowns for victors in games,politics and poetry
2.curious in Line 37 means exquisite
3.vest in Line 51 means vesture
4.whets in Line 54 means preens作者: duessa 时间: 2006-6-27 19:41
This poem obviously follows the tradition of classic pastoral poems. There is no small influence of the Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil, The Shepheardes Calender of Edmund Spenser and the lyric poems of Philip Sidney on it.
What troubles me, and attracts me in this poem, however, is that it lacks the common calm and soothing effect of the genre. Instead, I seem to sense a certain kind of unrest even crisis in it.
I love some of Marvell's poems a lot.作者: 楚狂 时间: 2006-6-27 23:30
I think it is a typic metaphysical poem. The metaphysical poem, just as the criticism of Samuel Johnson describes, is" a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together." So it is hard to be classified. I think it is a mixture of satiric poem and pastoral poem.作者: duessa 时间: 2006-6-28 19:20
Andrew Marvell is commonly known as a metaphysical poet, but his poems combine the wits of metaphysical ones and the smoothness of lyrics. And that's the reason why I love them.
"I think it is a mixture of satiric poem and pastoral poem."
Could you explain how it is satiric?作者: 楚狂 时间: 2006-7-1 21:31
Isn't that clear in the beginning?作者: duessa 时间: 2006-7-8 22:13 标题: My Comments (part I) Andrew Marvell presents in this poem a beautiful garden. This garden, however, is not just a place for appreciation or recreation. In my view, it represents a kind of life mode. This mode of life is the very opposite of another mode of life—an active, busy kind of life. We can see this point clearly from the very first stanza:
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
And their uncessant labours see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow verged shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid,
While all flow’rs and all trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose.
The Garden here is opposed in every way to ambition and to the coarser worldly amusements. The palm, the symbol of military victory, the oak, of civic achievement, and the bays, of poetic excellence, are all rejected. Only the Garden is really praiseworthy. The poet continues to tell us that “society is all but rude to this delicious solitude”, and only in the Garden do quiet and innocence lie. So the first two stanzas juxtaposes the delicious Garden life and the crude society. Actually, the comparative merits of an active life and a contemplative one has been an argument since ancient times. Here, Marvell follows the tradition of classic pastoral poems and prefers the latter. Human love, or human desires, is rejected in this garden because it is “cruel” and harmful to the garden. Only “when we have run our passion’s heat”, can we find this garden. The poets even hints here that the gods like Apollo and Pan are actually seeking plants instead of women. In this garden of quiet life, man almost returns to the age of innocence, and the whole material world has been reduced to nothing material, i.e. “to a green thought”. So the poet achieves mental purity here. And his soul, disembodied, take on the ancient emblematic shape of a bird, singing, and poised, as it “waves in its plumes the various light”, for the “longer flight”. It is not, certainly, the limed soul of a sinner like that of Claudius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. (Act III, Scene III, Line 71) “Such was that happy garden-state,” incomparably pure and sweet.
[ 本帖最后由 duessa 于 2006-7-9 20:52 编辑 ]作者: duessa 时间: 2006-7-9 20:47 标题: My Comments (part II) Such a garden life almost repeats the innocent happy life of Eden, or a dream of ideal life since ancient times. But just like Eden, this garden life is not totally without underlying danger. Let’s look at the fifth stanza of this poem:
What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine, and curious peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
Here the speaker “I” appears in the Garden singing a song of innocent sensuous pleasure as he leads this “wondrous life”. According to ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, (who is identified with the Garden) the highest good is pleasure (particularly sensuous enjoyment), and pleasure is synonymous with virtue. And this is the climax of the garden-state. The danger, however, just lies in this very Garden of innocence as we see in the last two lines. “I fall on grass” because of the “melon”. Melon in its Greek etymology is “apple”, and grass in the Bible means “flesh”. So this “fall” is not merely a soft and harmless fall, but an irrevocable loss of the garden. And apple as the reason of the “fall” no doubt indicates the human’s loss of Eden. The poet here, of course, has no willing to retell the story of the Bible, but does give us a start and an uneasy feeling, which also steals in in other places of the poem. Let’s continue to look at the first two lines of the next stanza:
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness;
The word “less” in the first line is rather ambiguous in meaning. But if we follow the above analysis, it can be concluded that the highest pleasure of the soul has already been lost and the mind, with all its annihilating power, can never reach the same pleasure. So the “less” here quite precisely expresses this contrast.
More examples like the above ones can be found. We notice that the soul-bird waving its plumes in the “various light”(stanza 7) of the world instead of the white radiance of eternity, which gives much doubt about the “longer flight” it is about to undertake. And the past tense used in “Such was that happy garden-state”(stanza 8) also conveys the poet’s feeling of the loss of a golden age. The most obvious example comes in the last stanza when time settles in. In contrast to eternity, time suggests corruption and depravity of the human world and its final triumph provokes us to think more about the merits of this garden life.
Andrew Marvell was brought up in a puritan background and much influenced by metaphysical ideas. Unlike some cavalier poets, both puritan and metaphysical poets tend to be serious. “To His Coy Mistress”, for example, a seemingly playful writing of Marvell, actually involves serious moral issues and critics such as H. M. Margoliouth and T. S. Eliot have made a special effort to explain this. As far as this poem is concerned, Andrew Marvell also composed a companion piece to it in Latin which, while corresponding fairly closely to it, lacks the equivalent verses for stanzas 5 to 8. So, that poem is much simpler in meaning and fits perfectly in the traditional theme as an encouragement for people to seek the virtuous garden life. We cannot determine which version is earlier, but the English one is surprisingly terser than the Latin one. So it may reflect that the English one is a second effort on the same topic and the poet obviously had more doubts about such a mode of life at that moment.
[ 本帖最后由 duessa 于 2006-7-9 20:51 编辑 ]作者: duessa 时间: 2006-7-11 22:12 标题: My Comments (the final part) Then, why couldn’t the poet make his choice and why did he make his poem so ambiguous? What had hindered him from following the virtuous garden life of ancient philosophers? We can turn to the poet’s personal experiences and the broader social background of that age for the answer. In Marvell’s time, England was gradually losing its calm and peaceful life. In 1642, the first civil war broke out; in 1648, the second one and Charles I was beheaded in the following year. Alongside with the political unrest, all kinds of ideas clashed and the world seemed to be falling apart. As for Marvell, he experienced a personal change from a pro-royalist, as we see in his elegies written in 1648 and 1649 on Francis Villiers, Lord Hastings and Richard Lovelace, to a supporter of the Commonwealth. He also came to be active on the arena of politics, which is shown in his famous poem An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland and his acceptance of the appointment as the Latin Secretary to the Council of State in 1657 and his election as MP for Hull for almost twenty years, though he might still think it more preferable in virtue to lead a quiet contemplative life as the ancient philosophers. So it is the conflicting thoughts of the poet that have been reflected into his poems and made them so ambiguous. We do not know the exact date when Marvell composed the poem, but it is much likely that he wrote it during the years between 1650 and 1653 when he served as tutor to the daughter of General Fairfax in the Yorkshire country house Nun Appleton. Also during this sojourn, the poet composed the poem Upon Appleton House. This poem belongs to the category of the “country house poem” designed to describe and praise a house, a family and a way of life. Marvell, of course, wrote it to present to his patron General Fairfax. The tone of the poem, however, is much distinct from other country house poems of the seventeenth century such as that of Ben Jonson or Thomas Carew. For all its brillance and variety, the poem has seemed to many readers “a muddled and uneven” one because in it Marvell is “trying to counterpoint a number of complex and diverse themes”. General Fairfax’s retirement from politics enabled him to assume his social responsibilities (Line 65-70) and nurture his daughter Mary, (Line 649-768), but England has lost its perhaps fittest gardener who might have saved it from the desolation that was threatening. “What luckless apple did we taste, To make us mortal, and thee waste?”(Line 327-328) Again, conflicting themes appear, which can give us a better understanding of “The Garden”.
Andrew Marvell seemed to have written most of his non-satiric English poems during his stay at the Nun Appleton House. In these poems, we can see the poet’s following of the classic themes. What has made him remarkable, however, is that he seemed to be continuously adding something in so as to turn his poems extraordinarily ambiguous, which can be also seen as a reflection of all kinds of ideas competing in the poet’s mind. “The Garden” is actually a self-discussion on the choice of life modes at this critical moment of his career. In the later period of the poet, especially after the Restoration of 1660, Marvell became increasingly hostile to the government of Charles II and when he died in 1678, he was only remembered for his formidable satires where, naturally, no ambiguity is to be found any more.
[ 本帖最后由 duessa 于 2006-7-11 22:13 编辑 ]作者: 怀抱花朵的孩子 时间: 2006-7-11 22:52
Thank you very much for posting so splendid comments on this poem, I'll write some comments also to discuss with you few days later. I feel it will be very interesting!
[ 本帖最后由 怀抱花朵的孩子 于 2006-7-11 22:57 编辑 ]作者: mu 时间: 2006-7-18 12:59 标题: thanks for duessa's comments What a talented duessa!作者: kokho 时间: 2006-9-22 13:57 标题: splendid comments indeed:)) This call for a heartening applause!!!!
