Today's poem on Penny's Poetry Blog:
December, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Only the sea intoning,
Only the wainscot-mouse,
Only the wild wind moaning
Over the lonely house.
[...] https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2022/12/december-thomas-bailey-aldrich.html
#pennyspoems
Today's poem on Penny's Poetry Blog:
December, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Only the sea intoning,
Only the wainscot-mouse,
Only the wild wind moaning
Over the lonely house.
[...]
https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2022/12/december-thomas-bailey-aldrich.html
#pennyspoems
this may be a good place to say something about "subtext," since it has recently become a topic of discussion on aapc.
A "subtext" is the details of a poem (the information needed for a
reader to fully understand it) not by stating them, but by allowing a
reader to infer them. Inference is not imagination, and not every detail
a reader imagines is necessarily there because of subtext; but poets and other writers can and do employ subtexts.
s an example, take L2 of the above poem: "Only the wainscot-mouse." At
first glance this looks like a throwaway line, with no reason to be
there except to find a rhyme for "house." But let's look at the
implications.
First, the house is so quiet that he can hear a mouse running around in
the wall. He can hear the sea and the wind, but only as low background
over which he can still hear the mouse. Other than the mouse, he can
hear no sound at all from inside the house. The implications are that
the speaker is alone in the house, and that he is doing nothing but just sitting and listening to nothing.
Second, this sitting around alone in an otherwise empty house is not
just a one-time event, but something that speaker has been doing for
some time. We know that because he is familiar with the mouse (or mice) making noises inside the wall, so much that he's given it (them) a
familiar nickname.
this background context supplied by that subtext, of the speaker as a
man alone living in an empty house, allows the reader to interpret the
events of the poem. The speaker is remembering two deaths: one, of a
man, at sea, and one, of a woman, in bed at home. The identities of the
man and woman are never given, nor their relationship to each other nor
to the speaker, but the background context provides the most likely explanation:
The man and the woman are the speaker's own family. The man is his son,
who became a sailor and died at sea, while the woman is the speaker's
wife, who took to her bed and died after the death of her son.
George J. Dance wrote:
Today's poem on Penny's Poetry Blog:
December, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Only the sea intoning,
Only the wainscot-mouse,
Only the wild wind moaning
Over the lonely house.
[...]
https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2022/12/december-thomas-bailey-aldrich.html
#pennyspoems
this may be a good place to say something about "subtext," since it has
recently become a topic of discussion on aapc.
A "subtext" is the details of a poem (the information needed for a
reader to fully understand it) not by stating them, but by allowing a
reader to infer them. Inference is not imagination, and not every detail
a reader imagines is necessarily there because of subtext; but poets and
other writers can and do employ subtexts.
s an example, take L2 of the above poem: "Only the wainscot-mouse." At
first glance this looks like a throwaway line, with no reason to be
there except to find a rhyme for "house." But let's look at the
implications.
First, the house is so quiet that he can hear a mouse running around in
the wall. He can hear the sea and the wind, but only as low background
over which he can still hear the mouse. Other than the mouse, he can
hear no sound at all from inside the house. The implications are that
the speaker is alone in the house, and that he is doing nothing but just
sitting and listening to nothing.
Second, this sitting around alone in an otherwise empty house is not
just a one-time event, but something that speaker has been doing for
some time. We know that because he is familiar with the mouse (or mice)
making noises inside the wall, so much that he's given it (them) a
familiar nickname.
this background context supplied by that subtext, of the speaker as a
man alone living in an empty house, allows the reader to interpret the
events of the poem. The speaker is remembering two deaths: one, of a
man, at sea, and one, of a woman, in bed at home. The identities of the
man and woman are never given, nor their relationship to each other nor
to the speaker, but the background context provides the most likely
explanation:
The man and the woman are the speaker's own family. The man is his son,
who became a sailor and died at sea, while the woman is the speaker's
wife, who took to her bed and died after the death of her son.
I had to look up "wainscot", and that made all the difference.
I was reminded, for obvious reasons, of a favorite H.P. Lovecraft story, "The Rats in the Wall":
https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/rw.aspx
Will Dockery wrote:
George J. Dance wrote:
Today's poem on Penny's Poetry Blog:
December, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Only the sea intoning,
Only the wainscot-mouse,
Only the wild wind moaning
Over the lonely house.
[...]
https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2022/12/december-thomas-bailey-aldrich.html
#pennyspoems
this may be a good place to say something about "subtext," since it has
recently become a topic of discussion on aapc.
A "subtext" is the details of a poem (the information needed for a
reader to fully understand it) not by stating them, but by allowing a
reader to infer them. Inference is not imagination, and not every detail >>> a reader imagines is necessarily there because of subtext; but poets and >>> other writers can and do employ subtexts.
s an example, take L2 of the above poem: "Only the wainscot-mouse." At
first glance this looks like a throwaway line, with no reason to be
there except to find a rhyme for "house." But let's look at the
implications.
First, the house is so quiet that he can hear a mouse running around in >>> the wall. He can hear the sea and the wind, but only as low background
over which he can still hear the mouse. Other than the mouse, he can
hear no sound at all from inside the house. The implications are that
the speaker is alone in the house, and that he is doing nothing but just >>> sitting and listening to nothing.
Second, this sitting around alone in an otherwise empty house is not
just a one-time event, but something that speaker has been doing for
some time. We know that because he is familiar with the mouse (or mice)
making noises inside the wall, so much that he's given it (them) a
familiar nickname.
this background context supplied by that subtext, of the speaker as a
man alone living in an empty house, allows the reader to interpret the
events of the poem. The speaker is remembering two deaths: one, of a
man, at sea, and one, of a woman, in bed at home. The identities of the
man and woman are never given, nor their relationship to each other nor
to the speaker, but the background context provides the most likely
explanation:
The man and the woman are the speaker's own family. The man is his son,
who became a sailor and died at sea, while the woman is the speaker's
wife, who took to her bed and died after the death of her son.
I had to look up "wainscot", and that made all the difference.
I was reminded, for obvious reasons, of a favorite H.P. Lovecraft story, "The Rats in the Wall":
https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/rw.aspx
Quite excellent, LOVE me some Lovecraft...!
Scary dude...
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