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So here we are. We've made it to the 1950's.
And we're talking about Richard Wilbur's pretty famous poem much anthologized
satire, The Death of a Toad, which dates from 1950.
>> So tell us about the language. Who wants to talk about the language?
Where, where, where is this language from? Is it the language of the street?
Is it the language of children? Is it the...
What, what, where does this come from? Kristen?
>> Well, it's certainly not the language of the street.
It's very high diction for a pretty lowly subject.
>> So you're going right there. Okay, so the difference between the style
and the subject matter is huge. >> Huge.
I mean. >> What's the subject matter?
>> The subject matter is. >> The death of a toad.
It's a toad dying. Got, got struck by a lawn mower.
>> How does this toad die. Is it, is it tragic?
>> Not really. >> Hm, we're, we're.
>> Not typically. I mean, I don't think one would typically
think of the death of a toad as tragic. >> You mean, from the toad's point of
view, absolutely. >> Yes.
>> From the speaker's point of view? >> From the point of view of amphibian is,
it's probably pretty sad, but. >> Okay, where are we, Max?
>>, What's, what's the setting? >> The suburbs.
>> How do we know? >> The idea of a power-mower is such a
suburban idea. It's such a postwar...
>> By the way, 1950, power-mower. I should have done my research, but I
think that's a pretty, like, cool thing. >> Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it is.
>> A hand-mower would have been a little more common, but this is probably a
gasoline-powered mower. So the, the, Wilbur figure.
The speaker. The lawn mowing person has a power mower.
More likely you would cut off the leg of a toad with a power mower and not notice.
>> And never notice. >> Yeah.
Okay, so we are in the suburbs. Is there any other evidence of
suburbanism. Molly?
You know as I said not just suburbia but suburbinism.
Yeah. >> Suburbinism, I am just thinking about
the lawn and the leaves in the garden. >> Yeah tell us about the lawn and the
leaves in the garden. >> Well there's a garden furdged which
sort of makes me think it's a, it's a pretty big garden.
>> It's a planned garden, center area, hm, heart shaped leaves.
This is a, this is quite a nice little verge between the what is now, the mown
lawn, the carefully clipped lawn and a nice garden.
Uh-huh. Anything else?
Do we see, we see, any other reference to the, to the lawn?
Ally? >> At the end of the poem.
>> Mm-hm. >> I mean, it.
>> What's the phrase? >> The castrate line.
>> The castrate line. Okay, so castrate brings us back to
Kristen's first observation, which is this language is not just elevated language.
What is it? I mean, it's beyond elevated.
I mean, the. >> It's high and poetic.
>> The Claude McKay poem is elevated diction.
It's el, Shakespearean language. With all kinds of, subject-verb or
verb-object inversions, and stuff like that.
But this goes beyond that. This is more than that.
>> It's manufactured, in a sense. >> Can you say a little more?
>> It, reading it, it shows that it was so intentionally created and put together.
>> Yeah, so it doesn't have a kind of naturalness about it.
>> There are, there are some actual words we can use to describe this.
Kristen, some more thought on this? >> Well, I think it's pretty satirical.
There's a, there's a jokey ... >> What generates, ...
>> ... Quality to it.
>> There's a jokey quality. What generates, as a matter of language,
this is not an easy question. It's not easy to talk about language in
this way, so. You're being brave.
A toad the power mower caught. Not language we would use if we were
shouting neighbor to neighbor "Hey, your lawnmower, you know, clipped the frog.
Caught, caught a frog." You would, you would probably put the subject verb and
object in the right order. What's the effect of messing around with
it? >> It kind of, I mean, it shows the loss
of agency of the toad. The toad was caught by the power mower.
>> Okay, good. >> It's also massive.
>> How's it Latinate? >> In the verb at the end of the clause.
>> Okay, so it's Latinate. It also helps the, the rhyme.
In this case the rhyme is also artificial because the, the diction of with a
hobbling hop has got. So in order to torque the sentence, the
grammar to get the rhyme, you would, you would think that the rhyme should be
coming in a natural order, but the rhyme itself is an artifice.
A toad the power mower caught, verb put at the end, chewed and clipped of a leg.
The diction is also high and weird. With a hobbling hop has got.
So you've got jokey assonance. And the rhyme is got, caught and got.
Has got, to the garden verge. This is.
This is what? What is this?
You can use fancy poetic terms or you can use your own language.
Emily, what do we have here? >> It's sort of a mixing of high and low
registers, has got to the garden verge. Is sort of sloppy, colloquial language.
>> Good. Yeah.
And just the presence of a toad. I mean, we don't usually associate toads
with the highest. Diction.
This is, I'm just gonna say that this is a mock heroic.
This is mock heroic language. This is heroic language of the sort that
Claude McKay was using when he borrowed from Shakespeare.
But it's mock heroic. You've got, the, the hero here, the tragic
hero here is a frog. Sorry, I'm, I'm sorry, a toad.
>> With all due respect to the differences.
So this is a toad. >> It's like Pope's, *** of the Lock.
>> It's very Popeian. In fact, I think that, Johnson and Pope
and, a little bit of Swift, although Swift is too wild for Wilbur, probably.
>> Mm-hm. >> This period of, formalist, new
formalist poetries, it was called, in the, late 40's and early 50's, before and also
during the big break of the so-called new American poets of which the beats were a
part. Beat next to beats, the beat generation
which we're going to talk about in the next chapter.
You get a kind of neo-formalism that's almost Augustine and it's looking back to
the eighteenth century for satire and wit. So when you, when, in a time of
retrenchment, which is certainly what, largely in America, it's certainly in the
move to the suburbs and so forth. Post war settling and retrenchment.
In art and modes of representation, it's often a time of satire and irony.
Okay, so we have that. What's the purpose of this satire, do you
think? When it's Swift or Pope it's usually to
some object. Molly, do you see any purpose?
>> I don't know. I mean, the toad itself seems too small a
subject. So I don't know.
Maybe he's satirizing, suburban issues, suburban problems.
>> So let's just see. Let's look a little bit at the toad as we
go through it, and see how the toad fares. So he's, he's been clipped of a leg.
He lost his leg. And he hobbled where?
>> To the garden verge. >> Right, he, he's gotten out of the way.
He seems to know enough to get out the way of the power mower.
And he in a, he's at the edge. And he sanctuaried him.
I love that, self-reflexive grammar. He sanctuaried him.
Sanctuaried? He found a, safe, safety.
That is quite a, a high word for what a fr, toad is mostly instinctively doing.
Getting the hell out of the way of the lawn mower.
Under the sinerary leaves in the shade of the ashen and heart shaped leaves, in the
dim low and final glade, the rare original hearts bleed goes.
What's happening there, Ally? >> He's bleeding.
>> He's bleeding. >> To death.
>> He's bleeding to death. >> Why Dave, rare original?
The rare original heart's bleed goes. >> Just elevating and romanticizing the,
the toad. >> What's he thinking about this toad?
Why think of a toad as original and rare? Emily, do you know much about?
>> This kind of animal. >>.
They're, they're amphibians, right? Not reptiles.
>> Yeah. >> There's just something sort of
primordial and gross about them. >> Something really original about them.
Yeah, they're, they're us. They, they, they're the guys who come out
of the water. They crawl out of the water.
>> [laugh]. >> And they're us.
"The rare, original hearts bleed goes, spends in the earthen hide." What's that?
Hey, what's going on there? Translate that into non-Wilburian English.
>> The blood is seeping into the mud, or. >> Yeah, into the.
Probably the mulch. From, you know, the suburbian.
>> [laugh] >> Mulch. Spends in the earth, I love "spends".
In the folds and wizzenings, folds in the gutters of the banked and staring eyes.
Dave, what do you see there? >> You see, the, the life being drained
out of this frog, and his eyes, just, getting more and more vacant.
>> His eyes are, vacant, and they're filling up with blood.
Lovely, huh? >> This is so gross.
>> He lies as still as if he would return to stone.
>> Max, what does that make you think? >> He's, makes me think of actually, of
maybe a stone frog that you... >> He's like a lawn ornament.
>> A lawn ornament. >> Nice.
That's so funny. He's returning to stone, or he's becoming
truly suburban. He's, he's, his, his next life is going to
be as a lawn ornament in the suburbs. >> I would have liked flower ornament.
>> As still as if he would return to stone, and soundlessly attending dies
toward some deep monotone. Ribbit, ribbit.
Riiiiiiiiiiibit. >> [laugh] >> [laugh] >> Toward mist.
And now we have the turn in this elegy. There's always a turn in the elegy.
What happens in the turn of the elegy, typically?
>> Looking forward how you're we gonna survive without the toad?
>> Yeah, well that, I think usually that's the second part.
How we're gonna. Oh, oh, oh, we've lost him.
We care about him. That's the first.
The second is what a great life he had. And the third is, we're on to better
things. And so is he.
Heaven. Where?
Emily toward misted and ebullient seas. This is real mock-heroic.
And cooling shores. Can't you see it?
>> And now he makes up a heaven for toads, for suburban clipped toads.
Lost amphibias emphores. Can you translate that a little bit into
common English? >> Well, he's like the imagery a lot of,
sort of, old mythic imagery of death, of crossing some sea.
>> He's exploiting that to talk about this like afterlife voyage into some...
>> Toad heaven. >> Amphibian paradise.
>> Toad heaven, man. This is toad heaven.
The day dwindles. The speaker, Wilbur let's say, he's done
mowing his lawn. Day dwindles.
Drowning in at length is gone and the wide and antique eyes.
There's antique again. Which still appear to watch across.
>> The castrate lawn. What's funny about that, Max?
You're smiling. >> It's...
>> It's just a ridiculous phrase. >> It's such a loaded way of saying mown
lawn. >> [laugh] >> To, to watch aco-, across
the castrate lawn, the haggard daylight steer.
>> So we've got lots of wit and irony, and we have you know, William, Carlos
Williams, he's not going to do satire and irony.
Why not? Just, come on.
You know, Bill, why wouldn't he do this? >> Because he's into artifice..
He's going to talk about the thing because it's the thing and that's the thing and
that's all that there is. >> And what's his relationship with the
thing? >> He's looking at it.
>> Williams. What's his relationship with the thing?
No ideas but in things, he says. Kristin what's his relationship to the
thing? >> He want to, use it, as it is.
>> And what's Whitman's relationship to the thing?
>> He wants. >> He says it's part.
>> Of America and I love America. >> And it's part of him.
Yes. >> This relationship to the thing, the
toad. >> Is?
>> Is a total construction of this insane artifice.
>> Is the speaker close to the toad? Does the speaker share, have the sense of
sharing the toad's fate? The toad is distant.
The subject-object relationship is distant and ironic.
Marvelous, funny, but so different from what we've been...
I mean Williams will treat a piece of broken green glass as a sign of us, and,
and certainly not small game. This is, this toad is small game for
Wilbur. Wilbur aims his huge talent, his huge
satirical talent at nothing, with all due respect to the toad.
William is, just to keep with our example, we would never turn his enormous talent to
small game, and then treated like small game.
In fact, he would make it a thing of his life.
So, we've sort of set Wilbur up to be not in the modernist tradition, which is
certainly the case. But, maybe we should conclude with a broad
mind writing a couple of comments about where we think we are in this.
Certainly, this is, this is a neo-formalism.
Certainly, it's a form of classicism, in the sense of creating.
And it really, the, I mean, Frost is so much better in my option.
But Frost shares. This situation where he wants something to
divide him from the object. He wants, he wants a clear distinction
between the subject, which in this case is a satirizing subject and the object.
>> So we're really a long way from modernism, in a way.
I mean, it's. But so, anyway, thoughts on this and you
can admit to just being entirely entertained by the satire.
Dave? >> I feel like what Anna said about
artifice, that he's celebrating artifice. He's celebrating the fact that you can
create art from anything to celebrate the act of creation.
>> Mm, maybe he got that a little bit from modernism.
Modernism is all about how nature is artifice and artifice, nature.
And modernism is also about making anything the subject matter for poetry.
The difference is that, I think, that Williams takes, for example, or Stein
takes the subject matter a carafe, or you know, any, any one of her tender objects,
tender buttons, and takes it with high seriousness, but without elevating the
prose way above it, or the, sorry the verse.
Dave, go ahead. Finish what you were gonna say.
>> That was it. >> Ally?
>> I kind of actually agree. I think it's kind of, I wouldn't expect
that I would, see this as art for art's sake, because that, you know, there are
such associations with Modernism when you get to that.
>> Right. >> But, it's kind of just.
This poem seems to me as if Richard Roper just wasn't in the mood to write a poem.
And so he decided, he saw this frog maybe and just decided to use it in order to
kind of display his abilities. >> Good.
Molly, we, were, were wrestling with the concept of suburbanism here.
>> Mm hm. >> Do you wanna add any further thoughts?
You can say anything nasty about the suburbs that you would like.
>> [laugh]. Well I think it, it matches, I mean, the
suburb itself is such an artificial thing. It's constructed for the sake of being
constructed, and made to look very pretty. And that's kind of the way that I feel
about this poem is what Ally just said. He wanted to write a poem.
So he wrote a very fancy poem about a very simple subject.
>> And actually, in a way, not so simple, because what better a setting for a mock,
heroic poem? With all of his artifice then the suburban
garden, with all of this which is why castrate lawn is so, so funny.
And Max, I invite you to say anything you like.
>> For me this. >> It leaves you flat.
>> It. Yeah it doesn't really do anything for me.
It, it, I, I think it's funny. It's like good for you, you can make your
own form, you can make your own line. You can use this like crazy insane
language. >> It's so funny.
I'm sorry, it's so funny that, that, with, that, that, that part of the humor of it
is that we're. >> He's taking, he's making a formality.
This is an invented, neo-formalist form. It's almost as if he.
Once freed of, of form. By the modernist revolution he runs to,
one that he makes up. It's as if he can't do without it in a
way. >> I don't know, I'm just not a big fan
of. Artifice in this way.
>> Okay, Max. >> I think that's why it's kind of a, a
tricky and. >> Mm.
>> You get the last word Max. Say something smart.
>> I think it's kind of a tricky and almost like baffling, poem.
Cause, I'm not. Sure I don't think any of us are too sure
why he's, he's doing this. Why he's undertaking this.
>> What's at stake? >> What is, yeah what is at stake?
I'm not sure. >> If there's something more about our
connection to the amphibian, I need to be persuaded of it.
If there's something more then I'm okay, but if it's really just about this, this
toad that has nothing to do with us. But it's not because it's a satire, it's
so over the top that, that his point is less about the toad than it is, of course,
about the form, but it's also. >> I'm not sure why he's making that
point, if it's also gonna be one that's so, ironized, one that's so satirical,
we're not supposed to either be persuaded by the toad or the form I don't think, so.
>> It's been said of Joan Didion, obviously a very different kind of writer,
that nothing survives her, her scrutiny. And she goes after small game, also large
game. She goes after small game and there's
nothing left of it. And I think this is a hilarious example of
how there's nothing left. Of, of the small game.
>> I mean, I know there's nothing left of the toad.
>> He wrings the life out of it. >> [laugh].
>> Till they exhausted the toad. >> So why don't we just pack up, and drive
out to suburbia and see if we can, I don't know, mow some lawns or?
>> Clip some toads. >> Clip some toads.