At the second seminar of the ESRC-sponsored Poetry Matters series in Greenwich we were aksed to bring maritime poems to share and discuss with one another.
I 'Full fathom five' from The Tempest; I expected eight other people to also bring it, but it seems no one else did. Here it is, and why I think it is so powerful in the context of teaching poetry reading to learners of all ages.
Full fathom five
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that does fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong,
Hark! Now I hear them – Ding-dong, bell.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1 Scene II
I think everyone reading this will be familiar with the 'sea-change' that has entered the language. Barely a day goes by when someone is not quoting it (consciously or not), either in Parliament or on the news.
But re-reading and savouring it as I typed it out to bring to Greenwich I was struck again by that miraculous use of the word 'suffer'. There is something on a figuarative level in there, perhaps, for those of us who are teachers and teacher-educators, that to get to the point of enjoying the 'rich and strange' mystery of poetry there is a cost involved in the enterprise.
This goes back to the point I was trying to make on Thursday morning, drawing on Nick's point about living with ambiguity, which in turn draws on Keats' 'negative capability'. A poem once it is heard out loud and read by more than one person, whatever age they are and whatever their experience of poetry, is not the same poem you started off with. This reminds me of the most profound piece of poetry criticism I think I have ever heard, from the Greek philosopher Bart Simpson when he said to his classmates on one of his good days: 'Hey people, c'mon, these poems aren't going to appreciate themselves!'
The risk is the risk.
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