P A R T F O U R
Time in its aging course teaches all things. - Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, line 980
-1-
Although we have looked at a brief first person account of visionary experience in Wordsworth with the "spots of time", which would seem to be more of an analysis of the experience than an actual figuring of the experience itself, we have been looking at the question of perception from an almost entirely third person perspective. To fully consider altered states of perception, it is vital to examine accounts written from the first person, as well as the third person. The question of the first person account of these experiences and perceptions and the results and reactions, that is, how one is affected by these events, how one thinks about one's self in regard to that which has happened, is important to consider in comparison with a second or third person account of how the person is affected. The person him/herself might not notice any personal change, a change that might be evident to an outsider. By the same token, the first person might notice some personal change not evident to some second or third person. This is the case we have with Shelley's young poet in Alastor, for we are told about the third person "he", we are told about the changes inherent in his character, manner, and person. But, as we are to continue to see, it would seem to be obvious that, from Shelley's third person account of the young poet's behavior, and, later on, with short first person accounts from the young poet himself, the young poet is unaware of these changes as he continues to attempt to find out "what we are". This is also an important issue, cases where we have the shift from third person to first person narratives, in Alastor, The Excursion, and, as we will see shortly, the entirely first person account of Coleridge's Kubla Khan. Does Shelley's young poet in Alastor see himself in this manner, in the first person? Or is this entirely some removed party's, third person perspective?
These questions are necessary ones to consider in this discussion, for they are essential to the question of sensation and experience and perception, modes and extents of "reality", and that which consists of personal identity and continuity, and, therefore, memory and immortality. It is through these questions that we can see the importance of the interrelation between the outer world and the inner world, the objective and the subjective, for this is where language attempts to bridge the gap and come up with "[c]olours and words" to describe the visionary experience. Shelley's young poet does not seem to see any change in himself, but it is evident from the third person that there is a change coming about in the poet. But consider this in a reversed situation - what if the poet felt himself slipping from grips with the ordinary world, but that a third person perspective did not see any change in the poet's character? We are led back to the question of language, how we are to use words to describe the closed-eye landscape to others, to try to explain what we perceive in aesthetic experiences. This discussion will be furthered as we examine the third person account of the young poet after his experience (lines 162-192) and begin to shift to the first person accounts of these experiences in Wordsworth and Coleridge.
* * * *
Once the young poet has "started from his trance", we are told that "[h]is wan eyes/ Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly/ As the ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven."2 This is the result of the experience: "The spirit of sweet human love has sent/ A vision to the sleep of him who spurned/ Her choicest gifts."3 George Edward Woodberry notes that "[t]his 'vision' is the ALASTOR evil genius, the spirit of solitude, the embodiment of all the responses to his own nature which the Poet lacked through his separation from society, and was sent by 'the spirit of sweet human love' to him 'who had spurned her choicest gifts' by his self-isolation". He continues, adding that
it was sent, as an Avenger, and leads or drives him on in search of its own phantasm till he dies. The folly of devotion to the idealizing faculty apart from human life seems to be the moral of the allegory... If, as Dowden says, the poem be "in its inmost sense a pleading on behalf of human love," shown by the fate of those who reject it, it is also not without a tragic sense of the pity of that fate in those in whose life such a rejection is rather the isolation of a noble nature and the result less of choice than of temperament and circumstance.4
From this critique, it would appear that this visionary experience is the result of some outside agent, that the young poet has nothing to do with its arrival or the resulting effects. Is it that this "spirit of solitude" is an outside agent? With a precursory reading, it may seem that this "vision", this Alastor is indeed a force separate from the young poet. But in examining the questions that arise from the following segments, we come to realize that this "spirit of solitude" is something that is inherent in the young poet, a part of him. If we are to read this as something separate from the poet, it would seem to be that the young poet ignored "[t]he spirit of...love", so he continued to search for this vision, which was "love". He does not realize that which he should realize, so it would seem that "love" avenges itself, and leaves the young poet seeing with "wan eyes". However, as we have been discussing, as in relation to the "inmost sense", it is the interaction between the outer and the inner realms that leads to these experiences; it is a reflexive action. As such it is impossible to see this "vision" as an "idealizing faculty apart from human life", for to do that would be to remove any and all immortal possibilities, as it would imply that these aesthetic events are not inherent "in" us, therefore not "in" the mind, causally, temporarily, or at all. It would also diminutize the powers that we as humans have, as well as disregard these "vision[s]" as "un-real".
We are told that the young poet's "eyes", which before were "wild" (line 63), have now become "wan". Rather than laying blame for this change on an outward thing, "[t]he spirit of...love", if we see this change as a result of him not realizing that which he has experienced, we can more fully understand the reason that, instead of trying to find a way of communicating to others that which he has perceived,
[h]e eagerly pursues
Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade;
He overleaps the bounds. (ll. 205-07)
This would imply that it is him doing something, not some outward being or entity doing something to him - "He eagerly pursues... He overleaps the bounds." Again we see that he is not just allowing these events to reflexively happen, he is "pursu[ing]", an active rather than passive behaviour. He is still "forcing some lone ghost". However, he is approaching the fine line between ordinary experience and aesthetic experience, for we are told that "[h]e...pursues/ Beyond the realms of dream.../ He overleaps the bounds." It would seem that Shelley is continuing to suggest that it is possible to catch a fleeting glimpse of immortal possibilities with these lines, and the ones that follow. The young poet is looking for some sort of happiness, happiness that will be found when he discovers "that fleeting shade". In his Queen Mab (1812-13) Shelley says that "happiness/ And science dawn, though late, upon the earth".5 Thomas Jefferson Hogg tells us that, when Shelley was at Oxford, Shelley "proceeded, with much eagerness and enthusiasm, to show [him] the various instruments, especially the electrical apparatus".6 As has been mentioned, Shelley had read Davy's Elements of Chemical Philosophy (1812), as well as A Discourse, Introductory to a Course of Lectures on Chemistry (1802), in which the idea that electricity is a "vital fluid", an element capable of animating things to life, is discussed:
Science has...bestowed upon [us] powers which may be called almost creative...who would not be ambitious of becoming acquainted with the most profound secrets of nature; of ascertaining her hidden operations; and of exhibiting to man that system of knowledge which relates so intimately to their own physical and moral constitution? 7
If we look to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), we can see echoed that which it seems that Shelley was trying to accomplish or attain: "I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation."8 Although this is a more tangible, experimental variation than purely perceptual and experiential, does this not qualify as "overleap[ing] the bounds"? And, if it is, does this suggest that by "overleap[ing] the bounds" that we can touch upon what lies beyond our "senses five"? Perhaps, but the question still remains of how we are to find "the bounds" that need to be "overleap[t]", and Shelley hints at the answer to this in line 206 - "the bounds" are in our "dream[s]", or rather, "dream[s]" are where "the bounds" begin.
The young poet thinks that his "vision" is "[l]ost, lost, forever lost/ In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep", at lines 209 to 210. We are led into "the realms of dream" with the hypnotic repetition of "[l]ost, lost,...lost", the rhythm of these words only broken by the word "forever", lending an eternal feel to where this "vision" has gone. The place that this "vision" has been "lost", we are told, is "[i]n the wide pathless desert of dim sleep" (210), which would seem to be an allusion to the neural pathways of the brain, pathways that the "vital fluid" of electricity travels along to fire off impulses and recall memories. With the connection of "forever" with this "wide pathless desert", we come even closer to realizing the immortal possibilities of our memories, of our minds.
It is as if, by being lead to this "wide pathless desert", we are brought to lines 211 to 213, where Shelley implores,
Does the dark gate of death
Conduct to thy mysterious paradise,
O Sleep?
This is an essential question if we are to follow this discussion, with the connection between "overleap[ing] the bounds" and going "beyond the realms of dreams" and the infinite feeling of being "lost.../ In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep", and its associations with the neural network that allows access to our causally located memories. The young poet is attempting to find a way to discover "what we are", and Shelley's third person narrative of what the poet is going through now asks a vital question, having lead us this far in the account of the young poet's experiences and perceptions, and his reactions to them, a question that will lead us into the argument that will allow us to discover the powers that lie beyond the five senses we use everyday, the powers of the mind, the powers that offer us a glimpse at immortality.
The question, again, is whether or not "the dark gate of death" can bring us to the "mysterious paradise" of "Sleep". "Sleep" here is addressed in a different fashion than it had been three lines earlier, for it is capitalized at 213, but not at 210 ("dim sleep"). This would not seem worthy of much comment, but it is important textually, for in its capitalization it is given an added dimension, one that makes it stick out more in the reader's thoughts. It is easy enough to skim over the importance of the fact that Shelley uses the word "sleep" at line 210, for it is at the end of the line, and we are reading that the "vision" is "lost", and might therefore read without absorbing the word "sleep" in this line. But at 213 "Sleep" is addressed differently, it is called to - "O Sleep" - and asked if its "mysterious paradise" is "[c]onduct[ed] to" via "the dark gate of death". This is refrained at line 219, and "Sleep" is treated in the same manner, called to: "Conducts, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms?". The repetition of the word "[c]onduct(s)", in both instances starting the line, and therefore capitalized and bringing attention to itself, as well as being followed by "O Sleep", shows Shelley's attempt to have his readers notice the importance of this question. Were the question only present once it would be enough - but Shelley seems to want to ensure that the question is not missed, and does so by this repetition. The reader is reminded of lines 212 and 213 when s/he reads line 219, and may stop to consider this question, as it is an intriguing one. "Sleep" is a state in which there is a limited amount of outward sensory stimulation, but in the closed-eye landscape of dreams there is sensory stimulation; we can see, hear, feel, smell, and talk on an inward sensory level while asleep. If the state of "Sleep" is being equated with "death" by way of "death" being the "gate" to "Sleep['s]" "mysterious paradise", then it should be logical that "death" is not a state of ceasing to be (and therefore an inappropriate word in this case). "[D]eath" deals with mortality; it is the last step of being mortal. If there is sensory stimulation that is not entirely dependent upon the outward senses (above and beyond the causally dependent memories gained from previous external sensual experiences) in this "mysterious paradise" that interconnects "death" and "Sleep", then "death" needs to be re-interpreted to being the gate to immortality, rather than the last checkpoint for mortality. This would seem to be what Shelley is conveying, as we are told that, upon having these thoughts on the "delightful realms" of "Sleep",
The insatiate hope which it awakened stung
His brain even like despair.
While daylight held
The sky, the Poet kept mute conference
With his still soul. At night the passion came,
Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream,
And shook him from his rest, and led him forth
Into the darkness. (ll. 221-27)
"The insatiate hope", we read, a "hope" that is unable to be satisfied. This "hope" is that "death" and "Sleep" are connected. But it definitely is an "insatiate hope", for it is not a question that can be proven true or false, as to discover the answer is to physically die. It is thus that "[h]is brain" is "stung...even like despair" as this "hope" is "awakened". The words chosen here are extremely intriguing, "awakened" when the discussion is about "Sleep", and "stung" when the discussion seems to be leaning towards immortal possibilities, possibilities that are dependent upon the memories temporarily resident in the "brain" as electrical impulses that fire off and "st[i]ng" the "brain" as they are recalled.
This "despair" leads the young poet to, "[w]hile daylight held/ The sky", have "mute conference/ With his still soul". During the part of the day when the sun is out, when people are normally awake, he "kept mute conference", a seemingly oxymoronic event, for "conferences" usually entail speaking, and "mute" is an entire lack of the sense of speech. Here, then, we can see that our "senses five" are limiting, for they do not allow for such an event as a "mute conference". However, he is having this discussion, and is having it with "his still soul", his mind. If an activity that does not fit into the rules of the ordinary five senses can be had with the mind, then the mind must be capable of surpassing these five senses, must be in possession of certain extra sense/s. The possession of the "still soul" by the young poet by way of the word "his" is important to note for it further stresses that the events that he is experiencing are not due to some external agent; it is "his still soul" with whom he is having this "mute conference".
We are then told that "[a]t night the passion came...[a]nd shook him from his rest", that is to say, when the sun has set, the time when people normally sleep, this "mute conference" ended (as he was no longer able to utilize his outward senses), and his conscious "rest" is "sh[a]k[en]". This sets up a contrast that is necessary for this "death" and "Sleep" connection to continue, for it implies that the "soul"/mind is "still", relatively inactive in comparison to what it can do, when we are awake, but that when we sleep our "soul"/mind comes into its own, and therefore the "passion", therefore the end of the young poet's "rest". Shelley compares this "passion" of the mind to "the fierce fiend of a distempered dream" - does this suggest that this "passion" is something separate from the poet? We are told that he is "led...forth/ Into the darkness" by this "passion". This does not, I think, lead us to understand the "passion" as an external agent, for the "darkness" is reminiscent of the same lack of light from the "dark gate of death" at line 211, and therefore connected to "Sleep" and its "mysterious paradise". In this way we can see that the comparison of the "passion" with this "fierce fiend" is Shelley's way of reminding us that the young poet has ignored the fact that to find out "what we are" requires the acknowledgment of both ordinary and aesthetic perception, that it can not be a quest that results in solitude, for to do so does not allow for the interaction between the external and the internal, and without the sensory input from the outside world the internal machinations of the mind are unable to expand, memories are unable to be had.
Slowly but surely the young poet begins to realize that there definitely is a connection between the realms of "Sleep" and "death", even though he has not yet come to understand that there is not some outward "spirit" that he needs to capture to discover the connection. This results in his physical deterioration,9 as he neglects his mortal part and its ordinary experiences and attempts to focus strictly upon the aesthetic by continuing to "pursue" this "spirit". At line 275 he comes upon a "swan...[b]eside a sluggish stream" that "[s]cale[s] the upward sky" as he approaches. As he observes this he makes the ironic comment that it is not fair that he "'should linger here... [i]n the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven/ That echoes not [his] thoughts'" as his "'Spirit [is] more vast than [the swan's], frame more attuned/ To beauty'", that he is "'wasting [his] surpassing powers'" by doing so ("'linger[ing]'").10 It is important to note that here, in this first person account, the young poet strips the "belovèd brotherhood" of senses, making them "'deaf'", "'blind'", and "mute" (unable to "'echo'"), but that he attributes himself with "'surpassing powers'", and herein lies the ironic nature of his comment. He feels that he is more worthy than the "swan" is, that he should be able to "[s]cale the upward sky" due to his "'more vast'" "'Spirit'" when in actuality, because of the fact that he is ignoring the need for the interaction between the different modes of perception, his "'Spirit'" is less "'vast'".
Upon having seen this "swan" and reassured himself that he knows what he is doing,
A gloomy smile
Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips.
For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly
Its precious charge, and silent death exposed,
Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure,
With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms. (ll. 290-95)
These six lines seem to cue the next three to happen, and we shall examine those three in a moment. This passage has an almost self-defeated feel to it, with its "gloomy smile", "desperate hope", "doubtful smile", and "strange charms". The "desperate hope" here is the same "hope" from line 221 ("insatiate hope"), which before "stung/ His brain" - now it "wrinkle[s]" "[a] gloomy smile" on "his quivering lips". Shelley writes that the young poet "knew" that "sleep...kept most relentlessly/ Its precious charge". The word "relentlessly" in relation to the "precious charge" of "sleep" is noteworthy, as it makes this "precious charge" immortal, never ending. This "precious charge", then, from a modern context, can be read as the activity of the brain in "sleep", electrical impulses firing, and Shelley is not mistaken in saying that it is "kept most relentlessly", for energy is something that can not be destroyed nor created, immortal of itself. And, if memories are energy stored temporarily in the brain, then they too are immortal. Shelley's young poet has not considered this yet, but is very close to being able to realize this, if only he would allow himself to.
The young poet's "gloomy smile" is mirrored in the "doubtful smile" of "silent death". This would seem to indicate that "death" knows that it is the gateway to "sleep" and immortality, and due to the fact that we are told that the young poet "knew" about "sleep['s]" "precious charge", and that the information about "silent death [being] exposed" follows this, separated only by a comma, it would appear that the poet also "knew" that "death" is the gateway. But we read that "silent death" is "[f]aithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure", and a feeling is given to this that, although the poet is being drawn in by the "lure", he is uncertain of what he will find, thus the use of "[f]aithless perhaps". What is it about "sleep" that is "[f]aithless"? Most likely it would be that "sleep" is something that can not be predicted, that is, one might wake up in the middle of a dream, unable to return to the events happening in that state of altered perception, and in this manner "sleep" definitely is "[f]aithless". This feeling is reflected upon "death", and, because of this uncertainty, "death" is figured "[w]ith doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms." The possession of the "strange charms" by "death" with the use of "its own" could possibly lead one to think that Shelley is making "death" an external agent, rather than an event. This is definitely not the case, as we shall see in the next three lines. The external feel given to this by way of the possession of the "strange charms" is the way the young poet sees the world, and therefore his "gloomy smile", for he can not seem to catch up with the "fierce fiend" that he thinks brings on "the passion". To do this leads to what appears to be insanity, confusion in one's mind, observable from a third person viewpoint, but that, from a first person perspective, is easily enough ignored and blamed upon some external agent - until one realizes that the only external agent is one's self.
Startled by his own thoughts, he looked around.
There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight
Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind. (ll. 296-98)
He is "[s]tartled by his own thoughts", these "thoughts" about "sleep" and "death". This "[s]tartl[ing]" goes deeper than just the realization by the poet of the "thoughts" - it is the realization that these "thoughts" are "his own", not some outward being's. "[H]e looked around./ There was no fair fiend near him" as he had previously thought; he is by himself. There is "not a sight/ Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind", and thus we see that this "spirit of solitude" is within him and not some external agent. We have "sight" and "sound" "in his...mind", senses present without any external stimuli, without the use of the eye or the ear. This passage proves to be of tremendous importance in the discussion of immortal possibilities, for it demonstrates that we are not subject to an outward agent for our immortality. It is the mind that is immortal, causally located in the physical, mortal brain. Therefore there is no dependency upon an external being or "spirit" to lead us to the "dark gate" where ordinary perception ends and the aesthetic begins.
If we are to discuss "sleep" and dreams, then we must consider another aspect of memories - imagination. A majority of the things that we experience in dreams are bits and pieces of memories, pasted together in the closed-eye landscape to form the background and script for the events that we are part of when asleep. But what about when we dream of a place that we have never visited? or dream of a place that we recognize as a certain place, but that in the physical world is not at all like the dream-place? or dream of things that we have never seen? or things we have never done? Are these the result of some outside intervention into our sleeping thoughts? Is there some "fair fiend" that directs the actions in our dreams? The answer to these last two questions is "no".
Wordsworth writes, in a letter to Robert Southey, prefacing Peter Bell, a Tale (1819),11 on his views on his "endeavours in Poetry", saying, "I deem the Art not lightly to be approached", and "...that the attainment of excellence in it may laudably be made the principal object of intellectual pursuit...[by anyone who]...has faith in [their] own impulses."12 He continues, saying that
The Poem of Peter Bell, as the Prologue will show, was composed under a belief that the Imagination not only does not require for its exercise the intervention of supernatural agency, but that, though such agency be excluded, the faculty may be called forth as imperiously and for kindred results of pleasure, by incidents, within the compass of poetic probability, in the humblest departments of daily life.13
From his comments on both "Poetry" and this particular poem, we can see that Wordsworth himself did not see, in Shelley's words, some "fair fiend" as the agent for aesthetic experience. He admits that one should not "approach" this "lightly", which we have seen in the actions of Shelley's young poet in Alastor, but he adds that anyone who "has faith in [their] own impulses", thoughts, memories, may gain "excellence" from making this sort of study the "principal object of intellectual pursuit", a "pursuit" going "beyond the senses". Even more, he says that "Imagination...does not require for its exercise the intervention of supernatural agency". There is no question of what he is saying here. By thinking in this manner, by not introducing some "supernatural agency" for "Imagination" to occur, by realizing that the mind depends upon the interaction between ordinary and extra-ordinary modes of experience and perception, he does not suffer the same problem that the young poet does with his "gloomy smile" and constant "pursu[it]" of the "spirit". We will consider this further in a moment, but first we must look at what "the Prologue will show", and how this demonstrates no need for external impetus for "Imagination", and, through this, dreams.
"Long have I loved what I behold,
The night that calms, the day that cheers;
The common growth of mother-earth
Suffices me - her tears, her mirth,
Her humblest mirth and tears." (ll.131-35)
Through this we can see that it is not a matter of acknowledging and savoring only visionary experience, but everything - "[t]he night that calms, [and] the day that cheers". By doing this, "lov[ing] what [one] behold[s]", and not discriminating against one type of perception, and thereby not allowing for the interaction between differing nuances, all that one experiences becomes part of the mind via memories, even things as "humble" as "[t]he common growth of mother-earth". In this manner he is not "seeking" or "forcing some lone ghost", but letting things se passent, happen reflexively - if he perceives things in an extra-ordinary way, then those perceptions will be added to his memories, and he will attempt to understand them, acknowledge them, but definitely not place their occurrence on the actions of some outward force.
"The dragon's wing, the magic ring,
I shall not covet for my dower,
If I along that lowly way
With sympathetic heart may stray,
And with a soul of power." (ll. 136-40)
These are imaginary things, "dragon's wing" and "magic ring", but he says that he "shall not covet [these imaginary things] for [his] dower", that it is to say, he will not search these imaginary things out for his endowment. At the same time he is saying that he will accept these things if they occur, with a "sympathetic heart" and "soul of power", he will not question their "reality". In doing this he will attain happiness and wisdom, for he will be acknowledging all types of experience as equal, and allowing his mind to be full of "power", impulses of memory, a melding of external and internal, and his immortal part becomes more complete.
"These given, what more need I desire
To stir, to soothe, or elevate?
What nobler marvels than the mind
May in life's daily prospect find,
May find or there create?" (ll. 141-45)
"These given", both the "humblest mirth and tears" and "[t]he dragon's wing, [and] the magic ring", "what more need I desire/ To stir, to soothe, or elevate?", he asks, for he knows that these things are part of him. He has no need to search out things to "stir" him, to bring on the "passion", nor to search out things to "soothe" him like a "mute conference", nor to search out things to "elevate" him to the "mysterious paradise". He knows that it is in "the mind" that these "marvels" are "f[ou]nd" and "create[d]", and that one is not going to "find" "in life's daily prospect" some other agent that will be "nobler", that will trigger off these "marvels" of experience and perception. Because of this he can become a fuller being by nourishing his immortal part through his mortal part.
In Book One of The Excursion (1814), Wordsworth tells us of the Wanderer's upbringing, his birth "[a]mong the hills of Athol",14 as a "Boy... with no one near/ To whom he might confess the things he saw" among the hills15 where "the foundations of his mind were laid".16
While yet a child, and long before his time,
Had he perceived the presence and the power
Of greatness; and deep feelings had impressed
So vividly great objects that they lay
Upon his mind like substances, whose presence
Perplexed the bodily sense. He had received
A precious gift; for, as he grew in years,
With these impressions would he still compare
All his remembrances, thoughts, shapes, and forms;
And, being still unsatisfied with aught
Of dimmer character, he thence attained
An active power to fasten images
Upon his brain; and on their pictured lines
Intensely brooded, even till they acquired
The liveliness of dreams. (ll. 134-148)
Again we see Wordsworth's emphasis on childhood as we read "[w]hile yet a child" did all these things occur, and are reminded of the importance he places on the way a child experiences, on the memories gained from childhood, and the "intimations of immortality" inherent in these childhood events. We are told that it is as "a child" that the Wanderer "perceived the presence and power/ Of greatness", that is, did not limit, based on a pre-established criteria of "realness", those things that he "perceived". We also read that the "feelings" he has from those things that he "perceived" was so "vivid" that, as "they lay/ Upon his mind", his "bodily sense" was "[p]erplexed". From this we can see that these events are not ones that the five senses are accustomed to experiencing - they are beyond the "senses five", and as such are of the realm of the aesthetic. This "[p]erplex[ion]" of his "bodily sense" does not confuse him, though; he does not discount this "presence and power" as being "un-real" because of its extra-ordinary nature. He realizes that "[h]e had received/ A precious gift", the "gift" of being able to experience both in the realm of the ordinary and the realm of the visionary, and to be able to allow for the interaction between the two for the nourishment of his mind and his extra sense/s.
Even as he ages we find that he does not lose this ability to recognize and accept the differing modes of perception as being equally important and vital, as we see that "as he grew in years,/ With these impressions would he still compare/ All his remembrances, thoughts, shapes, and forms". His "recollections from early childhood" stay with him, not as memories that are unused and thereby "forgotten" from lack of continued use, but as his way of living, as the word "still" places this event constantly in the present as time passes. By doing this we can see that he is allowing the interaction between the outer world and the inner world to happen, reflexively, at all times. In this manner did he "attain.../ An active power to fasten images/ Upon his brain". In other words, he can perceive things at such a level that the memories are causally stored in "his brain" and remembered so well that he can recall them at any time: "on their pictured lines/ [he i]ntensely brooded, even till they acquired/ The liveliness of dreams". This would seem to imply that, by "intensely brood[ing]" on these "images", these memories, he can recall memories in their entirety, as if he were playing back a film of what he actually perceived at the time, and not just bits and pieces of what he perceived, as most of us do when we recall events from the past. Also, Wordsworth is not calling these "pictured lines", these memories, "dreams", he is saying that they "acquired" a dreamlike quality, the "liveliness of dreams". This would seem an unimportant distinction, since the argument is that "dreams" have as much validity as events in the conscious world for the mind, but this distinction must be made, for it is important to be able to recognize the difference between mental events and physical events for the comprehension of ordinary and extra-ordinary experiences and their relation to the discovery of other sense/s. Without this distinction there will be no effort made at attempting to find the "[c]olours and words" necessary to describe the perceptions of visionary experience (for without distinction there would just be "experience", neither "ordinary" nor "visionary"), and there will be no progress towards examining the possibility or plausibility of immortality.
Wordsworth continues to tell us of the Wanderer's life, as a "Herdsman on the lonely mountain tops",17 and we see that, even as he leaves childhood farther and farther behind, he does not neglect his ways of thinking and perceiving that he acquired when a child: "In dreams, in study, and in ardent thought,/ Thus he was reared".18 It is important to notice the recurrence of Wordsworth's use of "the lonely mountain tops", and the imagery and thoughts connected with them, the "tranquility" and "indifference" that people reared there have towards "the subject of death".19 By saying that the Wanderer is a native of the "mountain tops", Wordsworth establishes the fact that the Wanderer is not afraid of the prospect of physical expiration, and therefore differences in perception are nothing for him to fear either. So it is that he, the Wanderer, can say to the Author, "'I see around me here/ Things which you cannot see'",20 with "tranquility", as a matter-of-fact. This, it would seem, is the aesthetic. Having been raised with an "open mind", the Wanderer has come to "see" everything, both "with" and "through" the eye, and has not been "led to believe [the] lie" that there is an unquestionable "real" and "un-real". Perhaps another way of looking at what the Wanderer says is "'I see around me here/ Things which you do not allow yourself to see", for it is not as if he is seeing things that are not there, it is that he is not repressing those things that most of us categorize as "un-real", those things seen "through the eye".
Book Two of The Excursion offers us an example of how seeing both "with" and "through" the eye is possible, and through this being able to "see" those "[t]hings which [we usually] cannot see". The Solitary tells us of his experience after having searched for an old "homeless Pensioner" who had been caught out in a storm in the mountains.21 The "Pensioner" is found, and the group of shepherds, along with the Solitary, are returning "[t]hrough the dull mist"22
- when a step,
A single step, that freed me from the skirts
Of the blind vapour, opened to my view
Glory beyond all glory ever seen
By waking sense or by the dreaming soul!
The appearance, instantaneously disclosed,
Was of a mighty city - boldly say
A wilderness of building, sinking far
And self-withdrawn into a boundless depth,
Far sinking into splendour - without end!
* * * *
Oh, 't was an unimaginable sight!
Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks and emerald turf,
Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky,
Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed,
Molten together, and composing thus,
Each lost in each, that marvellous array
Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge
Fantastic pomp of structure without name
* * * *
This little Vale, a dwelling-place of Man,
Lay low beneath my feet; 't was visible -
I saw not, but I felt that it was there.
That which I saw was the revealed abode
Of Spirits in beatitude[.] (II.829-38, 852-59, 870-74)
The Solitary is walking along a path, presumably, through this "mist", step after step as the group heads "homeward", when "a step,/ A single step" brought him from the realm of the ordinary to the realm of the visionary. This is not a "where" per se, for it is not as if it is the Solitary and all the shepherds who change modes of perception, it is only the Solitary. So this "step", although a physical action, should not be seen as a physical action leading to a physical place, but rather as an indicator of time, the half-second it takes for one leg to pass the other as a "single step" is taken. In this half-second he "step[s]" out of ordinary perception, he is "freed from the skirts/ Of the blind vapour" of vision "with" the eye, and starts to see "through" the eye. We are given further evidence that this is an aesthetic experience as we are told that this "appearance" is "instantaneously disclosed", in an amount of time that happens so quickly that we can not witness its passing in a given timeframe, for it comes into being "instantaneously", not "over a few moments time" nor "came to be disclosed".
We are also told that this is not something that compares to anything that "waking sense or...the dreaming soul" has "seen" before - it is "beyond" that. As a visionary experience, it is obvious that "waking sense" will not have "seen" this "ever", for it is "seen" with the extra sense/s of the mind. But Wordsworth does say that "the dreaming soul" has not "seen" this "glory" before, and it may seem as if a problem could arise from this, that if the "soul"/mind has not seen this glory before then there is some external agent that is responsible someplace for this "vision". However, Wordsworth describes the "soul" here as "dreaming". As such, it would not have "seen" this "glory" before because it was resting, "dreaming". But now the "soul"/mind is not "dreaming", it is "seeing" this "appearance", for bodily sense has left the Solitary in that "single step", the mind has stopped "dreaming", resting, and is now sensing and perceiving this "vision". Through this "vision", this "glory", we can see how the mind allows us a glimpse at our immortal possibilities, for we read that this "mighty city" is "without end", "self-withdrawn into a boundless depth". This would make the "city" infinite, as well as reflexive ("self-withdrawn"), and therefore a symbol for immortality.
As well as making this "city" "without end", we see that it has "[m]olten together" all of the elements of Shelley's "belovèd brotherhood", "[c]onfused, commingled, mutually inflamed... [e]ach lost in each". We read that it is a "structure without name", and this is understandable as our language does not have words that aptly describe such infinite, intertwined objects; he is at a loss for "colours and words". But he still attempts to explain that which he saw with the language available to him, even if he does preface his description of the "structure" by saying that it "was an unimaginable sight". This is entirely understandable in the fact that one does not perceive such things that are "[m]olten together... [e]ach lost in each" and "boundless" on an everyday basis. These infinite properties are not ones that we are accustomed to seeing in objects in the physical world - things have a beginning and an end, are not melded "together", and have some sort of form and "bound".
Although it is "unimaginable", Wordsworth does not write that it "was an unimaginable, un-real sight"; by using the word "sight" he makes the event an acknowledged and accepted perception. This can be seen when the Solitary says that "[t]hat which [he] saw was the revealed abode", the "mighty city". The italics here are Wordsworth's, which shows that he wanted the emphasis to be noticed by his readers that this event is not being dismissed as an un-real event, but that it was seen, perceived, that it did occur. The evidence for this is, above and beyond the italics, is in what the Solitary says prior to "[t]hat which [he] saw". He says that the "little Vale... [l]ay low beneath my feet; 't was visible". This shows that he has not physically left the "Vale" where he and the shepherds had gone, for "'t was visible"; it is still there. He adds that, although "visible", "I saw not, but I felt it was there." This would seem to imply that he is only seeing "through" the eye, as he says that he "saw not" the "Vale". However, he says that he "felt it was there". If he "felt" its presence, then he sensed it, it was perceived, though not "with" his physical eyes per se. By way of this fact we can argue that he is not only seeing "through" the eye, for "fe[eling]" is a sense in the same way that sight is. "[F]elt" is substituted for sight "with" the eye, and in this manner the Solitary can be seen to be experiencing both "with" and "through" the eye. Thus it is possible to see the "[t]hings which [one] cannot [usually] see".
We can see this sort of experience, these sorts of occurrences, in numerous other places in Wordsworth, occurrences that bring us very close to seeing the connection between the mind and any extra sense/s and immortal possibilities. By analyzing several of these passages, we can attempt to gain further insight as to how Wordsworth sees the interaction between the physical world and the mind, via memories and experience, establishes the framework for our own immortality.
Although taken somewhat out of context,23 the next two passages give us further examples of the occurrence of these aesthetic events. In Book Three, from The Excursion, we read of the ponderings by the Solitary, about how "[t]he intellectual power, through words and things,/ Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!"24 From this we can see the stress upon the use of language, "words and things", for the discussion of "intellectual power", "power" "beyond the senses". Why is it that this is "a dim and perilous way"? If this "intellectual power" will enlighten us as to what our immortal possibilities are, why should it be given such an ominous tone? It could be that this comprehension of both the ordinary modes of perception and the aesthetic modes of perception is too much for a person to attempt to conceive. Perhaps being able to "see" the "[t]hings which [others] cannot see" is a burden, something that can lead to one questioning one's self. This may be the case - but it is not one that is without some salvation. If we are able to come up with words to explain those "spots of time" that do not fit into the language that we use on a day-to-day basis so that we may communicate our experiences with others, without having to fear the label of "un-real" being placed upon events that are not ordinary, then the search for "power[s]" beyond the senses is not one that need be "dim and perilous". Once having done this, or in working towards this, we can view death with "tranquility", for we will have come closer to understanding the terms of our immortal possibilities.
We see, in the narrative of the Solitary, his attempt at bridging this language barrier in order to tell of another visionary episode:
From that abstraction I was roused, - and how?
Even as a thoughtful shepherd by a flash
Of lightning startled in a gloomy cave
Of these wild hills. (III.706-09)
The "abstraction" from which he "was roused" is his thoughts on "intellectual power". As he is "roused", we start to see him slipping from ordinary perception into visionary perception - but how can he do this? He attempts to figure the aesthetic by creating a scene with "a thoughtful shepherd" in a "gloomy cave", a dark place, void of any great amount of light. Into this dark place is introduced "a flash/ Of lightning", an instantaneous burst of bright light that is gone as soon as it is come. The senses are "startled" by this dark then illuminated then dark scene, overloaded, perception slides, and we are prepared for an aesthetic description.
A golden palace rose, or seemed to rise,
* * * *
The potent shock
I felt; the transformation I perceived,
As marvellously seized in that moment
When, from the blind mist issuing, I beheld
Glory - beyond all glory ever seen,
Confusion infinite of heaven and earth,
Dazzling the soul. (III.714, 716-22)
Wordsworth, through the Solitary, is still cautious about attempting to describe this aesthetic perception, for it is a difficult thing to do, especially when one is talking to others, as the Solitary is here, rather than just writing. He says that this "golden palace rose, or seemed to rise", questioning at first that which he saw. As he continues with his description, though, we can see that this initial questioning is quelled, and this cautionary language is laid aside. He "felt" the "potent shock", his senses were stimulated, even more, "the transformation [h]e perceived". We read further he was "marvellously seized...in that moment" when he "beheld/ Glory" "from the blind mist issuing". This is extremely reminiscent of the Solitary's previous visionary experience in Book Two, the "moment" being the "single step", "blind mist" for "blind vapour". It is also remindful of the Ode, "When the soft hand", a piece Wordsworth wrote two years after The Excursion, in 1816, where we read
Anon, before my sight a palace rose
Built of all precious substances, - so pure
And exquisite, that sleep alone bestows
Ability like splendour to endure[.] (ll.69-72)
Here we do not have the cautious "seemed to rise", but rather "before my sight a palace rose", acknowledgment of the experience as being "real". We also see the comparison to "sleep" for explanation of the "splendour" of this sight, which indicates that this "palace" is not being seen "with" the physical eye. "[S]leep alone bestows" this "[a]bility...to endure", to last, for it is a state of perception that works directly with the mind and its senses. The "splendour" that it "bestows" is similar to the "[c]onfusion infinite of heaven and earth,/ Dazzling the soul" from Book Two, the mind is stimulated, and perceptions transform into memories.
Although we are coming closer to understanding the relationship between different modes of perception and experience and how the memories gained from these events, when discussed, allow us to begin to examine our immortal possibilities, we have not fully answered the question of whether or not there is a definitive connection between "death" and "Sleep", whether we can attain the "mysterious paradise" through physical death, that is, immortality. In order to do this, we must consider whether "death" can be connected with the mind, if it can lead towards the revelation of additional sense/s. We read in Wordsworth's Ode, "When the soft hand", that, after "the vault rang with choral harmony" (80) in the "lofty Dome" (75) of the "palace...[b]uilt of all precious substances" (69-70), there is heard
a dirge
Breathed from a soft and lonely instrument,
That kindled recollections
Of agonised affections[.] (ll. 83-86)
By telling us that the music heard is "a dirge", one's thoughts are turned towards some sort of funerary theme, a melancholy piece "[b]reathed from a soft and lonely instrument". This description of the "instrument" from which the "dirge" comes from re-establishes a melancholy tone for the scene, the "soft and lonely" giving the music a solemn, solitary feel. The music, we are further told, "kindled recollections", recalls memories. From this we can infer the use of the sense of sound, and how this sense, when stimulated, has the ability to interact with the mind. This concept we shall investigate more fully later.25 First, however, it must be noted that the manner in which this "dirge" "kindle[s] recollections" is similar to the way Blair's "dread trumpet" "awakes" the "slumb'ring dust", which, as we remember, leads to "[t]he end of Time and the beginning of Eternity". From this we can make the connection between death and sleep, for if sleep is able to "bestow" "splendour", and death can, metaphorically through the "dirge" and the "dread trumpet", "awake" "slumb'ring dust", both "splendour" and "dust" being equated with memories, then sleep and death are both capable of leading us towards that "mysterious paradise" of immortality. In this way can we understand that when the "dirge" had finished, the "passion ended/ In peace of spirit and sublime content!"26 Memories had been recalled by this music, the "spirit"/mind became more fully active, and it therefore has "peace" and is "sublime" - it is "content".
This feeling of being "content" on the part of the "spirit"/mind, due to the stimulation of the senses, leads us to realize that "ye Powers/ Of soul and sense mysteriously allied".27 Again we are faced with the problem of trying to discover how these two are "allied", beyond the vague "mysteriously". This is not to say that this is not a significant observation, for it does admit the connection between our "soul"/mind and our senses, and allows us to now try to go beyond the senses by way of observing sensory perception, with the bond to the mind established. Now we can attempt to unravel the dilemma of whether or not sleep and death are part of this connection, in their relationship to the senses and/or the mind, and if this will grant us some indication of immortality.
Wordsworth tells us, again, from the 1816 Ode, "When the soft hand", that
When the soft hand of sleep had closed the latch
On the tired household of corporeal sense,
And Fancy, keeping unreluctant watch,
Was free her choicest favours to dispense;
I saw, in wondrous pérspective displayed,
A landscape more august than happiest skill
Of pencil ever clothed with light and shade[.] (ll. 1-7)
Here we see that "sleep" "close[s] the latch/ On...corporeal sense". This is of paramount importance, for we are told that it is bodily sensation that is no longer functioning when we are asleep. This would seem an obvious and unnecessary point to make, but we read, three lines later that he "saw, in wondrous pérspective displayed" - without "corporeal sense". This, then, is a dream. But the fact that Wordsworth begins this poem with the shut-down of physical sensation, telling us that it is "sleep" that does this, shows the importance that he places upon the nature of falling asleep. He does not simply generalize and say "[w]hen the soft hand of sleep brought on a dream", leaving out line two, and cutting to lines five and following: "I saw... a landscape...". He specifically mentions the fact that it is "corporeal sense" that is no longer being stimulated, leaving our extra sense/s with its/their "latch[es]" open. By using the words "saw", "pérspective", and "displayed", he emphasizes the fact that there are other sense/s, for these words are ones connected with the sense of sight. If "corporeal sense" is not in use, then there must be some other sense/s in operation. From this we can infer a direct correlation between sleep and what lies beyond the "senses five", for the "senses five" are not being stimulated for this scene to be perceived, and yet it is being perceived.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in his Kubla Khan (1798), tells us of an event that allows us to examine more deeply the ability to perceive beyond "corporeal sense". He writes of the circumstances under which this "vision in a dream, a fragment" came to be.28 He does not call it a "poem", but rather describes it as "a psychological curiosity". In the summer of 1797, he writes, "[i]n consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed". He sat down and was reading "Purchas's Pilgrimage" when he fell asleep, due to the effects of the anodyne.
The Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort.
Again we see attention brought to the fact that the sleep is "of the external senses", "without any sensation or consciousness of effort". And yet he maintains that "he has the most vivid confidence" that he "composed...from two to three hundred lines". The act of composition requires the senses of sight and touch, to see the page and to hold the pen, leaving out the possibility that he may have said the lines aloud to himself, requiring the sense of speech. But we are told that the "external senses" are not in use, so sight and touch become excluded from the options of which "senses" were used for this composing to take place.
He tells us that, after this composing, he awoke, with a "distinct recollection of the whole", a memory of what he had written, of what he had experienced. However, he is called away for over an hour, and upon his return he discovers that it is all lost, except for "some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision". In being away for an hour, tending to other things than his "distinct recollection", he can not do what Wordsworth's Wanderer does by way of constantly recalling his experiences and "fasten[ing] images/ Upon his brain" so that they retain their "liveliness". Because of this lost chance of "fasten[ing]" the "distinct recollection" "[u]pon his brain", the event becomes "vague and dim" - not gone, but a memory not entirely recallable. He likens this to "the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter!" He continues, saying that, with the "still surviving recollections in his mind", he "has frequently purposed to finish...what had been originally, as it were, given to him...but the to-morrow is yet to come." In saying this he is saying that he is making an effort towards attempting to communicate, in Shelley's words, "the incommunicable dream". By wanting to complete the composition he had in his dream, so that others may read it and know of the experience, he demonstrates his attempt to bridge the gap between the subjective realm thoughts and the objective realm of language.
In the "fragment", he tells us that he sees before him "forests ancient as the hills,/ Enfolding sunny spots of greenery."29 These "[e]nfolding sunny spots of greenery" have the same effect as the "flash/ Of lightning" in Wordsworth for the triggering of an aesthetic experience. The "forests", by their very nature, consist of trees, with limbs, branches, and leaves that, with the rustling of the wind, create a constant interplay of light and dark, thus "[e]nfolding sunny spots of greenery". The aesthetic experience is cued, ordinary perception begins to slide, and suddenly,
from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river. (ll. 17-24)
"A mighty fountain momently was forced" as this experience begins. The word "momently" changes the way we might create this scene without it, for if this line read as "[a] mighty fountain was forced", we might envision a "fountain" bursting through the ground, taking the amount of time that it should take to happen, as when a geyser erupts through the ground. The word "momently" changes this, and makes the event happen instantaneously, faster than it would were it to happen within the bounds of ordinary perception and experience. Adding to this changed temporality are the events of the next few lines. Line 19, with the "fountain", ends with a colon, indicating that that which follows is part of the events involved in the "forc[ing]" of the "mighty fountain momently". We read that "[a]mid [this] swift half-intermitted burst", during the course of this instant, further altering the physical laws of time and space, "[h]uge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail". Now, as we attempt to envisage this scene, we must stop the original instant half-way through, or slow it down at its half-way point, and allow these "[h]uge fragments" to "vault" past the "fountain", moving even more quickly than the water that is being "forced". This sort of distorted temporality, as well as the image created with sparkling water rushing upwards, reflecting light, with "[h]uge fragments" tearing past, presumably creating shadows and intermittent darkness as they pass, sends this event further into the realm of the aesthetic, one step beyond the "[e]nfolding sunny spots". If the mind is where the aesthetic is perceived and sensed, and it is the mind that is immortal, and this scene is attempting to figure the aesthetic experience, then the line that follows line 21 sheds light upon the gateway to this immortality. We are first told that the way in which these "fragments vaulted" is "like rebounding hail". A comma follows this, and an alternative description for the way in which they "vaulted" is given": "[o]r [like] chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail". The basic imagery is the same, whether we picture the scene with "rebounding hail" or with "chaffy grain" being harvested, small bits of something being thrown up, then down, then up again, circulating and flying about. But the introduction of "the thresher's flail" to this line is of tremendous importance, for Coleridge does not simply write "the farmer's flail", or "grain as it is harvested", but chooses specifically to image the scene with a "thresher's flail". Iconographically this can be seen as a person beating at the wheat to separate the grain from it. However, for this imagery, one might also associate the process that precedes the "thresher's flail", or the harvesting of the grain. This, for example, might be seen as a person, waist-high perhaps in a tan field of wheat, repeatedly and in a swooping motion, cutting away at the wheat with a scythe. A scythe brings to one's thoughts ideas of "Death", personified with a dark cloak and this harvesting tool. Why this imagery? Why did Coleridge intentionally word this line so that the reader's ideas would possibly stray, even if only for a moment, between the end of this line and the beginning of the next, to those of death? Does this give us another piece of the puzzle that, when complete, will reveal to us the map to the path to immortality? As we shall continue to see, the answer to this may be "yes".
We read that, still within this original instant, the "mighty fountain" "flung up momently the sacred river", "'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever". Or do we? This is not a question about whether or not we are still within the original instant, but whether or not it is the "mighty fountain" that does the "fl[i]ng[ing]". Line 22 ends with a colon, which follows "the thresher's flail", and line 23 starts with "[a]nd 'mid these dancing rocks...", etc. Could this not mean that it is this "thresher's flail" that "flung up...the sacred river"? This interpretation is one that should be seriously considered, for it would further connect this death imagery with the perception of the aesthetic. With this possibility present, we can examine the words used in these two lines (23 and 24), for they prove even more enigmatic, and helpful, in light of this interpretation. "And 'mid these dancing rocks", and we are required to continue to slow down the action of this instant in order to focus upon it, for "at once and ever/ It flung up momently the sacred river." How can this be, that "at once and ever" an action can take place "momently"? "[A]t once...momently" is acceptable enough, for "once" is "momently", happening then going. But "at once and ever...momently" is seemingly impossible, for how can one have "at once" and forever happen in a moment? One can not, in this realm, the ordinary realm - but we are dealing with an aesthetic realm, one in which eternity is not a concept but an actuality. As such it is possible to have now and forever in a moment, for time is not a variable in the discussion of eternity, as eternity is where time leaves off. If the passing of time ends at death, then the reasoning for having the "thresher's flail" be the agent for the "sacred river" being "flung up momently" is clear. This aids us in being able to establish a connection between death and the aesthetic experience, experience beyond the "external senses."
Coleridge admits that "[i]t was a miracle of rare device", this "sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!"30 He then changes the style of this "fragment" from being strictly a narrative about these events to a first person soliloquy, in which we see that which he has previously told us that he wishes to do: to "finish" the "original" composition, to arrive at "the to-morrow". He tells us, "[a] damsel with a dulcimer/ In a vision once I saw",31 and then, "[c]ould I revive within me/ Her symphony and song".32 He remembers that "he saw" this "vision", but we can assume that he remembers it only as a small piece of what the entire "vision" was, for he longs to "revive within [himself]" the rest of it, the "symphony and song". I have highlighted "within" here because it stresses that the sensory perception required for seeing the "damsel" and hearing the "symphony and song" is not an outer thing, it is "in" the mind, a memory. Were he able to "revive" the memory, recall it in its entirety, he tells us "[t]hat with music loud and long,/ I would build that dome in air",33 he would be able to communicate the experience in words, be able to tell other people about this event, find the "[c]olours and words" necessary to share the reality of the aesthetic experience in the everyday realm.
Shelley, in Alastor, seems to be addressing the same idea, of trying to communicate the "incommunicable", when we read:
'Vision and Love!'
The Poet cried aloud, 'I have beheld
The path of thy departure. Sleep and death
Shall not divide us long.' (ll. 366-69)
This, however, is slightly different, for, whereas Coleridge "would build that dome in air" when he is able to fully recall his "vision", Shelley's young poet remembers the "'Vision'", for he has "'beheld/ The path of [its] departure'", but does not give us any evidence that he will attempt to fully recall its memory and try to communicate it to others. He is not satisfied with simply recounting the tale, so he shall not. Rather, he is going to wait until he is re-united with his "'Vision'", which we see when we read "'Sleep and death/ Shall not divide us long.'" This would imply that being able to perceive aesthetically only during "[s]leep" or in visionary experience is not enough for him, that he wants to perceive in that manner at all times, perceiving beyond the senses. By doing this, while still alive, he can not nurture his mortal part with his immortal part; we need the experiences from ordinary modes of perception to be able to further the senses of the mind.
By attempting to ignore the outer world and live strictly in the world of visions, we see that "solitude returned"34 to the young poet, "[a]nd he forbore". If he needs to "forb[ear]" this "solitude", then it is not a beneficial thing.
it hung
Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud
Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods
Of night close over it.
The noonday sun
Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass
Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence
A narrow vale embosoms. (ll. 417-23)
The "solitude", its "strong impulse",35 we are told, "hung upon his life, as lightning in a cloud/ Gleams". Metaphorically we can see this as his memories consisting of mostly "solitude", as the young poet has attempted to live his life only through "visions" rather than "visions" and day-to-day life. The "lightning in a cloud", from a modern standpoint, can be seen to represent the electrical impulses of memory in one's brain, which "[g]leams" when memories are recalled. Even more, this "strong impulse" is only "hovering ere it vanish", and we must decide what the "it" here represents. Does "it" stand for the "strong impulse" of "solitude"? or "his life"? or the "lightning"? or the "cloud"? The "strong impulse" and the "lightning" are one and the same, the memories from life, and, in the young poet's case, these memories are of "solitude". "[H]is life" and the "cloud" can be seen as interchangeable as well, for the "lightning" is in the "cloud" in the same way that this "solitude" is in "his life". We are told that the "it" in question is "hovering ere it vanish". It would seem that that which is capable of "hovering" and "vanish[ing]" is the "cloud"/"life", as that is what "cloud[s]" do - they "hover". And Shelley has already given a verb to the "lightning"/"solitude" - "[g]leams". In this manner can we read the "it" as "hovering ere his life vanish", that is, until he dies. This would lead us to understand these lines reading as a metaphor comparing the existence of "lightning in a cloud" to the existence of this "solitude" in "his life". Both the "lightning" and the "solitude" will still be in existence after the "cloud" and "his life" are no more, as discharges of electricity in the atmosphere and memories inherent as electrical impulses, respectively. "[E]re the floods of night close over it" seems to be an allusion to the potentiality of "sleep" being linked to "death" for passageway to the "mysterious paradise", for at "night" we sleep, and when "the floods of night close over ["his life"]", he will "sleep" forever.
Shelley's typographical layout of this passage divides line 420 in a way that allows the reader approximately one second of no text between "[o]f night close over it" and "[t]he noonday sun"; the blank space separating the two segments of line 420 momentarily pauses the narrative. Because of this the reader's thoughts may consider the meaning of the lines that have just been read, and perhaps the word "night" will still be present when "[t]he noonday sun" is read. This again would seem to be a way of attempting to create the aesthetic experience through black characters on a page in a book, for it quickly changes the scene from darkness ("night") to brightness ("noonday sun"). Line 421 begins with the word "[n]ow", and therefore the "n" is capitalized, bringing extra attention to it and its abruptness. Had Shelley included "now" in line 420, it would not be capitalized and might be read over, for the train of thought still holds if one were to mis-read it as "[t]he noonday sun...shone upon the forest". But by putting "[n]ow" on the next line, it is impossible to miss it, and the shift from the darkness of "night" to the brightness of "noonday sun" is made even more sharp. "Now" "the noonday sun" "shone upon the forest", where less than two seconds earlier there had been "night". As if this contrast were not enough to figure the aesthetic through words, the description of the "forest" sets into motion the interplay between dark and light, for the "forest" is "one vast mass/ Of mingling shade". "[M]ingling shade" would seem to imply the movement of this "shade", dancing about, due to wind blowing through the branches of the trees in the "forest", branches that are casting shadows upon the ground due to the "noonday sun" which "sh[i]ne[s] upon" them. Therefore the "shade" is "mingling", constant movement of dark and light as a branch moves, and what was a dark shadow on the ground becomes a patch of sunlight. We go on to read that this "forest['s]" "brown magnificence/ A narrow vale embosoms". This is extremely intriguing, for it would lead us to believe that this "forest" and its potential for aesthetic perception bestows feeling upon the "narrow vale", not only the feeling that a person who enters into this "narrow vale" might have, but gives the "narrow vale" the ability to feel; the "narrow vale" feels, senses the power and "magnificence" that the "forest" possesses. This is a place where the interaction between the outer and the inner adds to our experiences, altering our ordinary perception to visionary heights. We learn that
[h]ither the Poet came. His eyes beheld
Their own wan light through the reflected lines
Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth
Of that still fountain; as the human heart,
Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,
Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard
The motion of the leaves - the grass that sprung
Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel
An unaccustomed presence - and the sound
Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs
Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed
To stand beside him - clothed in no bright robes
Of shadowy silver or enshrining light,
Borrowed from aught the visible world affords
Of grace, or majesty, or mystery;
But undulating woods, and silent well,
And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom
Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,
Held commune with him, as if he and it
Were all that was; only - when his regard
Was raised by intense pensiveness - two eyes,
Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought,
And seemed with their serene and azure smiles
To beckon him. (ll. 469-492)
It would seem unnecessary to look at yet another visionary experience at such length, especially after having seen the way in which Wordsworth presents visionary experience. But it is the difference between this experience and the ones in Wordsworth that is essential to notice, for in Wordsworth the experience is seen and, if not understood, attempted to be put into language for its explanation and discussion - here, with Shelley's young poet, it is not.
In this "vale" the young poet comes across "a well,/ Dark, gleaming" (457-58) in which he sees his reflection, and we can see that his constant "pursu[ing]" of the "vision" with complete disregard for anything that is not the "vision" is causing his physical deterioration, his "eyes" "wan" and his "thin hair". The way in which he sees his reflection "in the dark depth/ Of that still fountain" is compared to the way that "the human heart" "[g]azes in dreams over the gloomy grave,/ Sees its own treacherous likeness there". A duality is created of the young poet, part of him looking down at part of him looking up. This duality separates the poet into a living part and a non-living part, but maintains a certain amount of continuity, for it makes the "treacherous likeness" possessed by the "human heart" with "its own". By doing this we can see this comparison demonstrating that the physical body is not required for personal identity, in that the "likeness" is in the "gloomy grave", but the "human heart" can "[g]az[e]" "over" it, which would mean that this "[g]azing" takes place posthumously. As such the "human heart" has no physicality (as it can see "its own likeness"), and therefore no physical senses with which to "see" this scene. There would seem to be the problem that this "heart", which we could interpret as the soul or mind, is preceded by "human", and might imply that the mind is a physical thing, "human", as well. However, based on the fact that this "human heart" is seeing this scene in a way similar to "in dreams", and that "in dreams" our "human" part is resting while the mind is perceiving, it would appear that the term "human heart" is to remind us of the correlation between our "human" part and our "heart" part, mind part. As such, the "human heart" does not detract from the possibility of extra sense/s beyond those that we use in our waking hours, but reinforces the necessity of our "human" nature for their investigation.
While seeing his reflection, the scene around the young poet begins to shift, almost imperceptibly, from one that is almost ordinary enough to one that will build up to the aesthetic. "He heard/ The motion of the leaves". There is nothing directly inferred from this, apart from the fact that the wind has picked up and the leaves are blowing around. But he is in this "forest" of "mingling shade", and if the wind has picked up, then the "mingling [of the] shade" will make the interplay between dark and light even more rapid. "The motion of the leaves" is followed by a dash, and we then read "the grass that sprung", and line 475 ends. There is nothing noteworthy at all about the fact that "the grass...sprung", for we are in a "vale", and the presence of "grass" is to be expected. But the dash seems to indicate the shift from the ordinary to the visionary; the "motion of the leaves" has sped up the movement of the patterns of light and dark upon the ground, and the shift begins, and when we read line 476 we see the scene continuing to alter, for what was only "grass" at the end of line 475 has now become capable of detection. It "[s]tartled and glanced and trembled even to feel/ An unaccustomed presence", the young poet. The "[s]tartl[ing]" could be simply the due to the wind that is moving the "leaves", but that still leaves us with "glanced" and "trembled". "[T]rembled" also could be caused by the wind. "[G]lanced", however, is definitely a trait associated with perception, as we can see in "even to feel/ An unaccustomed presence", and as such is indicative of this scene becoming one of visionary proportions, for in day-to-day modes of perception, "grass" is not capable of seeing, much less "glanc[ing]". We then see, after "unaccustomed presence" at line 477, another dash, showing the gradual progression of this scene as it leaves the bounds of the ordinary: " - and the sound/ Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs/ Of that dark fountain rose". With this, from "and the sound" to "fountain rose", the change in modes of perception is nearly complete, for this scene has, as we will see next, resulted in sensory overload on the part of the young poet. From "[h]e heard" to "fountain rose" we find four of the five bodily senses: "heard"/sound, "glanced"/sight, "feel"/touch, and "sound/ Of the sweet brook"/speech. This last one, speech for the "sound/ Of the sweet brook" may seem to be stretching the analogy slightly, but I think that we can arguably equate the bubbling of this "brook" with its own sort of language. This barrage of sensory stimulations, all within the things that "[h]e heard", is enough to change the way in which he perceives this "narrow vale". Before we look at what this "change" is, we should look at the wording of the last portion of text prior to the "change", as it is essential for this "change" to take place. "[F]rom the secret springs/ Of that dark fountain rose" we read, the "sound" being that which "rose". However, Shelley did not place the verb "rose" after the word "sound", "the sound rose...from the secret springs", he placed it so it follows "that dark fountain". We know that the "fountain" is the "well" that the young poet is "[g]azing" into, but when we read "that dark fountain rose", we are more likely to envisage this "fountain" as a burst of water coming out of "the secret springs", similar to in Coleridge, rather than as a "well". And with the building of the scene, the "motion of the leaves", "the grass" "[s]tartl[ing] and glanc[ing] and trembl[ing]", and "the sound/ Of the sweet brook", we are almost expecting something visionary to occur, such as a "dark fountain" "r[i]s[ing]". Syntactically "rose" is what the "sound" did, but semantically we see this scene with a "fountain" being the thing that "rose".
"A Spirit seemed/ To stand beside him" as he is staring down this "well", and we enter into the aesthetic experience of the young poet. Woodberry notes that this "'Spirit' [is] apparently an embodiment of Nature evoked by and reflecting the mood of death-melancholy in the Poet; not the spirit of the vision which he seeks, which is 'the light that shone within his soul' (lines 492, 493), but it may also be regarded as a later incarnation of the latter."36 For our discussion of modes of perception for signs of immortal possibilities, we are bound to see this "Spirit" as "the light that shone within his soul" and not as an "embodiment of Nature". But perhaps the question is not as cut-and-dry as Mr. Woodberry would have us believe. As we have noticed, it is the interaction between the outer world, "Nature", and "the light within [our] soul[s]" that enables us to be complete, to have memories from experiences. Through this we can see how Woodberry's "embodiment of Nature" which is "evoked by and reflecting the mood of death-melancholy in the Poet" is not unrelated to "the light that shone within [the poet's] soul", for both correspond with memories; the young poet's "mood of death-melancholy" is the result of memories, which have been "evoked" and "reflect[ed]" in his thinking about them, "the light that shone within his soul" is the electrical impulses of memory "in" his mind, causally dependent upon the brain for location. In this way we can see that this "Spirit" is not some external, supernatural agent that has arrived to enlighten the young poet, but rather a change in perception from which the young poet can gain new experiences, if only he will allow himself to acknowledge that which happens and attempt to realize it.
The "Spirit" is "clothed in no bright robes/ Of shadowy silver or enshrining light,/ Borrowed from aught the visible world affords/ Of grace, or majesty, or mystery", that is to say, nothing from this "visible world" is seen in this "Spirit". This is perfectly understandable as this is not an ordinary perception, so the appearance of this "Spirit" would not be an appearance seen everyday. In other words, it does not fit into the "colours and words" that we have to describe the way things look, how they are "clothed", not even with words "[o]f grace, or majesty, or mystery". We are not told what the "Spirit" is "clothed in", and this seems to be Shelley's way of showing that the young poet is not making any effort at attempting to describe his aesthetic experiences. This idea is further expressed in the next few lines, where, following that which the "Spirit" is not "clothed in", we read that the "undulating wood, and silent well,/ And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom/ Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,/ Held commune with him". He seems to have no problems with communicating with the elements of his visionary experience, "as if he and it/ Were all that was". This would imply that he recognizes the event as happening, and does not question its reality, but is not interested in, nor even considering, attempting to communicate this experience beyond the experience itself. He thinks that "he and it/ Were all that was", a feeling of "all that was ever" conveyed, a state of solitude that he does not appear to want to go beyond. But he does not seem to be aware that this is an ultimate state of solitude, as he sees this "Spirit" as having some sort of external embodiment, "he and it". This, however, quickly changes, and the young poet starts to realize that it is only "he".
After reading "all that was" there is a semicolon, and we then read "only - ", as if Shelley is breaking into the narrative to point this out, making sure that we are aware of the information from the lines that follow, saying "the young poet thought that he and this Spirit were all that was...but!", and then revealing some vital piece of information: "only - when his regard/ Was raised by intensive pensiveness, two eyes,/ Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought,/ And seemed with their serene and azure smiles/ To beckon him". We will recall that the young poet was looking down a "well" when the visionary experience came to happen, looking at his reflection. So "when his regard/ Was raised by intensive pensiveness", when he started to return to ordinary modes of perception, what would he see but "two eyes" - his own "two eyes". They "hung in the gloom of thought" for he had been deep within his experience, "commun[ing]" with it, and therefore had "serene and azure smiles", for the young poet was happiest perceiving aesthetically. If he has just resumed ordinary perception, and sees the reflection of his "eyes", then they will still be "serene and azure" from the experience that has just ended. His "eyes" "seemed" "[t]o beckon him", we are told, which would seem to illustrate the poet's longing to be continually perceiving aesthetically, as he is "beckon[ed]" by these "two eyes". However, due to the fact that these "two eyes" are the reflection of his own two, physical eyes, the "beckon[ing]" becomes a reflexive action; he is calling to himself. There is no external "Spirit" that has been bringing on these experiences, no "it" that is "beckon[ing] him".
The implications of this are tremendous, as they make the young poet, who until this point was convinced that he was "pursu[ing]" something external that he might catch up with some day, start to examine the questions that he had originally thought this "Spirit" held the answers to and could reveal to him. He must now attempt to find answers to them himself, and, as he has been existing in an extreme state of solitude, this is difficult task, for he has never attempted to communicate his various experiences with anyone, and does not even possess the beginnings of a language with which to address his questions. While talking to a "stream",37 essentially a soliloquy, he wonders:
'What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud
Contains thy waters, as the universe
Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched
Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste
I' the passing wind!' (ll. 510-14)
He is addressing a "stream", so the metaphorical allusions to "'waters'" is quite appropriate. What is intriguing is the allusion made here between the "'waters'" and the "'thoughts'", for it shows the powers of the mind, and, in doing so, shows the possibility of immortality. The young poet is curious as to where the "'waters'" of the "'stream'" are "'[c]ontain[ed]'", presumably when they are not in the "'stream'", whether in some "'oozy cavern'", reminiscent of the "secret caves" of line 87, or a "'wandering cloud'", reminiscent of and similar to the "cloud" from line 418. This accounts for the differences in state that water can take on, while still maintaining its continuity as water, whether as vapor in a "'cloud'" or dripping in some "'cavern'". As such we see immortal possibilities in "living thoughts", and "where" they "reside", for it alludes to continuity of personality/memories not dependent only upon this state in which we are now (living). The young poet wants to know what will become of his "living thoughts" "when stretched/ Upon thy flowers [his] bloodless limbs shall waste/ I' the passing wind", when he has physically expired. From this we can infer that he has an inkling that there is the potential for immortality, and that it is via his "living thoughts", and that the only thing that is mortal is his body. By describing his "thoughts" as "living", in temporal reference to his "bloodless limbs", we begin to see how it is that we can attain our immortality.
At line 559 we read "[o]f the remote horizon", which is the end of a description of a scene which the young poet has seen, setting up the spatial organization of objects in the landscape. However, when we look at the typographical layout of this line, in relation to that which follows it, we see a metaphor for mortality and immortality. "Of the remote horizon" is followed by a period, and we then read:
The near scene,
In naked and severe simplicity,
Made contrast with the universe. (ll. 559-61)
By following "[o]f the remote horizon" with "[t]he near scene", on the same line, Shelley brings our attention from far away to very close, very quickly, creating a striking contrast between the two. This "near scene" is described as being "[i]n naked and severe simplicity", and, due to this, it "[m]ade contrast with the universe." From the contrast made in line 559 between "the remote horizon" and "[t]he near scene", "the universe" becomes reminiscent of if not equated with "the remote horizon". If "[t]he near scene" can be seen as being "[i]n naked and severe simplicity", and "the universe" and "the remote horizon" "[m]ade contrast with" this, then it must be "in extra-ordinary brilliance". It is then possible for us to see how this "near scene" can be equated with mortality, and "the remote horizon"/"universe" with immortality, two events that are set very far apart from one another, but that require one another for their own existence. Now we are beginning to see how we can attain immortality; immortality can not be without mortality, for immortality is a lack of mortality, so mortality is required for a lack of it to occur.
We read that "one silent nook"38 is in this "near scene", its singularity signifying that there are not "nook[s]" all around this place; it is special in its "one[ness]". If this "near scene" is a metaphor for mortality, and within it there is "one silent nook", we must ask ourselves just what this "nook" is in mortality. The answer to this lies in reading that
One step,
One human step alone, has ever broken
The stillness of its solitude; one voice
Alone inspired its echoes (ll. 588-91)
Shelley clarifies "[o]ne step" by saying "[o]ne human step", and in this way we do not see this "step" as being just any step, but a very particular "[o]ne step". This is essential for what we are to read that this "[o]ne human step" does. It "alone", it and no other, "has ever broken/ The stillness of its solitude", the "solitude" of this "one silent nook". If we look at this in light of the analogy of this "near scene" being mortality, and this "silent nook" being present there, we can discover both what this "silent nook" is representational of, as well as why it is "[o]ne human step alone" that "has ever broken/ The stillness of its solitude". What is it that nothing but a single "human step" can do, in relation to mortality, that would result in the "br[ea]k[ing]" of this "stillness"? It would seem logical to assume that the answer is "die", for that is an event that can only be done once, with "[o]ne human step", for the fact that the "step" is "human" denotes that it is a mortal step, and therefore capable and required to die. As such, it would seem that this "one silent nook" is the boundary between mortality and immortality, the "dark gate" that the young poet has been attempting to find.
Connected to this "[o]ne step" section, by way of a semicolon, is the statement that "one voice/ Alone inspired its echoes". The word "echoes" here seems to reflect these four lines, as the use and order of the words "one" and "alone" is "echoe[d]" in the text: "[o]ne...[o]ne...alone...one...[a]lone". This stresses the singularity, by way of the repetition of these words, as well as in the imagery that one has in relation to "echoes", seen perhaps as a person standing at the edge of a canyon and yelling out a word and hearing it repeated, the result of the canyon being a place void of anything to absorb the word yelled out, thus it is "echoe[d]". The feeling gained from this is the emphasis upon the fact that it is "[o]ne human step alone" that is between life and death, and, even more, between mortality and immortality.
From the passages that we have been examining, it would appear that the gateway to immortality is passed through with the end of mortality. We can see further evidence for this in looking at Shelley's Prometheus Unbound (1820), Act III, scene iii. Prometheus, recently unbound by Hercules, has finished addressing those present, Ione, a Spirit, the Earth, Asia, with a description of humans and defending their worthiness for the gifts he bestowed upon them.39 We then have a dialogue between "Mother Earth" and Asia, one of the three "Oceanides", both of whom are immortals:
The Earth
And men and beast in happy dreams shall gather
Strength for the coming day, and all its joy;
And death shall be the last embrace of her
Who takes the life she gave, even as a mother,
Folding her child, says, 'Leave me not again.'
Asia
Oh, mother! wherefore speak the name of death?
Cease they to love, and move, and breathe, and speak,
Who die?
The Earth
It would avail not to reply;
Thou art immortal and this tongue is known
But to the uncommunicating dead.
Death is the veil which those who live call life;
They sleep, and it is lifted (ll. 103-14)
The topic of discussion between these two is a question revolving around what death is, and, in that, what life is, and what immortality is. Life, as we can see in Earth's statement that "men and beast in happy dreams shall gather/ Strength for the coming day, and all its joy", is the interaction between ordinary experience and aesthetic experience. "[M]en and beasts" are mortal creatures, and therefore have life, since they can die. While alive, experiences are gained, memories temporarily stored, and interplay between the physical world in the "coming day" and the mental world "in happy dreams" allows one to have the "joy" from these experiences, thus we live. At some point "death shall be the last embrace of her/ Who takes the life she gave", and we see that "death" is the "last" event of "life". We must carefully take apart this segment before we examine Asia's response to what the Earth has said, for in quickly reading over it we may see some external agent as the "she" who gives "the last embrace" and "takes the life she gave", when this is not the case. The "she" would seem to be more of a reflexive being, rather than an actual third person being, for if "death" is "the last embrace" with "life", it is the last interaction between the two, their last contact with one another, and we can then see "life" and "death" as being two sides of the same coin of bodily existence. We can not live if we can not die, and we can not die if we can not live. Therefore "the life she gave" is the living body that we inhabit in life, a cumulation of genetical traits and biological parts, something that is not the result of any external agents but one's mother and father, and, as a rule, they do not "take the life they gave". Thus this "last embrace" is a reflexive event, something that se passe, happens of itself, life ends at death.
Asia, upon hearing of "death" and the end of "life", is bewildered, and cries out to the Earth, asking, "wherefore speak the name of death?/ Cease they to love, and move, and breathe, and speak,/ Who die?". As an immortal, and therefore incapable of living or dying, only existing, she does not know why the Earth should "speak the name of death", mostly as she does not understand the concept, as we see in these next two lines. Asia wants to know if when one "dies" one is no longer capable of "lov[ing], and mov[ing], and breath[ing], and speak[ing]", if it is impossible to do all the things one does with the bodily senses, if it is the end. The Earth responds to this question, and at first it appears that she will not reveal if Asia's assumptions about those "[w]ho die" are right or wrong, saying, "[i]t would not avail to reply;/ Thou art immortal and this tongue is known/ But to the uncommunicating dead." This response seems to be analogous to the way in which people who experience aesthetically might not attempt to tell of those perceptions due to the language not being known. We read that, with the exception of "the uncommunicating dead", "this tongue", the language that can explain what it is to live and die, "this tongue is [un]known". This may seem obvious, for when someone is "dead", physically expired and not able to utilize the physical sense of speech, they can not "communicate". Does this mean that there is nothing after death, that the discussion of immortality or the possibility of it is pointless? It might if it were not for the fact that, after having made this point, the Earth continues, saying, "[d]eath is the veil which those who live call life;/ They sleep, and it is lifted". The wording of these two lines seems to show the confusion that is present in the discussion of life, death, and immortality, for it tells us that "those who live call" "the veil" of "[d]eath" "life". Due to this confusion, we (mortals) have our understanding of "life" and "death" backwards. By "call[ing]" this "veil" "life" rather than "[d]eath", which we are told it is, we come to see its "lift[ing]" as the "lift[ing]" of "life", implying an end to our existence. However, this event is actually a "lift[ing]" of "[d]eath", and if "[d]eath" is "lift[ed]", then it would appear that immortality has been attained, for this "lift[ing]" takes away the criteria for mortality by taking away "[d]eath". What this would seem to tell us is that we can not become immortal until we die; when mortality ends immortality begins. This considerably changes the way in which we think about existence, for, although it allows for continuity, in the fact that "we" are the ones becoming immortal with the removal of "the veil", it requires physically dying before becoming immortal; immortality is not possible with the physical form, we must shed our mortal part first.
In returning to Shelley's Alastor41 we can see this last argument illustrated. The young poet is dying, his physical form no longer capable of sustaining life. We are told that the young poet is as "a slave that feels/ No proud exemption in the blighting curse/ He bears, over the world wanders forever,/ Lone as incarnate death!" (678-81). This "blighting curse" would seem to be the knowledge that it is the interaction between modes of perception and experience that fully nourishes our mortal part, and that, to attain immortality, to "wander...forever", he must die, together with the knowledge that there is no external agent that is responsible for this. Admittedly, "death" here is made physical, "incarnate", but it does not imply that it is a being, for the way this "incarnate death" is referenced is "[l]one as", solitary. In this we see the reflexive singularity of our own existence, the interaction between the outer and the inner realms through experiences (which become memories). Perhaps this is the reason for Shelley quoting Wordsworth in the last seven lines of the poem, when we read:
It is a woe "too deep for tears," when all
Is reft at once[.] (ll. 713-14)
The quote, "too deep for tears", is taken from the last line of Wordsworth's Ode, which in and of itself seems to indicate a literary reference on Shelley's part towards immortality. The actual line from Wordsworth is "[t]houghts that do often lie too deep for tears", which closes the expression that "[t]hanks to the human heart by which we live...", even "...the meanest flower that blows can give/ Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." This idea, that "[t]houghts" can "lie too deep for tears", seems to demonstrate the intensity of certain concepts, intensity that makes it so that we do not have a sufficient way of dealing with them, and that these concepts may be given in something even as simple or plain as "the meanest flower", due to the fact that "we live" "by" "the human heart", the mind. Shelley expresses this fact as "a woe" in relationship to the young poet, it would seem, for he says that this fact which is "too deep for tears" is "a woe" "when all/ Is reft at once", when we are shown that all that we thought that we knew is incorrect. In the young poet's case it is that he was convinced that there was some external agent that was the cause of visionary experience, and that ordinary experience was not a necessary or important thing, and this is emphasized in Shelley's use of the quote from Wordsworth and the implications inherent within it.
From this "woe" that the young poet feels/realizes, he learns that "the web of human things,/ Birth and the grave,... are not as they were."42 This, the fact that "human things" "are not as they were", is similar to the confusion with the "lifted" "veil" in Prometheus Unbound, for it changes our understanding of "what we are". No longer are "[b]irth and the grave" as straightforward as we thought, and "the web of human things", which is reminiscent of the "web" that the young poet's "[i]nmost sense" is "suspended in" at line 156,43 is far more intricate and interwoven than we have led ourselves to believe. Perhaps by taking another look at the connection between the senses and the mind we can attempt to make this intricacy somewhat less confusing.
Wordsworth, in 1828, wrote On the Power of Sound, in which he considers the interaction between the ear and sounds, and how these affect the mind. In his "Argument" for this poem we read of the various aspects of "sound" that he feels are of great importance in relation to this sense: "[t]he Ear addressed as occupied by a spiritual functionary, in communion with sounds, individual, or combined in studied harmony", "[s]ources and effects of those sounds", "[t]he mind recalled to sounds acting casually and severally", "[w]ish uttered...that these could be united into a scheme or system for...intellectual contemplation", "[t]he Pythagorean theory of numbers and music, with their supposed power over the motions of the universe", "[i]maginations consonant with such a theory", "[t]he destruction of earth and the planetary system", and "[t]he survival of audible harmony". From these we see that our sense of sound is one that, although we use it every day, we do not fully realize, and therefore do not fully understand. In not fully understanding it we can not intelligently go beyond it; we need to study and examine closely the five senses that we use day-to-day before we can investigate the mind and its sense/s. Even in looking at the first thirteen lines of the poem to we begin to realize just how little we actually stop to consider the immense "power" that "sound" has in relation to our minds:
Thy functions are ethereal,
As if within thee dwelt a glancing mind,
Organ of vision! And a Spirit aërial
Informs the cell of Hearing, dark and blind;
Intricate labyrinth, more dread for thought
To enter than oracular cave;
Strict passage, through which sighs are brought,
And whispers for the heart, their slave;
And shrieks, that revel in abuse
Of shivering flesh; and warbled air,
Whose piercing sweetness can unloose
The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile
Into the ambush of despair[.] (ll. 1-13)
By starting with laudations of the sense of sight, and its "ethereal" properties, Wordsworth brings to our thoughts that which we are capable with our "[o]rgan of vision". As we are thinking about this we begin to read that "the cell of Hearing" is far more powerful, in relation to the mind, and are given several examples that demonstrate the fact that we take this sense of sound for granted, are not fully aware of exactly how great this sense is. "[M]ore dread for thought/ To enter than oracular cave" is our sense of sound, for in hearing sounds we can be reminded of events that we have not thought of in years, which is not the same case with sight; although we may see something and be reminded of an event, this phenomena does not occur as frequently or as intensely as it does with hearing, say, a noise or a song. "[S]ighs are brought,/ And whispers for the heart, their slave" when we hear sounds, memories that have not been thought about in years are recalled instantaneously, firing off other memories - all from hearing a sound. Therefore "the heart", the mind, is "their slave", victim to the notes of a song that send one's thoughts to another place, an earlier time, unable to stop the electrical impulses of memory from re-playing scenes upon the closed-eye landscape. The "[i]ntricate labyrinth" of neural pathways unfold memory upon memory, and "can unloose/ The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile/ Into the ambush of despair", all as a result of the sense of sound.
Wordsworth remarks, "[h]ow oft along thy mazes,/ Regent of sound, have dangerous Passions trod!"44 This further stresses the importance and intricacy of this sense, for it can bring about "dangerous Passions", emotions that are the result of these memories, as we have discussed. However, can we actually learn anything from this phenomena of sense and its connection with memory, anything that will reveal to us knowledge about the mind? We find that there is when Wordsworth tells us:45
To life, to life, give back thine ear:
Ye who are longing to be rid
Of fable, though to truth subservient, hear
The little sprinkling of cold earth that fell
Echoed from the coffin-lid[.] (ll. 153-7)
We are reminded of the extra-ordinary importance of the interaction between realms of experience in reading this, for Wordsworth repeats "[t]o life", italicizing it the second time, imploring the reader to return from the inner realm of memories if s/he wants to "be rid/ Of fable". By doing this, and trying to learn from this interaction, we can be "to truth subservient", and not led to believe that when we die we cease to exist; if "to life [we] give back [our] ear", and not follow the example of Shelley's young poet in Alastor, we will realize that their is more to our existence than our mortal part, and not fear "hear[ing]/ The little sprinkling of cold earth that fell/ Echoed from the coffin-lid", as, once we physically expire, the electrical impulses of our memories, which are causally dependent upon the brain while it is alive, shall no longer be resident in the body under the "coffin-lid". If these memories are what our minds consist of, and our minds have senses, above and beyond the five we ordinarily use, then we shall continue to exist, only without a body. But is there any way of being sure of this? Is there any way of knowing that, when our body is lowered into the grave, we will still exist, that it is only our mortal part that has deteriorated, and that our immortal part has continued and is no longer dependent upon the mortal part for its existence? Unfortunately, these would seem to be questions that we will not know the answers to for certain until "the veil...is lifted" - but perhaps through science we can establish some theoretical answers to this dilemma.
Wordsworth continues, saying that
By one pervading spirit
Of tones and numbers all things are controlled,
As sages taught, where faith was found to merit
Initiation in that mystery old. (ll. 177-80)
From this we see Wordsworth's belief in some exact science, "one pervading spirit", that "control[s]" "all things", and that the properties of this "spirit" are "tones and numbers", specific, measurable, and testable variables. It is also intriguing that he uses the words "all things", which we saw earlier at line 103 of Tintern Abbey. Could this be Wordsworth's idea relating to the concept of the "presence" of line 95 in Tintern Abbey46 some thirty years later? If indeed "all things are controlled" by this set of variables, then it would seem reasonable that we should be able to test and discover whether or not there are immortal possibilities by applying science to the study of our "senses five" in order to study the mind. Doing so may not change the fact that it appears that immortality is only achievable posthumously, but it will at least allow us to more intelligibly go through life, which is, as Wordsworth tells us, in Book V of The Prelude,
[t]he time of trial, ere we learn to live
In reconcilement with our stinted powers[.] (ll. 540-41)
If we attempt to study the interaction between our senses and how they affect memories, through the reactions in the brain where these memories are causally located as electrical impulses, which can be done through science, then perhaps we can find some kind of hard evidence for the mind's existence as our immortal part, and we can then "live/ [Truly] [i]n reconcilement with our stinted powers", for we have a glimmering of an idea of what happens when "[t]he time of trial" is over and "our...powers" are no longer "stinted". By doing this we can create the words and language with which it will be possible to more fully discuss our different experiences and the connection between "our stinted powers", our "senses five", and that which is beyond the senses, the mind. As Wordsworth said, in Book IIII of The Excursion,
Science then
Shall be a precious visitant; and then,
And only then, be worthy of her name:
For then her heart shall kindle; her dull eye,
Dull and inanimate, no more shall hang
Chained to its object in brute slavery;
But taught with patient interest to watch
The processes of things, and serve the cause
Of order and distinctness, not for this
Shall it forget that its most noble use,
Its most illustrious province, must be found
In furnishing clear guidance, a support
Not treacherous, to the mind's excursive power.
- So build we up the Being that we are[.] (ll.1251-64)
Notes for Part Four:
1 The Danish word Øiblikket is a figurative one that Kierkegaard uses in his discussion of the Concept of Anxiety (IV 357ff.). Translated, it means 'the moment', its derivation being Øiets Blik, 'a blink of the eye'. Reidar Thomte tells us that "[i]n the New Testament there is a poetic paraphrase of [this] moment. Paul [I Corinthians 15:52] says that the world will pass away in a moment, εν ατομω και εν ριπη οφθαλομου (in the twinkling of an eye). By this he also expresses that the moment is commensurable with eternity, precisely because the moment of destruction expresses eternity at the same moment" (note p. 88, Concept of Anxiety). I have chosen to use Øiblikket in the title for this section, rather than just 'the moment', for its deeper meaning, where now and eternity are equatable with one another, for this implies that there is infinitely more happening in this instant than is temporally possible.
2 Alastor, ll. 200-02.
3 Lines 203-05.
4 Woodberry, George Edward. "Notes and Illustrations" to The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Cambridge Edition (1901), p. 615.
5 Queen Mab, ll. 227-28.
6 Hogg, Thomas Jefferson, The Life of Shelley, I, p.70-71.
7 Davy, Sir Humphry, A Discourse, Introductory to a Course of Lectures on Chemistry, p. 16.
8 Shelley, Mary, Frankenstein, or, the Modern Prometheus, p. 47, Penguin Books edition, 1992.
9 Alastor, ll. 237-251.
10 Ibid., ll. 285-290.
11 Wordsworth tells us that this poem "...first saw the light in the summer of 1798", but the final text, the one examined here, was completed in 1819.
12 From a letter "To Robert Southey, Esq., P.L., etc., etc.", Rydal Mount, April 7, 1819.
13 Ibid.
14 William Wordsworth, The Excursion, I.108.
15 Ibid., I.118-131.
16 Ibid., I.132.
17 Ibid., I.219.
18 Ibid., I.301-02.
19 As we have discussed in Chapter One with Wordsworth's The Brothers (pp. 39-44).
20 Ibid., I.469-70.
21 Ibid., II.791-829.
22 Ibid., II.829.
23 Wordsworth is discussing his "[d]isappointment and disgust" for the French Revolution at this point in Book III of The Excursion (ll. 706-767), the section I am taking "out of context". I intentionally leave out the political sections of this section in analysis to look at the visionary events intermixed in the scorn Wordsworth expresses towards the French government and his joy over the fall of the "dread Bastile" (III.709). This is, however, I feel justifiable, for Wordsworth, at line 736 to 741 in this section, writes:
From the depth
Of natural passion, seemingly escaped,
My soul diffused herself in wide embrace
Of institutions, and the form of things;
As they exist, in mutable array,
Upon life's surface.
From this we can see that, although political in its nature, these passages are part of "life", part of existence and experience. As such "they exist, in mutable array" in "life". If the "soul" can "diffuse...herself in wide embrace/ Of institutions, and the form of things", that is, interact with these events, then it would seem that the occurrence of visionary experience within an event like the French Revolution, whether actually a perception or merely as a metaphor, is perfectly acceptable. Through this we can examine these passages without discussing their political nature at any great length, for the political nature falls into the "mutable array" and is "diffused" in the "soul"/mind, not neglected, but included in "life's surface" as experience. In this manner the passages can be discussed strictly as examples of visionary experience without the complication of attempting to sufficiently explain Wordsworth's political ideals.
24 The Excursion, III.700-01.
25 With Wordsworth's Power of Sound, pp. 167-70.
26 Ode, "When the soft hand", ll. 88-9.
27 The Excursion, III.842-43.
28 The entire title of this piece is Kubla Khan, or, a Vision in a Dream, a Fragment, and his comments on it are from The Selected Poetry and Prose of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited and introduced by Donald A. Stauffer, pp. 43-44, Modern Library College Editions, New York, 1951.
29 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan, ll.10-11.
30 Ibid., ll. 35-36.
31 Ibid., ll. 37-38.
32 Ibid., ll. 42-43.
33 Ibid., ll. 45-46.
34 Alastor, line 414.
35 Ibid., line 415.
36 Woodberry, The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, p. 616, note 479.
37 Alastor, ll. 502-14.
38 Ibid., line 572.
39 Ibid., ll. 5-68, 76-84.
40 Alastor, ll. 678-81.
41 Wordsworth, Ode, ll. 201-04.
42 Shelley, Alastor, ll. 719-20.
43 See page 118 for the discussion of this "web".
44 Wordsworth, On the Power of Sound, ll. 81-2.
45 Ibid., ll. 153-7.
46 See pp. 22-23.