In light of Monday’s discussion on passiveness in Wordworth’s poems, I think “A slumber did my spirit seal” fits this theme well. The first line of the poem references slumber, a process that is generally more passive than active as cannot force his or her self into sleep, but rather they fall into it. Every action that occurs in the poem is relatively passive, it occurs to the subject rather than the subject actively doing something. For instance the subject is “roll’d around in earth’s diurnal course”, it is tossed by nature. Furthermore, the “she” of the second stanza cannot even perceive the world around them, rather she “neither hears nor sees”. Thus, this lack of sense means she cannot interact with the world.
In the final two lines, the “she” of the poem is completely united with nature. She is “with rocks, and stones, and trees” and part of the earth’s “diurnal course”. She becomes a part of the cycle, and a part of the process and doesn’t control her own activity. This reinforces the theme of passiveness seen throughout Wordsworth’s poem.
passiveness does indeed seem central to this poem, but I'm wondering if this is somewhat different from the kind of passiveness advocated in "Expostulation and Reply." In this poem, she is combined into nature by death, which negates the possibility of the mind being fed by a wise passiveness. Perhaps the view of passiveness and its value has shifted with the subject?
ReplyDeleteI think in some ways there is still a passiveness similar to that of Expostulation and Reply if we look from the perspective of the narrator who is lulled into a sort of "spiritual trance" as we discusses last class. Perhaps these revelations about the nature of death and the mortality of the "she" in this poem are somewhat along the lines of "wisdom", and can only come to the narrator in this trance-like state, rather than being something actively realized. This seems to fit in better with the passiveness advocated in "Expostulation and Reply".
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree, the trance is very much like the passiveness advocated in "Expostulation," but it is also valanced differently: by allowing his spirit be sealed in an inattentive slumber, he stopped thinking about mortality--and thus missed the signs of Lucy's approaching death. There is a sadness in this poem, a kind of regret at letting something slip away, that we could read as a qualification put on the "wise passiveness" of "Expostulation."
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