Update! I now have two stacks of poetry books on my bedroom floor. I wanted to check out some of the poets that we read in class that I enjoyed, so yesterday I went to the public library to pick up some books I’d requested and to check out the poetry section on the third floor. I left with a huge pile of books balanced precariously in my arms.
Before the library, though, I went with one of my friends to
see our Intro to Literary Studies professor from last semester. We sat around for about an
hour talking with him. My friend told him that we liked everything we read in
that class except Melville, and he told us that this semester they had cut out
Melville and the students had read poetry about Orpheus and Eurydice instead.
When my friend’s face displayed blatant envy (she loves poetry), he offered to print us copies of the readings. So
when we finally left his office, it was with several pages of poetry that had
been influenced by Greek mythology.
I was curious because one of them was “Eurydice” by H.D., and
we talked about her in class a couple weeks ago when we talked about Pound and
imagism. But I’ll be honest, when I read the poem it left me pretty confused. I
feel like her use of language is slightly baffling. There’s all this
repetition, and all this stuff about colors and flowers and whatnot, and I had
a difficult time figuring out what H.D. was trying to get across. I’m familiar with
the myth, so I read the poem with that in mind, and I still had difficulty.
It seems to me like Eurydice is angry that Orpheus looked
back (well, no kidding, I’d be pretty peeved too in her shoes), and it seems as
if she’s mostly lamenting the loss of living plants, what with comparing all
the colors of the flowers to the lack of color in the underworld. I also got
the impression that she recognizes how bad Orpheus must feel, because even
though she calls him arrogant and ruthless, she says stuff like, “my hell is no
worse than yours.” That makes me think that she sees that he’s suffering too,
because he’s got to live with the knowledge that he screwed everything up for
himself and for her. Either that, or maybe Eurydice is just trying to make herself
feel better by pretending that her situation isn’t all that bad and his is awful. I’m really not
sure.
The ending perplexes me as well. What I make of it is that
Eurydice is reassuring herself with the eternal existence of her soul in the
underworld; even though she was lost to the land of the living, she will never
be lost to the land of the dead. I feel like I kind of get it, but not really
at all. It’s kind of aggravating, because after talking about imagism, I was
expecting H.D. to be easier to understand. I guess focusing on one image doesn’t
necessarily equate with clarity of language or meaning.
I liked “I
Dream I’m the Death of Orpheus,” by Adrienne Rich, a lot better. And it’s
strange, I couldn’t really tell you exactly why. I have no idea what this one means
either. But I really like the flow of it. I like how it makes me feel when I’m
reading it, and I like the images it makes me see. It almost seems to me like a
reclaiming of the myth. I mean, in the original story, Eurydice has no power
whatsoever and she’s pretty much just an object for Orpheus to rescue or not,
but here Rich gives the narrator of the poem power. And then Orpheus, who seems
to have more potential power in the story, even if he wastes it—here I
interpret him as the “dead poet,” powerless. It’s like, the tables are turned.
The narrator of the poem is like Eurydice, but she’s guiding the dead poet
Orpheus, instead of him guiding her.
Upon reflection, I think it might be word choice that made
me like one poem where I disliked the other, even when I didn’t feel that I entirely
understood either of them. I think I just liked the words—and the images I
associated with them—better in Adrienne Rich’s poem than I did in H. D.’s.
