Hi all,

I am brand new here; I learned of this site from a fellow student who linked me to an emule file of a closed thread on "Convergence".

There were some excellent insights there on the poem itself by Ian and others. Thanks.

There was very little if any discussion on the tendancy of Hardy to invoke Naturalism and it's roots in the Romantics and even the enlightened thinking of Locke and Spinoza which were relevant I think besides the tragic developmeents that Hardy endured, there must have been a more reasoned approach to his condemnations in this poem.

Thoughts?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2008 03:38PM by SR.

Welcome to Emule, SR.

And thanks for your thanks re the 'insights'. I recall that my lengthy and somewhat irreverent critique of this poem, which was directed to a specific question asked and didn't purport to be a full, orthodox analysis, copped a blast from someone using the ID "Pained Professor of English" (though it may have been a pretended status, as his or her style exhibited an inferiority complex that was hardly professorial) and then from some acolyte who made bizarre comparisons with Hamlet's 'To be or not to be' soliloquy. You'll have to make up your own mind on the points in contention there.

For Emulers now, here's the reference to the earlier thread:
[tinyurl.com] .

As for your specific queries re the influence on Hardy of Naturalism, and the Romantics, and Locke and Spinoza, you sound to be far more learned on those matters than I am. Without doing a lot of research which you have probably done already, I regret I can't offer you any useful thoughts. But I'd be interested to learn more about those influences if you would care to elaborate on them.

Ian

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2008 03:05AM by IanAKB.

The genre of poetry is enigmatic to me; I come from a different literary background. Therefore, I tend to look at context as an important determinant when I review the written word. That is not to say that I think context is unimportant in poetry, but the medium is , per se, additionally reliant on aestetic forms and ocular music as well, even outside of the looser adaptions of formalist constructs evident in the Romantics and poets just thereafter like Hardy.

For the purpose of expediency, I will ignore the "sexual modality" of criticism that I find absurd when applied to this poem. With Convergence, I find an irreconcilable dichotmy that is troubling me. On a meta level the dichotomy is the conflict between man and nature, but witin the half I have defined as "nature" there is another dichotomous subset that Hardy clearly addresses.

Hardy was raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition, but largely dismissed it for reasons that are unimportant here. He lived through the social and political turmoil and fallout that the reformation and the restoration had created (which went far to diminish the idea of "divine rights" to the monarch). He was privy to, and most certainly had read and become familiar with John Locke and his rational essays pertaining to thought, the aquisition of knowledge, and their dependence on experience. Too, he presumably had read Spinoza (I infer this because of the language in Convergence) and understood Baruch's postulate that nature is infinate and "godlike", but not participatory. By all accounts Hardy was an empiricist, a naturalist, and a rationalist.

Why then does nature in Convergence take on a punative nature in an attempt to feature man's hubris? It is clearly his objecctive in stanza 6 when he writes, "The Immanent Will", and depending on the deconstructionist interpretation in stanza 8 when he remarks "In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too". This whole idea brings Hardy back to the antiquated thinking that he has rejected in lieu of the more reasoned and enlightened approach. It's as if he has been the advocate for logic and reason only to fall inescapably back to faith...and a faith not exclusively of Judeo-Christain origin, but a coalition of Judeo-Christian, philosophical, and perhaps even scientific dogmas that simply don't reconcile.

Furthermore, isn't man's deluded idea that he can conquer nature enough to warrant his own demise? There is no need for any divine intervention in order to teach any lessons; that goes far to state that man can't help himself.....can't establish any objective standards by which to moderate, or worse establish right from wrong. The product of the tragedy and its lesson are better served if the resposnibilty is squarely on mankinds shoulders. What Hardy has done is equivalent to someone ascribing global warming to an angry god. Where's the utility there?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2008 05:21PM by SR.

Well, this ignited a spirited discussion.

Like I said, I am new here. Are the topics discussed here more or less specific to poetic devices and not content? If so, my apologies.

This particular forum, Homework Assistance, is usually used by those who have specific questions related to an assignment.

However, no one's going to give you grief about discussing any topic, but you're more likely to get responses in the General Discussion forum, since some people avoid the homework forum

In response to your comments, I personally see no reason why Nature, or the Earth,can't have some degree of sentience, with maybe a sprinkling of irony, in its attempt to achieve balance

Thank you Johnny; it seems that all boards have their characteristics that make them unique. It takes a while to understand the culture.

I put this thread here in homework because it is a homework assignment for myself and four others who have been charged with this poem for a senior examination.

I understand your point about nature being cognizant and ironic for the sake of art, though I believe that the broader implications take the theme well beyond any incongruity. Nor do I see that something is to be learned as I usually do when confronted with irony. I suppose I just can't get passed, nor appreciate the logical gap that Hardy ignores in order to support this characterization of nature. All things considered, this poem appears to me nothing but one long eqivocation.

Thanks again.

Particle physicists are studying Sufi philosophy in order to gain insight into the actions of quarks and strangelets, since logical predictability does not apply at the subatomic level.

The mere act of observation has an effect on the particles being observed, even though this should not logically be.

Who is to say, then, that by making a declaration of unsinkability, that the pronouncement of this concept does not trigger some counterforce beholden to "do it in"?

I say the above because of your contention that his characterizations are somehow faith-based.

Might as well put the poem up again, to give more direct context to this interesting discussion:

The Convergence of the Twain

I
In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

II
Steel chambers, late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

III
Over the mirrors meant
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls -- grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

IV
Jewels in joy designed
To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

V
Dim moon-eyed fishes near
Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: 'What does this vaingloriousness down here?'...

VI
Well: while was fashioning
This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

VII
Prepared a sinister mate
For her -- so gaily great --
A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

VIII
And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

IX
Alien they seemed to be:
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,

X
Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,

XI
Till the Spinner of the Years
Said 'Now!' And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres

-Thomas Hardy

Johnny, I have never heard of the Earth being credited with "irony" before. Maybe it is a long dispersed emanation from certain parts of Western Australia where there are primeval landscapes made of almost nothing but iron ore.

Thomas Hardy may have been reared in the Judaeo/Christian tradition, but he was certainly not averse to imagining human affairs as subject to the machinations of personalised metaphysical forces (rather like the ancient Greek pantheon). Thus in this poem we have the Immanent Will and the Spinner of the Years, and at the end of his novel "Tess of the D'Urbervilles", after the heroine has been executed by hanging, he concludes with the comment that "The President of the Immortals had ended his sport with Tess".

Ian

I'm not saying he's having some sapient Jehoovah controlling everything, as was implied, but rather merely the tempting of fate.

But you raise a good point with Tess, it certainly seems otherwise in that case

Strange how the mind can play tricks when you read something that seems odd. I notice now that in my original comments on this poem I misquoted the last word in stanza VII. Even the Pained Professor failed to correct me on that. Hardy wrote "dissociate" not "disassociate". It thought it then (and now) a straining after rhyme, and a forcing of the meter. My misquotation must have been a subconscious attempt to improve the latter.

JohnnyBoy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

Particle physicists are studying Sufi philosophy
in order to gain insight into the actions of
quarks and strangelets, since logical
predictability does not apply at the subatomic
level.

The mere act of observation has an effect on the
particles being observed, even though this should
not logically be.

Who is to say, then, that by making a declaration
of unsinkability, that the pronouncement of this
concept does not trigger some counterforce
beholden to "do it in"?

I say the above because of your contention that
his characterizations are somehow faith-based.


Logical predicability does not stand alone; it is the least objective form of science that comes in the form of the presupposition. It is that understanding that leads science to work tirelessly through control groups and test upon test to prior to making any determination on truth. I would then suggest that the particle physicists will never quantify a causal relationship between philosohy and matter because the physical characteristics of philosophy don't exist.

I am not sure what is meant by observation having an effect on matter as I don't understand what it is being compared to.....the behavior of matter when it isn't being observed?? How can matter behave differently when it isn't being observed?

I don't take issue with Hardy being faith based at all, exccept to the extent that it minimizes his message for me. I would be inclined to agree with his message if the fault for the disaster was placed squarely on the shoulders of mankind due to our insufficient understanding of nature, not another grandiose assessment based yet again on ignorance. I am simply noting what seems to be an equivocation in his poem.

From 12 Monkeys:


JEFFREY: In the 18th century there was no such thing (as germs)!
Nobody'd ever imagined such a thing -- no sane person anyway. Along comes this doctor...Semmelweiss, I think. He tries to convince people... other doctors mostly...that there are these teeny tiny invisible "bad things" called germs that get into your body and make you...sick! He's trying to get doctors to wash their hands. What is this guy...crazy? Teeny tiny invisible whaddayou call 'em?..."germs"!

So cut to the 20th century! Last week in fact, right before I got dragged into this hellhole. I order a burger in this fast food joint. The waiter drops it on the floor. He picks it up, wipes it off, hands it to me...like it was all okay.

"What about the germs?" I say. He goes, "I don't believe in germs. Germs are just a plot they made up so they can sell you disinfectants and soap!"

Excellent point; perhaps Hardy and myself would have found aid with a sense of humor on such a topic. Thanks! ;thumbsup;