Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
here's another example of a motif relating to "air" but one that is not pure because it is being polluted by the "cracks and reforms and bursts," which I do not know what is cracking or bursting in the air but I definitely imagine something like fireworks or explosive properties.
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes
This part of the poem talks a bit about the air that is contaminated by things like perfumes or smoke from burning. I imagine decay or pollution that is inescapable
laquearia
"is a genus of fungi in the Rhytismatales order" "can also mean a panelled ceiling." The first definition is way more interesting because it fits in with the motifs of odd substances or "unguent" things that I see come up a lot in this poem. specifically in the description of odours or airs that can be found several line above. However, Eliot probably mean the "panelled ceiling definition but it is an amazing use of a very obscure word.
And I Tiresias have foresuffered all Enacted on this same divan or bed; I who have sat by Thebes below the wall And walked among the lowest of the dead.
He seems to be saying that because Tiresias is clairvoyant and prophesied the events that he too had suffered the fate of the woman which I don't fully understand. I think it is because Tiresias was changed into a woman for seven years so maybe he is saying that the plight of all woman is the same? It sounds like a leap but that is what immediately comes to mind.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights.
I'm sure all of these things are still found in the Thames but he says "the river" which makes me wonder what river he is talking about.
To get yourself some teeth
I see frequent imagery of facial features. The previous dialogue talks about hair, then "lidless eyes" and now teeth. There is something to be said about the faces of the characters.
Don’t use such an expression as “dim lands of peace.” It dulls the image. It mixes an abstraction with the concrete
I appreciate Pound's differentiating abstraction from the concrete and inserting the notion that the abstract can, and will, lessen the power of the concrete truths that is in nature.
It is better to present one Image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous works.
I totally dig this statement but at the same time I think a lot of people try really hard to create an "image" without putting effort into writing as much as possible for practice. But I think I understand what he is saying because the Swinburne guy he refers to earlier is credited as a voluminous writer but I have never heard of him, and that may be my fault but in my research I was not intrigued in studying him further.
At times I can find a marked metre in “vers libres,” as stale and hackneyed as any pseudo-Swinburnian, at times the writers seem to follow no musical structure whatever.
I looked up "Swinburne" and 2 things came up: A university in Melbourne and an english writer by the name of Algernon Charles Swinburne. I'm assuming he is referring to the english writer who is credited for creating the poetic form the "Roundel," consisting of nine lines each, based on the Rondeau form. Pound seems to me to be picking fights with any poetry that requires strict form.
What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
I think that most people would not even notice such a thing so small or even consider the probability of coincidence for these details to come about together perfectly. In my head I do not picture a perfect coincidence but rather an image, wishful thinking almost, that the speaker finds the perfect coincidence sitting atop a flower.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That wants it down.”
This is a very odd way to pose a question to somebody. It's the type of question that doesnt want an answer maybe because there may not be an answer. The answer seems to be that any reason is a good enough reason to let the wall fall on its own but the speaker feels obliged to keep up the wall becuase his neighbor seems to be commited to it.
We have to use a spell to make them balance: “Stay where you are until our backs are turned!” We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Joking about using a spell to balance the stones seems very out of place to me. the quotation is to the stones in the wall and he talks to it as though he does not trust it. He says until OUR backs are turned as if his and his neighbor have an understanding between themeslves against the wall.
I am out of your way now, Spoon River, Choose your own good and call it good.
The speaker sounds very angry. This sentence is a warning about the evil that Spoon River does not consider because according to the Speaker they are comfortable in declaring their own "good."
Secure, with only two moons listening, Until the whole harmonious landscape rang– “For auld lang syne
I think the speaker has a jug problem. He bids farewell once more but this time not to the Flood but to the "only two moons listening." I wonder what the two moons could be.
For auld lang syne.
I researched "aud lang syne" and found that it is a traiditional scots poem that is also set to music and is usually sung as a farwell song to many occasions including funerals, graduations and mostly on New Years. So the speaker of the poem is bidding farewell to the last drink of the jug.
The first decade was merely a prolongation of the vain search for freedom, the boon that seemed ever barely to elude their grasp,—like a tantalizing will-o’-the-wisp, maddening and misleading the headless host.
Here he is describing the frustration of the people's search for freedom in the first decade and it sounds familiar to Henry Adams' description of time and sequence where he struggles to find sequence in all things: mankind, time, thought, etc. I think the link is the fact that both writers believe that the sequence of their fates lead to a dead end because their society does not allow them to further themselves as a people. "Satisfied that the sequence of men led to nothing and that the sequence of their society could lead no further, while the mere sequence of time was artificial, and the sequence of thought was chaos"
He cared nothing for the sex of the dynamo until he could measure its energy.
what a statement! He is taking a serious stance on the surgical mindset of the "American" that does not care to recognize forces unless they are defined to be useful for the American or if the force itself demands to be recognised, much like in the paragraph before that describes the woman as the "animated dynamo"
He had even published a dozen volumes of American history for no other purpose than to satisfy himself whether, by severest process of stating, with the least possible comment, such facts as seemed sure, in such order as seemed rigorously consequent, he could fix for a familiar moment a necessary sequence of human movement.
This statement seems to me to want to insist that Adams fixed on publishing history as a way of being sure of himself. I think this description can be used for the general people as well because I think humans have a conscious need to want to understand our history and declare it with pride even though the past is nothing to be sure of.
this reminds me of a joke I heard once. The joke is that if the resurrection of Jesus was in modern times then Christians would be wearing electric chairs around their necks instead of a cross. Not the best joke but the imagery is there. The connection in my head is that Christians view the cross as a reminder of the guilt that follows us for nailing Jesus to the cross. The dynamo parallels this because it is not a pretty invention. It was very powerful at the time but it is force that we must deal with and Adams must feel some guilt or obligation to the dynamo.
They Lion, from my children inherit, From the oak turned to a wall, they Lion,
The repetition of "They Lion" reminds me of hymns and prayers that are used in the Catholic church. I was raised catholic and the prayers often have their own rhythm that can be heard when repeated by a community of churchgoers. These prayers are often meant to be reminders of our original sins or of our dedication to God and They Lion feels like it has a similar effect in this beginning and ending repetition.
Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar, Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies,
I had to look up creosote because I had never heard of it. It's basically tar, I found out, so it seems to be used as a way of extending the "candor of tar." I like the use of candor here because unlike wilderness, tar an concrete are material that are unforgivable because they are pretty much permanent.