[Ttha-potm] Childhood among the ferns

[carolyn mcgrath]

Hi all, but particularly Rosemarie and Ilaria,

Rosemarie said, ‘"Vegetative state" by the way
customarily refers to a state of brain-death.’

Fair dues! What I was trying to suggest was a
combination of ‘vegetable dominion’, as opposed to
‘man’s estate’, and its concomitant state of
consciousness: I put ‘vegetative’, but maybe I needed
‘vegetating’. For all the luxuriance of that ‘green
world’, lack of motion for humankind is death, which
is why the movement within the poem from ‘I sat’ to
‘perambulate’ is so important and insightful, although
some might call it ‘pessimistic’ because of the
seemingly pejorative tone of the final phrase. 

I was wondering, Ilaria, whether there’s a similar
potential for misunderstanding in your use of the word
‘senility’. Do you just mean to refer to ‘old age’ and
the normal ageing process or do you wish to imply the
more extreme end of the spectrum, dementia and mental
illness, which the word, in UK English anyway,
customarily suggests? I like the thinking that the
range of meanings provokes as I don’t think Hardy is
much interested in allowing us to remain too securely
in our comfort zone in this poem. Maybe the threat of
senility lurking at the edge of our consciousness is
warranted. 

It is important to allow the full range of meaning
that a word offers, even when there is evidence that a
word has a certain significance for the poet, such as
we seem to have with 'perambulate'. The choice can
only be deemed apt if it resonates with the reader in
the context in which it has been placed. A dictionary
is more useful than the 'Life' when exploring a word’s
significance, although I don’t want to take away from
the interest a biographical approach offers or
exploring other of Hardy's work to unpick that
personal significance. 

In the case of ‘perambulate’, I found the following:

·	S: (v) perambulate (make an official inspection on
foot of (the bounds of a property)) "Selectmen are
required by law to perambulate the bounds every five
years" 
·	S: (v) perambulate, walk about, walk around (walk
with no particular goal) "we were walking around in
the garden"; "after breakfast, she walked about in the
park" 

I think the word ‘perambulate’ brings the reader hard
up against biological and social reality. In a way, it
is diametrically opposite to ‘Proud Songsters’ as in
that poem the harsh realities are there in the main
part of the poem and the ending, I think, softens the
bump whereas this poem has the ‘transported’ elsewhere
of childhood pleasure and memory and then brings you
to earth with a bump, particularly with that final
word.

I’m uncomfortable with the word ‘transcendence’, but
maybe that’s because I’m unsure of its meaning, but
‘being transported’ fits better with me in the context
of this poem. The world of pretence, of the unique
individual’s inner world and imagination, collides
with the world of biological and social reality as
they both exist. For Hardy’s contemporaries, as for
ourselves, the question left begging at the end of the
poem poses fundamental and persistent imponderables:
what is our relationship to the Earth and can it bring
meaning to our lives? Can we say how matter and mind
are related? What process led to the emergence of mind
from matter in the first place? Can we find a more
meaningful way of living with the planet and with each
other? 

“Hardy often saw human consciousness as an
epiphenomenon – an accidental development in
evolutionary terms, which leaves the self stranded and
exposed in a world which has not developed to a point
where it is suitable for thought. The ‘coming
universal wish not to live’ in Jude the Obscure is a
product of this painful over-extension, as is the wish
for unconsciousness or death expressed in poems like
‘To an Unborn Pauper Child’ (17), the ‘In Tenebris’
series (24-6) and ‘Thoughts from Sophocles’ (179).”
Introducing Hardy's Poetry

I would like to add this poem to that list. 

The poem’s subjectivity, the ‘I’, draws the reader
into empathising with the poem’s persona who I
perceive as a divided self: the older, narrating voice
and the experience of the child. These double-images
and double-voices are fused by the poem into a
movement - or argument – that both evokes and
critiques simultaneously. I never for one moment
thought that Rosemarie or others might mistake the
narrating voice of the reflective adult for that of a
child; nevertheless, in the postings that preceded
mine, attention had focused on the child’s
perspective, or the sensual element of that
perspective, without describing the narrating adult’s
ambivalent commentary on that early experience. I
didn’t understand either Rosemarie’s comment that
pretence is a key concept for her but not for me when
my posting had commented on the centrality of
recognising the importance of pretence: “However, in
the poem, the naivety of this 'pride' is fore grounded
by the narrating voice who notes that his younger self
is 'Making pretence' that the 'green rafters' of his
'spray-roofed house' have not been 'pierced'. It is
vital that we acknowledge that this ferny
fortification has already been breached.” I didn’t
mean by this that pretence is not to be valued, it
just means that I don’t believe it can do away with
reality. The child does, after all, get wet.  

If ‘pretence’ is essential to the origins and growth
of consciousness, and if our consciousness is both
biologically and socially determined, then I would
have thought Rosemarie’s fleeting remark: “making
believe is the first infantile step to a cultivated
imagination (there's a whole other story to be told
about the acculturation of imagination -- but not
here).” is actually central to this poem. I don’t know
if it is easy to briefly outline what you know on
this, Rosemarie, but it does sound relevant and of
interest. 

I do try to be succinct, honest, but it always seems
to run away with me.

Best wishes all


Carolyn McGrath


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