[Ttha-potm] 'stand' and 'wait'

[carolyn mcgrath]

Bill said in his last post: 

"What we're listening to in the poem is, surely, a reproduction of a
typical encounter . Two old codgers in Dorchester High Street. Or two
old members of the Drones Club. Same the world over. Don't you think?"

'Just so' - I do think the tone of the poem is just that, probably due to the 'He sez/I sez' style of recount, but it is a recount and so, in a way, the 'typical encounter' is reproduced twice. 

The 'two old codgers' are the speaker-persona to the reader-persona, and it is as if we are standing either side of a garden fence, or on a street corner or leaning on a bar in a pub. The speaker-persona-codger vividly relates an encounter, an exchange, that he had the other night with a third party, a star, another old codger. The specific identity of this star is not considered important enough to share, but the status is. The difference in status is foregrounded by the speaker-persona: 'Here I and you/Stand, each in our own degree:'. It is this polarisation that is crucial to the conclusion of the poem, that the star not only agrees that the persona's speculations are 'Just so', but that they also hold true for itself, 'So mean I'. 

Bill's 'auditory observations' (is there a word for that? Can't think of one this Saturday morning) regarding the final lines of each stanza also sound right to me. Have you any comments regarding the punctuation used at these points? We have 'mean to do,-/Mean to do?' and 'So mean I:-/So mean I.' The colon in the latter creates a further clause rather than a mere echoing repetition. The final 'So mean I' therefore has its own, distinct but related meaning. The effect I think is to increase the stress and emphasis on, and therefore attention to, the word 'mean'. The poem raises the question of what it is to 'be', what it is to 'do' and what it is to 'mean'. It also, by that final line, begs the question of how they relate to 'intend': what I do and what I think I do might be very different, for example. The speaker-persona is cautious about laying any claim one way or the other and merely describes his present understanding. the speaker-persona uses two
 verbs of inaction in the total recount: 'stand' and 'wait', plus the adjectival 'waiting' in the title. The effect is to create a moment or a lifetime that is suspended in time and space (or should I say time-space?) despite the apparent motion of being - whether that be on earth or the skies. 

I am reading, and will have to reread repeatedly, the papers on physics. I am struggling, Roy, but am doing my best! Certainly, Hardy had a modern mind and was far more advanced in his thinking than many of us today (and I include myself absolutely in that category) due to his knowledge of and attitude to scientific thought. A better understanding on my part of these things would enhance understanding of the poetry, I have no doubt. Fortunately for me, Hardy's poetic facility transforms a scientific intuition or insight into something that all can comprehend. This poem is delightful that it can seem such a casual, simple tale on one level and yet resonate so deeply on another.

best wishes

Carolyn McGrath



      
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