[Ttha-potm] How many sentences?

[Betty Cortus]

You've done a interesting analysis of the punctuation here Carolyn,  
but I still believe the poem contains four sentences as you also  
first thought.

On Jun 20, 2008, at 3:15 PM, carolyn mcgrath wrote:
>
> How many sentences make this poem?
>
> I thought there were four but now I think there are three, and not  
> the three I had originally thought there might be:
>
> Original understanding:
>
> 1. S1 L1 - S3 L11  "At four ... their best.)"
> 2. S3 L11 - S3 L12 "In this vale's space ... I think."
> 3. S3 L12 - S3 L15 "Yet, no, ... four o'clock? ..."
> 4. S4 L16 - S4 L20 "--  Though pleasure-spurred ... four o'clock!"
>
> I wasn't sure about the '-', the dash at the beginning of the  
> fourth stanza. I had considered the possibility that it may  
> indicate a strong link with the preceding stanza in order to  
> suggest that the question mark is not the end of the sentence, just  
> as the question mark after "A whistling?" is not the end of a  
> sentence, made clear by the lower case of "and the to-and-fro".


You are right about one thing Carolyn.  The sentence does continue on  
after the earlier question mark, and for me, ends, as it does for you  
with the second ellipsis.  But dashes in Hardy's poetry almost  
invariably indicate a pause--not a link.  I see it as placed here to  
separate the speaker's aural perceptions--the whistling and the  
sounds of the scythe being sharpened in sentence three--from the  
mental insight he gains, not only from those perceptions but the  
experience described in the poem as a whole.  My conclusion then is  
that the that the dash comes before the start  of a new, fourth,  
sentence.


> However, although I could justify the capital as being necessary  
> due to it being the initial letter of the first line of the final  
> stanza, I could not explain the ellipsis preceding it. Finally, and  
> this may have been obvious to everyone else but me (so sorry for  
> labouring this point!), it finally dawned on me that the original  
> ellipsis and the subsequent ellipsis act like brackets around the  
> whole interruption to the morning musings of the persona.  Yes, I'm  
> sure many of you had got there before me.

No, I hadn't recognized this, but I think you are quite right about  
the ellipses being brackets of sorts to separate the central portion  
of the poem from the beginning and end.
>
> So, to summarise for those I have lost, what I think we have is one  
> sentence:
>
> 1. S1 L1 - S4 L20 "At four" --> "At four o'clock!"
>
> interrupted by the two sentences within the ellipses:
>
> 2. S3 L11 - S3 L12 "...In this vale's space" --> "I think."
> 3. S3 L12 - S3 L15 "Yet, no," --> "At four o'clock? ..."
>
>  Again, the punctuation further convinces me that the final stanza  
> is a continuation of the opening sentence as it explains why the  
> full stop at the end of  "best.)" is inside the bracket and not  
> outside, as you would expect if the sentence was to end there,  
> another fact which had been niggling away at me.

I really do think the full stop after 'best' indicates the end of the  
first sentence, even though one would normally expect it after the  
bracket. Hardy may have put inside so as not to confuse it with part  
of the ellipsis.

I understand why you can see a logical, intellectual, or narrative  
link between the first sentence and the final stanza.  But I don't  
see how it would make those two parts a single sentence.  You have  
cleverly  identified three logical, intellectual, or narrative  
divisions in the poem, but I don't believe they can be equated with  
what are clearly four grammatical divisions--in other word four  
complete sentences each with their correct complement of subjects and  
predicates.  Of course, I maybe totally missing something here,  and  
if  I've misread your argument I'm am open to further elucidation.
>
> I'd be interested to know how this may impact on people's  
> understanding of the poem, if it is a fresh way of reading it for  
> them. For one thing, I can no longer agree with Betty that "the  
> ellipsis in line one of stanza three marks a break, or volta of  
> sorts, between the two contrasting sections of the poem, each of  
> which contains an internal contrast of its own." Is there not more  
> like three parts: thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

Yes, I can now see that it can be read as having three parts too, but  
I don't think this rules out the fact that it can also be read as a  
two-parter--one part before the recognition of the whistling scyther   
with all its soaring celestial imagery, and the second part after,  
with its every-day terrestrial  (in rural Bockhampton)  perceptions.   
Is there any reason why two readings should be mutually exclusive?

What do others think?

Betty