[Ttha-potm] The Selfsame Song

[carolyn mcgrath]

A comment by Keith Wilson in his posting early this month stuck in my head. He said, in relation to the Ackroyd novel, that the 'failed poet' character makes an 'impassioned plea for the importance of poetry, even (especially?) in the face of inevitable failure and, ultimately, mortality.' It struck a chord with my response to this poem and resurfaced when considering this poem's relationship to Keats' 'Ode to a Nightingale'. 

Do you think it is too far-fetched to describe this lyric as a 'failed ode'? It seems to follow in that poetic tradition and has some of the characteristics required of an ode, it's triadic structure for example. The
final stanza also appears to me to accomplish what I think an epode is supposed to do, i.e. 'turn' and 'standstill' in some way. What arguments are there against this being an ode? Its length, the minimal changes to metre? I think the voice of the last stanza is markedly different to the preceding stanzas so thought maybe it ticks enough boxes. 

The reason I say 'failed ode' is that the praise of the 'immortality' of the birdsong is brought into question by this stanza, and also by the word 'rote' maybe. The value judgement of the 'pleasing marvel' is suspended by the time-torn voice of the 'sole self' who forlornly reflects on the 'selfsameness' of being that journeys from the 'we','here' and 'then' of the first stanza with the 'me' of the 'here' and 'now' of the last.

??????????
best wishes

Carolyn McGrath