A Comparative Study of Shelley’s Triumph of life and Stephen Gill’s The Flame
Dr. G. L. Gautam
P.B. Shelley belongs to the romantic
era of English
Literature. His most
popular and critically acclaimed poem “Triumph of Life” is fashioned after Dante’s
Divine Comedy, and is about
celebration of the joys of life.
It is in terza rima.
Shelley could not complete this poem because of his accidental death by
drowning in 1824. A notable aspect of the poem is the skilful use of internal
rhymes as the opening lines of his poem shows:
Swift as a spirit hastening to his
task
Of glory and of good, the sun sprang
forth
Rejoicing in his splendor and the
mask.(The Triumph of Life 547)1
Stephen
Gill’s epical poem
The Flame, as its title suggests, is about the destruction caused by
maniac messiahs. The book was published in
You are the imperishable harmony
that reaps unparalleled prosperity.
from the chalice of your peace
I long painfully to sip
the invigorating wine of fruitful
returns(The Flame,32 )2.
Romantic
poetry was based on the unified sensibility or the centrality of the individual
artist. The stress the romantic poetry placed on the individuality of the
artist had been expressed in the Wordsworthian theory
of poetics, “emotions recollected in tranquility.” In the poetics of
subjectivity what an artist experiences shapes his creative products. T.S.
Eliot was an
enemy of subjectivity in creativity and therefore stood vehemently against the expression of poet’s personality in
poetry. In his famous essay ‘Tradition and Individual Talent,’ written in 1919, Eliot pleaded for
objectivity in poetry. Since then the essay has been hotly contested and many observations
about this theory have passed into quotations. To quote one
of the observations of Eliot. “Poetry in not a turning loose of emotion,
but an escape from emotion, it is not the expression of personality but an
escape from personality” (Selected Essay, 21)3. However the question
in what relation does the poet’s self stand to his creation is still being
debated.
In
the essay “Poetry’ and Literary Theory”, Joanne Diehl comments:
Crucial to recent
development in poetry and literary theory is the controversy surrounding the
self whether a poem accurately represents the voice of singular, unified
authorial imagination or whether a poem comes from a subject position and denies
its author the status of an identifiable, writing self ( 89-90)4.
Taking
into account the controversy concerning the relationship between the author and
his creative product, Livio Dobrez,
an Italian- born scholar of Australian Poetry, remarks:
… I divided 68
poetry into three poetic strands: one in which the subject and language
function transparently; one in which subjectivity is medicated by language: one
in which subjectivity dies in the play linguistic signifiers. (Ibid 289)5.
The
last postulate conforms to the postmodern thinkers’ premise that emphasizes the
disappearance of the author. To quote Feit Diehl
again: “Here following the lead of Roland Barthes and Jaques
Derrida, theorists have postulated the disappearance of unified subjectivity –
the author vanishes.” (Ibid, 92)6. We need not, however, be deterred
by such pronouncements as made by Barthes and Derrida
in studying and analyzing the poets, whose poetry bears the marks of their
personality. From this follows the present comparison of P.B. Shelley’s last
long poem Triumph of Life (1822) with
The Flame (2008) of Stephen Gill, an
India-born Canadian poet.
Both
poems perceptively deal with the politics of their times. Shelley criticizes the corrupting intrinsic
character of power and Gill exposes Islamic Jehadi
organizations, founded for creating terror all over the world and to strike at
will any where, targeting the innocent people, leaving the mothers distraught
and the adolescents anxiety-ridden. The grimness of the situation could be
underlined from the fact that even the hospitals are not spared by the
terrorists. As a result of terrorists’ strike, the state has grown more
powerful to subject the public to rigorous security check ups.
Further,
both poems give graphic descriptions of nature, making readers aware of their
environment that faces threat on global scale. Both poems also contain
soul-stirring music and are high in imaginative flights. Familiar as we are
with Shelley’s distinguished quality of investing his poetic idiom with music,
he placed premium on musical strain in the poetry of the ancients and therefore
paid a tribute to them in Triumph of Life.:
See the great bards of elder time,
who quelled
The passions which they sung, as by
their strain
May well be known their living
melody
Tempers its own contagion to the
vein
Of those who are infected with it –
I
Have suffered what I wrote or viler
pain
And so my words have seeds of misery (Triumph of Life 554)7
A
note of personal sufferings is obvious in the lines quoted above, as is Shelley’s love
for melodious poetry. Triumph of Life is notable more for
wondrous music than the other creations of Shelley.
Gills’
poetry also reveals personal sufferings, refined aesthetic sense and love for
sonorous images. The following image is striking in The Flame:
The first breath of the spell
from the perfect summer
of the olive grove of your glory
regenerates the inner cells of my
inspiration
while restless ghosts
climb over my bulwark. (The Flame,120)8
The
heart-rupturing descriptions of nature, which are interspersed through out
these cantos, also serve the background to both of them. In The Flame nature is invigorating,
soothing and inspiring, so is nature in the Triumph
of Life. As a lyricist, Shelley invests nature with human attributes. The Triumph of Life, has invigorating images of nature which
are vivid and reminiscent of human
character. The investment of nature with human characters has been aptly called the myth-making in
Shelley’s poetry. In the following lines, which form the part of first few
stanzas of the poem, the poet views nature behaving as humans:
And, in succession due, did
continent
Isle, ocean, and all things that in
them wear
The form and character of mortal
mould
Rise as the sun their father rose to
bear
Their portion of the toil, which he
of old
Took as his own and
then imposed on them.
(Triumph of Life 547)9
In Resolution and Independence,
Wordsworth draws portraits of those who toil almost everyday with exemplary
courage. Here, the every day activity includes the characters bearing “portion of the
toil”.
The
opening of The Flame presents a more
panoramic view of the world and of nature than the Triumph of Life does. Gill seems to follow the classical convention
of ambitious long poems, reminding readers of
You are the imperishable harmony
that reaps unparalleled prosperity (The Flame ,32)10
The following lines are
noteworthy for their quiet repose, tender emotions, giving a glimpse of the personality of the
poet, particularly his sufferings as it is in the poetry of Shelley:
Tend me delightfully
I am a wound unattended
I need wine
Hold me ardently
I am a root unprotected
I need the breeze
Play me wisely
I am a note untried
I need hands
Accept me readily
I am a lamb unclaimed
4..Shelley & Gill
I need a good shepherd (The Flame,129)11
The Flame, a collection 62 cantos, is a long
poem of rare merit that exhibits Stephen Gill’s command of English, evident in
the use of chiselled and condensed phrases. In fact,
a long poem runs the risk of distraction from the central theme or repeating the
contents. But The Flame comes up to our expectations. Throughout its
growth, it keeps the reader enthralled. Some of the cantos of The Flame
have already appeared in literary publications in
Shelley’s
Triumph of Life is a gem, but it is not
popular among the students as his other poems are, because Adonis is taught to postgraduate students in
the Indian universities. Carlos Baker comments on the merit of the Triumph of Life:
The long poem on
which Shelley was working when he died was called “The Triumph of Life”.
Although he did not live to see it through, the lengthy fragment that precedes indicates that it might have been indeed-it-is one
of his greatest poems. It is filled with solemn music, charged with deep
melancholy, mature in its inward control and majestic in its outward demeanor (563)12
John
Addington Symonds considers
it to be a poem that derides the life of
hedonistic pleasure and ambition: The Triumph of Life is composed in no strain of compliment to the
powers of this word, which quell untamable spirits and enslave the noblest by
the operations of blind passions and inordinate ambitions” (170)13
Harold
Bloom traces the influences on the Triumph of Life.
The Triumph of Life is in terza rima and shows the influence of Dante throughout,
particularly of the Purgatorio. Keats was dead when
Shelley composed The Triumph, and keats’s Fall of
Hyperion was not published until 1856, so there is no question of mutual
influencing or example in the extra ordinary fact that both poets left as their
last considerable fragments of work
dominated by Purgatorio. Both were attempting the
visions of judgments, and Dante seemed inevitable model (168)14.
In
his brilliant comment on the Triumph of
Life, Carlos Baker notes a well-worked-out structure in it:
The first part
(lines 41-175) is a detailed and graphic description of the visionary pageant
of worldly life. The second part (176-300) discovers the commentator Rousseau,
who first identifies himself and then points to various famous victims as they
drag past in the long procession. Part three (300 – 543) is Rousseau’s “idealised history” of his “life and feelings”.(563)15
There
is a structure in The Flame as well.
It is reasonably believed that without a plan, a long poem runs the risk of
deviating from the main theme. Gill is
aware of this structure. He explains it in Author’s Preface:
The Flame is divided into eight parts and sixty two cantos. Part one of The
Flame is devotional. Part two, three, four and five are about the destruction
caused by the maniac messiahs. Part six is about those who are responsible for
the destruction, and the remaining are about yearning for the loss. Some cantos
are to extol the virtues of The Flame. Some are to portray despair and some are
in its memory (Preface,7)16.
Sudhir K. Arora considers The Flame as a long poem of high
literary merit and compares it with Khalil Gibram’s The Prophet:
The Flame is heralded as Stephen Gill’s
masterpiece on terrorism , a contemporary problem which has taken the world in
its embrace. It is a long poem about the destruction caused by maniac messiahs.
Like The Prophet it has devotional and spiritual touches. Gill has not inserted
illustrations like Gibram but he has created the
picturesque landscapes through his words.(2)17
While
analysing The Flame G. Dominic Savio and Mrs. S.J. Kala comment:
A study of the disjunctive social
processes in The Flame, very specifically conflict, divulges the characteristic
of the corporate conflict in the poem. It unfolds a positive effect and scores
of negative effects of conflict-- the blowing up of Day Care Centre. Regardless
of the only positive effect the ‘we feeling ‘ it is
worth pondering that the negative effects are quite excruciatingly painful. If
it is assumed that the positive effects of conflict outnumbed
the negative effects of it, even then no one should be lured by it. The life
human being is inestimable and irreplaceable.(www.stephengill.ca) 17
Since Stephen Gill draws on a secular symbol, flame, the poem in its growth acquires comprehensiveness
with flame serving as mainspring of the majority of cantos in the book. The poet explains it in the
Preface to The Flame: a candle or on
earthen lamp is lit in places of worship
of all denominations, both of the east and of the west, which suggests that
flame like other symbols of faith, is reduced to an arid ritual. Hence, the
poet longs painfully to sip its life giving-power. This longing is powerfully
expressed in the opening poem. True to
the convention of an epical poem, in accordance with which the opening lines are devoted to
some deity, the deity invoked in The
Flame is the spirit of harmony:
You are
the softness of the radiant might
that melts the mist, …
You are
the luxuriating richness
that runs
in the veins of the enchanted blossoms
(The Flame,32)18
At
the elemental level, the flame forms a part of fire, which represents the might
of nature, as do the other elements, such as wind, water, and clay. It is the
source of illumination with firmness and stability. It shows contrast to fire
which has ephemeral nature like anger. According to the poet, the flame
dissolves the mist that keeps the horizon enveloped during the winter. Hence,
the poet perceptively calls it, “the softness of the radiant might that melts
the mist.” The light and warmth that the flame exudes generates emotions in
human hearts. The heat is responsible also for drifting clouds, which are as
tender as the emotions of love. The image that follows the drifting clouds is touching, “Which
kiss the dry lips of earth.” This image suggests another associated image of
lovers kissing and cuddling after the heat of emotions.
The
song of the bird in “To A Skylark” (1820) by Shelley
is suggestive of the scores of associated images. Just as Shelley draws on
whatever his eyes could have appreciated in nature and his discriminating ears
heard of in the world, Stephen Gill in the Flame draws on whatever his
eyes catches in nature. The images are
personal, but they form
shapes after the poet exercises intellectual control over
emotions. Unlike the song of the skylark, which Shelley calls unpremeditated,
the flame meditates “in the melody of the falls”, and further, it is “the beat
that echoes in the breast of arc”. The following images that the poet draws
from nature are presented in fresh idiom.’ The Flame is:
the skylark in flight
and the raptures
of the brilliantly illumined waves
which frolic with bank while sunning (The
Flame ,34)19
You are
the white lotus that buds
from the undisturbed waters
of uncommon patience (The Flame,36)20
Yours eyes
a seaside retreat
where mystic flames reign
and
nature courts the night’s favour
for a feast of peace (The Flame,37)21
The
title of the poem, The Flame,
communicates the poet’s concern about the communal harmony that is being
destroyed by the war mongers of all hues and political persuasions.
The
title of Shelley’s poem also points to the grim reality of our times and show the
worldly life, which implies the love of pleasure, power and of gold that has
enslaved and overpowered everyone. Only
a few idealists could have the strength to remain resistant to them. In “Defence of Poetry”, Shelley draws our attention to the fact
that decay in individual power of a poet occurs in proportion to his succumbing
to the moral depravity.
Triumph of Life begins with a visionary who is
sitting by a public way, where he notices a van approaching, whose strong light
is outshining the light of the sun. The startling fact about the van however,
is that it is being guided by a crew who are visionless. Behind the van walk a
dancing crowd composed of old and young, adult and children, of the present and
the past, but all indiscriminately pursue pleasure. We have a graphic
description of the pageantry of life:
But as of foam after the ocean’s
wrath
Is
spent upon the desert shore behind
Old men and women foully disarrayed
Shake grey hairs in the insulting
wind
And follow in dace, with limbs decayed
Seeking to reach the light which
leaves them still
Further behind and deeper in the
shade
But not the less with the impotence
of will
They wheel, though ghastly shadows
inter pose
Round them and round
each other and finish
(Triumph of Life,551)22
A
visionary as Shelley was, he could have visualized, taking into account the
contours dimly visible on society’s landscape. He could have seen how pleasure
would be pursued by all alike; the old will be as much pleasure seekers as the
young ones. The future hedonistic society would have fear as a reigning
emotion, because life will be devoid of emotional stability:
All hastening onward, yet none
seemed to know
Whither he went, or whence he came,
or why
he made one of the multitude, and so
Was borne amid the crowd, a through
the sky
one of the millions leaves of summer’s
bier;
old age and youth, manhood and infancy
Mixed in one mighty torrent did
appear;
Some flying from the thing they
feared, and some
Seeking the object of another’s fear; (Triumph of Life,548)23
As
a political thinker, Shelley remained on uncompromising critic of power that
included the imperial power represented in the ancient
Midst whom I (quickly) recognize the
heirs
Of caesar
crime, from him to
The anarch
(chiefs), whose force and murderous snares
Had founded many a scepter-bearing
line,
And spread the plague of gold and
blood abroad
And Gregory and John, and men divine
Who those like shadows between man
and God
Till that eclipse still hanging over
heaven
Was worshipped by the world over
which they strode,
For the true sun it quenched –
“Their power was given
But to destroy,” replied the leader
(Triumph of Life,
554)24
Shelley
had no patience with power in whatever way it existed. He grasped the dynamics
of power how it enslaved the human will and how power and good could hardly
ever exist side by side. On the other hand, he hailed the French Revolution
which had come as a great liberating force, putting an end to all the
privileges of power-wielding classes. Shelley hated the modern empire builder Napolean who undid the democratic institutions established
by the French Revolution. He called him the child of fierce hour:
Who is he with chin
Upon his breast, and hand crost on his chain?
The child of a fierce hour, he
sought to win
The world and lost all that it did
contain
of greatness in its hope destroyed;
and more
of fame and peace then virtue self can
gain (Triumph of
Life,552)25
Shelley’s
concern for a healthy democratic world could be noted in the above lines as he
believed that the conquerors like Napoean left it so weak as a pigmy could kick it away. Like Shelley, Stephen
Gill believes that the terrorists have the political ambition to rule through
terror. In the Author’s preface to The
Flame, he frankly admits:
I believe that
terrorism, an extreme form of ambition for power to rule others, is the work of
organized groups that carry out the bloodshed of innocent citizens to gain
political, national or religious power. They do not belong to any organised armed forces and therefore do not follow any
rules of war. They strike wherever and wherever it is possible. Often they call
themselves liberators, separatists and jihadis. They
shun democratic means to achieve their objectives. The values that are shared
by law abiding citizens are their targets and they come from every community
and background.
(Preface,22)26
Since
The Flame deals with the all round destruction of the innocent citizens
and the modern infrastructure, fear reigns supreme in most of the sections.
Part II of The Flame begins with the words:
When
the avatars of savagery
mow down defenseless innocents
and
tear down the towers of routine
deep pain goes deeper
inside (The Flame,48)27
It
is shell-shocking how the misguided young generation among the fundamentalists,
who are reminiscent of medieval barbarity, have used the most sophisticated
technology for assembling bombs with immense destructive capacity. Death and
destruction must cause fear in its wake. When it is willfully done for
achieving political ends, it leaves women gaping with fear and nervous
tension:
They rack
the welcoming faces of their hosts
with anxieties
shafts of steel
warble in the smoky bar
of self glory
to widen the ditches of agonies
and spread a carpet of paralyzing fear
to mangle mothers
and wives. (The Flame,102)28
Attacks
by terrorists force modern states to assume more power to provide
security to their people, resulting in the harassment of innocent
citizens as they are subjected to mind-boggling humiliating check-ups every
where from market places to terminals. But the terrorist strikes are never
pre-emptied. Sometimes the common people of a particular community are arrested
to pacify the roused tempers of human right. Activist Stephen Gill voices these
concerns:
They lead government
for more road blocks
metal detectors
bomb sniffing dogs
and fresh look at new comers.
Eerie paths of their pleasures
shape public opinion to accept
unhappily
Surveillance cameras
and
electronic screening.
Their hostile feuds
with human rights
force the regimes to be drastic
to extend easy arrest (The Flame,
Idem)29
To
conclude, Shelley’s stance was of a rationalist humanist whose intolerance of
religious authorities was to the extent that he had no regard even for so
called divines, who, he believed, acted like shadows or eclipses between man
and god.
Shelley did not have faith in religious
authorities and Stephen Gill does not have faith in religious fanaticism. The
menace of terrorism, the outcome of fanaticism, is backed up by the most powerful groups
among fundamentalists. The latter problem, however, involves complexity for
more reasons than one. First, the fundamentalist organizations want to rule
over the young generation that could possibly be only by supplying them
with money and weaponry, lending them moral support, and by honoring them.
Secondly, since
WORKS CITED
Arora,Sudhir K. ,”Thr Prophet and The Flame :
A Comprative Study “, Bharat
Times (
Baker, Carols, “Shelley : The Triumph
of Life,” Master Poems of the English Language. Ed Oscar
Williams
Bloom, Harold “The Two
spirits, Adonis and “The Triumph of Life”, Shelley ; A collection of critical Essays. Ed. George M. Ridenowr.
Diehl, Joanne Feit. “Poetry and literary theory”, A companion. To Twentieth-century Poetry. Ed Neil Roberts.
Dobrez, Livio
“Australian Poetry” A Companion to
Twentieth century-Poetry. Ed Neil Roberts. Blackwell Publishers, 2001
Eliot, T. S. Selected Essays,
Gill,
Stephen, The Flame along with Author’s
Preface.
Savio,G.Dominic and Mrs kala
S.J.,” Disjunctive Social Processes in Stephen Gill’s The Flame” www.stephen
Gill.co/2008winter/Disjunctive-savio%and%kala.
Shelley,P.B. The Triumph of Life, Master
Poems of the English Language. Ed Oscar Williams, New York Trident Press, 1966,
All the quotations of the Triumph of Life are taken from the same edition and have been bon
referred to in parenthesis by page Number.
Symonds, Sir T. A. Shelley.
About the author D.G. L.. Gautam writes poetry in Hindi and English. He is a Reader
in English at Lajpat Rai
Collage Sahibabad Ghaziabad (U.P.) .
He has written
extensively on Indian writing in English, having done projects on MulkRaj Anand and Raja Rao. He has published papers on Shakespeare, comparative
poetry, postcolonial Fiction. He has visited