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John Keats |
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Lux
The Essence of Love in “Bright Star”
Lux Bai
17 Nov 2011
In the famous poem “Bright Star”, dedicated to his lover Fanny Brawne, John Keats presents the essence of love in passion and in depth. As its form, a combination of Shakespearean and Italian sonnets suggests, the poem portrays love as a subject full of seemingly contradictive qualities. As a subjective matter, love is active and passive, physical and spiritual, mutable and eternal at the same time. Holding immortal love as the ultimate value of life, the speaker imagines a brave possibility of love transcending life for his romantic belief.
In the beginning of the poem, the speaker presents love as a subjective matter by contrasting it with the significant image of the star, a symbol of divine objectivity. Since long ago, man has learned to observe stars for its “steadfastness” for directions and guidance (1). Thus in western culture, star is seen as a prophetic divine existence, a form of absolute truth or universal rule, above all arbitrary and relative beings on earth. The speaker then implies love to be the opposite by emphasizing the star’s incapability of worldly emotions and personal perspectives by applying the metaphor of “Eremite” (4). The stoic hermit or recluse under religious vow sacrifices personal feelings and preferences in order to obtain absolute truth. Hence, the speaker perceives love as a subjective matter, unrelated to the absolute. In line 6, the metaphor of “mask” also proves such assumption: Only by covering the objects, the snow, amorphous per se, can obtain shape and beauty. Similarly, love is not reality but one’s own idealized projection on another.
The speaker explains the cause of the inevitable subjectivity of love to be the lover’s active involvement, which is also the source of his pleasure. By reversing the usual position of man watching the star, the speaker imagines himself the star “watching” the earth (3). “Hung aloft the night”, the speaker experiences the “lone splendor”, suggesting a sense of solitude and detachment (2). By keeping the distance, the speaker obtains the omniscient perspective deprived from human beings. Yet repeating “not”, the speaker rejects the advantage for the alienation prevents him from enjoying love, which lies only in passionate emotional involvement, not stoic observation (2, 9). For the speaker, a lover is the opposite of “Eremite”: he must be active, sentimental and biased. The melancholic description of the beautiful sceneries below implies such distant observation to be unbearable for the speaker, as incapable of feeling what “human shores” and “mountains and moors” feel at his position, figurative love that is, suggesting the possession of an objective perspective or rationality a burden to love (6, 8).
The contradiction is that due to his active emotional involvement, the speaker is incapable of controlling his love situation, suggesting a passive position in the relationship. As the old expression goes, man and woman shot by Cupid “fall in love”, as an involuntary act. In “Bright Star”, the speaker is also presented as submissive. By comparing it with natural forces, the speaker depicts love as a powerful divine fortune imposed on man. The two metaphors of love: “soft-fallen mask of snow” and “moving water” are both dynamic elements affecting the metaphors of man, the “human shores” and the “mountains and moors” which remain static and subordinate to their attack, incapable of controlling the progress or the outcome (5, 6, 8). Thus, man is both active and passive in love at the same time, active for his involvement and passive for his powerlessness, always swaying in a “sweet unrest” (12).
Love is consummated by body and soul in one. Star, as one of the most important biblical symbols, signifies spirituality and divinity. The metaphor of the Eremite also emphasizes the stoicism and the restraints of physicality the star represents. Yet the speaker obviously cannot endure the “lone splendor” “aloft the night”, which implies a purely spiritual relationship, the infinite distance between the star and the earth symbolizing two separated lovers (2). Later, the two natural images illustrate the role sex plays in consummating one’s love, whose “task” according to the speaker is “ablution”, spiritual purification (5, 6). It is by physically saturating the sands of the shores and the mountains and moors, the sacred water and pure snow complete the “priestlike task” of purifying the objects by washing all the dirt away, bestowing the objects a “new mask” (5, 7). Thus one can deduce that physical consummation is the vital media of love, bringing spiritual purification and rebirth. Having implied that, the speaker openly confesses his desire for sexual consummation with his lover. The erotic images of “ripening breast” and “tender-taken breath” are powerful in describing the inevitable physical attraction between lovers (10, 12). Also, suggesting “fertility”, the “ripening breast” reflects reproduction to be a significant result of love, only possible to be realized by sex. Therefore, for the speaker, love is the fusion of both bodies and souls; through consummation the lovers obtain a sense of oneness, purification and sublimation.
The poem is deliberately ambiguous regarding its subject, which could be either or both love and life. By never specifically naming which, the speaker mixes love and life with their similar nature of arbitrariness and almost equates them to each other. The first line, “Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art” can be interpreted as the speaker’s subjunctive plea to be as immortal as celestial bodies, showing his anxiety towards life’s mortality, or can be understood as his awareness of love’s arbitrariness. The star, as explained signifies the opposite of human love, can also be applied as the opposite of life for its inhuman qualities. The descriptions like “Eternal lids apart” “sleepless” “patient” indicate immortality and an inactive status, like death. By deliberately confusing love with life, the speaker reflects love as a mutable progression that changes with time (3, 4). For example, images like “moving water” and “ripening breast” that “fall and swell” show motion and uncertainty. Yet, it is the very mutability of love that makes it exciting and attractive for the lover, as such “sweet unrest” lets one feel alive (12).
Seemingly contradictive, the speaker also shows the general eternity of love by paralleling it with natural elements and life. The snow, although will melt in spring, has its seasonal cycle. The tides, echoing the “fall and well” of the breast, will always come back and forth to the shore, so will the human generations repeat themselves (11). Thus love, although changing in a personal scope, will infinitely passes on to generations after generations. By fusing love, life and nature in one, the speaker shows as long as mankind exists, love will be “steadfast” and “awake forever” on earth (9, 12).
Besides the infinite cycle, the speaker also suggests a possibility of psychological eternity. In physical time, love changes with the lover through the progression of time. Yet psychologically an intense moment of love could create an impression and desire so strong in the mind that may last “forever”. The situation the speaker experiences can be best represented by Blake’s famous lines “Hold the world in a grain of sand, and eternity in an hour”. In “Bright Star”, repeating “forever”, “still” and “steadfast” frequently, the speaker experiencing strong senses freezes the physical time, turning the wonderful transient moment into eternity in his mind (9, 11).
Notwithstanding, the speaker, unsatisfied with the psychological eternity, yearns for a way to preserve love in the physical time frame. As previously explained, the speaker equates love with life for their mutability and eternity with death, signified by the star. Thus, the contradiction between love and eternity is actually the paradox of life and death. To solve the impossible, the speaker desperately imagines two “solutions”, either to “live ever”, making life eternal, or to “swoon to death”, using the immortality of death to preserve the best moment of love (14). Both choices have their deficiencies. The dash following the first implies a pause, a hesitation of the lover, who suddenly realizes the fault of his first choice: immortality of life does not guarantee the steadfastness of love, for love can still change as life progresses. To preserve love “forever” one must escape the frame of time altogether (12). Thus the speaker comes up with the second idea, to die at the zenith of happiness. However by doing so, one kills love instantly, like an insect caught by amber, while also loses other possible experiences of life. Despite this, the speaker is willing to die, for eternal love is the ultimate meaning of life and higher in value than life itself.
Among all the contradictions of the essence of love, including activity and passivity, physicality and spirituality, the paradox of mutability and eternity is of the greatest concern in the poem. It is an unsolvable paradox for the fact that love is a subjective matter while time is objective in reality. Yet beyond personal scope, love is an eternal aspect of human nature and will continues to exist. As to the speaker in the poem or John Keats, instead of committing suicide, he has immortalized his love in the enduring form of literature. Therefore, “Bright Star” reminds the reader who desires “forever love”: in addition to ending your life, art may also be an alternative that deserves your consideration.
Bright Star
John Keats
1 Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art—
2 Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
3 And watching, with eternal lids apart,
4 Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
5 The moving waters at their priestlike task
6 Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
7 Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
8 Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
9 No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
10 Pillow’d upon my fair love's ripening breast,
11 To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
12 Awake forever in a sweet unrest,
13 Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
14 And so live ever--or else swoon to death.
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小黛
John Keats的名作Ode on a Grecian Urn，其中stanza 2，是我最喜欢的一部分：
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
大三学习英国文学史的时候，期末考试题就是分析《希腊古瓮颂》，因此这首诗歌成了我为数不多的能够读通的原文作品。其实我对诗歌算不得热爱，英语水平也差强人意，不过我一直清高而且犯贱地坚持英语诗歌一定要读原文，因为这样做除了有满足文艺青年虚荣、直接感悟诗歌韵律、避免翻译造成的误读等诸多好处外，我还发现，有时候，在半懂不懂之间，能产生一种模糊的审美，从而拓展读者想象与理解的空间。而我正是带着想象去解读《希腊古瓮颂》的。（当然这种做法的科学性有待考证。）这首诗初一浏览，我就被语言相对简单的stanza 2所吸引，这里描绘的是一种不受岁月摧残的美，因为它存在于人们的想象之中而得以无限延续；而那个得不到的吻，也是一种无限靠近而永恒的爱的姿态，虽然是可望而不可即的怅惘，但里面蕴涵着无限可能，也自然给人无限的热切、无限的追寻，中国诗歌里也有与之相通的艺术境界——“蒹葭苍苍，白露为霜。所谓伊人，在水一方。溯洄从之，道阻且长。溯游从之，宛在水中央。”
一种爱的姿态，在我想来，或许应该有那么些缺憾的距离才可以永恒，因为这一小段距离正是无限的想象空间。《断背山》里，青山依旧，斯人已去，Ennis含着眼泪说“Jack, I swear --”却言而又止，只是留给我们去感受那两件衬衣叠加在一起的温度，于是他们的爱在我们心中不朽。而《柏林苍穹下》呢，天使变成了凡人，和自己所爱的女杂技演员生活在了一起，电影的画面也由黑白变成了彩色，这是一个皆大欢喜的结局。不过，真正让我无法忘记的，是这之前梦中划过的天使的翅膀，在青铜质感的黑白画面里，它像一首颤动的诗，伸手触不到，却那么真实。
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发表于 2013-5-5 17:23:40
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