Since we did not discuss Guillaume Apollinaire's Calligrams in depth this past week, I was interested in analyzing one of the poems from this specific collection. My favorite poem from this collection of poems of Peace and War was The Bleeding-Heart Dove and the Fountain. When I first came across this poem, I was fascinated with how the words and phrases were structured in a way that formed an image. With seeing this new artistic technique, I researched Guillaume Apollinaire in order to get a better understanding of what provoked him to become a Dada artist. With this, I learned that he had joined the French army to defend his adopted country in World War I where he later fought directly on the front lines (poetry foundation). The fact that he joined the army led me to believe that when he created this collection of Calligrams, he may have had mixed feelings about war as even the title for this collection has two contradicting aspects, peace and war. He may have been two sided with the war because even though Dada and its artists stemmed from anti-war ideologies, he may have had the desire to fight for his country since he alone could not prevent war from happening. No matter what his feelings and opinions may have been though, the overall tone in this collection is that war is something detrimental as it induces immense suffering and emotional turmoil for everyone.
It is apparent when looking at this collection that Apollinaire’s intentions were to create each of these poems in a new, unique way that would captivate the audience as the form, content and context for these poems are very different from other traditional forms of art. Although each specific poem in this collection is very unique and distinct in its own way, the method that Apollinaire used was universal as every page became a canvas for experimentation in which he created new, spatial relationships in order to give the reader the opportunity to see the poem through multiple ways (Words and eggs). When comparing all of the poems, it is obvious that none of them share the same visual structure and instead have their own form for which creates their own image. This format is described as, “Apollinaire incorporated words, letters and phrases into complex visual collages” (Words and eggs). Through this unique, visual formation of verses and lines it is obvious that Apollinaire abandons the traditional and familiar way to read a poem. In the end, this format used by Apollinaire created unique images that are the main focal point for each poem and give the reader an opportunity to use their imagination for how they want to interpret it.
In this particular poem, The Bleeding-Heart Dove and the Fountain, one can easily see this experimental form Apollinaire played with. From looking at this poem, the reader can see an image of a dove that seems to be flying atop a fountain that spews out water. Along with this image, this poem can be read and interpreted differently due to how the stanzas and verses are structured. In the middle stanza, there is no clear cut linear formation where every line distinctively moves from left to right across the page. Rather, there seems to be a vertical line that forms down the middle of each horizontal line as it acts as the center of the fountain. From this, it is evident that each horizontal line eventually curves down as it reaches the vertical line. On the opposite side of this vertical line, the second part of the line then either curves up or down, making it difficult to determine what the second part of the line is. For example, the line that begins with ‘With melancholy dies,’ can be interpreted to end with the line ‘Perhaps already dead.’ Or, it can be interpreted that the ending word ‘dies’ can split off into the word die and then connect upwards to the phrase ‘Like footsteps in a cathedral.’ The fact that there is no clear cut distinction of how to exactly read the poem from line to line shows Apollinaire’s intentions for the reader to be able to decide how they want to read the poem.
Another unique form technique that is evident in this particular poem is that there are different sized words and letters as well as only some letters are bolded. The fact that some letters are larger in size and bolded such as the letter D in the first stanza, the question mark in the second stanza and the letter O in the final stanza, depicts this unique and unconventional format style Apollinaire liked to use. Although I am not sure why some letters are bolded and larger, why some words are all capitalized, or why some phrases are larger, I believe that this was just another way to make the image more appealing to the reader. Overall, it is difficult to determine what the exact structure for this poem is as well as how it should be read which seems to mimic what Apollinaire had hoped for all along.
Like the format, the content and context for this poem are also unique as Apollinaire stems away from traditional phrases as he comes up with his own description for objects and emotions. I interpreted from the three stanzas that this poem is about war and its effects on everyone. As the first stanza begins with the line ‘Gentle faces stabbed,’ and then goes on to mention the names of young girls, suggests that these girls have been negatively affected by war as this context implies that their delicate faces once evoked happiness but now have been stabbed with fear. Towards the end of this stanza as it says, ‘BUT near a fountain that weeps and prays this dove is enraptured’ it seems as if fountain is used as a metaphor for a human being as it is described as weeping and praying. The fact that the fountain is weeping and praying alludes to the idea that it weeps out of sorrow for what the war has done and the negative impacts it has left on everyone.
The second stanza seems to have the same emotional tone as the first stanza as the first line questions where three boys have gone and then answers this question in the following line as it says ‘Oh my friends who have gone to war whose names melancholize.’ Through this context and the use of the word melancholize, I interpreted that the narrator is in a depressive state because of the war that has taken the life of his beloved friends whose name’s still appear and hover in his mind. Towards the end of this stanza, the lines ‘My soul is full of memories/Derain with eyes gray as the dawn fountain weep for my sorrow,’ seem to allude to the fountain metaphor again as the fountain weeps for the narrator’s sorrow. This context implies that the narrator’s soul and mind is full of memories from the war for which have left an ever-lasting emotional strain on him and now the fountain is crying out for him in response.
The final stanza seems to sum up the narrator’s feelings through an ending note that does not seem to be very positive. It says, ‘Evening falls O bloody sea/Gardens where rose-laurel warlike flower bleeds in abundance.’ The context of these two lines leads me to believe that this is a description of the battle grounds of war for which at the end of the day there lies soldiers in their own blood. It alludes to the idea that these rose-laurel flowers will eventually grow in place of where these dead soldiers once lay as they will grow from their blood and will bleed their blood in abundance. In reading this final stanza, I interpreted that the narrator does not really have any hope for the future of his country as men will continue to die and lay in their own blood if war continues to exist. Overall, the context of this final stanza seems to sum up the content in the entire poem as the words and phrases that are used seem to portray the harsh realities of war and how those who fought will die and those who are left behind are left in their shadows and will continually to suffer.
Sources Used:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/guillaume-apollinaire
http://wordsandeggs.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/apollinaires-calligrammes/
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