English2008

l,t l Patrick McEvov-Halston

Dr. Miller/ Sept.15 97 12576
Responsesto Readings

#l: I'm curious to know if the poetswe've beendiscussingthis week, when using words
like "altar" (in Behn's "The Disappointment";line 45) which for us might conjure a
simple image of a prototype object altar to our mind, but for them and their readers
conjure up incidents of stories, or large fragmentsof stories from "ancient" writers,
consider this aspectof thesewords when constructing a flow, or rhythm in their poems.
When I was told that the word "altaf'was not to be understoodso much as a word and
more as a story or story fragment, I wondered if as a contemporaryof Behn reading the
poem, I would have experienceda delay when encounteredwords with "loaded"
referencesas I integrated the story that was being referred to with the poem I was
reading, and/or if this sort of effect would extendbeyond the word and colour my
experienceof the rest of the poem. This mignt in a way grve a lie to imagining the form,
the shape,the rhythm of a poem to be simply a matter of whether a poet used iambic
pentameteror not: maybe it would be just as important to look at the word choice and
imagine the extensionsin time that certain words bring about.

#2: In John Wilmot's poem "The Imperfect Enjoyment", I wonder if for contemporaries
his last two lines "And may ten thousandabler pricks agree. . . To do the wronged
Corinna right for thee." (line 7l-72) might have had a doublemeaning. Might it have
been presentedso that Wilmot could say that he meant only that he was acknowledging
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/,f his "debt to pleasure"(line 24),but also intend theselines to ridicule the woman's need.
It seemsto me that theselines could be taken as a kind of "tit for tat": if the woman has
insatiableneedsthat he cannotsatisff, perhapsshewould "enjoy'' a gangrape. I'm not
sure if the "ten thousand abler pricks" conjuresup images of a successionof "pricks" f ..[*f
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over time, or the simultaneousexperienceof them, i.e., gang rape. I seemto remember ,1J'"3
the libertines being famous for roaming London in packs intent on malice. It also seems 1s\ I

that this interpretation fits with the poem in that we are not simply offered a description \J ..s''iJ
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of the failure as due simply to his member, wo have a transition from acknowledging his i\,J,
own failure, his "shame" and "rage" (line 29-30), to blaming it on his own member (line
46 and on). If this man was capableof experiencingthis failure as his own fault, even if
tries to displace the blame elsewhere,if we imagine that his efforts towards displacement

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English2008 PatrickMcEvoy-Halston
Dr. Miller/ Sept.15 9712576
were only partially successful,it might 61if' that his thoughtsin the endof his poemare
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#3: I think it is somethingthat Wilmot did not havethe man immediatelyblamehis
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member,andinsteadreflectedon how he might havebeenresponsible.I know that some
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developmentalpsychologists( in particularStanleyGree,nspan)note that manypeople
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andfit a conceptlike *shame"and" age"
cannotactuallyreflect on their own experie,nce, 4S't

manyjust act own their feelingswithout muchreflection. This might

to this experie,nce; }5$Q.rr1
be what the man doesat the endin a way, with referenceto the "ten thousandpricks", but f r,.o^
it is still to the poet's credit that he could havethe man accqrt,at leastinitially, that his t*\
failure in bedmadehim feel both ashamedandenraged(Greenspansaysthat making ) P.Il"'U
consciousyour feelingsis a first stepto not actuallynot needingto physically act out a \l
reactionto feeling this way). 0r Y.^q/
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