Thomas Gray's
The Bard (our reading for Monday, which you can find in the poetry anthology) is a notoriously dense, allusion-rich, and complicated poem. As with any long later C18 poem, the key to understanding it is figuring out what the basic set-up is: who is speaking, who is being addressed, what the occasion of the address or the issue under discussion is. Once you've got the basic set-up, you can start tracking the (usually) linear thread of the argument or narrative being presented.
You don't have to go it alone, though! We will, of course, talk about the poem in class on Monday, but you can get a head-start here by making some trial attempts at understanding it here. Respond to this post by either making some initial attempts to figure out what's going on, or correcting, improving, or building upon a classmate's ideas.
Deadline: Monday (4/4), 1pm.
6 comments:
There seems to be a lot to unpack in this poem, but based on the introductory paragraph and the footnotes, here’s my attempt at what I THINK the poem is trying to say: What I understood this poem to express was Gray’s response to the account of Edward I’s restrictions on (or what he originally thought to be the murders of) poets and bards. I think the oral traditions of the past, as well as the traditions of a past community of poets, really sparked Gray’s imagination and curiosity, and perhaps even made him long for a “way of life” that no longer existed (he perhaps even resented Edward I for maybe being the cause of that?). He uses a number of bards throughout his poem to tell his tale, and also numerously references Shakespeare and Milton, to, I think, really drive home the importance of such literary tradition and why its suppression was unacceptable.
In the poem, Gray seems (through the character of the Bard) to be calling Edward I out, threatening the fate of his line as a result of the restrictions placed on these literary artists (“With me in dreadful harmony they join,” says the Bard, “And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line” [l. 48-49]). He invokes the names of the “slaughtered” bards to prove his point, and even goes so far as to “prophesize” what would eventually happen to Edward and his descendants up until the point of the takeover of the throne by the Tudors (?). I’m assuming what Gray did was to take all of the negative historical accounts related to Edward and his successors—deaths, betrayals, the War of the Roses, etc.—(in the C18 all this would have probably already been considered historical information) and weave them together to make it seems as though they were results of his mistake of suppression; they then come off as eerie, “predetermined,” even cursed occurrences stemming from a common cause, rather than just random events. Using those events, along with, again, references to more “modern” and well-known bards, and heavy poetic melodrama/imagery, etc. Gray seems to have been trying to express his shock (and maybe even his anger/sadness?) towards a particular history involving Edward I and to, again, reinforce his passion for literary art and tradition. (But all that’s just a guess, ha.)
The headnote indicates that the poem "laments a lost tradition and a dispersed community." The many historical and political allusions give the second half of that statement, concerning community, a firm ground, but I don't think the description of the oral tradition in the poem would be completely mournful or lamentable concerning the oral tradition. To me, the Welsh prophet acts as more of a voice of the nation, a representative of the community as a whole, and Gray laments for their dispersion. But the final stanza indicates a much more celebratory stance concerning the oral tradition. While the oral poet dies at the end of the poem, we still have his own words carried on to his audience. He is not cut down before his tradition dies, it still functions exactly the same as all oral tradition. He speaks, his story is carried on, and he dies, never to be remembered by name. But Welsh stories survive all the way to Gray's times, when John Parry speaks at Cambridge (headnote). Much of the poem is purely mournful, but the last stanza is more hopeful, because books can be burned, but the oral tradition is much more difficult to completely extinguish.
I agree with SMR's general outline that "The Bard" concerns a speaker that is upset with Edward I's Welsh conquest, and as a result attempts to curse the rest of his line, or at least predicts their demise. I also agree with SMR that the effect of these predictions is quite "eerie," and appears as though they are a direct result of what the speaker feels as Edward's wrong actions.
However, what complicates this poem for me, and what I hope we will get to discuss more in depth, is the speaker himself. We are just kind of thrown into the poem, and while he has a lot to say about Edward I, and even other poet-friends that have been lost in this battle, he reveals very little information about himself. And at the end, quite melodramatically in fact, he decides to jump off of the top of a mountain and die. I have trouble making sense of this action; he offers that Fate has decided he should "triumph and die," but I can't work out why, for him, there is triumph in death, for in lines before he laments the loss of his friends? It seems that he is so passionately concerned with Edward I's downfall that he would actually want to see it happen, yet in the end he kills himself. Hopefully we'll get to discuss this point in class, or else someone else can make more sense of it than me :)
I agree with the previous commenter's because there is a lot going on in this poem just from the beginning stanza. I was able to get the idea that SMR discussed about the speakers line of fate. I also think that this poem is confusing because as i progressed through the poem I found it hard to remember what I had previously read. I like the idea of the poem though it does seem to be a bit sad. I don't really know what to make of it completely yet, so I will see wait we discuss in class about this poem.
I got the sense that Gray was also attempting to make the point that nothing ever changes in Britain, and Edward I is just part of politics as usual. Though he despises Edward I and his many loyal underlings, I believe one point to be made in addition to the two perspectives presented above is that Gray's bardic heroes died with a sense of futility that the narrator hopes to avoid by committing suicide. Gray writes, "Dear lost companions of my tuneful art, / ... / Ye died amidst your dying country's cries-- / No more I weep. They do not sleep. (39-43)." These lines I think appear to verbalize this sentiment. His bardic companions of old died with a dying nation that will not change. He doesn't weep for them, because they live on through their writings. But ultimately, the bard must commit suicide to escape fate. Simple writings will not bring about change.
Seeing as I had to look up the definition of "pindaric" already before even starting to read the poem, I was hesistant to start reading! Using the previous comments and the understanding the poem is an "ode" to the fallen poets, my first navigation of the poem resulted in confusion. However the second attempt I started to see what my classmates were saying. I would like to add on just a bit. In line 95, Gray says "Brothers" and I think that while this poem is supposed to be an ode, he is rallying against Edward and by naming so many other bards, he is creating an unifed force that he is a leader of. I get the sense that he is leading some kind of protest through his writing. If other bards were reading this, sure they would be mourning as well but perhaps they would be inspired to to keep the tradition going. Ignore Edward, in other words. The following line (96) goes "Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom" to me, is a motiviational line. I also see it as morbid, though. Vengeance implies a desire for revenge, but ratify his doom means to confirm it? I'm not exactly sure what action Gray says we should take but I think part of him wants to use his sorrow as a weapon. Maybe he means to carry on oral tradition, as Aaron said, since that was more positive in the end.
I do have a question: I understand why other famous bards were included, but why was the war of roses included? Is it to make a metaphor of the power struggle the bards have with Edward I?
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