Wharton- part 2-to be continued

solemn at the same time. The pauses between verses are intentionally

longer, “with the same smile…” rendering the love that a child returns to his mother, so that the feeling

of reciprocity is crystallized. The strophes are not split into regular verses as they contain eight verses

displayed in the first strophe and six verses displayed in the second. The rhyme is paired in the first two

verses and mono-rhymed in the following four verses. In the second strophe there is an alternate rhyme in

the first stanza, as if the poem was divided into three stanzas and the last two unrhymed verses contained

a revelatory conclusion that baffles the reader and brings forth light upon the whole message and

meaning of the poem.

PophyIn the poem “An Autumn Sunset” the poetess just stresses out the great landscape of the coast as a

great marine landscape. The metaphors of the savage silhouettes express the image of the former knights

and war fighters. The fire stands though for the sunlight that embellishes the black “protrusions” of the

coast and thus their shadows become larger. The sun sets in a great colour of red as it is the case in

summer. The advancing mob is penned together in sword points as it first hesitated but now stands to

watch out or to be “en guard”. The comparison between the two is very plastic as both images convey an

image of a temporary state of nature’s elements.

I. Leagured in fire

The wild black promontories of the coast extend

Their savage silhouettes;

The sun in universal carnage sets,

And, halting higher,

The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats,

Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned,

That, balked, yet stands at bay.(Wharton, An Autumn Sunset)

The storm clouds are thus motionless, becoming unthreatening, as they measure exactly as their

“unmoving, peaceful, unthreatening” posture. The day “hangs mid-zenith” meaning that it is at noon, the

point when the sun is at its highest peak and offers the fullest warmth. There appears a “wan”, a pale

woman that somehow brings forth the image of the poetess

whose wide pinions shine meaning her wide arms willing to fly and to embrace freedom. On the red ruins

of the cliff and in her lifted hand there moves the silvery torch light of the evening star in whose light one

can distinguish the faces of the dead people. “Above the waste of war” is the metaphor for the end of the

war that now has to count for its dead people. The evening has reached its zenith too, as the day has

moved forward. The woman is absorbed by sacrifice, of any guilt “lustrated” and thus “hollow” as she

might have suffered some losses in the war. Her suffering is “crystalline”, meaning that her tears have

become crystals and her suffering thus “healed”.

Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day

In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline,

A wan whose wide pinions shine

Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray,

And in her lifted hand swings high o'erhead,

Above the waste of war,

The silver torch-light of the evening star

Wherewith to search the faces of the dead.

Lagooned in gold,

Seem not those jetty promontories rather

The outposts of some ancient land forlorn,

Uncomforted of morn,

Where old oblivions gather,

The melancholy, unconsoling fold

Of all things that go utterly to death

And mix no more, no more

With life's perpetually awakening breath? (Wharton, An Autumn Sunset)

The “protrusions” do not seem to resemble gold lagoons but they are some pillars and witnesses to

historical events, space rocks that mark the passing of time and of shattering experiences. These rocks

stand strong and are not “impressed” by the mourning of the “mob”, of the common people. “The old

oblivions” gather in these spaces where people do not learn from their mistakes and become thus

“unconsoled”. The rhetoric question if the dead come to “haunt” the living remains thus unanswered.

When thinking of the deaths of the beloved ones the lyrical I would become melancholic and thus

unconsoled not being able to exhale the suffering.

Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore,

Over such sailless seas,

To walk with hope's slain importunities

In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not

All things be there forgot,

Save the sea's golden barrier and the black

Close crouching promontories?

Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories,

Shall I not wander there, a shadow's shade,

A spectre self-destroyed,

So purged of all remembrance and sucked back

Into the primal void,

That should we on that shore phantasmal meet

I should not know the coming of your feet? (Wharton, An Autumn Sunset)

The poetess regards her life journey as a passage towards death but this ending is more like a soft

passage, as the entrance to a softer realm, the one where the shore reaches the sea, a symbol of infinity

and of peace rendered by the epithet “sailless”. To wish and hope might sometimes become importune

and ironically it may not result into what was previously expected or hoped for as such. The metaphor of

the marriage is thus meant to stay for a linkage or even a bond with the “disappointments” of hope. The

author means that all the “things there” (meaning life’s little unpleasantries) shall be forgotten and that

the seas’ “golden” barrier, meaning the horizon, shall forever remain. Thus, the lyrical I would become

immune to all the shames and to all the glories. She will thus ask herself if she should not wander there

when remaining only the shade of a shade, somehow a mere “self destroyed” specter of light perhaps. It

is on the other hand true that one cannot glow with the same intense light when reaching an elderly age

and somehow feeling more frail and fragile. At his point even memory becomes frailer “purged of all

remembrance” and “sucked back” into the primal void, meaning “by death” back into space from which

human beings originated. A magical reencounter with the loved one is at this point re-envisaged: “That

should we on that shore phantasmal meet I should not know the coming of your feet?”

The poem “Mona Lisa” is a very colourful and exhilarating build up that crowns the universal creation in

all its glory:

yon strange blue city crowns a scarped steep

No mortal foot hath bloodlessly essayed:

Dreams and illusions beacon from its keep.

But at the gate an Angel bares his blade;

However, the vigil is kept very rigidly by an angel and the tales are told by those who tried to conquer the

city at dawn.

And tales are told of those who thought to gain

At dawn its ramparts;” but when evening fell

Far off they saw each fading pinnacle

Lit with wild lightning from the heaven of pain;” gives the true dimension of the quest for power

and supremacy.

Yet there two souls, whom life’s perversities

Had mocked with want in plenty, tears in mirth,

Might meet in dreams, ungarmented of earth,

And drain Joy’s awful chalice to the lees. Again the encounter with the loved one becomes very

real but this time it is more humane, more earthy as it is bound to mother earth in spite of all the

longing for material possessions and other belongings as such.(Wharton, Mona Lisa)

The poem “Happiness” is a very energetic inspiration to poets per se. The poetess again acknowledges

the sadness of the world and furthermore the facts that her love for the beloved is hard to be expressed in

mere words. All these words have suffered the sad world’s abuse and advance a shattered and

diminished happiness. By silence one can go deeper into the soul’s depth and the lovers come to observe

the fact that they have reached a new phase in the fulfillment of their love. While listening to the inner

voices that are similar to the songs of the morning stars which are merely silence, the loving pair comes

to the climax of love in silence. The apex is reached only at this point which becomes a revelatory one.

This way each of the couple can become more conscientious of the pain, suffering or even mirth of the

other one that is head over heels in love.

This perfect love can find no words to say.

What words are left, still sacred for our use,

That have not suffered the sad world's abuse,

And figure forth a gladness dimmed and gray?

Let us be silent still, since words convey

But shadowed images, wherein we lose

The fullness of love's light; our lips refuse

The fluent commonplace of yesterday.

Then shall we hear beneath the brooding wing

Of silence what abiding voices sleep,

The primal notes of nature, that outring

Man's little noises, warble he or weep,

The song the morning stars together sing,

The sound of deep that calleth unto deep. (Wharton, Happiness)

Edmund Wilson praises Edith Wharton in an article entitled “On her birthday, In praise of Edith

Wharton’s Acerbic Pen” pointing out her achievements in the early period 1905-1907 when there were a

few American poets worth reading, Apart from the fact that she seemed to have been influenced by

Henry James and Paul Bourget, the author of the article acknowledges the importance of “The House of

Mirth” (1905) in which the real historic social talent of Wharton’s personality could be tracked down.

Wilson explains, that her work took a totally different direction from that of Henry James’, “as a lesser

disciple of whom she is sometimes pointlessly listed”. Wilson adds, that while James’ interests were

merely aesthetic the direction that Wharton’s work took was a totally different one, more socially

conscientious. On the other hand James’ proved more metaphysically conscientious. Thus, it was the other

way round, James was inspired by Wharton in his “Ivory Tower” when he satirized plutocratic America.

Therefore, Wharton seemed to have become a passionate social critic or “prophet” in Wilson’s terms.

Hence, “she is a brilliant example of the writer who relieves an emotional strain by denouncing his

generation”. 1 Hence, some “pure expression” of Wharton’s hopelessness could be tracked in “Artemis to

Actaeon” (1909) where her ponderous tone, the hard accent, the “impenetrables and incommunicables and

incommensurables”, “immemorial altitudes august” are communicated.

2. The strong message of Wharton’s poetic universe

The work of Edith Wharton comprises not only poems of great poetic insight and philosophic accuracy,

but also some novels like “The Valley of Decisions”, “Sanctuary”. An alphabetically listed almost whole

of her poems, out of three volumes of poetry would be at this point helpful and also simplifying the

perception of her literary universe.

A Hunting Song

A Torchbearer

Aeropagus

A Failure

A Grave

A Hunting Song

All Saints

Artemis To Actaeon

All Souls

Battlesleep

Belgium

Boticelli’s Madonna in the Louvre

Euryalus

Experience

Grief

Happiness

Jade

La Vierge Au Donateur

Life

Margaret Of Cortona

Mona Lisa

Moonrise Over Tyringham (apostrophizing the first hour of night)

Mould And Vase [Greek Pottery Of Arezzo.]

Non Dolet!

Ogrin The Hermit

Orpheus

On active service

Patience

Phaedra

Pomegranate Seed

Some Busy Hands…

Summer Afternoon (Bodiam Castle, Sussex)

Survival

Terminus

The Bread Of Angels

The Great Blue Tent

The Comrade

The Eumenides

The Last Giustianini

The Mortal Lease

The Old Pole Star

The One Grief

The Parting Day

The Sonnet

The Tomb Of Ilaria Giunigi

The Torch-Bearer

The Young Dead

Two Backgrounds

The Hymn of the Lusitania

Uses

Vesalius In Zante

Wants

With The Tide

You And You

Once considered the 'last Victorian,' Edith Wharton and her fiction were at first greeted with the gentility

proper to a lady of New York's social elite. Gradually, however, critics became gadflies incessantly

buzzing at a Sphinx who seemed never to comment on her own work. At times, though, her impulses

took control and she made remarks in letters and elsewhere that, on the one hand, appear to illuminate the

fiction, but on the other, often raise more problems than they solve. Ironically, now that she is becoming

recognized as a Modernist by some, and as perhaps the greatest American writer of her generation,

criticism often obfuscates more than it reveals. The reasons reside in critics' loyalties to various

theoretical approaches, the objectivity of which are often compromised by political hopes. This volume

not only traces and analyzes the development of Whartonian literary criticism in its historical and

political contexts, but also allows Edith Wharton, herself a literary critic, to respond to various concepts

through the author's deductions and extrapolations from Wharton's own words. Professor Killoran's book

provides a fresh reading of the best criticism on Wharton and in so doing throws new light on Wharton's

works themselves. 2

The poems chosen and debated upon above are somehow linked together and appear to be at first glance

the most significant and characteristic of the entire work of Edith Wharton. By society’s then prevailing

criteria of appreciation, it could be said that she reached a peak of lyrical, literary expression and gained

thus not only literary recognition [the “Pulitzer Prize”] but also a confirmation that she reached stylistic

and poetic completion in terms of literary perfection. 3

Conclusion

Edith Wharton’s role as a great performer and lyrical voice of the American people remains much

applauded in times as those of the second millennium were. She nonetheless rendered a true image of

society’s then existing and dominating credo of the American dream, which was nonetheless connected

with financial stability and wealth. The fact that she gave strength to her inner feelings and expressed her

“inner world” so perfectly and genuinely makes her a genial authoress and a confident poetess of her age.

How she succeeds to touch the hearts of the third millennium readers is amazing and not ultimately and

solely by her novels. The lyricism of her world dominates and captivates ceaselessly, not only for the

time being.

1 See further reference at: https://newrepublic.com/article/116317/edith-wharton-her-best-works-

conributions-american-literature

2solemn at the same time. The pauses between verses are intentionally