Poetry? The true meaning lies within the onion...

For my analysis of this week’s poetry I’d to focus on the image of an onion, which was brought to mind earlier in the week. I feel that this image relates both to Mill’s attempt to define poetry, and our own exploration of the assigned poems “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed Church,” “Ulysses,” and “Invictus.”

Mill defines poetry by presenting the reader with layers of contrasts: description, narrative, eloquence, and oratory. Stripping each of these contrasts away, Mill exposes the true definition of poetry. Mill paints it as a pure and natural expression of human emotion: poetry is “feeling confessing itself” (Mill 1216). However, he is quick to note that the mechanics of the poem (its words and expressions) are not what define it. True poetry does not express feeling, but rather harmonizes with the feelings of the reader. The mechanics are just the skin of the poem, but its true purpose lies beneath.

The dramatic monologue is a type of poem composed of specific elements: a speaker, an audience, an event, a revelation of character, and a dramatic occasion. Using these elements, a poet can create a vessel through which he can communicate emotional truth with the reader. However, in some cases, these elements seem to enclose the true emotion of the poem and move the reader farther from its effect.

Browning employs the dramatic monologue in “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed Church” to create the character of a bishop on his deathbed. The bishop, despite his role as a spiritual leader, is a materialistic and seemingly faithless man. Browning uses the contradiction between the external and internal identity of the character to create a bitter sense of irony. While this irony is strongly communicated with the reader, I felt as if it masked some of the poem’s more serious sentiment. As the poem’s title implies, it actually deals with the more serious topic of “ordering” one’s life before death; however, the reader is less able to connect with this sentiment because of the dominant sense of irony. I argue that, in this case, the mechanics of the poem obscure its meaning and prevent it from “[painting] the human soul truly” (Mill 1214).

Tennyson also employs the dramatic monologue in his poem “Ulysses,” but his sentiment seems far more earnest. Ulysses speaks directly to the audience with truthful emotions and one feels able to harmonize with these emotions. I argue that Mill would find this poem to be closer to his definition of true poetry and much less clouded with “exaggerated colors” (Mill 1214) than that of Browning.  

Henely’s “Invictus” strips away another layer of mechanics and brings the reader emotionally closer. It seems the most natural and earnest poem of the three. I felt that its sentiment was unaffected by the didactic use of character, setting, or audience. This poem seems to have the fewest layers concealing its purpose; it is simple and relatable, or (as Mill would say) “the imagery [is] felt to harmonize with feeling” (Mill 1220).

“What is Poetry.” The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory. Ed. Thomas J. and Vivienne J. Rundle. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1999. 1212—1227.