The statement Hopkins makes in the beginning of our reading is what I can agree with, “Poetry was originally meant for either singing or reciting; a record was kept of it; the record could be, was, read, and that in time by one reader, alone, to himself, with his eyes only.”[1] As a writer of poetry myself, I often despise letting other people read my work. I have long wondered why this is the case, and I can only assume it is because others cannot perform it the same way I did when I wrote it. Thus, I cannot agree with Hopkins’s later statement that, “This is not the true nature of poetry . . . till it is spoken it is not performed, it does not perform, it is not itself.. . .”[2] I cannot even speak my own poetry the way it is written, and thus I feel that trying to do so with the writing of others is a way to grossly misinterpret the meaning of the author. But surely, the author knows this himself when he publishes his work.
Gerard Manley Hopkins[3]
As such, I did not find the musical interpretations of the poetry to be very satisfying, particularly the renditions of Spring and The Windhover. The music didn’t suit the poem and I felt that no meaning (or deeper meaning) could be obtained from listening to the singers recite the words. It seemed only to be a way for the singers to make up a song without having to write lyrics. On the flip side, I did enjoy the renditions of God’s Grandeur and Inversnaid, but since I have no author to tell me what he meant, I cannot say whether or not the renditions were “accurate”; they were merely entertaining.
The musicality of poetry brings up an interesting point. I agree that poetry is meant to be musical; I frequently have set my own writing to music (even though the music itself is just made up in my head). The Bible does this consistently in the Psalms, an example being Psalm 8, written by David:
Psalm 8
For the director of music. According to gittith
A psalm of David.
1 O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.
2 From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise
because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
9 O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth![4]
Psalm 8: Man in the Universe[5]
An interpretation of Psalm 8[6]
Perhaps in David’s day it was easy to know how this should be sung; oral tradition had passed it down and David himself could convey it perfectly. Even then, the oral tradition didn’t survive long enough to make it into our day, and we have no idea how this would have been sung long ago. The musical term, selah, appears frequently in the Bible, particularly in Psalms, but we don’t know what this means. According to Wikipedia, selah “may be the most difficult word in the Hebrew Bible to translate.”[7] As a holy and ancient text, I have to form my own ideas of meaning. I don’t claim to be the authority on whether poems are meant to be sung to others or merely read to be enjoyed by others, but for me I’d rather silently glean my own interpretation than butcher it for others to hear and misinterpret the author.
[1] Hopkins’s Letter to his Brother
[2] Ibid.
[3] Gerard Manley Hopkins, http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/images1/hopkins_gm1_sm.jpg.
[4]The Bible, New International Version, Psalms 8 http://bibleresources.bible.com/passagesearchresults2.php?passage1=Psalm8&book_id=23&version1=31&tp=150&c=8
[5] Psalm 8: Man in the Universe, http://z.about.com/d/judaism/1/0/V/4/psalm8_july.gif.
[6] Psalm 8, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm8BVF1NPfE.
[7] Selah, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selah.
No comments:
Post a Comment