The Innisfree Poetry Journal www.innisfreepoetry.org by Christopher Norris
Performatives (Yeats/Heaney)
Lake isle or peat-bog? One the sort of place You'd want to visit once you'd made the pledge, The other more the sort you'd go to face
Whatever demons drove you to the edge Of some brute reckoning or dread surmise Worse than the worst you'd ever hope to dredge
Up from the blood-choked seam that underlies Our thin civilities. Let's think that Yeats Fared forth as prophesied ('I will arise
And go now'), since mere honesty dictates The words should have some future-binding force Beyond the test of euphony that rates
Word-music of that Yeatsian strain the source Of such deep truths as poetry conveys By redirecting language from the course
Of dull quotidian sense to what obeys A higher law. Still, if he then arose And went, his heading off at least displays
A decent understanding of what goes With what if promises and other kinds Of speech-act in a poem still impose
Some illocutionary force that binds The utterer straightforwardly to mean, Intend, or purpose just the act that minds
More literal ascribe to the routines Of common usage. Granted, some are junked Or relegated to the might-have-beens
Of good intent derailed, or will defunct, Or else (more often) speech-acts reconstrued In consequence of some big test we've flunked
The first time round and so completely screwed Things up that our last hope's to redefine What sets the pass-mark so as to exclude
All chance that the examiners assign A second test by which our efforts fail To make the grade. Truth is, you might incline
Or disincline to think that Yeats set sail For his fair lake-isle since the mythic spot, Like the verse-music, works so to regale
Our fancy that we tend to lose the plot Commitment-wise, or simply to forget, While swept along, that finally there's not
So much to choose between the way we let That music work its charms on us, and how We make our peace with challenges unmet
In ways that self-forgivingly allow A generous reckoning with the fact that we're Just transient dwellers in the here-and-now,
And therefore not so much to blame if mere Post-facto change of circumstance or mood Be cited to account for acts that veer
Far wide of first intent. These might include (Just might, since we're encouraged not to dwell Too much on this) what factually ensued
When need for travel-planning broke the spell Of that impassioned vow and let him weigh The risk his boat might capsize in a swell
Against the risk that, should he long delay The visit, or decide to call it off, Then local gossip might at length betray
The tale to some grant-hungry US prof So that it did the academic rounds And gave the cynics ample room to scoff
At how that old-school rhetoric rebounds On its past master. Not at all his style, Our second mental voyager, who sounds
A note unheard on Yeats' enchanted isle Since here the trip in prospect offered none Of those fine consolations that beguile
The dreams or idle fantasies of one In whom the Wanderlust might well be laid To rest once the poetic work was done.
That is, the trick was simply to persuade Poet and reader that the sorts of act Most vital here were speech-acts that gainsaid
All trivial concern with truths of fact Or questions such as: Did he make the trip? And opted rather for the mutual pact
That made it easier for both to skip Such tedious inquisitions for the sake Of prising loose brute fact's tenacious grip
And thereby giving poets room to take Whatever liberties their muse required By way of mock-performatives that break
Those humdrum rules. Not so what later fired The travel-yearning of a poet bred In times less grand-heroic that conspired
With his own sense of all those mighty dead, Like Yeats, whose power to move he held in awe Yet resolutely kept at bay for dread
That any word of his should help to draw Whole cartloads of fresh victims to the shrine Of some blood-boltered goddess. Whence the law
That, then as now, said killing should define The tribe's true lineage or placate its gods, And so decree no end to the malign
Enchantment that impelled the restless squads Of killers to take out 'the cap, the noose And girdle' without reckoning the odds
That some day they or theirs would reproduce The scene with roles reversed. That's why he makes No song and dance about it: though Aarhus
Is where he means to go, this time the stakes Are pitched much lower, like a flattened note To signify that even if he takes
Time off to make the trip just as he wrote In promissory mode, still those words lack The force of perlocution to promote
The word-turned-deed. Else they might point us back To atavistic killing-rites that link With headline news, and so demand we track
The old blood-craving through that merest blink Of hindsight suturing the gap between Ourselves and everything we choose to think
Primeval, savage, brutish, or obscene. So dig a few feet down and what's revealed Is nothing other than the truth that's been
So long if intermittently concealed By all our fine contrivances to keep The peat-bog victims in the killing field
So that they won't disturb the restful sleep Of us fine specimens whose self-esteem Depends on letting no such image creep
Into the depthless mindscape of our dream. This leaves room for returns of the repressed, But only on condition they should seem
Just like-ourselves enough to pass the test Of human motivation by our own More civilized criteria or best
Idea of what should fall within the zone Of claims to shared humanity, and what Can't by the utmost mental stretch be known
In that empathic way since simply not Us-like enough to count as having started On the long uphill trek whose master-plot
Of Geist and its Geschichte Hegel charted. So we enjoy the moral alibi Of having out-evolved and far outsmarted
The ancient savagery of eye-for-eye, Or (worse) the even more contagious kind Of pure mimetic violence that we try
To thrust down deep beneath what comes to mind By digging since it's apt to skew the aims Of Hegel's progeny and those inclined
To lend an ear to such uplifting claims. That's why his poem finds no need to flout The speech-act rules, and why its music shames
Our chronic inability to doubt Those well-intentioned narratives whose gist Concerns how not to rub our tribal snout
In the harsh truth that one big thing we've missed From this self-favoring vantage-point is just The thing that, if we'd hope to coexist
Henceforth on half-way civil terms, we must Take well on board. It tells us there's not much To choose between that peatbog victim trussed
In cap, noose, girdle suffering the clutch Of ritual strangulation and the sorts Of violence that at any time may touch
The lives of all alike. This then comports Quite nicely with the paramount donée Of modernist poetics that exhorts
The poet not to let clock-time betray Their vision but have all times in review By treating them as if sub specie
Aeternitatis. Let them then eschew The comfort-zone of factual guarantees And have a better chance of staying true
To an elect vocation that decrees They spurn such vulgar truths-of-fact as chance Just happens to throw up, but rather seize
Those truths that rise above mere circumstance And make a mockery of what the slave To vie quotidienne stoops to advance
As his sole verité. Still we should save Some plaudits for those others of a less Prophetic turn of mind who think that they've
Their work cut out just trying to redress Some small part of the ancient wrong that weighed On every word and syllable whose stress
Fell in with that crude metric to persuade The killing squads that no accentual shift To milder tones distract them from their trade
Or new-found gentleness of diction lift The spirit in a way unknown to those Old tribalists. For them the poet's gift
(As Plato taught) was one that should disclose Strict martial discipline and so ensure The errant soul's not tempted to suppose
The arts of peace more likely to procure Its health and strength than arts of war that long Accustomed strife showed fittest to endure
And find their call-sign in the poet's song, Such as that stirring music which (Yeats feared Or boasted) may have sent out some among
Those men the English shot. Perhaps he cleared His conscience by reflecting how the sense Of speech-acts wasn't quite what it appeared
Once versified, since shorn of the pretense That they have any consequence beyond The artifice that holds them in suspense
As between 'meaning' = what the bond Of word, intent and purpose has the thing Expressly mean, and what the magic wand
Of quasi-illocution bids us bring Up short of that intent-fulfilling stage Where acts ensue. For otherwise they'd sing,
Those poets, songs whose promise to assuage The killer's itch came of their power to stoke, Not lay to rest, his long case-hardened rage
And use whatever words might best provoke New blood-lust under cover of an old Speech-covenant with the word-ways of the folk.
He played a safer game, if truth be told, Our Yeatsian ephebe whose verse-music found No room for such fine promises or bold
Assertions of a will expressly bound To follow through on its avowed intent And see its noble protestations crowned
With actions truly and sincerely meant, Whether the lake-isle visit or those lines The rebels might have uttered as they went
To face the English guns. What best defines The change is how he puts it: that 'some day' He'll make the visit, learn to read the signs,
See Tollund Man, consider how this may Connect with tribal passions nearer home, Evoke (not re-enact) the scene, and pray
That their connection stretch through some rhizome- Like spread of tangled tubers to embrace Those fresh-laid corpses in the Irish loam
Whose intimate revenges leave their trace On each new victim killed to antedate The uncreated conscience of their race,
So that the singling-out of those whose fate It was to ride the tumbril let them lie Unmarked in peat while others lay in state.
Still let's not think he's out to justify That ancient, now state-sponsored lie that tells The victims words like 'justice' don't apply
In cases where a blood-sealed pact compels Some reckoning more primordial than pertains To any sense of due desert that dwells
On individual merit and complains If, by some brute impersonal decree Of fate, the most excruciating pains
Are borne by those least guilty. What we see In his aversion to the Yeatsian style Of speech-act is his striving not to be
A poet of the sort who might beguile His reader with performatives that bend Sense, sound and context to their purpose while
Perfecting means to sort out foe from friend By all-or-nothing speech-acts that require Unquestioning assent since they depend
On mustering the muscle to inspire Such faith as will admit no move to check The force of that inveterate desire
That leaves its votaries wholly at the beck And call of every two-bit tribal bard Whose words decide who gets it in the neck
And who directs the squaddies. So the tarred And feathered girls conspire with Tollund Man To catch him momentarily off-guard
Out there in Jutland, as the travel-plan So cautiously drawn up ('Some day I'll go') Now brings him out amongst the peatbog clan
Of killer-victims whose remains bestow At least the sense that he'd done right to make A virtue of the need to turn down low
That old-style Yeatsian rhetoric and take A duly chastened view of what his art Might manage once delivered from the lake-
Isle dreamworld. For its darkside counterpart Enabled some performatives to work A magic that could captivate the heart
Then turn it stony through a lethal quirk That cast its potent spell so as to leave Small cognizance of all those threats that lurk
Beneath their overt sense. Yet we deceive Ourselves most gravely—so he has the skill Obliquely to suggest—if we believe
Ourselves or him quite blameless for the ill That comes of that collusive entre nous By which we readily allow the poet's will
And way with words to execute a coup Of trompe-l'oreille by crypto-Cratylist Word-magic where fortuities on cue,
Like rhyme and rhythm, constantly insist On how, despite all caution to surround His speech-acts with those hardly-to-be-missed
Quote-marks of hesitation, still the sound Of strong precursors echoes through the verse And tells another tale. That's why we're bound
To hear his vow as if the lines rehearse Afresh, though in a muted tone, the same Key-shift by which the blessing turned to curse
So that as seasons changed the peat-man came To make the scapegoat switch from one elect Amongst the horde to one they deemed fair game
For that time-cancelling ritual of unchecked Yet calculated bloodshed that's once more Evoked by picturing the rail-tracks flecked
With four young brothers' blood. What they ignore In rightly praising all that skill and tact Is how the very things they praise him for
Are such as always come discreetly backed By the spell-worker's gift to perlocute From nascent wish to word and thence to act,
Their own or others', that can serve to mute All doubts, misgivings, second thoughts, or fears, Or else persuade us not to follow suit
And, like him, wish away a thousand years Of social evolution. Then the strife Seems something that in consequence appears
More like an emanation of bare life Or force that through the peatbog drives the juice And so keeps Tollund Man, the killer-wife
Of Heaney's vision, girdle, cap, and noose There at the poet's mythopoeic call And summons up for time-negating use
Rhyme, rhythm, symbol, metaphor and all The sound-and-sense accoutrements that chime So nicely with his purpose. These forestall
At source the very notion that mere time, Change, history, or politics might need Attending to before some ancient crime
Or some primeval, god-placating deed That's meant to fit our here-and-now yet bids Us take the point through an imagining freed
From reason's grip since here remembrance skids Clean over such constraints. So we might ask: Why summon 'the mild pods' of those eye-lids
As if behind the fen-juice fretted mask Some errant Buddha or his avatar Assumed once more the old unending task
Of teaching by example how we mar The soul's perfection when our thoughts revert To mere particularities. These are,
The image has us feel, a cause of hurt More grievous than the instruments devised For his dispatch since apt to reassert
The claim on us of all those human-sized Conditions, circumstances, changing modes Of love and war, and social detail prized
By fact-informed decipherers of the codes. Here that prosaic stuff seems quite beside The soul-perfecting point because it bodes
No good for such ambitions to provide A failsafe alibi by which the past Might yet be called to memory, not denied,
And those old killing parishes at last Allowed to show up plain in survey maps, Just on condition that the tale's recast
With proper care to suture all the gaps In its selective record by appeal To mythic time. Then centuries elapse
And nothing alters save the changing styles Of ritual, weapons used in due accord With those, and—whether uttered on lake-isles
Or far off in the bogs beneath the sward Where nations mingle blood—the exact strain Of pulse-attuned verse-music that the horde,
Primal or present-day, allows to gain A wider resonance or rhythmic power To sway the motions of some tribal brain
To lethal deeds. So Guyon in the Bower Of Blisse created havoc and laid waste To all about him, every tree and flower,
Because (or so the myth-debunking taste Of current exegetes tends to conclude) The whole catastrophe's best seen as based
On Spenser's deeply felt though deeply skewed Sense of a late-come colonizer's guilt At Ireland's grief. Yet that's an attitude
Where any tears the poet may have spilt As witness to events were far outweighed By the material benefits long built
Into that grievous state of things. This made Those hard-nosed New Historicists apply The best tricks of their intertextual trade
To taking down a peg or two the high- Romantic claim that poets only dealt In such transcendent truths as scorned to vie
With plain-prose literalists whose readings dwelt On just the kinds of detail Spenser strove To hold beyond the frail protective belt
Of platonizing allegory that drove Clean out of mind all fact-related thoughts Or wrinkles in the cloth that fiction wove
From its delusive thread. These are the sorts Of strategy deployed by those, like Yeats, Who grasp whatever doctrine best supports
Some latest fake mythology that skates So close to eccentricity or sheer Stir-craziness that then the case mandates
A counter-strategy by which to steer Things back on course. This bids us take a view Less tolerant of any cavalier
Myth-driven resolution to construe All history as slung between the poles Of just those mythemes which, as Yeats well knew,
Would easily take over the controls By countermanding reason, then direct The folk to track their lineage back through soul's
Metempsychoses rather than inspect That claim against the myth-averse demands Of plain good sense backed up by intellect.
Still it's a point he fully understands, Our cautious non-subscriber to the tribe Of Yeats' epigones: that language hands
Down some performatives that may prescribe Those deaths enacted in the peatbog seams, As well as speech-acts that more aptly jibe
With all the high-toned literary themes Whose safe rendition nonetheless requires An ear alert to how the poet's dreams
Of freedom, love, or anything that fires His ardent soul is just as prone to spark Far different passions once the dreamer tires
Of non-fulfillment and so turns to dark Imaginings of what might bring about The wished-for end. Yet should we now embark
For Jutland, haunted on the voyage out By those remembered lines, then it may strike Us suddenly that there's some room for doubt
Whether this far from tourist-favored hike, This quest for what unites our tribe with theirs In consanguinity, might yet—just like
The lake-isle travelogue of Yeats that shares Its vagrant wish—cast doubt on our intent To make the trip and see how it compares,
That killing-field, with others that he went There partly to erase, partly to fix In memory. Then maybe it's the bent
Of one bred up in word-ways that would mix The will to act with a will to suspend The act itself or, if the process kicks
In earlier, let action-time distend To thought's own measure as events unfold, And so allow the poet's words to lend
Some deeper meaning to the story told By opting, Hamlet-like, this time to let No firm decision exercise its hold
So mind can recognize its endless debt To mere contingency. Then Tollund Man May seem to pose less of an outright threat
To what's laid out in reason's master-plan For civil concord, and instead become The very prototype of what began
As thought's dull stirring to a tribal drum Before it set out on the age-long trek To just that point where finally the sum
Of knowledge and experience served to check Those atavistic cravings. Then the rate Of human betterment goes neck-and-neck
Not just with nature's fumblings to update Our gene-pool but with poetry's long haul From far-off times, when epics might narrate
Acephalous heroics yet enthrall The listening throng, to this more nuanced phase Of consciousness when speech-acts may forestall
Such deeds as way back then the ancient craze For sacrifice just left to run their course. So it may be that poetry displays
A counter-perlocutionary force Whose special gift it is to slow the rush From speech-act to enactment, and endorse
Such wavering thoughts as go against the crush Of mob-desire and by example show The native hue of resolution blush
At its crass lack of forethought. Still there's no Ignoring how the very urge to meld Wish, word and speech-act in his 'I will go'
Betrays a kinship with the acts that spelled A tale of victimage from Viking times To the near-present of those laborers felled
By deeds of war the state once titled crimes But now inclines more tactfully to deem 'Political' since this description chimes
More sweetly with both sides. Then it might seem That, after all, the peat-bog's not so far From the lake-isle since both invoke a dream
With denouement distinctly below par Since aptest either to go way off track, Or fade away, or conjure acts that are
So utterly remote from what might stack Up to the consequence a vow decrees That the poetic way of hanging back
From perlocution and the fatal squeeze Of present fixed intent on future choice Might well appear the greatest gift that he's
Enabled to afford us through a voice Subdued and tentative. Yet there's a sense That nothing here gives reason to rejoice
On this account since then the best defense Of poetry's still that which makes a chief Merit of its preferring to dispense
With all the props of resolute belief, While the most favored apologia's one That happily adopts the stock motif
Of poets anxious to ensure that none Of their more topical or risky bits Come back to haunt them. So they choose to run
Some variant of Sidney's point that it's The poet's gift and privilege to feign (Meaning both 'wish' and 'make-believe') what fits
A vision far transcending such mundane Or factual truths as tally with the drive To drag it down by those whose dull refrain
Insists no healthy order can survive, In soul or body social, where ideas Like this exert their word-spell to deprive
Truth's homeland of the critical frontiers Drawn up against encroachments from the realm Of idle fantasists or vision-seers.
Not that such dreams were apt to overwhelm This poet-traveler who, once Jutland-bound, Keeps facts, not fictions, firmly at the helm
And so ensures the Danish killing-ground Not figure as a handy substitute For grim truths nearer home and so compound
The wrong, but—on the contrary—refute All such mythologizing ploys to blur The vital line between those truths of brute
Reality and fictions that incur A higher long-term cost. That's why he brought So forcibly to mind how grievous were
The wrongs endured not only by those caught Directly up in it but by the more Extended company of those who thought
That mythic analogues could help restore Some sense of shared humanity despite All the hard evidence of myths that tore
Their world apart. Yet while his poem might Keep this point clear in view, still it's inclined To angle or deflect the line of sight
So that our soft perspective's prone to find Those analogues a handy way to kid Ourselves that violent actions of the kind
Here graphically portrayed are such as bid Us heed their rootedness deep in the soil Of age-old ritual, and so keep the lid
On questions that might otherwise embroil Us in those local histories whose claim To factual reconstruction tends to spoil
Their image given back within the frame Of some enchanted glass. Maybe the case Is general, and poetry's the name
For just the sort of discourse that, by grace Of feigning, offers truths beyond the scope Of history, so doesn't have to face
The standard tests for whether thought can cope With such myth-busting facts, or words confront Those stubborn details that the master-trope
Of peatbog-man is liable to shunt Aside and seek more myth-productive ways In which to write things up. These spurn such blunt
Fact-digging implements as else might raise Spectres or mud-caked body-parts more apt To fix dates and locations than liaise
Mytho-poetically between the strapped- Down hooded victims of primeval rites And those whose deaths might yet be roughly mapped
By color-code across the various sites Marked off in any atlas up-to-date Enough with every zone-change that re-writes
The thanatography to correlate With new facts on the ground. The point is not So much that mythic parallels create
A self-protective tendency to blot Clean out of working memory what jars, Like Yeats's 'certain men the English shot'
Or such things that a queasy conscience bars From its tribunal since they'd otherwise Amass a detailed inventory that, pars
Pro toto, would most likely compromise Then topple that whole mythic house of cards Whose facade bids us elevate our eyes
From mere contingencies. These it regards As no more than a means to keep our minds Fixed stupidly on the fragmented shards
Of a symbolic truth that better minds Discern entire since no such details stand Between themselves and a high truth that binds
The company of victims in a band Where differences of time like those of place, Creed, politics, and all we understand
The better for a bit of detailed case- Historic grasp is airbrushed from the scene And we're induced to view the human race
As unified deep down by acts that mean Its killing-sprees are what most typify The species and annul the gaps between
Such diverse lives-and-times. Still we'd best try To get our heads round those since they're the stuff We'll need to let our thoughts be guided by
If we're to stock our memories with enough Non-mythic truths of history to make That grim scenario seem more like a snuff-
Movie-addicted view of things and break Its hold by simply getting us to see How truths like this can jolt the mind awake
From lethal dreams like that. Let's all agree With what quiet dignity he kept his nerve Through murderous times, maintained a rhetoric free
Of Yeatsian rant, wrote poems that deserve Our gratitude for coaxing darkest deeds Unflinchingly to light, and didn't swerve
From memories such that anyone who reads And pictures them will realize what it took To find the words, or what the poet needs
To bring those words effectively to book In verse-forms that communicate the shock Of their engendering. Not his way to look
For facile consolations or to block Its impact by some well-approved technique Of tasteful euphemism from the stock
Worked up by serviceable bards who seek The church's, chief's, or state's approving nod For this or that convenient verbal tweak
Of proven use to keep the killer squad From their front door. Yet, these fine things apart, We might wish to avoid the path he trod
In Jutland following the victim's cart And meditating how those deaths composed A timeless ritual of the kind that art
Alone brought to remembrance and disclosed As that which (so the myths would have us think) Stayed constant while all else metamorphosed.
Then violent death would constitute the link That quite eluded those more sanguine sorts Of civic-minded thinker who might blink
At such regressive, atavistic thoughts, Yet whose great project for a world redeemed From all in human nature that comports
With Tollund Man turned brutal as they dreamed And so (the myth conveys) more than sufficed To show how dark the flipside of what seemed
Enlightenment's best chance. That message, spliced With chunks of Christian doctrine to enforce The depth of our depravity should Christ
Not turn things round, then makes a ready source Of everything the myth-promoters need To carry through their pitiless divorce
Between the shared humanity that we'd Much better cultivate if we're to get Along at all and what their sullen creed
Requires. That is, it warns us not to let Mere loving-kindness, charity, appeals To fellow-feeling, or some kindred set
Of clapped-out sentimentalist ideals Persuade us they're equipped to lift the curse Of our condition by a dream that feels
Like absolution but then leaves us worse Prepared to face the horror-show that still Defines our fallen state. You'll say: his verse
Provides the best short answer to such ill- Judged claims as I've made here, since any good Or half-way sympathetic reader will
Be sure to recognize—or surely would If not in the response-distorting grip Of some deep prejudice—what's understood
Instinctively by him as partnership In the long tale of suffering he presents Not from the victim's standpoint that would skip
The awkward bit and take the innocents' Uncomplicated view, but as perceived By one who feels the pressure of events,
Home and abroad, with conscience unrelieved By any such too easy route to guilt- Free retrospect. This leaves him less deceived,
You'll say, and never one to let things tilt So far one way as to lose sight of all Those reciprocities around blood spilt
In ceremony, war, or drunken brawl That blur the fixed apportionment of roles Like victim/executioner and call
For poetry, like his, that both consoles With its long views and leaves us more aware How frail they are, the boundary-controls
Set up in those short intervals of rare Peace and lucidity to keep safe stowed Below our civil decks the extant share
Of violence laid in store by an old code Whose unrequited eye-for-eye may burst The bulkheads and at any time explode
To sink the ship. My answer: true, 'the worst Are full of passionate intensity', and his (Heaney's, not Yeats's) poetry rehearsed
Some ways to calm those bad intensities Through wisely-tempered speech-acts that (against The Yeatsian lure) communicate what is,
Quite audibly, conviction not ring-fenced By any prudent wish to hedge his bets Nor count himself poetically dispensed
From calmer passions—sorrows, fears, regrets, But also hopes, assurances, and shades Of optimism ranged against the threats
And terrors. Yet this answer still evades The question squarely posed by mythic scenes Of violence coupled with a style that trades
On those poetic speech-acts as a means To keep the other types of act at bay Whilst still in mind, like superfine machines
Set up with fits so accurate that they Must perfectly self-regulate and curb Every least tendency to go astray
From the fixed norm in ways that might disturb Their equilibrium and so induce A Tinguely-like disaster. Such superb
Control means zero tolerance for loose Assemblage, whether of precision parts That make the mechanism fit for use
Or of the likewise high-tec verbal arts That go into the making of a rhyme Or rhythm that by just so much departs
From metrical convention or clock-time As perfectly to counter any hint Of artlessness unless of the sublime
Since art-transforming sort. Say it's by dint Of such consummate mastery combined With depth of insight that his words imprint
The sense of here encountering a mind Uniquely qualified to get beyond That myth-engendered view of humankind
With which high priests and oracles respond Whenever we petition them to grant Some sign how best to cultivate the bond
Of shared humanity or re-enchant Our bleak existence and the plea's returned To sender with the same blood-curdling slant
That set the tumbrils rolling as they churned The Jutland soil. But there's another side Worth noting where the sober lesson learned
By Yeats late on should also be applied In this case, not to ask if 'certain men' The poet's words sent out to fight then died
At English hands, but whether the squat pen That Heaney dug with, as his people had With spades in heavy earth and juice-dark fen,
Could all the same have done its share to add A muted voice-part to the strident choir, Albeit stirring no such mad or bad
Primeval passions as might yet inspire More peat-bog deaths. Still it's a tricky call, Like Yeats's wondering if the speech-act 'Fire!'
That felled those men should yet be deemed to fall Within the perlocutionary range Of speech-acts like his own which, after all,
Were fashioned with no thought how times might change Or circumstance contrive that they promote An après-coup with such power to estrange
Act from intent. So maybe those who quote The verses about Tollund Man to show How well and ecumenically he wrote
About 'the troubles' in some long-ago Time-out-of-time should take time to reflect That certain myths and speech-acts may bestow
The dubious blessing of a disconnect Between our present sense of what befits A value-system premised on respect
For human life, or comfortably sits With our (let's say) more socially advanced Morality, and what in us submits
So unresistingly to the entranced Condition of balletomanes who fling Aside mere audience-custom as they're danced
Into some all-involving Rite of Spring Where nothing stands between such acts of raw Onstage ferocity and everything
That ethics, empathy, and rule of law Once strove to keep offstage. No doubt this type Of image-mongering's liable to draw
The charge that I'm exploiting it to hype The whole thing up and make the poet out A rabble-rouser just to give my gripe
The same emotive resonance or clout That (I've said) all those trademark mises-en-scène Of ritual violence work to bring about.
Then there'd be room for refuge, yet again, In that vague border-zone between the class Of speech-acts that have consequences when
Pronounced with such intent and those that pass For fictional or mythic and contrive Thereby to spike the guns of all smart-ass
Or cloth-eared commentators who'd derive The Yeatsian lesson, though now hedged around With no such queasy doubts. It's one that I've
Seen fit to venture here, and—to compound The lapse of tact or taste—further surmised That this involves the sorts of speech-act found
In just the kinds of poem chiefly prized For holding back from words more closely geared To action, or performatives devised
Precisely to ensure the reader's steered Well clear of any upshot that entails The fateful passage, rightly to be feared,
From speech to act. For it's when language fails, Or willfully declines, to specify Just which of all its mythic-sounding tales
Is history, or how we're to apply Some mix of context-principles with strict Sincerity-conditions and thereby
Tell true from false, that we're left derelict Of any half-way adequate technique For knowing whether maybe we've been tricked
Into some realm of fictive doublespeak Where no such categories fit the bill Since here the only pertinent critique
Of speech-acts, as of actions good or ill, Is one that chooses to interrogate The relative degree of art or skill
Their fashioning required. At any rate That realm's no country for young men, or for Those active types who'd quick as thought translate
Some watchword from the poet's ample store Into a truly consequential act Whose outcome speech-act theorists might deplore
As lacking warrant since so poorly backed By those grandiloquent performatives That find small room for simple truths of fact.
On this account poetic license gives Full dispensation from the flat demand Of anyone who thinks that freedom lives
In that small gap between the mythic and Those thought-procedures that at length allowed Our slaughter-sated kind to understand
And so reject what once induced the crowd Of deathwatch ritualists to undergo Such atavism though themselves endowed,
Prospectively, with means of saying no To its malign bewitchment. Let's admit There's a fine art to his maintaining so
Adroit an equipoise or perfect fit Between the rival claims of membership In that albeit nowadays loose-knit
Tribal community and what the trip To Arhus told him of the need for some Much larger view of things whereby to slip
All such parochial bonds. Still should it come Down to the sort of reckoning here proposed In speech-act terms then, as a rule of thumb,
Let's say that what I've seemed to diagnose As case-specific to an heir of Yeats, So that each word was taken to disclose
Some turn of thought that subtly correlates The private with the public, should instead Be viewed in light of those set-piece debates,
From Plato down, where the one party said (With Sidney) how the poet's word redeems Our fallen world and turns to gold the lead
Of mortal life, while the other party steams With rage and says that lot will fuck your head By filling it with their delirious dreams,
In which case we're most grievously misled By fictions, metaphors, or endless streams Of sense-beguiling imagery since fed
A soul-corrupting diet of what seems But is not. So when asked where fancy's bred The answers run to opposite extremes
Like Sidney contra Plato. I should tread Cautiously here since none of these stock themes, From Plato's carpentered or painted bed
To poets' dirty work for bad regimes, Is of the sort you'd think aptest to shed Much light on why this nobler poet's schemes
Of conflict-management should conjure dread Despite what every grateful reader deems His strife-appeasing art. Still there's a thread
That runs through this as through the peatbog seams And asks if Tollund Man's potato head Evoked in verse might yet send killer teams
For fresh blood to requite the restless dead.
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