Strange Fits of Passion

1

W. WORDSWORTH "Strange fits of passion have I known"

Strange fits of passion have I known: And I will dare to tell, But in the Lover's ear alone, What once to me befell. When she I loved looked every day Fresh as a rose in June, I to her cottage bent my way, Beneath an evening-moon. Upon the moon I fixed my eye, All over the wide lea; With quickening pace my horse drew nigh Those paths so dear to me. And now we reached the orchard-plot; And, as we climbed the hill, The sinking moon to Lucy's cot Came near, and nearer still. In one of those sweet dreams I slept, Kind Nature's gentlest boon! And all the while my eyes I kept On the descending moon. My horse moved on; hoof after hoof He raised, and never stopped: When down behind the cottage roof, At once, the bright moon dropped. What fond and wayward thoughts will slide Into a Lover's head! O mercy! to myself I cried, If Lucy should be dead!

Summary

The speaker proclaims that he has been the victim of "strange fits of passion"; he says that he will describe one of these fits, but only if he can speak it "in the Lover's ear alone." Lucy, the girl he loved, was beautiful--"fresh as a rose in June"-and he traveled to her cottage one night beneath the moon. He stared at the moon as his horse neared the paths to Lucy's cottage. As they reached the orchard, the moon had begun to sink, nearing the point at which it would appear to the speaker to touch Lucy's house in the distance. As the horse plodded on, the speaker continued to stare at the moon. All at once, it dropped "behind the cottage roof." Suddenly, the speaker was overcome with a strange and passionate thought, and cried out to himself: "O mercy! If Lucy should be dead!"

2 Form

The stanzas of "Strange fits of passion have I known" fit an old, very simple ballad form, employed by Wordsworth to great effect as part of his project to render common speech and common stories in poems of simple rhythmic beauty. Each stanza is four lines long, each has alternating rhymed lines (an ABAB rhyme scheme), and each has alternating metrical lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, respectively--which means that the first and third lines of the stanza have four accented syllables, and the second and fourth lines have only three.

Commentary

This direct, unadorned lyric is one of the most striking and effective of the many simple lyrics like it, written by Wordsworth in the mid to late 1790s and included in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. This little poem, part of a sequence of short lyrics concerning the death of the speaker's beloved Lucy, actually shows extraordinary sophistication and mastery of technique. The sophistication lies in the poet's grasp of human feeling, chronicling the sort of inexplicable, half-fearful, morbid fantasy that strikes everyone from time to time but that, before Wordsworth, was not a subject poetry could easily incorporate. The technique lies in the poet's treatment of his theme: like a storyteller, Wordsworth dramatizes in the first stanza the act of reciting his tale, saying that he will whisper it, but only in the ear of a lover like himself. This act immediately puts the reader in a sympathetic position, and sets the actual events of the poem's story in the past, as opposed to the "present," in which the poet speaks his poem. This sets up the death-fantasy as a subject for observation and analysis--rather than simply portraying the events of the story, Wordsworth essentially says, "This happened to me, and isn't it strange that it did?" But of course it is not really strange; it happens to everyone; and this disjunction underscores the reader's automatic identification with the speaker of the poem. Also like a storyteller, Wordsworth builds suspense leading up to the climax of his poem by tying his speaker's reverie to two inexorable forces: the slowly sinking moon, and the slowly plodding horse, which travels "hoof after hoof," just as the moon comes "near, and nearer still" to the house where Lucy lies. The recitation of the objects of the familiar landscape through which the speaker travels--the paths he loves, the orchard-plot, the roof of the house--heightens the unfamiliarity of the "strange fit of passion" into which the speaker is plunged by the setting moon.

Written as an "experiment… to ascertain, how far" a poet could inspire intense pleasure from the most ordinary situations "by fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation," William Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads marks a radical break from the verbose and stylistic extravagance made popular by classical poesy (Preface 431). Significantly portraying a un- romanticized vision of raw human passions that incorporates calm meditative states with those of love, terror, and rage, the poet boldly explores common moods not often acknowledged because of their disturbing and intimate qualities. In "Strange fits of passion have I known," one of the Lyrical Ballads' famous "Lucy" poems, Wordsworth uses form as well as constant transitions in tone and mood to reveal his poetic ideology that common human emotion is the principal topic and end of successful poetry, as it is the substance of life. In the Preface, Wordsworth relates that his primary objective in writing the Lyrical Ballads is "to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them… in a selection of language really used by men" (433). Thus, the action described in "Strange fits of passion have I known" is ordinary-a man rides his horse one evening to visit his beloved's cottage. The form of the poem is also ordinary, consisting of a simple ballad that retains a regular abab rhyme scheme. Ballads are popular forms of storytelling among "ordinary" people in pastoral settings, and often relate stories (as this poem does) that deal with the every-day incidents of common people in a non- academic, prosaic language. Wordsworth's insistence on simplicity of language and structure is thus a crucial element of his poetic work, as it allows for a believable ordinariness that extends beyond the pastoral realm and into common human experience.

3

Also significant is Wordsworth's assertion that both poet and reader must be distanced from a literary work in order to maximize engagement with it. Wordsworth advises poets to distance readers from poetic works by adding "a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way" in order to heighten audience enjoyment (Preface 443). He suggests meter as an effective distancing tool (450), as a ballad's prosaic language is defamiliarized by end- rhymes. For example, the poem's second stanza (the first stanza of the ballad's meta- literary tale) reads: When she I loved looked every day Fresh as a rose in June, I to her cottage bent my way, Beneath an evening moon. By drawing attention to the formal poesy that separates a literary work from the individual thoughts and experiences of its reader, metrical patterns are an effective distancing tool. They not only allow an opportunity for the reader to objectively consider events being related from a detached point of view, but also inspire a heightened sense of pleasure through their musical rhythm. Similarly, Wordsworth stresses the necessity for a poet to distance him/ herself from his/ her own literary work in order to fully capture the complexity of the emotion being presented. Contemplating the process of writing poetry, he states, "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity… In this mood successful composition generally begins…" (Preface 449-450) As a result, "Strange fits of passion have I known" begins with the following stanza: Strange fits of passion have I known: And I will dare to tell, But in the Lover's ear alone, What once to me befell. Significantly, the poem is related as a past occurrence. A narrator that has had time to "recollect" past emotions is capable of presenting them objectively. The poem is also about "powerful feelings," as its subject is not the man's journey so much as his "strange fits of passion." The poem's meta- literary tale that its narrator "dare[s]" to whisper "in the Lover's ear alone" emphasizes the intimacy of the private moment of intense passion being shared. The reader, as a result, becomes engaged in the poem, listening more intently to the related secret and believing him/ herself to be among the privileged few. In this way, Wordsworth's insistence on detachment acts as a system of "checks and balances." The poet must be detached from the emotion conveyed in order to present its pure intensity and thus, to engage the reader's attention. He must also ensure the reader's detachment from the presented emotion through form, meter and tense, in order to maintain enough distance to allow for objectivity. The resulting fusion of engaged and objective responses in turn allows the reader to comprehend the intensity and the commonality of the human emotion being portrayed. The "every day" nature of the pastoral scenery in the poem's second stanza provides a necessary transition into the narrator's subsequent change of mood, as his light- hearted journey is at first reflected in the pleasantness of his natural surroundings. Yet the landscape's familiarity is gradually reduced as the strange passionate mood of the narrator is inspired and increased. For example, in the third stanza, the narrator's tone fluidly transforms from "every day" commonness into one of enchantment and, in its turn, into one of rising suspense: Upon the moon I fixed my eye, All over the wide lea;

4

With quickening pace my horse drew nigh Those paths so dear to me. "Ordinary things" begin to be "presented to the mind in an unusual way," as the serene, "every day" tone of the preceding quatrain slowly disintegrates with the narrator's "fixed" gaze at the bewitching moon. Also revealing is that, amongst the alternating metrical lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter that remain consistent throughout the ballad, in this third stanza, the third line is given a different, more hurried rhythmic pace. The poet's choice of diction is interesting because the word "quickening" offers an ambiguous possibility of a hovering accent, meaning that the word can either be read with two beats (which would keep it consistent with the ballad form), or with three (the metrical addition would draw attention to the word). This ambiguity is emphasized by the poet's choice not to determine the metrical beat by using "quick'ning" instead. The resulting openness reveals an apt utilization of prosody as a tool for intensifying meaning, as the possible extra metrical beat hastens the reader's/ orator's pace when reading/ reciting this line. The hastened pace of the line's reception is also a mirror of the narrator's horse's hastening pace on his journey, thus blending the experience of the narrator with that of his audience, and ultimately allowing for a common identification with the strange passions at the heart of this tale. Given this shift from the moons' initially bewitching quality to the heightened suspense brought about through a quickening pace, the last line of the stanza reflects a shift in the narrator's perception of his natural surroundings. Thus, "Those paths so dear" and familiar suddenly become strange and unfamiliar, and the tale that began with a light- hearted lover's tone takes on a hurried sense of urgency while retaining the enchanted dreamy tone brought on by the moon. The rising suspense set into motion by the horse's quickening pace grows into fear and dread, while the narrator's dreamy trance caused by the strange allure of the descending moon leads to his obliviousness toward the rest of his natural surroundings. Such a fluid fusion of emotions emphasizes their complex and often oppositional interconnection as a simultaneous existence. Literally depicted in the poem's fourth stanza, the multiplicity of emotion involved in "strange fits of passion" is emphasized: And now we reached the orchard- plot; And, as we climbed the hill, The sinking moon to Lucy's cot Came near, and nearer still. As horse and man climb the hill towards Lucy's cottage, the moon descends overhead, and both the man and horse and the moon "Came near, and nearer" to their respective destinations. While the narrator's path seems juxtaposed in opposition to the moon's path in the sky, it is noteworthy that the poet does not focus on the journey itself, but rather on the moon's effect upon the narrator's emotional transitions. That is, Wordsworth perceives the subtle effects of nature upon the mind as the crux of human emotion, as nature is the ultimate inspirer of human thoughts and passions as well as a mirror of their fluctuating tendencies. If, as Wordsworth states in his Preface, the end of poetry is to illustrate the common intensity of and to excite human emotions (448), this stanza begins a crescendo of suspense that will climax with the moon's disappearance and the man's awakening from his enchanted trance. Thus, in the following stanza, the narrator speaks of the multiplicity of tone and mood naturally complicit in his "strange fits of passion": In one of those sweet dreams I slept, Kind Nature's gentlest boon! And all the while my eyes I kept On the descending moon.

5

While retaining the hasty tone brought on by the horse's quickening stride through the rhythmic diction, the passage simultaneously presents the calm, meditative state of the narrator riding the horse, who remains absorbed in the allure of the descending moon. In light of Wordsworth's famous passage from "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey," in which he expresses his belief that the meditative state attained through absorption in nature leads one to achieve a deeper understanding of the inter- connected unity that binds humanity within nature, the significance of this passage becomes clarified. "Kind Nature's gentlest boon" is Her ability to absorb the human mind and inspire within it the fits of passion that allow for those intense sensations through which one experiences life. Thus, the narrator continues: My horse moved on; hoof after hoof He raised, and never stopped: When down behind the cottage roof, At once, the bright moon dropped. There is an extreme sense of climactic urgency in this stanza, emphasized by a metrical rhythm that reads faster and thus, provides a vision of the narrator's horse galloping with increased haste toward Lucy's cottage. This stanza also evokes an image of a race against time, where the galloping horse attempts to reach Lucy's cottage before the moon, or the passage of time, does. On the other hand, however, the moon parallels the narrator's journey, and its disappearance can be understood as his loss of nature as a guide and inspiriter of emotional passion. Bereft of emotion, he, as a representative of common humanity, would be bereft of life, a revelation that leads him to reflections on death with horror, dread and rage. Thus, the final stanza of the poem ponders: What fond and wayward thoughts will slide Into a Lover's head! 'O mercy!' to myself I cried, 'If Lucy should be dead!' Although not often the topic of artistic discussion, the "strange" thoughts and passionate emotions presented by Wordsworth in "Strange fits of passion have I known" confront readers with a universal message about the commonness of intense emotional experience. Despite the narrator's insistence that his passionate thoughts of Lucy's death are strange and rare enough to only be silently whispered into other lover's ears, Wordsworth reveals that such thoughts are common ones and that they are to be celebrated as the sensations of human life. For this reason, Wordsworth's insistence on the poet's detachment from the intense emotions being recollected during the writing process to ensure their purity, and on the form's function as a tool for distancing the reader into an objective perspective becomes clarified. Capable of identifying with the intensity of the emotions depicted because of their objectively "recollected" portrayal, and simultaneously enabled to distance themselves from the emotion being depicted because of the poem's formal qualities, the reader is empowered with a double- vision of the intensity of emotions on an individual level as well as their commonality as shared human experiences. Thus, the language and style of common people becomes the most suitable medium for conveying passions common to humanity, and ordinary incidents are allowed to take on extraordinary significance, as they consist of the variety of intense emotional sensations that characterize life