Illustrious Ancestors (1958). Detailed description

Published in 1958, “Illustrious Ancestors” appeared in Overland to the Islands, which critics often call Levertov’s second “American” collection. Her references to a distinctly non-American history, however, show us how she tempered her assimilation by including her ancestral past among her contemporary experiences. The poem begins with a name, “The Rav / of Northern White Russia,” and a nearly fantastic recollection of his youth: He declined “to learn the / language of birds” (Selected Poems 8). As the poem continues, we encounter a tailor, Angel Jones of Mold. On first reading, those references to unfamiliar names and fablelike biographies seem mystifying. Here it helps to know something of Levertov’s life.

In an essay titled “The Sack Full of Wings” included in Tesserae, published more than 30 years after “Illustrious Ancestors,” she explains that “the Rav” is her father’s great-grandfather, Schneour Zalman, founder of the Habad branch of Hasidism (1). From other sources we learn that Angel Jones of Mold is part of her mother’s ancestry and was a tailor, teacher, and preacher. Although the two men had similar interests and lived during the same period (the late 1700s and early 1800s), they were separated by culture, religious prejudice, and language. Levertov, then, becomes the link that joins their disparate lineages.

Knowing that the two men, the “Illustrious Ancestors,” stem from Levertov’s family tree helps the reader understand her position as the poem’s first-person narrator, the third character the reader encounters. In the final section Levertov writes: “Well, I would like to make, / thinking some line still taut between me and them, / poems . . .” (9). We can read the poem as more than merely paying homage to well-respected family members. It also describes her aspirations as a poet. The last portion of the poem serves to clarify the seemingly inexplicable first parts about learning the language of birds and sewing meditations into britches.

In quick succession the reader learns the favorable traits Levertov wants to draw upon: directness, hardness, soundness, and mysteriousness. Interestingly, Kenneth Rexroth, one of Levertov’s earliest endorsers, praises her early poetry with the characterization “Nothing could be harder, more irreducible, than these poems” (Rexroth 14). And many critics have commented upon the careful attention to sound (such as alliteration, assonance, consonance, euphony, cacophony) in Levertov’s work. In that way, her poems do appropriate characteristics of her great-great-grandfather’s floor and bench.

Knowledge of Levertov’s poetic sensibilities and personal history, however, does not render “Illustrious Ancestors” completely understandable, methodical, or interpretable. While the first three nouns she admires—directness, hardness, soundness—suggest clarity, the last—mysterious- ness—introduces a paradox. How can she write unambiguous poems that are, at the same time, mysterious? The poem’s final image actually provides an example of the way Levertov does just that.

To condition mysteriousness, last of the four nouns, we have a “silence” produced “when the tailor / would pause with his needle in the air” (8). The clarity of the description allows the reader to form a clear image of the tailor piercing the air with his most basic instrument. The tailor’s action, however, does not reveal a single or particular meaning within the context of the poem. Here, Levertov uses poetic imagery not only to describe mysteriousness but also to produce a sense of mystery. The close relationship between image and idea as well as content and form continued to concern Levertov and inform her poetry throughout her entire career.

For Discussion or Writing
1. In many of her interviews and essays, Denise Levertov discussed the important influence her family had on her creative work. “Illustrious Ancestors” is only one example in which specific references to her personal biography take on a significant role in her poetry. Consider some of her other poems, such as “Olga Poems,” “A Soul- Cake,” or “Wings in the Pedlar’s Pack,” and write an essay about the author’s life as it figures into her work. Must a reader be intimate with the facts of Levertov’s history to make sense of her poems? What are the assumptions an author makes when making such personal references?

2. As discussed, “Illustrious Ancestors” lists four nouns to which Levertov hoped her poetry might adhere. Choose any of her poems—use “Illustrious Ancestors” even—and discuss the ways in which she does or does not achieve the goal.

3. Consider the relationship in “Illustrious Ancestors” between the abstract and the tangible. When Levertov writes of praying with “the bench and the floor” or of putting meditations “into coats and britches,” what sort of creative leaps does she take? How do prayers and meditations relate to physical objects, and what does the connection imply about the poem as a whole?