The Beautiful Changes (1947). Content and Description

In this early poem, which shares the title of Wilbur’s first book, the speaker describes the nature of beauty: how it simultaneously transforms—and is transformed by—everything with which it is juxtaposed, thereby suggesting new and enriched perceptions both of itself and of its surroundings in ways that create a sense of wonder and renewal.

The wit of this poem begins with its title, whose key terms can suggest at least three meanings. On the one hand, the title may imply that the beautiful (noun) changes (verb) to something else, or it may imply that the beautiful (noun) is itself changed (verb), or it may seem to refer to beautiful (adjective) changes (noun). Such ambiguity and playfulness with language are typical of much of Wilbur’s writing; as do the works of the 17th-century metaphysical poets whom he admires so much, his verse demands a reader’s alert intelligence. He rarely wastes a word: His lines are often heavy with multiple meanings, yet the poems move with grace and ease, almost never seeming cluttered or clogged.

The present lyric begins with literal movement: The speaker imagines a person (abstractly described as “One”) who is “wading a Fall meadow” (language that already establishes the main metaphor of the first stanza, which likens a field to a lake and develops that likeness over six distinct lines in the manner of a “metaphysical conceit,” or extended comparison). Just as the meadow reminds the walker of a lake, so the slightest thought of the speaker’s beloved reminds him of the astonishingly blue beauty of Lake Lucerne, in Switzerland. By the end of the final stanza the abstract opening emphasis on “One” has given way to an intensely personal relationship between the speaker and the beloved “you” (line 5).

One of the most impressive aspects of this poem (and indeed of many works by Wilbur) is the way it manages to combine form and flexibility. On the page, the poem appears highly regular in shape:

Each stanza consists of six lines, with two long lines followed by two shorter lines followed in turn by two long ones. Yet, the lengths of the lines (as measured by the number of syllables) are irregular and unpredictable, and so Wilbur succeeds in creating a poem that looks more strictly patterned than it actually is. Likewise, his pattern of rhyme in each stanza is both regular and loose (abacdc), creating the effect of order and symmetry without seeming heavy-handed, monotonous, or constricting. Similarly, his skillful use of enjambment (in which one line flows freely into the next, with punctuation at the end) gives the poem a smooth and easy flow—an effect enhanced by the fact that so many of the final words in each line are verbs.

The effectiveness of the poem is also enriched by the ways Wilbur plays with language in unexpected ways, as when he turns the noun valley into a verb in line 6, or when he uses the noun-adjective combination of leaf leafier (in line 11) almost to mimic the close relation he describes between the mantis and the leaf, or when he plays throughout the poem with heavy assonance (i.e., repetition of vowel sounds), especially in lines 1-2, 6, 11-12, and 13. Wilbur’s poem itself, as do the beautiful things and actions it describes, helps enhance our sense of the beauty of the world around us, and thus it seems perfectly appropriate that this work ends with a word referring to the effect it both describes and creates—the effect of “wonder” (l. 18).

For Discussion or Writing:
1. Compare and contrast this poem with Wallace Stevens’s “Anecdote of the Jar,” particularly in terms of what the two works imply about the relationship between nature and art and between the speaker and his audience. How do the poems differ in purpose and tone?

2. Contrast this love lyric with T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Why does Wilbur emphasize natural imagery while Eliot emphasizes an urban setting? In which poem is irony a more prominent feature, and why? How does the speaker of Wilbur’s poem differ from the speaker of Eliot’s? Which poem is finally more affirmative?

3. Compare and contrast this poem and Ezra Pound’s “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter.” How do both poems use imagery of nature to discuss love? Which poem seems more abstract, and why? How do both works avoid sentimentality (a common fault of love poems)?

 






Date added: 2025-01-09; views: 11;


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