The Wild Iris attempts to speak in the language of flowers, imagining their life circumstances and take on the world around them. They are often portrayed as voices of reason, in their connection to the earth and seasons. The flowers are shown as having both fragility and brevity, living and dying by the seasons. One such example is in "Snowdrop," where the snowdrops themselves speak: "I did not expect to survive,/ earth suppressing me. I didn't expect/ to waken again, to feel/ in damp earth my body/able to respond again." The flowers also speak of humans, often with contempt, as in "Lamium." The flowers describe humans as, "you...who think/ you live for truth and, by extension, love/ all that is cold." The flowers often seem to see humans as removed from natural forces and therefore, cold, inorganic.
The humans that appear in The Wild Iris are consistently the figure of the man and woman, or else the speaker and her husband. The man and woman are linked throughout to the garden, a biblical illusion that follows with Gluck's many reflections on God. In "The Garden," the couple is described planting a row of peas, being divided both from the earth ("they cannot see themselves/ in fresh dirt...") and one another, ("she wants to stop;/ he wants to get to the end...") and therefore also the truth of their situation ("they are free to overlook/ this sadness). The couple is often associated with desire, and emotion highly uncharacteristic of the flowers, which live not for one another or passions, but as a result of the inevitable turning of seasons. Also appearing throughout the book, are morning prayers, "Matins" and evening prayers, "Vespers." In these, the female voice in the book addresses God, or else the forces of nature (the line between which being blurred throughout the book). Often, her prayers are doubting such as in Matins (pg 25) when she speaks of her toils--"Or was the point always/to continue without a sign?" The speaker also finds herself answering her own questions, frustrated by her inevitable inability to guess at the workings of God, such as in Vespers (pg 37).
Gluck's The Wild Iris contrasts the simple logic of flowers with the complex emotions of humans, while comparing the flowers' views of the natural forces that move them with the relationship of humans and their God. Gluck seems to imply that the flowers "have it figured out" so to speak, in that they live purely by the forces that govern them, without questioning, and having a certain purity of existance. The humans, on the other hand, are ruled by love, desires, doubt, and frustration. Gluck's The Wild Iris manages to bring these concepts and the world of flowers and humans together in the premise of the garden.
Kelsey, my reaction to the Wild Iris was the exact opposite of yours! I found the religious overtones in the pieces to frankly be a little too much for my tastes and was continually frustrated when I analyzed a poem and then discovered––suprise––someone else had actual found the truer meaning of the piece, and that the closer answer had been obvious all along. Obviously my reaction to the Wild Iris was one of frustration.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I liked how you managed to teach me more about Gluck than I learned reading Wild Iris on my own. You made some connections (that the narrators of the poem were consistently one man or one woman) and that the flowers, in particular were humanized almost to know what the humans did not know. I found this odd that Gluck would portray flowers almost as in a position of power over humans (perhaps I am interpreting this wrong, it would not be the first time) when common themes in Christianity portray humans as caretakers of the Earth, or in some interpretations, beings given free reign to use all the Earth’s resources without thought. So this interpretation almost feels un-Christian in a way.
I really enjoyed your response however, it’s obvious from your text that you were able to do a much better job understanding Gluck than I was.
I can definitely see where you're coming from with the flowers' attitudes/views toward humans. In "The Jacob's Ladder," for example, the flower is "Trapped in the earth," stuck watching the world go by, learning about men and women and wanting what they want. In "The White Rose," the flower thinks it does not even belong on Earth, that it is too different from the rest of the world: "I am not like you."
ReplyDeleteIn mentioning "The Garden" and Gluck's biblical references, I am reminded strongly of Adam and Eve--the figure of the man and woman. The lines, "as though/ no one has ever done this before," "the hills behind them pale green, clouded with flowers," and "they think/ they are free to overlook/ this sadness," makes me think that this is a scene after Adam and Eve were banished from Eden. The hills behind them are the beautiful place they had to leave, and now they have to learn how to tend their own garden and grow their own food.
If I imagine the female speaker as a representation of Eve, her complaints about toiling in the garden make sense. I suppose her doubts about God fit, too. But then, who banished her from paradise? I feel like she must believe in God, at least because of her punishment.