In my opinion, the
lines in John Ashbery’s The Tennis Court Oath
are very difficult to connect. When I read parts of the text, I was unsure how
to connect the lines in order to make some sort of sense as to what Ashbery
meant. However, as I read some of the excerpts I started to look for clues that
could possibly help me in connecting the lines. Some portions were definitely
easier to understand than other portions. In a specific section from a part
titled, “Thoughts of a Young Girl,” Ashbery writes:
“It is such a
beautiful day I had to write you a letter
From the tower,
and to show I’m not mad:
I only slipped on the cake of soap of the air
I only slipped on the cake of soap of the air
And drowned in the
bathtub of the world…” (Ashbery 14).
To me, this
portion of The Tennis Court Oath made
the most sense so far out of any of the other parts. I could sort of gain a
sense of what the author was saying. This sounded the most “simple” out of any
of the other parts. One small detail that helped me connect one line to the
other was definitely the use of the “:.” In the phrase “From the tower, and to
show I’m not mad:” was definitely a more obvious sign that there was something
in the next line that would have to do with this line. This was mostly because
that type of punctuation is usually a way to signal that a list is to follow
the colon. Also, another thing that Ashbery does in this portion and not always
in others is he uses words that would make sense following the line above to
start the next line. For example, from the “Thoughts of a Young Girl,” piece,
Ashbery writes:
“And the smile
still played about her lips
As it has for
centuries. She always knows…” (Ashbery 14).
If
one were to read this part aloud or even in his or her head, that person could
see that this totally makes sense. Ashbery chose to start the second line with
“As.” This makes it easier for the reader to connect the first line to the
second line. This is because it flows and makes perfect sense. However, not all
of Ashbery’s lines do this. In his portion titled, “The Tennis Court Oath,” he
writes:
“I
thought going down to mail this
of
the kettle you jabbered as easily in the yard…” (Ashbery 11).
This
part is very different from the previous parts from “Thoughts of a Young Girl.”
When this sentence is read aloud, it does not flow at all. It barely makes
sense or barely sounds like proper speech. I think this makes it harder to understand
and harder to figure out a way to connect the first line to the second line. I
think that it is a possibility that by making some lines easier to read,
Ashbery wanted us to understand lines easier or quicker than other lines.
ReplyDeleteHi Michelle, I liked how you said the punctuation seemed to help you in connecting to the poem. While Ashbery’s poems are avant-garde, it seems that he understands the importance of punctuation. Punctuation has become a societal norm, where we’ve become dependent upon it in understanding literature. Ashbery seems to push the limits in scattering punctuation and putting it in unconventional ways throughout the text. For instance, in his poem America, “The roof-/ rain - pills – “ (Ashbery 15). The hypen usually is inserted for broken words or a broken-off sentence. In this sentence, the hypen works to create continuity of the poem and allows for the reader to follow from one line to another. Ashbery’s move to not use conventional grammatical rules also demonstrates his creation of putting together prose and poetry. While poetry does not follow the grammatical rules of prose, creating a combination of the two creates a disjointed mixture. However, Ashbery connects the two by interweaving random narratives throughout the poems. For instance, in the poem They Dream Only of America, “And the murderer’s ash tray is more easily-/ The lake a lilac cube/ He holds a key in his right hand./ “Please,” he asked willingly.” (Ashbery 13). The insertion of the dialogue connects one section to the next through word association and lexicons.