Battle-Scene From the Comic Operatic Fantasy The Seafarer
Summary
In the first stanza, the speaker describes an illusory world, where the
wandering Odysseus finds himself happily in his armor. The
"little" seafarer is both physically and symbolically small, just like
a child's puppet. The dazzling colors ("pink," "lavender,"
"and "turquoise"), the chessboard sea ("gently- / Graded," "tiles,"
"chequered waves"), and the three repeated words that imply a happy
mood ("gaily") establish a merry-making theater, which is in contrast
with Odysseus the hero, for he actually encounters many disastrous
crises in Homer's epic poem.
The second stanza continues the contrast between the naïve seafarer and
the fairytale setting. Sindbad the brave sailor becomes a
"fishpond" fisherman, who uses childlike equipment ("A lantern-frail /
Gondola of paper" and "pastel spear") to fight against fuchsia
monsters. Threatening nature is covered with a ridiculous
mask. And the cheerful tone is also mixed with a
warning. While the sea monsters look inoffensive, the speaker
still reminds of harmful beasts: "The whale, the shark, the squid."
The third stanza reflects the power of imagination. The
frustrated seafarer, Ahab, can fulfill his boast to take Moby-Dick only
in a dreamland fantasy. The speaker keeps on describing the
sea monsters as children's toys. They are "scrolled" and
"polished." They "gleam like easter eggshells." And
they happily "Troll" in the sea with "no slime, no weed." But
stanza three also reflects the decisive battle of the seafarer and the
sea monsters. While the beasts are ready for the "joust," the
seafarer is going to fulfill his "boast: / Bring home each storied
head."
The last stanza echoes the theme of the poem, for the comic battle
scene simply occurs in childhood imagination, in all children's
"bathtub battles." No matter it is "deep, / Hazardous and
long," the fables of the seafarer lead to a happy ending. Yet
the fantasy does not last forever. The childhood wonder
disappears when children grow up. The repetition of
"Laughing, laughing" suggests more lamentation than joy.
Pictorial Background
Sylvia Plath's ekphrastic poem is based on Klee's 1923 painting of the
same title. The Seafarer is an Old
English lyric poem from the eighth century. It is a dramatic
monologue of a sailor who bitterly recollects the cold of the northern
seas, the fearful squalls, and the painful sufferings of
mariners. The sea compels the sailor to return, though he
realizes it is to a tragic fate. It is a poem of
melancholy. Yet Klee's picture presents a comic way to see
the mariner's suffering. He invents a bizarre theatre where
puppets perform in an imaginary landscape of an artificial
world. Klee himself was an enthusiastic concert-, opera- and
theatre-goer; therefore, he composed many paintings after fictitious or
actual scenes in operas, for he loved its illogic and
contradiction. The seafarer himself, his boat and the
monsters all seem to be created from cut-and-folded paper, decorated
with lovely ornaments. Nothing in the picture seems ominous
and threatening. It is a happy illusive world. The
picture subverts the eighth-century poem on the suffering seafarer, who
struggles with indifferent nature. Klee intends to re-create
a vision where the mean sea beasts and the fighting sailor exist
harmoniously with each other. While the beasts and the
seafarer turn into puppet-like creations, the fight becomes a pleasant
show. The delightful colors indicate the subversion of a
brutal fighting scene. The checkerboard ocean, the similar
colors and decorations between the man and the beasts actually combine
them into one unity. The comic representation of the figures
illustrates that art exceeds the severance between the individual and
nature.
Paul Klee,
Battle Scene from the Imaginary Comic Opera “The Seafarer”
Literary Source
Odysseus: The daring sailor in Homer's epic poem The
Odyssey, which tells of the sea adventures Odysseus had in
getting home to his kingdom of Ithaca after the Trojan War.
Sindbad: The brave mariner who makes seven
perilous voyages in Arabian Nights.
Ahab: The sturdy captain who unceasingly
chases after the white whale in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.
Form
The poem combines nursery rhyme with a conversational flat
tone. The regular abcbabbcbc rhyme evokes a lovely fairytale
world. Also, the nursery repetitions—"Gaily, gaily," "Beware,
beware," "One thrust, one thrust," "Laughing, laughing"—and the quick
pace of the meter reflect a childlike song.
Commentary
Sylvia Plath's ekphrastic poem on Klee's painting
demonstrates a re-creation of the seafarer's image and a loss of
childhood imagination. Although both Klee and Plath destroy
and re-create the image of the sailor in the Old English poem, Plath
develops the theme in her poem. While Klee mixes heroic and
comic, humor and adversity in his artwork, Plath portrays a contrast
between three legendary seamen and their ridiculous equipment, between
children's never-ending fantasy and adults' controlled world.
Klee presents a comic aspect about the sailor's life, but Plath
meditates on the loss of the power that can create such a comic
perspective. The first-person plural speaker suggests the
voice of the poem is "everybody”; and the poem is about every child's
creative dream. If Klee transcends the division of the
individual and the world in his picture, then Plath transcends the
division of time in her ekphrastic poem, for the loss of the power to
treat misfortunes with humor, and to create childhood wonders, is not
because of age, but of the mind. And those "sage grownups" do
not share the childhood fantasy, not because they are old, but because
they do not believe it.
Summary
Literary Source
