She Tells Her Love While Half-Asleep

[quizcustodiet]

Humor me, if you will, with a poll about this poem by Robert Graves:

She tells her love while half asleep,
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
And puts out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.

[Poll #976811]


Last year, I (and about 30 other graduate students!) was invited to dinner at the (College) President's lodgings, to be followed by a discussion of poetry. This is part of a general effort to make college feel more like an academic community for graduates, rather than just a dormitory!

The poem above was included in the evening because Graves is a member of St. John's. Lady Scholar (Yes, our college is headed by a man named Scholar. History does not record if this was among his qualifications for the job.) led the discussion, and seemed to take for granted that it was a very negative poem about loss and grief and so on. At dinner the other night the evening came up and again most of the company felt it was an unhappy poem, without being able to explain why in a way that I could understand.

This negative view could not be further from my impression of the poem. The text speaks of being snuggled up under a duvet with someone you love, hearing them sleepily whisper of their love while snow falls outside. The only things I see in that text that evokes any negative feeling is winter, and I think this is there only as a contrast to the reference to the Earth putting out grass and flowers despite the snow. It's there to show that the couple in bed care nothing for the fact that it's winter, because they're in love.



So the point of this post is to find out how much of a freak I am for holding this interpretation. If you do hold the opposite view, I'd very much welcome any explanation - I'm not really seeing where it's coming from.

Comments

[liv]

Your interpretation makes sense, but before I read the cut, my immediate impression was negative. It's mainly word associations, I think: dark, winter, despite. (The other thing that's going on with that poem is that I first encountered it in Possession where its context is somewhat melancholy.)

If I were to write it in prose, I'd say something like: we're in love, and it's all wonderful, but the world outside is cruel and we have to be aware that this happy state is temporary, in the end there will be loss and death.

[quizcustodet.livejournal.com]

I guess I can see that. Perhaps the problem is brain chemicals - I know what I think of when I read the first few lines, and it's definitely, overwhelmingly positive. That's possibly overwhelming whatever darkness may be implied in the bleak language.

As far as language goes, I can see your point about dark words. I think a close reading undermines the darkness of most of the words you mention, though - I wonder if I'm trying to be too simplistic about the poem, and Graves was rather setting out to convey a strongly mixed picture, like one of those optical illusions with two faces and a vase...

[wychwood]

I definitely read it as positive, if a little dark. I had an impression of this woman being maybe a bit messed up; she can admit that she loves her partner, but only in the dark when she's half-asleep. But that's a sign of hope, it's the first flowers of spring and the grass growing again, even if things still look quite bleak and snowy otherwise; things will work out and the situation will improve. If it's meant negatively, then I don't understand why it's compared to the onset of spring and new growth and all those things that usually correlate with hope, even if hope deferred.

[quizcustodet.livejournal.com]

Just looking at the second stanza, I think you can read it quite strongly negatively - spring is trying to happen even though snow is falling, and frost is going to kill all of those young plants.

It's just that for me, the potential negativity of the second part is undermined by the very positive first section.

Also, it's interesting that you take it to mean that she _only_ tells of her love while half-asleep. I assumed that she would _also_ do so awake - I just think the sleepiness of it makes it more touching, as people rarely dissemble when tired.

[wychwood]

Just looking at the second stanza, I think you can read it quite strongly negatively - spring is trying to happen even though snow is falling, and frost is going to kill all of those young plants.

That's true, I suppose. I definitely didn't see it like that, though (obviously!). I think for me it's the way it's phrased - the plants are growing *despite* the snow, the snow can't stop them.

Also, it's interesting that you take it to mean that she _only_ tells of her love while half-asleep. I assumed that she would _also_ do so awake

I think you could take either from the poem, but that's how I read it. I see I'm not the only one, either, looking at the other comments here!

[littleowl.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this one Ben. I didn't read it as negative at all and the mental impression it left was similar to what you described under the cut.

To me, it's a hopeful poem, looking forward to spring in spite of winter.

[prochainement.livejournal.com]

I can't decide between positive or negative, personally I feel its quite bleak, almost as if she's holding out hope as represented by the promise of grass and flowers, yet her current situation is like winter so she can only declare her love in "the dark hours". But maybe I'm just jaded and can only see the bleakness.

[darcydodo]

I'm totally with you, although it could also be that she's only able to tell of her love when she's not awake, being too shy to do so otherwise. Which is potentially sad, but not about grief and loss.

[fatimaner.livejournal.com]

I didn't find it dark at all, but rather hopeful. Everything sleeps, everything rests, and then the cycle comes round again with new life and waking. To me, it seems like the poem is talking about that time just before really waking up, when the brain is still content and fuzzy. Then it compares that to the first green shoots of spring at the tail end of winter.

Granted, my focus in undergrad was on technical writing, not literature. I moaned and groaned over every lit class they made me take (and then enjoyed them). ;)

[herringprincess.livejournal.com]

I'm with happy. The only negative thing I could see is if she only tells her love whilst half-asleep, and still that's better than no love at all!

[thalassius.livejournal.com]

I don't see the negative there either. 'Earth stirs in her winter sleep' and 'despite' (twice) are all quite strongly pointing forward to hope and spring.

If anything, it's more positive for the half-asleep, because it has (both from winter and from the dark hours) an feel of the hour of the wolf - but not, because she's telling her love, not losing it.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I'm another person that reads it as sad to only tell her love in the darkness of night, but the more I read it the more confused I am now getting!

[ktsqueak.livejournal.com]

Hello!

I know this post is really rather too old for me to be replying to - hoping you have email alerts switched on! Right, its been *far too long* since I read poetry anything other than lazily but here are my thoughts:

- the first thing that jumps out at me is the second line. 'In the dark hours' Probably because of the abrupt change in rhythm.
- Being the strange ex old english scholar that I am the 'dark hours' always makes me think of http://www.brindin.com/pohamwif.htm -the wife's lament.

Annoyingly the translation hear uses the prosaic 'crack of dawn' for 'on uhtan'. I've seen that phrase translated as the time *before* dawn, or even more specifically as the pre dawn darkness. OE scholars less rusty than me can jump on me at this point if you like. Anyway, the point being that that dark, still period before dawn is not a nice place - in fact quite a good metaphor for despair. Not cosy.

So I see the first few lines as quite pessimistic. Also telling love in 'half-words'. Literally this might be seen as a cute sleepy murmur. However I dont see it like that - broken words in the dark are what spring to mind.

Also ... am I reading too much in when I wonder who she is telling her love *to*? Love normally has an object - while we can draw one in, their absence from the poem just makes the whole thing feel .. well a bit broken & disjointed - both because of the missing image, but also because the grammer feels all wrong - I'm waiting for an object that isnt there. Again the language is throwing me ever so slightly off balance. This drives me further from seeing the darkness as cosy - the slight sense of being incomplete & off balance (for me at least) cancels out any sense of intimacy that the scene described in other language may have kindled.

- Then.. there are positive elements as well. I love the central simile - that the woman whispering love in her sleep is like the earth dreaming of spring. She turns in her bed and mutters ... and her murmurs are like grass and flowers in the wrong season - fragile and precious.

- Then again the earth doesnt stir *from* her sleep .. only *in* it. The sleeper hasnt woken fully, just a little - like when you are dreaming and are almost awake, but drift into sleep again before you've even realised it. Bear with me here chaps.

- So... I see this on two levels - maybe it is a woman murmuring of love in her sleep, when she cant do so awake. However, I kind of see this love (never made too solid by the inclusion of an object) and the nascent spring as the same thing. The woman is still in her pre-dawn darkness - she is still as cut off from being able to love as the elegaic heroine, and as distant from loving as winter is from spring. If we carry on with the simile, the shoots of spring that could be the fully flourishing fruits that come of love are still damped down by the snow, which is still falling, not thawing.

- I think the poem speaks of hope, even if that hope has not been fully realised yet. If earth is stirring in her sleep, that sleep is lighter. Even if she is not fully awake yet, that sleep stands a chance of being broken. Even if the shoots are being frozen out, there is a chance that the thaw will come. The same with the woman - she may still be in the dark, she may still only be able to voice her love in the faintest of ways. But it's a small beginning that has a chance of opening the door to a full spring.

So I think that the poem speaks of something postive, even if that positive thing is a fragile one. Then again maybe the fact that it is fragile makes it seem more precious.

Yes. This is what comes from staying on LJ past bedtime. :P

[quizcustodet.livejournal.com]

E-mail alerts to the rescue. :)

I'm interested by your angle on the 'dark hours' - I can see what you mean, but it's not naturally my feelings about that time of day. I tend to quite like the hours just before dawn, as being awake in them generally means that you can go back to sleep! Also, if one ventures out at the time, everything's very quiet and peaceful.

I'm intrigued by your thoughts on the lack of object, too. I think it may actually be one of the reasons that I liked the poem so much: the lack of an explicit object meant that I could let the object be exactly what I wanted. Also, as mentioned above, possibly being engaged to someone who is as frequently sleepy as shreena colors my enjoyment of the poem!