Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Day is Done is a carefully concocted potpourri of symbolism, imagery, and the surreal. He begins with a shift between binary oppositions, and moves to a didactic-like schooling of the culmination of day. The poetry is fluid throughout; Longfellow shows flashes of brilliance in four-sided stanzas. The impact of his words is perpetuated by a seamless and complete formula. As the fourth line completes the stanza, the reader completes a sort of “visual” cycle. Each stanza is a four-sided cube, of which each side communicates different aspects of his descriptions. As the reader sifts through each side of the cube, they are connecting the acquired visuals to form a whole by the culmination of the stanza. Using internal retention, and selective protention, the reader summons their past experiences to dissect Longfellow’s metaphors, further creating an image for themselves. Using this formula, along with a hint of phenomenology, we can identify the strengths and effects of Longfellow’s words, and in turn form a comprehensive understanding of what it means to “read poetry”. His opening lines are ideal for this examination, as they refer to the visual cues that rely on the concise nature of the stanza to achieve maximum effect. The act of reading poetry, particularly for Longfellow, should involve a sort of ‘calming’ reading effect, as well as concretizing the visualizations that develop naturally.
Each dimension of Longfellow’s “poetic cube” has a striking effect on our consciousness. The first four lines, for example, are consciously read as a simple (though dark) metaphor for the changing of night and day. Still, the subconscious reader, already by this point, has begun to identify visual stimuli. This sort of visualization bears no importance to logic, reason, or the intellect, and has instead summoned a creation of personal illustration. This is to say, that Longfellow has given us the paint, and with our canvas (mind), we can begin to sculpt for ourselves a type of relatable and creative visual guide. In this guide, Longfellow carefully leads us as he provides us with the means to produce illusion. The word ‘poetry’ comes from the Greek word Poetes, which means “to make”. True to the definition, Longfellow has enabled himself, as well as the reader to “make” or create.
The reader grazes over the first stanza and likely remarks their fluidity, but is largely unaware of the subconscious visualization and cues at work. The reader digests Longfellow use of words like “darkness” and “eagle” and recalls these words as representations of a generalized reality, in which certain images and objects have an iconic reference point. These words translate into images, emphasizing the ideal or symbolic “darkness” and “eagle”, and are the foundation for the reader’s visual interpretation. Essentially, for the lone mind, these words create visual imagery that is based on one’s sense of iconic representation. Longfellow has combined various noema in this first stanza very effectively to create the visual medium which will guide the reader as the poem is read. In this, the abstract idea of “The end of day” becomes concretized, and the reader has fallen headfirst into Longfellow’s didactic teachings. This idea stems from Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology, in which we are visualizing these noema, and using the process of constitution. A reader goes through this process by both “protention” and “retention”, which is how we imagine his visuals in our mind based on our experience (retention), and the projection of the new experience (protention). This process is crucial in understanding how the visual cycle works. We use retention to recall the symbolic creation of the “eagle”, and “protention” to accurately connect the action of “wafted downward” as being consistent with an Eagle’s flight pattern. Thus, this visualization is not only breathtaking, but successful from a psychological standpoint. Of course, this is all subconsciously based, since the process of constitution boils down to synapses and brain signals that are split second in nature.
The first stanza also suggests that night falls upon the daytime slowly and gracefully, eventually enveloping all that exists. The reader is able to imagine these lines because Longfellow has given a vivid and concise glimpse of the passage of time, which is the noted binary opposition “shift”. As a reader, the periods before and after sunsets are recognizable because a human qrecogizes change, as objects become dark and when light is fading. Recognizing this shift is vital to the digestion of the lines and fluid imagery, due in part to the experience and retention of these ideas. One who has not seen the end of the day, would not be able to fully visualize this important moment. For general purposes, this shift is well recognized. Yet, it is also defamiliarized, as his lavishing poetic description of this particular binary opposition seems unpr
Want to know if this sounds good or bad-you dont have to read the whole thing, if you want to thats fine?
Great job! I'm impressed! ;)
