Page 91 - DENG104_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_I

Elective English–I

Notes “Tune” is interesting. It can mean “out of tune,” in the sense that we’re out of touch with
nature, but it also suggests something like “attuned.” The sea isn’t literally taking her shirt off
here; the speaker is elegantly describing the ways in which ocean-tides are affected by the
moon, or just how the sea appears to him in its relationship with the moon. The speaker
describes the winds at rest; they are “sleeping flowers” that will howl when they wake up.
Wait a minute, flowers? Howling? Weird.
“For” is more complicated than it looks. It can mean both that we’re not in the right tune “for”
the natural world, in the right frame of mind to “get it.” It could also mean “because,” as if
“because of these things we’re out of tune.” The plot thickens…

Lines 9-10

It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
In some sonnets, including this one, important things happen in the ninth line; there is a shift
or “turn” that moves the poem in another direction. While the speaker reiterates the claim he’s
been making all along—humanity and nature are alienated from one another—he also tells us
how he wishes things were, at least for him, personally. He appeals to the Christian God (the
capitalization means he has a specific, monotheistic deity in mind) and says he’d rather be a
Pagan who was raised believing in some antiquated (“outworn”), primitive religion (“creed”).
To wish to be a Pagan in 1807—when the poem was published – would be like saying, “I wish
I could wear clothes or do things that were in fashion a thousand years ago.” Wait a second,
he’d rather be a Pagan than what? Than someone who isn’t moved by nature? Seems like it.

“Suckled” just means “nursed at a breast” or “nourished.”

Lines 11-12

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
The speaker explains why he would rather be a Pagan. If he were, then he could look at the
land in front of him and see something that wouldn’t make him feel so lonely and sad (“forlorn”).
A “lea” is a meadow or open-grassland. Wait a second, wasn’t the speaker just telling us about
“this sea”? How did we get to the meadow? Maybe he’s standing in a meadow overlooking
the sea. The speaker wants “glimpses” of something, but we don’t know what; he suggests
that if he were a pagan he would only see things in snatches, for a brief moment, in the blink
of an eye. And this isn’t even guaranteed; he says he “might” have “glimpses.”

Lines 13-14

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
The speaker elaborates on those potential “glimpses.” He says he might see Proteus coming
out of the ocean or Triton blowing his horn. Proteus is a sea-God in Greek mythology. He had
the ability to prophesy the future, but didn’t like doing it. If someone grabbed a hold of him
and tried to make him predict the future, he would change his shape and try to get away. The
modern word “protean”—meaning variable or changing a lot—comes from his name.
Triton was a son of Poseidon, the Greek God of the sea. He had a conch shell that he blew into
in order to excite or calm the waves. “Wreathed” means something like twisted, sinewy,
having coils; the “wreathed horn” is a reference to Triton’s conch shell.

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