00:00:00:00 – 00:00:34:23
Speaker 1
All right. Good afternoon. I’m delighted to be with you all today for the recitation and discussion of Wordsworth’s solitary Reaper and Robert Frost’s Two Tramps in Mud time. I’m joined today by two friends and colleagues who I’m sure are both familiar to you, Professor Trey Bailey, former dean of students at Magdalen College of Liberal Arts, who now serves as the director of Residence Life here at Belmont Abbey.

00:00:35:01 – 00:01:07:21
Speaker 1
And Doctor Christine Baugh, a graduate of Belmont Abbey College and current chair in our new classical and liberal education master’s program. The format of today’s panel will be in the spirit of friendly seminar discussion. I’ll have Professor Bailey and Doctor Baugh recite the poems on your handout, and at that point, we’ll enter into a muse inspired conversation, seeking to understand the linguistic patterns and insights of our poems, which you have in front of you today.

00:01:07:23 – 00:01:34:12
Speaker 1
Now, as Professor Bailey and Doctor Baugh recite these poems, I do ask, don’t look at your handout. Just enter into the muse and and listen and, see if you can pick up, maybe the mood of these poems, and then we’ll kind of break it down and analyze and see what we can make of it. So, I’ll go ahead and let, Professor Bailey begin.

00:01:34:14 – 00:01:54:03
Speaker 2
Thank you so much. What is good to be with you. And I’ve looked forward to this conversation for some time. And I do hope it. Is that a conversation? I feel very fortunate to be here. It reminds me a lot of, one of my great adopted mentors, Doctor John Senior would host these sort of, conversations.

00:01:54:03 – 00:02:13:09
Speaker 2
And with his students, of course, he was with two older men. I get to sit with these two, intelligent, beautiful women. So eat your heart out, John senior. But here we are. And, perhaps by listening to a conversation among three people, you will be relieved of the, the need to have something intelligent to say yourself.

00:02:13:09 – 00:02:28:00
Speaker 2
And you can just shut up and sit there and listen. So sit back and relax and, without further ado, we’ll actually just, turn to Robert Frost. So this is two tramps in mud time.

00:02:28:01 – 00:02:48:14
Speaker 2
Out of the mud. Two strangers came and caught me splitting wood in the yard. And one of them put me off my arm by hailing cheerily. Hit them hard. I knew pretty well why he dropped behind and let the other go on away. I knew pretty well what he had in mind. He wanted to take my job for pay good blocks of oak.

00:02:48:14 – 00:03:11:23
Speaker 2
It was. I split as large around as the chopping block, and every pea sized squarely hit fell, splintered less as a cloven rock. The blows that a life of self-control spared to strike for the common good that day. Giving Alus to my soul I spent on the unimportant wood. The sun was warm, but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day.

00:03:12:01 – 00:03:33:16
Speaker 2
When the sun is out and the wind is still your one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak. A cloud comes over the sunlit arch. A wind comes off of a frozen peak. Your two months back in the middle of March, a bluebird comes tenderly up to a light and turns to the wind to unravel a plume.

00:03:33:18 – 00:03:57:21
Speaker 2
His song, so pitched as not to excite a single flower, has yet to bloom. It is snowing a flake and half he knew. And he half. The winter was only playing possum. Except in color. He isn’t blue, but he wouldn’t advise a thing to blossom. The water for which we may have to look in summertime with the witching wand in every wheel ruts.

00:03:57:21 – 00:04:37:07
Speaker 2
Now a brook in every print of a hoof, a pond. Be glad of water, but don’t forget the lurking frost in the earth beneath that will steal forth. After the sun is set. And show on the water its crystal teeth. The time when most I loved my task. These two must make me love it more. By coming with what they came to ask you think I never had felt before the weight of an ax head was aloft, the grip on earth of outspread feet, the lift or the life rather of muscles rocking soft and smooth and moist in vernal heat.

00:04:37:09 – 00:04:57:18
Speaker 2
Out of the woods. Two hulking traps from sleeping. God knows where. Last night, but not long since in the lumber camps, they saw it all. Chopping was theirs of right men of the woods and lumberjacks. They judged me by their appropriate tool, except as a fellow handled an ax, they had no way of knowing a fool. Nothing on either side was said.

00:04:57:20 – 00:05:20:00
Speaker 2
They knew they had but to stay there. Stay. And all their logic would fill my head as that I had no right to play with what was another man’s work for game. My right might be love, but theirs was need. And where the two exist in twain, theirs was the better right? Agreed. But yield who will to their separation?

00:05:20:01 – 00:05:44:14
Speaker 2
My object in living is to unite my avocation and my vocation as my two eyes make one in sight only where love and need are one. And the work is play for mortal sticks. Is the deed ever really done for heaven and the future’s sakes?

00:05:44:16 – 00:06:20:19
Speaker 3
Yeah. Wow. Okay, now we’re going to tackle the Solitary Reaper by William Wordsworth. Right. Behold her single in the field. Yon solitary highland lass. Reading and singing by herself. Stop here or gently pass alone. She cuts and binds the grain. And sings a melancholy strain. Oh, listen for the vale profound is overflowing with the sound. No nightingale did ever chant.

00:06:20:21 – 00:07:08:06
Speaker 3
More welcome notes to weary bands of travelers in some shady horns. Among Arabian sands. A voice so thrilling narrow was heard in springtime from the Cuban breaking the silence of the seas. Among the farthest Hebrides. Well, no man, tell me what she sings. Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow for old, unhappy, far off things and battles long ago. Or is it some more humble, less familiar matter of today, some natural sorrow, loss or pain that has been and may be again, whatever the theme, the maiden sang as if her song could have no ending.

00:07:08:07 – 00:07:31:14
Speaker 3
I saw her singing at her work and or the sickle bending. I listened motionless and still. And as I mounted up the hill, the music in my heart I bore long after it was heard. No more.

00:07:31:16 – 00:07:59:17
Speaker 1
Thank you both. Well, okay. How do I open things up here? I think there’s a lot of themes that we can touch upon. Maybe I’ll just start by saying, a thing here about analyzing poetry. One one, detail I noticed in The Solitary Reaper was that the poet out here has no idea what this lass is saying, right?

00:08:00:02 – 00:08:21:21
Speaker 1
There are no words to her song that he can comprehend. And whether it’s because she’s speaking in a different language or because he’s too distant from her to make out her words, the point being, he doesn’t. He’s not focusing on the words. He’s focusing on the song, on the mood. And he’s able to make much of it.

00:08:22:02 – 00:08:49:01
Speaker 1
Right. So even if you didn’t understand every word that was just said right now, I hope that your soul was was somewhat, moved in the direction that our poets, would intend. And what is that intention? Well, we’ll have to get into that. Right. Both poems are, had the same, rhyme pattern. Interestingly enough, it’s the ab ab CD, CD.

00:08:49:03 – 00:09:13:16
Speaker 1
They’re both in iambic pentameter. So that accent being on that second syllable. Right. And, and so there’s a, there’s already a symmetry here. Right in, in the mood that we can kind of detect in terms of the themes, I hope we can kind of discuss, what you gravitated to. And in reading these poems, I’m certainly interested in the relationship between leisure and work.

00:09:13:18 – 00:09:45:06
Speaker 1
Or as the poet says, love and need, the way he’s able to maybe join these things together. He says my object in living is to unite as he’s splitting wood. Right. So there’s a kind of nice contrast there. I think I’ll open things up to maybe what you gravitated toward, maybe certain questions you had or or images that stood out to you and see where where this conversation leads us.

00:09:45:08 – 00:10:06:18
Speaker 2
Thank you. I’ll. I’ll certainly yield to my betters, when it comes to, analyzing poetry. But I would like to say a thing or two about what we’re here to do in terms of, this moment right now, this experience, this conversation, and to do that, we have to think about the end. What are we aiming at?

00:10:07:16 – 00:10:29:13
Speaker 2
And it probably does very much a line we’ll have to see. But my hunch is that it very much aligns with, what these poems are aimed at. And that is the love that you described, the relationship between, avocation and vocation and all that. If I could challenge you some some of you are copiously taking notes already.

00:10:29:20 – 00:10:52:23
Speaker 2
But if I could challenge you to actually just not just to listen, and to lean into the conversation, I’m going to relieve you of the burden of having to write things down and just, know that, like the gentleman in the poem here, had no idea what the young lady was saying. You may also have no idea what we’re going to say, and we actually have no idea what we’re going to say.

00:10:53:05 – 00:11:18:08
Speaker 2
Mainly because we didn’t prepare for this, not in any sort of, typical sort of way that you would think about preparing. Because how does one really prepare for a conversation? Your life in so many ways is the preparation for a conversation. And so we’re drawing, really from memory and from experience. And so, perhaps my role in this conversation then will be to, let’s say, play the, professor of the obvious.

00:11:18:14 – 00:11:36:01
Speaker 2
I’ll just try to say what’s exactly sort of in our way, just us here in the room. And maybe there will be a few signposts along the way of a more technical nature that will be worth looking at. But the poems are inviting us into a conversation. What you say to Russia.

00:11:36:03 – 00:12:04:06
Speaker 3
I mean, I was just thinking about as I was the only thing I did for preparation was just listening to the poems over and over again. And I was just thinking about, I actually wanted to ask you what what drew you to the Solitary Reaper? Because, you know, I think we both write different poems. So this conversation I brought two tramps and mud time and, and barely brought the solitary reaper, and it I, I was just trying to think about, you know, something in general about poetry.

00:12:04:06 – 00:12:39:21
Speaker 3
And there is this beautiful line in the poetics that, of Aristotle, that where he describes human beings as the most imitative of animals, right? The most imitative and, and that everybody delights in the learning that accompanies imitation, because there’s a figuring out that happens and we say, oh, that’s that, right. And that, there’s something in poetry that is an invitation to figure something out, like when you first when I first heard and even today, like I have, I’m still not sure I understand fully what’s going on in two tramps in my time.

00:12:39:21 – 00:13:03:15
Speaker 3
But the first time I heard it, there was this recognition. Like there’s something happening there, and there’s something beautiful and there’s there’s a music there that’s inviting. And actually, it’s it’s like this, this beautiful invitation to puzzle through something. And then this conversation was sort of the occasion to be like, well, let’s, let’s just kind of puzzle through it together because I think there’s something beautiful here.

00:13:03:15 – 00:13:10:05
Speaker 3
And I’m not I’m not sure I can see it fully on my own. So, yeah. Why don’t you choose the solitary Reaper? That’s kind of.

00:13:10:07 – 00:13:31:02
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think I have a crush on her, actually, I just to be completely honest, and I may venture a guess to say that maybe you have a crush on, the witch sweater here. I don’t know, there’s something attractive about them. Right. And so, there’s something beautiful, both in the characters that are, sort of very much alive in the poem.

00:13:31:14 – 00:14:10:16
Speaker 2
The poem itself has has a beauty to it, right? Because of its proportions and its economy of words, you might say. And so there’s something interesting we could discuss about, well, maybe not discuss, but be in conversation about discussing such a violent word. Right. And you’re kind of beating up until it sort of concussed. But, you know, when you think about a poem, one of the things that is immediately attractive about it is, as you were alluding to, the rhyme scheme and, the rhythm, the music, let’s say, but then as you get into it, you’re asked to, live in a world.

00:14:10:18 – 00:14:37:01
Speaker 2
And I love the world of, of my time, in part because I’ve experienced it. Right. So I live for a very brief time in New Hampshire. Not terribly far from, I’m sure, where Frost had in mind when he wrote this poem. And what time is a very real thing? It is a nightmare, when you have a bunch of children and they want to play in it, and then, you know, your wife, you know, and you having to sort out the muddy shoes and the laundry and all of that.

00:14:37:03 – 00:15:02:10
Speaker 2
But my time is, is a season. And maybe many of you have experienced that. And I’ve also experienced that shift of, you know, being thrown back right into a colder period when you know that when comes over the the sunlit arch, as he says. And so knowing what that feels like, I think brings, a lot to bear on being able to enter into the world of the poem.

00:15:02:22 – 00:15:24:06
Speaker 2
But even if you haven’t been there, hopefully you have some interest now in experiencing my time right? Go do it. Go find it. Go seek it out. And part of that is, you know, actually being able to engage with reality through your senses. So the poem is speaking about something. That’s true. Right. And multiple senses of the word.

00:15:24:06 – 00:15:51:20
Speaker 2
It’s true in terms of you can experience this in a real place in real time. And it’s true because it’s true to life in that it’s talking about things that all human beings share. Whether you’ve experienced my time or, you know, you live in some, you know, desert area where you don’t get to experience that. But to answer your question more directly, in terms of, the solitary reaper, yeah, I think there’s an experience there that even though I’ve never been reaping in the field, admittedly, I’ve never done that.

00:15:53:06 – 00:16:17:03
Speaker 2
There’s something about, this man’s, I don’t, I don’t know, the there’s almost a melancholy. Well, he uses that phrase as a melancholy strain, that I think, whether you’ve whether you’ve seen her single in the field or you’ve seen her, I was going to say maybe in line at the supermarket, but perhaps that’s not it.

00:16:17:14 – 00:16:22:23
Speaker 2
You’ve seen her somewhere? We’ve all seen the solitary. I would say.

00:16:23:01 – 00:16:46:22
Speaker 1
Great. Well, maybe, I’ll. I’ll play, Socratic advocate here, because the devil has too many advocates. So, here’s my thought on on two tramps in my time. So you have this poem, right? This man is chopping. He’s splitting wood. And there’s a kind of cyclicality to his work. Right? He says, this is in the second stanza.

00:16:46:22 – 00:17:14:10
Speaker 1
Right. Good blocks of oak. It was. I split as large around as the chopping block, and every piece I squarely hit fell, splintered lists as a cloven rock. So as he’s chopping, he’s making these things that look like chopping blocks. Right. He’s chopping on the chopping block and he’s making chopping blocks. Right. There doesn’t seem to be a an exterior end, for this man at the chopping block.

00:17:14:21 – 00:17:38:03
Speaker 1
Why is that? Because he’s doing this for love, not for need. Right. Then you’ve got these two tramps, lumberjacks of sorts. Right? And they say, look, we can take your job if you pay us something. You don’t need to be toiling at this chopping block. And he feels accosted, right? All of a sudden, he says, I’ve never loved my work more than I did at this moment when it was going to be taken for me.

00:17:38:05 – 00:18:02:19
Speaker 1
And. And then these tramps question him. Right. They have a certain logic, he says, that would fill my head if I wasn’t careful. Which was, Well, since I brought up Socrates, it’s the, the logic of the poets and the politicians and the lawyers of Plato’s Apology because they were proficient in one thing. They thought they were wise in all matter of things.

00:18:03:01 – 00:18:29:22
Speaker 1
Right. So this is in the second to last stanza. He says nothing on either side was said. They knew they had but to stay there staying, and all their logic would fill my head as that I had no right to play with what was another man’s work for gain. My right might be love, but theirs was need. And where the two exist in twain, theirs was the better.

00:18:29:22 – 00:18:56:10
Speaker 1
Right? Agreed. So, they they were not able to, to judge him appropriately. Right. At previous only, we hear men of the woods and lumberjacks. They judged me by their appropriate tool. Except as a fellow handled an ax, they had no way of knowing a fool. They were only able to judge men by virtue of their own craft.

00:18:56:12 – 00:19:24:09
Speaker 1
So this this is where my my, question comes in or challenge just in terms of your your interpretations. Isn’t it nice to not have to need wood for chopping just to have the luxury and the leisure to do these things? Not, for any exterior motive, but just because you like chopping wood. Is there something overindulgent about, the leisure of this poet or.

00:19:24:11 – 00:19:47:13
Speaker 1
I almost am inclined to say, what would Aristotle say about, you know, kind of technical manual labor being understood as a kind of leisure, you know? Is that even possible? It was a theme. I think. You feel it in the very beginning. Right? He’s enjoying this, this chopping of wood. And to me, I thought, well, isn’t that nice?

00:19:47:23 – 00:20:11:13
Speaker 1
You know, it had, you know, wouldn’t it be nice for everyone to have the luxury to, to choose freely? Manual labor? Is that what’s going on here? Does he does he maybe misunderstand something that the tramps are bringing him or something to that effect? It’s just it’s just some thoughts that I had, any responses?

00:20:11:15 – 00:20:33:15
Speaker 3
To advocate sarcastically. Yeah. Yeah, I don’t, I don’t know. I mean, you know, it’s funny as, as you say, like, who is the speaker here who’s out in the woods cutting wood, right? I mean, I just back up and say one of the things that I think is appealing is that I’m not I’m not from New England, but I’m I’m from north of here.

00:20:33:15 – 00:21:01:13
Speaker 3
Right. It’s not not the whole the whole world is north. And so this is a scene I would put probably more like in, in, in January or February where I’m from in Maryland. But you know that this is recognizable, when, when the snow’s melted and, and there’s these like, puddles everywhere. And it’s, it’s disgusting, but also hopeful, you know, because you’re, you’re like, well, you can almost feel the spring coming and there is little hints of it.

00:21:01:13 – 00:21:31:14
Speaker 3
But then as soon as you whisper that like the, the like, there’s this, oh my gosh darn, we’re falling back into winter. So I thought, so there’s that thing going on where this is a, a recognizable place in time that invites you into the scene. And so, like, I guess this is a way of thinking about who is this man who is shopping for love and is he just chopping wood for love?

00:21:31:14 – 00:21:53:11
Speaker 3
Like, I think that would be my kind of question, because he’s he seems to be doing this like I, I think, why like if you all. I’m just thinking about this. If you if all of you like. I need a study break. What am I going to do? I’m going to find an ax, and I’m going to chop some wood.

00:21:53:13 – 00:22:10:09
Speaker 3
There’s kind of an appeal to that, right? Like you’re like, I’m going to move my body. I’m going to split things into, and maybe we’ll have a bonfire at the end of the day, which is like what life is ultimately made for, like living around a bonfire and singing, which we’re going to do at the very end of the semester, by the way.

00:22:10:09 – 00:22:30:05
Speaker 3
We just haven’t announced it yet, but probably. Right. So just, you know, just just like life is for bonfire. So I don’t know why this guy is cutting wood, like, but this, like he’s probably going to use it at some point. But I mean, but then he, he encounters these two tramps like which is not exactly I would suppose is politically correct thing to call someone.

00:22:30:05 – 00:22:57:14
Speaker 3
But, you know, these two, these two guys who really don’t have jobs except for the odd jobs they, they have, you know, picking up random work and, and so he’s they’re standing, you know, it’s almost like the standoff, you know, and one of them, the only thing that’s the only words spoken between human beings in this poem is when the guys one of the bums is one of the tramps, says, hit them hard and that throws them off.

00:22:57:14 – 00:23:35:20
Speaker 3
Right. So I thinking about that, like there’s this silent question that the narrator of the poem encounters and I, you know, I sort of just assumed it was Frost himself because of the way he’s using this poem to think about the relationship between his his vocation and his avocation, his his vocation, his calling and his hobby. And that there’s this I think this is there’s something so darn American about Robert Frost where you’re like, first of all, this just feels American.

00:23:35:20 – 00:23:56:09
Speaker 3
And I love it for that reason. But second of all, like something about New England that’s just, I don’t know, especially coming up on Thanksgiving. It just feels like this is the real America. But so these so there’s a real question in the American regime about like, well, for example, you all are at a liberal arts college, right?

00:23:56:09 – 00:24:32:04
Speaker 3
And you’re, you’re studying useless things. Right. How many English majors do we have for like and yeah, I know in your parents and like, well, what are you going to do with that? And you and your responses? I’m going to wait tables. Know what your responses. I’m going to live well. Right. And the rest will figure out. So I guess I, I don’t know, I would affirm the question, but but what I would wonder about is what is really needed.

00:24:32:05 – 00:24:58:19
Speaker 3
Like what is the one thing needed here? Is it is it the need of the tramps who, need money? Or is there a need in this poet who seems to be taking a break and splitting some wood and a need for this thing and that that sort of plays into what his ultimate need is, which is a union of vocation and avocation.

00:24:58:19 – 00:25:02:10
Speaker 3
I yeah, I sorry, that was long winded. I.

00:25:03:09 – 00:25:29:08
Speaker 2
That’s that’s right. So yeah. Robert Frost very American. Very, very, New England, wants to make an argument for, the South at a later, point. But, you’re I’ve always thought Maryland was New England. And so that gives you an indicator of how southern I am. That Mason-Dixon line. Right. But, at least you can’t order sweet tea at some point.

00:25:29:08 – 00:25:56:11
Speaker 2
Like, you just kind of. They just stop serving that. So, I don’t know, that’s your litmus test. But anyhow, in terms of, well, I had this experience years ago, I was asked to teach a middle school class and teaching middle school. So as a high school teacher, they needed me teach a middle school class. And about this time of the year, I was sort of preparing the students to get ready to go home for the Christmas holiday.

00:25:56:13 – 00:26:09:21
Speaker 2
And they were asking me, you know, I was sort of surveying the class. As every, you know, first year teacher tends to do a lot of like, what are you guys talk for a while, I figure out what I’m going to say next. And so they were telling stories about things that they’re going to do over the break.

00:26:09:23 – 00:26:26:11
Speaker 2
And they said, well, Mr. Bailey, what are you going to do? And I said, well, I’m probably going to split some. What is the true story? And they said, what? I said, I’m going to split some wood. And I had them raise their hands if anyone had split wood in that class. And turns out one had, because his grandparents had a wood burning fireplace.

00:26:26:11 – 00:26:41:15
Speaker 2
And so he knew what that experience was like. And so I was telling them a little bit about, how I have a wood burning fireplace, and I would split wood and my kids would help. And at that time they were all very little. And they’re like, oh, Mr. Bailey, that sounds very dangerous as it is. And they love it, right?

00:26:41:20 – 00:26:58:04
Speaker 2
I mean, they’re like my little gophers, right? I split the wood, they fall, they go pick them up and they try to get out of the way before the next. Now I’m very careful, but they take the wood and they stack it. I mean, it’s it’s it’s great. And I commend it highly. But now do I have to do that to heat my house?

00:26:58:04 – 00:27:25:05
Speaker 2
Well, of course not. I can go flip a switch and I can press a button. So yes, this is a very American poem. And it’s setting and a lot of it’s language, but it’s not the sort of, pragmatism, that, America is so deeply rooted in, because it is a argument for, splitting wood, as a, as a pastime almost.

00:27:25:14 – 00:27:48:10
Speaker 2
Now, that’s not to say that it’s completely bereft of any sort of, usefulness, because this is one of those things where the vocation, the avocation can come together. There’s a great essay out there, by, who’s the guy up at Christendom? Cutback. Yeah, yeah. Cutback. Cutback, called the economy is splitting wood by hand.

00:27:48:12 – 00:28:06:20
Speaker 2
Highly recommend it. And one of the beautiful things about splitting wood is that it warms you, you know, multiple times. Right. While you’re out and about, you know, gathering the wood and splitting the wood and then burning the wood. So there’s a lot involved there. He does make a case, though, where he says, that the tramp’s right.

00:28:07:23 – 00:28:34:20
Speaker 2
Was what does he say there? Do you remember? There’s something about how, you know, how we had no right to play with what was another’s, another man’s work for gain. My right might be love, but theirs was need. And where the two exist in theirs was the better. Right? Agreed. So it does seem to be making a case for, you know, the role of, manual laborers and these people who’ve been working in these work camps.

00:28:35:22 – 00:28:55:02
Speaker 2
But to your point, you know, he does want to defend his right as a human being to engage in this sort of activity. Just for the love of it, there’s another Frost poem where he talks about a violinist. I’m going to forget where it is, but, the man of the. He was a hired hand who played the violin.

00:28:55:05 – 00:29:04:04
Speaker 2
Why do you play the violin? Because he loved it. And that was it. Now there’s a reason he needed to to play the instrument.

00:29:04:06 – 00:29:34:22
Speaker 1
That’s really helpful. And I appreciate the way you kind of tied in some of the themes. Doctor Baugh, too, because his middle stanzas seem as if they’re a digression from the main story. But I think you’re right that they actually are providing some kind of deeper meditation and unity. About. Well, the the changing of the seasons, the things we shouldn’t take for granted, the water that is very difficult to find in summertime, that is plentiful in spring time, with frost.

00:29:34:22 – 00:30:02:17
Speaker 1
Right. Kind of lurking underneath. So this kind of back and forth between, love and need, leisure necessity. I mean, he even refers to his work as a job. He says he wanted to take my job right for pay. So he kind of goes back and forth between these things. So I think you’re right. It’s not that he’s just doing this out of pure, kind of meaningless love or just, divorced from any practicality.

00:30:02:18 – 00:30:32:04
Speaker 1
Right. But it is it’s focused. I mean, it’s interesting he has this line, right? That blows that a life of self-control spares to strike for the common good that day. Giving a lose my soul I spent on the unimportant would. He could use his life of self-control for our politics, for the common good. But today he’s choosing to focus it on this unimportant would that is actually allowing his soul to be free to be loose.

00:30:32:06 – 00:30:51:04
Speaker 1
So it’s it’s a beautiful again, this kind of back and forth between play and work, between labor and training and then leisure. Right? I mean, isn’t that what it’s all about? So and I do love that line, right. That he put he put me off my aim, which is to say he probably missed the block of wood.

00:30:51:06 – 00:31:08:05
Speaker 1
But there’s also something so beautifully teleological about that too, right. His aim now all of a sudden, he’s having to think about what he’s doing in a totally different way that he could get. He could pay out this labor. He’d be divorced from the fruits of his work. All of a sudden, everything is kind of thrown into question.

00:31:08:05 – 00:31:17:05
Speaker 1
Right? So. Well, maybe. Should we move to the solitary Reaper in the ten minutes or. Yeah. Please go ahead to respond.

00:31:17:07 – 00:31:51:11
Speaker 3
Sorry. It’s just that last little bit. There’s just a you know, where he says only where love and need are one and the work is play from mortal stakes. Is the deed ever really done for heaven and for future sakes? And I do think, That is new striking. I’m not sure I fully understand it, but it just it speaks to something about what I think we’re doing here in a liberal arts college and in the honors college in particular, which is, you know, what are the stakes right there?

00:31:51:13 – 00:32:14:22
Speaker 3
They’re mortal stakes. Its work is play for Mortal Stakes. But then he mentions Heaven in the Future Stakes. Right. So they’re Mortal stakes for Immortal Stakes, right? And those things are not separable, ever. Right. And so the things that seem unnecessary might be the one thing necessary. And I just it’s just think about any poetry. Utterly useless.

00:32:14:22 – 00:32:24:14
Speaker 3
We’re having a useless conversation. And isn’t that, strangely enough, the most important thing you know.

00:32:24:16 – 00:32:48:02
Speaker 2
That. That’s right. And so I should say that if this poem, does not inspire you to go split some word, then, something is amiss in your soul, and you should really, take the Pepsi challenge and go do it. The Pepsi challenge. Oh, yeah. Years ago, Pepsi had this challenge where you could, like, test theirs versus Coke.

00:32:48:02 – 00:33:07:07
Speaker 2
And there was a blindfold test to see if Pepsi was better. Anyways, I’ve just sort of adopted it as a phrase. You should just go do the thing. Just go try the thing and just see if you like it. Hey, Mike. He likes it. What was that? Kix, I don’t remember. Anyways, we have very much, digress, but that’s okay, because we’re having a conversation and you kind of weave in and out, right?

00:33:07:09 – 00:33:37:20
Speaker 2
And, I’ll also say, you know, before we move, sort of deeper into this other poem that if poetry itself and good poetry, I mean, doesn’t really grab a hold of you in some, some way, then, you do need to do some, preliminary work. The liberal arts education, in some ways operates on the, the presupposition that you have been nurtured in a particular way, really, from the nursery on up.

00:33:37:22 – 00:33:57:02
Speaker 2
That’s not to say that you can’t go back and get a remedial education. You can. But if you think you can come here and just sort of, tackle one of these poems and you’ve never really, entered into the world of Mother Goose, you know, old Mother Goose, when she wanted to wander, would take to the air on a mighty fine gander.

00:33:57:06 – 00:34:19:09
Speaker 2
Like, if that doesn’t do something to you. Where? Like, Like what’s going on there? Right. Then you will struggle, with, with, with poetry sort of writ large. So if you’re that person, and you think, wow, here we are talking about these two poems, and I just they just didn’t do anything for me.

00:34:19:23 – 00:34:24:03
Speaker 2
Yeah. Go maybe go back to read some other groups. Okay.

00:34:24:05 – 00:34:58:12
Speaker 1
Wonderful. Okay. No, I, I will agree with that. And I, I think that’s maybe the point of in the Solitary Reaper, right, that there is a kind of education to be had in, in the kind of experience other thing and not just in the analysis and distinction and refinement and precision. The fact that he’s kind of, this, this poem and this all this poet in the Solitary Reaper is kind of thrust into this meditation on love and loss.

00:34:58:12 – 00:35:00:15
Speaker 3
And,

00:35:00:17 – 00:35:31:18
Speaker 1
What else here we have on battles long ago, or the the more familiar sufferings of today of loss and pain. This is all because of the the wisdom of music. Right? Which, which is to say that wisdom is not, it is not just analysis, right? There is a kind of poetic wisdom that you, there’s going to be a part of your soul that is really left until if it does not engage in that kind of learning.

00:35:31:20 – 00:36:00:06
Speaker 1
So, yes. Poetry. Right. Giving ourselves over to to its music. So. Okay, what can we make of the Solitary Reaper? I think there’s a lot of beautiful images here. And maybe picking up on the theme of uselessness and leisure, I was struck not just by the fact that there is no there are no lyrics or intelligible words that this poet can understand about, the Highland Lasses song.

00:36:01:01 – 00:36:33:18
Speaker 1
Additionally, she does not seem to be singing to him. Right. So, her song really seems to be, without bounds. Right? Without the purpose of presentation or entertainment. So it has this similar kind of eternal extension, right, that is able to touch upon, the, the things of, of long ago and the sufferings of today. So what what is this song, right, that it’s able to kind of propel the poet into this kind of meditation?

00:36:33:20 – 00:36:39:23
Speaker 1
Maybe I’ll just kind of start quite openly with that.

00:36:40:00 – 00:36:40:23
Speaker 2
Okay.

00:36:41:00 – 00:37:04:22
Speaker 3
Yeah. I don’t, I don’t know, very polite to pass this to me. You know, it’s like, wow. Have you ever seen sorry. This is the silliest thought that popped into my head. Have you ever seen little kids dance like like you turn on some tunes? You know, you’re thinking, like, 3 to 4 year olds, and they just sort of like, convulse, and it’s like, you know, it’s just like the music takes them over and they’re totally, you know, I just, I just sorry.

00:37:05:00 – 00:37:35:09
Speaker 3
I was hanging out with my nieces and nephews recently and like, they’re just they’re so like, they they really got into, pirate songs, by which they mean Irish music. And sea chanties. And it was amazing to me to see how quickly my niece memorize the words and starts in like on the last day I was, I was home recently, she started singing to me and it was like, oh, I’m just I’m just melted,

00:37:35:11 – 00:37:37:09
Speaker 1
You know, and.

00:37:37:11 – 00:37:58:23
Speaker 3
There’s that line in the Republic that, you know, where it was. Socrates says in the midst of banning the poets, you know, he says music is sovereign in the soul and just feels it’s sovereign. And what does it mean to be sovereign? It means it rules. It has authority. It it has dominion. It’s the music is sovereign in our souls.

00:37:59:05 – 00:38:22:12
Speaker 3
And that, I don’t think, ever stops being true. I mean, you know, and you can like, it’s a bad time in life when you can’t delight in music and it seems like you might need music more in those times. And I think I have no profound thoughts, just that image of children like dancing and singing and thinking about that.

00:38:22:12 – 00:38:39:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, I’ll take it. I want to come back to sea Chanties in a minute. But let’s see here. So who was it at the end of it? Was it Socrates or Plato? I can remember which at the end of his life, he actually decided to take the muse literally. And and and make the correction to the, to the, to the servant role.

00:38:39:10 – 00:38:58:19
Speaker 2
Who’s playing the music. Right. And so, so actually he kind of in the end, you actually do need, you do need the poets. You do need the music. And you need that quite literally. And so again, go split wood, go, mow the grass or whatever. The equivalent would be in terms of reaping in the fields these days.

00:38:59:03 – 00:39:23:09
Speaker 2
Although I’ve seen some of you out there doing some foraging. You promised to cook me those mushrooms. You never did. So next season, I guess, maybe you’re not in this class by an upperclassman, but. So here’s, here’s the thing. We’ve been talking about work and leisure, and, you mentioned sea Chanties sea Chanties are working songs.

00:39:23:11 – 00:39:38:06
Speaker 2
So you’re singing, you can think of it in a very sort of, utilitarian way and like, well, I need people to pull this rope at a certain, you know, you know, so many beats per measure, right, in order to lift the sail or whatever it is. But that’s not all that’s going on there, right? Certainly not.

00:39:38:16 – 00:40:06:08
Speaker 2
Certainly there’s something that is, a spark in the human spirit that when you’re working together, moves you to song. And those songs are, full of all sorts of imagery that are shared among the people, working in that type of, you know, environment and atmosphere. And so, it’s likely that the solitary reaper is singing, perhaps a work song or perhaps a song that, is in so many ways demonstrative of her experience.

00:40:07:08 – 00:40:37:14
Speaker 2
You know, in life, something, you know, if you listen to those, you know, you know, Irish or English ballads, they’re almost always about, Oh, things lost and, and and, you know, recovered or, you know, trying to, you know, make some defense of, really, nostalgia. Right? This is pain for home. Something, something that needs to be, brought from the past into the current time.

00:40:37:14 – 00:40:56:14
Speaker 2
And I think a lot of what the Honors College is about is, is not just, it’s not the case that we’re looking to, sort of resurrect some sort of golden age, but really to go back into the past and recover those little golden things and carry those with us into the present. I think that could be one way of thinking about it.

00:40:56:16 – 00:41:18:14
Speaker 2
And music has a way of being a vehicle for those for those ideas. Right. Paired then with the actual act, the embodiment. Right. The very, palpable and tactile and, what’s another adjective I could use? Incarnate reality of doing the thing itself, not just the idea of the thing, but the thing itself, so to speak.

00:41:18:16 – 00:41:39:00
Speaker 3
Here’s something wild that I found in reading denim with the freshmen last year who are now sophomores and very wise fools, for that reason. So, yeah, it’s thinking about what is poetry do. Well, it moves your passions in some ways, like so. You know this instinctively. If you’re having a, a good day, what do you want to bop, right.

00:41:39:00 – 00:41:58:00
Speaker 3
And if you’re having a sad day, you want to hear, like, that terrible love song that you’ve heard, like, 30 times. You’ve got a broken heart and like, death and. Yeah. And you want to write. Okay. So music speaks to your passions. It moves you. And so one of the things that Aristotle says in the Anima is that the passions are in Greek law.

00:41:58:01 – 00:42:27:15
Speaker 3
And who lay. And what that means in English is they are words in matter, right? They’re words in matter. So your passions, which are moved by music in particular, are words written in your body. They’re almost like words made flesh or something very close to that, which means that, you know, we tend to I think there’s a potential to think about something poetic or musical as your rational.

00:42:27:17 – 00:42:54:15
Speaker 3
It’s not your passions are revelations of reality, right? It’s part of how you apprehend what is real and what is true, and what is good and what is right and what is beautiful. And that is actually something that is that is physical. It’s not just your mind, it’s your whole being is some is part of seeing reality for what it is.

00:42:54:15 – 00:43:12:13
Speaker 3
And there’s something about poetry that that actually taps into that primordial reality that’s really written in the body that I think is often, devalued today.

00:43:12:15 – 00:43:43:20
Speaker 1
That’s a really powerful thing to think about. The passions. What is it? Passions and flesh or words and flesh? Yeah. I mean, I think that’s a beautiful note to end on, a meditation on the incarnation. And there’s one way in which I think, Christ’s coming into humanity has really reconciled work and leisure in an unprecedented sort of way, that it’s leisure is not just able now, it’s not just for the elites.

00:43:43:22 – 00:44:08:12
Speaker 1
It’s not just, in certain kind of contemplative, studious activity. Now, there’s a way in which, you know, the monastic dishwasher can be in a state of leisure because God has assumed all of human experience unto himself. Right? Whatever has not been assumed has not been redeemed. Right. But Christ has touched upon everything. What is it? So.

00:44:08:13 – 00:44:28:14
Speaker 1
Yeats. Right? Not that, what is it? Nothing can be whole, or soul that has not been rent, right? There’s a way in which God has kind of sunk down to the very depths of human nature and redeemed everything, right? The ancient battles, but also the, natural sorrow, loss or pain that has been and may be again, right.

00:44:28:14 – 00:45:04:20
Speaker 1
The more familiar matter of today. So, I think there’s that. I, I like to think about that sometimes, the way in which, you know, maybe a more contemplative, a more, Christian sort of leisure has kind of encompassed the whole of, of human life in an unprecedented sort of way. You know, and the thing about music to you that I really appreciate, which I think this poem, does pick up on a bit the way in which the last, when she goes off the music, it remains still in the poet’s heart.

00:45:05:00 – 00:45:30:22
Speaker 1
And I love this the the deliberate ambiguity of that word still that it’s static and continuous. Right? Simultaneously. Still. And so that the song continues. Right. And there’s something about music that I think of, of all the arts really mimics, the human experience. Right? We experience that in time. We can’t grasp it. We can’t point to it as we’re experiencing it.

00:45:31:00 – 00:45:52:02
Speaker 1
And the only thing that remains is the change and effect it has made in us. And, and and that. Is that not true of of so much of our human experience, right. That we we understand our experience through the imprint right that has left in us. So, I wish we could have many more hours to discuss these poems, but believe it or not, we are out of time.

00:45:52:02 – 00:46:09:09
Speaker 1
So I just want to thank my colleagues and friends here today. Who?