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DouglasOliverandPoliticalPoetryJoeLuna

Ah!heisgone,andyetwillnotdepart!–Iswithmestill,yetIfromhimexiled!ForstillthereliveswithinmysecretheartThemagicimageofthemagicChild–S.T.C.Artisredemptiveintheactbywhichthespiritinitthrowsitselfaway.–T.W.A.TheworkoftheBritishpoetandnovelistDouglasOliver(1937-2000)isnotnowwidelyreadordiscussedbymanypeoplebeyondcertaincommunitiesofpoets,criticsandstudentsoftheUKandNorthAmericanexperimental andavant-gardepoetry scenes.Yetduringhislater life, at least,Oliverwas the recipientofawide rangeofplauditsandenjoyedsomeimpressivepublicclaimsforhispoetry.ThereceptionofhisworkbythemainstreamoftheEnglishpressandliteraryorganswasoftenasenthusiasticasitscelebrationinthepagesofsmaller,avant-gardejournals.WritinginTheTimes,PeterAckroydnamedOliver’scollectedpoems Kind (1987) “the finest poetry of the year.”1PatrickWright and Howard BrentonbothheapedpraiseonOliver’sTheInfantandthePearl(1985)andPennilessPolitics(1991)intheLondonReviewofBooksandTheGuardianrespectively,withBrentonin1992claimingthelatterpoemhadset“theliteraryagendaforthenexttwodecades,”invokingbothEliotandMiltonascomparableprecursors.2BloodaxeBooksreprintedPennilessPolitics in1994withBrenton’secstaticrecommendationasaforeword.OliverwasdeclaredbyIanSansomin 1997, again in The Guardian, to be “one of the very best political poets writing inEnglish.”3Bythetimeofhisdeathin2000,Oliverhadbecomeoneofthemostpubliclyandinternationallyvisibleofallthepoetswhosewritingcareersbeganinearnestinthecollegerooms,grounds,domesticenvironsandpubsofCambridge,UKinthe1960s.Partlythishasto do with Oliver’s shifting geographical locales. His work as a provincial journalist inCambridgeinthe1960s,hisfrequenttravelsbetweenvariousEnglishcitiesandParisasajournalistinthefollowingtwodecades,toNewYorkinthelate1980suponhismarriagetotheAmericanpoetAliceNotley,andbacktoParis in the1990swherehe livedandwroteuntilhisdeath,allowedhimtheopportunitytoestablishconnectionswithcommunitiesofwritersinBritain,FranceandNorthAmericawithrelativeease.Partly,too,itwastheresultof a deliberate courting and attempted cultivation by Oliver of a wider audience for hispoetrythantheonehehadestablishedoriginallyamongsttheCambridgemilieuinthelate1960s,manyofwhomhavesincebeengroupedforcriticalexpediencyundertheshorthand“Cambridge School,” and latterly in the 1970s amongst the poets gathered at the newUniversity of Essex, where Oliver studied and taught. Oliver remained a loyal friend to

1 PeterAckroydetal,‘Bringingtheyeartobook...,’TheTimes,Saturday,November28th1987,p.13.2 PatrickWright,‘AJourneythroughRuins,’LondonReviewofBooks,Vol.8,No.16(September18th1986),

p.10;HowardBrenton,‘Poeticpassporttoanewera,’TheGuardian,Tuesday,April7th1992,p.38.SeealsoPatrickWright,‘Poetofthelowerdepths,’TheGuardian,October24th1991,p.23.

3 IanSansom,‘Toffeeoftheuniverse,’reviewofIanSinclair,DouglasOliverandDeniseRiley,PenguinModernPoets10,TheGuardian,Thursday,January23rd1997,p.A11.

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thesecommunitiesandacommittedsupporteroftheirworkhisentirelife. ThepoetandpublisherAndrewCroziernotedtherecognitionaffordedOliverbythemainstreampressinhisobituaryof6thMay,2000.CrozierdescribedOliver’sdesiretomoveaway from the small press poetry scenewithwhich he hadmost often published in thefollowingterms:

Even before [the playwright] Howard Brenton’s outburst in theGuardian in1992,acclaimingPennilessPolitics (1991)assettingtheliterary agenda for the next two decades, and invoking bothParadise Lost and The Waste Land, Oliver had taken the step,necessary in order to reach a broader public, of publishing with atradepaperbackhouse.4

SuchvisibilityasIhavenotedabovedidnot,infact,translateintothelargerreadershiptowhichCrozierappeals,andwhichBrenton,inhisenthusiastichyperbole,madeadeliberateattempttoencourageintoexistence.Sincethisreadershipdidnot,intheend,materialise,Brenton’s claims about “[setting] the literary agenda” sound today almost awkwardlyimpassioned.TheywereagenuineattempttopromoteOliver’sworkoutoftheobscurityinwhich it nevertheless remains. It is perhaps unsurprising that Crozier, a close friend ofOliver’s,greetedBrenton’sdiscovery,inthelastdecadeofOliver’slifeashethenwas,withsomeeyebrow-raising.Brenton’s 1992 review is an “outburst,” late to recognize thevitalworkofan importantpoetthathadbeenslowlyandpainstakinglycultivatedthroughthesmallpressscene(towhichCrozierwashimselfasignificantcontributor)fordecades.Theword finds in Brenton’s rhapsody a tone of flustered tardiness; some of us, intimatesCrozier,haveknownaboutthisstuffforalongtime.Crozier’sFerryPresspublishedmoreofOliver’swork thananyotherpressduringhis lifetime, that is, three collectionsofpoetryand a novel between 1969 and 1985. Crozier’s wording in his obituary is interesting. Itspeakstotheanxietyofrecognition,ofthequestionofthepublic,andofpublicity,thathassincebecomesomethingofacriticalbrickbatwithwhichtoaccusethe“CambridgeSchool”poetsofhypocrisy.Onecharacteristic formulationofthispositioncanbefound inRobertArchambeau’s essay ‘Public Faces in Private Places: Messianic Privacy in CambridgePoetry,’firstpublishedin2009bytheCambridgeLiteraryReview.5Archambeauarguesthat“poetsoftheCambridgeSchool,”withwhichheassociatesmostprominentlyJ.H.Prynne,but also Peter Riley, Tom Raworth, Simon Jarvis and JohnWilkinson, as well as KestonSutherland and Andrea Brady, “create a hermetic poetry, circulated outside the regularsystem of publication among a small group of cognoscenti.”6The charge of hypocrisy ismade when Archambeau suggests that “Cambridge” poetry “is often justified and

4 AndrewCrozier,‘DouglasOliver:Apoetarticulatingethicalvaluesinaworldofinjusticeandjoy,’The

Guardian,Saturday,May6th2000,http://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/may/06/guardianobituaries.books[accessed05.12.2014].ThetradepaperbackhousetowhichCrozierrefersisGraftonBooks(thenadivisionoftheCollinsPublishingGroup),whichpublishedOliver’sThreeVariationsonaThemeofHarmunderitsPaladinPoetryimprintin1990.TheentirePaladinPoetryserieswaspulpedlessthanthreeyearslater.

5 RobertArchambeau,‘PublicFacesinPrivatePlaces:MessianicPrivacyinCambridgePoetry,’CambridgeLiteraryReview,Vol.1,No.1(Michaelmas,2009),pp.199-215,reprintedinEmilyTaylorMerrimanandAdrianGrafe,ed.,IntimateExposure:EssaysonthePublic-PrivateDivideinBritishPoetrySince1950(Jefferson,NCandLondon:McFarland&Company,Inc.Publishers,2010),pp.31-42.

6 ‘PublicFaces,’p.31(MerrimanandGrafeed.).

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explainedasapoetrywithaspecificandfar-reachingpoliticalgoalandeffect,”meansandends that he identifies as a resistance to communication and instrumentality, and a“messianicrole” in“challengingthepublicsphere.”7Thesepositions,arguesArchambeau,are at odds with the limited audience for small press publications, because such acirculation“defiesthe ideaofapoetryofpublic,politicalsignificance.”8Archambeau isattimescarefultoreckononlywiththosewhochampionthepoetryofJ.H.Prynnewith“far-reaching political [...] effect[s],” but his argument slips into more direct criticism of all“Cambridge”poets’ allegedagendaswhenhe concludesbyasserting “both theapparentfutility of Cambridge School poetry’s political ambitions and a sense of the comfortingprivateconfinementinwhichithassooftencirculated.”9 This essay is about “political ambitions” and poetry. Archambeau’s criticismsuggests that without a broad public circulation and national readership, it is acontradictionintermstodescribeanypoetryashavinga“politicalsignificance.”Butwouldit not be fruitful to think about the “political ambitions” that poems harbour, and the“political significance” that they construe, as a way of teasing out the aestheticramificationsofpreciselywhat“politicalpoetry”is,hasbeen,orcouldbe?Withoutclaiminganything like a summary, or even to catalogue a set of tendencies among the hugelyvariousstrandsofcontemporarypoetrythatmightbedeemed“political,” Iwanttothinkaboutasinglepoet’ssingularworkasameansofexploringthedimensionsofthattermasitpertainstocontemporarypoeticpractice.DouglasOliverneverachieved,andlikelyneverwillachieve,thekindofreadershipthatwouldlegitimatehispracticeinthecriticalsightsofessays like Archambeau’s. What he did achieve was, I think, far more compelling. Hisoeuvreisbroadbutnotvast.Thedifferencesinstyle,formandtonebetweenOliver’sfirstcollectionofpoetryOppoHectic(1969)andhisonlynovelTheHarmlessBuilding(1973),andthe laterworksThe Infantand thePearl (1985) andPennilessPolitics (1991), are certainlysubstantial.Yet inmanyrespectsthethemes,personaeanddesires inOliver’searlyworkremainrootedtothespotforthedurationofhiswritinglife.Mostprominentamongtheseare: firstly, the fictional representation inproseandpoetryofOliver’s sonTom,whowasdiagnosedwithDown’ssyndromeandwhodiedinacotaccidentasaninfant,asafigureofbeatific, redemptive ignorance and innocence; and secondly,moments of untrammelledintersubjectiveunion,defined(orleftonlyintimated)invariouswaysacrossOliver’soeuvre,butusually connotingan ideal formof communicativeandemotional coincidence.Thesemoments drive both Oliver’s theory and his practice as a poet. In his theoretical proseOliverargues thatpoetic language– the language inpoems– is the languagecapableofcreatingthepotential forsuchmomentstooccurbetweenpoet-authorandreader. Inhismature poetry, moments of intersubjective unity are dramatized in the course of longnarrative arcs which they punctuate at key points, and which express an extraordinarymoral imperative to realise an ideal social relation more magical than material. It is acommonplaceamongst theexisting literatureonOliver,academicor journalistic, tonotethe “ambition” inherent in Oliver’s poetical project. But it is precisely the breadth andintelligence of this ambition that requires an explanation if the truemeasure of Oliver’scontributiontoEnglish-languagepoetryinthetwentiethcenturyistobetaken.

As I suggested above, I am interested in the “political ambitions” that Oliverharbouredin,ratherthanfor,hispoetry,andtheaimofthisessayistobegintomakesense 7 Ibid.,p.36.8 Ibid.,pp.31-32.9 Ibid.,p.41.

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of these ambitions through a reading of Oliver’s poem The Infant and the Pearl. By thedistinction inOliver’spoemsasopposed to for them, Imean todifferentiate theways inwhich Oliver construed the particular efficacious nature of poetic language from theeffects,ofanykind,thatsuchlanguagecanbedeemedeithertohave,ortofailtohave,inthe world. My focus here is on the ways in which Oliver’s poetry both prefigures andexceeds the question of literary efficacy in Archambeau’s or any other sense – whetherquantitatively in terms of numbers of readers, or qualitatively in terms of itstransformationalpotential,onanyslidingscaleofpublicorprivate significance.Between1972 and 1989 Oliver worked on a phenomenological theory of poetical language thatassertedthepossibilityofharmoniousintersubjectiveencounterbetweenpoet-authorandreader,activatedbythestressesinverselines.ThistheorybeganitslifeinaseriesofessaysOliverwroteasamaturestudentattheUniversityofEssex,1972-1975,andwasdevelopedinto the major thesis of Oliver’s only theoretical monograph, Poetry and Narrative inPerformance(1989).10HereisOliverdescribingtheexperienceofreadingverse:

Authorandreadercreate,throughtheirownimpliedpersonificationinthetext,aspecialintersubjectivity–aperfectingoftheemotionalandsemanticfieldsthroughasharedexperienceofspaceandtime,owingtothemysteryofartisticform.Theprocessrevealswhatoureverydayexperienceandspeechcouldbelikeif,whenouremotionswererealandnotimaginary,ourheartsandheadswereintemporalconsonance.11

This is a trulymysterious vision of aesthetic and social identity. Its scope conceptuallyexceedstheformulationoftheproblemofpretensionstoradical literaryefficacyintermsof chapbook sales or readership. It exceeds such a formulation not only because thetransformation asserted to take place during the act of reading a poem is essentiallyincalculable, “owing to themysteryofartistic form,”butalsobecause thedesiredendofsuch an act, at the furthest possible boundary of quantifiable social consequence, is thebringing into consciousness of something like a utopian stateofwhatOliver refers to asemotional, imaginative and temporal “consonance.” The reason this “consonance,” or“specialintersubjectivity[…]throughasharedexperience”isa“politicalambition,”andnotsimplyoronlyanaestheticone,isthatOliverfirmlybelievedthatpoeticformandsociallifewereintimatelyintertwined;that“unity,”athemetowhichhereturnedagainandagaininpractically everything he wrote, was the object of artistic, ethical, and social endeavouralike;that,asheputitin1990,

Unity of form disappears into ambiguous dark whenever weexamineitanalytically,butitsheartislikethealwaysbeatingheartof a poem: it is the precious origin of our lives’ form, or of a truepolitics.12

10 Forafullaccountoftheoriginofthistheory,muchofwhichOliverdevelopedatEssexlongbeforePoetry

andNarrativeinPerformancewaspublished,seethefirstchapterofmy‘ThePoetryandPoeticsofDouglasOliver,1973-1991,’unpublishedPhDthesis(UniversityofSussex,2015).

11 DouglasOliver,PoetryandNarrativeinPerformance(London:PalgraveMacmillan,1989)p.172.12 DouglasOliver,ThreeVariationsontheThemeofHarm:selectedpoetryandprose(London:Paladin,1990),

p.107.

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Whataretheramificationsofsuchacomplexanddaringclaim?Theequivalenceof

“ourlives’form”witha“truepolitics,”aphrasethatitselfseemsintrinsicallyunstableandcounterintuitive,letalonetheideathat“unityofform”isthe“preciousorigin”ofeither,isself-evidently not a claim that can be evaluated according to any schemaof sociologicalconfirmation.Thequotationistakenfromaseriesofreminiscenceswrittenforapublishedwork of autobiography modelled on a Dantean structure of confession and moralresponsibility inalternatingpoetryandprose,andsomustbereadinthecontextofa lifereflectedthroughtheopticofaconsciousliteraryinheritance.Butneitheris itaclaimtheallegorical,metaphoricalorotherwisesymbolicnatureofwhichcanpreventitspurchaseonsociallifefromexercisingakindofwildimprobability,whichistosay,itisimpossiblenottoconcludefromthestatementabove,wildlyandimprobably,thatthereconciliationofform,life andpolitics represents the seriousobject of a self-avowedpoetical labour in the latetwentiethcentury.ItispreciselythisseriouslyfantasticalnatureofOliver’spoetics–whatIwant to call their pragmatic utopianism– inwhich their value for current thinking aboutpoliticalpoetryresides:asarejoindertothetaxonomicalsobrietyofestablishingwhether,at what point, and exactly how much transformational potential per reader an artworkmightplausiblylayclaimto;butalsoasaformofpoliticalambitionthestructureofwhichisperpetuallyinexcessoftherationalorrealisticobjectofpoliticaldiscourse.DouglasOliver’smajor poems are fundamentally about, and labour to create the conditions for, an idealsocial relation that, in practice, only poetry can produce andmake available to us. Theydemandtobereadastheblueprintsforapoliticsmadepossiblebytheformalpropertiesofpoeticlanguage.Hereinliestheirgreatestproblematicandtheirgreatestaccomplishment.

The Infant and thePearlwas begun inBrightlingsea, Essex, in 1979, completed inParis in1985,andfirstpublishedinLondoninthesameyear,asastapledchapbookfromFerryPressandSilverHounds.Itisadreamvisioninthetraditionofthegenreofwhichitsnamesakeisthemostformallyremarkableandcriticallydivisiveexample,thefourteenth-centuryMiddleEnglishPearl.TheInfantandthePearlmimicstheformofPearl,aswellasitsredemptive,pedagogicalplot,veryclosely.LikePearl,Oliver’spoemiscomposedofonehundredandonetwelve-line,alliterativeanddenselyrhymedstanzasinnineteensectionsoffivestanzaseach,andonesectionofsixstanzas.UnlikePearl,theso-called‘extra’stanzainOliver’spoemappearsinthetwentieth,ratherthaninthefifteenth,sectionofthepoem.Oliver’s reflection upon the length of The Infant and the Pearl in the poem’s original“Author’s Note” is that the ‘extra’ stanza represents “a return to the sign of unity.”13Helaterdescribed thenumberof stanzas inThe Infantand thePearl in the following terms:“100[stanzas]forperfection,1forunity.”14TheplotofPearl isasfollows.Agrief-strickennarrator swoons into a deep sleep in the garden in which he has lost a “precios perle”[“precious pearl”].15 It is implied in the poem, though not, as some scholars assert,

13 DouglasOliver,TheInfantandthePearl(London:FerryPressforSilverHounds,1985),unpaginated.14 DouglasOliver,‘DouglasOliver,’JoyceNakamura,ed.,ContemporaryAuthorsAutobiographySeries,Vol.27

(Detroit,MI:GaleResearch,1997),pp.242-261(254).15 E.V.Gordon,ed.,Pearl(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,1953),p.3.AllquotationsfromPearlreferto

Gordon’stext,theeditionreadbyOliver.ThecurrentstandardeditionofPearlcanbefoundinMalcolmAndrewandRonaldWaldron,ed.,ThePoemsofThePearlManuscript:Pearl,Cleanness,Patience,SirGawainandtheGreenKnight(Liverpool:LiverpoolUniversityPress,2014).TheEnglishtranslationusedthroughoutisthatofTheGawainPoet,CompleteWorks:Patience,Cleanness,Pearl,SaintErkenwald,SirGawainandtheGreenKnight,trans.MarieBorroff(NewYorkandLondon:W.W.Norton&Company,2011).

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definitivelyestablished,thatthis“perle”isthedreamer’sinfantdaughterwhodiedbeforereachinghersecondbirthday.ThecoincidenceofthedeathofOliver’sowninfantsonTomwiththis(contested)plotpointofPearl’swasamajorfactorinOliver’sinitialattractiontothepoem.Whilstasleep, thenarratorofPearlexperiencesavisionofanearthlyparadisebedecked with precious stones and surrounded by “crystal klyffeȝ” [“crystal cliffs”].16Avirtuousmaidenappearswhoaftersomeconfusionthedreamerrecognisesas“myperle,”the same that he had lost, and with whom he debates the nature of salvation.17Thedreamer,overcomewith relief that “[his]perle”has returned tohim,makesanumberoffoolishblundersofspiritualinterpretationduringtheirconversation;theseincludethatthedreamerand“[his]perle”willnowandhenceforthbereunited.18Themaidenadmonishesthedreamer forhisvarious ignominiouserrorsandassumptionsandproceeds to instructhim bymeans of scriptural paraphrase and allegorical reflection in certain particulars ofGod’s grace and mercy (especially those bearing upon the salvation of infants beforebaptismand theparadoxicalnatureofheavenlyhierarchy),before finallyaffordinghimaglimpse of the New Jerusalem. Awestruck, the dreamer attempts to pass over into theheavenlykingdom,butinsteadawakesfromhisdream;thepoemendswithanexhortationtoallgoodChristianstorecognizeChrist’s“dereblessing”[“dearblessing”]intheEucharistandtoremainGod’sfaithful“preciousperleȝ”[“preciouspearls”].19

A survey of the plot of Oliver’s poem, and close attention to its reliance on theformalandnarrativedevicesoftheoriginalPearl,willprovideanintroductiontoitspoliticalthinking.Itbegins:

Lyingdowninmyfather’sgreydressinggownitsredcuffsovermyeyes,IcaughtsightofRosine,mypearl,passingoutofmyroomonenightwhileadreampassedoutofthenightofmynation.Whatarobeshewaswearing!Brownandsinewy,lioncoloursinthedoorlight;sheturned,Laura-like,onherfacealightfrowntobeleaving,notreprovingbutright-lipped,reddishhairlovingthedeadfacialcentre;virtuecould’vekeptherhadIenoughofit,thoughIdreamtofit.InmygreygownIwouldhavegladlysleptbyher.20

Oliver’spoem,likePearl,beginswithaloss.Thislossistwofold:thatofthepossibilityofaLabourgovernmentintheUKgiventheMay1979electionvictoryoftheConservativePartyunder Margaret Thatcher, and that of the possibility of the realisation of the “dream”associated with “Rosine,” the poet-author’s “pearl.” After Rosine’s disappearance in thefirst stanza,Oliver’s narrator-dreamer is takenona tourofConservativeBritain inwhichPearl’s descriptions of the earthly paradise recur ironically, as the landscape of “Chance

16 Ibid.17 Ibid.,p.918 Ibid.19 Ibid.,pp.43-44.20 DouglasOliver,SelectedPoems(JerseyCity,NJ:TalismanHouse,1996),p.40.Iquotehereandthroughout

fromthelastpublishededitionofTheInfantandthePearl.

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ruling commerce” in London’s financial district, the dazzling “rych rokkeȝ” [“rich rocks”]and“crystalklyffeȝ”ofPearlbecometheequallyoverwhelming,butnowgarishlymodern,“cityofdisdain/circledwithsteelwalls.”21Oliver’sdreamertravelsthroughLondontotheHouses of Parliament. Here he is transformed into a Labour MP “of the lunched-at-Locketts, dined- / at-Whites variety,” referring, as Oliver’s notes to the Selected Poems(1996) point out, to the “fancy restaurantsmuch used by politicians.”22He is “set up tospout/forpartyandpeople,proudthatParliament/hadseducedme,”andispresentedasthe epitome of a competent but self-deceptive careerist and opportunist. 23 ThegovernmentandoppositionbenchesintheHouseofCommonsaredividedinthepoembya“stream”whoseprovidenceisthe“stremþatdryȝlyhaleȝ”[“riverthatrunsarace”]thatseparatesthedreamer’slocusamoenusfromthe“Paradyse”[“paradise”]onthefarbankinPearl,andfromwherethePearl-Maidenstandsanddeliversherhomiliestothedreamer.24 Oliver’s dreamer lambasts contemporary Tory policy, in particular the reliance onwhat he understands to be the monetarist basis for government economic policy. Hereferences and paraphrases Sam Aaronovitch’s book The Road from Thatcherism (1981),interpolatingAaronovitch’s critique of inflation under Thatcher, and he ventriloquizes anorthodox Marxist position on Tory policy (also sourced, though less explicitly, fromAaronovitch)bydrawingattentionto“theclassbiasofthisblatant/waronworkers,thosejob losses which / were a deliberate disciplining.”25Oliver’s dreamer deceives himselfthrough these attacks. Hiswrong-headedness ismodelled on that of thePearldreamer,who

seeshimselfnotonlyasaherobutalso,moreabsurdly,asascholar.He is always ready to bandy argument and texts against theMaiden’sexplanationsofhersituationandhis,forgettingthatsheisoneof thosewho ‘thurghoutlyhavencnawyng’ (l.859) [‘thoroughlyhave knowing,’ i.e. ‘completely understand’]. In consequence, theDreamer[...]becomesacomicfigure,strugglinginvaintodominateaworldwhichisnothisandwhichhedoesnotunderstand.26

Oliver’s dreamer’s worldly, learned heroism is of a piece with the spiritual densityepitomisedbythetypicalprotagonistofthedreamvisiongenre.AsHelenPhillipsargues,

All dreamer-narrators have a tendency to seem stupid to someextent,fortheencounterbetweendreameranddream,ordreamerand authority figure, is a structure which splits the didacticenterprise in two, into the learning function and the teachingfunction.27

21 Ibid.,p.42;Pearl,p.3.22 SelectedPoems,p.56.23 Ibid.24 Pearl,pp.5-6;TheGawainPoet,CompleteWorks,pp.128-129.25 SelectedPoems,p.60,andseeSamAaronovitch,TheRoadfromThatcherism:TheAlternativeEconomic

Strategy(London:LawrenceandWishart,1981).26 A.C.Spearing,TheGawain-Poet:ACriticalStudy(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1970),p.106.27 GeoffreyChaucer,Chaucer’sDreamPoetry,ed.HelenPhillipsandNickHavely(LondonandNewYork:

Longman,1997),pp.13-14.

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Oliver’sdreamer’sstupidityisinsupposingwhatheknowstobethebestwaytotackleTorypolicy:“I’d/readAaronovitchontheA.E.S.[AlternativeEconomicStrategy],/soIstartedmagnificently, like a sinner who defied / a heavenly kingdom where the cliffs were ofglass.”28Thedreamer’seagernesstoannouncewhathehasreadmarkshimout,“absurdly,asa“scholar.”Andthecounterintuitivesimileinthelinesconfirmsratherthanexplainsthespeaker’s ultimate confusion: he starts “magnificently, like a sinner,” and in doing so heconfirms both his bullish attitude and his need of guidance byhis Pearl-Maiden, Rosine,whodulyreappearstochastiseandinstruct.Aaronovitch’s language(andthelanguageofMarxism more generally) is invoked in the poem as a specimen of inadequate critique,devoidofcompassion,andrevealedasthe“leftistsycophancy”bywhichtermitissoontobedenounced.Oliver’sdreamer’s“Marxist”speechalreadyexpressesthesoundofitsowninadequacybeforeitisexplicitlyidentifiedassuch.Punningonthebirthpangsof“labour,”possibly as a conscious reference to the use of that phrase by the advocates ofrevolutionary terror, theword “pushed” is used in all ‘B’ rhyme positions, encouraging adeliberatelyfastidious,bombasticandrepetitiveplosivealliterationtoechothroughouttheentirestanza:

[...]wageswerehikedwhenunionspushedhardest;this,helpedbyahaplessnationwhosepurchasingexceededproduction,pushedupprices;thenthepound’sdepreciationpushedupimportprices,andthatpushedupnotjustpricesbuttheexpectationofpricerisestocome,whichpusheduppurchasingdemand[...]29

The sound the speechmakes thus condemns its sense to absurdity even before Rosinebegins to admonish the dreamer for his attachment towhat she deplores as the “wholehollow / conformity of creeds,” an absurdity of which the dreamer is as yet blissfullyunaware.30Hiscomicbumbling,aswellashisphysicallystandinguptodebateintheHouseofCommons (“I stoodup tospeak”), is reminiscentof,and inherits theattribution to thedreamerofwide-eyedunreflectivestupefactionin,Pearl’s“Istodashendeashawkinhalle”[“Istoodthereastameashawkinhall”](l.184)and“Istodasstylleasdasedquayle”[“Asaquailthatcouches,dumbanddazed”](l.1085).31 Rosine then appears in the House of Commons. Oliver’s dreamer “recognize[s]Rosinethewayyou’drecognise/yourlover’slookinunionasaunity.”32Sheappearsinlineswhich announce their construction of symbolic significance in a manner reminiscent of

28 SelectedPoems,p.59.29 Ibid.30 Ibid.,p.71.31 SelectedPoems,p.59;Pearl,p.7,p.39;TheGawainPoet,CompleteWorks,p.130,p.156.TheMiddleEnglish

“hende”hasmoreconnotationsof“stupefied”and“dumb-founded”thanBorroff’s“tame”cansummon.SeealsoDavidAersonhawksinhalls:“thepointofthesimileistohighlight[...][thehawk’s]confused,dazzled,controlledimpotence-hawksinhumanhallshavebeenturnedfrombirdsofpreyintoeitherdomesticatedupper-classfowl[...]ortargets.”DavidAers,‘TheSelfMourning:ReflectionsonPearl,’Speculum,Vol.68,No.1(Jan.,1993),pp.54-73(60).

32 SelectedPoems,p.61.

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scholars’ attempts to unpack themulti-layered significance of the original Pearl-Maiden;sheisdescribed,inotherwords,inself-consciouslyliterary-criticalterms:

[...]Shedoublysymbolizedbothlionessandpearl:lionessinagility,pearlinthesettingofanimmobileparadisemadeactivebyhermovements.Inmedievalguise,she’ddenoteMercy,thedivinedonum;secularized,shewasSocialism,thiswisewomanwalkingintheunworldlykingdom.33

Rosineis“Socialism,”andsheisa“wisewoman”;shealso“denote[s]Mercy.”SectionsXIV-XVandXIX-XXofThe InfantandthePearlarestanzasofchidingadmonition,structurallyequivalenttothepassagesinPearl,especiallyIX-XIandXIV-XV,inwhichthePearl-Maidenschoolsthedreamer inpointsofChristiandoctrine.Rosineappearsasa“Saintwalking inthisunworldlykingdom /andmyworld,”andupbraidsOliver’sdreamer forhisLabouritepontificating,arguingthatnoLabourleadersincetheSecondWorldWarhasbeenabletobringeconomicstabilitytothecountry:

DidLabour,withWilson,showdown-the-linecouragetowinonthewagefront?DidJimCallaghangrapplewithasingle,genuinesolutiontotheseventies’gradualslackingthattheradicalsdidn’treject?Toundermineissobloodyradicalthatitleavesalltherootlessattackingtheroots.34

ShecontinueswithawelterofcriticismsoffactionalandidealisticLeftism,whichinclude:

Untilyoucancondemnthealso-ranhorse-tail-wagging-the-head,trade-union-inspired,internecine,leftistsycophancyinastylefitforit,thestateisstuckwithaToryforpearlandafalsenessforpolicy.Thewarmheart,whenweak,ispoliticallyunsoundandevenConservativeChristiancouragelikethatofyourfatherissounder.[...][...]Thepolicypushedthroughbyyourpremier,thoughbad,wasbelievedin.Notyours.[...]Torycruelty–fightthat–butifavotegoesmonetaristyoumustworkforit,untilmercy

33 Ibid.,p.61.34 Ibid.,p.62.

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miststheeyesandthemajoritydoubtnolongerthatthepearlisfalse.35

Rosine advocates the practice of patient political acquiescence. Her logic is as follows:Thatcherwasvotedintooffice;herpoliciesthereforehaveapublicmandate;thesepoliciesshouldbecarriedthrough“untilmercy/miststheeyes,”thatis,untiltheirtrulydamagingeffectscanbefeltandthepopulacerealise,intheir“heart[s]”andoftheirownaccord,thatsuchpoliciesare“bad.”WhenOliver’sdreamerattemptstoarguewithRosineintheHouseof Commons, in a passage that continues in the vein of bumbling ventriloquism thatcharacterises the earlier paraphrase of Aaronovitch, Rosine’s garments immediatelybecomerentandtorn:

[...](Thesideofherskirthadatear;itwasasifmywordswhippedageonher,awealofgreyskinwasscoredwheretheclothparted.)36

These lines allude to the appearance of Lady Philosophy in Boethius’ ConsolatioPhilosophiae, a foundational and highly influential text for latermedieval dream visions,includingPearl. In the opening passages of theConsolatio, LadyPhilosophy appears in a“robe”that“hadbeenrippedbytheviolenthandsofcertainindividuals,whohadtornoffsuchpartsaseachcouldseize.”37Philosophy’sclothing“wasoriginallyaseamlessrobe[...]whichwaslatertornbyhostilesects.”38Party-politicalaffiliationisdescriedassectarianismofthisilkinTheInfantandthePearl.Leftistanimositytowardsgovernmentpolicyismerest“sycophancy”: it cannot produce an effective argument because the Left’s alternativepolicieshavenotbeenvotedintooffice,andtheyarethereforechastisedasnot“believedin.” But more decisively, the very fact of political factionalism, of the party-politicalstructure itself, is that which the poem’s allusion to Boethius claims will damage anddestroy the seamless unity which Rosine, invoking the spirit of Lady Philosophy,represents. The last sections of the poem follow Rosine, now joined by the ghost ofOliver’sdeadfather(heofthe“ConservativeChristiancourage”)andtheshiningChrist-likefigureof Tom Oliver – the author’s own Down’s syndrome infant son – as they upbraid thedreamer for believing that political struggle against Thatcherism is possible withoutaccepting the virtue of “ignorance.” In The Infant and the Pearl’s ninety-seventh stanza,Rosine, in themanner ofPearl’s passages of homiletic instruction, delivers the followingencomiumto“ignorance”:

[...]‘Firstacknowledgethatthehighesthumanintelligenceisanearrelationofignorance;letlanguageuntwistonyourtongues.There’snotrueideaofpoliticalsystem;sosayso;don’tlanguish

35 Ibid.,pp.62-63.36 Ibid.,p.64.37 Boethius,TheConsolationofPhilosophy,trans.P.G.Walsh(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,1999),p.4.38 Ibid.,p.116.

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inrent-a-Marx/Margaretrhetoric[...]39

And this instruction is swiftly followedby thedreamer’s revelation in thepoem’sninety-ninthstanza:

Amemoryseathathadlainatlowtideinmymindslowlymountedmakinggreenmydensedarkness,radiantliquidfilledmyvision;somewhere,half-seenapreciouspearlwasshininginme;apellucidawarenessofallthathadpassed–allthathadbeenborninmeonemorningwhenthemongoloideyesofmysonstaredatme,smiling,sereneintheirway–waseerilyglowingagain,whatImeanbySocialism,thatoursoulandourselvesareunknownyetunconsciouslyknownintheunionbetweenpeople.(Ilayinmygreydressinggown.)40

The argument of the poem up to this pointmay be summarised in the following terms:politicalsolutionstoBritain’scontemporarycrisisunderThatcher,whetherfromtheleftorright – but especially from the left – are incapable of truly solving the national problem.They are incapable of solving it because they do not recognise that political solutionsthemselvesareepiphenomenaltothemorefundamentalquestionofthe“unionbetween/people.”The intelligent recognitionof thevirtueof“ignorance”as theuniversalcommongroundfromwhichsucha“union”maybecomeestablishedisthatwhichthefigureofTomOliver teaches. Tom is a limit case for the exercise of human care and benevolence: hisdemandonsocietytocareforhiminhisdisabilityprovidesbyextensionthemodelforthetypeof responsibilityandcareweshouldallhave foreachother.The reference toTom’sconditionby the racistand,until fairly recently, commonepithet “mongoloid,”aswellasbeingsimplyoffensive,attempts inthestanzatoproposethenominallycontemptableasthatwhichmustbe loved, andwhich in turn loves, unconditionally.Tom’s “ignorance” istherefore not just unificatory, but divine. Note these lines from the poem’s hundredthstanza:

[...]‘Thepearlisourselfinwhichliesarosyreflectionofallwhomwecareforenough,theOtherrenderedperfectinparadiseofourself-love[...]41

Oliver’s choice of “enough” in this stanza, prosodically emphasised and provocativelyisolated by its position immediately following a line-break and followed by a strongcaesura, echoes Pearl’s use of variations on “innoghe” [“enough”] as a link-word in itseleventhsectionduringthePearl-Maiden’sexplicationoftheParableoftheVineyard,and 39 Ibid.,p.72.40 Ibid.,p.73.41 Ibid.,p.73.

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thesalvation,throughgrace,ofthe innocents. Inotherwords,the“care”Tomteachesusweshouldhaveforeachotheris,likeChrist’s,ameansofexcessdirectlyproportionatetoitsends;itisaredemptiveandsalvificsufficiency.Itcanrenderthe“Other[…]perfect”ina“paradise /ofourself-love.” Inthepoem,Tom’sdivinity istwofold:aswellasembodyingthe Christ-like virtue of serene beatitude, Tom is also a Buddha-like figure ofenlightenment, and is so because of his “ignorance.” In the poem’s sixth section, he isdescribed as “oneonwhom / innocence and incapability impose an immutable /Buddhafacebeaming;forDown’sSyndrome/[...]hadkissedhimwithmercy.”42 The Infant and thePearl contains, in the voiceofRosine, explicit criticismofbothConservative and Labour economic policy. The poem attacks monetarism, inflation andunemployment, and it berates what it calls the “unfunded promises” and “carelessschoolboyaccountancy”ofLabour,SocialistandMarxisteconomics.Butitdoessoinordertosubordinatethequestionofpoliticaleconomytothequestionofunity,anditdoessobydiagnosingtheproblemsofwhatRosinecalls“avirtuelessnation”preciselyintermsofitslack of “virtue,” “mercy,” “courage” and, finally and catastrophically, “ignorance.” Leftopposition to Thatcherism, in the poem, is worse than ineffective without these moralvirtues:itisasycophanticscamdreamedupbycareerist“Kinnock-clever”politicianswhichobfuscates and denigrates the ideal “unity between / people.” What Oliver’s dreamermeansby“Socialism”inTheInfantandthePearl’sninety-ninthstanzaisclearlysomethingdistinctfromanyrationaldemocraticorrevolutionarycritiqueofpolitical ideology. InTheInfantandthePearl,andinOliver’sothermajorpoliticalpoemsTheDiagramPoems(1979)andPenniless Politics (1991), political context is subordinated at crucialmoments to thetruthoftheinadequacyofitsgenerictype,humanpolitics,asasolutiontotheproblemofhumanviolence,class struggle,antagonismandstrife.AsOliverwouldput it inPennilessPolitics, “all solutions [to social andpolitical crisis] are falsewhen the spirit iswrong: thebiggest mistake / of our age is to think politics will cure our lives.”43Oliver’s poetic iscentrallyconcernedwithgettingthespiritright.Thisinvolvesthesubordinationofpoliticstothatwhichmust,forhim,betheorganisingprincipleforasocialrelationhithertoignoredandactivelydebasedbypoliticalaffiliationofallstripes.Olivercallsthisprinciplebyvariousnames.IntheintroductiontoTheDiagramPoemsitisan“authenticpolitics”;inTheInfantandthePearlitis“Socialism”anditsclearestexpressionis“theunionbetween/people.”

In Oliver’s early unpublished essays, and in Poetry and Narrative in Performance,unityissomethingapoet-authorandareadercanachievetogetherintherealisationofanunfetteredintersubjectivityproducedinthemeetingofmindsthatpoeticlanguagemakespossible– it isa“special intersubjectivity,” forged inthe“sharedexperienceofspaceandtime”thatthereadingofpoetrymakespossible.InTheInfantandthePearl’sninety-ninthstanza, a “sea” of “memory” floods “mymind”with clarity,making the dreamer freshlyawareofthehithertountappedreservesofwhathealreadyknows.Therecognitionofthis“memory,”whichhadalwaysbeenthere,laying“atlowtide,”re-assertsthatwhichOliver’ssonTomrepresentsinallofOliver’spoemsinwhichheappears:theirrefutablegoodnessofpacifistic(“serene”)humanco-habitation.Furthermore,thespeaker’scorporalframeitselfexperiences the sceneof re-birth in sympathywithTom, asboth infant andmother: theamniotic fluid of some “radiant liquid” “fill[s]my vision,” and the dreamer is figurativelyimpregnatedwiththe“awareness”thatwas,andis,“born inme.”Thestanzaexpressesarevelationthatisbothphysicalandintellectual:“radiantliquid/filledmyvision,”producing 42 Ibid.,p.4943 DouglasOliver,PennilessPolitics(NewcastleuponTyne;BloodaxeBooks,1994),p.55.

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a “pellucid / awareness” that is “born inme,” an awareness characterisedby an influx ofreceivedwisdomandillumination.But“vision”isalsometa-textual,sincethe“vision”isinoneimportantsensethedreamvisionwearereadingandwhichisTheInfantandthePearl;itisinthissensethatthepoemnominatesitselfastheverymediumbywhich“awareness”ofourcommonhumanitycanbe,and is,mademanifest. Inthefinal,climacticstanzasofOliver’spoem,RosineandTombothpromote“ignorance” inthenameofunity,andtheyarebothsubsumedbythequestionofunityintoactingasfunctionariesforitsexpressioninthe poem’s narrative trajectory. They are both exemplary figures of the achievement of“unity”asamoralvirtue,butbytheirveryexistenceasfictionalidealisationswhoseartificeis reflexively couched in the poem’s formal and prosodic fourteenth-century inheritance,theycondemntherealworld’slackof“unity”andchastiseitsinabilitytoachieve“unity”ineveryday social relations. The enjambment “between / people,” the spatial and, in anygivenreading,temporalgapbetweenthesetwowordsinthefleetingmomentittakesforthereader’seyestoscanbacktothe leftmargin, iscomposedbyOlivertobethe iconofourpresentinabilitytoachievethatwhichTheInfantandthePearldemandsthatwemustachieve:“unionbetweenpeople.”Thatlinecannotyetbewritten,becausewedonotyet,asa“nation,”submittothedemandthatwerecognizeunityinourcommon“ignorance”asabasis for “Socialism.”Oliver’s dreamer, andOliverhimself, haveaguide in the formofTom to teach them the truth of this relation, andThe Infant and the Pearl is, finally, anextensionof thisdidactic relationship.The closestwe can therefore come to recognisingourpotentialforutopianpolitics,fortheunitythat is inusandthatweare, istoreadthepoem itself – the enjambment “between / people” admits and performs this fact. In thebreak between these lines echoes the figure of a phenomenological abyss betweensubjects. It is the prospect of this figure’s abolition that the poem wants to prove bysubjectingittotheiconicscrutinyofaline-break,theveryperformanceinprosodicmethodofadistancethepoemexposesinordertomakevisiblethenecessityofitscollapse.

It might conceivably be argued that Oliver contradicts Rosine’s admonition thatthereisno“trueidea/ofpoliticalsystem”fiveyearslater,bynaming,aswehavealreadyseen,“thepreciousoriginofourlives’form”a“truepolitics.”Buta“truepolitics”isnotan“idea,”and it isstill lessa“system”: it isanethical imperativebuiltonthefoundationsofformal and intersubjective unity. Oliver’s dreamer consciously differentiates what he“mean[s]bySocialism” fromwhatmostwhomight self-identifyasa socialist in themid-1980smightexpressbytheterm.A“unionbetween/people”isnotatradeunion,becauseit is more primordial than the cognitive knowledge required to form and act upon theorganisationalandpoliticalimperativesofsuchanassociation.A“unionbetween/people”retains the value of “our soul and our selves” being “unknown,” and yet “unconsciouslyknown,” that is, it retains the intrinsicvalueofwhatscholarsofPearl concerned to teaseoutthemoremysticallyinflectedmeaningsofthepoemcallthe“ineffable.”WhatOliver’sdreamer/narrator “mean[s] by Socialism” in The Infant and the Pearl is essentially bothineffable and, to use another term deployed byPearl critics, figural. Here, again, is howOliver’sdreamerdefinestheterm:

[...]whatImeanbySocialism,thatoursoulandourselvesareunknownyetunconsciouslyknownintheunionbetweenpeople.44

44 SelectedPoems,p.73.

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AnnChalmersWatts,discussingPearl,describes“Theheightofmysticalexperience”as

the apprehension of the “ineffable,” so-called even in modernparlancebecausebeingatonewithGodmustbydefinitionleaveallhuman desire and language far below. By gradual discipline ofcontemplation, the mystic comes to a momentary experience ofGod’s light, God’s love, or eternal knowing, and the experiencepasses beyond desire and language even sooner than it passeshumanunderstanding.45

TheprotagonistdreamerofPearl,Wattscontinues,“desire[s]aunionofwordtoreferent,of motion to stillness, not possible to humanity and not compatible with true mysticalvision.”46ThisistosaythatthePearl-poet

playsoffthedifferencebetweenhisdreamer’sinexpressibilitiesandthe inexpressibility that properly belongs to themystical traditioninfluencingthepoem.47

The fact of the dreamer’s “inexpressibility” inPearl is that which proves, forWatts, theexistentialcertaintyoftheverymysticalunion,i.e.,“beingatonewithGod,”thatheseeks:“Languageprotestingthefailureoflanguageapprehendsthesurebeingofwhatcannotbeexpressed.”48At the end of The Infant and the Pearl, as we saw above, Rosine exhortsOliver’s dreamer (and by extension – note the plural “tongues” – everyone) to“acknowledge”preciselysuchaninexpressibility:“letlanguage/untwistonyourtongues.”Whatistobeallowedto“untwist”onallofour“tongues”intoastateofunbiddennaturalcommonality is “language,” rather thanspeechorvocabulary, since it is “language” itselfthat remains twistedbyour clinging to political “rhetoric.” Thedistinction recalls that ofSaussure’slangue[language]andparole[speech],bytheimputationthattolet“language/untwist”wouldbetoreturntoanaturalsystem(langue)ofcommunicativetruthfulnessandnot simply a negative manifestation of that system’s expression in speech or writing(parole).Languagewillnot“untwist”byanydeliberateactofintelligenteloquence,arguesRosine, letalonebytheassertionofany“trueidea/ofpoliticalsystem,”butbecauseit islanguage’snatural action todo so ifonlywe “let” it. Language in itsoriginallyuntwistedstatedoesnotprofessa“trueidea/ofpoliticalsystem”andthereforeconfrontsinauthentic“rhetoric” with the truth of its inexpressible other. Inexpressibility is expressed in thefollowingstanzas’definitionof“Socialism”overa line-break:theenjambment“between/people.”

YetdespiteTheInfantandthePearl’sapathy,orevenantipathy,towardsthetradeunions’ battle with Thatcherite economic policy, the very mystical universalism of thepoem’s “Socialism” shares common ground with the origins of the British trade unionmovement. In the pre-Marxist history of labour organisation, dissent, and agitation in

45 AnnChalmersWatts,‘Pearl,Inexpressibility,andPoemsofHumanLoss,’PMLA,Vol.99,No.1(Jan.,1984),

pp.26-40(29).46 Ibid.,p.30.47 Ibid.48 Ibid.,p.33,p.29.

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England,anotdissimilarconceptionoftheuniversalityand inalienabilityofnatural rightsplays a critical role. E.P. Thompson’s demonstration of the complex social and religiouselements of radical politics inEngland in the 1790sdistinguishesbetween, but notes thecoextensiveandoverlapping influenceof,whathe refers to as the “rational conceit” andthe “visionary image” of radical dissent. Thompson discusses the pervasive influence ofTom Paine’s Rights of Man as well as citing, as examples of the combination of“‘combustiblematter’ofpoorman’sdissentwith[...]arevolutionaryera,”tractssuchasthe1798MillenarianpamphletUnityandEqualityintheKingdomofGod:

The high and the low, the oppressor and the oppressed, shall bereducedtooneperfectlevel.Thepamperedtyrant,andhisindigentvassal;thewealthypeer,andtheneglectedpauper,shallreceiveanequitableandimpartialsentence.49

The revolutionary implications of the late eighteenth-century conception of universalbrotherhood are exemplified as much by Blake’s visionary fervour and Wordsworth’spaeans to the French Revolutionary spirit as by the London Corresponding Society’s“rational”collectivistagitation.The“spirit”ofradicaldissent,writesThompson,“whetherinitsvisionaryorinitssuperstitiousform[...]wasperhapsaslong-lastinginitsinfluenceasthe arguments of Tom Paine.”50Oliver’s “Socialism” maintains this spirit by jettisoningregardfor,orinterestin,agitation,thelatterassociatedinthe1790swiththemostradicalofJacobinassociationsandbythe1980swiththeMarxist,Labourandtradeunionleft.Theradical inheritance of The Infant and the Pearl is therefore closely akin to some of the“prophetic schools” which operated in the mid-1790s such as the “True Baptists” ofNorwich,WisbechandLiverpool,who,Thompsonargues,madegreateffortstorecalltheircongregations“fromtooliteralanencounterwithApollyonandbacktothepilgrimageofthespirit.”51Thespiritofuniversalism,oftheselfandsoulinmutualharmonywhichOliver’s“Socialism”proclaims,retainsakernelofpropheticsermonisingaspassionateandsincereasBlake’sownvisionofuniversalmutualityinhisJerusalem,“Bothheartinheart&handinhand.”52TheachievementofthismutualityinafuturestateofsocialharmonyisthesharedpreserveofOliver’s“Socialism”anditsprecursors,whetherintheL.C.S.’scorrespondence,eighteenth-century Millenarian tracts, or later nineteenth-century utopian socialism,including elements ofMarxist thought. The esoteric spiritual paradox of the question ofunityremainsinTheInfantandthePearl,andthisisthatunityisinus,andwecanachieveit:yetwedonot.Itistherenonetheless,andtheenjambment“between/people”remindsus of this fact; unity is waiting for us to recognize and accept it as the only authenticorganisationalprincipleforhumanlife;waiting,infact,tobefulfilled. ForCaryNelson,Pearlexpressesasceneof thecompletionofhumanhistory,andthe achievement of “perfect understanding [...] after death” congruent with Auerbach’sexplicationofthe“divineorder”infiguralexpression:

[T]he individualearthlyevent is [...] viewedprimarily in immediate

49 E.P.Thompson,TheMakingoftheEnglishWorkingClass(London:PenguinBooks,1991),pp.127-130.50 Ibid.,p.130.51 Ibid.,p.129.52 WilliamBlake,CompleteWritingswithvariantreadings,ed.GeoffreyKeynes(Oxford:OxfordUniversity

Press,1979),p.652.

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verticalconnectionwithadivineorderwhichencompassesit,whichonsomefuturedaywillitselfbeconcretereality;sothattheearthlyeventisaprophecyorfiguraofapartofawhollydivinerealitythatwillbeenacted inthefuture.Butthisreality isnotonlyfuture; it isalwayspresentintheeyeofGodandintheotherworld,whichistosaythatintranscendencetherevealedandtruerealityispresentatalltimes,ortimelessly.53

DoesOliver’spoem,andespecially“whatImean/bySocialism,”lookforwardto“awhollydivinerealitythatwillbeenactedinthefuture”?Oliver’spoem,likePearl,endsinafailure–the dreamer’s failure to cross the “gutter” between himself and Rosine, structurallyequivalent to thePearl dreamer’s failure to cross the “strem” [“stream”]which separateshimphysically,spirituallyandallegoricallyfromthedreamworld,thePearl-MaidenandthevisionoftheNewJerusalemshehasjustaffordedhim–andlikePearlthatendingsanctionsthe message of commitment to a code of moral and social human behaviour, howeverbroadly defined. InPearl, thismessage is that “Hit is ful eþe to þegodKrystyin” [“GoodChristians can with ease incline”], since “Paradyse” awaits those who recognise thatsalvationin“Krysteȝdereblessyngandmyn,/Þatinþeformeofbredandwyn/Þeprestevusscheweȝvchadaye”[“Christ’sdearblessingbestowingmine,/Asintheformofbreadandwine / Isshownusdaily insacrament”].54At theendofThe InfantandthePearl,twostanzasafter the“unionbetween /people” isdeclared,Oliver’sdreamerbegins “crossingthegutter thatonlygrace /cancross,”a figure reminiscentof theverydistancebetweensubjectsthat“union”mustovercome,butisrudelyawakened:

[...]Icaughtameretraceofgreyfrom[Rosine’s]gowns,hergravefrown,andawokeinadawnofourdailydisgrace,lyingdowninmyfather’sgreydressinggown.55

BothPearl andThe Infantand thePearlend inadeficitofgrace thatmustbe fulfilledbyGod’slove,Oliver’spoemevenmoreexplicitlythanPearl,as“grace”rhymesuncomfortablywith its ubiquitous, everyday opposite. The presentation of Rosine inThe Infant and thePearlas “secularized, shewasSocialism” is invertedat the climaxof thepoem,atwhichpoint “Socialism” is ardently and emphatically spiritualized. “Socialism” in the poem is astate of “union” to be fulfilled in a redemptive futuremoment, and this futurity is what“Socialism”means inOliver’s poem. But this state is also “always present,” because the“special intersubjectivity” provided by poetic language, and emphasised by theiconographicenjambment“between/people,”providesapotentiallyinexhaustiblenumberof just such moments between poet-author and reader on a metrical, rhythmical andsyllabiclevel–thepoem’s“truereality,”inAuerbach’sterms,“ispresentatalltimes.”The“memoryseathathadlainatlowtide”whichbeginstheninety-ninthstanzaistransformedbyitsendinto“aperpetualrecollectionwhichbecomesaradical,Christocentric,andopenlyfuture-orientedreorientationoftheself.”56TheInfantandthePearlisaredemptivepoem,

53 ErichAuerbach,ScenesfromtheDramaofEuropeanLife(NewYork:MeridianBooks,1959),p.72.54 Pearl,pp.43-44;TheGawainPoet,CompleteWorks,p.160.55 SelectedPoems,p.73.56 ‘TheSelfMourning,’p.66.

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its definition of “Socialism” drawn from a spiritualism expressed in the language ofChristian eschatology, its solution to political antagonism the wholesale substitution forpolitics of a utopian moralism to which poetic language is the best available guide.57Oliver’spractical politicsare thereforeutopian,precisely in the sense Jamesonarticulateswhenhearguesthat“utopiaemergesatthemomentofthesuspensionofthepolitical.”58Utopian, mystical or otherwise otherworldly political solutions are deployed in Oliver’sversewith an arduousness and a commitment that promotes into a spiritual ecstasy thecommonplaceof human interaction. The result is a political commitment in verse to thetask of re-defining politics by first suspending it, and Oliver’s poetry hereby presents aradicallynon-contingentcounterexampletoalreadyexistingpolitics.Thiscounterexamplemustbeginbyestablishingthatnoversionofcurrentlyexistingpoliticsisgoodenough,andby extension, that none ever will be, until the transformation of self and soul in eachindividualmakes a “true politics” possible. It is the objective of Oliver’smature politicalpoetry,andespeciallyofTheInfantandthePearl,todeclareandmakeapparentthistruth,fromthegeneral toneandshapeof thepoetry’snarrative,argumentandallegory, totheminutiaeofparticularinstancesofrhymeandenjambment. Thereareofcourseagreatmanyproblemswith thepoliticalambitions inOliver’spoetryasIhavejustnowsketchedthem.Whatisso“special”aboutthe“intersubjectivity”activated by poetic language, and why should it provide the model of utopian identityurgedintheveryprosodicgrainofOliver’sownpoems?Theethicaldimensionthatinheresinsuchanencounterasisnamedby“specialintersubjectivity”iseffectivelyassumed,andnot rigorously worked out or demanded in Oliver’s work; it is the apparently necessarycorrelate to a theory of communicative authenticity whose ideally harmoniousconfigurationistransferredbymetaphoricaleconomytothestatusofabehaviouralcode.Why, exactly, the harmony of self and soul in some specifically dyadic and reciprocal“union”shouldberegardedasintrinsicallyvirtuous,orwhyitshouldentailtherecognitionof a virtuous sort of political authenticity, or beneficent universalism, are questions towhichThe Infantand thePearl doesnotprovideanyclear-cutanswers.The treatmentofMarxistcritiquesof social relations in thepoemranges fromthescepticalandglib to theflatly reactionary, and its treatment of organised labour’s struggle against Conservativedevastation is deliberately provocative – The Infant and the Pearl was first published inEnglandshortlyaftertheignominiousendofthe1984-5UKminers’strike,theconclusionofwhichleftalegacyofgovernment-sponsoredpolicebrutalityinthewakeoftheBattleofOrgreave (18th June, 1984), and aworkforce severely cowed by Thatcherite policywhichincluded the Employment Acts of the early 1980s. The gender dynamics at work in thepoemarealsosuspect,andproblematizetheshapeof“union”itself.Fromthepoem’sveryfirst stanza, the male dreamer’s perceived sexual abandonment and loss are intimatelyconnectedwithpoliticaldisenchantment.Thedynamicofheterosexualanxietycentral toTheInfantandthePearlhasitsrootsinthesexualdynamicsofPearl,andinthewidergenreofmedievaldreamvision.“Thisgenre,”writesSarahStanbury,

57 Oliver’spoemwouldthusbeaparadigmaticexampleofa“redemptiveaestheticbasedonthenegationof

life”andaparticularlypowerfulcaseofthe“moralmonumentality”of“artthatredeemsthecatastropheofhistory,”wereitnotforthesignalfashioninwhichTheInfantandthePearlreflectsuponandundoesitsownredemptivedesigns.Iexplorethisundoinginmysecondreadingofthepoem’sfinallines,below.SeeLeoBersani,TheCultureofRedemption(Cambridge,MA:HarvardUniversityPress,1990),p.2,p.22.

58 FredricJameson,‘ThePoliticsofUtopia,’NewLeftReview25(Jan.-Feb.,2004),pp.34-54(43).

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whichisalmostexclusivelymaleinvoice,frequentlyhasitsoriginsinthe loss of a woman: the dead Beatrice, reincarnated in Dante’sComedy;orChaucer’sBlanche[...][are]masteredthroughtheworkofmourning.59

Oliver’spoemisheavily invested inthegenderedsymboliceconomyofthedream

vision genre that Stanbury describes. The poem consciously drenches itself in thissymbolism.Thedreamer“loses”theideallyfeminisedRosine;hemakesaseriesofblundersthatRosine,inaroleakintothatofBoethius’LadyPhilosophy,mustadmonishandcorrect;andhefinallycomestoanunderstandingabout“ignorance”thatRosine,asdivineemissaryand intermediary, impresses upon him. But there is somethingmore troubling than thisinheritedsymboliceconomyatworkinOliver’spoem,andthatistheunderlyingstructureofwhatismosthighlyprizedinthenarrativedevelopmentinwhichthissymbolismisputtowork: the question of unity. Union between people in the shape of the institution ofmarriage does not have a history overbrimming with connotations of the radicaltransformation of social relations, but rather a history of patriarchal domination andexploitation,andoftheconcomitantpersecutionofsexualitiesthatdonotconformtothepattern of heterosexual desire. What The Infant and the Pearl valorises as “the unionbetween / people” is not limited to, but certainly includes, heterosexual union, that is,straight procreative sex. This ismade clear bymoments such as Oliver’s relief when heclaimsthat“I recognizedRosine thewayyou’d recognise /your lover’s look inunionasaunity”inthepoem’sthirteenthsection,andevenmoreexplicitlyduringthecelebrationoftherighteous“unionofmale/andfemaleinfruition”inthepoem’sfifteenthsection.60Thehistoryofthevalorisationofthe“unionbetween/people”asa“unionofmale/andfemale”called, specifically, “Socialism,” is one fraught with essentialist definitions of male andfemaledifferencedesignedto liberatewomenfromcertainsocialandreligiousstrictures,but which perpetuate their subordination through the vehement reassertion of thecontinued necessity of other, especially economic and political, ties. That is to say, thehistory of the valorisation of heterosexual union as a touchstone for utopian socialism isdominated by sexism, most ably exemplified by Proudhon’s frankly misogynisticconceptionofloveinhislateworkDelaJusticedanslarévolutionetdansl’église[1858],inwhichwoman“doesnotcount”inthespheresofsocialandpubliclife,andthereinshouldbeconsidered“aspartofherhusband,”andinhiscorrespondencewiththecontemporaryfeministwriter JennyD’Héricourt.61Proudhon’s virilemisogyny is of adifferent, farmoreperniciousorderofsexualstereotypingthantheuseofclassicallygenderedfemalesymbolsto be found in Oliver’s poem. Yet the structure of fundamental moral absolutism thatunderpins both Proudhon’s gendered essentialism and his socialism is also part of TheInfantandthePearl’spoliticalargument.

These problems cannot be dismissed simply by reminding ourselves that it is thedreamerwhose“I”means“Socialism”inthewaysinwhichIhavetriedtoshow,andnotthepoet Douglas Oliver, since the very expressive power of The Infant and the Pearl relies

59 SarahStanbury,‘TheGazeontheBodyofPearl’sDeadGirl,’LindaLomperisandSarahStanbury,ed.,

FeministApproachestotheBodyinMedievalLiterature(Philadelphia:UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress,1993),pp.96-115(99).

60 SelectedPoems,p.64,p.61.61 StewartEdwards,ed.,andElizabethFraser,trans.,SelectedWritingsofPierre-JosephProudhon(London:

Macmillan,1970),p.255.

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heavilyontheinheritedformulaofconfusionandrevelationinherentinthedreamvisionasgenre.But theymaybecontextualisedaspartofanhonestaccountof thepoem’s form,andintegraltothatformisthedeepstructuralironyofitspoliticalambition.TheInfantandthePearl argues thatnoversionofpolitical affiliation,noexistingpolitics, is sufficient totransform the “nation” in a way that would improve the lives of the country’s mostdisadvantaged; it is,thepoem’shundredthstanzaasserts,“[u]nthinkable[...] /topretendthatthepoorwillprofitfrompolicies/whosemercyhasgreyedinthepearlymirror/ofthenation’sidentity.”62Itis“[u]nthinkable”becausethe“nation’sidentity”istherebyhi-jackedeither by the invasive parasitism of Thatcher’s Tory vampires, or by the alternative butinsolventstrategiesoftheMarxistleft.Botharedoomedtofailure,becausebothideologieslack the necessary “mercy” that would enable them to acknowledge that “the highesthumanintelligenceisanear/relationofignorance.”63Itisworthpointingout,asifitwerenecessarybynow,howextraordinarythisisasapoliticalargumentdirectedagainstspecificinstitutional targets. Oliver’s great achievement inThe Infant and the Pearl is to level inmedieval pastiche a rejoinder to contemporary politicswhose terms are overwhelminglydemotic and infinitely in excess of the material and social situation to which the poemspeaks.ThisenablesthepoemtoexertapurchaseonpoliticallifeintheUKthatisatoncesatiric and utopian, both nihilistic and extraordinarily hopeful. By claiming through theinheritance of a medieval paradigm of spiritual moralism the sheer insufficiency of thecontemporarypolitical landscape,The InfantandthePearlmakespolitical transformationcontingentontheattentiontotheobjectofpoeticaldiscourse itself:Oliver’spoemisnotsimplymimeticorrepresentativeof“unity,”butascloseaswecangettoitsperfectedlivedinstantiation. The line-break “between / people” declares this fact and exacerbates thesocialefficacyofitsdesign.Momentssuchasthisfigurethecompositionofpoliticsbasedon the immediate and unmediated meeting of minds, the model for which is theuntrammelledinter-subjectiveunionofthepoet-authorandanyreader.Thiskindofpoliticsisonlyavailableinpoems.

ThepoemTheInfantandthePearlknowsthisaboutitself.Thepoem’sproposalofitsownlegitimacyisatthesametimethatlegitimacy’sundoingbythefantasythatsustainsandnurtures it.Thepoliticalambitions in thepoemare inseparable from itsanti-politicalargumentabout “rent-a-Marx/Margaret rhetoric,” a supposedequivalentbind theescapefromwhichisformallyconstrainedbythepoeticobjectdefinitivelyinfrontofus.TheInfantandthePearl’sgreatweaknessesareobvious:therankequivocation justnowmentioned,itstendentiousrelianceonasceneofheterosexualpossessionastheepicentreofmoralandspiritual harmony. But the poem’s greatest strength is to make ardently apparentsomethinglikethedifficultyofthinkingthroughtheshapeofequivalenceandharmonyasthey are bound to thisworld, and to each other, by the history of their purchase on theaesthetic imagination. This history the poem both fantastically abolishes and seriouslywants to begin: it turns equivalence and harmony into a dream themanifest content ofwhich is the desire for their instantiation as a form of relation for the very first time inhumanhistory. Indoingso, thepoemformallyannounces thecontingencyofallpolitical“solutions”themselvesat thesametimeas iturgesthenecessityof reachingbeyondthecontingenttoanundisclosedbutpracticallymagicalandredemptivefuturestartingpoint;the poem looks forward to this future up to the point at which its narrative structure

62 Ibid.,p.73.63 Ibid.,p.72.

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demands that it cease doing so.64Above I called The Infant and the Pearl a redemptivepoem,andIthinkitis,butitisalsothecasethatredemptioniscancelledinthepoemasacondition of its fleeting proposal. The Infant and the Pearl and Oliver’s later sprawlingmulticulturalNewYorkepicPennilessPoliticseachstrivetorealiseautopianpoliticalvisioninverse,andbothendwithdamningevaluationsof theentireendeavour.The InfantandthePearlends,aswehaveseen,

Ibegancrossingthegutterthatonlygracecancross.Icaughtameretraceofgreyfromthegowns,hergravefrown,andawokeinadawnofourdailydisgrace,lyingdowninmyfather’sgreydressinggown.65

Penniless Politics, referring to the “spirit” of radical communal co-operation and socialengagement,aswellasthefictionalpopulistpoliticalparty“Spirit”(theoriginsandhistoryofwhichPennilessPoliticsnarrates),endslikethis:

[...]Wewalk,20th-century-blind,towardsburial,pretendingthatallwillcomerightinsomepersonalheavenlykingdom.Wewouldn’tknowSpiritif,Spiritontop,itfuckedusuptheass.66

These endings are not the same. But they offer comparablemoments of termination inwhich the poet-speaker (or imagined collective body), prostrate in both instances, isviolentlywrestedfromeachpoem’sself-consciouslypoeticaldreamworldandfirmlyplacedin a scene, and a position, of submissive abjection. This kindof termination exercises anoverwhelmingretroactivepowerovertherestofthepoems,andpromises,orthreatens,toinflect or undo their every argumentative twist.Wehave known all along that these arepoems–neitherpoemletsusforgetit–buttherebarbativereflexivitywithwhichtheybothconclude is nevertheless remarkable. It is in the faceof this kindof termination that thepoems’ desire to instantiate a field of political efficacywithin the bounds of poetic formitselfmustberead:notastheunconditional fantasyoftheworldas itwouldshine inthemessianic lightoftheinfantchild’sradiance,orbythetemporary,heart-warmingglowoftheecstatic constitutional harmonyofSpirit, but rather as the kindof fantasywhich thehumanityuniversally implicatedby itsowncollectivewish-fulfilment isnotevenremotelycapableofseriouslydreaming.67 64 IdrawhereonTomJones’recentbookPoeticLanguage,andtherelationshipbetweencontingencyand

necessitythathedescribesintheintroductiontothebook,suchthat“attitudestowardslanguageanditsrelationtorealityarerevivedandreorientedinspecificwaysbypoeticlanguage,totheextentthatthecontingentandyetnecessaryrelationswithinlanguagesystemsandbetweenlanguageandpracticallifeareknownandfelt.Poemsmakethemerelypossibleappearnecessary,andthenecessaryappeartobechosen.”SeeTomJones,PoeticLanguage:TheoryandPracticefromtheRenaissancetothePresent(Edinburgh:EdinburghUniversityPress,2012),p.3.

65 Ibid.,p.73.66 PennilessPolitics,p.77.67 IfindeedBersani’sdefinitionoftheredemptiveaestheticappliestoOliver’spoems,asIsuggestedabove

thatitcould,thenweneedalsotoconsiderBersani’sdefinitionofsolipsism,whichheappliestotheanti-redemptiveworkofart,suchthat“thewriter’slimitedauthority,evenhispoliticaleffectiveness,dependson[a]strippingawayofallauthority,ontherecognitionoftheworkofartasanimpotentdiscourse.Thework’ssolipsisticexistenceinthemarginsofhistoryundermines,oratleasthelpstodelay,theeventual,

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ThejarringdespondencyofTheInfantandthePearl’sending,atleast,issomewhatalleviatedbytheformalconceitofthewakingdreamerthatitsimitationofPearldemands.Yet both endings seem to suggest the unavoidable futility of the poems’ own centralargumentsaboutpoliticaltransformationanditsprosodicfacilitationinpoemsthemselves,aboutthepossibilityofa“truepolitics.”Politicsbothbeginsandbeginstoendhere.Whydothesepoemsendinthisway?Oneanswertothisquestionmightbe:inordertopreventthe runaway notion that poetic language exercises any presumption of worldly designoutsideoftheboundsofthedyadic“special intersubjectivity”betweenauthorandreaderthat Oliver claimed it made possible. Politics, these endingsmight forcefully admonish,cannot, finally, be made here; and by asserting this they underline the effort of theimagination required to produce a scene of social relations unlimited by the failures ofparliamentary democratic process, by whatPenniless Politics calls “our ordinary politicalfailure.”68Such a reading would serve as a stern reminder of the literary limitations ofutopiaandofthepracticalpoliticalactivitytobemaintainedinthefaceoftheselimitations.But thisanswer isalso toocomfortablycynical foranyseriouslyutopianproject,and it isfurthermoreatoddswith theeffortofpassionatepoliticalandanti-political thinking thatwe have discerned inOliver’s work. These endings do not insure the poems against thecollapseoftheircomplexdramasofpoliticaladventureintoagitprop.Instead,theyplayoutthe literalisation of poetical-political desire into brute complicity with an impotent,sanctimoniousandalltoopredictabledreamofabetterworld,andthisplayisproductiveratherthanproprietary,afurther,brazenlynon-contingentapostrophetothecontingencyofexistingpoliticalsolutions,ratherthanadeferential,rationalacknowledgementoftheirineffectiveness. The challenge to the readerofThe Infantand thePearlandPennilessPolitics thattheirfinallinespresentisthis:theyaskthatthequestionofaestheticandsocialidentitybesuspendedinfavourofattentiontotheurgencyofpoliticalfantasywhichhasenabledthatidentity to emerge, on the horizon of aesthetic contemplation, over the course of thepoems’reading.Thepoemsmakethischallengeindifferentwaysandindifferentcontexts,butthechallengeisbroadlythesame.It ismademoreviolentlyin1991thanin1985.Theimageofphallic,patriarchalviolationisstronger–amoremasterfulanddramaticflourishof repellentmastery, in commonwith thegenderedmoralhierarchywediscerned inTheInfantandthePearl–thanthelanguageofdisgrace.Gracemaybeconferredinthefuture,sincethatis,afterall,itsfunctionanditspurposeforaredeemedhumanity;butrightnowwearefucked,“heaven”amerely“personal”pretence.Ifthepoemsendedinaspectacleoftriumphant,Danteanspiritualharmony,or if theyconcludedwithanearnest rejoinder tothereadertomakeuptheliterarydeficitwithsocio-politicalcommitment,theirpowerstomediaterealityfromtheprivilegedstandpointofaestheticspeculationwouldbebetrayedbyagarishpretensiontowholesaleomnipotence.But“ifeachandeveryartworkinvolvesaprobablyaporeticnexusofproblems”suchasweencounter in thesepoems,especially intheirfinallines,“thisisthesourceofwhatisperhapsnottheworstdefinitionoffantasy.”69Adorno continues: “As the capacity to discover approaches and solutions in the artwork,

inevitablecomplicityofallartwithacivilization’sdiscourseofpower.”TheCultureofRedemption,p.170.ThewaysinwhichOliver’spoemsendeffecttheentirestructureoftheircomportment;theyclaimimpotenceasafunctionofhistoricaltraumaandformalexceptionality.

68 PennilessPolitics,p.76.69 TheodorW.Adorno,AestheticTheory,trans.RobertHullot-Kentor(LondonandNewYork:Continuum,

2004),pp.228-229.

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fantasymaybedefinedasthedifferentialoffreedominthemidstofdetermination.”70TheendingsofThe InfantandthePearlandofPennilessPolitics refuse theautonomyof free-floatingreverie,ortheauthorityofclumsydidacticism,bydrivingthepoemsintotheheartof theworld theywould transform.Bydoingso theyensure that theelementof fantasy,thatofthe“unionbetween/people,”isfirmlylodgedinthemidstoftheexisting.Itisthepoems’ internalcontradictionbetweenfantasyandreality,powerfullyepitomisedbytheirendings, that secures andmaintains the fantastical in the face of the real, of what TheInfantandthePearlcalls“ourdailydisgrace.”Theappearanceof theseendingsbindsthepoemsirrevocablytotheworldthatwouldcondemntheirdreamofspirit,andofunity,tofailure.

TheInfantandthePearlandPennilessPoliticsarepoemsinwhicheverysyllableandstressofeverylineispositivelyriggedwithpolitics.Thepoliticalagendaindissolublefromthegrainofprosodybywhichthesepoemsexerttheirpowersofargument,persuasionandimperativeisonethatfindsconfirmationofitsaspirationstosocialjusticeintheaestheticresultofpoeticcompositionitself.Inotherwords,thepoems’“politicalambitions”arenotexpressedasaby-productorneatlyextractableresultoftheirpolemic,butareinfactmadepossible in thefirstplacebytheformalpropertiesofpoetic language.Theyarepoems inwhich political desire is made from the very stuff of poetry. Perhaps an attempt tounderstandhowandwhythisisthecasemightaidusinlooseningthestrangleholdofthecontemporary prevailing narratives of mandatorily uneasy aesthetic and politicalcohabitation – as if the meaning of the two categories were somehow mutuallyconstituted,whenitcomestopoliticalpoetry,bytheir inabilitytoreconcileeachothertotheirownparticularkindofpurchaseonsocial life–andallowusinsteadtostartthinkingaboutthekindsofpoliticsthatonlypoemshavethecapacitytopresent,promiseorpredict.Such an attempt as ismade heremay plausibly go someway towards starting to thinkabout how, in a very specific sense, politics getsmade (and unmade) in poems, and byextension, how poems –whole poetries, in fact – are liquidated into lifeless componentparticles when criticism promotes their political thinking to the status of an advertisingtagline(whetherfor‘worldchange’orfor‘subjectivetransformation’)ratherthanattendingto the full-blowncomplexityof their formalvirtue, their fantasticgift.71Iwant tosuggestthatspeculationsofthissortmightaidusindeterminingwhat,exactly,“apoetryofpublic,politicalsignificance”atthecynicaldénouementofthetwentiethcenturyactuallymeant,as well as to reflect upon what this “significance” might come to mean in the hyper-virtualisedbarbarityoftheearlytwenty-first.

70 Ibid.,p.229.71 “Covertlythepoemtransforms[the]vernaculartoaprosodicgiftwhoseagencyflourishesinthebodily

timeofaninstitutionalandeconomicevasion.”SeeLisaRobertson,Nilling:ProseEssaysonNoise,Pornography,TheCodex,Melancholy,Lucretius,Folds,CitiesandRelatedAporias(Toronto:Bookthug,2012),p.83.