WORK IN PROGRESS

My biography of John Adams, Architect of Freedom (1738-1826) was published August 24, 2009, and is available on Amazon.com, B&N.com, and other stores, both on and off the internet. It turned out well, and I think you will enjoy it. It's a short book of about 45,000 words, and since 10 years of research and writing into it, I have a little of the feeling of the elephant who labored so hard to give birth to a mouse. But it's highly readable and makes its points. The price they put on it is $18.95. If you wish to order a copy, the ISBN is 978-1-4401-4704-3. Joe Cowley

HUMOR/SATIRE

UNDERSTANDING POETRY

Symolism in Mother Goose

One of the difficulies in reading poetry, especially modern poetry, it is generally agreed, lies in its rich use of symolism. Each line, each word, is made to carry a weiht of meaning that goes for beyond the obvious. But this should not deter the serious seeker after beauty.

A good poem is meant not only to be read, but to be re-read. "Meaning lies layered in petals of beauty," as the famous line from Wordsworth has it. With each reading a good poem unveils itself like a shy woman, until we are to the inner core of her beauty and meaning.

Symbolism, however, is not a new phenomenon, as we shall see in the exegesis that follows. In it we will attempt to heighten (perhaps even arouse for the first time) your awareness and appreciation of the time-honored grace (in the largest sense of that word) that can be found in a few simple lines, beauteously wrought, penned by the world's greatest lyric poets.

The selection we have chosen is from the collected works of Mother Goose. It is entitled:

LITTLE MISS MUFFIT

Little Miss MuffitSat on a tuffitEating her curds and whey.

Along came a spiderAnd sat down beside her,

And frightened Miss Muffit away.

There is, of course, much that is obvious in this little poem. The author has cleverly made us aware, right from the start, by means of his (or rather, her) title and first line, that we are dealing with a woman -- a shy, frightened, little woman, who is single and alone. Like the opening of a Beethoven symphony, the Freudian overtones go ringing down the corridors of time right from the start.

Who is this mysterious woman? Why should she be eating alone? Why should a mere spider frighten her? These are significant questions, as we shall see as we undertake, line by line, our textual exegesis. Or, to quote Shakespeare, "there is more her than meets the eye." (Whether Shakespeare or Bacon wrote that line is another question which we won't get into right now. Mainly because some of our readers might not feel Bacon is kosher). Instead...let us reason together over that first line:

"Little Miss Muffit"

As we mentioned (cf. pp. 4, or maybe 5), this opening line highlights one of the main points of the poem: we are dealing with a "little" woman. Some critics have tried to claim this is a steal from Louisa May Alcott, others that it's merely a slip of the pen (but very Freudian), still others that it's a translator's error. But however it's translated, we become aware, very quickly, that the poem deals with a sex-starved, ultimately rather prim (it turns out) young lady who is not married.

Could it be, as the line so generously suggests, that she missed "it"? You may want to quarrel with this interpretation, but what is it a young lady coming into full flower is most likely to miss? And to miss it means she must have known it, which casts doubt on her virginity. However, the line goes on to hint, via her very name, that, somehow, she "muffed" it. Is she doomed to miss out on it, to continually muff it? As readers, our sympathies are immediately aroused. A male reader will want to soothe and comfort her, a female reader to straighten her out. The big question is, was this poem written before the days of the pill? If so, doesn't the whole question become anachronistic? Perhaps. But we can'be be sure. Let's go on to the second line...

"Sat on a tuffit"

The first question which is likely to spring to mind when you read this line is: What is a tuffit? But, then, there are secondary questions. Why did she sit on it? Is it customary to sit on tuffits? Or, if you will glance for a moment at the third line, should "curds" have been spelled with a "t" and "tuffit" with a "c"? This would reduce it to the level of a simple printer's error and indicate that the author was too cheap to pay for an AA (Author's Alteration). If so, do we see sother evidence of cheapness in the poem?

Next, of course, we become aware of the very obvious play on words. The author is saying that the "it", whatever it is, is tough -- perhaps too tough for a frightened, shy, little girl. And in a secondary sense, he is also expressing his sympathy fo her by implying that what happened to her is "tough titty".

Immediately, we want to cry out: Is that the clue to the entire poem? There is no question that some childhood trauma is behind it all -- the frightened bedhavior, the pervading sense of anomie, etc. However, the plain truth is that we don't know what happened to her when she was a child, and we shouldn't jump to a conclusion too soon. Instead, let's go on to the third line, which is also wrought with an overpowering symbolism.

"Eating her curds and whey"

We are dealing here, as we at last find out, with a compulsive eater. And this bolsters, of course, our theory of the childhood trauma. It also tells us why she is eating alone. She is ingesting food on the sly because, unconsciously, food has sexual significance for her. It is not only a mother substitute, a cry for love, but in particular it is a cry for sexual love. In Freudian terms, to quote from "The State of Anxiety," she wished she were pregnant.

She is, therefore, a poor, love-starved, sex-starved girl -- little (and also a little fat which the author doesn't come right out and tell us, but which we can guess from the circumstances of the activity) and lonely. Again, our sympathies are aroused. We wonder, is this poem to be a tragedy or a comedy? Our interest has been heightened and we wonder what will happen next. But before we go on, let's take a look at what she is eating -- "curds and whey."

Like most readers, your reaction is likely to be one of disgust. Even if you don't know what "curds" are, the very sound of the word indicates the level to which this poor, unfortunate girl has sunk ("whey" down, as the author makes explicit). She is also poor, it is clear, if she is reduced to eating such food -- perhaps desperately poor, which not only adds to her plight, but increases our understanding and sympathy.

She needs help, and not just psychiatric help (the rule is the body first, then the mind). For we must first feel those we would help (I meant, of course, "feed," not "feel" -- that was a slip. But I will not expunge the error, for it was suggested by the poem itself, which is a point I want to make at the end of this article: If we expose ourselves to pornographic filth, we can't help but be corrupted by it.). Before we leave the second line of the poem, I would be remiss if I did not point out the hippie-Marxist overtones of the word "whey." This girl is obviously "whey" out, as the author makes fairly explicit. The question left unanswered, however, is this: Is she a member of the radical left, or merely a dupe? We are never told, for example, what clothes she is wearing: could it be she is stark naked? But perhaps the thought of a naked fat woman is too weighty an idea for this simple poem to bare (another slip, of course).

Egad, with slips like that you might think I'm going to pot! Actually, of course, as any who knows me can testify, I haven't had any pot. The question is, has Miss Muffit? One certainly can wonder. Certainly that would put her "whey" out. Though we can never be sure, it is these little doubts and ambiguities that lend richness to the writing that is of the first magnitude. The author is demanding that we throw ourselves into the poem, bring something of our own to it. This, therefore, is a question you, the reader, must decide. But, then, no great work is necessarily easy to read. However, the rewards are great for those who struggle through, as we must now do.

"Along came a spider"

We know right off the bat, of course, that this is no spider. For spiders don't "come along." They drop down on silken skeins (gossamer, usually). But if not a spider, what? Do the many legs symbolize the many arms of love thast Miss Muffit cries out for? And yet can't accept when they finally arrive (because they are hairy, perhaps?). The meaning here is particularly difficult to unravel. Like Miss Muffit, we find ourselves in a frightening jungle, a nightmare world of menacing creatures who symbolize our childhood terrors.The question is, did Miss Muffit, as a baby in her crib, actually see something hairy (her mother and father making love, perhaps) that frightened her? Critics have argued this point, some of them unkind enough to suggest that Miss Muffit didn't have parents (in the normal sense of the word). But that's neither here nor there, and certainly doesn't negate ou central point -- mainly, that we're dealing with a very serious case of arrested development.

Miss Muffit may have all the accoutrements of a normal, well-developed young lady, but her emotions (especially her sexual feelings) are obviously those of a child. Our own pity for her at this point is probably excruciatingly painful. We wish her the best, we would like to reach out and help her, but we don't know how. It is this feeling which prepares us for the sad, the tragic, ending, we now realize is in store for her -- and for us as readers of this enthralling poem.

But, like the fake spider, let's "come along" to the next line, where the nightmarish terror finally erupts into a plangent expression of hopeless despair as this hairy, outwardly sexy (fiendishly so) beast moves in for what we anticipate will be the rape scene (but which our author mercifully spares us). Many women of faint heart have been known to put the poem down at this point, unable, understandably, to go on.

"And sat down beside her"

This, of course, was very clever of the spider (but as he is older, more mature we immediately sense what he is up to and what he has on his mind). "Thank God," we exclaim, that Miss Muffit, for all her tender years, comes to her senses in time to avoid the catastrophe. I could not, in all consciousness, recommend this poem to you, regardly of how great it might be, if it were otherwise. But, as I've indicated (see paragraph above), the author spares us, and the spider merely "sits" (in some adult versions of the poem this is not the case) beside her...

"And frightened Miss Muffit away."

The sense of relief we feel as readers is overhwhelming. This, at last, is the denouement. Miss Muffit, despite all her hang-ups (or perhaps because of them), has been saved. And yet (and this is where much of the greatness of the poem lies), at the same time, we feel sad, because we know that while Miss Muffit's maidenhead may have been spared, her maindenhood has not, and she will go on -- lonely, alone, pure, but eating her heart out (and her cupboard), waiting for a not-quite-so-hairy prince to come along and sweep her off her feet (or "tuffit," as we may say in Old English), and wondering, in the deepest sense, whether the spider might not have been her white knight in disguise.

As readers, we are left wondering whether the spider doesn't symbolize all of us -- the beast in us, that is? Are we all as pure as we might like to think we are? Or does there lurk ominously in our dark souls our own spidering beasts, waiting to ravish us (and any young maidens who might be handy)? But, of course, this we will never know, because the author herself never provides the answer. Which is what makes poetry great, and this particular poem a sheer joy to read.