American Romanticism
Student Poetry Presentation 2008

“The Fish”

by

Elizabeth Bishop

Background

--Lived from 1911 to 1979

--Octavio Paz described Elizabeth Bishop in a tribute to her.

      “The enormous power of reticence – that is the great lesson of Elizabeth Bishop.”

--The first eight years of her life were most challenging. Her father died when she was eight months old. After a series of breakdowns, her mother was institutionalized when Bishop was only five.

--One noticeable aspect of her poetry concerning her early life was her desire to avoid sentimentality and self-pity regarding the difficult experiences of her childhood. She seemed to use the same “unflinching gaze” when describing both compelling landscapes and her own life as well (N 2398).

--She was known to emphasize “the dignified frailty of a human observer and the pervasive mysteries” that surrounded her (N 2398).

--She graduated from Vassar College in 1934 and lived in New York, Key West, Florida, and also in Brazil for more than sixteen years. She also loved to fish.

--She taught at Harvard University from 1970 to 1977 and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1955 and was the first woman to receive the Books Abroad Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1976.

Objectives Addressed

--Objective 1.1b – To speculate on residual elements in “post-Romantic” writings from later periods including “Realism and Local Color,” “Modernism,” and “Postmodernism.”

--Objective 1.1a – To identify and criticize ideas or attitudes associated with Romanticism, such as desire and loss, rebellion, nostalgia, idealism, the gothic, the sublime, the individual in nature or separate from the masses.

--Objective 2.2e – American Romanticism exposes competing or complementary dimensions of the American identity: is America a culture of sensory and material gratification or moral, spiritual, idealistic mission?

 “The Fish” – Let’s Read!

Discussion Questions

1) The narrator opens the poem by admitting to holding the fish “beside the boat half out of water.” Could this be symbolic in relation to the concept of the sublime? If so, how?

2) One aspect of Romanticism focuses on the individual in nature. How would you describe the narrator in the poem? Is he or she alone or with another fisherman? Does the analysis of the narrator’s possible isolation hold any importance concerning the residual nature of Romanticism that might exist within the poem?

3) Nostalgia is a common element seen repeatedly in Romantic writings. Do you notice a sense of nostalgia in this poem? If so, where? Explain its significance.

4) What is the significance, if any, in the couplets found in lines 46-47 and 73-76? Do these in any way contribute to the residual Romantic aspects of the poem?

5) Do you notice any immediate comparisons between Elizabeth Bishop and Whitman’s poetry from last week’s readings? Please be specific!

Works Cited

Elkins, Mary J. “Elizabeth Bishop and the Act of Seeing.” South Atlantic Review 48 (1983): 43-57. JSTOR. U of Houston, Clear Lake Lib., Houston, TX. 10 November 2008 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3199670.

McNally, Nancy L. “Elizabeth Bishop: The Discipline of Description.” Twentieth Century Literature 11 (1966): 189-201. JSTOR. U of Houston, Clear Lake Lib., Houston, TX. 11 November 2008 http://www.jstor.org/stable/440842.