LITR 5535: American Romanticism
 
Student Poetry Presentation, fall 2003

Mindi Swenson

Poetry Presentation: “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop  

Poem  Background: Bishop writes about her experiences throughout her life.  Such as a poem called “The incident” about something that happened to her while she was in the waiting room  at the dentist.

She has extreme description and observation throughout her poems

She looks within her own life and views incidents just like she would a tree or a fish.

She seems to pick an aspect of her subject and focus really hard on that one thing.

Question:  What romantic qualities do you find in this transition poem?

            (Bishop is a poet writing during the transisition between romanticism and realism)

Discussion:  “The Fish”

Emily:  She sees herself in the fish – in nature.  She’s tired and there’s a kinship with the fish.

White:  For romanticism there’s a correspondence between self and nature.  The level of detail lends itself more to realism.

Kristi:  I see it as Romantic.  It sets up a nature versus man scenario.  The description of the fish is in nature.  Later, as she looks out she sees the larger picture.  She sees the rusted boat, the oil and she is torn between nature and mechanization.

Yvonne:  It reminds me of Annie Dillard because of the details.  She goes from minute details to the larger picture.

Holly:  In line 62 I see it as Romantic.  The fish is an achiever that has escaped man.

White:  It gives the fish character.

Charley:  The fish even escapes from her.  It doesn’t fight but its kind of like reverse psychology.

White:  That’s the romantic aspect that allows us to personify the fish.  But in terms of realism, in line 41 she also sees the fish as an object or something different or not like her or us.

Gwyn:  Desire and loss?

White:  Yes, but more like the sublime.  Something of the other within yourself.  The ending is ironic.  It does the best it can with infusing nature and mechanization.  This is a later stage of consciousness which is Post Romantic.

Mindi:  The realism is easier to see but I tried to look at it in terms of romanticism.

Charley:  She does use the realism and romanticism.

Thomas:  The wallpaper imaginary ties into the romantic.

White:  ‘She shifts from the roses to barnacles.  She also uses images of things as tattered, shredded, and in rage.  The edges are uneven.