READING MODULE 1

15 / DEC / 2005

By: GASPAR JULIO NAVARRO AMADOR

SUBJECT: Own vision and interpretation of John Keats’ poem “Lines on the Mermaid Tavern”

LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN

 

Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine?
Or are fruits of Paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest as though bold Robin Hood
Would, with his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can.

I have heard that on a day
Mine host's sign-board flew away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer's old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new old sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack
The Mermaid in the Zodiac.

Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?

(John Keats)

(Ref 1))

 

In this poem written by John Keats, what I have clearly recognized is that the poet is lost in desperation. In a way he seems to be between two worlds. On the first hand, there is a metaphysical and platonic world that we may find after death. Where we may have a paradise, an “Elysium”, right like the poet mentions, where the Gods after death in Greek Mythology, but also a symbol of a state of perfect happiness sent only selected heroes. On the other hand, there is the real world, what we all know, that is the world of feelings and sensibleness. This world represents what is material, touchable, drinkable or eatable. For the poet we can find the highest reward that is happiness, in both worlds. But in the impossibility to have known the Elysium of dead, Keats asks the reader and himself in a existential question where will a poet be sent to. If he will be sent to the Elysium of the Greek Mythology, or if he will have to remain having just known the Elysium of the material world, that is food and specially drink.

The author talks about a tavern, in which, probably as usual, he gets drunk. From the very beginning, the title makes a clear reference to the place that he used to go, probably looking for escape, and in order to have the peace that alcohol gives him, in search of the proper state for transcendental enquiries. British inns have a very related-to-something name, which means that they owe their names to some obvious reason lost in the depths of history. For instance, a place frequented by butchers would be probably named “The Shoulder of Mutton”, whereas an inn frequented by farmers would be named “The Shepherd’s Rest” or “The Woolpack”. There are many more examples about the relation between the name of  a public house and the people that frequented it as in a tavern called “The White Hart”, which makes relation to the ancient loyalty to Richard II, who decided that all inns should have a sign, also mentioned in this poem. The tavern, in here,  has the name of “The Mermaid”. This association between a mermaid and a place of entertainment is quite interesting. A mermaid is an imaginary creature, half woman, half bird. Following the Greek Mythology, this creature would end being half woman, half fish, and it is traditionally known among sailors. According to the legend, the mermaid lived in an island and had a lovely singing that when you listened to it you were irresistibly attracted and your ship crashed against the rocks. The mermaid means the dead end. From my point of view, these interpretations can be taken from the poem: On the one hand, Keats frequented this tavern because he lived close to a harbour or a port, and which sailors, which would explain the actual name of the place at the time, following the British pub-name tradition, also visit. On the other hand, it is also deduced that there is a deeper and more philosophical meaning of the name, which is what Keats enjoyed from this tavern. From here I take the background metaphor of the poem. For the author, “The Mermaid Tavern” is actually the mermaid. The beautiful and sweet voice of this mermaid that makes him go is the alcohol. Finally, the crash against the rocks and subsequent inevitable dead end is the state of being wasted. There is a contradiction in the poet’s mind probably because he does not think that he deserves a paradisiacal reward after dead, that he is not one of the chosen poets to become a hero after life,  or probably just because he had some sight of madness, but the point is that how can he think that there is an Elysium in the state of happiness at some stage of  being drunk if that will inevitable lead him to drink more and more and exchange that possible paradise by a state of unconsciousness, then unhappiness? One option that comes to my mind is that this state of unconsciousness is a sort of end, which he wants to reach, to see what Elysium does he deserve, or perhaps he knows that his real end is actually close. Thus, the author has a constant anxiety related to this issue, that force him to drink and be depressed.

The poem has a circular structure in the sense that starts and ends with the same question. He wants to evaluate what he has experienced in life and where he will go after death. Where will his soul go, as the souls of many other poets like him.

There is a contrast between a “Happy field” and a “mossy cavern”. For him a happy field may be whether the Elysium after dead, or a life without problems. The mossy cavern may mean whether the representation of a wasted life that does not deserve anything but a gothic and murky place after dead as opposite to an Elysium, or a life full of difficulties. These two options that rise from the poem seem to be worthy enough not to have the option or the suffering of the Mermaid Tavern that apparently represents something right in the middle. This symbolizes the nonsense, the nowhere, nor black, nor white. He feels stuck in the middle with a desperate feeling of worthless, and the anxiety that this stagnant situation may produce to him.

Keats enumerates what we could find in the tavern, as for example fine drinks as the Canary wine, pies of venison… He compares all this with what he thinks may have been what Robin Hood would have shared with his mate Marian. For the author the way he can have all this food and drinks are like the way Robin Hood would have had it. The Prince of Thieves always gave these delicacies to his partners in a great feast, and the best of them to his lady Marian. This evokes that the tavern is like the place where Robin and his friends had their meals.

During a time in which the poet was probably abroad from England, he mentions that the tavern was closed expressed by “Mine host’s sign-board flew away…” Here I see the importance above mentioned about the signs of the inns in England. The rhetoric figure used in here is a synecdoche. Keats says that the “sign” is gone away, but the actual meaning is that the owner of the tavern has changed the whole tavern to another place. So he takes the whole from a part of it.

Then, Keats says that an astrologer wrote the new address of the tavern in a sheepskin, or parchment. This may be the poetic way to say that a friend of him found this tavern, which had changed his name, address, and communicate John Keats probably by letter. Then, in this metaphor the astrologer would be his friend and the sheepskin would be the letter. The astrologer, his friend, is named in this way because it makes relation with the new name of the tavern, which is no longer The Mermaid Tavern, but The Mermaid in the Zodiac. This new name is also very interesting in the sense that now the mermaid is singing from the sky, that draws the signs of the zodiac by joining the stars with an imaginary line.

This has a double significance too. The sky is transcendental from now on in the poem since it turns now into the goal for the poet. It has a sense of deep romanticism, a part from being firstly, one of the means by which formerly people orientated themselves, and now orientates John Keats. Secondly, this acquires a new strength given by the influence of the universe, according to the zodiacal signs.

The poet finally ends his poem by asking again about what have all those poets deserved, what Elysium have they lived, and what Elysium will they find, including himself, better or worse than the Mermaid Tavern.

 

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES

 

1 - PoemHunter.Com, Poemhunter, thousands of poets and poems,

http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=3156&poem=17667

            nov /2005

 

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