McCoy's Life Journey曉風

Surrealistic Portrayals in “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” by John Ashbery
There are many outstanding poets in the different period of the 20th century in American literature, such as Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, John Ashbery, and so on. And one of these poets mentioned before is John Ashbery who won many literary awards includes Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and so on. John Ashbery who famous for “moves freely between different modes of discourse between a language of popular culture and common experience and a heightened rhetoric often associated with poetic vision,” according to the shorter edition of Norton Anthology of American Literature has referred. (2606) And in his writing, “he has often written in a way that challenges the boundaries between poetry and prose,” according to the shorter edition of Norton Anthology of American Literature has referred. (2606) I would like to choose one of his poem likes this style poetry “between and prose’’ which has mentioned from the shorter edition of Norton Anthology of American Literature has referred, and makes him get three awards in 1976. (2606) Since John Ashbery has dealt with this longer and complicated poem in different dimensions includes the realistic descriptions of this portrait includes the portrait, the material of creating this portrait, the procedure of creating this portrait which was drawn by an Italian painter in the Renaissance period, Parmigianino through use the convex mirror, and the surrealistic portrayals from this portrait. I will focus on the surrealistic portrayals from this portrait.
According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, surreal means “very strange: more like a dream than reality, with ideas and images mixed together in a strange way.” (2035) There are many surrealistic conditions are portrayed in this poem. I will cites some surrealistic portrayals to explore how surrealistic works through these ways likes summaries, from my view or from other critiques in the following paragraph.
In this section, John Ashbery tries to describe the soul of this figure in this portrait through his imagination. John Ashbery thinks the soul is like a prisoner who is prison in a jail in the space of portrait. He also mentions the soul extremely yearn for the freedom because he must stay here and can’t get any leisure to rest. In my own imagination, I imagine the soul of this figure in this portrait may make a serious crime so he is sentenced to be enclosing with the portrait forever. In my own interpretation, John Ashbery overthrow Humanism, a movement was affirmed the value of Human Being, popular in the Renaissance period because he gives a spirit which is treated in human forms to the figure of this portrait, but he adds these descriptions includes the soul can’t get redemption, can’t get any leisure to take a break. In my view, it is somewhat satirical since the portrait is created by human being and the soul is enclosed in the space of portrait. So in this way, I think John Ashbery reread the “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” which is a product in the Renaissance period.
That the soul is a captive, treated humanely, kept
In suspension, unable to advance much farther
Than your look as it intercepts the picture.
...............................................................................
The soul has to stay where it is,
Even though restless, hearing raindrops at the pane,
The sighing of autumn leaves thrashed by the wind,
Longing to be free, outside, but it must stay (30-32/35-38)
In this section, John Ashbery refers he recall his friends come to see him yesterday when he imagines the artist of this portrait, Parmigianino’s creating procedure of this portrait. In my own interpretation, John Ashbery treats memory as a tool to interference to his fantasy for the speaker. But in my view, John Ashbery can easily write his poem in very free style, I mean write his poem without any boundaries. As the shorter edition of Norton Anthology of American Literature has referred, “John Ashbery portrays his writing style in this saying: “I think that any one of my poems might be considered to be a snapshot of whatever is going on in my mind at the time－first of all the desire to write a poem, after that wondering if I’ve left the oven on or thinking about where I must be in the next hour.” (2606)
I think of the friends
Who came to see me, of what yesterday
Was like. A peculiar slant
Of memory that intrudes on the dreaming model
In the silence of the studio as he considers
Lifting the pencil to the self-portrait. (104-109)
In this section, the poet persona refers he discovers the eyes of the figure in the portrait are vacant. And he founds the figure may have a fantasy but it doesn’t display to the audience. After he founds the figure may have a fantasy, the poet persona fantasizes and casts him in the space of the portrait. All of a sudden, he found there is a movement in the space of the portrait likes a carousel which start slowly and going faster and faster unintentionally and all objects around him and combines altogether. After that, the poet persona expresses his confusion about why all different materials turn into an object. In my own interpretation, John Ashbery treats this section in the surrealistic way. For instance, the poet persona casts him and become another figure in this portrait in the space of the portrait. Another illustration of this portrait is there are moveable, strange, and grotesque movement in the space of the portrait, includes the poet persona feels the carousel move silently and all objects from different ingredients all be embodied as an animate figure even these objects blends and become one. In my view, John Ashbery deals with the fancy when we imagine in this section. I think the carousel may refer the process of our imagination or fantasy. Our fancy likes the button of carousel; it may start quietly when we start to imagine a thing. And the different material may refer many insights in our brain when we imagines. Also the one may refer the synthesis of all insights. In this way, John Ashbery makes the dead figure become animate and vivid through his surrealistic perception and fancy.
I see in this only the chaos
Of your round mirror which organizes everything
Around the polestar of your eyes which are empty,
Know nothing, dream but reveal nothing.
I feel the carousel starting slowly
And going faster and faster: desk, papers, books,
Photographs of friends, the window and the trees
Merging in one neutral band that surrounds
Me on all sides, everywhere I look.
And I cannot explain the action of leveling,
Why it should all boil down to one
Uniform substance, a magma of interiors. (121-132)
In this section, the poet persona portrays that there is a mobile movement like an hourglass which may become lighter or dark even become invisible in a space of the portrait. And he expresses his perplexity about what makes the empty space of the portrait in the original become crowded in the space of the portrait. Also he describes the space of the portrait which is made by wax and in the space of the portrait; people may mediate and consider how to live in a slum. In my own interpretation, John Ashbery treats this section in the surrealistic way. For instance, the poet persona portrays the movement of the space in the portrait is fluid and the space of the portrait likes a teacup can be replete. In my view, John Ashbery portrays the space of the portrait is like a shelter or may make a signal of warning to human being since in the poem John Ashbery refers “leave us / To awake and try to begin living in what has now become a slum.” Also I think John Ashbery satirizes the modern society as the slum through he uses the diction “slum” to describe. In this way, in my own view, John Ashbery portrays people should be escape in the space of imagining to gain more power to make live and survive in the modern society. Since the modern society become worse, people must escape another room to be alive.
So the room contains this flow like an hourglass
Without varying in climate or quality
(Except perhaps to brighten bleakly and almost
Invisibly, in a focus sharpening toward death--more
Of this later). What should be the vacuum of a dream
Becomes continually replete as the source of dreams
Is being tapped so that this one dream
May wax, flourish like a cabbage rose,
Defying sumptuary laws, leaving us
To awake and try to begin living in what
Has now become a slum. (177-187)
In this section, the poet persona cites Sydney Freedberg’s portrayal which affirms the value of beauty to the portrait which was drawn by Parmigianino, responds his portrayal, and refers the advantages through using the convex mirror to draw the portrait. In the poet persona’s view, people can satisfy their fancy and makes them become vigorous through this form. Although in this way, the portrait shows strange dimension since we can’t actually see them. And the poet persona refers the form keeps the ideal beauty. Also the poet persona asks the reader “why be unhappy with this arrangement, since/ Dreams prolong us as they’re absorbed?” According to Travis Looper, “the mannerist painter went beyond reality, twisting it to conform to some outlandish creation of the imagination.” (453) In my own interpretation, John Ashbery affirms the surrealistic way in this section. For instance, Ashbery emphasizes the value of beauty which was given from this form. In my view, drawing self-portrait through using the convex mirror is very surrealistic way. Since the reflection reflected from the convex mirror will show different even strange dimension to the true thing. But Ashbery chooses to abandon the traditional affirmation to the truth thing, and approves its value. In my view, the convex mirror is portrayed as a tool which may satisfy our dream. Like the reflection from the convex mirror, our dream also is prolonged. Like the last section, Ashbery still emphasizes the distortion is more beautiful than reality.
Sydney Freedberg in his
Parmigianino says of it: "Realism in this portrait
No longer produces and objective truth, but a bizarria . . . .
However its distortion does not create
A feeling of disharmony . . . . The forms retain
A strong measure of ideal beauty," because
Fed by our dreams, so inconsequential until one day
We notice the hole they left. Now their importance
If not their meaning is plain. They were to nourish
A dream which includes them all, as they are
Finally reversed in the accumulating mirror.
They seemed strange because we couldn't actually see them.
And we realize this only at a point where they lapse
Like a wave breaking on a rock, giving up
Its shape in a gesture which expresses that shape.
The forms retain a strong measure of ideal beauty
As they forage in secret on our idea of distortion.
Why be unhappy with this arrangement, since
Dreams prolong us as they are absorbed?
Something like living occurs, a movement
Out of the dream into its codification. (187-207)
In this section, it seems to the poet persona makes a dialogue to the artist, Parmigianino. In their dialogue, the poet persona refers Parmigianino may be mocked by the convex mirror after he realizes the reflection isn’t his, like other unfamiliar figure. And then the poet persona mentions the audience is amazed as Parmigianino still drawing his picture in front of them. Even if Parmigianino’s work is almost finished, the audience still fascinated by the striking, and grotesque part in the portrait. Even the figure inside the portrait also awaked. In my own interpretation, John Ashbery treats this section in the surrealistic way through makes a dialogue to the figure in the portrait. In my view, the figure may be mocked since the reflection isn’t him is an irony. Because I think Parmigianino should know the reflection isn’t like him before he draws his self-portrait through using the convex mirror. In my own interpretation, John Ashbery still manipulates and mocks the reality. And he emphasizes the value of distortion again and again through he portrays the audience was amazed by the striking part in the portrait. There are another surrealistic illustration is the immobile figure in the portrait is awaked for no reason.
So that you could be fooled for a moment
Before you realize the reflection
Isn't yours. You feel then like one of those
Hoffmann characters who have been deprived
Of a reflection, except that the whole of me
Is seen to be supplanted by the strict
Otherness of the painter in his
Other room. We have surprised him
At work, but no, he has surprised us
As he works. The picture is almost finished,
The surprise almost over, as when one looks out,
Startled by a snowfall which even now is
Ending in specks and sparkles of snow.
It happened while you were inside, asleep,
And there is no reason why you should have
Been awake for it, except that the day
Is ending and it will be hard for you
To get to sleep tonight, at least until late. (235-252)
In this section, the poet persona refers all time doesn’t show the distinguishing specialty because there are no any people would like to refer the change of the time and they don’t want to make more efforts to get someone’s attention. So he mentions our time become obscure. Even they would rather compromise it. And the poet persona portrays our condition likes time, we would rather conceal than making efforts to change our life. Also the poet persona asks the audience about the question of existence. The poet persona portrays nowadays are filled with plays and become indistinguishable. In my own interpretation, John Ashbery treats this section in the surrealistic way through discussing the existence of time. In this section, I think the condition of people in the poem is same like the residents in “The Waste Land” who are unable to do something and making efforts to change the status quo. I was confused why the modern poet always express nowadays people become tired and don’t want to make something become greater. Even if in that way, they may hurt. But people should do efforts to change the status quo. Does it mean contemporary people become tired for the society become greater? In my own interpretation, Ashbery thinks today which was make the same material but become indistinguishable likes the distortion which reflect from the convex mirror.
all time
Reduces to no special time. No one
Alludes to the change; to do so might
Involve calling attention to oneself
Which would augment the dread of not getting out
Before having seen the whole collection
(Except for the sculptures in the basement:
They are where they belong).
Our time gets to be veiled, compromised
By the portrait's will to endure. It hints at
Our own, which we were hoping to keep hidden.
We don't need paintings or
Doggerel written by mature poets when
The explosion is so precise, so fine.
Is there any point even in acknowledging
The existence of all that? Does it
Exist? Certainly the leisure to
Indulge stately pastimes doesn't,
Any more. Today has no margins, the event arrives
Flush with its edges, is of the same substance,
Indistinguishable. "Play" is something else;
It exists, in a society specifically
Organized as a demonstration of itself. (405-427)
To sum up, in this poem, John Ashbery performs these conditions, including the soul of this figure in this portrait, the space of the portrait, Parmigianino’s creating procedure of this portrait, a movement in the space of the portrait, the value of beauty, our dream, makes a dialogue to the artist, and existence of time through the surrealistic portrayal. Through the surrealistic way, Ashbery can write his poem in very free style, no any boundaries. Like the reflection from the convex mirror, everything was distorted and become grotesque in the contemporary society. Ashbery refers contemporary people must escape in the space of imagining since their society is worse and today which was make the same material but become indistinguishable.




Works Cited
Baym, Nina, et al. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 7th ed. New York: Norton, 2008.Print.
Looper, Travis. "Ashbery's 'Self-Portrait'." Papers On Language And Literature: A Journal For Scholars And Critics Of Language And Literature 28.4 (1992): 451-456. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 5 Jan. 2012.
“Surreal.” Def. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary. 7th ed. 2008. Print.