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Poet: Amy Lowell (Amy Lowell Art)
Poem: 1.
The Captured Goddess
Volume: Sword Blades & Poppy Seed
- Sword Blades
Comment 3 of 3, added on April 26th, 2009 at 10:38 AM.
Amy Lowell’s poetry can be read and understood on a simply visual level, or, by studying her use of color, temperature, movement, and other sensory details, one can gain insight into the larger implications, the stories, of her images. Lowell accomplishes this with “The Captured Goddess” where the Goddess’ beautiful and humble presence translates itself visually and leaves the speaker with a sense of awe. This contrasts with the image of greedy men bartering for the Goddess who has been bound naked in the street. The images of the poem, and the way they are structured, creates a moral narrative based on imagery in which the reader undergoes the same series of emotions as the narrator.
The Goddess is associated with color and a sense of spontaneity that resides just beyond the distinct edges of the city. “Over the housetops, / Above the rotating chimney-pots, / I have seen a shiver of amethyst, / And blue and cinnamon have flickered / A moment, / At the far end of a dusty street” (Lowell 1085). She changes the atmosphere of the city, but she’s not a finite presence within the city; in the first stanza she’s something intangible and infinite beyond the city’s grasp. The colors appear as quick flashes that “flickered / A moment” (Lowell 1085). “A moment” is the shortest line of the stanza; the quickness with which it reads matches its meaning – it stands out. The stanza revolves around the momentary vivacity and beauty the Goddess brings to the city even though she is separated from it.
The second stanza builds upon the supremacy of the Goddess, still without identifying her, by showing her bringing beauty into nature. This stanza strengthens her worthiness of the title “Goddess” by describing her power to send crimson through sheets of rain and change the color of moonlight to a pale green. She can manipulate nature, but she does it as a Goddess would – modestly. The Goddess does not try to dominate nature, the creation of God, but only adds to the beauty already there. She sends “a lustre of crimson” through the “sheeted rain” instead of bombarding the rain with an overpowering crimson; she “hushed” “moonbeams” “by a film of palest green” instead of drowning out the moonlight with bright green. The Goddess, in the abstract, has been established as a powerful supernatural presence, but also as humble and subdued.
The finite dimension of the Goddess enters the poem in the third stanza allowing the reader to connect her image and existence. Lowell emphasizes her title as “Goddess” by giving the word its own line and following it with an explanation mark. There is no question that the color sprinkled around the city and through nature comes from the Goddess’ wings. “It was her wings, / Goddess! / Who stepped over the clouds, / And laid her rainbow feathers / Aslant on the currents of the air.” Here the reader identifies with the Goddess in a more finite form, but with the same humble gentleness. She is seen stepping over clouds, not harming them, and laying her feathers on currents of air – she seems weightless.
Now, after the Goddess has been described, the focus of the poem changes from the Goddess to the speaker, who is willing to follow her anywhere to see the magnificent colors flashing in her wings. The speaker compares the various colors to precious stones and flowers. Everything connected with the Goddess is sparkling, alive, and dazzling to the human eye. The speaker assumes the Goddess can bring beauty to any location. “I followed her for long, / With gazing eyes and stumbling feet. / I cared not where she led me” (Lowell 1086). The Goddess completely mesmerizes the speaker, and the reader too, with her natural grace and beauty.
The fifth stanza dramatically changes the tone of the poem from one of heavenly grace and human awe to a disturbing tone of greed and sorrow. The image the speaker encounters contradicts all of the previous expectations. “In the city I found her, / The narrow-streeted city. / In the market-place I came upon her, / Bound and trembling. / Her fluted wings were fastened to her sides with cords, / She was naked and cold, / For that day the wind blew / Without sunshine” (Lowell 1086). Instead of residing above or beyond the city she is now in the city. Her wings cannot send their sparkling colors into the world around her because they are tied to her sides. Her freedom has been taken from her, and so has her power. Instead of resting her beautiful wings across the “currents of the air” she suffers from a cold wind without any warmth from the sun. She has been trapped in the world of man, and all of her beauty is restricted and bound.
Men in the market place want to buy the Goddess. “They bargained in silver and gold, / In copper, in wheat, / And called their bids across the market-place” (Lowell 1086). The men in market want to own the Goddess. They think that they can own what she represents, what she offers. They trade finite goods for an infinite beauty. They trade in the few colors in which currency comes – copper, silver, and gold – thinking that these can buy all the colors of her wings. These heavy, insignificant coins could never match the weightless grace of the Goddess and her wings. And wheat, a mixture of all those colors of currency, a silvery bronze, gold in the sunlight, does not buy a bit of her. The speaker uses precious stones and flowers of all sorts of bright, vibrant, dazzling colors to describe some of the Goddess’ beauty, but the men and the market do not understand the all-encompassing aspect of her beauty that cannot be bought and sold. She cannot belong to someone; she cannot remain in the city; her beauty lies out of man’s reach.
Lowell’s shortest stanza is one sentence reading, “The Goddess wept” (Lowell 1086). The Goddess cries because men try to buy and sell her; she cries because she is bound and cold, she cries because she understands that men do not understand. She can only bring beauty into this world as a free creature. Wings are meant to fly, and so is she. She is supposed to look down upon man, and man look up to her. She should give them hope, something to live for, love, and respect. Men should not own her; they should be humble. Man’s greed disrupts the order-of-being.
The speaker realizes that this treatment of the Goddess reeks of shame. “Hiding my face I fled, / And the grey wind hissed behind me, / Along the narrow streets” (Lowell 1086). This last stanza shows the speaker’s shame and sorrow for man’s treatment of the Goddess. The speaker has seen the Goddess’ beauty, her gift, and now the Goddess is being bound and sold like a slave. The speaker does not know what to do, except to run away. Behind the speaker the wind is a colorless grey; it does not flash or sparkle, but hisses along the streets that are narrow without a glimmer of light at the end. Suddenly the city that the Goddess once breathed life and color into has become dreary and depressing. Where will the speaker run? Nothing seems beautiful anymore. What once was beautiful men have tied down, packaged up, and sold in the market – and in the process they destroyed it. The speaker flees, sorry for the Goddess…and the men. By greedily trying to own her they have ultimately lost her, and the infinite hope she could offer them. Do they not see their own selfishness or her suffering? Either these men are ignorant or they do not care…which is worse? Either one is sad.
Lowell never mentions beauty, freedom, humility, awe, shame, fear, or sorrow, but the reader recognizes each one of these as the speaker provides various images of the Goddess. Only the last stanza does not include a description of some aspect of the Goddess. Here, she has been lost to man’s greed, and, therefore, this image serves as a contrast to earlier images. The sensory details, especially sights, have certain connotations that build a simulation of a first-hand experience. This attempt to remove some of the limitations of mediation makes the reader feel closer to the events, closer to the Goddess, and closer to Lowell’s message. The reader feels the speaker’s humility, awe, shame, and sorrow.
John hunter from United States
Comment 2 of 3, added on December 18th, 2007 at 10:38 PM.
i Believe that Amy Lowell is trying to portray the female struggle of sbserviance in the 1800's and earlt 1900's. The era was littered with such instances. the feelings of this are portrayed through Amy's feelingon entraptment due to her own short comings. As a child she was not allowed to attend collage, so i feel this is almost her own internal struggle against subservience.
Leia from United States
Comment 1 of 3, added on March 2nd, 2006 at 10:21 PM.
Imagination is a place to go on order to escape reality. Often it is filled with colours and sunshine. It is priceless like gems and has an immeasurable sparkle. Reality is often harsh and gray, like the “narrow streeted city”. It is marked by hustle and bustle, bargaining, and cheating. This poem really describes the instance in which reality and imagination collide. When these to worlds intertwine Amy Lowell portrays a feeling of confusion, sadness, and fear.
Alexandra from United States
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Comments
Amy Lowell’s poetry can be read and understood on a simply visual level, or, by studying her use of color, temperature, movement, and other sensory details, one can gain insight into the larger implications, the stories, of her images. Lowell accomplishes this with “The Captured Goddess” where the Goddess’ beautiful and humble presence translates itself visually and leaves the speaker with a sense of awe. This contrasts with the image of greedy men bartering for the Goddess who has been bound naked in the street. The images of the poem, and the way they are structured, creates a moral narrative based on imagery in which the reader undergoes the same series of emotions as the narrator.
The Goddess is associated with color and a sense of spontaneity that resides just beyond the distinct edges of the city. “Over the housetops, / Above the rotating chimney-pots, / I have seen a shiver of amethyst, / And blue and cinnamon have flickered / A moment, / At the far end of a dusty street” (Lowell 1085). She changes the atmosphere of the city, but she’s not a finite presence within the city; in the first stanza she’s something intangible and infinite beyond the city’s grasp. The colors appear as quick flashes that “flickered / A moment” (Lowell 1085). “A moment” is the shortest line of the stanza; the quickness with which it reads matches its meaning – it stands out. The stanza revolves around the momentary vivacity and beauty the Goddess brings to the city even though she is separated from it.
The second stanza builds upon the supremacy of the Goddess, still without identifying her, by showing her bringing beauty into nature. This stanza strengthens her worthiness of the title “Goddess” by describing her power to send crimson through sheets of rain and change the color of moonlight to a pale green. She can manipulate nature, but she does it as a Goddess would – modestly. The Goddess does not try to dominate nature, the creation of God, but only adds to the beauty already there. She sends “a lustre of crimson” through the “sheeted rain” instead of bombarding the rain with an overpowering crimson; she “hushed” “moonbeams” “by a film of palest green” instead of drowning out the moonlight with bright green. The Goddess, in the abstract, has been established as a powerful supernatural presence, but also as humble and subdued.
The finite dimension of the Goddess enters the poem in the third stanza allowing the reader to connect her image and existence. Lowell emphasizes her title as “Goddess” by giving the word its own line and following it with an explanation mark. There is no question that the color sprinkled around the city and through nature comes from the Goddess’ wings. “It was her wings, / Goddess! / Who stepped over the clouds, / And laid her rainbow feathers / Aslant on the currents of the air.” Here the reader identifies with the Goddess in a more finite form, but with the same humble gentleness. She is seen stepping over clouds, not harming them, and laying her feathers on currents of air – she seems weightless.
Now, after the Goddess has been described, the focus of the poem changes from the Goddess to the speaker, who is willing to follow her anywhere to see the magnificent colors flashing in her wings. The speaker compares the various colors to precious stones and flowers. Everything connected with the Goddess is sparkling, alive, and dazzling to the human eye. The speaker assumes the Goddess can bring beauty to any location. “I followed her for long, / With gazing eyes and stumbling feet. / I cared not where she led me” (Lowell 1086). The Goddess completely mesmerizes the speaker, and the reader too, with her natural grace and beauty.
The fifth stanza dramatically changes the tone of the poem from one of heavenly grace and human awe to a disturbing tone of greed and sorrow. The image the speaker encounters contradicts all of the previous expectations. “In the city I found her, / The narrow-streeted city. / In the market-place I came upon her, / Bound and trembling. / Her fluted wings were fastened to her sides with cords, / She was naked and cold, / For that day the wind blew / Without sunshine” (Lowell 1086). Instead of residing above or beyond the city she is now in the city. Her wings cannot send their sparkling colors into the world around her because they are tied to her sides. Her freedom has been taken from her, and so has her power. Instead of resting her beautiful wings across the “currents of the air” she suffers from a cold wind without any warmth from the sun. She has been trapped in the world of man, and all of her beauty is restricted and bound.
Men in the market place want to buy the Goddess. “They bargained in silver and gold, / In copper, in wheat, / And called their bids across the market-place” (Lowell 1086). The men in market want to own the Goddess. They think that they can own what she represents, what she offers. They trade finite goods for an infinite beauty. They trade in the few colors in which currency comes – copper, silver, and gold – thinking that these can buy all the colors of her wings. These heavy, insignificant coins could never match the weightless grace of the Goddess and her wings. And wheat, a mixture of all those colors of currency, a silvery bronze, gold in the sunlight, does not buy a bit of her. The speaker uses precious stones and flowers of all sorts of bright, vibrant, dazzling colors to describe some of the Goddess’ beauty, but the men and the market do not understand the all-encompassing aspect of her beauty that cannot be bought and sold. She cannot belong to someone; she cannot remain in the city; her beauty lies out of man’s reach.
Lowell’s shortest stanza is one sentence reading, “The Goddess wept” (Lowell 1086). The Goddess cries because men try to buy and sell her; she cries because she is bound and cold, she cries because she understands that men do not understand. She can only bring beauty into this world as a free creature. Wings are meant to fly, and so is she. She is supposed to look down upon man, and man look up to her. She should give them hope, something to live for, love, and respect. Men should not own her; they should be humble. Man’s greed disrupts the order-of-being.
The speaker realizes that this treatment of the Goddess reeks of shame. “Hiding my face I fled, / And the grey wind hissed behind me, / Along the narrow streets” (Lowell 1086). This last stanza shows the speaker’s shame and sorrow for man’s treatment of the Goddess. The speaker has seen the Goddess’ beauty, her gift, and now the Goddess is being bound and sold like a slave. The speaker does not know what to do, except to run away. Behind the speaker the wind is a colorless grey; it does not flash or sparkle, but hisses along the streets that are narrow without a glimmer of light at the end. Suddenly the city that the Goddess once breathed life and color into has become dreary and depressing. Where will the speaker run? Nothing seems beautiful anymore. What once was beautiful men have tied down, packaged up, and sold in the market – and in the process they destroyed it. The speaker flees, sorry for the Goddess…and the men. By greedily trying to own her they have ultimately lost her, and the infinite hope she could offer them. Do they not see their own selfishness or her suffering? Either these men are ignorant or they do not care…which is worse? Either one is sad.
Lowell never mentions beauty, freedom, humility, awe, shame, fear, or sorrow, but the reader recognizes each one of these as the speaker provides various images of the Goddess. Only the last stanza does not include a description of some aspect of the Goddess. Here, she has been lost to man’s greed, and, therefore, this image serves as a contrast to earlier images. The sensory details, especially sights, have certain connotations that build a simulation of a first-hand experience. This attempt to remove some of the limitations of mediation makes the reader feel closer to the events, closer to the Goddess, and closer to Lowell’s message. The reader feels the speaker’s humility, awe, shame, and sorrow.
John hunter from United States