A Trenta-Sei of the Pleasure We Take in the Early Death of Keats

Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations It is old school custom It is old school custom Regarding the title, “trenta-sei” is Italian for the number “thirty-six.” Ciardi uses the number in the title to give name to a new poetic form for a 36 line poem he himself created. In a letter to Vince Clemente, Ciardi defines the poetic form when discussing an earlier poem titled “A Trente-sei for the Boat People”: “A trente-sei is six six-line stanzas, the second of which begins with the second line of stanza one, the third with the third line, the fourth with the fourth line, etc. Them Eyetralian troubadors forgot to invent it, but I did it because it is a natural form and because it just came out that way. I may even try it again.” to pretend to be sad when we think about the early death of Keats the early death of Keats English Poet John Keats died in 1821, from tuberculosis, at the age of 25. . The species-truth of the matter is we are glad. Psilanthropic Psilanthropic A word Ciardi makes up here, meaning something like ‘merely human,’ taken from the Greek psilos(mere) and anthropos(man)” among exegetes exegetes People who interpret scripture; skilled interpreters , I am so moved that when the plate the plate The collection plate in which church goers may drop a monetary offering for the church and pass along to others comes by I almost think to pay the God—but why? When we think about the early death of Keats we are glad to be spared the bother of dying ourselves. His poems are a candy store of bitter-sweets His poems are a candy store of bitter-sweets Echoes John Keats’ sonnet “On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again”: “once more humbly assay / The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit” (lines 7-8) . We munch whole flights of angels whole flights of angels An echo of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Following Hamlet’s death, Horatio says, “Now cracks a noble heart.—Good-night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!” (Act 5, Scene 2, lines 359-360) from his shelves drooling a sticky glut glut An excessive, abundant supply; a surplus , almost enough to sicken us. But what delicious stuff! The species-truth of the matter is we are glad to have a death to munch on. Truth to tell, we are also glad to pretend it makes us sad. When it comes to dying, Keats did it so well we thrill to the performance. Safely here, this side of the fallen curtain, we stand and cheer. Psilanthropic among exegetes, as once in a miles-high turret turret A castle tower spitting flame, I watched boys flower through orange winding sheets and shammed shammed Faked, pretended a mourning because it put a name to a death I might have taken—which in a way made me immortal for another day— I was so moved that when the plate came by I had my dollar in hand to give to death but changed to a penny—enough for the old guy a penny—enough for the old guy A Greek mythological reference to the fee for the boatman Charon, ferryman of Hades, to transport the dead to the underworld was two pennies, one for each eye. The line also echoes T.S. Eliot’s epigraph to “The Hollow Men”: “A penny for the Old Guy” (1925). , and almost enough saved to sweeten my breath with a toast I will pledge to the Ape of the Divine Ape of the Divine Possible reference to Hanuman, a Hindu monkey deity. The god of death, Rama, protected him and prevented him from the experience of death. in thanks for every death that spares me mine. I almost thought of paying the God—but why? Had the boy lived, he might have grown as dull as Tennyson Tennyson The English poet, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) . Far better, I say, to die and leave us a formed feeling. O beautiful, pale, dying poet, fading as soft as rhyme, the saddest music keeps the sweetest time the saddest music keeps the sweetest time Echoes Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “To a Skylark”: “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought” (line 90) .