In which I marvel at the perfectly egg-shaped head of Arthur Hugh Clough - guest starring a blear-eyed pimp

Look at Arthur Hugh Clough there, on the cover of the Penguin Classics edition of his poems. His head, it is so perfectly egg-shaped. I cannot stop staring at it. I may have been called an egghead myself, possibly, but I don't think it was meant literally.

It is so, so round.

I want to talk about -

So smooth and round. Must. Look. Away. So shiny.

All right. The portrait is by "an unknown artist." Do you think Mr. A. U. Artist was trained to first draw an egg and then fill in the facial features? I do.

What did Clough write about? Skepticism, mostly. Skepticism about religion, skepticism about sex, especially the male sex drive, skepticism about his purpose in the world. Love presented some sort of imperfect solution to these problems, as did poetry.

I quoted a bit of "Epi-Strauss-ism" back here ("Matthew and Mark and Luke and holy John \ Evanished all and gone!"), a poem of doubt caused by up-to-date German Biblical criticism. In that poem, Clough doubts his doubting. "Easter Day: Naples, 1849" is more strongly worded:

"Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I past,
With fiercer heat than flamed above my head
My heart was hot within me; till at last
My brain was lightened, when my tongue had said

     Christ is not risen!

   Christ is not risen, no,
   He lies and moulders low;
     Christ is not risen." (ll. 1-8)

This is a long poem, so I'll include just a bit more, an inversion of Christ's own words:

"Ye men of Galilee!
Why stand ye looking up to heaven, where Him ye ne’er may see,
Neither ascending hence, nor hither returning again?
Ye ignorant and idle fishermen!
Hence to your huts and boats and inland native shore,
And catch not men, but fish;
Whate’er things ye might wish,
Him neither here nor there ye e’er shall meet with more.
Ye poor deluded youths, go home,
Mend the old net ye left to roam,
Tie the split oar, patch the torn sail;
It was indeed 'an idle tale',
     He was not risen." (ll. 113-125)

I find this quite powerful; I also find Christ's command to be "fishers of men" quite powerful. I have little idea what Clough actually believes. In this poem, the declaration of disbelief relieves some kind (what kind?) of torment. But then I turn to a companion poem, "Easter Day II":

"So while the blear-eyed pimp beside me walked,
And talked,
For instance, of the beautiful danseuse
And 'Eccellenza sure must see, if he would choose'
Or of the lady in the green silk there,
Who passes by and bows with minx's air,
Or of the little thing not quite fifteen,
Sicilian-born who surely should be seen -
So while the blear-eyed pimp beside me walked
And talked, and I too with fit answer talked,
So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone,
I with my secret self held communing of mine own." (ll. 1-12)

The "blear-eyed pimp"! "not quite fifteen"! Perhaps a clue to the source of the earlier poem's "fierce heat" can be found here. The poem ends:

"Sit if ye will, sit down upon the ground,
Yet not to weep and wail, but calmly look around.
  Whate'er befell,
  Earth is not hell;
  Now too as when it first began,
  Life yet is Life and Man is Man.
For all that breathes beneath the heavens' high cope,
Joy with grief mixes, with despondence hope.
Hope conquers cowardice, joy grief,
Or at the least, faith unbelief.
  Though dead not dead;
  Though gone not fled;
  Though lost not vanished.
  In the great Gospel and true Creed
  He is yet risen indeed,
    Christ is yet risen." (ll. 34-51)

There seems to be some actual wisdom here. And what poetry! I love the whole "blear-eyed pimp" stanza - the imitations of his speech, the repetitons, the fractured meter. In the line "So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone," the sequence of sounds ("So in" to "sin," "streets" to "abstracted") can hardly be bettered. All this from a supposedly minor poet, apparently best known for being a friend of Matthew Arnold.

Something I should have mentioned earlier: Clough is pronounced Cluff. Doesn't seem right. Hyu Cluff.

Tomorrow: Arthur Hugh Clough's use of the hexameter. See you next week! Ha ha!