Reflect

Reflect is one of those odd words in English that can have completely opposite meanings. Reflect as in a mirror which is instantaneous or Reflect as thinking about a subject deeply. I wondered whether there is a word which describes this state of affairs and lo and behold there is.

The dictionary meaning of the word contronym is ‘a word having two meanings that contradict one another.’ A contronym is also called a ‘Janus word’ or auto-antonym. It's a word that has contradictory (or reverse) meanings depending on the context.

For example, the word ‘transparent’ can mean either something that is invisible or obvious. Or ‘dust’ which can mean to remove as in dusting a shelf or to add as in dusting a cake.

My new printed Oxford English and my old Chambers dictionaries do not have definitions but the online Oxford does. OED's earliest evidence for contronym is from 1962 in the writing of J. Herring.

I’m going to have to choose which Reflect to look at and it’s going to be this one.

Whenever I think of poems or literature about looking back to reflect on things done or not done, then the following poem by William Wordsworth usually comes to mind. It’s generally known as 'Tintern Abbey' but I prefer the full title. This is the extract that does it for me.

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798.

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration:—feelings too

Wordsworth claimed to have composed the poem entirely in his head, beginning it upon leaving Tintern and not jotting down so much as a line until he reached Bristol, by which time it had just reached mental completion.

Well, considering the poem is 160 lines (give or take) that’s pretty good going and I do wonder if anyone challenged him on this. Not to mention the fact that his rather talented sister, Dorothy, was walking with him.

I’ve just given myself 5 minutes to have a Reflect on times past. I don’t think that reflections such as these need to melancholic, indeed as Wordsworth says ‘sensations sweet’ can be the order of the day.

So, in my 5 minutes of time present there were memories of a phone call I didn’t make, the sheer joy of vomiting after a hard training run over sand dunes in Great Yarmouth, a railway journey along the west coast of Wales to Pwllheli, getting rid of my mortgage, a poetry event, friends.

I had to drag myself away from all that looking back to think about a poem to go with the thoughts. I think this will do the job and it sort of covers the same concerns as Tintern.

Maritime Museum, St Helier

I didn’t know that fathom
came from faedm,
a measure of outstretched arms
no longer than the arrow
which had stopped me
on a hot March day
as I wandered on my own
following signs
in a museum sort of way.
An arrow,
a wordvane dipped
in terms of the sea
and its turning turned
my day around
as back to the start
and a boy again
I mixed up sand and water
and launched my boat on the pond,
pushed on buttons I shouldn’t
and ran round corners to hide,
let fingers brush the rich black tar
in timbers
that shivered my soul,
made up yarns for pictures
that soon became a scene
where a father
taught his son the knots
and splices of his skills,
around the tree and down the hole
the rabbit had tried and tried
but here,
I can’t believe it,
the bowline came first time
and for a time
I felt a smile but with
Force 2, precipitation,
that brought me back
to the forenoon watch
and ready to run ashore
not sure
I’d play the boy again
the hours for that have passed
but glad of a place
where the sea’s embrace
can be measured
in outstretched arms.

First published in Iota, March 2003.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Byron, Keatsy, Shezza and Co.

Here we go. The Romantics! Just for amusement's sake I consulted 'Poetry For Dummies' to see what it might have to say about Byron, Keatsy, Shezza and their ilk. The entry commenced: "People in the Romantic period weren't any more inclined to love than those in other periods." That had me laughing into my breakfast coffee!

Actually, it continued in a more sensible manner to explain the label 'Romantic' in the following terms: "Romantic came to mean a new, often revolutionary outlook, emphasising the importance of personal emotions, innovation in ideas and the use of language, an appreciation of nature and a feeling for new beginnings. Some of these developments came about as a reaction to the industrial revolution."

That's a reasonable summation, though the latter phrase reminds me of "the industrious revelation", Philomena Cunk's tremendously funny malapropism from her spoof 'History of Britain' documentary.

What might the obtuse Ms Cunk have made of John Keats (dead at 25), Percy Bysshe Shelley (dead at 29) and George Gordon Byron (dead at 36)?  I imagine something like this:

All joking aside, your Saturday Blogger has a lot of time for the poetry of Keats in particular and to  a lesser degree Shelley, though not much for Byron. As to the other leading lights of the Romantic movement, the ones who didn't die young, it's perhaps heretical to say I'm not overly fond of Coleridge or old 'Father' Wordsworth either, but it's true.

Of the six who are generally labelled 'The Romantics', I hold William Blake (1757-1827) in the highest regard. He is one of my all-time favourites - artist, philosopher, poet, prophet, social campaigner and visionary. The poet and scholar Kathleen Raine, who has written about Blake extensively, calls him "our one national prophet" and "the supreme poet of his native city" (London, of course). I wouldn't argue with either epithet. Blake can also be seen as an early opponent of materialism (and its associated ills), the predecessor of modern psychology and an embodiment (two hundred years ahead of the curve) of 'New Age' thinking - quite a guy; and most people only know him for 'Jerusalem' and 'The Tyger' which is a great shame.

Mention of London (which I am visiting this week-end) leads neatly to today's newly-forged poem. In 1802, Wordsworth wrote a famous and much-loved work (because it's in 'The Nation's Favourite Poems' - as polled and published by the BBC) entitled Upon Westminster Bridge. Time to revisit the bridge, I think:

Upon Westminster Bridge (Again)
This is where Wordsworth stood one morning
Just as the nineteenth century was dawning
And wrote his rose-tinted sonnet (of sorts)
In praise of the greatest city on earth.

Actually, that's not strictly true.
For the bridge he then stood on (aged thirty two)
Barely outlived him. It was subsiding badly
And proved expensive to maintain. Sadly

A decade after Wordsworth died
It was pulled down brick by brick and replaced
By the seven-arched cast-iron edifice
Which spans the tide of the Thames today.

As for his majestic city, he'd be staggered
To see how wide, how high it's grown.
He might even find it beautiful still
Though its mighty heart never stopped lying!

I know it's not the sense he meant to convey,
But check out the last lines of his iconic verse*
And tell me if there's not an ironic twist or worse
That a post-truth interpretation can overlay
As scandal rocks the Royal Docks
And the Mother of Parliaments goes awry.


* Those lines read as follows:
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

By the way, if you haven't discovered Philomena Cunk yet, you owe it to yourself to do so.

Thanks for reading, Steve :-)

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