Ashbery Describes Death In Poetry of Beddoes

Delivering the second of his six Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet John L. Ashbery '49 yesterday discussed how 19th-century writer Thomas Lovell Beddoes portrayed images of death in his works.

Speaking at Sanders Theater, Ashbery, a professor of English at the City University of New York, read several excerpts from Beddoes as part of the lecture entitled "Olives and Anchovies: The Poetry of Thomas Lovell Beddoes."

Throughout the hour-long speech, Ashbery described how Beddoes was "haunted by the presence of death" and described "horrific and transcendental" images.

For instance, in The Brides' Tragedy, Beddoes' first successful work, "most characters were either dead or in search of death," Ashbery said. The characters are surrounded by murders, yet there are no true motives for the murders that take place, he added.

Death's Jest-Book, Beddoes' most well-known work, is a macabre tale of ghosts and murder, Ashbery said.

But Ashbery said Beddoes' obsession with death often made him difficult to understand. Ashbery said readers often found Beddoes incomprehensible, as actions seem "unexpected and unnatural."

Accordingly, Ashbery said, several critics have said that Beddoes fails to convey his message.

"[He] tries to make a point of death, but actually never succeeds in doing so," Ashbery said.

Ashbery also discussed Beddoes' poetic fragments. He described these fragments as having "bottomless meaning" with great perplexity, but still "complete as [they] stand."

At one point, Ashbery compared Beddoes with the British poet John Clare, the subject of his first Norton lecture, saying that both poets vanished after their works were completed, and both died tragically after leading hard lives.

Beddoes, who once said "nature exists to remind us of our mortality, the more poisonous the better," committed suicide in a hotel room by taking a dose of poison, Ashbery said.

Beddoes, whose life was characterized by "pecularity, mystery and adventure," received little attention while he was alive because much of his poetry remained inaccessible until the twentieth century, Ashbery said.