Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In Paul Verlaine's "Spleen," the poet navigates through a landscape of contrasting emotions, revealing a complex relationship with both the world around him and an unnamed "Dear," who holds sway over his internal turmoil. This poem seems to be a testament to the ennui and melancholy-the "spleen"-that often accompanies emotional uncertainty and dependence on another's presence for one's own emotional equilibrium.

The opening lines, "Around were all the roses red, / The ivy all around was black," set up an immediate contrast between red and black, beauty and dread, life and death. The "roses red" signify passion, love, and life, while the "ivy" suggests a sort of funereal darkness, an omnipresent dread. This contrast serves as the emotional landscape of the poem, where love and despair co-exist.

"Dear, so thou only move thine head, / Shall all mine old despairs awake!" Here, the speaker's emotional stability is shown to be entirely dependent on the actions-or even mere movements-of the beloved. A simple act, like moving one's head, is enough to stir a torrent of "old despairs." The power dynamic is such that the speaker is almost in thrall to the beloved, his emotional state susceptible to the slightest provocation.

"Too blue, too tender was the sky, / The air too soft, too green the sea." These lines emphasize the overwhelming beauty of the natural world, but for the speaker, this beauty is too much-it's excessive, perhaps because it serves as a stark contrast to his internal spleen. The vivid colors-the blue of the sky, the green of the sea-become almost intolerable in their intensity.

"Always I fear, I know not why, / Some lamentable flight from thee." These lines reveal the crux of the speaker's anxiety: the fear of loss, of the beloved leaving him. This perpetual fear haunts him, though he cannot explain its origin. It's a fear rooted not in reason but in emotion, in his overwhelming need for the "Dear" to remain a stable fixture in his life.

Finally, "I am so tired of holly-sprays / And weary of the bright box-tree, / Of all the endless country ways; / Of everything alas! save thee." The speaker is emotionally exhausted by everything around him except for the beloved. Even nature, in all its multifaceted beauty-the "holly-sprays," the "bright box-tree," the "endless country ways"-becomes tiresome. His world has shrunk down to a single focal point: the beloved. And yet, the "alas!" suggests that this focal point is also a source of unending sorrow.

"Spleen" is a compelling portrait of emotional dependency and the despair that can accompany love. Verlaine employs contrasts in color and emotional tone to construct a landscape where beauty and dread, love and despair, exist side by side, each amplifying the other. And at the center of this emotional maelstrom is the beloved, the one constant in a sea of variables, both the cause of and the antidote to the speaker's overwhelming spleen.

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