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Eloquent Confusion: Christian Wiman's Long Home

[...]in the muted light of late afternoon she lies resting, resisting sleep like a small child who has stayed up too long, who half dreams the arms that hold her, the room full of voices and laughter, but cannot bring herself wholly into the world where they are.2 In the course of this poem, Wiman d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Spiritus 2019, Vol.19 (2), p.250-266
Main Author: Mills, Kathryn Oliver
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:[...]in the muted light of late afternoon she lies resting, resisting sleep like a small child who has stayed up too long, who half dreams the arms that hold her, the room full of voices and laughter, but cannot bring herself wholly into the world where they are.2 In the course of this poem, Wiman develops its title's play between two different kinds of experience. The grandfather's silence is thus a choice rather than an imposition, and it results in making his actions speak louder than words rather than in muffling both actions and words in obscurity. [...]while the value of silence is ambiguous in "Hearing Loss," and stymied in "What I know," in "Living Room" it intimates a non-verbal realm of peace. In "Living Room," the coexistence within the same phrase of two contrasting meanings, one material, one immaterial, allows the child and his grandfather to move between simultaneously physical and existential realities. [...]although "Living Room" adds a non-verbal dimension to the dynamic Wiman's work describes between word and world, even this poem about a quiet, physical embrace reveals "eloquent confusion" as the poet's prime mover. Kathryn Oliver Mills is a Professor of French at Sewanee, who has published a book and assorted articles about literature in mid-19th century France.
ISSN:1533-1709
1535-3117
1535-3117
DOI:10.1353/scs.2019.0030