4. night sweat

• worktable, litter, books and standing lamp, plain things

  scrunched-up notes of poems tossed aside

  his writing is mere detritus/debris if it does not satisfy speaker's rampant perfectionism
• work-table, litter, books and standing lamp


  lamp stands sentinel, observing/judging the speaker

  pressuring them to write more and more
• ... plain things, my stalled equipment... // ... my stalled equipment...

  the threat of the blank page tyrannises speaker
• worktable,

  litter,

  books... the old broom —

  caesura evinces the discordant, fragmented mind of the speaker

  testament to their distracted mind
• for ten nights now i've felt the creeping damp float

  3 verbs suddenly accelerate the motion of the poem after the listed description

  poet's attempts to unify night and day result in leaks between the worlds
• sweet salt embalms me

  juxtaposition: 'sweet' implies some part of the speaker enjoys the night fevers

  speaker's conflicted relationship with the fevers give him a satisfying rush
• everything streams and tells me this is right

  speaker's bodily instincts attempt to convince him biologically that he is right to be excited by the reverie
• one life, one writing/ one universe, one body

  
  

  during the reverie, speaker experiences unity and synthesis in his concentrated focus

  
  

  when they are immersed in this creative, dream-like state, they can only concentrate on themself & their creativity
• behind me, you!

  exclamations/short syntax reflect the jarring adjustment to the frustrating day-world

  volta mobilises shift from first sonnet 'mania' to second sonnet 'ode to wife
• i feel the light lighten my leaded eyelids

  LIQUID (L) ALLITERATION: reflects speaker's lifting mood from frantic at the start
• while the grey skulled horses whinny for the soot of night

  SIBILANCE (S) ALLITERATION: soft wash of sibilance weakens its morbid content slightly
• gray / skulled horses whinny for the soot of night

  soot & grey-skulled creates morose semantic field of death

  this reminds the speaker of their own mortality: time is running out for them
• i dabble in the dapple' of the day

  dabble: speaker merely meanders aimlessly during the trivial daytime

  
  

  dapple: patches of light and darkness make their distinctions more ambiguous

  dapple means a patch of light
• a heap of wet clothes, seamy, shivering,

  seams cling to speaker's body as they are daubed in sordid sweat

  
  

  speaker is nothing but a heap of wet clothes: there is something socially immoral/marginalising to crave sleeplessness
• your heart hops and flutters like a hare

  ASPIRATE H ALLITERATION: aspirate h's gift the wife a light, aerated quality

  wife helps to alleviate/remedy speaker's internal conflict
• absolve me, help me

  IMPERATIVES: speaker solicits help for his sinful spiral of sleeplessness to be amended from his wife's upward force

  evidence of how much he truly seeks the feverish night dreams
• you bear (the world's) dead weight... on your back


  SHIFT TO 2ND PERSON: speaker desires his struggles to be unloaded to his positively charged wife

  hopefully she can bear this weight for him
• structure & rhyme scheme of the poem + why its like that

  first 14 lines: shakespearean sonnet + shakespearean rhyming couplets

  the speaker feels complete when they have been successful in their pursuit of creative flow, hence the 'perfect' shax rhyme scheme

  last 14 lines: petrarchan sonnet + fragmented rhyme scheme

  dissonant, jumbled rhyme scheme: reflects how the speaker deteriorates as they is overpowered by the insurmountable day
• context about writer

  robert lowell lived with bipolar disorder all his life: in this confessional poem, he confesses his obsession and anxiety over his own poetry-writing
• example summary quote


  'creeping damp float' / 'i dabble in the dapple of the day' / 'sweet salt
• summary of poem


  speaker enters an altered state of being at night: a mysterious condition brings clarity and brings forth creative energy until it vanishes each morning

  
  

  in this ars poetica, the speaker detaches from reality, diving into dreams and sensations

  
  

  he risks illness and mania for the prospect of creativity

  
  

  the day-time is a plane of struggle which he seeks his wife to repair
• what is an ars poetica + how is this relevant

  ars poetica: a poem about the process of writing a poem

  here, speaker's immersive experience is of writing a poem