Colin Guillemet: Smoothed Operators

Colin Guillemet, XXL. Mutt, 2013. Image courtesy the artist.

Transcription of a lecture recorded on April 23, 2015:

 

Let us begin with a look at that most emblematic of Romantic poets:

For oft when on my couch I lie

In vacant or pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude,

And then my heart with pleasure fills

And dances with the daffodils.

Consider, for a moment, where the poem places us, the reader. The titular opening line of Wordsworth’s oft-cited poem ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ (1807) gives us a simile that presents the image of an anthropomorphised, forlorn cloud. As if we are outdoors watching the poet on a pleasant outdoor stroll, it puts us firmly in the role of a standby spectator, or maybe a fellow rambler. But as we approach the closing lines above, it turns out instead that we have the whole time been indoors, as he lounges dejectedly on his sofa. More specifically, inside his head: the vision we’ve been subject to is that of his ‘inward eye’. We finish the poem trapped in this space, standing next to a dancing, stuffed heart, as if we’re at some sort of internal organ-vegetation wedding party.