Jean-François Millet's The Gleaners and Poetry

The Wheat Fields

Lo, the drowsy heat of summer

Hanging humid, low and near,
As peasants gleaning frail and humble

Thank the Lord whom they revere.

Lo, the wheat-line yon receding

Into gray obscurity—

How thankless greed absconds with nature

And her virgin purity …

-jwm

Poetic Parameters:

Stanza Type: Quatrain

Meter: Line 1 in each stanza is eight syllables; lines 2 and 4 in each stanza is seven syllables; and line 3 in each stanza is nine syllables

Rhyme Scheme: xaxa xbxb (where ‘x’ represents unrhymed lines)

Composition: May 19, 2019

This poem was inspired by an 1857 painting titled, The Gleaners; a work of art produced by Jean-FrançoisMillet (1814 – 1875). One of the founders of the Barbizon School, Millet’s realist style significantly helped usher in the modern period of art.

Millet had an empathetic eye for conditions surrounding the rural life of peasant farmers, as he himself grew up in these conditions. After having trained in Cherbourg and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and after the French Revolution, Millet moved to the village of Barbizon to paint the harsh life of rural peasantry.

The Gleaners was first exhibited in Salon in 1857. It was initially received with criticism as it seemed to glorify the arduous existence of the impoverished- an implicit condemnation of the middle- and upper-class tiers of society. It did not help that the poor significantly outnumbered the rich, and that there was a palpable tension between the lower-class and those who were well off.

Lo, the drowsy heat of summer

Hanging humid, low and near,

As peasants gleaning frail and humble

Thank the Lord whom they revere.

The first stanza of the poem focuses on the peasants who are gathering up scraps of leftover wheat grain. Despite the wafting heat of the heavy summer day, and despite the scarcity of wheat left, I wanted the stanza to depict the poor as thankful that Providence has brought them the opportunity to gather food together. I wanted to depict them as grateful harvesters of nature’s bounty.

Lo, the wheat-line yon receding

Into gray obscurity—

How thankless greed absconds with nature

And her virgin purity …

The second stanza is an entirely different story. The abundance of wheat, if you look off into the distance of the painting by clicking the image, seems to be disappearing at an alarming rate, as if being devoured by some ravenous entity.

Wholescale farming is, of course, necessary, but the poem wants to do two things. It wants to magnify the rapacious indifference of the process- a sort of  thankless, and even violent apathy with regard to what is being done, as if nature herself were being plundered. 

The poem also wants to show the disparity between the poor and the rich: between the peasants who are both humble and thankful; and the overabundance achieved by insatiable greed (represented by the overseer on the horse).

In short, the second stanza is a diatribe aimed at greed- whose destructive proclivity wreaks havoc on both nature and humanity.

The last element of the poem is the ellipsis at the end, an indicator that this marauding of nature is ceaseless.

Rilke on Canvas

Ran across this canvas representation of the well known German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke ... nicely done! Check out this poem:

Moving Forward

The deep parts of my life pour onward,
as if the river shores were opening out.
It seems that things are more like me now,
That I can see farther into paintings.
I feel closer to what language can't reach.
With my senses, as with birds, I climb
into the windy heaven, out of the oak,
in the ponds broken off from the sky
my falling sinks, as if standing on fishes.

Rainer Maria Rilke

****

I love that imagery … as if Rilke were watching a little bird flying out of an oak tree into the windy sky, but watching this happen through the medium of a pond of water (then imagining that the bird’s flight was descent into the deep). Very cool … read it again:

With my senses, as with birds, I climb

into the windy heaven, out of the oak,

in the ponds broken off from the sky

my falling sinks, as if standing on fishes.

Poetry and Art

Um ... interesting? According to NPR, Expressionist artist Edvard Munch wrote a poem on the backside of one of his most famous works, The Scream (in it he describes the eerie and dreadful encounter he had during one particular sunset). 

Here's that work: 

'The Scream' 

I was walking along the road with two friends. The Sun was 

setting — 

The Sky turned a bloody red 

And I felt a whiff of Melancholy — I stood 

Still, deathly tired — over the blue-black 

Fjord and City hung Blood and Tongues of Fire 

My Friends walked on — I remained behind 

— shivering with Anxiety. I felt the great Scream in Nature.