Crazy Jane talks with the Bishop - kelompok 10

Crazy Jane talks with the Bishop

Yeats, William Butler (1865 - 1939)

By : Moh Muhin                      ( 20131111022) 

       Andi Darmawanto            ( 20131111078)

I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
'Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
Those veins must soon be dry
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty.'

'Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,' I cried.
'My friends are gone, but that's a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart's pride.

'A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.'

The poem is in three stanzas. Each stanza contains six lines. It is about dialogue of  Crazy Jane (who is a slut, a terrible satirist) and the Bishop. As much as violence and sex sounds terrible. In fact, there is more of an implied meaning of sexual violence. The violence, though, is more interesting in that the violence shows itself through the characters interactive  conversations between one another, rather than through a description of physical sexual violence.

I met the Bishop on the road

And much said he and I.

Those breasts are flat and fallen now,

Those veins must soon be dry

Live in a heavenly mansion,

Not in some foul sty.

In this stanza, the Bishop is the one who is speaking where the text is located inside the quotation marks. Even though this could go toward the argument of a response at religion, try and keep any idea of religion out of mind for now because in order to see this stanza as just poetic violence (verbal abuse), the Bishop then becomes just a man saying terrible things about an older woman (who is not abstinent at all). It’s “those breast which are flat and fallen now” which implies that Crazy Jane is represented as old here. She’s so old, that her “veins must soon be dry, too” this poem looks very familiar in a way in which it describes Crazy Jane’s old bodily features.

Fair and foul are near of kin,

And fair needs foul,' I cried.

My friends are gone, but that's a truth

Nor grave nor bed denied,

Learned in bodily lowliness

And in the heart's pride.

“Fair” and “foul” then in themselves become examples of objectivity and subjectivity, in that they become interdependent on each other. The fair is life (subject) which would make foul “death” (object). Because Jane’s friends were subjected to death, she repeates in this stanza that fair needs foul. The idea of fair needing the foul makes the concept of life and death seem inevitable. And bringing this back around to the Bishop’s sexual derogatory comments he made about her breasts, the reason why her breasts seem to be in a deteriorating state is because her boobs have been subjected to the objective of old age and other people’s comments.

A woman can be proud and stiff

When on love intent,

But Love has pitched his mansion in

The place of excrement,

For nothing can be sole or whole

That has not been rent.

A woman or perhaps any person "too proud and stiff" to surrender to her sexuality loss fulfillment both of body and soul. The element of sexuality most distressing to the fastidious, the placement of sex organs near or in organs of excrement" is stressed here. The final two lines"For nothing can be sole or whole.That has not been rent." are richly suggestive. "Sole" refers to oneness or the integration of the personality achieved only by bringing together both spiritual and physical selves in one's sexuality, the word also puns on soul, one finds fulfillment for one's soul through physical experience. "Whole works in a similar manner, referring primarily to the wholeness or fulfillment of a being and punning on hole, the female sexual organ. Both soul ("sole") and body (hole) come to fulfillment in sexuality. "rent" symbolically sexual experience in general.