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Tara Walker Professor Burton English 291 8 February 2011 “The Ruin”: A Foundation for Aural, Visual, and Emotional Depth A great city acquires character from its architecture, but life from its people. The cobblestone streets of Rome are teeming with cars, buses, and motorbikes, while jostling pedestrians fill the sidewalks. Department stores with their window displays and street vendors selling carts full of wares are ubiquitous. There is no end to the traffic lights, billboards, and neon signs. It is easy to overlook the shadow of the ancient Rome that the present-day metropolis is built around. Yet the eye cannot help but stumble over the crumbling arches and moss-covered walls without hearing them tell the story of a great civilization that once was. In the Old English compilation titled the Exeter Book of Elegies, a specific poem with an unknown author called “The Ruin” tells a similar story. Most likely written about an ancient Roman city in Britain, the elegiac poem mourns the decaying structures within the city and the beautifully full lives they used to house. The elegy was translated into Modern English from the Exeter Book but some of its pages were damaged. Consequently, there are several lines that remain fragments. Although the poem is missing some of its valuable text, “The Ruin” evokes a powerful emotional response because its content and appearance mimic the broken city it describes. Altogether, twelve lines of “The Ruin” are missing substantial material that contributed to the flow and comprehensibility of the text. However, the tone is not affected because of the genre itself. As an elegy, the poem exudes the wistful and melancholy tenor typical of other Old English elegies. The first occurrence of missing text is not until line thirteen so the theme of the poem can be established. Although several phrases are gone, this section of fragments does not detract from the meaning. The missing text does not occur again until the last eight lines, but
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without the reference to explain why words are missing, it would seem intentional. The lines articulate the fragmentation of thoughts and imaginings experienced while thinking upon ruins of a great city. It is as though the author’s words reflected the things he saw. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature argues that the poem is, “detached and dispassionate about the scene it describes” (51). Yet there is great evidence of more than just detachment about the ruins. The fact that the author takes the time to describe the city in great detail proves his emotional attachment to the crumbling remains. From the very beginning the author uses powerful diction to depict what he sees. The poem opens with the line, “Wondrous is this foundation—the fates have broken / and shattered this city; the work of giants crumbles” (55; 1–2). The words wondrous, broken, shattered, and crumbles are all very strong and signify a viewer’s awe rather than his dispassionate response. Referring to the people who built the artifices as giants shows an understanding of the work that goes in to building a city and also the sympathetic response to seeing their efforts destroyed. Even though “the earth’s grasp / holds the builders, rotten [and] forgotten,” the author remembers and honors them (55; 6–7). The visual image of the earth tightly holding on to the builders’ decaying bones beneath her surface is striking. They are trapped. Before their death, “Bright were the buildings … filled with men’s joys, / until mighty fate made an end to all that” (56; 20–23). The word bright gives this stanza a glimmer of warmth and light, like seeing into the lives of the citizens who lived there before their destruction came. The phrases, “empty wasteland,” and, “now these courts are empty,” illustrate the current desolation of the city itself, as well as the surrounding land (56; 26–28). “The rich vaults of the vermilion roofs shed their tiles,” like a snake shedding its skin—the remaining shell is lifeless, papery-thin, and the color of dust (56; 29–30).
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During the process of translation, it is difficult to retain the precise language used in the original work. However, in this version, not only does the author use descriptive language to evoke an emotional response, he also uses rhyming and alliteration. The first rhyming words in the elegy are found in line five with the phrase, “torn and worn and shorn by the storm.” Here, there are four consecutive rhymes within a single line. The use of the rhymes so close together propels the line forward and creates a feeling of anxiety about the destruction. The reference to the “generations” of buried builders is similar, “rotten and forgotten,” and the rhythm gives greater emphasis to the words themselves (55; 7). The first instance of alliteration is in the third line. “The roofs are ruined, the towers toppled.” Pairing the roofs with the adjective ruined and the towers with the corresponding toppled provides a visual distinction between the two structural components. The wall without the kingdom has “stood in the storm, steep, and tall, then tumbled” (55; 11). The repetition of the “st” sound and then the “t” creates a percussive sound like the winds and rains that actually felled the wall. Then the author moves to the foundation, which has been “grimly ground” (55; 14). The use of the repeated “gr” sound is like the grinding of teeth: slow, but over time it wears down the enamel. After describing the dilapidated city around him, the author powerfully describes the people who once lived there. “A man / glad-minded, gold-bright, bedecked in splendor, /proud, full of wine, shone in his wargear, / gazed on treasure, on silver, on sparkling gems, / on wealth, on possessions, on the precious stone, / on this bright capital of a broad kingdom” (56; 31–36). In this portion of the poem, the use of compound adjectives that both begin in a “g” sound gives great strength to the description. The sound is used again with “gear” but then softened with “gems.” The voiceless percussive “p” and “t” sounds are effectively used with the “s” and “sh” sounds to break up the sound and create aural variety. However, the consonants are typically very bright and use the
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voiced rather than the unvoiced. The result is the creation of a very beautiful and emotive response (Curzan). The poem itself is much like the ruins it describes. It is as if the author, a traveler who has stumbled across the city, wanders through the ruins’ entirety. He begins with the “wondrous” foundation in line one, then cites the collapsed roofs, the fallen towers, the broken gate and the “rust-stained / and covered with moss” wall (55; 9–10). Then, he returns to the foundation which still remains, despite being “felled by the weather” (55; 12). Following these lines, the text starts to disappear. It is an irony that sustains and gives strength to the poem’s content. Suddenly, only the foundation really does remain. The lingering phrases give only glimpses of what used to be in the city and in the poem. Consequently, the author and reader alike have to imagine the rest. The end of the poem depicts the great bath houses that were such a valuable commodity for ancient communities. Here, the ends and beginnings of phrases have faded away as though the “hot streams over the great stones” (56; 42) have covered the words. The elegiac poem “The Ruin” may actually be a ruin itself, but the text itself is powerful. It adeptly communicates a love and sense of loss for a crumbling, but once beautiful city and the generations of a civilization that existed within the safety of its walls. Despite the missing text, the tone and meaning continue unaffected. The remaining lines evoke an emotional response through their descriptive language, rhyme, and alliteration. The crumbling poem mirrors the broken city it mourns. This reflection helps to create irreplaceable aural, visual, and emotional depth of “the city” (56; 48). It truly is “a noble thing…” (56; 47).
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Works Cited Curzan, Anne and Michael Adams. How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2009. Print. “The Ruin.” Trans. R. M. Liuzza. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Ed. Joseph Black et al. Vol. A. Peterborough: Broadview, 2008. 55–56. Print.