T. S. Eliot’s “Rhapsody on a Windy Night”
The wildly famous show tune “Memory” by Andrew Lloyd Webber was inspired by T. S. Eliot’s “Rhapsody on a Windy Night” and “Preludes.” This article focuses on the former, which features a speaker whose rant exemplifies the very definition of a lunatic.
Introduction with Text of “Rhapsody on a Windy Night”
The speaker of T. S. Eliot’s “Rhapsody on a Windy Night” goes for a four-hour walk beginning at midnight in an undisclosed city. The poem consists of 78 lines contained in eight versagraphs. Rime is sporadic as is rhythm, and the theme is the mocking desecration of the city coupled with a drunken fantasy.
Although T. S. Eliot’s works have been taken as deeply serious social commentaries on society going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket, it is seldom pointed out that he did so with an often belly-laughable humor. That humor appears raucously in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and as well, it appears here in “Rhapsody on a Windy Night,” a seemingly straight-faced piece.
Rhapsody on a Windy Night
Twelve o’clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations,
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.
Half-past one,
The street lamp sputtered,
The street lamp muttered,
The street lamp said, “Regard that woman
Who hesitates towards you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin.”
The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.
Half-past two,
The street lamp said,
“Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter.”
So the hand of a child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child’s eye.
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.
Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.
The lamp hummed:
“Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smoothes the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and old Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells
That cross and cross across her brain.”
The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.”
The lamp said,
“Four o’clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,
Mount.
The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.”
The last twist of the knife.
Reading by Jeremy Irons
Commentary on “Rhapsody on a Windy Night”
The speaker turns a four-hour walk into a social commentary through grotesque images, loopy sporadic rime, and hints of societal degradation being ushered in by the postmodernist mindset.
First Versagraph: Describing the Sights of the City
Twelve o’clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations,
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.
In the first versagraph, the speaker reports that it is “Twelve o’clock.” He then begins to dramatize his walk through the streets, describing what he sees: he asserts that the moon is encasing the streetscape, as it provides a kind of canvas on which to write his social commentary.
The “lunar synthesis” is the important backdrop for the streetscape. The moon with its chant-like iterations causes the speaker’s memory to disappear like sugar in water. The speaker is finding his ability to remember where he is a bit difficult; at this point, the reader might suspect that the speaker is considerably inebriated.
The drunken portrayal of the street lamps offers further evidence that the speaker is possibly so drunk that his thoughts and memories are misaligned because he states that each “street lamp” by which he stumbles seems to be beating like a “fatalistic drum.”
It is likely that it is the speaker’s head that is beating like that deadly persuasion instrument. The speaker then offers the hilarious image: he concocts a deranged fellow shaking a “dead geranium” and likens that preposterous image to his own memory being shaken by midnight because of the dark spaces which that time of day features.
He is finding that his memory as well as his drunken status are making it difficult for him to maneuver through the midnight streets. The speaker is implying that only through a drunken stupor could a sane individual find the courage and wherewithal to try to navigate the filth through which he must move.
Second Versagraph: Sporadic Rhythm and Rime
Half-past one,
The street lamp sputtered,
The street lamp muttered,
The street lamp said, “Regard that woman
Who hesitates towards you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin.”
By the second versagraph, the speaker has been walking for an hour and half. The reader is treated to one of the sporadic rimes that pop up occasionally: “The street lamp sputtered, / The street lamp muttered.”
The speaker encounters another person out walking, and the street lamp tells him to look at her. She is undoubtedly a prostitute whose “dress / Is torn and stained with sand.”
The speaker’s mind again is strangely interpreting things as he sees “the corner of her eye / Twists like a crooked pin.” But then it is the street lamp that says all this, so one cannot place all the blame on the speaker for reporting such gibberish.
It should be noted that T. S. Eliot was writing at the edge of postmodern gibberish, and thus he did not shy away from taking advantage of the latitude that was being offered up by that reckless and disingenuous style. The important difference between Eliot and the postmods is that Eliot had an genuine point of view and the skill with which to express it.
Third Versagraph: Twisted Things
The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.
The third versagraph merely reports that his memory is vomiting a bunch of things that are twisted, things that are also “high and dry.” He offers examples of those twisted things, such as “a twisted branch upon the beach.” This line alerts the reader that the speaker is walking in a coastal city.
The speaker also notes that the twisted branch appears to be stripped so smooth that it reminds him of a skeleton, “still and white.” He then marks a rusty “spring” in a “factory yard” which has been abandoned and which is likely dangerous because it appears to have hardened, and now it is “curled and ready to snap.”
A kid or any person walking by that loaded spring could become a victim akin to a stabbing. The speaker places that possibility in the mind of readers for special effect to remind them that he is describing a degraded landscape that has the ability to take victims in unexpected places.
Fourth Versagraph: Keeping Track of Time
Half-past two,
The street lamp said,
“Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter.”
So the hand of a child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child’s eye.
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.
It is now “Half-past two.” The street lamp is talking again; this time it is reporting that a cat is in a gutter eating butter—an image that is offering up another sporadic rime. Then the speaker likens the cat’s tongue lurching out to grab the butter to a street urchin grabbing a toy as he ran “along the quay.”
The speaker describes the child’s eye as holding “nothing”—a very disturbing image that again adds to his description of degradation and poverty that continue to flood the landscape—especially the streetscape. The speaker then continues his report about empty eyes that he has seen before. He has seen such blank stares through “lighted shutters.”
Then he is ready to add another ridiculous image to his repertoire: he has observed an “old crab with barnacles on his back” and that old crab was grabbing the “end of a stick” that the speaker was holding out for him.
Fifth and Sixth Versagraphs: The Lamp Rimes Again and Speaks French
Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.
The lamp hummed:
“Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smoothes the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and old Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells
That cross and cross across her brain.”
The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.”
The street lamp again offers the opportunity for a sporadic rime, again it is “sputtered” and then “muttered” as the dark continues to remain ascendent. But now the street lamp begins to speak French as it describes the moon, telling the speaker, “La lune ne garde aucune rancune”: the moon never holds a grudge.
The moon lights the corners of memory, as she performs a number of operations such as winking a “feeble eye,” soothing the “hair of the grass,” offering up the image of a “smallpox” scar across her face.
The speaker continues to lend the moon an array of odd activities, such as twisting “a paper rose” and exuding the smell of “dust and old Cologne.” He claims that it is only the moon that arouses these strange smells of the night. It is the speaker’s own drunken memory that is responsible for the concoction of these odd smells along with all of the other images he is creating.
Across the brain of the moon, he claims, come these smells that vary: “sunless dry geraniums,” dust in tight places, “chestnuts in the streets,” “female smells” in closed rooms, “cigarette” in hallways, and “cocktail smell in bars.”
And interestingly, even though the “moon has lost her memory,” the speaker remembers quite well all of these grotesque smells he has experienced—all of these grotesque smells that the power of the moonlight has brought to the forefront for the speaker, as he walks along the polluted streets of this polluted city.
The term “lunatic” etymologically descends from the Latin “luna” moon; the original definition of “lunatic” described individuals who were adversely affected the phases of the moon.
This speaker’s outlandish images are influenced by the moonlight and the moon’s memory, a perfectly useful symbol for the speaker’s commentary on a spiritually dry and deplorable society.
Seventh and Eight Versagraphs: Back at the Flat, as the Knife-Key Turns
The lamp said,
“Four o’clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,
Mount.
The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.”
The last twist of the knife.
It is now four o’clock in the morning and the speaker has arrived at presumably his flat. And again, the lamp is doing the speaking telling the speaker that the number he is seeing and remembering is, in fact, his. The speaker holds the key, which becomes a knife, as he finishes his dramatic reportage with a flourish.
The speaker’s final thrust, appearing in the eighth versagraph, which is bizarrely and postmodernly the single line “The last twist of the knife,” rimes with the preceding line from the seventh versagraph, “Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.”
The speaker’s whole midnight walk has consisted of nothing but metaphorical knife thrusts from the moon lighting up a decaying streetscape, to a cat lapping up rancid butter, to a prostitute’s eye twisting like “a crooked pin,” to a child’s blank expression, to all those rancid smells that have accosted him.
It is, however, his own memory that has brought all of this dissatisfaction and deadening spiritual dryness to the forefront of his thoughts. Thus, it is hardly surprising that his final notion of sleeping and then starting life over again come morning should be nothing but another “twist of the knife.”
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Memory”
