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the heart after one’s death, opposes bird-headed Horus, who guided dead souls to the underworld and was the protector of the pharaoh, to some degree. Thoth, in-ventor of writing and all intellectual pursuits, is also bird-headed, and Wepwawet, assistant to Anubis, also jackal-headed. (The latter’s name translates as “Opener of the Ways,” a name familiar elsewhere in weird studies.) Lines 55–75 refer to
“tongueless dooms which dog the traveling suns” and to “[t]he vampire, Silence, at the breast of worlds,” where the heart is kept. It seems that even the suns or stars are weighed up at their death, and their hearts removed; that is, the afterlife judges and condemns all to utter destruction, “crouching at the back of Time.” The next-mentioned “[F]ire without light that gnaws [like a jackal or dog] the base of things”
may remind us of Milton’s “darkness visible” that lights Hell for Satan and his crew in their eternal fiery “afterworld” at the base of the universe. At that base, the spheres or great circles which to both Greeks and Egyptians delimited their differing conceptions of the universe have their fundaments, or bottommost parts and
foundations, and the Greek river of forgetfulness in Hades is given tides by Smith, which erosive currents destroy the basis of all creation. (Line 64, a mighty image, may evoke to the reader Yggdrasil and the serpent gnawing at the roots of that
World-tree, the Greek kallikanzaroi who do the same, and so on.)
Thus the Egyptian scheme of cosmology is conjoined with and succeeded by
the Greek and later by the Hebrew. In this same complex passage, the “dazzled
[sun-lit] wings of will” oppose the dark forces of destruction, and the dogged destructiveness and airy potency are renamed the forces of Chaos and Creation.
Smith’s verse grows more and more Miltonic as he reaches past Keats to the Ro-
mantic’s master of “things unattempted [previously] in prose or rhyme” in the
128 THE FREEDOM OF FANTASTIC THINGS
greatest epic in English, Paradise Lost. The “closer war reverseless” alludes to Satan’s war against God, an ultimate battle both Smith and his Nero, the latter perforce ignorant of Milton but not of cosmological wars, imagines as parallel to Nero’s own war with Rome and reality.
Historically, we know that Nero, according to Suetonius, the contemporary
chronicler of the early emperors, sang of Troy’s fall while watching Rome burn.
That story began with the apple of discord, marked “for the Fairest” being thrown among three goddesses, followed by Paris’s choice of Aphrodite, the rape of
Helen, Achilles’ dogged pursuit of Hector thrice around Troy’s walls, and the destruction of that great city. In the Iliad, the goddesses of vengeance are described as lame (Oedipus, the name given to Nero’s psychological forerunner, means “swollen-foot” or “lame-footed”; see Lévi-Strauss, 206–31) but following inexorably behind offenders; cf. line 93. (“Core” is now obviously a pun.)
Nero concludes this section by identifying himself with the Hebrew hero
Sampson (a sun-figure, from the Hebrew Shimshon, “sun-man,” thought by some
scholars to represent a solar deity3). He sets himself above and beyond the dog and god of destruction.4 Dogs and the final “hound” also evoke Sampson and the fiery foxes he loosed in the fields of the Philistines. References to the greatest Hebraic hero, extended from their original scope, continue.
The sense of this latter half of the great fourth stanza may be paraphrased: If I were a god, I would stand above both principles of Chaos and Creation, I would
be above both the greatest deity and his opposer, and they would be as demiurges to me as I initiate a conflict beyond the traditions known to us, and all forces would be redefined under my New Order.
The fifth stanza restates this theme and modifies it somewhat, relating Nero as he watches Rome burn, thinking of Troy’s demolition, to a god who plays with the burning suns of the universe. Line 87, “tear out the eyes of light,” most likely refers to Oedipus, and Nero’s Oedipal relationship with his mother: he supposedly opened her body after having her killed, “to see where I came from.” Perhaps this refers also to the blinding of Sampson in Milton’s imitation of Greek drama. Line 85 is singularly Miltonic.
The universe is created through the Word, in Genesis, later (much later) iden-
tified with God in John 1:1: “. . . and the Word was God.” Out of chaos a Word
spoke, saying Let There Be Light, and there was light. The poem’s climactic stanza develops an antithesis to this, a gospel of destruction to set contrary to and to undo God’s creation.
At last, at the height of his egomaniacal euphoria, Nero images himself as a
god above gods, having become the godhead itself, what the Hindus call Brahman.
The ultimate paradox evolves in the final lines: “casting worlds” as if they were worthless pebbles, so that there is no distinction between the macro- and micro-cosmic, and finally, “[b]rightening the aspect of Eternity” with suns whose light he himself has extinguished, embodying the notion that darkness and light are no dif-
Clark Ashton Smith’s “Nero”
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ferent to his transcendent view, since he is now beyond and above a figure who
might speak out of the darkness and say “Let there be Light.” Time (93) and eternity are also interchangeable, to one unimaginably beyond both.
This “speech” (91) of godhead is, of course, imagined by Nero, as the entire
poem is spoken by him, commenting upon his imperial self as both magnificent
and minor. As in many of the best poems (“Ode on a Grecian Urn,” for instance), the ironies and cumulative paradoxes enrich our understanding as the rich imagery and well-balanced Miltonic and Keatsian rhythms satisfy our aesthetic natures. One of Smith’s strongest efforts, “Nero” bridges realism to cosmic vision as Browning’s “Fra Lippo Lippi” spanned a realistic setting with high Renaissance painting’s aesthetics, although “I intend to get to God” (line 6, “Johannes Agricola in Meditation”) is closer to the speaker Nero in tone.
Tennyson’s Ulysses, who speaks of “sail[ing] beyond the sunset” and heroically
never yielding, no matter what the challenge, parallels “Nero” in that each speaker shows us the path his desires have taken from the mundane to the extra-human.
Both speakers entice us into sympathy with their extreme philosophies through eloquence and chains of reasoning. But though its form has roots in Browning’s and Tennyson’s dramatic monologues, the imagery of “Nero,” it has been said by reviewers, harkens back to Keats, particularly the grandeur of “Hyperion.” However, Smith’s diction in this poem is more ornate, Latinate, and less casual that Keats’s, as a comparison will show in a few moments. Furthermore, to the extent that “Nero”
may indeed remind us of “Hyperion,” we must be aware that in that poem, Keats
was heavily influenced by Milton, consciously and deliberately; see lines 2, 39, 118, 141, 232, and 235–39 from Book 1, for example.
Smith’s contemporary, Edwin Arlington Robinson, also employed imaginary
speakers, as in “The Man against the Sky” (a poem useful for comparison with
“Nero,” but which is not as strongly developed, because of Robinson’s zeal for
ambiguity).
* * * * *
Contemporary reviewers of this poem indicated a generally favorable reaction
to the book in which it appeared, The Star-Treader, and in each instance where
“Nero” was singled out for comment, such commentary was quite favorable. From
the column “The Spectator” in Town Talk for 16 November 1912: “A strength not boyish [most reviewers alluded to the youth of Smith, nineteen at the time of publication] muscles these lines wherein the last of the Caesars yearns for the godhead which would make his power of mischief infinite. Any poet alive today might well be proud to have written this poem” (12�
��13). The reviewer declines to specify
why.
From the column titled “The Latest Books” in the Argonaut for 30 November 1912: “There are no self-searchings, or yearnings, or soul-communions in
Mr. Smith’s poems, nowhere a trace of the morbid or introspective, and we may
expect much from a poet who will at least try to interpret for us the consciousness
130 THE FREEDOM OF FANTASTIC THINGS
of nature rather than that of his own personality” (365). Lines 86–91 are then
quoted to evidence Smith’s “stateliness of diction.” (Oddly, the reviewer says the line are from “the opening” of “Nero.”) This reviewer does seem to have grasped the notion that a poem need not be autobiographical gushing, as most poetry was in the nineteenth century, and in the twentieth, and as it is published in American periodicals even as you read this.
A third example will suffice to give the range. From “Clark Smith’s Poems.
Wonderful Lyrics Deserve Recognition With World’s Best” in the San Francisco Bulletin: “[Smith] will one day be numbered among the world’s geniuses. . . . Such poetry as his cannot fail to arouse the admiration of mankind some time. Regarded as the creation of a mature mind, to say nothing of the youth of the poet, what
American bard has ever excelled in imaginative splendor or poetic power such lines as the following from Mr. Smith’s poem ‘Nero’?” (14). The reviewer then quoted
lines 38–61 and lines 76–96. I would emphasize imaginative splendor as most im-
portant in this review.
Scott Connors sums up for us. The reviews of Smith’s first book, The Star-
Treader and Other Poems, while eager to put forth George Sterling as Smith’s “discoverer,” also hailed Smith as a poetic genius:
[They] quoted extensively from Smith’s poem “Nero” (the Bulletin doing so in its entirety). All expressed amazement that such a genius could hail from so humble a source as an impoverished ranch in the heart of the gold-mining country, especially at so tender an age. All compared him with such past initiates of the poetic muse as Shelley (the Examiner), Keats (the Bulletin), and (much to Smith’s apparent consternation) Milton, Pope, and Dryden (the Call )! (28–29)
On the other hand, the self-deprecating Smith himself wrote to George Ster-
ling, his mentor, regarding his poem:
I am almost afraid to send you “Nero.” About four-fifths of it is prose, and not particularly good prose at that. However, I’m sending it. I hope you’re not expecting too much of it. It has psychological value, I suppose; pathological might be a better word. The human interest (if it has any of what is usually meant by that term) is sinister and abnormal. It has a few great lines (according to my taste) such as “The vampire Silence of the breast of worlds,” but I am not at all hopeful about it. ( SL 13)
In this self-criticism, Smith picked out the single line which is least “main-
stream,” least traditional in its diction, and which seems to me to be something of a felicitous sore thumb, diction-wise, in that by its very inappropriateness it makes Nero’s speech as a whole seem less planned, hence more human and authentic.
As for whether Smith had a poetic genius, that is a matter for fickle posterity, for in 1912 Ezra Pound was ridiculed whereas Sidney Lanier was exalted. In my
lifetime, I’ve seen Lanier’s words dropped entirely from the Norton anthologies
Clark Ashton Smith’s “Nero”
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that are the standard in American colleges and universities, as I’ve seen T. S. Eliot’s reputation wilt under political attack, and so on. Time will tell us nothing; in fifty years Eliot may ride high on the heap of acclaim, and Smith may rise higher. Perhaps Nero had a point, re Time.
Notes
1. Cf. “To Helen” (1831):
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
2. Webster’s 402, an example of how Blackwood is considered by the makers of that most useful dictionary to be an excellent user of words, I suppose; a James Joyce quotation, I’ve noted in the past, is used for “impinge” in the same dictionary.
3. I thank Dr. Robert Allen of the English Department of the University of Tennessee at Martin for this and several other suggestions.
4. A decade after CAS’s present poem, T. S. Eliot used a similar reverse wordplay of great unconscious significance when he wrote “O keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men, or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!” Eliot means both God and the ravager of corpses.
Works Cited
Bashford, Herbert. “Clark Smith’s Poems. Wonderful Lyrics Deserve Recognition
With World’s Best.” San Francisco Bulletin (30 November 1912): 14.
The Catholic Encyclopedia. Online at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/.
Connors, Scott. “Who Discovered Clark Ashton Smith?” Lost Worlds No. 1 (2004): 25–34.
Eliot, T. S. The Waste Land and Other Poems. London: Faber & Faber, 1975.
“The Latest Books.” The Argonaut (30 November 1912): 365.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Structural Anthropology. Trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grund-fest Schoepf. New York: Basic Books, 1963.
“The Spectator.” Town Talk No. 1956 (16 November 1912): 12–13.
Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam, 1981.
Satan Speaks:
A Reading of “Satan Unrepentant”
Phillip A. Ellis
“Satan Unrepentant” ( LO 60–63) is a fascinating poem for many reasons. It displays a number of features that make it worthy of study independently from other concerns and influences. By so doing, the fullest attention can be placed upon the poem, and such distractions as considerations of a possible Gnosticism can be
placed to one side. Further, like others of Clark Ashton Smith’s oeuvre, it is a dramatic monologue, illuminating Satan both as a figure and as a Romantic hero. It displays a number of interesting features in its use of speech, to convey both
meaning and character. These aspects combine to form what is, certainly, one
among many of Smith’s interesting and arresting poems. Although not as ac-
claimed a poem as “Nero,” it nonetheless shares and displays many of the same
marks of his genius, as well as many of his same concerns. It also displays a fair degree of interest as his interpretation of Satan as a poetic figure, given Satan’s importance in Western culture and literature. Overall, then, by looking more closely at this poem and at its various aspects, it is possible to elucidate and illuminate further aspects not only of the poem itself, but also aspects of Smith’s creativity and concerns as a poet and human being. But to do such without recourse to its context is clearly and evidently required; it is the poem, not its setting, that must be examined.
Although it is possible and, to some extent, reasonable to examine the poem
within its context, such will not be the case here. To do so would divert attention away from the poem itself. It might help to know that its apparent Miltonic grandeur is a reaction against the anti-Miltonic sentiments of Smith’s contemporaries, but such, ultimately, has little import for a reading focused solely upon the poem as the origin and measure of its conclusions. Likewise, it is possible to view the figure of Satan within a historical sequence, or milieu, of other Satans, but such denies the fact that what is of interest here is this Satan, this image of God’s adversary. If we cannot understand this Satan, how can we place him among others? Further,
though it is tempting to place the poem within a definite tradition, I have not done so. I lack the knowledge to do so sufficiently and succinctly, and doing so draws attention away from the poem; it is harder in some ways to look solely at the poem, bringing only one’s competence as a reader to it, and t
hat is where this reading must stand or fall. Finally, both the figures of God and Satan may be constructed within a seemingly Gnostic viewpoint of Satan rebelling against the demiurge, yet, clearly, in
Satan Speaks: “A Reading of Satan Unrepentant”
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order to sustain any reading, the principal and sole arbiter of any speculation must be the poem itself, and such, unsupported by the poem, must remain beyond the
confines of this essay. As can be seen, it is the poem itself, as an artifact independent of the historical vagaries of its production and of any theological climates that can alter our perception of it, that is of vital and central interest in this analysis.
Other views, other considerations, while important and interesting, have no place here at this moment. It is the poem that we must look at, and in doing so it would be well to ask what that poem actually is, what its nature is, its technical aspects and the like, before progressing to the other subjects, such as the nature of Satan.
The poem itself consists of five irregular stanzas, spread over just under three pages of print in Smith’s Selected Poems. It is written in blank verse, with some variation apparent in the placement of the caesura, evidence of the skill and care placed in the poem’s construction. The first stanza introduces the speaker, clearly evident from the poem’s title, and also sets the scene: the speaker is “in the doubted dark”
(7) away, apparently from the light traditionally associated with God. The second stanza amplifies this sense of place, bringing in, in turn, the stars of the skies and space, as liminal between his and God’s place. The third stanza in turn focuses first upon the universe, thence upon God’s reign, turning thence to the fourth, which focuses upon the relationship in terms of power of God and Satan. The final
stanza looks once again at Satan, waiting, in darkness for the “dreamt, inevitable hour” (78) when he may rise and take God’s place. These, then, are the basics of
“Satan Unrepentant,” both of its nature and structure. It is, of course, much more complex, and therefore further detail, such as its nature as a dramatic monologue, reveals further aspects of interest.