Critic speak is tough, but we've got you covered.
Quote :Understanding Poetry
Was this, then, the attitude of Andrew Marvell, born 1621, sometime student of Cambridge, returned traveler and prospective tutor, toward Oliver Cromwell in the summer of 1650? The honest answer must be: we do not know. We have tried to read the poem, not Andrew Marvell's mind. That seems sensible in view of the fact that we have the poem, whereas the attitude held by Marvell at any particular time must be a matter of inference, even though we grant that the poem may be put in as part of the evidence from which we are to draw inferences. True, we do know that Marvell was capable of composing the "Ode" and one must concede that that very fact may tell us a great deal about Marvell's attitude toward Cromwell. We think it probably does. But we shall not claim that it tells us everything: there is the problem of the role of the unconscious in the process of composition, there is the possibility of the poet's having written better than he knew, there is even the matter of the happy accident. It is wise to maintain the distinction between the total attitude as manifested in the poem and the attitude of the author as man and private citizen.
This chunk from Brooks and Warren's textbook Understanding Poetry takes on Andrew Marvell's "An Horation Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland." That poem declares up front that it's all about reality: a real person (Cromwell) and a real event (returning from Ireland).
So, it shouldn't be surprising to you that scholars of this ode have speculated a lot about what Marvell really thought about Cromwell. And about Ireland. And about all of the politics of that day and time.
Brooks and Warren are okay with this reading of the poem—but only up to a certain point. In the first line of the quote, they're wondering: Well, then, was this how Marvell felt about Cromwell back in 1650? But their answer to this question's a big shocker: "The honest answer must be: we do not know."
Really, they say, it was a silly question to ask of the poem to begin with. As critics of the poem, they're not trying to get at what Marvell thought: "We have tried to read the poem, not Andrew Marvell's mind." Yep, Brooks and Warren know how to get sassy.
Then our boys B&W explain why we need to distinguish between the poem and Marvell's mind. See, the relations between the two are actually quite complex. First of all, the process of writing a poem is mysterious, even to the poet himself. Who knows what role the unconscious might play in writing?
Second, poets can write something deeper than they realize at the time. A poet might just have a "happy accident" and write something brilliant off-the-cuff. (Hey, it happens.) So Brooks and Warren draw a hard line between the poem's attitude toward Cromwell, and Marvell's attitude toward Cromwell.
Right. There's a poem-'tude, and a Marvell-'tude. Got it.