Good Example Of A Dialogue Between The Soul And The Body Essay

The aim of this essay is to present you with the reflections drawn upon the reading of the poem ‘A dialogue between the Soul and the Body’ which was written by Andrew Marvell and published after his death in 1681. Andrew Marvell is considered to be one of the representative poets of Metaphysical poetry. Metaphysical poetry which arose within the 17th century is a field of poetry which is characterized by specific characteristics of a so-called metaphysical nature. Poets focus on using symbols and conceits in order to approach issues and questions related to the metaphysical nature of human life. Humans have always been attracted to the mystery of human life and its nature and meaning in combination with its origins. Therefore, the literary field resulted in being affected by the various ideas and beliefs concerning life’s mystery in universe. As a result poetry expressed the need of its creators to explore this life’s mystery and formed a specific trend which was characterized by specific traits. Poets started using symbols and conceits in their effort to express their everlasting questions concerning the journey of life in universe, emphasized on the paradox which characterizes human life and dove into the mysterious relationship existing between the world of logic and the natural world. It could be argued that metaphysical poetry was the answer to people’s question regarding the bonds between their rationalizing nature and their questions of metaphysical issues, such as the mystery of human existence, its power of creation, the powers of universe and destiny, the journey after death and others of similar nature. Andrew Marvell served metaphysical poetry as a poet who wrote various poems as part of his individual questions and personal reflections towards reality, the natural and the non-physical world and the idea of being. This essay aims at presenting you with the analysis and review of the poem ‘A dialogue between the Soul and the Body’ which explores the existing bond between the two basic and main elements consisting the human existence. The essay will focus on the context and meaning of the poem’s stanzas and will result in the overall interpretation of the poem as formed upon its reading and review.
The poem consists of four stanzas. It is a live dialogue as developed between the soul and the body. There is no specific individual named. Andrew Marvell draws the portrait and builds a dialogue between the body and the soul of any individual. His readers read a poem in which they hear the confessions and deepest thoughts of a body and its soul. It sounds weird and paradox to imagine that there can be a dialogue between a body and a soul. But then on the other hand it seems quite normal and logical in its own terms. Why cannot we have a dialogue between a body and its soul? After all each soul is inhabiting a particular body and each body is the ‘home’ of a specific, particular soul. The mystery of each soul’s origin cannot be fully interpreted or logically rationalized.
There seems to be a common consensus within the borders of the scientific community and the medical world that an individual’s body can be explained in way according to the rules and research findings of the sciences of medicine and biology. But the human soul remains a mystery which has been approached by various fields like philosophy, psychology and religion, in terms of it being interpreted or rationally explained. This is why it could be argued that even nowadays it is not so weird for people to think upon their soul, to spend time and their imagination upon the interpretation and rationalization of their soul and to build different points of view as far as the nature and existence of their soul is concerned. Andrew Marvell’s poem sounds very intriguing and interesting since it presents its readers with a dialogue as developed with the aid of the poet’s imagination and creativity, between the body and its soul.
There can be no doubt that such a poem of such a paradox but intriguing context attracts to readers of poetry of all ages since it approaches a highly interesting issue of great interest to the human being.
Andrew Marvell begins his poem with the words of the soul which addresses its body, the one within which it lives. ‘O who shall, from this dungeon, raise / A soul enslav'd so many ways? / With bolts of bones, that fetter'd stands / In feet, and manacled in hands; / ‘(lines 1-4). The soul sounds pretty despaired and angry. It addresses its body in a quite unfriendly way. The soul describes the place within it lives like a dungeon. She characterizes herself ‘enslaved’ in many ways and the readers start looking at the soul under a new perspective. They probably had never thought that the soul feels like a prisoner but now the soul seems to feel so bad and the description of her surroundings seem quite unattractive as well.
The soul goes on saying ‘ Here blinded with an eye, and there / Deaf with the drumming of an ear;/ A soul hung up, as 'twere, in chains .’(lines 5-7). The inner part of the body is described in full detail and the soul presents the body and whoever is listening to her words, with her torture as lived on her behalf, in more details. The soul describes itself as deaf and blind. This is the first paradox of the poem which is used on behalf of Andrew Marvell in order to point out the major difference existing between the soul and the body. The body is presented in a talented, indirect way as the major conventional element of the human existence. A body definitely needs both a pair of eyes and ears in order to be able to function and serve the needs of a human. But the soul wishes to present the readers with its superiority in contrast to the body. This is a superiority of which the readers have probably never thought before. The soul needs no eyes nor ears in order to feel. The soul is able to feel without the conventional organs that a body needs in order to be able to get grips of the real world. The way in which Marvell presents his readers with this amazing and surprising aspect of a body’s alleged disadvantage is unique. It is of great admiration the fact that the body is proven by the soul to be depending on certain organs in order to be able to function properly. In contrast, the soul needs nothing and functions on its own. It is independent by virtue and yet it seems to be condemned to live like a prisoner within a certain body. The word ‘chains’ is powerful enough to depict the way the soul is feeling trapped within its body.
The second stanza is coming in order to provide the body with its own voice. It is time for the body to speak up and raise its voice. The body reacts powerfully and characterizes the soul ‘tyrranic’. (line 12). The body is asking a rhetorical question as far as its own liberation is concerned. Who could ever let the body free of the ‘bonds of the tyrranic soul’? (line 12). In lines 15-20 of the second stanza the body goes on saying ‘And warms and moves this needless frame, /(A fever could but do the same) / (lines 15-16) and finishes his words in line 20 ‘ Since this ill spirit it possest.’(line 20).
So, the body is presenting the readers with its own torture. It is possessed by an ill soul. The body replies to the soul posing a rhetorical question which reveals its own feeling of being imprisoned. It is as if the body says to the soul that the feeling of imprisonment is equally shared by both, under different terms. If the soul feels trapped, then why should the body not feel trapped as well? And the worst of all is the fact that the body is not trapped in terms of physical imprisonment. The body seems to be experiencing an even worse feeling of imprisonment. It experiences the worst kind of imprisonment. The body is spiritually imprisoned. Because the prison of the body is the fact that it is conquered, against its will, by a specific attitude, a specific mentality and a specific way of looking at things. In other words, the body is saying in clear and loud voice that it is experiencing a worst torture and this cannot be neglected.
The body emphasizes on the fact that each movement, each animation of its, is powered by the soul. Whether the body agrees or disagrees seems to have no significance at all. The body is moving according to the indirect orders and wishes given by the soul. The soul is presented on behalf of the body like a monitor which motivates the body to move, act and behave in a certain way. So. The body results in proving the tyrannical nature of the soul, which leaves no freedom at all.
The body goes on expressing an even more weird idea and statement. Who has ever told the soul that it ought to motivate the body and provide it with the warmth necessary in order to make it move? A fever seems to provide the body with warmth as well. But there is no one who could support that the warmth generated by the fever is a kind of warmth which is wanted or desired. So, the body results in posing a question which is serious and cannot be easily answered. The body may have wanted to remain a cold frame. Also, the body may have wanted to be left alone and never come to life. Who has ever told the soul that the body wanted to come to life and have its movements and life dependent upon the soul? This is a very puzzling commentary expressed on behalf of the body which cannot be answered or solved easily. The body characterizes the warmth and the mobility provided by the soul as unnecessary. But what would the body’s destiny be in case the soul did not provide it with the mobility and warmth it has? This is a question which is answered by the body itself. The body may have wished to remain in the world of anonymity. It may have wanted to remain in the world and space of non-existence. Who has really told people that their bodies have been seeking for their coming to life? Who has ever convinced people that their bodies have been looking forward to being inhabited by a soul which provides them with the so called gift of existence? Readers are certainly puzzled since they are driven to look into the nature and existence of the soul and the body under a totally new perspective. The body seems depressed and angry. Who has ever told the soul or the mystery of existence that a body needs existence? It seems that Andrew Marvell wishes to present his readers with the fact that nothing ought to be taken for granted. So, the readers seem to be feeling quite puzzled and they are waiting for the soul to respond to this question.
The answer comes on behalf of the soul. In the third stanza the soul focuses on the nature of the torture it endures. The body goes through a number of diseases and survives, so this is the worst problem the soul has to deal with.. ‘Constrain'd not only to endure/ Diseases, but, what's worse, the cure; /And ready oft the port to gain, /Am shipwreck'd into health again.’ (lines 27-30).
The third stanza brings the readers face to face with the opposing and contradictory point of view of the soul. Things may not at all be the way that the body presents them to be. The body has already talked about the torture it is dealing with on a daily basis. But this is not at all a torture. The torture is the one experienced on behalf of the soul itself.
The soul is trapped within the body and it is pushed to deny its nature. The soul has already stated that it has no need to depend on any kind of conventional organs like the ears or the eyes. The soul does not feel the need to feel anything. But in spite of its own wish and will, the soul has found herself trapped within a body. So, the soul is made to feel anything that the body is feeling. So, the soul is experiencing any single kind of pain that the body is experiencing. The soul is feeling all the aches, all the pains and all the illnesses whenever they are experienced by the soul. But this is the least fearful experience when it is compared to the worst of all experiences. The soul is experiencing the worst of all experiences. Not only does it experience the pains of any occurring illnesses, but it is also experiencing the treatment of all kinds of illnesses. It seems that the cure of the illnesses is the worst torture of all, which the soul is made to experience whether she likes it or not. Since it is trapped within the body, the soul cannot do otherwise. The soul is obliged to experience the cure and has no other way of getting away from it.
The soul is presented by Andrew Marvell to be using the knowledge which is commonly shared by humans. There is common belief that the soul of any individual manages to find its own peace and quiet, once the body dies. The body dies and it returns to earth. The body is decomposed and the soul is eventually free to return to its heaven. So, the longer the body lives, the greater the torture of the soul is. It sounds as if Marvell is trying to challenge the religious and philosophical belief regarding the composition of the human nature and existence. The majority of people have always believed that the soul returns to its peace and quiet, to its heaven, once the body dies. So, how can it be that the body could ever be considered to be a friend of the soul? How could the harmonic co –existence of both the body and the soul be ensured, since the body is presented to be the one which imprisons the soul in the first place? The body is the one which is responsible for the soul being deprived of its own heaven. This is by all means illogical and unethical. So, Marvell poses this question which definitely intrigues people’s minds, as far as the imposition of their beliefs concerning their nature, is concerned.
The last stanza is coming to shed some more light to this debate which has been gradually developed more intense and elaborate between the body and the soul. The body is replying to the soul and seems to have the last word, since the fourth stanza is the last one of the poem. So, the body is saying that the physical pain which the soul endures is nothing when it is compared to the mental and psychological pain which the body experiences because of what the soul experiences. ‘But physic yet could never reach / The maladies thou me dost teach; ‘ (lines 31-32). The body goes on to shed light on the fact that memory cannot leave it free. The memories of the feelings and the internal pain which the soul experiences and imposes on the body itself cannot be put aside. The stanza ends with one of the most extraordinary metaphors used in poetry. ‘To build me up for sin so fit?/ So architects do square and hew / Green trees that in the forest grew.’ (lines 42-44).
The body replies back to the soul with a very strong and powerful argument. How can the soul dare to compare the pain and sickness it experiences because of the physical illnesses of the body, to the mental and psychological pain which the body experiences due to the soul’s mental and psychological illnesses? This is one of the most intriguing points of the poem. The body refers to the power of the soul which is by all means indisputable. The soul experiences all these mysterious feelings which have not been rationalized by humans. Feelings like psychological pain, betrayal, love, depression, optimism or pessimism, have been torturing the body and there seems to be no way of rationalizing them and managing to deal with them successfully. Although the body seems to be aware of the nature of each one of the feelings, there seems to be nothing it can do in order to get rid of these feelings and the kind of psychological pain they generate. There is a very nice metaphor which is used by the poet in order to depict this torture of the body. There are architects who cut down trees and they shape them in the way they desire. Something like that seems to be happening to the body. The soul seems to be manipulating the body and it makes it feel according to the soul’s wishes and interpretations.
The poem ends with the fourth stanza but the question has remained ever since the poem was written unanswered. If both the body and the soul were given their own unique, independent voice, then there could be no loser or winner. There seems to be an ongoing dispute existing between the body and the soul which can have no ending. Andrew Marvell has written a poem which depicts the ongoing mystery of the human existence.