Regret

Regret is a powerful theme throughout literature; in the course of our lessons, we have explored several different eras of writing: Gothic, Romantic, Victorian, and Modernism. Each of these movements has their share of unique personalities, different influences on the world and desires as to what they sought to accomplish but something they held in common was that many works of every era held a sense of regret buried somewhere in their eloquent and inspiring prose and poetry. Regret is an excellent literary theme and tool in many works both political and social yet ultimately they all conclude that regret is futile and a source of suffering.

 



Regret can appear in many situations, such as a lament for something lost or as sorrow for something undesirable that has happened. Perhaps one of the most moving works handling the concept of regret and, born from that, the desire for redemption, is the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. While it is, in essence, a political submission about slavery and its terror, literarily speaking, it employs deep sorrow and pains of regret as a method of engraving the poem’s message in the mind of the audience.

 

“The very deep did rot: O Christ”
That ever this should be!”

    It is here in these lines that one can hear the anguish of the mariner for his actions in killing the albatross. Through the whole poem, as each chapter of his hellish journey he recounts to the captive Wedding guest, the pain of his actions is ripe in his language and flows openly through the poem.  The Ancient Mariner travels, haunted by his experience at sea, seeking out another with whom to share his tale and offer a lesson to those who have yet to suffer the consequences of their inexperience. He plays this role that regret has cast to him,

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
    That agony returns:
    And till my ghastly tale is told,
    This heart within me burns.

    Tortured by his guilt at inviting the catastrophe unto his shipmates and himself, the Mariner tries to relive his sins and secure a form of redemption and free himself from the torment of his own regret, but as each time he tells his story, he is further punished by his actions as his struggles return to haunt him, disallowing him rest whether he imparts his tale or not. Regret here acts as an internal punishment, not external consequence, his suffering self-imposed by his own regret for what happened. His pain being presented in that way enchants the audience and leaves behind a powerful message that even if the world should forgive your actions, unless you can forgive yourself, regret shall plague your conscious and frustrate your heart.

    Similarly, regret has a place in Southey’s work The Sailor Who Served in the Slave Trade. In this poem, the Sailor is tortured by what he has done in the past, flogging a slave such that she died the next day. When the Priest comes upon him, it is noted that

And often on his Saviour call'd
With many a bitter groan,
In such heart-anguish as could spring
From deepest guilt alone

    The Sailor was deeply troubled by the guilt of what he had one. Just as the Ancient Mariner was restless by the regret in his heart for the death of the albatross and the consequences that arose, the Sailor is haunted by his actions and their own consequences. It is his regret that he should have committed such an atrocity and even the comfort that it was not his choice, as he was acting on the orders of his captain, does little to quell the guilt that assaults him. He prays to his Savior for forgiveness of the sins he’s committed and though the consequences of his actions is less severe than those of the Ancient Mariner, he is not relieved of his guilt and his regret still follow,

I shut my eyes,--it matters not--
Still still the same I see,--
And when I lie me down at night
'Tis always day with me.

 

    It is quite obvious how distressed the Sailor is by his situation and the regret that continues to plague is weary existence. Just as it emphasized the tale of the Ancient Mariner, impressing upon the audience the great horrors of his actions, it also plays a parallel role in Southey’s poem. It is his regret that tortures the Sailor so, as he would not kneel before the alter and pray should he not feel any sort of remorse or guilt for his actions. Unlike the Mariner, however, the Sailor does not attempt to relieve his regret through offering his suffering as a lesson to others or by speaking his tale to release the weight over him; the Sailor does not seek redemption or to serve penance as the Mariner did, instead he designs to receive forgiveness through askance. Through all of this, however, the main purpose of the regret of both the Ancient Mariner and the Sailor was express to the audience the horrors of slavery and that no one could escape its cruelty unscarred.

     Another poem which heavily features regret is The Forsaken Merman. As discussed in class, The Forsaken Merman explores women’s place in society and can be considered a feminist work; certainly it has political undertones. One of the most talked about points in the class discussion was that the woman, though content with her place on land, still holds regret that she could not be with her lover and children,
 

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,…

From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh;
For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden
And the gleam of her golden hair.

 

    The place of regret in this poem is to regard that women have a tough decision to make; that they must constantly choose between family and freedom and no matter their choice, they are left with a hollow regret that they could not have chosen the other. In this poem, there is no middle ground where she can have both of each worlds, instead she must make her choice and live with the sorrow of not being able to hold onto both. Just as Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken discusses a lament for the path that was not taken and how it is now lost, The Forsaken Merman also explores that concept but from a woman’s perspective, from her children and family to her career and independence. Regret plays a powerful part in understanding this experience as Arnold leads the author to feel the same regret as the woman that she had to choose between two things that held her love.

As the three above mentioned poems entertain the use of regret as a method for empowering their political commentary through pathos, William Blake recognizes regret as something quite different in using it in his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. The particular Song that I’m talking about is the Ecchoing on the Green. It is a wonderful juxtaposition that very well regards Blake’s opinion on regret. In our class discussion of the Ecchoing on the Green, we discussed the contrast between that with the sunrise came the joy of children’s play as the poem declares, “While our sports shall be seen, On the Ecchoing Green.” We talked about sunrise as the beginning of life, of childhood, joy and innocence. The last lines of the poem, however, explore the sunset which we had decided was death, “and sport no more, [was seen] on the darkening Green.” Through our discussion of this particular song and the two images that go with it.

 

We came to understand Innocence and Experience. We explored the older folks and their fondness and nostalgia for the past

Such such were the joys,

When we were all girls & boys,

In our youth time were seen,

On the Ecchoing Green.

Between these lines and the images, we concluded that according to Blake, when it was that one began to look to the past with regret that it could not be relieved and a nostalgia for that what was once and could not be reclaimed, it is then that innocence passes into experience. Blake uses regret as a line between innocence and experience; children do not come to regret their actions until they have become older and lost their innocence. Blake both regrets that the innocence of childhood cannot survive adulthood and uses regret as a checkpoint in life that marks the transition from child to adult. These are explored in his Songs, but especially in Ecchoing on the Green, where the echoes of children’s laughter and their innocence die with the sunset and the children must away to work and responsibility.

Finally, the last work I should want to talk about involving regret is Keats’ When I have Fears. This poem is worthy of mentioning in this essay for that its regard of regret is indeed different than any other. The Rime, Sailor Who Served, and The Forsaken Merman all use regret to further a political message. They use it to emphasize the horrors or conflicts of the poems. Blake laments regret as the loss of innocence and the coming of experience in that experience cannot be had without losing something and understanding regret and having regret for that loss is what brings one from a child to an adult. In each of these works, regret is a powerful device used to mark a distinct shift in what should be or what has come to be. Keats, however, takes a different approach to regret. When I have Fears is a contemplative poem, one inherently about mortality and that eventually, all things fade. He opens the poem with

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

It seems with this beginning that he’s declaring his regret for being unable to complete all that it he wants to complete before his death but if you were to go on to read and finish the poem, the audience would come to understand that Keats is dismissing regret; he is taking the opposite stand of Blake and considers it a waste of time. Instead of focusing on regretting that which he wishes was but isn’t so, Keats recognizes that things will end and some things remain incomplete but that to regret either the past or that which cannot be finished is pointless. In this point, Keats offers and interesting counterpoint to any of the previous poems.

As can be seen, regret is certainly a theme that has been featured in several works through the semester, and in not all of them is it necessarily negative. Regret is a concept that is often used as a sprinkling on a work to spice it up a bit, to drive home a point. It exists as a way of inviting the reader to the troubles of the character, to share their pain and helps them understand what it the character is going through.  Every work explores the concept of regret, using it to a very interesting design as the work and its point demand.

Works Cited

The Blake Archive for images...

 

http://www.blakearchive.org/blake/

Wikipedia for images...

 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_rime_of_the_ancient_Mariner_-_Coleridge.jpg

 

Anthology for text...

 

       The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2007. N. pag. Print.