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.helpful that material may appear to be.It would That may not seem to be case with a poem likeserve the reader well to approach this poem, as one Portrait of a Lady, for another example.In thisshould any poem, first in terms solely of the infor- poem, the first-person speaker is not given a specificmation that is right there on the page.identity, and therefore the reader may feel permitted,On the surface, La Figlia Che Piange does indeed encouraged, to follow the long-establishedseem out of place among Eliot s poetry, sounding convention that such a first-person speaker must beas it does in its opening stanza like traditional love the poet.That again is only ostensibly the case, how-poetry.As it continues, however, it becomes, like ever, for as one reads the poem, it gradually becomesso many Eliot poems from this period (the poem apparent that love is not the feeling that compelswas first composed in November 1911), more and either the overly loquacious lady or the grudginglymore an exercise in modes of expression rather reticent (to her, that is) speaker.Once the readerthan an exercise in the expression of a particular witnesses that the test of the poetry is found in thetheme or emotion, in this case, love.dramatic imbalances between the speaker of Por-That is not very surprising.What may appear to trait and his subject, the lady, whether or not thebe love poetry, when penned by Eliot, almost invari- speaker is the poet or the poetry is love poetry, bothably does not reflect the usual expressions of senti- become irrelevant considerations.ment and emotion commonly associated with love Language is the cue, of course.What Prufrock in any event, so it is not remarkable that he does and Portrait lack finally is, quite simply, the lan-not sustain that tone much past the first stanza in guage of love.With a poem like La Figlia Che La Figlia. Rather, the reader must be prepared for Piange, however, the matter may be quite differ-being surprised and befuddled about just who the ent, even if only at first glance.In this poem, alover is.Particularly in the case of the poems that somewhat romantic scene is set immediately, andEliot wrote during the decade preceding the pub- the speaker appears to be addressing his belovedlication of The Waste Land in 1922, a reader must in a typically adoring fashion befitting a lover:first understand that Eliot s love poetry cannot in .weave, weave the sunlight in your hair. Thisfact be called love poetry inasmuch as the poet may language is redolent of what W.B.YEATS, in anot himself necessarily be the speaker and there- poem composed at nearly the same time, Adam sfore cannot possibly be the lover.If that sounds like Curse, would call the old high way of love. It is atoo constrictive a definition of love poetry that it language that finds ways to cherish the beloved andmust be a genuine expression of love on the part of preserve the emotion. 186 La Figlia Che Piange Then, the next stanza of Eliot s poem begins as leave-taking accounts for the maiden s tears.Is it,if the speaker is not addressing his beloved at all, for example, even a lover who has left, when thebut rather imagining how I would have had him translation of the title the daughter who is cry-leave her. This him could be no one other than ing clearly implies that it must be a parent whothe beloved s real lover, who is apparently not the has departed? In which case, of course, the speakerspeaker, although he may have been the projectedwould be regarding the daughter s grief, and thespeaker of the first stanza nevertheless.The ideafather s last sight of his daughter before his deaththat the speaker had extended himself emotionally(which would also justify the epigraph, since it, too,into the attitude of the subject s lover, usurping thatdeals with a parent-child relationship rather thanperson s devotional prerogatives, is a bit shockingone between two romantic lovers).perhaps but leaves the emotions of the first stanzaIdentity becomes a very real issue when we con-intact.So far, so good
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