In any case, structured solitude implies a purposeful use of time, as in "I have six hours to write today. I will not answer the phone or the doorbell. I will use my first hour to copy out the first six pages of The Wasteland. I will use my second and third hours to revise the line endings on pages 18 and 19 of my own Wasteland-induced epic. Etc."
Structuring solitude is the way to get something done, but formalized loneliness is a way of being in the world. Some poets have chosen to separate themselves physically: Robert Frost moved to New Hampshire; John Haines moved to Alaska. Some have refined illness, drug use, or unhappiness into strategies of creation: John Clare, John Berryman, Sylvia Plath. Not everyone's strategy is so obvious, however. One of the conundrums of Shakespeare is that we don't know enough about his history to recognize how he built this boundary, this fence, around his inner world. Yet given this closing couplet in Sonnet 98, I think he must have.
Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,As with your shadow I with these did play.
2 comments:
Good distinctions.
The dictionary makes the word solitary synonymous with lonely; I don't. I think one can choose to be apart and never experience loneliness.
Nice distinction; I would agree there are attitudes involved. And I think attitude is correct, but not in the more common usage of the word. I see it more in the use of the word, as it's used in dance, for example. "A position assumed for a specific purpose" is how it's defined in Webster. I think, then, that it is entirely apropos to the situation. =)
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