Following the death of his wife from cancer, Douglas Dunn chronicled his resulting feelings and emotions in a series of poems entitled ‘Elegies’. Essentially this collection reflects on a period of introspection as Dunn comes to terms with her absence. Through the poet’s depth and range of emotion feelings of love and loss, ideas that are intrinsically linked, are expressed. Even prior to the death of Dunn’s wife there is a profound sense of sadness, primarily due to the inescapability of what is to happen. In ‘Thirteen Steps and the Thirteenth of March’, which revolves around the days preceding his wife’s death, the poet talks of ‘my’ rather than ‘our’ “high house.” Dunn’s sense of general acceptance only goes to highlight his vulnerability and thus heightens the poignancy of the situation. Consequently this sense of hopelessness sets a tone for the remaining poems, which are often rooted in the past tense.
With nothing to look forward to but heartache, Dunn immerses himself in memories, reminiscing primarily the good times that he shared with his wife but also recalling the times of heartache and struggle as his wife slowly succumbed to cancer. In the poem ‘France’ the poet recalls the summers that he has spent with his lover, “I counted summers, our loves arithmetic.” We are given the impression that France is very dear to his heart and that by merely closing his eyes he can conjure up images of “meadows, river, woods and jouissance” and a time of happiness, which is unique to him and his wife.
This memory is drawn from a time of bliss and harmony but is brought about because of feelings of loss for times like that. In ‘Thirteen Steps and the Thirteenth of March’ Dunn recalls a much sadder image in which his wife is “turning down painkillers for lucidity”, through this recollection his love his expressed through the immense pride he feels for her bravery. Therefore despite the contrasting nature of both memories, feelings of love and loss are both evident.
Dunn’s dependence on past memories suggests he is becoming considerably isolated and lonely, further highlighting the poignancy of his situation. This is evident in ‘At the Edge of a Birchwood’ in which the finding of a dead bird immediately leads him to draw comparisons with his dead wife in heaven, “heard in the archival; choirs now where it sings.” Indeed the use of the diminutive bird, “little”, only goes to extenuate the sense of pathos that now shrouds Dunn’s situation.
In Dunn’s poetry the most poignant and heart rending moments occur when sentiments of both love and loss are brought together in microcosmic situations. For instance in the ‘Thirteen Steps and the Thirteenth of March’ Dunn’s wife’s fingers have “dwindled” so much so that she can no longer wear her wedding ring. In this particular example there are elements of both love and loss, which intensify the feelings of sadness. Essentially the wedding ring is a union of the bond between them representing their love for each other. The fact that Dunn’s wife can no longer wear the ring ultimately symbolise the ending of the union between the couple and the loss that results from this.
Despite the sadness evoked by Dunn’s poems they are often written in a sense of celebration for the life he has shared with his wife, we learn of the uplifting effect she has on him even in death, “I feel her goodness breathe, my Lady Christ.” Specifically in ‘Thirteen Steps and the Thirteenth of March’, when in her company the world seems to stop, “time was out” and everything else seems irrelevant. Furthermore their love for each other is compounded by the reference to the “erotic flame of candlelight.”
Conversely the poems of Thomas Hardy (1912-1913) who probably had a large influence of on the ‘Elegies’ of Dunn, suggest a much more turbulent and neglectful relationship. Although both poets are troubled by guilt following the death of their wives, as pointed out by J.M Lyons in ‘The Art of Grief’, these feelings are of a contrasting nature due to the relationship each poet shared with his wife. The guilt felt by Hardy stems from the neglectful way in which he treated his wife and ironically it is only through her death that this becomes fully clear to him.
In ‘The Walk’, Hardy says that he would leave his wife, “weak and lame” and go for walks, “not thinking of you left behind.” Only when she is no longer there does the neglectful treatment of his wife become resoundingly clear to him, “Only that underlying sense/ of the look of a room on returning thence.” Unlike the warm and comforting memories of Dunn in poems such as ‘France’, Hardy’s poetry reflect the intense guilt that consumed him during their writing and consequently he is now a man “faltering forward”, haunted by the memory of his wife.
Dunn on the other hand cries “for the absurd forgiveness” as he has done nothing that should make him feel guilty. The guilt that he suffers is felt by all widowers or widows that it was their partner who died and not them. Consequently his guilt is expressed by what appears to the reader to be quite banal occurrences but to Dunn they are memories to linger on and think what would have happened if he had done something differently. In ‘Empty Wardrobes’ he regrets not buying his wife a dress, ultimately it is the fact that he will never be able be with her and make her happy rather than the fact he did not buy the dress on that occasion that upsets him the most.
Over the course of the ‘Elegies’ the reader is given the impression that Dunn has matured from a man who was once rooted in the past to a man who is willing to look forward. In the last poem, ‘Leaving Dundee’ the opening of a “small blue window in the sky” and the leaving behind of “thunder” suggest that for Dunn there is light at the end of the tunnel. By returning to things that he shared with his wife “familiar things of love, that love me”, he knows that his wife will always be with him and he can now begin to overcome her loss.
