Eagleton, Terry - How to Read Literature

H o w t o R e a d L i t e r a t u r e

2 6

scrupulously orchestrated as a symphonic chord, full of rustling s
sounds and murmuring ms. Everything is sibilant and mellifluous,
with scarcely any hard or sharp consonants. The fs of ‘fruitfulness’
might seem an exception, but it is softened by the r which is
pronounced along with it. There is a rich tapestry of sound
here, full of parallelisms and subtle variations. The m of ‘mists’ is
reflected in the m of ‘mellow’, the f of ‘of ’ is echoed in the f of
‘fruitfulness’, the s sounds of ‘mists’ is picked up again in the ‘ness’
of ‘fruitfulness’, while the e of ‘Season’, the i of ‘mists’ and the e of
‘mellow’ form an intricate pattern of sameness and difference.
The sheer packedness of the line also arrests the eye. It manages to
cram in as many syllables as it can without becoming cloying or
sickly sweet. This sensuous richness is meant to evoke the ripeness of
autumn, so that the language seems to become part of what it speaks
of. The line is plumped full of meaning, so it is not surprising that the
poem goes on to discuss autumn itself in precisely these terms:

To bend with apples the mossed cottage- trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o’er- brimmed their clammy cells.

Perhaps the poem, however unwittingly, is talking about itself
here in the act of depicting the figure of Autumn. It itself avoids
being clammy and overbrimmed, though it is prepared to run
the risk of being so. Like autumn, it is poised at a point where
maturity might always pass over into an oppressive surplus