laundry is just not that important in most peo-
ple’s lives. On the other hand, the use of laundry
can be telling about the dichotomy between flesh
and spirit because it allows the poet to allude to
moral judgments such as those commonly asso-
ciated with thieves, lovers, and nuns, who are
brought in later as examples. Laundry is a useful
metaphor to raise such issues because, as a cat-
egory, laundry is always considered as being
some degree of ‘‘dirty’’ or ‘‘clean.’’
Wilbur removes the human identification
from the ‘‘spirit’’ part of the equation by using
angels to represent the nonphysical part of the
world. These angels represent the forces that can-
not be measured or experienced directly, but that
are usually recognized as existing. While the exis-
tence of angels can be debated, they are used in
this poem to stand for such commonly accepted
ideas as ‘‘soul’’ or ‘‘personality.’’
After establishing the relationship between
the physical and spiritual worlds with the image
of the laundry’s phantom motion, the poem
eventually introduces a human soul in line 15,
its exact center. Two stanzas later, that soul is
united with a physical body in the process of
awakening. The combination of the two is
referred to as a man, and the experience of their
coming together, having been separated during
sleep, leads the man to reflect on how he often
pays too little attention to the distinction
between flesh and spirit.Revelation through Imagination
The revelation that comes to the man in this
poem after imagining that the clothes and shirts
are moved by angels is important. It changes the
way he looks at the world to an uncomfortable
degree. In stanza 4, he begs for his old perspec-
tive back, to be able to view reality as a world of
mechanical motion that has no interaction with
the spiritual world, where angels are in heaven
and merely observe what humans do on earth.
Having imagined the laundry filled with angels
and then made the leap of imagination to the
way the soul fills a body, the man is forced to
reevaluate assumptions with which he had been
comfortable. Imagination is not just a tool for
entertainment, it is a force for expanding one’s
relationship to reality.Spirituality and Dignity
At the end of ‘‘Love Calls Us to the Things of
This World,’’ the character being described
draws some conclusions about social roles. For
one thing, he recognizes the rights of thieves
sentenced to hang on the gallows, calling for
them to be comforted with clean linens. The
linens, reminiscent of the laundry that led him
to view the world in a new way, reflects his new
realization that even thieves are blessed with the
same spiritual force that animates everyone else,
and should therefore be shown the same dignity
that anyone else deserves.
A more simplistic world view might reverse
the dignity accorded to the thief by taking awayTOPICS FOR
FURTHER
STUDY Richard Wilbur is well known for his trans-
lations of classic plays. Adapt this poem and
rewrite it as a play, and then perform it for
your class.
The branch of theology that studies the dif-
ferent types of angels is called ‘‘angelology.’’
Do some research in angelology, and write
an essay in which you explore possible theo-
logical roots that inspire the angelic imagery
in ‘‘Love Calls Us to the Things of This
World.’’
This poem presents waking up as a process
of the soul joining the body. Narrate a video
of someone waking up, with a voice-over to
explain the scientific processes that are tak-
ing place at each step of the way.
When this poem was published, Wilbur was
considered to be one of a wave of Metaphys-
ical Poets publishing in America, a group of
poets in the mid-twentieth century emulat-
ing the original Metaphysical Poets of the
seventeenth century. Their works appealed
to the intellect over emotion, incorporating
witty wordplay and extended metaphors.
Read about the political and social history
of the 1950s, and produce a chart that shows
both the characteristics of the times and the
corresponding characteristics of Metaphys-
ical Poetry.Love Calls Us to the Things of This World