The Parliament of Monsters by Karen Joan Kohoutek

William Wordsworth's book-length poem The Prelude presents a special challenge to the writer; it's difficult to draw conclusions confidently about the entire long, complex work based on a reading of a short section, but on the other hand, the context of the work as a whole is too unwieldy to discuss with concision.      Nonetheless, Book Seven of The Prelude provides an example of the contradictions in Wordsworth's points of view on Nature and humanity, especially as they are seen in relation to city life. As an illustration of "what the mighty city is itself/To all" (697-698; all quotes from Book Seven of the Prelude, 1805 version), Wordsworth describes at length a visit to St. Bartholomew's Fair in London. This, he says, is an event "that lays,/If any spectacle on earth can do,/The whole creative powers of man asleep" (653-655). Yet what he is going to describe is largely formed out of the "creative powers of man," what he will call "Promethean" (689) later in the passage, but "Promethean" in a negative sense. That value judgment, however, is not leavened by any consideration of the question as to why some of the works of the "creative powers," such as "waxwork, clockwork...puppet-shows" (686, 687) are viewed in a negative way that does not apply to the "creative powers" of the imagination that led Wordsworth to write his lengthy poem, or any other, more valid works of human creation.      In lines 659-662, Wordsworth imaginatively projects himself "upon some showman's platform" to set the scene of what he finds at the fair:           ...What a hell              For eyes and ears, what anarchy and din              Barbarian and infernal--'tis a dream              Monstrous in colour, motion, shape, sight, sound. Not only is the scene as a whole one of "anarchy and din," a confusion of overabundance, but every constituent part seems to be deemed "monstrous" in all of its constituent parts, from "colour" to "shape" to "sound." It is as if no individual part of the fair is anything but "infernal," no matter how one looks at it, but it's unclear whether the monstrousness lies in the individual parts making the whole monstrous, or whether the whole has an underlying monstrousness that infects all the individual parts.

However that proportion is seen, it is clear that both the works of mankind and Nature are seen in their most monstrous light in association with the fair. The perspective from which Wordsworth chooses to describe the scene is at no time neutral, merely observatory, but is consistently negative. Looking over the  area that makes up the fair's grounds, he says that "the open space...is alive/With heads" (663, 664-665), thereby describing a simple crowd with an unsettling image of disembodiment, as if the heads have been severed but are still uncannily alive. The advertisements around the midway contain not just pictures but "staring pictures" (666), personified as if they are hostile and challenging to the viewers.      What is it, in this episode, that Wordsworth objects to so strongly? His dislike seems to be related to the sense of chaos engendered by the scene, as its "hell" was introduced with the corresponding notions of "anarchy and din" (659, 660). It is possible that the observer is merely overwhelmed with a multitude of noise and strangeness that he is unable to absorb. But this more sympathetic reading is hard to maintain, as Wordsworth's strategy, which breaks down the chaos into separate, discrete objects, seems to emphasize the individual aspects as the site of the scene's "infernal" nature.  Perhaps his catalogue is meant to represent that "din," the motley juxtapositions found at the fair, but its effect can be seen as one that places a value judgment on each aspect as part of the problem, and again, what's wrong in the fair is meant to in some way illustrate what's wrong with the city, and the society of humanity found in it.  Throughout his catalogue of what he finds at the fair, Wordsworth's language continues to suggest that it isn't just the confusion, but something intrinsically "infernal" about the items catalogued, that he is railing against. He includes great variety in his diatribe:           ...albinos, painted Indians, dwarfs,             The horse of knowledge, and the learned pig,             The stone-eater, the man that swallows fire,             Giants, ventriloquists, the invisible girl,             The bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes,             The waxwork, clockwork, all the marvellous craft             Of modern Merlins, wild beasts, puppet-shows..." (681-687)

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