“A”-5
9 Sept.
1929, rev. 28 July 1942
17.11 Faust:
the title character of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s (1749-1832) major work, a
figure of insatiable desire for knowledge. The punctuation of Go-ethe in the
following line presumably indicates the common mispronunciation of the name by
English speakers.
17.12 alias
MacFadden: Bernarr Macfadden (1868-1955), best-known as a flamboyant health
crusader—bodybuilding, nutrition, free sexuality—Macfadden became enormously
wealthy as a magazine publisher, initially publications promoting physical
culture and then moving into various low-brow genres: e.g. true confessions,
detective and romance stories. At about the time “A”-5 was written, Macfadden
also started the sensationalist tabloid, New
York Graphic, as well as owning several major buildings in NYC.
17.13 He-er
vent Hel-ee-na: Helena of Troy appears significantly in the Second Part of
Goethe’s Faust.
17.15 And
past the leaf’s edge: cf. WCW, from Spring
and All (1923): “The rose is obsolete / but each petal ends in / an edge
[…]” (Collected Poems I, 195-196).
17.19 The courses we tide from: see
4.15.11. Cf. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
IV.3.218-221:
Brutus: There
is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
18.4 words
Matthew weeps: the Gospel according to St. Matthew, the basis of J.S.
Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (see 1.1.2)
18.5 claivicembalo:
harpsichord; see 4.13.19.
18.6 Chorale:
Ger.
short for choral song (Choralgesang),
a type of traditional German metrical hymn-tune for congregational use,
frequently made use of by Bach; also can simply mean a chorus or choir.
18.7 O love untold…: from Bach, St.
Matthew Passion, the opening Chorus (see 1.1.3).
18.12 trefoil:
plants having compound trifoliate leaves; something having the appearance of a
trifoliate leaf.
18.13 Purple
clover: also red or sweet clover (Trifolium
pretense), also called trefoil.
18.14 She: LZ’s mother, Chana Pruss Zukofsky, died 29 Jan. 1927; see
6.38.25 (Ahearn 66). According to Leggott this was also the date LZ believed to
be his birthday, until he more closely read his birth certificate some years
later (116, 391); in the play, Arise,
Arise, the Mother dies on the same day as the Son’s birthday.
18.17 Speech
bewailing a Wall: cf. Wailing Wall, the only surviving structure of the
ancient Temple of
Jerusalem.
19.2 Wrigleys:
see 2.8.10.
19.7 laundered
conception / of the B.V.D.: B.V.D. is a well-known brand
name for underwear; the acronym stands for the company founders—Bradley, Voorhees
and Day—but has come to have a more generic meaning. Although today B.V.D. only
produce men’s underwear, at the time this movement was composed, the company
produced woman’s underwear as well. However there also is word play here with
BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary; see 6.21.4)
and the immaculate conception (Odlin 551). In the original published of “A”-5
in An “Objectivists” Anthology (1932), LZ more explicitly mentions the
immaculate conception, as well as Pope Pius IX (1792-1878) who defined the
immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary as a Catholic dogma in 1854. E.E.
Cummings mentions both Wrigleys and B.V.D. in “Poem, or Beauty Hurts Mr.
Vinal,” from is 5 (1926), the
Cummings volume that LZ most admired.
19.11 the
Jews eating unleavened bread: the Feast of Unleavened Bread is part of
Passover commemorating the Jews’ exodus from Egypt.
19.20 forehead
/ tormented red: at this point in the original publication of “A”-5 in An “Objectivists” Anthology (1932), LZ
explicitly refers to Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) and quotes the phrase, “plein
de rouges tourmentes,” from “Les
Chercheuses de Poux” (The Lice Seekers), whose first two lines are: “Quand le front de l’enfant, plien de rouges
tourmentes, / Implore l’essaim blanc des rêves indistincts” (When the
child’s forehead full of red torments, / Implores the white swarm of hazy
dreams….).
