"Ode to the Confederate Dead" is a long poem by the American poet-critic Allen Tate published in 1928 in Tate's first book of poems, ''Mr. Pope and Other Poems''. It is one of Tate's best-known poems and considered by some critics to be his most "important".Ellman, Richard and Robert O'Clair. ''The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry''. NY: Norton, 1988. Heavily influenced by the work of

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biogr ...

, this Modernist poem takes place in a graveyard in the South where the narrator grieves the loss of the Confederate soldiers buried there. However, unlike the " ode" to the Confederate dead written by the 19th-century American poet Henry Timrod, Tate's "Ode" is not a straightforward ode. Instead, Tate uses the graveyard and the dead Confederate soldiers as a metaphor for his narrator's troubled state of mind, and the poem charts the narrator's dark stream of consciousness, as he contemplates (or tries to avoid contemplating) his own mortality.

Analysis

Tate wrote an essay, "

Narcissus Narcissus may refer to: Biology * ''Narcissus'' (plant), a genus containing daffodils and others People * Narcissus (mythology), Greek mythological character * Narcissus (wrestler) (2nd century), assassin of the Roman emperor Commodus * Tiberiu ...

as Narcissus," in which he analyzes the poem with a close reading that is an important example of the close reading method practiced by Tate and the

New Critics New Criticism was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as ...

. In the essay, Tate says that "Ode to the Confederate Dead" is "'about' solipsism, a philosophical doctrine which says that we create the world in the act of perceiving it; or about

Narcissism Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism exists on a co ...

, or any other ''ism'' that denotes the failure of the human personality to function objectively in nature and society."Tate, Allen. ''Collected Essays''. Denver: Swallow Press, 1959. The editors of ''The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry'' note, " ate'sfriend

Hart Crane Harold Hart Crane (July 21, 1899 – April 27, 1932) was an American poet. Provoked and inspired by T. S. Eliot, Crane wrote modernist poetry that was difficult, highly stylized, and ambitious in its scope. In his most ambitious work, '' The Brid ...

said of the 'Ode,' the real subject was Tate's 'own dead emotion.'" The editors go on to state, " ate'sconstant excoriation of solipsism and narcissism . . .reflects a criticism not only of the creatures who surround him but of himself."

Influence

Robert Lowell's poem "

For the Union Dead ''For the Union Dead'' is a book of poems by Robert Lowell that was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 1964. It was Lowell's sixth book. Notable poems from the collection include " Beyond the Alps'" (a revised version of the poem that origi ...

" referred to, and was partly a response to, Tate's "Ode to the Confederate Dead".

References

{{Southern Agrarians American poems 1928 poems