My Galley Charged With Forgetfulness

Right from the first line of the sonnet, that coincides with the title, the reader expects to read about a sad situation, considered that the poet uses “to charge”, that carries a negative connotation. The verb “to charge” is generally connected to something heavy or to a price you have to pay. Also, the contemporary reader wonders why the poet uses the juxtaposition “galley” and “forgetfulness”, since one word is a material, concrete boat while “forgetfulness” refers to an abstract, mental activity. Therefore, the reader is meant to find out the reason for such association of words.

The reading process will unveil the mystery: the galley is a symbol for the speaking voice's life, one particularly difficult that is compared to the crossing of “sharp seas” in winter nights. The comparison underlines the difficult period the speaker is undergoing is a long one, since the poet uses the plural (“nights”). The mood conveyed is negative, heavy and totally pessimistic, since the words chosen always refer to sea that seems to be caught by a tempest. The semantic field of the “sharp seas” and “winter nights” is suitable to bring to surface the private, inner and sad feelings of a speaking voice that seems hopeless and powerless in front of such environment. Most western literature exploits the image of the tempest or the shipwreck to hint at difficult phases in people's life.

The first quatrain refers exactly to such a situation: there is a inner enemy, one inside the speaker, that makes his life difficult and “heavy”, without light (“winter nights”).

The voice of the quatrain seems to be asking for help in front of his enemy's cruelness. It goes without saying that the situation that justifies the existence of the sonnet is the private conflict the man on the galley is fighting between “rock and rock”, that is the impossibility of communication. It follows that the speaking voice is paradoxically one that cannot speak. He is not in control of himself: “my lord steereth with cruelness”.

The second quatrain repeats and reiterates the same feelings of uneasiness of the speaking voice that, again, sounds obsessed by incessant thoughts about his “enemy”. In the line “every oar a thought in readiness as thought that death were light” the desperate mood of the speaker is almost tangible. A series of stylistic choices make vivid such desperation. It is conveyed by means of hyperbolic descriptions such as “endless wind”, “tear the sail”, “forced sighs” and “trusty fearfulness”. A careful analysis of the semantic choices makes clear that there is a gradual linguistic transformation: from a concrete use of lexicon the poet moves to the emotional sphere of the speaking voice with the purpose to make the reader feel exactly what the lines suggest.

Now the sonnet shows its “volta”, but it is not a positive one. Indeed, the sestet provides a totally tragic ending, since the speaking voice does not seem to see any possible way out to his personal situation, which is clearly asserted in the last line, where the use of the verb “remain despairing” seems to tie present and future without any credible solution.

The poet works intelligently on language, relying on hyperbolic expressions like “a rain of tears”, thus attributing human qualities to a natural aspect, as well as the expression “a cloud of dark disdain”. Alliteration of “r” sound and “d” make all together such feeling almost concrete.

Even rhyme helps such suggestion, since it connects “hinderance” with “ignorance”, a word choice that was anticipated by the choice of “arrows”.

The speaker feels unable to cope with his personal situation and this pessimistic mood and feeling justifies the ending line. In the last line of the sestet, interesting is also to notice the association “the stars” “led me to this pain” underlines again that the speaking voice's enemy is unreturned love, a lord that drives his galley with cruelness. There is perfect symmetry between the octave and the sestet, as far as coherence. The syntactical deviation of the second line of the last tercet clearly expresses the speaker's obsession, since the key position of the verb “drowned” brings even more to surface his total inability to use reason and since he can't make of reason his leading star, he cannot even hope to reach his beloved lady's heart, in short he “remain despairing of the port”. The sonnet ends with a metaphor where “the port” becomes the symbol for the lady that has made him one whose life (“my galley”) is “charged with forgetfulness”.