"Kew Gardens" as "La Primavera"

From last week's discussion, I have been preoccupied with the idea of modern works of art influencing one another. This week's readings of the stories from Virginia Woolf's Monday or Tuesday exacerbated my preoccupation (to a fault). Through the readings, I recognized Woolf's experimentation with stream of consciousness and her use of being versus non-being, which she loves to use as well. I enjoyed the way that Woolf painted a picture in each of her stories, using bright colors to create an environment for her characters and her ideas. It brought me back to the Goldman essay and Woolf’s relationship with her sister, Vanessa. In fact, I was so moved by Woolf’s story, “Kew Gardens”, I developed an intense relationship with it – however, it was musical in nature.

From the start of my journey into “Kew Gardens”, I initially thought that I was just going to get another vivid piece of work by Woolf. The first paragraph sucked me into the gardens. I became a part of the flower-bed that day in the gardens. I felt the colors of the flowers. I was the raindrop. Every descriptive aspect of the flower-bed, I enveloped. I was now thoroughly invested in her story, there was no way out.

Next, the first couple entered the gardens -- a married couple, with children, each contemplating their past lives without their spouse. The man thinks about his first love, Lily (ironically the name of a flower; certainly a plan by Woolf), while the woman thinks of painting water-lilies and a kiss which she received, not from a lover, but from an elderly woman, “the mother of all [her] kisses all [her] life”. Odd, slightly askew from what one would intend this woman to be thinking, but nevertheless Woolf does not want to be typical. The family walks by the flower-bed and they gradually dissipate into nature and again, we are returned to the flower-bed itself.

Here, it is the snail that becomes the object of our attention. Now, I am him. I see his goal amidst the brown cliffs of earth. During my deliberation of how to cross the bed, yet another couple walks past – this time, two men.

One old and one young, I am not sure who is leading who through the gardens. Initially, I believed it was the older man who was a bit of kilter, but at further reading, I am not sure if it is not the younger who is the eccentric one. The elder man is relaying stories about the spirits of the dead to the younger man, but then loses himself to a woman in black and then to a flower, which brings him to Uruguay – Woolf’s stream of consciousness at work again. This leads us to another couple, now two elderly women, who are entertained by the two men, but enter themselves into an odd dialogue of words. Woolf makes these words literally fall from the sky and one of the women experiences it, along with the reader. And then I returned to the flower-bed as the snail.

As I am deciding which way I will traverse the bed, another couple appears – a young man and a young woman. As Woolf describes the two, they seem to emerge from a chrysalis. Their interaction is “toneless and monotonous”, as if still trying to get a grasp of their newness. They are in constant question of each other and of their surroundings, just as a newborn animal would be. However, the man wants to go one way and the woman another.

Finally, I am returned to the flower-bed. This time, I am not the snail, but again a presence within the bed itself.

At the end of the story, I could not help but feel that I had somehow experienced this all before – a déjà vu of sorts. I was sure, however, that I had not read this story before. My experience with this work was purely musical. I am by no means a classical music connoisseur, in fact my only exposure to classical music came by means of a humanities requirement for my undergraduate degree at Emory. Alas, despite my amateur knowledge and after serious struggle, I was able to come up with two pieces – Igor Stravinsky’s ballet “The Rite of Spring” and Antonio Vivaldi’s concerto “Four Seasons – La Primavera”. Ultimately, I decided that it was not Stravinsky’s ballet that I thought coincided with “Kew Gardens” but instead Vivaldi’s work. Although there could be arguments in favor of Stravinsky, “The Rite of Spring” was too wild and dissonant for Woolf’s story, which had a clear rhythm.

As I listen to Vivaldi, I can see “Kew Gardens” unfold. Every natural aspect of the story has a voice within his concerto. Vivaldi divided his concerts into allegro-largo-allegro, with each of the allegros being fast in tempo and the largo being slow. In “Kew Gardens”, the allegros are the introduction and the conclusion of the story, while the largo is the paragraph about the snail. Vivaldi also wrote sonnets to go with each section of his concerto. They are as follows:

Allegro

Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven,
Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charming songs once more.

Largo

On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches rustling overhead, the goat-herd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.

Allegro

Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and shepherds lightly dance beneath the brilliant canopy of spring.

I am still struggling to understand if there is any concrete relation between the sonnets and Woolf’s story, but if anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

As I was researching Vivaldi to find these sonnets and a file of his concerto to include with my blog, I discovered that Vivaldi’s work was not wholly discovered until the very early 20^th century and apparently, Ezra Pound was instrumental to his revival, according to Wikipedia. Perhaps we can thank him for exposing Woolf to Vivaldi’s works? I have not yet found any other correlation between the two’s work, but I am hoping to get into this further. As you can see, it is a work in progress and perhaps I have bit off more than I can chew…