Poetry and Prose

I’ve been reading Foster’s Howard’s End. To a lot of people it is the story of the interactions between the different socio-economic strata. Is it about what happens penniless scholarly Leonard sees soulmates in the Schlegel sisters? A sort of escape from the sordid reality of his ex-prostitute wife, Jacky. A breakthrough into the world where midnight walks and moonrise are appreciated.


Is Howard's End about the socialist world of the sensitive idealistic sisters bumping into the unimaginative capitalist Henry Wilcox and his sons. All these different sets and the common subsets exist and bruise each other in Howard’s End.

But beyond all that, Howard’s End is the inevitability of man-woman relationships. To me it is more about perceptive, intelligent Margaret Schlegel choosing to love and marry a man who is completely beneath her intellectually. A man who will never understand her. Who will never appreciate her.

She chooses to leave the life among kindred spirits and fraternize with the enemy. She notices his inadequacies, is able to feel the shame of his greed and his denseness. She has to play dumb to get her way. But she plays dumb and keeps the peace. And all for what? She hopes to someday bring him above the mire that he is in. She hopes to uplift him to greater things and higher thoughts.

Helen Schlegel sees the in Wilcoxes weaknesses which repel her for good. She identifies more with the imaginative, sensitive Leonard. And hopes to do for him with money what her sister hopes to do for Henry with love. As Margaret tries to put imagination into the moneyed Henry, Helen tries to put money into the imaginative Leonard. And both lose. In their loss they try to live meaningfully again.

Margaret and Helen represent not two schools of thought but the whole of womankind. Womankind that is forever out to reform the rake and lift up the men they care for into a higher strata – either of the mental or of the material.

And in the end, Margaret realizes that she is fighting a losing battle and decides to throw in her lot with her sister and her unconventional friend, Monica. They decide to leave England and just when they make that decision Leonard dies and Henry becomes too helpless to be abandoned.

The sisters choose to stay. Like many of their counterparts of today, they vote for the prose of realities and give up on poetry and imagination. Practicalities beats the poetry out of the sisters just as penury beat the poetry out of Leonard.

To live in prose is much more practical than to dream in poetry. But when your prose is lost and poetry is the only thing you have to hold on to, will you throw aside conventionalities and walk the wild side? Is the lure of prose, is the stability of prose too strong to resist? I have no idea. As of now, I’m voting for poetry. For how long will I hold out against prose? For a soul that has drunk in poetry will mere prose do?