Gold: A Poem

by Christine Brooke-Rose

Scarce. The authors first publication. 31 pages. stiff paper wrappers.. small 8vo..

Genres: Poetry

31 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Christine Frances Evelyn Brooke-Rose was a British writer and literary critic, known principally for her later, experimental novels. Born in Geneva and educated at Somerville College, Oxford and University College, London, she taught at the University of Paris, Vincennes, from 1968 to 1988 and lived for many years in the south of France.

She was married three times: to Rodney Bax, whom she met at Bletchley Park; to the poet Jerzy Pietrkiewicz; and briefly to Claude Brooke. She shared the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction for Such (1966).

She was also known as a translator from French, in particular of works by Robbe-Grillet.

NYT obituary.

Reviews

[Scribble Orca · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's very odd. One of the first works a not-yet-recognised-even-by-herself-as-experimental writer publishes (as non-fiction) is a poem employing the constraints of subject matter (mediaeval dream vision, elegy) and form (debate-poem, alliterative line, rhyme, refrain echoed at each stanza's beginning, metaphoric language, and number of stanzas) dating from the fourteenth century, to tell the story of a modern day tragedy.*

Constraints. Used all the time in rather predictable formats, even at the altar of innovation. Except when moulded to the vision of Christine Brooke-Rose and resulting in a worded object that transcends the original limitations. Whether the poem form itself is admired or despised, Gold is a unique and brilliant amalgamation of artifice and theme rendered as a contemporary work.

The poem, itself alchemy, concerns the process of metamorphosing the base human into its unattainable essence, exposing the false belief that deconstructing the composing elements reveals the opposing inner substance. It contains allusions (the scene of the vision) to the 1947 book Dark Side of the Moon by Zoe Zajdlerowa, an Irishwoman married to a Pole and caught in eastern Poland by the Russian invasion of 1939, the title of which derives from the words of Arther Koestler Darkness at Noon, 1940; as well as, in acknowledgement of Christine Brooke-Rose' double decade involvement with the Catholic Church, passing references to saints and a finale in a liturgical ritual denying respite.

*And her following four conventional novels** will trace events to some form of inevitable tragedy as conclusion, despite the comic tone in which these will be written. It should be no surprise that content ceased to fascinate, given the deep understanding she already held of language and its uses, forms, perambulations and extrapolations.

**Look for the nod in The Sycamore Tree to Gold - a subtle wink to the acute reader she will continue to practise later in her recognised-as-experimental novels.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first published thing by Christine is this poetry pamphlet, released in 1954, two years before her debut as a witty novelist. Gold is, in her words, “an attempt to fuse a mediaeval form with a modern subject. The mediaeval dream-vision . . . could also be combined with a debate-poem, since the ‘oraculum’ . . . was considered to be the most valuable and divinely inspired form of dream.” This is a short religious poem, inspired by the 14thC poem Pearl, which “combines the native alliterative line with rhyme . . . using a complex stanza pattern with a refrain that changes every five stanzas, the last rhyme word of each refrain being echoed at the beginning of each next stanza.” This poem mimics the form wonderfully and is full of allusive splendour and the sort of bouncy rhythms later found in her prose. Some enterprising soul ought to bring this thing back into print . . .