Phoenix
Dreamed 1894 by A. C. Benson
INTRODUCTION
I dreamed the whole poem in a dream, in 1894 I think, and wrote it down in the middle of the night on a scrap of paper by my bedside. I have never had a similar experience, and, what is more curious, it is a lyric of a style which I have never attempted before or since.... I really can offer no explanation either of the idea of the poem or its interpretation. It came to me so (apparently) without any definite volition of my own that I don't profess to understand or be able to interpret the symbolism....
EDITOR'S NOTE
I have no idea what the symbolism means either.
Oh. Maybe that's it. Freud wasn't the only one at the turn of the century trying to pin down what dreams mean--their practical value. Does the phoenix mean dreaming itself? Benson's dream, after all, hands him a jewel-like poem packed with internal rhymes, alliterations and assonances; these echoes and parallel structures are just like a crystal's facets, planes, reflections, refractions. It's a crystalline dream he can't explain via any symbolism, a gloriously useless dream-gem. All Benson can do, all we can do, is be "with gazing most content." That's its symbolic meaning. To quit treating dreams as symbolic, and live them.
It's also possible I had too much chocolate tonight. Enough theobromine and you'll believe anything.
--Chris Wayan
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