Paradiso - Kenneth Koch
Published posthumously in 2002 and written in 1952-1954
There is no way not to be excitedKoch's "Paradiso" begins with a statement that may be called an absolute positive negative: "There is no way not to be excited". From the outset, the speaker takes away all but one option on how to respond to what he is about to say. Whoever hears him, whoever reads his words must be as excited as he is about the coming scenario.
When what you have been disillusioned by raises its headWhat follows is seemingly a statement of direct address—a speaker talking pointedly to "you" the reader, but later in the poem the second person turns into the first, and the reader realizes the speaker is actually talking to himself. In line 2 the topic is disillusionment, but it is coupled with the enlightened notion of something "rais[ing] its head," implying a rebirth or reprieve from what has been keeping the head down. The idea of human disillusionment is central to the poem's meaning, as is the will to overcome it, and the first two lines of "Paradiso" establish this central theme.
From its arms and seems to want to talk to you again.Koch relies on personification in the beginning of the poem to describe the "form of reality"—noted later in line 6—by which the speaker has been "disillusioned." In line 3 the image implied is a human being sitting perhaps at a table, with arms folded atop it and his or her head buried within the arms. One can picture the head slowly rising "From [the] arms" and a facial expression that indicates the person "seems to want to talk to you again." Visually personifying reality and disillusionment reflects the speaker's eagerness to connect with what has been eluding him.
You forget home and family
And set off on foot or in your automobileThese lines (4-5) suggest how intense emotions can be when one is on the brink of making a connection to a longed-for reality. The mind becomes so tunneled to one goal that "You forget home and family" and head out on some wild goose chase "on foot or in your automobile" in a desperate, if not blind, search for something that may not even exist.
And go to where you believe this form of reality
May dwell. Not finding it there, you refuse
Any further contactIn these lines (6-8), the speaker reveals what he is seeking—the place where "this form of reality / May dwell." The reality he seeks is the one that "raises its head" and "seems to want to talk" in lines 2 and 3, but the hope and excitement within those previous lines are quickly dashed in lines 7 and 8: "Not finding it there, you refuse / Any further contact." The irony is that there has been no contact in the first place, and yet the speaker must console himself by believing he is in control of the situation and can therefore be the one to "refuse" contact.
Until you are back again trying to forgetLine 9 is a continuation of the thought expressed in the previous two lines, but it also contrasts with that sentiment. The speaker vows to refuse contact, then tempers his declaration with "Until you are back again trying to forget." In essence, he finds himself right back where he started, longing to connect with a reality that keeps eluding him...
The only thing that moved you (it seems) and gave what you forever will have...It is that reality which the speaker thinks is the "only thing that moved you," but readers should notice the parenthetical qualifier "(it seems)." This qualifier is the first indication in the poem that the speaker may be wavering in his steadfast beliefs. Perhaps the "only thing" that can move him and bring him happiness is not the only thing after all. These lines mark the point in the poem where the second-person "you" begins to sound more like a first-person "me"—that is, the speaker now appears to address his own situation and his own desperate need to find a happy reality. Readers may assume that from here to the end of the poem, the speaker is talking to himself, and his tone seems to soften as he admits that the elusive reality "gave" him "what [he] forever will / have."
But in the form of a disillusion.In this line, the speaker resigns himself to the fact that what he has been chasing (arguably, the first love of his life who is now gone from him) will remain "in the form of a disillusion," taking him full circle back to the personified image of his ambiguous reality before it "raises its head," tempting him to go after it again.
Yet often, looking toward the horizonLine 12 is the main turning point in "Paradiso," as it is the first time that a forward-looking attitude is described. Now the speaker is "looking toward the horizon," which he apparently does "often."
There—inimical to you?—is that something you have never foundIn line 13 he declares that what he has been seeking is within sight, but he questions whether it is in fact "inimical" (harmful) to him. Why would this phrase—"inimical to you?"—be offset in an otherwise positive statement and what does it reveal about the speaker's ultimate concerns? Perhaps it is evidence he is still unsure of his feelings and is so afraid to admit the possibility of finding what he has "never found" that he wonders if it may hurt him in some way. Regardless of the reason, these lines (12-13) are pivotal in that the speaker finally acknowledges that his obsession with what he has "been disillusioned by" (line 2) may be useless, considering the real thing may be right there on the horizon.
And that, without those who came before you, you could never have imagined.Here the speaker further emphasizes his belief that the reality he seeks is unattainable because he "could never have / imagined" it is possible to find it. Yet "those who came before him"—perhaps those who were living proof that one can have more than one path to happiness—have left such an impression on him that he now too believes he can achieve it.
How could you have thought there was one person who could make you
Happy and that happiness was not the uneven
Phenomenon you have known it to be? Why do you keep believing in thisIn these lines Koch unravels the mystery of his speaker's metaphorical allusions from the first three-quarters of the poem. The speaker berates himself for having "thought there was one person who could make [him] / Happy," and for thinking that "happiness was not the uneven / Phenomenon" he had always known it to be. Emphasis should be placed on the word "one" in line 15 because the happiness the speaker has been chasing is based on his belief that it can come from only one person, and when that one person is gone, the hope of real happiness is gone with him or her. The speaker has finally realized that happiness is indeed an "uneven / Phenomenon" and that someone else can come along and bring about the same feeling of euphoria.
Reality so dependent on the time allowed itLine 18 is a continuation of the question the speaker asks himself in line 17—essentially, why believe in a "Reality" that exists only in the past and is now just a memory "dependent on the time allowed it" by his mind?
That it has less to do with your exile from the age you are
Than from everything else life promised that you could do?Turn these two final lines of the poem around from a negative perspective to a positive one, and they read something like this: "Your false reality has more to do with an inability to accept all the things 'life promised that you could do' than with an older man trying to believe he is still young by 'exil[ing]' himself from his real age." In other words, the speaker is trying to convince himself that his disillusionment is not just a result of nostalgic longing to be young again, but more a product of his unwillingness to move beyond what he has lost and toward all other possibilities that life holds. In spite of seeming otherwise, Koch's poem actually ends on a good note, for the implication is that the speaker may finally realize he has found his paradise—or "paradiso"—after years of believing it was gone forever.
From Theme of Happiness: In this poem, the author describes a search for a person that gave them happiness. The return of this person to the author’s life prompts him to forget his values to try to locate this one part of his life that gave it happiness. After having been out searching for the person, the author is back home distressed that what he had been looking for was no more than an illusion and something that he himself has never actually found. If it were not for his predecessors, he says that he would never have even been able to conjure the thought of this symbol of his happiness. However, he describes himself as being dependent on devoting time to the thought of this person. In the end, the author realizes that the person is supposed to be a symbol of the fact that he should move on and realize the potential for the rest of his life despite his age. In this case, happiness has become the ability to release himself from his past.
From Encyclopedia:The two central themes of "Paradiso," human longing and self-delusion, are closely interwoven, and both examine human understanding of what is real and what is not. Perhaps the dividing line is simply between their general parameters: one theme has more to do with the individual and illusion, and the other more to do with humankind as a whole and illusion. The speaker in the poem is portrayed as a pathetic person, especially in the beginning when he is seen at a very vulnerable moment of elation that turns out to be in vain. He is like a scolded puppy that suddenly becomes excited and overjoyed when it appears his master is no longer angry with him. But the speaker is mastered by something more intangible and enigmatic, a concept difficult for him to grasp: his own self-deluded mind. From the outset, there is no doubt that something is missing from his life and that he is desperate to get it back. He admits his excitement at the prospect of regaining what has been lost, but it is only a prospect that he dreams up out of desire and need. In reality, the thing that "raises its head / From its arms and seems to want to talk to [him] again" is only a figment of his very vivid imagination.
Not until line 17 of this twenty-two-line poem does the speaker refer to a human being as the source of his longing. Until then, he mentions an "it," a "thing," and a "something." These impersonal, detached references suggest he is aware of the lack of a real connection—that his elusive catch is as distant from him as it is from anybody else. He acknowledges that "this form of reality" he seeks will always be with him, but "in the form of a disillusion." When an individual is so desperate to find the "only thing" that may bring happiness that he or she is willing to live a life of delusion in order to gain it, then the pathos of the situation is even greater. The speaker in "Paradiso" has been forcing himself to believe that only "one person" can make him happy and that he is condemned to endless searching for the same happiness from the same person, even though intellectually he knows that is impossible. By the end of the poem, he calls this self-delusion into question by asking himself why he "keep[s] believing" in the memory of happiness instead of accepting that his life holds other promises to pursue. In this examination of human longing and self-delusion, the individual appears to bring the desired illusion into check before it is too late.
A related second theme in the poem is the power of illusion over human beings in general. In the grand scheme of human desire and emotion, probably happiness is the most basic, prevalent desire, regardless of a person's age, nationality, ethnicity, religion, or any other category. But happiness comes in different forms for different people. For some, it may mean good health and a solid marriage; for others it may mean great wealth and expensive possessions; and for still others it may mean a hot meal each day and shelter from cold and rain. While these examples are obviously disparate, there is one common thread that runs through them: susceptibility to illusion. When a goal appears unreachable, many people find solace and pseudo-happiness in a good imagination. The problem with creating an illusory world in which to live is that sooner or later the real world is bound to intrude and turn the comfort of make-believe into the frustration of disillusionment.
Early in the poem, Koch suggests the power illusion holds, when just the hint of possible happiness causes the speaker to "forget home and family" and blindly "set off on foot or in [his] automobile" to track down his elusive goal. Anything that can cause a human being to "forget" his loved ones and the place where he lives must be an incredibly strong force indeed. The human tendency to fixate on one solution to a problem, denying the potential for other answers, is implied at least twice in "Paradiso"—once when the speaker claims there is an "only thing" that has "moved" him, and again when he asks himself, "How could you have thought there was one person who could make you / Happy?"
Despite tunnel vision, the speaker (and humankind in general) leaves a tiny window open for new possibility. If people are bound to share a quest for happiness, as well as an exposure to disillusionment, perhaps that quest can eventually diverge into new paths. The "Reality so dependent on the time allowed it" is not necessarily restricted to the past; instead it may "dwell" in the present or the future.