Painted Head by John Crowe Ransom
"Painted Head" by John Crowe Ransom is a poem that delves into the complex relationship between reason and sensibility, embodied by the metaphor of a severed head. The imagery of a "dark severance" evokes themes of violence and loss, presenting the head as ghostlike and isolated from its body, which symbolizes sensibility. Ransom posits that the ideal state is one where reason (the head) remains "married" to the body, emphasizing a balance between intellect and emotional experience. The poem critiques the tendency of abstraction in art, suggesting that such a separation results in a loss of vitality and connection to beauty, leading ultimately to death rather than immortality. Through playful language and irony, Ransom explores the necessity of interdependence, arguing that the body supports and enriches the head's existence, enabling it to engage with the world. Thus, the poem serves as a reflection on the importance of integrating reason with sensory experience in the pursuit of art and understanding. The work prompts readers to consider how the separation of these elements can result in dire consequences, both for individuals and for artistic expression.
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Painted Head by John Crowe Ransom
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1934 (collected in Selected Poems, 1945)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
“Painted Head” involves an issue central to Ransom: the separation between reason and sensibility. The head’s separation from the body is described as “dark severance”—a sinister act of violence that makes this head appear ghostlike. The speaker believes this head illustrates the instinct of heads (reason) to cut themselves off from the “body bush” (sensibility), which they consider inferior.
The happiest heads are those remaining “married” to their bodies. In this typical Ransom conceit, these heads represent individuals able to maintain a balance of reason and sensibility (in Ransom’s terms, science and beauty). Having remained unknown, these “housekeeping heads” are not tracked by “historian headhunters” (a typical play on words). More highly developed ironic sense and puckish pleasure in punning are seen as the speaker returns to the painted head. The “capital” irony is that an artist (not comprehending the head’s treasonous ambitions) has “abstracted” this head from its body. The action is “capital” in two senses: It is the height of irony, and the artist has decapitated the portrait’s subject, “unhoused” this head from its body. (For Ransom, abstraction is the worst effect of science’s increasing dominance over art.) The conceit is carried to its logical conclusion: Cut off from its body, the head becomes a skull, sometimes called a death’s head. Separation brings the head, not immortality, but death.
“Painted Head” explores the theme of interdependence between head and body. The speaker insists that their separation leads to a terrible outcome (punning with the colloquial meaning of something extremely bad, and the literal meaning, something that causes terror among onlookers). In the proper relationship, the body bears (supports, tolerates), even feeds and obeys the head, but its ultimate goal is not to achieve glory for the head but to increase (strengthen, expand) itself. Beauty (the aesthetic) is resident in the body (the sensibility); the head (reason) is metaphorically a rock garden because its limited flesh cannot display beauty. Thus, the head must accept its need for the body because the body enables it to see the color in the surrounding world and prepares it to absorb myths and ideas; without access to the body (sensibility), art is impossible.
Bibliography
Brooks, Cleanth. “John Crowe Ransom: As I Remember Him.” American Scholar 58, no. 2 (Spring, 1989): 211-233.
Cowan, Louise. The Fugitive Group: A Literary History. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959.
Howard, Maureen. “There Are Many Wonderful Owls in Gambier.” Yale Review 77 (Summer, 1988): 521-527.
Malvasi, Mark G. The Unregenerate South: The Agrarian Thought of John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Donald Davidson. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997.
Modern American Poetry Web site. “John Crowe Ransom.” http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m‗r/ransom/life.htm.
Quinlan, Kieran. John Crowe Ransom’s Secular Faith. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989.
Rubin, Louis D., Jr. “The Wary Fugitive: John Crowe Ransom.” Sewanee Review 82 (1974): 583-618.
Young, Thomas Daniel. Gentleman in a Dustcoat: A Biography of John Crowe Ransom. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1976.