Titanic\" and \"Refinement\" by David R. Slavitt

¶ … Titanic" and "Refinement" by David R. Slavitt

David R. Slavitt is a well-known poet and film critic of the Newsweek Magazine, and as a literary writer, he has already published almost seventy-three volumes of poetry, and one of the most interesting and memorable poems written by David Slavitt are the poems "Titanic" and "Refinement." Both poems illustrate a special message that can be applied to any individual through a personal and social perspective. Because of this special and interesting theme in Slavitt's poem, a critical analysis will be made. These two poems will be critically analyzed according to its theme and message (implicit and explicit).

The first poem, in 'Titanic," Slavitt uses the ship Titanic and its history in sending out a social and personal message about the high-class people of the society. The poem extends the message about an individual's longing, want, and preference to 'drown first-class,' just like what happened to the passengers and crew of the famous ship Titanic. However, despite the fact that Slavitt seems to be voicing out an opinion that favors the high-class society of Titanic's passengers, Slavitt also extends a message that is a serious social issue: the poem "Titanic" is a poem meant to criticize and take notice of the elite class of the society: the poem uses a historical event such as the sinking of the Titanic to remind us readers of the lesson everybody learned with what happened to the ship, that is, that the 'high and mighty' is still vulnerable to danger, especially natural ones. This main point is sarcastically delivered in the poem "Titanic," and a line-by-line analysis will be provided in order to understand the sarcastic tone and the satire in Slavitt's poem.

The first stanza of the poem illustrates the historical importance of the sinking of the ship Titanic, and Slavitt immediately 'steers' his readers in his attitude of awe and admiration to the prestige that comes with the privilege in being one of the passengers of the famous ship ("If they sold passage tomorrow... who would not buy?"). The seconds stanza goes straight to the point: Slavitt immediately refers to the tragic sinking of the ship, but Slavitt uses this event/situation to again illustrate his seemingly naive and irritating outlook about the rich people. Slavitt displays awe in 'going down' with the rich people, the high-class of the society: "To go down...But with crowds, people, friends, servants, well fed, with music, with lights! Ah!" He also gives us the point-of-view of many people, who will treat the event (the sinking of the ship Titanic) as a tragic one, but there is hypocrisy even in the act of mourning, and this is shown in Slavitt's line saying, "And the world, shocked, mourns as it ought to do and almost never does." Slavitt accepts and knows this hypocritical reasoning and act, and this shows that even though he acts in awe about the rich, high-class people, he is aware that the rich and the elite lived in a hypocritical world, where every action done and every word spoken is full of falsity and fakeness. The third stanza actually reflects the true outlook of Slavitt, wherein he treats the rich as privileged people, even belonging himself to them, but he also looks at them, at the plight of the rich people who drowned and sank with the Titanic, with insensitive feeling, accepting the death of the rich as "not so bad, after all." Slavitt finally ends his poem by stating that: "We all go: only a few, first-class." This last line shows how Slavitt thinks of the role of the hypocritical rich people: that their 'necessary' deaths is 'not bat" at all, since they died a 'good' death, surrounded by prestige, fame, and material wealth, even as they face death when the tragic sinking of the Titanic (symbolic of the high-class society) happened. In essence, "Titanic" is a reflection and analogy of the gradual decrease of dominance and prominence of the high-class people in the American society. Their death is symbolized by the ship Titanic, and this 'unfortunate' event was deemed by Slavitt as a 'fortunate' one, for the American society is now rid of the high-class, hypocritical, rich people.