Fantasy and Reality in the Confinements of Wordsworth and Brooks

In “Nuns fret not at their Convent’s narrow room,” William Wordsworth writes of the freedom found within voluntary confinement. He follows this line of reasoning to explain that artistic possibilities are offered within the confines of the sonnet—the form of “Nuns fret not.” Nearly 150 years later, Gwendolyn Brooks writes of a different kind of confinement, one which is imposed. In her poem “kitchenette building,” Brooks details how the African-American families who were forced into tiny apartments—kitchenette buildings—in the 1940s lost the ability to dream. Reading “Nuns fret not” in isolation generates a positive view of confinement, but “kitchenette building” shines a different light on Wordsworth’s words. Wordsworth specifies that the pleasure derived from writing a sonnet stems from the fact that poets voluntarily confine themselves within the form. He defends this claim by crafting what appears to be a logical argument built upon examples of contentedly confined people. Brooks, however, by tracing the psychological effects of involuntary confinement, suggests a fundamental difference between the types of confinement that Wordsworth conflates and reveals Wordsworth’s irrational line of reasoning in “Nuns fret not.”

Wordsworth declares that “the prison, unto which we doom / Ourselves, no prison is,” but “kitchenette building” questions the basic notion of choice to which Wordsworth refers (lines 8-9). Brooks mentions in the first line of her poem an “involuntary plan,” writing: “We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan.” An involuntary plan seems like an oxymoron. A plan can be defined as “an intention or ambition for the future,” so the idea that this could be imposed against one’s will sounds illogical (“Plan,” Sense I.1.a). However, “plan” can also reference “the layout of a building,” which brings to light the reality that for many African-American families at the time Brooks was writing, cramped kitchenettes were the only housing available (“Plan,” Sense I.2.a). These building plans then fostered a situation where people could have their “ambition[s] for the future” altered in a way outside of their control. With this centering on lack of freedom, Brooks’s reference to “rent” begets a more nuanced understanding of the definition of choice (line 3). Someone paying rent could be seen as someone choosing to live somewhere, thus putting them into the category of “doom[ing] [them]selves” and not being in a “prison.” However, Brooks allows her reader to peer inside the substandard conditions of a kitchenette building where the most residents can “hope” for is “lukewarm water,” making clear the impossibility that this would be someone’s first choice of living situation (line 13). Brooks suggests that the alternative to this situation—potential homelessness—would be even worse, and as such challenges Wordsworth’s notion that living in such a confined space could be voluntary.

Once “kitchenette building” reveals by contrast this uncertainty of choice in “Nuns fret not,” one begins to question the contentment of Wordsworth’s supposedly voluntarily confined subjects. Wordsworth writes, “Nuns fret not at their Convent’s narrow room; / And Hermits are contented with their Cells; / And students with their pensive Citadels” (lines 1-3). Though Brooks does not represent the subjects of her poem in a fretful state, she reveals that they have been deadened by confinement, rather than calmed by any true contentment. The residents don’t have “time” in their day-to-day life to dream of living in an alternative situation, or in turn to dwell on any sort of unhappiness they may feel in regard to their circumstances (line 9). They “wonder. But not well! Not for a minute! / Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now” (lines 11-12). The residents are consumed with the material conditions of their confined situation, focused on necessities like getting their turn in the bathroom. With this understanding, it then seems unreasonable for Wordsworth to conflate “fret[ting] not” with being “contented,” meaning “desiring nothing more or nothing different” (“Contented,” Sense 1.a). This conflation suggests that Wordsworth has a limited understanding of the reality of confinement. He explains that in light of the examples he lists in the first half of the poem of the “Nuns,” “Hermits,” and “Students,” for him, it was “pastime to be bound” in the form of the sonnet (line 10). He believes that this is a just comparison. He does not acknowledge that people can be forced into a confinement that appears voluntary and then drained of the energy needed to even feel discontent. Brooks’s interpretation of confinement and its psychological effects offers a completely different message than Wordsworth’s. The logic of Brooks’s argument, as opposed to the simple listing of undeveloped examples in “Nuns fret not,” validates Brooks’s point of view. This in turn troubles a reader’s confidence in Wordsworth’s authority to write on the subject of confinement in “Nuns fret not,” likely as a result of Wordsworth’s own unconfined lived experience.

In destabilizing Wordsworth’s authority, “kitchenette building” then serves to undermine Wordsworth’s position as part of the “we” of which he writes (line 8). The subject of Brooks’s poem is a “we” which embodies the literal shared, communal spaces of kitchenettes and the collective experience of living in them (line 1). Wordsworth, on the other hand, uses the first-person plural just once, before moving into writing about “me” (line 9). Upon one’s first reading of “Nuns fret not,” Wordsworth’s structuring of the poem implies that he groups himself with the “Nuns,” “Hermits,” and “Students”—the “we” of the poem. However, the unity of Brooks’s subject makes Wordsworth’s seem in fact divided. Brooks doesn’t clarify individual subjects within the “we,” going so far as to actually assign clearly different responsibilities—“‘rent,’ ‘feeding a wife,’ ‘satisfying a man’”—all to this one plural subject (line 3). As such, one is left to wonder whether Wordsworth’s “we” is as cohesive. “[K]itchenette building” has already revealed that Wordsworth may not have been writing with full recognition of confinement, and so further implies that Wordsworth as a subject and “I” within the sonnet is not confined at all in the same way as the other examples to which he refers (line 14).

This distance between Wordsworth and the “Nuns,” “Hermits,” and “Students” is augmented by the sonnet form of “Nuns fret not,” which “kitchenette building” reveals as less restricted than Wordsworth presents. The form of “kitchenette building” works to visually depict confinement as something profoundly isolating and constrained, suggesting that Wordsworth’s sonnet is not as confined as he implies. “[K]itchenette building” consists of 13 lines—one less than a sonnet, which establishes the smallness of the kitchenettes—and 4 stanzas—as opposed to a sonnet’s single block of text. In this way, Brooks represents on the page the physical spaces within a kitchenette building. Each stanza becomes a kitchenette in its own right, a cramped space which contains an incomplete story, something part of a larger whole—the poem—but never fully realized on its own. This again reflects the limitations imposed on the residents of the kitchenettes and the way in which their situation disables them from grasping hold of a dream and realizing it. This visual depiction of the circumstances described by Brooks’s words contrasts sharply with the unified form of “Nuns fret not.” Even if constraint is necessary when writing, as Wordsworth declares, “Within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground,” “kitchenette building” highlights the privilege of that space (line 11). Not everyone is so lucky to have even 14 lines to exist within. What Wordsworth calls “scanty” is larger than some other poems, which is seen by looking at it next to “kitchenette building.” Wordsworth’s perception of his own confinement, displayed through his explicit stating that sonnets are an escape from “too much liberty,” is challenged through the lens of “kitchenette building” and illustrated as something less constrained than Wordsworth suggests (line 13).

Once “kitchenette building” challenges Wordsworth’s basic notion of the poet’s confinement, Brooks explicitly refutes the message of “Nuns fret not” that the confined space of a sonnet allows for a respite in the art produced within its limitations. The subjects of “kitchenette building” are “Grayed in” by their wearisome apartments “and gray” themselves as a result (line 2). Their conditions have made them devoid of the color and creative range innate to art. A “dream,” on the other hand, is imagined as “white and violet,” something that could “sing an aria,” but there are no dreams in the kitchenette building (lines 4-7). Residents are occupied with the material conditions of their situation, “think[ing] of lukewarm water,” such that they are unable to allocate mental space to dreaming (line 13). Wordsworth references material limits in a completely different way, describing the inherent limits of the tools of art, citing “Maids at the Wheel” and a “Weaver at his Loom” (line 4). It’s logical to accept Wordsworth’s reasoning that a craft is shaped by the bounds of its instrument, may that be a wheel, a loom, or a poetic form. However, Brooks’s “kitchenette building” challenges Wordsworth’s belief that these limitations are a break from “too much liberty” (line 13). The subjects of “kitchenette building” are not even free in their own thoughts because of their insuperable material confines. Wordsworth draws a connection between physical crafts and poetry, but physical crafts are far more materially limited than an art style which makes use of an entire language. This suggests that while Wordsworth himself may have experienced what felt like unbounded possibilities while writing formless poetry, the logical argument he makes in “Nuns fret not” is not as logical as he intended. Material limits do not often allow for some profound reprieve, as Wordsworth imagined. His limit was not even imposed by anything physical, save ink on a page.

Brooks’s reference to an “aria” in “kitchenette building” further dismantles Wordsworth’s view of sonnets as limiting by commenting on the freedom one must possess to produce art in the first place (line 7). An aria is a musical piece whose name comes from the Italian word for ‘air,’ while a sonnet is a poetic form whose name comes from the Italian word for ‘little song.’ This direct link between Italian artistic forms encourages revisiting “Nuns fret not” while taking into account Brooks’s emphasis on the necessity of mental liberty in producing art. Though Wordsworth presents a sonnet as a form in which one is “bound,” the reality he does not present is that there is still a certain privilege in working within that artistic form (line 10). Brooks cannot even pin down a dream’s exact influence in the production of art in a truly confined space, asking in the form of a question: “could a dream… sing an aria down these rooms” (lines 4-7). Brooks does not question a dream’s ability to sing an aria, but rather its ability to do so in “these rooms.” An aria—air—is intangible, and as Brooks has established, material circumstances dominate states of confinement. Brooks stresses that certain conditions are required to be able to produce art, meaning that those who are trapped, in a kitchenette for instance, are prevented from ever enacting art—whether that be singing an aria or writing a sonnet. Though Brooks does not directly question the residents’ ability to sing an aria, this additional degree of separation in the questioning makes their inability to do so even more pronounced. Brooks can only go so far as questioning what a dream could do, because the residents are already deprived of dreams, so pushing the question further and applying it to the people themselves would be superfluous. This recognition of the external conditions that allow for art reflects on “Nuns fret not” such that one is left to wonder whether the nuns or hermits in their constrained physical spaces would ever be able to produce art like a poet; “kitchenette building” suggests not, given their confinement. This further disrupts the foundation of Wordsworth’s comparisons between poets and other confined people.

Even the logic of the temporal characteristics of confinement that Wordsworth imagines in “Nuns fret not” can be seen as inconsistent with true confinement in light of “kitchenette building.” Wordsworth says that a poet experiences a “short solace” while writing a sonnet (line 14). On first read, one could understand this as a reference to the short length of the sonnet; however, “kitchenette building” suggests that Wordsworth is instead referencing the finite time which a poet spends writing in this constrained form. Brooks establishes in “kitchenette building” that time is a luxury. Brooks writes: “Even if we… / Had time,” implying that the residents lack the time they could use to “think of” things outside of their immediate material conditions (lines 8-9, 13). Wordsworth quite literally spends his “short solace” in a state of thought, using the sonnet as a tool to focus his thinking. It is a break from his usual condition, something with a start and an end—what he calls a “pastime” (line 10). Though he does confirm that this condition “no prison is,” Brooks’s emphasis on the never-ending confinement within the kitchenettes leads one to question Wordsworth’s comparison of poets to nuns (line 9). Nuns—the sonnet’s namesake—do not “find short solace” in “their Convent’s narrow room” (lines 14, 1). Nuns take lifelong vows committing themselves to their faith, and their condition is not one easily abandoned, in part because of the security afforded by the material conditions, such as housing and food, which nuns are given in return for their work. The subjects of “kitchenette building” resonate with this true indefinite state of entrapment, having no better living situation available to them. As such, the poet dabbling for a moment in writing a rigidly formed poem becomes the opposite of what Brooks and even an unwitting Wordsworth present as being truly bound.

In “kitchenette building,” Brooks draws a somber image of confinement and its effects, most notably presenting the ways in which people become psychologically and imaginatively limited by living in a physically confined space. In “Nuns fret not,” Wordsworth builds a logical argument utilizing examples in an attempt to describe confinement as something that satisfies and offers artistic possibilities, given that it is voluntary. However, through the lens of Brooks’s poem, it is impossible to take Wordsworth’s conjecture seriously. The earnest situation described in “kitchenette building” forces one to revisit Wordsworth’s loose connections and fantasizing about the nature of writing a sonnet with a more critical eye. It is impossible to ignore Wordsworth’s lack of logic and unrealistic dramatizing of a craft that at its core requires privilege and freedom to participate in.