Quote:
Originally Posted by Julie Steiner
The beginning of the poem claims that there is only one individual cicada making all the noise on a summer day, which is almost certainly untrue. The first quatrain goes on to claim that this particular cicada happens to be the very same one that taught Virgil, making her improbably long-lived, and possibly even immortal. So I think that it's unlikely that at the end of the poem, Rueda means that the cicada sings until she dies. I think he means that while she is singing, her buggy body becomes irrelevant, and she enters the supernatural realm of the soul, where matter cannot go. Whenever the soul leaves the body, it's a sort of death, even if not permanent. Cf. the French "la petite morte" (the little death) for the ecstasy of sexual orgasm.
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Ok, I read this more as a poem about cicadas in general than as the myth of a single immortal cicada. Myths can do both, of course, but I felt that the sestet was more about how cicadas give everything to their song, burning themselves out in the process. Your interpretation is no less lovely, but it involves understanding the cicada’s body as its “true nature,” which is a hard sell for me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Julie Steiner
“Sir James George Frazer notes that among ancient Greeks and several other peoples there was a widespread belief that creatures that can shed their skin renew their youth and live forever.”
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I wondered if “bodiless” had something to do with molting, but that occurs before the young cicadas begin to sing, so it doesn’t fit easily here.