Charles Tomlinson and the Nameless You

Abstract

The British poet Charles Tomlinson (1927--) frequently addresses his poems to a specific but unnamed listener-companion. Such deliberate concealment of identity achieves a paradoxical effect: it stimulates readers’ curiosity and heightens the importance of the name that is withheld. Functioning as an unrestricted signifier, the “you” of the poems assumes an all-inclusive, larger-than-life character. Patterns of metaphor involving celestial light, such as moon, star, or sun, further exalt the nameless presence. The implications of Tomlinson's strategy of omission are wide-ranging, aesthetic and philosophical as well as personal. Casting an aura of mystery around an often invoked and clearly significant Other in his poems, he underlines the power of naming in an unusual fashion.