Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In "A Wedding Toast," Richard Wilbur navigates the nuanced emotional terrain of a wedding celebration, an event that is both a culmination and a beginning. The poem, much like its title suggests, serves as a verbal offering, a lyrical toast to commemorate the merging of two lives. Even though the text of the poem is not provided, the title alone suggests a certain formal and thematic framework. Wedding toasts are traditionally intended to honor the couple, celebrate love, and sometimes impart some wisdom about the journey the newlyweds are embarking upon.

The idea of a toast is inherently a paradoxical moment. It is a pause during a festive event to reflect, to articulate what often goes unspoken: the hopes, fears, and complex emotions that accompany lifelong commitments. Typically, a toast is both public and intimate, offering personal sentiments in a social setting, capturing the essence of the wedding as a public affirmation of private love. It is this complex interplay between the public and the private, the celebratory and the serious, that would offer a rich thematic landscape for a poet of Wilbur's depth and sensitivity.

Wilbur's poetry often attends to the beauty and complexity of everyday events, elevating them to moments of existential pondering. In a wedding toast, one would expect him to delve into the nature of love, commitment, and the passage of time, likely framing these profound themes within the quotidian details and rituals that comprise a wedding ceremony. The toast, usually delivered amidst clinking glasses and anticipatory gazes, would serve as a vessel for carrying deep, often unutterable feelings.

The themes of love and commitment are not just personal but universal, and a poet like Wilbur could be expected to explore them in a way that resonates beyond the immediate moment. He would likely employ his characteristic formalist style, utilizing rhyme and meter to provide a sense of order and timeless beauty-much like the institution of marriage itself, which, despite its challenges, survives as a testimony to human connection.

In its brevity and situational specificity, "A Wedding Toast" might challenge us to ponder love's complexities. Like many toasts, the poem would be a temporary suspension of time, a momentary stilling of the world to honor something ineffable yet deeply human. It would be a poetic act of holding a mirror to the audience, asking them to see their own lives, their own loves, reflected in the union being celebrated.

And so, without even knowing the text of the poem, we can imagine how Wilbur's "A Wedding Toast" would encapsulate the joy and gravitas of a wedding day, capturing the profound simplicity of love and the intricate relationships that sustain it. In this imagined context, the poem serves as both a tribute and a guide, marking not just a culmination of past experiences but the hopeful beginning of a shared future.

Richard Wilbur's "A Wedding Toast" is a captivating piece that uses the biblical story of the wedding at Cana to muse upon the nature of love and its relation to abundance and miracle. Set in quatrains with an ABBA rhyme scheme, the poem marries formality with heartfelt emotion, capturing the spirit of a wedding toast. The juxtaposition of religious text with the ceremonial toast elevates the ordinary event into something far more significant, signaling the extraordinary elements of everyday life and love.

The poem begins with a recounting of the biblical miracle at Cana, where Jesus turns water into wine. Wilbur mentions "a hundred gallons at the least," highlighting the excessiveness of the act. This is no ordinary transformation; it's an abundant, almost lavish miracle. The wine serves as a metaphor for the richness of love-"whatsoever love elects to bless / Brims to a sweet excess"-and it's this extravagance that Wilbur celebrates.

The phrase "sweet excess" is telling; love, according to Wilbur, is not a matter of moderation. It overflows, brimming over the edges of the containers we try to keep it in. This reflects the notion that love, in its truest form, is boundless, something that can never truly be depleted. It is generous, flowing freely like the wine at Cana.

In the third stanza, the poet shifts the focus from the miracle to the epistemology of love: "Which is to say that what love sees is true; / That this world's fullness is not made but found." Here, Wilbur suggests that love is a form of ultimate truth, a way of seeing the world that uncovers its inherent abundance. Love isn't something you make; it's something you find, already present, waiting to be discovered. And when you do find it, it enriches your life, filling it to the brim, making everything appear fuller, more meaningful.

Finally, Wilbur addresses the newlyweds directly: "I toast you both, good son and dear new daughter." Here, he extends the metaphor of water and wine to wish the couple an abundant life, not just materially but emotionally and spiritually. He hopes that their life will not "lack for water," representing life's essentials, and that their ordinary experiences ("water") will be transformed into extraordinary ones, as memorable and fulfilling as "Cana's wine."

In sum, "A Wedding Toast" serves as both a public declaration and a personal blessing. It uses religious metaphor and poetic formality to elevate the seemingly mundane act of toasting into a ritual that captures the essence of love's abundant nature. Wilbur crafts a piece that, much like a good wine or a lasting marriage, deepens and enriches over time, offering new layers of meaning with each encounter.

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