The Imaginary Iceberg

Many of Bishop’s contemporary post-war American poets sought self-expression. They wrote in autobiographical and confessional forms explaining themselves to the outside world. In many ways, Bishop works in the opposite direction of these confessional poets. Looking outward, Bishop’s speakers find their own reflection. In this way, Bishop shares similarities with the 19th century European romantics, who looked to the natural world for answers to human questions. In “The Imaginary Iceberg,” Bishop engages with the immediate experience of an object and its environment. Through close observation of such objects and their effect on the viewer, Bishop’s speakers gain understand of the human experience. In “The Imaginary Iceberg,” this new understanding centers on the links between the human soul, travel, and the imagination.

The poem’s titular iceberg stands for human imagination. The poem’s title and emphasis on its subject’s imaginary state establishes this connection between the iceberg and what it represents. This connection carries through the speaker’s description of the iceberg, and is most evident when the speaker states “a sailor’d give his eyes” (Line 12) to see the mass of ice. Being “[i]maginary” (Title), the mass is visible within one’s mind rather than through one’s eyes. As with the imagination, the iceberg’s true scale and beauty are hidden. Most of the iceberg’s mass is “self-made from elements least visible” (Line 33) and is obscured by “moving marble” (Line 4) water.

The parts of the iceberg remaining above water are complicated and idiosyncratic. The “iceberg cuts its facets from within” (Line 24), and its internal structure is compared to “jewelry” (Line 25) because of its reflective, “glassy” (Line 14) surfaces. The iceberg holds many reflections of the same scene within itself. This kaleidoscopic quality mirrors the imagination. The imagination is a way of generating innovative ideas and images, as the iceberg does through its varied reflections. The imagination is also a reflection of the individual imagining, toward which the iceberg’s “facets from within” (Line 24) point. Compared to the aesthetic power of the iceberg, the sailor’s practical concerns appear “artlessly rhetorical” (Line 17).

Like the imagination, the speaker also sees the iceberg as protective. Its mere presence between the sky and the sea allows the “snow [to lie] undissolved upon the water” (Line 8). The speaker cherishes this “breathing plain of snow” (Line 6) for its beauty in its “airy twists of snow” (Line 19). Part of the snow’s beauty comes from its creative abilities. It has “wits [that] / spar with the sun” (Lines 20-21), indicating a verbal creativity or cleverness. The speaker also likens the snow to a “floating field” (Line 9) and a “pasture” (Line 11), suggesting that the snow is fertile. The snow, however, cannot support itself. Its “finest ropes” (Line 18) are momentarily suspended while the iceberg is “stock-still” (Lines 3).

Despite this description, the iceberg is not immobile. “The iceberg rises / and sinks again” (Lines 13-14). As the speaker’s description of the iceberg as “a cloudy / rock” (Lines 3-4) suggests, the iceberg negotiates earth and sky through vertical movement. This vertical movement is contrasted to the ship’s implicit horizontal movement across the ocean. The iceberg’s movement also resembles the vertical movement of souls in Christian theology. The speaker solidifies this religious connotation with the idea that the iceberg’s “glassy pinnacles / correct elliptics in the sky” (Lines 14-15). The iceberg’s reflective surfaces restore or enhance stars amongst the heavenly constellations. The iceberg’s ability to make wrongs outside of the human scope seem “correct” (Line 14) is another trait it shares with the imagination.

The iceberg’s benefit to the soul is intricately tied to its movement; this connection extends to the iceberg’s stillness. The poem’s first two lines establish the importance of stillness. The speaker states they prefer the iceberg to “the ship, / although it meant the end of travel” (Lines 1-2). This preference suggests that the restorative and imaginative powers of the iceberg is in opposition to travel. The connection between the iceberg, reflection, and the imagination work together with this emphasis on stillness to offer a complete picture of the speaker’s idea of the imagination. Reflecting and thinking are stationary acts often requiring the participant to be still. Bishop’s speaker presents the same requirement as part of the imagination.

Only when the ship has stopped and its “sails were laid upon the sea” (Line 7) does the speaker notice the iceberg’s small movements and how it “correct[s] elliptics in the sky” (Line 15). These aspects of the iceberg can only be seen—or imagined—when the speaker is motionless. To put it another way: The iceberg’s movement is the product of stillness. While this might seem paradoxical, 19th-century European romantics held a similar view of the imagination as a way to move across time and space without physically traveling (See: Contextual Analysis). Bishop does not engage with her iceberg using such conventions. But the attention she pays to a single, natural object—and the conclusions she draws about the imagination, travel, and the human soul—borrows from the larger romantic tradition.