John Berryman’s Dream Songs and Unconventional Literary Horror
In John Berryman’s The Dream Songs, the reader, alongside the protagonist Henry, must confront grief, abandonment, and isolation through Berryman’s winding and sometimes frantic verses. Berryman’s account of a middle-aged man tormented by his mind is not entirely devoid of lighter moments– as Larry Vonalt explains, the intention of The Dream Songs is both to ‘terrify and comfort’. In Henry’s darkest moments, the verses tend to terrify more than comfort, and Vonalt further explains that ‘The terror of The Dream Songs is the fear of total separation, of never being able to be oneself, for one can only know oneself, be oneself, in relation to another’. The following essay will explore how, through the visceral and shocking depictions of Henry’s inner thoughts, The Dream Songs becomes a work not only of confession and emotion, but also of horror.
These fears are certainly reflections of Berryman’s own feelings, with Henry’s verses acting as a more intense and emotionally scattered version of his creator. Henry’s outlook is bleak, and Berryman describes his feelings toward the character, explaining, ‘I feel entirely sympathetic to him. [...] He thinks that if something happens to him, it's forever; but I know better’. Henry’s lack of perspective adds to the feelings of hopelessness that permeate the poems. While Berryman’s The Dream Songs might, on the surface level, appear more tragic than terrifying, the horror of the work lies within its honest handling of Henry– and Berryman’s– personal struggles. Through his poetry, Berryman depicts the unfiltered thoughts of a man consumed by addiction, grief, and pain. It is both the visceral descriptions of Henry’s emotions, as well as the sense of hopelessness within the poems that makes The Dream Songs a work steeped in elements of horror.
The exploration of the horrifying nature of alcohol addiction is a vital aspect of The Dream Songs, and Berryman’s honest depictions of alcoholism are incredibly disturbing. Henry, like his creator, struggles with alcoholism, and his addiction embodies the horror of losing control over one’s mind and actions. In a 1975 article, Lewis Hyde outlines the connection between Berryman’s poetry and his addiction, outlining the ways in which the author’s use of alcohol had both hindered and aided his writing. Hyde recognises the prevalence of alcoholism among authors such as Berryman, attributing the shared addiction to a yearning to access a higher level of creativity. On this note, Hyde explains, ‘spiritual thirst is the thirst of the self to feel that it is a part of something larger and, in its positive aspect, it is the thirst to grow, to ripen.’ This ‘spiritual thirst’ is, according to Hyde, what turns many creatives to substance abuse. Berryman even states in Dream Song 14, ‘after all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,/ we ourselves flash and yearn’ – a line which further displays the yearning that led him to seek relief in alcohol. However, the negative side-effects of alcohol abuse contribute heavily to Henry’s dissatisfaction and listlessness, rendering it unclear which affliction directly caused the other.
Henry’s already unstable sense of self is further muddled when he drinks. Many of the poems see Henry grapple with his scattered inner thoughts, and Dream Song 29 is perhaps the best example of how alcohol has disconnected both Berryman and Henry from their own thoughts and actions. In the poem, Henry wakes from a state of blacked-out intoxication, wracking his brain for memories of his drunken actions. Henry is fearful of himself and the actions of which he is capable, especially while under the influence. Despite his fears, Henry has not hurt anybody, and the poem describes, ‘[...]never did Henry, as he thought he did,/ end anyone and hacks her body up/ and hide the pieces, where they may be found./ He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody's missing./ Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up./ Nobody is ever missing’. The knowledge that he has not harmed anyone is not delivered in a tone of relief, but rather shame. Henry is trapped in a Jekyll and Hyde-esque cycle, always wondering what disaster his more violent and less restrained drunken self will leave behind in the morning. Henry has reached a point of dissociation from himself in which he cannot reconcile his actions, memories, and thoughts. Both Henry and Berryman seem to struggle to recognise themselves while intoxicated, and yet their addiction begins to lead them to further embody the drunken versions of themselves with which they are ashamed to identify.
Henry’s decline into addiction is not for a lack of attempts at self-improvement. Dream Song 76, titled Henry’s Confession, addresses the idea of sobriety, and Henry expresses his disbelief that ‘nothin very bad’ has happened to him lately. Henry’s friend associates this with his ‘bafflin odd sobriety’, as he is apparently ‘sober as a man can get, no girls, no telephones’ – in other words, no means to harm those around him. The sobriety in Dream Song 76, however, seems to be short-lived, and in Dream Song 266, Henry laments, ‘they’ll drop his bundle, drunkard & Boy Scout,/ where he was once before’. Henry can sense just how much his alcoholism has permeated his life, and he fears that when he is remembered, it will be for his drunkenness rather than his work. The aforementioned line also draws a connection between Henry’s childhood and his substance abuse, implying that both the ‘boy scout’ and the ‘drunkard’ are still very much parts of him that coexist and influence each other. According to Berryman, there is still a child inside every tortured, addicted adult, and more terrifyingly, this potential for addiction and despair is present in every child.
Henry complains in Dream Song 14, ‘peoples bore me,/ literature bores me, especially great literature,/ Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes’. This boredom and lack of purpose can be directly linked to the effects of alcohol on the mind. Hyde asserts that as a sedative, alcohol drained the creative energy from Berryman rather than restoring him to a tranquil state in which he could produce work– in other words, ‘the poems weren't killing Berryman. Drink was not the "stabilizer" that "reduced the fatal intensity." Alcohol was itself the "death threat”’. Henry’s outlook on his life and the world is completely clouded by addiction, and as Hyde asserts, ‘every active alcoholic already has a higher power at work in his life: the booze’.
Besides his struggles with alcohol, Berryman’s surrogate character Henry is plagued by isolation and loneliness throughout the poems. Much like Berryman himself, Henry’s father committed suicide when Henry was a child, thrusting the poem’s narrator into the grief and abandonment that pervades the entirety of The Dream Songs. Berryman, having experienced these feelings for himself, paints a portrait of the suicide’s effect on Henry that is both realistic and devastating. The death of Henry’s father dictates how he views the relationships he develops throughout The Dream Songs, just as Berryman’s own childhood trauma stunted his ability to establish stable relationships with his loved ones. Dream Song 260 paints a picture of ‘...lonely Henry/ isolated in the midst of his family/ as solitary as his dog’. Even when surrounded by family, Henry feels detached and alone– a feeling which possibly stemmed from a reluctance to form close attachments due to a fear of further loss and heartbreak. However, his reluctance to form relationships would not protect Berryman or Henry from experiencing further loss and trauma, and neither man can escape the ghosts of his past.
Berryman’s own isolation was furthered by the loss of many close friends and fellow writers. Richard Kostelanetz observed in his account of a 1970 interview with the author that, ‘inevitably, Berryman is haunted by the personal wreckage of his poetic generation, by the high incidence of mental hospitalisation, heavy drinking, broken marriages, and premature death’. Berryman utilises the voice of Henry to express his feelings on the loss of figures within his literary community, facetiously asking one in Dream Song 259, ‘Does then our rivalry extend beyond/ your death? Our lovely friendly rivalry/ over a quarter-century?’ The humour of this line is interlaced with grief– Henry wonders if he has won their friendly competition following his friend’s death, and it is not a victory in which he finds joy. He even seems to give his fellow writer credit for beating him to the grave, saying, ‘I never changed. My desire for death was strong/ but never strong enough’. The lives of Henry and Berryman are both heavily punctuated by loss, and both men struggle to cope with their grief– a struggle which leaves the reader in horrified awe of the depths of despair to which the human mind can succumb.
Abandonment plays another crucial role within Berryman’s work, as it did in the lives of both the author and the character. In Dream Song 1, Henry describes how after losing his father, his life changed, explaining, ‘All the world like a woolen lover/once did seem on Henry's side./ Then came a departure./ Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought./ I don't see how Henry, pried/ open for all the world to see, survived’. Henry’s life, like Berryman’s, was irrevocably altered by the suicide of his father, and he goes on to address his anger, grief, and confusion surrounding his father in many of The Dream Songs. Additionally, it becomes quickly evident that Henry has developed a fixation not only on the deaths of those around him, but also on death itself.
Henry’s feelings towards his father are complicated, and in Dream Song 143 he laments, ‘that mad drive wiped out my childhood. I put him down’, but goes on to explain, ‘while all the same on forty years I love him/ stashed in Oklahoma/ besides his brother Will’. Henry struggles to reconcile his feelings of both hate and love towards his father, and his complicated feelings manifest in his obsession with death.
Henry’s preoccupation with death is evident throughout the poems. In Dream Song 36, he laments, ‘The high ones die, die. They die. You look up and who's there?’ Henry often speaks of death as though it is an active choice, seeming to imply that those around him have died with the intention of leaving him behind to suffer. In his confession, Henry states, ‘in a modesty of death I join my father/ who dared so long agone leave me’, making clear his belief that his father has intentionally wronged him through dying. This anger towards his father is especially overpowering in Dream Song 384, where Henry describes standing ‘above [his] father's grave with rage’. While visiting a grave– even a ‘flowerless’ one– is typically a sombre occasion, Henry confronts the memory of his father with anger, and he describes how he has ‘made this awful pilgrimage to one/ who cannot visit [him], who tore his page/ out’. Henry struggles with his intense emotions, and he wonders ‘when will indifference come’, wishing for relief from his inner torment and grief. Henry yearns to be apathetic towards his father– a wish that is quickly overpowered once again by his anger. Henry begins to imagine how he will ‘ [...]ax the casket open ha to see/ just how [his father]’s taking it, which he sought so hard’. His desire to unearth his deceased father is as sardonic as it is grotesque, and it further highlights the horrifying nature of Henry’s thoughts.
Henry expresses his desire to join his loved ones in death several times. Dissatisfied with his life, Henry describes in Dream Song 77 how ‘[...] the snows and summers grieve & dream;/ thése fierce & airy occupations, and love,/ raved away so many of Henry's years’. Feeling that his existence has been entirely consumed by the ‘fierce & airy occupations’ of grief, self-pity, anger, and addiction, Henry is ‘[...] making ready to move on’ and join his lost loved ones. In Dream Song 266, Henry pleads, ‘‘Let Henry’s ails fail, pennies on his eyes/ never to open more’, showcasing even further his belief that he will only escape his ‘ails’ through death. These verses of despair accompany some of Henry’s more sarcastic musings, such as in the aforementioned Dream Song 384, or Dream Song 268, in which Henry quips about celebrating fallen soldiers, ‘... they die, we cheer,/ Hurrah for the lost!’ Nevertheless, Henry’s thoughts of death do little to comfort him, and amid his humour, he reveals how ‘these thoughts… in his mind he tossed,/ enough until he nearly died thereof./ Then came back the fear’. Henry’s existence as a character is punctuated by fear and hopelessness, and he seems to be destined for suffering and desolation.
According to Hyde, ‘self-pity is one of the dominant tones in The Dream Songs’. Hyde goes on to describe how self-pity ‘works entirely inside of a person, he needs no outer object’. However, Henry’s self-pity is focused both inwardly and outwardly, and his feelings towards himself and others send him into a spiral of alcoholism and despair, vividly captured in Berryman’s complex and, at times, disturbing descriptions of grief. Berryman addresses head-on the coexistence of Henry’s rage, sadness, and love. Henry, like Berryman himself, is torn between an intense longing for his deceased friends and family and a deep-seated grudge against them for their abandonment. This emotional conflict adds realism to Henry’s character, making his struggles with alcoholism, depression, and grief resonate profoundly with the audience.
Berryman’s work is particularly effective due to his use of fragmented speech, which mirrors Henry’s scattered thought process and places the reader directly inside his tortured mind. This stylistic choice not only enhances the realism of Henry’s emotional turmoil but also invites the reader to experience the anguish of his suffering firsthand. Henry’s anguish becomes more tangible through Berryman’s depictions of his thoughts, allowing readers to connect with Henry’s plight on a deeper level. Berryman’s exploration of self-pity, grief, and inner conflict in The Dream Songs offers a poignant reflection on the human condition. His honest portrayal of mental anguish makes his work profoundly impactful by making the audience feel just as trapped within the verses as Henry is within his mind. By delving into the depths of Henry’s psyche, Berryman not only captures the essence of his own struggles but forces the reader to reckon with their own fears and internal struggles. Henry is a wretched character fraught with pain, and The Dream Songs allow the reader to relate to its protagonist in a way that implies the reader could, themselves, be one tragedy away from sharing in Henry’s torment.
Bibliography
Berryman, John, The Dream Songs (Toronto, ON, Canada: Doubleday, 1969)
Hyde, Lewis, “Alcohol & Poetry: John Berryman and the Booze Talking,” The American Poetry Review, 4 (1975), 7–12 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/27774986>
Kostelanetz, Richard and John Berryman, “Conversation with Berryman,” The Massachusetts Review, 11 (1970), 340–47 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/25087991>
Vonalt, Larry P, “Berryman’s ‘The Dream Songs,’” Sewanee Review, 79 (1971), 464–69 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/27542549>
