I wish to show you that this conventional interpretation is altogether wrong. I shall try to prove that we have to do here, not with a shallow didactic rime, not with a piece of brain-spun ethicism, such as a common poetaster might produce, but with a lyrical ballad of deeply felt tragic import.
I call your attention, in the first place, to the singular ambiguity in that famous last line. "He never went there again." "Never went where?" one instinctively asks. Are we to understand merely that Foster henceforth avoided the particular puddle into which he had stepped, or that he in after time discontinued his visits to Gloucester altogether? This is evidently a question of vital importance, and the poem at first does not seem to answer it at all. In the absence of biographical data extraneous to the text, we can only attack the problem by analytic methods. Let us consider the only two possible hypotheses.
1. That Foster never went to Gloucester again. This supposition is utterly untenable, because it is clearly inconsistent with Foster's character, which can be read from the poem itself with entire certainty. In the first place, he was clearly a doctor of medicine. Had he been a doctor of laws, or letters, or philosophy, there would have been no special urgency in his call to Gloucester, and he would surely have waited until the weather should clear up. Secondly he was a youngish doctor. Had he been an elderly practitioner he would not have gone himself, but would have sent his assistant. Or perhaps he would have telephoned that he would come immediately, and would then have quietly waited for the rain to cease. But our Dr. Foster "went"—went in a shower of rain. From this we see, in the third place, that he was a man of energy, capable of self-abnegation, dominated by a strong sense of professional duty. Now can we suppose that such a man would have renounced forever his practice in Gloucester merely because he had stepped casually into a puddle in a well meant effort to reach the place? The supposition is an insult to his intelligence and to ours. No doubt the incident of the puddle was humiliating, but we do not read that there were spectators. In the absence of specific evidence to the contrary we must assume that Foster was alone. That being so, a man of his character would surely have extricated himself from his unpleasant dilemma, given vent to his emotions in language suited to the occasion, and gone on his way. It is simply impossible to believe that he can have taken from the puddle such a deep and lasting chagrin that he would have been willing to renounce forevermore his growing practice in Gloucester.
2. We turn now to the other hypothesis, according to which Mater Anser means merely that Foster never again stepped in that particular puddle. This supposition makes the whole poem trivial to the point of banality. Why in the world should any man in his senses deliberately step into a deep puddle a second time? Remember too that it was raining at the time. The puddle did not exist ordinarily, but was a transitory affair due to the freshet. Had Foster chosen to come back the next day, there would have been no puddle there, hence nothing to be afraid of. To assume that a man of Foster's intelligence would have retained through life a morbid dread of a mere depression in the ground where he had once encountered a puddle is contrary to all reason. Evidently we must seek some other interpretation for that mysterious last line, "He never went there again."
And now observe, please, a singular technical defect in a poem which is otherwise technically perfect. I refer to the dubious rime puddle-middle. There has never been a time in the history of the English language, so far as I know, when that was a tolerable rime. If puddle were of French origin and had retained its French ü-sound, "He stepped in a püddle up to his middle" might perhaps pass muster. But puddle is not of French origin. It was this bad rime, coupled with the anatomical vagueness of the phrase "up to his middle," which led me to conjecture that the textus receptus must be corrupt. It is pretty evident that Mater Anser originally wrote not "middle," but some word which was taken for "middle" by a pestilent scribe. And what word can that possibly have been but "noddle"? Perhaps a captious critic may object that, as a matter of rime, puddle-noddle is not much better than puddle-middle. But remember that in early English o and u were often confused. It is altogether likely that the word which we pronounce puddle was familiar to Mater Anser's dialect as poddle. What she wrote was: He stepped in a poddle up to his noddle.
In the light flashed on the poem by this recension of the text, we penetrate at once the mystery of that last line, "He never went there again," because he never went anywhere again. He perished. His promising career came then and there to an untimely end. We now understand why it is that the career of Dr. Foster subsequent to his memorable expedition to Gloucester has failed to interest the Muse. There was no subsequent career.
I trust I have made it clear that Dr. Foster is the hero of a tragical ballad. He is evidently a being of the same order as Achilles and Siegfried—those dazzling heroes of the Dawn who are destined to run a brilliant career in the pride of their youthful strength, and then to meet with an untimely end. It is true that Achilles and Siegfried are invulnerable, except in one place, and that we hear nothing of Foster's invulnerability. But if you look closely you will find something in his case that is quite analogous. The underlying idea of the invulnerability is always simply this: That the hero is fated to die in one particular way, and in no other. Now it is clear that Foster was fated to die by water. Water was his enemy, his fate. A pious mother had no doubt brought him up to dread and avoid it. When he set out on that last journey he of course took an umbrella, but his precautions did not end there. In view of the inclement weather he of course felt the need of something to fortify the inner man, but he durst not and did not drink water. He drank something else. Just what it was we are not told, but it was evidently something that made him a little unsteady on his feet. And so, just as in the case of Oedipus, the very precautions that he took to avoid his predestined fate only served to precipitate it.
I conclude by summing up briefly what my interpretation does for the advancement of science.
1. It converts what has been supposed to be a rather trivial didactic rime into a tragical ballad of heart-rending pathos.