The majority of Gwen Harwood’s poems are a tribute or parallel to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s

work. Her 1973 poem, “Thought is surrounded by a halo” is in recognition of Wittgenstein

and his theories on language games and picture theories, as well as Sigmund Freud’s
“Interpretation of Dreams”. Harwood admired both Wittgenstein and Freud on a deeper
level, she resonated with their theories and intricately woven their work into her own to
demonstrate the different levels of understanding she had of their work. In this poem
Harwood uses, allusions, visual imagery and polysyndeton to display her love for the
philosophical points made by Wittgenstein and Freud. Both of these theorists define this
poem and lend it to a psychoanalytical and humanist readings.

Allusions are the main poetic devices used in Harwood’s 1973 poem. These allusions
reference the inspiration behind the poem, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein was an
Austrian philosopher, and friend of Harwood. She admired his work and this poem was a
tribute to his 1953 work, Philosophical Investigations 97, which was published after his
death. She was able to make a poetic replica, of Wittgenstein’s thoughts and their
evolutions, spoken by an impersonation. Wittgenstein embodies, for her, everything that is
universal and true, beautiful, uncanny, contradictory, metaphysical and physical. The first
allusion to this work is the phrase in the second stanza, “Language is not a perfect game, and
if it were how could we play?” This refers to his language game theory, which states
“Language is an abundance of underlying games, of which some are not always clear.”
This is shown in the first part of this phrase “Language is not a perfect game,”. Put simply,
Wittgenstein theorised that language is made up of many games and to decipher which one
is in use, is to gain a higher understanding of language. This is the most well-known of
Wittgenstein’s theories and is regarded as the ‘foundation for the understanding of
communication’ (Dawson, 2011). The second part of the stanza, “and if it were, how could
we play?” is in reference to a subpart of the same language theory, that is, concluding which
language game is in play. Wittgenstein acknowledges this as the ‘final part of language
comprehension’ (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1921). An example of concluding which
language game is in play is, if a parent said to a frightened child, “Don’t worry, everything is
going to be fine.” They are playing the ‘Words as instruments for security and comfort’
game, to calm the child down and soothe them. The idea of different language games is
Wittgenstein suggesting that the same phrase may have different meanings depending on
which game is in play in the conversation. Wittgenstein also made a point to state that
conversations are not limited to one language game, rather, the conversation is constantly
evolving and switching between games depending on the topic being spoken about.

Imagery is used to incorporate Wittgenstein’s picture theory into this poem. This stanza
helps to answer Wittgenstein’s main question in his first published work ‘Tractatus Logico-
Philosophicus’ which was published in 1921. This question was; “How do human beings
manage to communicate ideas to one another?” The answer to this question was
‘revolutionary’. Wittgenstein stated that “Language works by triggering, within us, pictures
of how things are in the world.”
“Picture two lovers side by side
who sleep and dream and wake to hold
the real and imagined world 
body by body, word by word 
in the wild halo of their thought.”
This stanza only has meaning due to the pictures we associate within. By having the word
‘picture’ as the first word in the stanza, the readers are inclined to visualise the scene being
laid out. The picture theory can also be explained through a triangle. This triangle is used to
show the association and variation in picture theory. By looking at this picture, the first thing
people see is a simple triangle. However, through different interpretations, many other
things can be made out of this simple triangle. (ask about them and then show examples.)
All of these examples are ways the picture theory fits into language. When reading the other
ways the triangle can be seen, people often start to see the perspective. This in itself is a
different subpart of the picture theory; picture differentiation. Wittgenstein explains picture
differentiation and a difference in “perspective, opinion and experience”. This is also one of
the flaws with Wittgenstein’s language games. As I previously said, Wittgenstein’s language
games are constantly changing, and the picture theory flaw links with the language game.
No two people have the same experiences, which leads to a difference in the pictures
associated with sentences. Two people may have been to the same place but have
completely different recollections of events. Therefore, when discussing the location, a
different image may be associated depending on the experience.
Allusions are again used, but this time to link to Sigmund Freud. Harwood was very well-
versed in philosophy and often referred to philosophers in her poems. As well as Ludwig
Wittgenstein, Sigmund Freud is another philosopher that has been referenced in “Thought is
surrounded by a halo” In the third stanza, Harwood references Freud’s ‘Interpretation of
Dreams’. The passage;
“Who sleep and dream and wake to hold
The real and imagined world” does this.
This is an insight into the two types of dreams as defined by Freud. Freud believed that the
mind was like an iceberg. Only a very small part of the iceberg is visible above the water—
this visible part represents the conscious mind. Unseen under the surface of the water lies
the enormous bulk of the iceberg, which represents the unconscious mind. Dreams,
therefore, are one way of glimpsing what is hidden from awareness in the unconscious
mind. Manifest content is the actual literal subject matter of the dream while the latent
content is the underlying meaning of these symbols. The ‘dream’ in this poem is latent, as it
displays the basic human desire. It is a fact of life that humans need love, it is part of the
human condition. By including the dream in this stanza, which is imagery, it outlines not only
the psychoanalytical reading but also humanist reading in the poem. According to Freud, the
latent content of a dream is the hidden psychological meaning of the dream. This content
appears in disguise symbolically and contains things that are hidden from conscious
awareness, often because it may be upsetting or traumatic. For example, imagine that you
have a dream that you are naked in public. The actual storyline of the dream is the manifest
content, but Freud would suggest that there is more to the dream than its literal meaning.
He might interpret the dream to mean that you fear exposure, that you feel insecure, or that
you fear other people will notice your shortcomings. This hidden meaning represents the
latent content of the dream. In this same passage, polysyndeton is used to show the
similarities between sleeping, dreaming and waking, as well as the psychoanalytical and
humanist readings being intertwined.
“Thought is surrounded by a halo” is a powerful tribute to both Wittgenstein and Freud’s
dedication to philosophy. Gwen Harwood has used poetic devices brilliantly to include
excerpts of their work into this poem. Allusions, visual imagery, and polysyndetons are
mainly used to do this and they help to highlight the main parts of the theories and the
relevance of those theories when they came out, when the poem was written and today.