Rukhaya M.K

A Literary Companion

Category: British Literature (page 7 of 10)

Poetry Analysis: John Donne’s “The Relic”

November 13, 2014 / / 1 Comment

John Donne’s “The Relic” like his “The Funeral,” has the lock of hair as the starting point :

Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm
Nor question much
That subtle wreath of hair, which crowns my arm.

The first stanza though it talks about mortal human beings, reflects immortal love in the same tone. The speaker refers to the exhumation of his and his lover’s grave. The exhumer notes a “bracelet of bright hair” on the poet that appears to belong to his lady-love. Therefore, it renders into an emblematic relic of something that unites the two lovers. The piece of hair is a dead tissue by itself, though it talks of undying love. Grierson asserts that the poem is addressed to Mrs.Magdalen Herbert.

In the next stanza, Mary Magdalen is mentioned by name. This may be affirmed by the fact that Renaissance painters depicted Mary Magdalen with Golden hair. She lies beside the persona in the grave. The persona goes on to state that the gravedigger should respect their privacy and let them be. The notion of death and the passage of time are emphasized through the reiteration of words like ‘bone’, ’grave’.etc. The grave-digger at a distant time in the future may discern that this momento of love-the lock of hair-will reunite them during moments of resurrection.…

Poetry Analysis: John Donne’s “The Ecstasy”

November 13, 2014 / / 0 Comments

With reference to  John Donne’s “The Ecstasy”, Grierson explains “Ecstasy in Neo-platonic philosophy was the state of mind in which the soul ,escaping from the body attuned to the vision of God, the one, the absolute.” The term ecstasy denotes the transition to a higher level where absolute truths are apprehensible to us beyond sense, reasoning and intellect. Just as another metaphysical poet, Richard Crashaw, describes spiritual or religious ecstasy in his “Hymn to St Teresa”. J Weemes asserts that ecstasy occurs when “the servants of God were taken up in spirit, separate as it were from the body, that they might see some heavenly mystery revealed unto them.” In the prescribed poem, the souls of the two lovers free themselves from the definite confines of the physical construct of the body and become one physically and spiritually in an ecstatic union of souls.

The first stanza portrays the two as sitting on an elevated area like a hill, or probably the bank of a river. The violet is set to rest upon this ‘elevation’ as if a pillow on a bed. The violet is emblematic of faithful love. The lovers that were each other’s best companion sat in serenity.
From the tight hand clasp their hands sweat, but the speaker asserts that it acts as a fast balm that cements the two.…

Poetry Analysis: John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning “

November 13, 2014 / / 0 Comments

The occasion of John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning ” seems to be parting. Walton asserts that the poem was penned in 1611 when Donne was planning for a tour of France with the Drury family. Parting here is pictured as a miniature enactment of death. The poet refers to an untheatrical form of death where the dying mildly give away to death. Some times death may be anticipated; nevertheless at times it comes as an intruder in spite of one saying:”No.”

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
‘Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Petrarchan conceits were deliberately employed by the poet to parody their Elizabethan use. Moreover, the term ‘melt’ may also signify a change in physical state. Just as the dead body decays, the bond between both the lovers shall dissolve. He introduces the three elements-air, water and earth to show that these elements constitute the circle of life and death on earth. The air is referred to in ‘sigh-tempests’, water in ‘tear-floods’ and earth with reference to earthquakes. The poet bringing on all these natural calamities seems to imply their parting is of less consequence as compared to these.…

Poetry Analysis: D.H.Lawrence’s “The Mosquito”

October 10, 2014 / / 2 Comments

The poem is included in the collection Birds, Beasts and Flowers. Lawrence penned most of the poems in this collection while he was in Italy. It exemplifies the poet’s visualization of the animal world.

The prescribed poem exemplifies that the mosquito is not as insignificant as people make it out to be. The poet bestows upon it the honorific titles ”Monsieur”,”you exaltation”. etc. Far from ignoring it, the poet poses a series of interrogatives before the insect. Why does it stand on such high legs, as placed on a pedestal? He questions it on the length of its ‘shredded shrank.’ The word shrank means ‘the lower part of the leg.’ However, it also implies ‘to shank’ or to hit with a knife connoting the mosquito’s stinging.
Physically though insignificant, it seems to defy the forces of nature itself: the law of gravitation as it weighs no more than air. It fools the speaker himself, as it rests weightless upon himself. The mosquito is a phantom disregarding all worlds. The Winged Victory displayed at the Louvre, is one of the most celebrated sculptures in the world. It was created to honour the Goddess Nike, and symbolizes action and triumph. (Wikpedia)The arms and the figure’s head of the statue has never been found.…

Poetry Analysis: D. H. Lawrence’s “Piano”

October 10, 2014 / / 0 Comments

D.H. Lawrence’s “Piano” is a poem about a fully-grown adult reminiscing about the past. The ‘piano’ serves as a metaphor of nostalgia. The rhythm of the piano seems to connect him with the past.

Music has a highly evocative power of bringing back memories. The picture seems to be faint as in the dusk. The singing comes softly to him, the song of a woman. Here memory is personified as a person holding the poet’s hand and leading him down the staircase symbolic of the memory lane. It gives the picture of the poet attaining adulthood through boarding the staircase of Life.Imagery is a significant part of the poem as the word ‘vista’ echoes. ’Vista’ means ‘the visual percept of a region’. The vision the speaker is endowed with is that of a child sitting under the piano. He is caught in the boom of the tingling strings. And he is simply happy to be there as he is with his mother who sings. The image evokes the picture of a kitten rubbing against its mother, as the boy presses against the poised feet of his mother. The adjective ‘poised ‘ is used to define the feet of the woman, reflects the regard and pride the speaker had for his Mom even at that tender age.…

Poetry Analysis: D. H. Lawrence’s “Snake”

October 10, 2014 / / 3 Comments

“Snake” is from the series entitled Birds, Beasts and Flowers. It exemplifies the poet’s perspective of the animal world. Lawrence drew the inspiration of this poem from a meeting with a snake at his watering trough in 1920-21 when he lived at Fontana Vecchia in Taormina. The poems are described by Mr.Megroz as epoch-making as they are unprecedented in their range, and in the accuracy and intensity of their perceptions.The movement of the loose verse echoes the movement of the snake.

The poet asserts that it was a sultry afternoon in Sicily, as it was month of July. The poet comes to the tap to collect water. As he reaches an acrob-tree in the vicinity, he is stunned to find a yellowish brown snake drinking water from the trough. It lugs its slack body over the edge of the trough. It drank water with so much dignity, that the poet was compelled by an inherent reverence for it to wait for his chance to draw water.

He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.
Someone was before me at my water-trough,

The snake seems to have etiquette of its own.…

Poetry Analysis: Carol Ann Duffy’s”In Your Mind”

October 10, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at the Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain’s poet laureate in May 2009. She is the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly bisexual person to hold the position, as well as the first laureate to be chosen in the 21st century. Her poems address issues such as oppression, gender, and violence, in an accessible language.. “I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way,” she said. (Wikpedia)

The poem is the concluding poem in her collection The Other Country. The poetess at the start refers to “the other country”. As she belongs to Scotland, the country in question may be England. The poetess asks herself: ”The other country, is it anticipated or half-remembered?” Here she mingles past memories (half-remembered) with future-vision (anticipated).The language of the so-called other country is muffled by the rain. The poetess seems to imply that communication and expression was muffled naturally in the country. There was no instinctiveness of voice.The poetess has difficulty comprehending this language as she is creature of intuitive emotions. The rain falls all afternoon one autumn in England. It implies a kind of gloom descending on the autumn-afternoon , that is already short of sunshine.…

Poetry Analysis: Carol Ann Duffy’s “War Photographer”

October 10, 2014 / / 0 Comments

A War photographer has the most demanding profession. A job that he has to perform in spite of himself. A profession where subjectivity, emotion and revulsion have to be side-lined. He does not have the time to even contemplate on his action, ruminate over the ethics of of photographing. It is a job in which the earliest bird gets the worm.

The first stanza illustrates how the dark room offers the photographer the space to analyze his photographs objectively as well as subjectively. The different pictures spool out into an ordered sequence as though reechoing their silence, and their heart rending agonies. The setting of the gruesome sequences are relived. Their logical categorization is juxtaposed against the abruptness of the corresponding situation, and the illogicality of the reason for the war. The room is gloomy and filled with an eerie red light at once symbolic of spilled blood. The red glow at once reminds us of The Sanctuary Lamp that is symbolic of Gods eternal presence, and is therefore never extinguished. The photographer and his actions within the dark room are likened to a priest and his preparations to intone a mass. This seems like a deliberate attempt on part of the poet to juxtapose the sanctity of the latter, against the unholiness and worldliness of the former.…

Poetry Analysis: Carol Ann Duffy’s “Before You Were Mine”

October 10, 2014 / / 1 Comment

The tone of the poetess is assertive. The title “Before You Were Mine” gives the impression that the daughter arrived before the mother. In order to be chronologically coherent, the poet should have phrased the title as “Before I was Yours”. The word “mine” sounds the possessiveness of the speaker. The speaker asserts how prior to her birth, her mother had her own private life as echoed by “from the corner you laugh on”: the girlish frivolousness that endowed her with the freedom to giggle at the slightest things. Her carefree life is seen as engaged in tête-à-tête with her friends Maggie McGeeney and Jean Duff.

The three of you bend from the waist, holding
each other, or your knees, and shriek at the pavement.
Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.

The assertion of female sexuality as representative of individual freedom is apparent here. The image of Marilyn with her skirt blown up by an air vent depicts the celebrated scene of Marilyn Monroe in the film “The Seven Year Itch.”Marilyn Monroe has forever been the pervading symbol of sexuality and femininity. Critics also point out that the girl may be viewing a photograph here where her mother and friends are at a corner in Glasgow Street.…

Poetry Analysis: Dylan Thomas’ “A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London”

October 2, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Dylan Thomas’s “A Refusal to Mourn” was first published in “The New Republic” in 1945. It was published soon after the end of the Second World War. The poem is an emphatic refusal to mourn the dead. Here, the dead being represented by the child. The loss of a child is the greatest tragedy; and symbolic of life lost without having blossomed. Thomas simply refuses to mourn for it would relegate the child itself to the action of mourning. This refusal to mourn is rather a celebration of every innocent life lost.

The poet points to the ambiguous nature of death as it marks the destruction of life, but paves way for newer life. Bird, beast and flower alike are common and universal to this truth. Death fathers all-it has a towering, commanding and dominating effect over all. It is a kind of all-consuming darkness, that has a humbling-effect, for, in the face of death all are equal. All distinctions of high/low, rich/poor are erased in the face of it, humbling the person with the highest earthly paradigm of virtue. The phrase ‘bird beast and flowers’ may also denote the return to the nature or the basic elements of life-a universal phenomenon that marks the end of earthly individuality.…

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