Rukhaya M.K

A Literary Companion

Category: British Literature (page 8 of 10)

Poetry Analysis: Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go Gentle into that Good Night “

October 2, 2014 / / 0 Comments

The poem Do not go gentle into that good night, is structured as a villanelle. It is an exhortation to die gracefully, but not without giving a good fight to Death, the inevitable. The phrase “Good night” acts both as a metaphor and a pun. Dylan Thomas being a Surrealist employs a number of images.

The poet entreats with one not to give in easily (gentle) to Death. The night is a metaphor for death, as it connotes darkness, mystery and a sense of closing. Old age should not meekly submit to the ravages of Death, but should fire and fume at the dying of the light. The ‘dying of the light’ signifies death and denotes the last time a person closes his eyes. Wise men do comprehend that dark is ‘right’ ;or rather that the dark is the ultimate truth. All the knowledge they profess to possess, cannot combat death: it ’forked no lightening’ with regards to death. Their profound knowledge has not equipped them with the means to foresee death .Yet, they do not subjugate themselves to the idea of death. Good men are remorseful towards the close of their life as they recall their frail deeds which would have otherwise ‘danced in a green bay.’ The benefits of sowing good deeds would have reaped rich benefits.…

Poetry Analysis: Dylan Thomas’ “Fern Hill”

October 2, 2014 / / 2 Comments

The poet looks back in retrospection at his childhood in the poem “Fern-Hill”. ”Fern-Hill” was the farm of Thomas’ aunt Ann Jones. The poet recalls this place as he used to spend his holidays here, away from his native Swansea.

The poet gives a picturesque description of the idyllic farm. At a time, when he was happy and carefree under the apple boughs. He is overcome with joy and it appears that the house is lilting or singing. The grass was green, green being a symbol of prosperity and freshness. The night above the wooded valley was starry. Time is personified here. The poet asserts that Time welcomed him to the heydays of his eyes, helped him climb/progress in its vision. And he was prince of the apple towns. His experience is a regal one;the noun ’prince’ also signifies that he also owned all of this property as their legitimate inheritor. The phrase “once below a time” exemplifies his typical distortion of syntax for poetic effect. The phrase also points to a fairy-tale existence.

And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

His relation with the barn is so intricate that he is “famous among the barns.” The farmyard is referred to as “happy yard.” It is the child that is really happy here.…

Poetry Analysis: Dylan Thomas’ “The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower”

October 2, 2014 / / 0 Comments

The prescribed poem was included in Dylan Thomas’ collection namely 18 Poems.(1934)It represents the basic elemental force of Nature that embodies the meanest form of life and yet holds the intriguing power to sustain it. This elemental force is similar to the Shelley’s West Wind in it being both preserver and destroyer. This paradoxical nature of the force that permeates Nature is its hallmark. ”Green’ is at once the symbol of fertility and prosperity. The 22 lines are divided into four stanzas of five lines, rounded off with a coda at the end.
The energy “drives the flower”: it enables the blossoming and fruition of nature. The word ‘fuse’ connotes explosive or exponential growth that this force is capable of. And more significantly, it drives his green age; it renders him evergreen not only biologically but also in terms of spirit.

There is use of hyperbatic(inverted) word order to underline the revolutionary zeal of the force and its enforcing quality. The rose is a pervading symbol of the brevity of life as echoed in the poems with the ‘carpe diem’ motif. The poet is at a loss for words to tell the ‘crooked rose’ ravaged by the onset of this inexplicable phenomenon,that he too has been bent by the ‘wintry fever’.…

Poetry Analysis: Dylan Thomas’ “The Hunchback in the Park”

October 2, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Dylan Thomas’ “The Hunchback in the Park” represents the relegation of the individual in a society that prefers the normal over the abnormal. The dialectical pair in accordance with hierarchy in such a stance would be normal/abnormal. The park represents a place of social communion. The hunchback appears to be isolated even in such a social setting: “a solitary mister”. He appears to be propped up between the ‘trees and water’; that is, he appears to be foregrounded in nature owing to his isolation. His reference of time is indicated by the bell at dark. His is a stagnant , sterile existence.

The hunchback in the park
A solitary mister
Propped between trees and water
From the opening of the garden lock
That lets the trees and water enter
Until the Sunday sombre bell at dark

Eating bread from a newspaper
Drinking water from the chained cup
That the children filled with gravel
In the fountain basin where I sailed my ship
Slept at night in a dog kennel
But nobody chained him up.

His preoccupation against nature attributes to him traits of an animal existence. He comes across as an animal as he eats from a newspaper and drinks water from his ‘chained’ cup.…

Poetry Analysis: Thomas Hood’s “Autumn”

September 29, 2014 / / 0 Comments

In Thomas Hood’s   “Autumn”, the season is apostrophized as an enigmatic person  devoid of shadow. He is just like silence that exists with omnipresence, but does not have any concrete manifestation. Robert Browning  had also  remarked  on the silent appeal of autumn: “Autumn wins you best by this, its mute Appeal to sympathy for its decay.”

He is like ‘silence listening to silence’ because he bears testimony to his own presence and acknowledges the same. This is because nothing would communicate with him to affirm his presence. Neither the lonely bird though it was lonely itself; nor the lowly hedge and solitary thorn. The poet therefore signifies that neither the animate world ( bird) nor the vegetative world(thorn/hedge)  communicated with Autumn .He is typified as an ‘unruly ‘character with his disheveled appearance:

Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,

His locks are qualified with the adjective ‘languid’, when it refers to the persona of Autumn itself. The word ’languid’ is therefore a ‘transferred epithet’. But there is aestheticism even in his unkempt appearance. The word ‘gossamer’ may refer to the material of his dressing: a gauze-like fabric. On the other hand, it may also allude to the spider cobwebs entangled above his head, as ‘gossamer’ also stands for ‘spider silk’.…

Poetry Analysis: Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

September 29, 2014 / / 0 Comments

In Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” Keats talks about is no particular vase. It is a symbol of enduring art as opposed to ephemeral art. The indefinite article “a” in the title of the poem substantiates this fact. It transforms into a ”thing of beauty that is a joy forever.” The urn in the poem is said to have been inspired by the Elgin marbles.

Keats had witnessed youth deteriorating and dying, by the side of his consumptive brother Tom. In his undying passion for Fanny Browne, he had envisaged a love that had no tomorrows. He had also experienced intellectual stagnation that mellowed him down in his youthful years, but did ripen his imagination in the process. And he comprehended that there was nothing permanent in the tangible world. Beauty had become synonymous with tangible objects. In the prescribed poem, Keats, through his imagination creates a thing of beauty that can be apprehended only through imaginative perception, and is therefore unique and pristine. It is far from the ravages of the Universal Enemy-Time. It is imaginative and intellectual at the same time because it is synonymous with Truth.

The urn is preserved in a secluded spot and fostered by Time,the other wise Destroyer.…

Poetry Analysis: Lord Byron’s “When We Two Parted”

September 29, 2014 / / 0 Comments

“When We Two Parted” by George Gordon Byron was published in 1813 in The Poetical Works of Lord Byron. The moment the poet had to part from his beloved was colored with intense sorrow connoted by the word ‘tears’. The word ‘silence’ suggests that their silence spoke volumes. The silence could be attributed to an inexplicable reason for their separation. It may also point to a reason well-known to them that could not stand the ravages of time. Therefore, both of them are resigned to their fate, and separate in ‘silence’. The phrase ‘Half broken-hearted “ may suggest that they are not fully heart broken(that only the poet is heart-broken). It may also signify that the heart is broken into two equal halves representative of the lovers. In the attempt to reconcile these broken parts, to his perception, her cheek had grown pale with the onset of misery. The warmth of their love had diminished and therefore:” Colder thy kiss.” It lacked the genuine feeling of love. That hour precisely foretold the sorrow that was to come in the succeeding years.

Mornings are supposed to usher in new promises. However, the dew seems to sink in his brows with a chilling effect, benumbing his feeling and vision.…

Poetry Analysis: Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

September 29, 2014 / / 0 Comments

The theme of the allegorical “The Ancient Mariner” has been described as one of guilt and expiation, obliteration and regeneration and the conflict between individual love and universal love. The paranormal atmosphere, one of awe and mystery suits perfectly the setting for crime and nemesis that follows the sinner. The poem ,the longest of Coleridge’s major poems is a ballad and is therefore in the oral tradition .It lends significance to the theme as at the end of the poem, the mariner is commanded to recite his tale to generations. The coherent and convincingly contrived imagery lends visual appeal to the poem. Coupled is the lyricism and internal rhyme that add to its resonant sound effect.

The poem may have been inspired by James Cook’s second voyage of exploration (1772-1775) of the South Seas and the Pacific Ocean; and more importantly as Coleridge’s tutor, William Wales, was the astronomer on Cook’s flagship and had a strong association with Cook. As per William Wordsworth, the poem was inspired while Coleridge, Wordsworth and Wordsworth’s sister Dorothy were traversing the Quantock Hills in Somerset in the spring of 1798. The discussion had turned to a book that Wordsworth was reading, A Voyage Round The World by Way of the Great South Sea (1726), by Captain George Shelvocke.…

Poetry Analysis: Shelley’s “Ozymandias”

September 29, 2014 / / 0 Comments

 Shelley’s “Ozymandias” is a comment on the ephemeral nature of fame, power and glory. It was published by P.B. Shelley in The Examiner. “Ozymandias” was penned during a friendly competition with Shelley’s companion Horace Smith. The statue on which the poem is based is quite famous and several greats including Napoleon and Giovanni Belzoni had tried to claim the same. Therefore the poem may have been inspired by the statue itself or the reputation it garnered. The poem is based on King Ramses II of Egypt (1322). He conquered the Hitties and married their princess. King Ramses II is said to have conquered Ethiopia and established a fleet on the Mediterranean. Third person narrative renders the tone of the poem more effective and lends an impersonal objectivity to the observations made .A 2008 travel guide to Egypt Lonely Planet talks of it referring to the dilapidated fallen statue of Rameses II at the Ramesseum, a memorial temple built by Ramesses at Thebes(Egypt).

The poem is in the form of a sonnet and is utilized in a ironical stance. Particularly as the sonnet form was used to eulogize a person. The statue was built to venerate his positive aspects, however ironically his negative qualities are highlighted by the same.

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Poetry Analysis: Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”

September 29, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Among his contemporaries, Shelley was the most zealous in temperament and radical in attitude. He is the most purely visionary poet in English literature, with his far-sighted philosophy and futuristic ideals His fervent anticipation of a world devoid of malevolence and crammed with love, his high-ceilinged idealism and the prophetic ardour render him one of the most influential English poets. Shelley’s poetry is infused with his idealism. He thrived with a craving to unshackle mankind from the clutches of morbidity and lack of liberty. This lent to his poetry an elemental force, a vehemence as vigorous as that of the Wild West Wind. In spite of his pervading optimism, Personal Despondency is another recurrent aspect of this Romantic:

“I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d

ne too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.”

Ode to the West Wind is one of the unsurpassed poems of all time. The poem in terza rima was conjured up and written in a wood that skirts the Arno. It puts across Shelley’s spirit of liberty which is tempestuous and prevailing as the West Wind itself. The poet talks to the West Wind and beckons his spirit to descend upon him and act through\ his lips as the trumpet of a prophecy to the quiescent world.…

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