Rukhaya M.K

A Literary Companion

Page 12 of 20

Poetry Analysis: Nissim Ezekiel’s “The Professor”

November 18, 2014 / / 16 Comments

The poem “The Professor” by Nissim Ezekiel is essentially a satire on Indian English. The poem is presented in the form of a dialogue between the professor and his student. Since the listener is silent throughout it can be aptly termed as a monologue. Just as in “Goodbye Party for Miss.Pushpa T.S,” the poet mocks at Indianisms in English, and adaptation of the language to adopt to the native language structure. It caricatures the geography professor,Mr.Sheth, as he converses in English with one of his former students. A professor is the one who teaches, and should be in proper command of the medium he utilizes. Therefore, it is indeed ironical.

Far from pertaining to any academic subject, the Professor showcases his family achievements. He is indeed boastful as he poses his sons as social showpieces to be displayed, as he asserts:

Are well settled in life. One is Sales Manager, One is Bank Manager, Both have cars He states that though he is healthy, he is retired. Therefore he projects retirement (generally) not as personal choice but something born of compulsion. He shows himself to be an exception. The poet also mocks the Indian tradition that makes use of rhyming names for their kids.…

Poetry Analysis: Nissim Ezekiel’s “Night of the Scorpion”

November 18, 2014 / / 1 Comment

The poem belongs to Nissim Ezekiel’s collection entitled The Exact Name that was published in 1965. The poem in the narrative mode reveals the speaker’s objective account of how a scorpion stung his mother one night. The poem is titled the Night of  the Scorpion, for, the major part of the poem, the scorpion is the victor or champion of the poem.

The scorpion crawls into the house one night to evade the heavy rain outside and hides behind a sack of rice. Crawling towards the speaker’s mother with its conspicuous diabolic tail, the scorpion stings her and sneaks back into the rain. The peasants in the neighborhood come to sympathize with the lady in question. The peasants are described as ‘swarms of flies’ to mark their intrusion as parasites. Their ‘buzzing’ the name of God also signifies their irrational ‘collective consciousness.” They chant the name of God repeatedly to nullify the stinging experience. For them, the scorpion was an agent of the devil. Their superstitious frame of mind, make them search desperately for the spider, for, with every movement the scorpion made, the poison injected into the woman’s blood would progress and increase its pain. They ardently pray that scorpion stay motionless wherever it is.…

Poetry Analysis: John Pepper Clark’s “Olokun”

November 18, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Olokun is the divinity of the sea, and an emblem of the material prosperity worshipped by the Edo people. For the cult of Olokun, life-size groups of royal figures are still made. Olokun is personified in several human characteristics: patience, endurance, sternness, observation, meditation, appreciation for history, future visions, and royalty personified, while its characteristics are found and displayed in the depths of the Ocean. Its name literally signifies Owner (Olo) of Oceans (Olkun). Olokun also signifies unfathomable wisdom. Olokun is a Bini word, the language of the Edo people of South Nigeria.

The African Goddess symbolizes the African spiritual essence. In African culture, there exists a deep bond between Man and God. The act of passing fingers through the hair is one of extreme affection. The fingers and the hair are likened to the relationship between the weeds and the tide. Therefore, their connection is not only inseparable, but also natural. There is perfect harmony between the two entities as brought out by the metaphor. The hair of the Goddess is as dark as the night that shields the moon. The function of the word ‘darkness’ is positive here, and not negative. Rather than blocking the light of the moon, it covers the ‘nakedness’ of the moon, thereby protecting it.…

Poetry Analysis: John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud”

November 13, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Holy Sonnet 10 is a sonnet of the Shakespearean type. It primarily endorses the fact that Death is not the Universal Destroyer of life. A monologue ensues in the form of a dispute between Man and Death where death is apostrophized. The effect of death is condensed by its representation as an undisruptive type of rest or sleep. John Donne refuses to accept death as ‘the final finale’. Religious conviction upholds the belief of eternal life after death embedded at the very core of its ideology. This marks the permanent end of death. Therefore, why is it that death is abhorred or held in awe as the Ultimate Subjugator. The spiritual objective of all believers has forever been to guide them from the cycle of life to salvation (or immortality).In that case, why are people petrified of Death? One has to acknowledge that only a true faith lends us the power to envision and forsee an undying life after death.

Sleep and rest, that are ultimate forms of solace are minimized mirror images of death, then why is not death a source of succor? Moreover, the most upright and honorable of men pass away soon as they are dear to God and relax in the serenity of peace before long.…

Poetry Analysis: John Donne’s “The Sunne Rising”

November 13, 2014 / / 0 Comments

John Donne’s “The Sun Rising” exemplifies the bliss of genuine love. Donne exhibits his characteristic style here by beginning the poem in his abrupt and dramatic style. As in Andrew Marvell’s “To his Coy Mistress” he endeavours to win over Time and Space. He belittles the Sun, that is the centre of the solar system and the forerunner of days and nights as ” BUSY old fool, unruly Sun.” The Sun comes across as the tribal chief imposing his whims and fancies on the members of the tribe. Why do the lovers have to constrain themselves to the time-bound rules and regulations of the Sun. The phrase ‘lovers’ seasons’ point to the fact the lovers have seasons of their own that pertain to individual choice. He may go about his trivial mechanical routine of waking up ‘late school boys’ and apprentices who have developed an aversion to work. The country ants and courtiers may buckle under his pressures. He is termed a “Saucy pedantic wretch;”unworthy in temperament, in show and in action respectively. Love is above seasons and climates. Hour, minutes and seconds are depicted as the rags worn by Time.

The Sun is bound by the illusion that his ever-stinging rays are powerful and command attention.…

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: Keki.N.Daruwalla’s “from Ruminations”

October 11, 2014 / / 1 Comment

The poet senses that some impending violence is going to take place. He compares the violence to rain that would lash out at him. The violence is likened to the rain owing to its unpredictable nature and its ability to blind one’s vision. The violence would be caused by the mutual hatred which prevails between two different groups of people. The poet goes about looking for places where this violence might break out. Violence would lead to killings and the poet looks for the possible places where death might raise its head.

Only mass hatred dominates the scene set against the backdrop of the moon that is a pervading symbol of love. The violence stands brooding and stands like a cobra emblematic of imminent danger, and the poet is in a vulnerable situation as though he is prodding rat holes. In the attempt to close rodent holes and exploring echoing caves, he is haunted by the presence of fangs that dart. Dart may stand here for the verb ‘dart’ that means move quickly or the noun ‘dart’ that is capable of piercing. Impending violence sways like a pendulum rendering each moment lived cherished. It projects eyes that highlight hatred towards reptiles probably as reptile do scavenge.…

Poetry Analysis: Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool”

October 11, 2014 / / 0 Comments

THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.

The poem “We Real Cool” from The Bean Eaters by Gwendolyn Brooks is one of Brooks’ most oft anthologized poems.” We real Cool” is a condensed yet terse statement on the recklessness of youth who are like cars without brakes in the frenzy of youth. They do not anticipate an accident awaiting them in their uncontrolled life.The line :“The Pool Players. / Seven at the Golden Shovel.” functions as the subtitle of this short poem. It echoes their Big thought in their small establishment.

They do it as they perceive it to be “real cool”. For them this non-chalance is the latest in-thing and a means to grab attention. The act itself gives their ego a boost. This ego is part of a collective consciousness as the word “We “is reiterated. The unrestrained rate and haste with which they function is foregrounded in the title with the absence of the word ‘are’. They are so much immersed in action that they do not find the need for a ‘verb’ to define themselves.…

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