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Category: Poem

  • Discuss the autobiographical element in ‘Tintern Abbey’ by Willilam Wordsworth

    Discuss the autobiographical element in ‘Tintern Abbey’ by Willilam Wordsworth

    Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey or simply Tintern Abbey is, like William Wordsworth’s The Prelude, a sort of poetical autobiography. Of course, this is no total autobiography of the poet’s life and activities. It is rather a poetical record of the poet’s intimate relation with Nature all through his life. From this angle, Tintern Abbey may well be taken as the poetical autobiography of Wordsworth’s emotional response and attitude to the appeal of Nature in different stages of his life- his boyhood, youth, and manhood. In fact, the poem, like The Prelude, traces the growth of his poetic soul in relation to the world of Nature, seen, perceived, and even imagined by him in course of his life.

    The composition of the poem is based on an experience that the poet had. While Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy were making a tour, they arrived, in the course of their travel, at Tintern and Chepstow on July 17, 1798. It was while visiting Tintern Abbey that Wordsworth composed this magnificent poem one day. The place, previously visited by him alone, some five years back in 1793, had cast a deep impression on his mind, and the present visit served to confirm the same. The poem, indeed, was inspired by the poet’s personal experience, and remains autobiographical. It lights up, to a very great extent, the man in Wordsworth, particularly the lover of Nature in him. Referring to this poem, Mr. Myers, one of the most profound of Wordsworthian critics, observes: “The Lines Written Above Tintern Abbey have become, as it were, the locus classicus, or concentrated formulary of Wordsworthian faith. They say in brief what is the worth of the poet’s biographer to say in detail.” That the poem bears an intensely personal element is well and distinctly borne out here.

    The essence of romantic poetry is felt much in its subjectivity. The critic (Myers) emphasises rightly the subjective aspect of Wordsworth’s poetry, which is one of the chief distinguishing characteristics of his romantic genius. This long poem is entirely autobiographical in its implications, although the information it provides refers more to the poet’s internal circumstances and less to their external ones. It may, therefore, be better regarded as a spiritual and moral autobiography of the poet in Wordsworth. The period when Wordsworth composed these lines can be taken as the seed time of his ethical and spiritual ideas, as well as his poetic temperament. This developed into blossom and fruit in the ensuing period of his long life, but the seeds of all these were sown at a very early age. The poem is a practical manifestation of this poetic growth.

    Furthermore, the poem reveals Wordsworth’s deep love for his sister and the influence she had on him. The poet declares in his poem that the whole scene is doubly dear to him on account of his sister’s association with it. More than this, the poet asserts that even if Nature had not taught him the lesson of sobriety and wisdom, his sister’s presence near him would replace that want, and that joy would be his so long as he remembered her. The last portion of the poem is entirely addressed to her. The poet’s intense yearning for beholding in her what he once was is intimately personal:

    Oh! yet a little while
    May I behold in thee what I was once.

    The concluding address contains the poet’s frank confession of his unfailing attachment and dedication to Nature as her tireless devotee and worshipper

    …….. and that I, so long
    A worshipper of Nature, hither came
    Unwearied in that service; rather say
    With warmer love-oh! with far deeper zeal
    Of holier love.

    All this testifies more than enough to the autobiographical aspect of the poem.

  • Summary and Critical Analysis of the poem The Lake of Innisfree by W.B.Yeats

    Summary and Critical Analysis of the poem The Lake of Innisfree by W.B.Yeats

    The poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree expresses the poet’s desire to go to Innisfree, which is a small island in a lake on Lough Hill in Ireland. He wants to go there to live a simple, lonely, and peaceful life close to nature, avoiding busy city streets.

    In the first stanza, the poet expresses his desire to go to Innisfree and to live there in a lonely cottage made of clay and wattles. He will feed on honey and beans, and hear the murmur of bees. In the second stanza, he stresses that he will enjoy the peace there and nature’s charms from morning to midnight. In the final stanza, he describes his urge to go there, for the lapping sound of the lake calls him even when he stands surrounded by the busy city life.

    Though the poem deals with the individual desire of the poet, its execution is such that it is endowed with a universal significance. To escape from the crowded city to enjoy the loneliness, peace, and liveliness of the countryside is an eternal desire of man-a desire expressed by poets from the Elizabethan to the modern age. Yeats has given deathless expression to the same universal theme.

    The mood of the poem is lyrical, and its tone is cheerful. The purpóse behind the composition of the poem is to convey a longing for the freshness and loveliness of nature which cannot be had in busy and oppressive city life. The quality of the theme is romantic in the sense that it aims to evoke a sense of wonder for things that are simple and common in nature, and are not often found in crowded cities.

    The poem is a lyric consisting of three four-line stanzas, each with the rhyme scheme abab. The lines combine both iambic and anapaestic metres. The anapaestic speeds up the motion and heightens the urgency of the poet to go to Innisfree, while the iambic conveys his steady determination to achieve his object. The diction is simple but impressive; it is also steeped in literary flavour. The stamp of the poet’s creative power is particularly noticeable in such expressions as the following: bee-loud glade, peaces comes dropping slow, the veils of the morning, full of the linnet’s wings, lake water lapping with low sounds, and deep heart’s core.

    The poem expresses a longing for a land away from the din and bustle of city life excellently. The small cabin with nine bean rows and a hive in a bee-loud glade with the lake water lapping with low sounds and the passage of time from morning to midnight with soft light and gentle sound recreate in many of us a yearning for a distant and enchanting land in comparison to which our life in a crowded, busy and dull city pales into insignificance. By imaginative and romantic touches the poet succeeds in making us keenly admire the charms of his Innisfree.

    Also read: Discuss the patriotic notes in W.B.Yeats’s poem ‘Easter 1916’

  • Explain the line “A terrible beauty is born” from Yeats’ poem “Easter 1916”

    Explain the line “A terrible beauty is born” from Yeats’ poem “Easter 1916”

    Wherever green is worn,
    Are changed, changed utterly:
    A terrible beauty is born.

    This is the concluding part of W.B. Yeats’s patriotic poem Easter 1916. After paying his eulogy to the great Irish patriots who stood, fought, and died to liberate their land from the British occupation, the poet here asserts that everything is brought to an utter change by that great sacrifice of Easter 1916.

    The Easter Rising of 1916, led by Irish patriots, resulted in a disastrous outcome. The brutal force of the British imperialistic power slew the leaders of the Rising and many more. Yet, out of this dreadful, ghastly matter has come a grand and glorious history – the history of the patriotic struggle of suffering and sacrifice. The cause of Irish freedom is proudly represented by the green emblem, which is worn by Irish patriots. The Easter Rising brought about a thorough and drastic change in the situation. From the state of humility and obscurity has come the grandeur of heroic sacrifice and the splendour of love for the land. That dreadful blow, ever the British power has brought out an unblemished glory to dazzle.

    The expression is an unequivocal eulogy by the poet of the Irish freedom movements and bears out his patriotic fervour and devotion to the cause of his land, Ireland.

    Also read: Justify the title of the poem The Tyger by William Blake

  • Justify the title of the poem The Tyger by William Blake

    Justify the title of the poem The Tyger by William Blake

    William Blake’s famous poem The Tyger, taken from his volume of poems Songs of Experience, presents a child’s experience of and reaction to the sight of the tiger, a mighty and ferocious animal. This song, quite unlike the companion poem, The Lamb, is no address of the child. His song is not addressed to the tiger, but rather expresses his curiosity about it and the mysterious process of its creation.

    Analytical scrutiny of this child’s song brings out his innocent inquiries and fancies about this dreadful creature and its mighty Creator and His majestic operation in its creation. The child gives out his awe and wonder at the dreadful, stoutly structured, balanced body of the tiger with its flashing eyes. Again, the child speculates fancifully the invincible strength of its Creator.

    What immortal hand or eye
    Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

    He goes on to stipulate further how the Creator could fly, and ‘seize the fire’ of its eyes, and how His rare strength and skill could twist the sinews of its heart and make it alive. Moreover, the child fancies, too, what sorts of mighty tools- the hammer, the chain, the furnace, and the anvil were put into use for the framing of the tiger’s brain. He imagines wonderingly with ‘what dread grasp’ the mighty Creator could ‘clasp’ the terrible creation.

    But the tiger’s robust physical features and the intricate process and the immense power involved in its creation are not all. There are the child’s simple interrogations about the propriety of the creation and the Creator’s own reaction to this, after His creation of the lamb-

    Did he smile his work to see?
    Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

    The whole song is, thus, about the tiger- its physical feature and fierce nature and the majestic and mysterious process of its creation by the immortal and omnipotent Creator. The title, The Tyger, as such seems quite appropriate.

  • Summary and Analysis of The Legend of Good Women by Geoffrey Chaucer

    Summary and Analysis of The Legend of Good Women by Geoffrey Chaucer

    The Legend of Good Women is a collection of stories written in the 1380s by Geoffrey Chaucer. It was composed between 1372 and 1386. It is the third-longest of Chaucer’s works, after The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde. It is difficult to date the poem. It is perhaps the earliest work of Chaucer in which he uses Iambic pentameter or decasyllabic couplet form, the staple of The Canterbury Tales. It is also a dream poem. The poet, in a dream, is tried in a pastoral court of love as one sinning against the God of Love. The interference of a good woman of legend named Alceste helps the poet, who promises to do penance for his literary misdeeds by writing a work composed of exemplary stories of good women who are true lovers. The poet intends to write a massive poem about the legendary good women, but unfortunately, only nine are extant. These are stories of Cleopatra, Thisbe, Dido, Hypsipyle, Medea, Lucrece, Ariadne, Philomela, Phyllis, and Hypermnestra.

    • Cleopatra – Cleopatra, deeply devoted to Mark Antony, chooses to end her life nobly by the bite of an asp rather than face captivity after his death.

    • Thisbe – Thisbe, in a tragic twist of fate, kills herself with Pyramus’ sword when she finds him dead, believing her to have been slain by a lion.

    • Dido – Queen Dido, who lovingly shelters and supports Aeneas, is left abandoned and, stricken by despair, throws herself onto a funeral pyre.

    • Hypsipyle – Hypsipyle, after helping Jason and bearing him sons, is cruelly forsaken when he sails away to seek another wife, betraying her trust and love.

    • Medea – Medea, who used her magic to save Jason and secure the Golden Fleece, is later heartbroken when Jason repays her loyalty with betrayal and marriage to another woman.

    • Lucrece – Lucrece, a paragon of Roman virtue, takes her own life after Sextus Tarquinius rapes her, choosing death to preserve her honor and spark political revolution.

    • Ariadne – Ariadne, after helping Theseus escape the deadly labyrinth with her cleverness and love, is callously abandoned by him on the deserted island of Naxos.

    • Philomela – Philomela, violated and silenced by her brother-in-law Tereus, bravely weaves her story into a tapestry to reveal his crime and seek justice.

    • Phyllis – Phyllis, after faithfully awaiting the return of her lover Demophon, hangs herself in sorrow when he fails to keep his promise and never comes back.

    • Hypermnestra – Hypermnestra, alone among her murderous sisters, spares her new husband Lynceus out of true love and loyalty, defying her father’s brutal command.

    The Legend of Good Women seems a slight piece with his brief narratives of the unhappy fate of these women. This poem is influenced by the work of French love vision poets (especially Guillaume de Machaut), Vincent of Beauvais, Guido delle Colonne’s Historia destructionis Troiae, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Heroides. Thisbe’s story is perhaps the best. Maybe, Chaucer planned to make The Legend of Good Women his masterpiece, spending many valuable years of his life writing about the famous women who were true to love. But perhaps being sick of the theme of the stories or the plan of The Canterbury Tales growing in his mind he abruptly renounced it and started working on the prologue to The Canterbury Tales.

    Also read: Examine Wordsworth’s presentation of Venice in her days of glory and fall in his sonnet “On the Extinction of the Venice”

  • A short note on Widsith, an Anglo Saxon poem and its importance

    A short note on Widsith, an Anglo Saxon poem and its importance

    Widsith is a short poem, instead of a song. It records the experience and sensations of a traveller who has wandered much. Widsith, or the far wanderer, has travelled widely among different tribes and races and encountered different tribal chiefs and princely rulers. The wanderer lists the tribal princes with whom he was acquainted and who had given him rich presents. Some princes, like Eormenric, king of the Goths, Attila, king of the Huns, Alboin, king of the Lombards, and Theodrik, king of the Franks, are historical figures. References are also made to Hrothgar and Hrothwulf and their victory over an incident mentioned in Beowulf. The poet also describes the rituals, social manners, and customs of different primitive people. It further contains some details about the wandering minstrels of primitive times. In short, Widsith is a record of the tribes and tribal heroes of the remote Teutonic world.

    Widsith is a valuable piece of the social documents of primitive life and times in Britain. It has, no doubt, a historical and legendary character. But the historical elements, recorded in it, are seldom accurate. Widsith is no historical work, but a typical document of primitive societies and social life. The importance of the poem mainly lies in its social aspects. The work contains too much of the rites and customs, habits, and manners of the Teutonic people of the past.

    Widsith is rich in descriptive details and may be characterised as the first parent of descriptive English poems, like Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. In its enumeration of different primitive princes and lords, the poem, though not an epic itself, contains much matter familiar with epic poetry. Yet, Widsith bears many lyrical notes in the poet’s subjective description and reflections. Moreover, the unknown poet’s concluding glorification of his craft is intensely personal and simultaneously synthesises individuality and universality.

    Also read: Summary and Analysis of the poem The Dream of the Rood

  • Summary and critical analysis on the Anglo Saxon poem The Phoenix

    Summary and critical analysis on the Anglo Saxon poem The Phoenix

    The Phoenix is an Anglo-Saxon Christian work. It is found to carry on the tradition of symbolic poetry, set up so elegantly in The Dream of the Rood. It is, like the great vision of the rood, both metaphorical and religious, and bears out sufficiently the highly poetic artistry of its author. Naturally, the poem is supposed to have come from Cynewulf, who was acknowledged as one of the greatest Anglo-Saxon Christian poets.

    The subject matter of the poem is the mythological bird phoenix, which is supposed to live in the Arabian desert for five to six centuries and then burn itself to be reborn, with a renewed youth, out of its own ashes to live for another cycle. This myth of the phoenix is an allegorical application to Christ in the poem. The bird is turned into the symbol of Christ and the Christian faith.

    The first canto describes paradise, the land of eternal youth, wherein the phoenix dwells. The second canto describes the enchanting life of the bird from morning to evening in that deathless land of joy. The phoenix lives here for a thousand years and thereafter flies far to the sea and the desert, where at the top of a high tree he makes his death nest of odorous leaves. When in summer, the sun is brightest, the nest is heated and the fury of fire devours the bird’s nest. But the ashes form together into a ball, grow into an apple, and in that apple a wondrous worm waxes till it becomes an eagle and then a phoenix as before. The bird eats only honey dew that falls at midnight and when he has gathered all the relics of his old body, he takes them in his claws and, flying back to his paradise, buries them in the earth. Everybody watches his flight, but he outstrips their every sight, and is once more in his happy realm.

    This is how the bird is reborn and returns to his lovely domain. The author makes two allegories out of the story. The first is about the immortal lives of the saints, for Christ, after the judgment, flies through the air, attended by the adoring souls, like the birds, and each soul becomes a phoenix and dwells forever young in the city of life. The second one is of Christ Himself who passed through the fire of death to the glorious life of salvation.

    The Phoenix is a happy instance of Anglo-Saxon religious poetry. The high truth of Christianity is here conveyed with an artistic dexterity through symbolism. Along with The Dream of the Rood, it stands out as one of the earliest allegorical poems in the English language.

    This poem may well be taken as a piece of Anglo-Saxon Christian lyrics. The lyrical element is clearly manifested in its reflective as well as impulsive notes. What is, however, striking in the poem is the symbolic representation of a natural element to propagate Christian morality and virtue. This seems rather rare in the poetry of a remote time. But what characterizes the poem particularly is its richness of description. Highly colourful and spectacular images mark the poem, and, in this respect, the description of the land, where the phoenix dwells is particularly noteworthy. The poem is illustrative of the love of nature, so distinctly evident in Anglo-Saxon poetry.

    Also read; Discuss the figure of speech Hyperbaton: Definition, Features and Examples

  • What is the sources of the Poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

    What is the sources of the Poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

    The Sources of the Poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

    (1) The central idea of the poem was suggested by Wordsworth. The idea is a very old one, being found in Homer’s Odyssey where Ulysses, the brave sailor, and hero of the Trojan War, is visited with supernatural punishments and long wanderings over the seas by Neptune, the sea-god for having killed a one-eyed giant.

    (2) The idea that the spirit of a locality takes vengeance for an act of cruelty done on an animal finds expression in Wordsworth’s Hartleap Well.

    (3) According to Coleridge, the poem was founded on a dream of his friend, Mr. John Cruikshank. It was a strange dream in which he “fancied, he saw a skeleton ship, with figures in it”.

    (4) Wordsworth suggested that some crimes should be committed, which should bring upon the Mariner the persecution of the ruling spirits of the place. He also suggested the navigation of the ship by dead men.

  • Discuss Tennyson’s Tithonus as an instance of the dramatic monologue

    Discuss Tennyson’s Tithonus as an instance of the dramatic monologue

    Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem Tithonus is a monologue of the single character of the poem, Tithonus. The mythological Trojan lover of the goddess of Dawn, Aurora, is found to speak here of his frustration and desperation even after enjoying the boon of immortality. The speaker here is one. He speaks of himself, with a part of his address meant for his beloved goddess, Aurora.

    There is not the least doubt that the poem is a monologue. But how far can it be taken as a dramatic monologue, as designated in some quarters? A dramatic monologue is a poetic piece in the first person. In it, a character-a man or a woman-is placed in a dramatic situation and made to give out his or her thought or feeling, under the incitement of that very situation. He or she is found to express his or her thoughts, feelings, and experiences in that very situation, stirring him or her remarkably.

    The essence of the dramatic monologue lies in the situation in which the sole character is placed and speaks out in a tense situation. As contended by Walter Pater, this is pre-eminent in the poetry of situation.

    Tennyson’s poem is a monologue, like his other poem, Ulysses. But how far is this a dramatic monologue? The poem has no tense situation, like Browning’s celebrated dramatic monologues—The Last Ride Together, Porphyria’s Lover, and The Laboratory. The speaker here states, in the manner of Tennyson’s other Greek hero, Ulysses, of the existing state of his life. He enjoys eternal life, but with the yoke of age, infirmity, and ailment pressing him down and making him miserably helpless. He feels exhausted, haunted by the hard truth of an eternal existence without youth, health, or beauty. Like ‘a white hair’d shadow’, he roams in utter desolation and wretchedness.

    This situation is, however, not essentially dramatic. It is an existing state, not a suddenly developed one, as in The Last Ride Together or Porphyria’s Lover. The poem is not exactly a proper dramatic monologue in the light of Walter Pater’s appraisement of this kind of poetry.

    Of course, the poem has a situation and a revelation of the speaker’s character. His monologue brings out the state of his mind-his sense of profound sorrow and desperation. He no longer aspires for the gift of immortality that he once sought so earnestly from his beloved Aurora. Frustration sips deep into his heart, and the much sought-after old bliss is all turned into a terrible curse to him. Death, and not eternal life, is his choice now and leads him to his pathetic exhortation to his loving goddess :

    Tennyson’s poem is a monologue, like his other poem, Ulysses. But how far is this a dramatic monologue? The poem has no tense situation, like Browning’s celebrated dramatic monologues—The Last Ride Together, Porphyria’s Lover, and The Laboratory. The speaker here states, in the manner of Tennyson’s other Greek hero, Ulysses, of the existing state of his life. He enjoys eternal life, but with the yoke of age, infirmity, and ailment pressing him down and making him miserably helpless. He feels exhausted, haunted by the hard truth of an eternal existence without youth, health, or beauty. Like ‘a white hair’d shadow’, he roams in utter desolation and wretchedness.

    This situation is, however, not essentially dramatic. It is an existing state, not a suddenly developed one, as in The Last Ride Together or Porphyria’s Lover. The poem is not exactly a proper dramatic monologue in the light of Walter Pater’s appraisement of this kind of poetry.

    Of course, the poem has a situation and a revelation of the speaker’s character. His monologue reveals the state of his mind- his profound sorrow and desperation. He no longer aspires for the gift of immortality that he once sought so earnestly from his beloved Aurora. Frustration sips deep into his heart, and the much sought-after old bliss is all turned into a terrible curse to him. Death, and not eternal life, is his choice now and leads him to his pathetic exhortation to his loving goddess :

    Release me and restore me to the ground
    Thou seest all things, thou wilt see my grave.

    Tennyson’s poem is a monologue, as Tithonius speaks out of his acute agony and restlessness, though favoured with his beloved goddess’s rare blessing of immortality. However, the dramatic aspect of his situation is not sufficiently suggestive to reckon it as a perfect instance of the dramatic monologue.

  • Summary and Analysis of the poem The Dream of the Rood

    Summary and Analysis of the poem The Dream of the Rood

    The Dream of the Rood is one of the famous Anglo-Saxon Christian poems. This poem is short and contains 146 lines only. It is generally attributed to the greatest Anglo-Saxon Christian poet, Cynewulf, although there are other conjectures, too. Probably Cynewulf wrote the poem, but not the whole one. As there is variety in the style of the poem, varied authorship for it may well be entertained. Cynewulf had a dream of the cross in his early life, which converted him and to which he refers in his work Elene. He wished to record his dream fully before his death. There was a poem, already in existence and well-known in Cynewulf’s time. The poem that describes the ascent of Christ upon the cross, His death, and his burial was attributed by some to Caedmon. It is supposed that Cynewulf took this poem as his basic material and worked it up into a description in which the cross appears to him. Then he wrote to that very poem a beginning and an end of his own and in that short meter, he used in his work.

    The introduction is quite consistent with Cynewulf’s characteristic technique, with the exception of long lines. The personal cry, “I stained with sins, wounded with my guilt”-is almost a quotation from his earlier works, Juliana and Elene. The impersonation of the tree and the account of its life in the wood is like the beginning and the meaning of some of the Anglo-Saxon Riddles. The subjective personal element, so strong in his signed poems, is stronger in this poem. It would naturally be so if the poem were written when he was very near to death, as his retrospect and his farewell. It is equally natural, if this view of the date of the poem be true, that he would assign at last, by means of his art, the story of the most important hour of his life, and leave it as a legacy to his friends of whom he is found to speak so tenderly.

    The Dream of the Rood is the single dream poem in preconquest England. It relates to how the poet has a dream of the holy rood, decked with bright and sparkling gems. This rood (Christ’s cross) is well guarded by several angels, and the dreamer feels nervous at first, of his consciousness of his sin. But the color of the tree changes and, to his utter surprise and shock, the rood becomes stained with blood. The rood then begins to narrate the story of the Crucifixion, the descent from the Cross, and the Resurrection.

    As the rood ceases to speak, Cynewulf’s conclusion follows. His first lines are retrospective, recounting his feelings in early manhood, immediately after his dream, which was the cause of his conversion. He felt blithe in mood because he was forgiven, became passionate in prayer, and eager for death. There is a perceived mixture of inexplicable feelings, common to a life after some spiritual revelation. Cynewulf narrates how he trod to the tree with great conviction and expressed his eagerness for departure from earth. But he does not ultimately give way to death, although he endured too much in long, weary days. He turns from the past to the present and seeks his refuge- his hope of life in the tree of victory. At last, with a happy reversion to his original theme, he turns from himself to the triumphant return of Jesus.

    The Dream of the Rood is one of the finest specimens of the English symbolic poetry of the earliest stage. The rood stands as the symbol of man’s sin and salvation. The Cross symbolizes cosmic suffering and personal redemption. This has become one of the most compelling Christian symbols. The poem is likely to invite comparison with a modern symbolic poem, ‘Stil falls the Rain” by Edith Sitwell.

    Also read: The Complaint of Deor (or Deor’s Lament) Summary and Analysis