THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH USIntroduction:
"The world is too much with us" is a sonnet by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth. In it, Wordsworth criticizes the modern world for being absorbed in materialism and distancing itself from nature. This Italian sonnet is the Romantic cry of a speaker who wants it both ways: he wants to be a pagan, yet still retain his enlightenment values.
Conflict between Nature and Humanity:
Conflict between Nature and Humanity:
Wordsworth longs for a much simpler time when the progress of humanity was tempered by the restrictions nature imposed.
Man lacks proper gratitude for nature. People often are blind to nature's great beauty. "It moves us not," says Wordsworth. Many people never see a sunrise or a sunset because we are too concerned with the hustle and bustle of our tiny worlds to appreciate the opulence around us. We don't recognize the creation that God has bestowed upon us, and hence there is a conflict between Man and Nature. Wordsworth is saying that we have sold our souls in order to make other things (money, worldly possessions, and careers) more important than the value of life. Man's only desire in life is to devour all that is around us, no matter what effect it has on nature.
Man lacks proper gratitude for nature. People often are blind to nature's great beauty. "It moves us not," says Wordsworth. Many people never see a sunrise or a sunset because we are too concerned with the hustle and bustle of our tiny worlds to appreciate the opulence around us. We don't recognize the creation that God has bestowed upon us, and hence there is a conflict between Man and Nature. Wordsworth is saying that we have sold our souls in order to make other things (money, worldly possessions, and careers) more important than the value of life. Man's only desire in life is to devour all that is around us, no matter what effect it has on nature.
The Octave - “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
According to this speaker steeped in the romantic notions of nature as god, the world has become too much for us because we are so busy working to get money to buy things that we have little time for nature and our souls. The credulous speaker asserts, “We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!” Yet, the speaker still has the power and the heart to recognize that “This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, / The winds that will be howling at all hours, / And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers.” Such an observation and the ability to express it so gracefully belies the next complaining line, ”For this, for everything, we are out of tune.
According to this speaker steeped in the romantic notions of nature as god, the world has become too much for us because we are so busy working to get money to buy things that we have little time for nature and our souls. The credulous speaker asserts, “We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!” Yet, the speaker still has the power and the heart to recognize that “This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, / The winds that will be howling at all hours, / And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers.” Such an observation and the ability to express it so gracefully belies the next complaining line, ”For this, for everything, we are out of tune.
There are always those who are “out of tune” with nature and the spiritual life, and even before the onslaught of the dreadful Industrial Revolution, there was the process of getting and spending, and most of the getters and spenders would have been oblivious to nature and would have failed to walk a spiritual path. But the speaker is upset that the factories being built to make need items are blighting the natural world and occupying too much of the individual’s time. Therefore, he sings his little song decrying the revolution
The Sestet – “It moves us not. —Great God:
The speaker shouts that nature, the Sea, the moon, the winds do not any longer have the ability to stir men’s souls as they once did, and the speaker wishes he had been born during ancient times. But, of course, the speaker has only experienced these ancient paganistic times through reading and studying books. He wishes he could have been a Pagan who was raised to believe that he could see “Proteus rising from the sea.” And if he had learned about the Greek gods instead of learning about Christ, he would have been able to “hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
The speaker shouts that nature, the Sea, the moon, the winds do not any longer have the ability to stir men’s souls as they once did, and the speaker wishes he had been born during ancient times. But, of course, the speaker has only experienced these ancient paganistic times through reading and studying books. He wishes he could have been a Pagan who was raised to believe that he could see “Proteus rising from the sea.” And if he had learned about the Greek gods instead of learning about Christ, he would have been able to “hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Although the speaker’s wish is absurd and illogical, the reader can understand his complaints and realize that his romanticism blinds him to logic. And who can argue with the wishes of another, even when we see how distorted they may be? Such a speaker as the one of this poem still professes a pride that is unmistakable: he is learnèd as he would never have been as pagan, and his cry to “Great God” demonstrates his own true spiritual path that is grounded in post-enlightenment Christianity.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, Wordsworth says that we have put manmade goals ahead of the value of life. We should better appreciate nature and the environment. On the whole, this sonnet offers an angry summation of the familiar Wordsworthian theme of communion with nature, and states precisely how far the early nineteenth century was from living out the Wordsworthian ideal.
In conclusion, Wordsworth says that we have put manmade goals ahead of the value of life. We should better appreciate nature and the environment. On the whole, this sonnet offers an angry summation of the familiar Wordsworthian theme of communion with nature, and states precisely how far the early nineteenth century was from living out the Wordsworthian ideal.
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AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES HIS DEATH
AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES HIS DEATH
Introduction:
The aviator, of whom Yeats writes as in the first person, is convinced that the flight he is about to take will be his last, and he thinks of why he has chosen to fly. He flies for different reasons than most, not out of sense of duty or patriotism, nor for prestige or for those he has left behind. He reasons that he made his decision on the basis that his life so far has been wasted, and can see nothing to convince him that his life to come will be any better, and thus that it is better to enjoy the present, whatever the consequence.
About the Speaker and Setting:
This poem is recited in first person. The poet is recounting the thoughts that are going through his mind as his death approaches. This choice of voice is important because it gives insight into the thoughts of the airman fighting on the verge of death.
Setting:
This poem takes place around 1916 during one of the Irish civil wars in the skies over Ireland. The mood and atmosphere created by Yeats is of a solemn, peaceful tone. The pilot sees his death forthcoming yet he does not seem regretful or scared, but rather accepts the fate he is going to encounter
The Poet’s Vision of Death:
This simple poem is one of Yeats's most explicit statements about the First World War, and illustrates both his active political consciousness ("Those I fight I do not hate, / Those I guard I do not love") and his increasing propensity for a kind of hard-edged mystical rapture (the airman was driven to the clouds by "A lonely impulse of delight"). The poem, which, like flying, emphasizes balance, essentially enacts a kind of accounting, whereby the airman lists every factor weighing upon his situation and his vision of death, and rejects every possible factor he believes to be false: he does not hate or love his enemies or his allies, his country will neither be benefited nor hurt by any outcome of the war, he does not fight for political or moral motives but because of his "impulse of delight"; his past life seems a waste, his future life seems that it would be a waste, and his death will balance his life.
Conclusion:
This poem captures the essence of the mind set of a airman facing death. This insight is what makes the poem memorable. This poem is about an Irish airman pilot fighting in the war awaiting his death. He is prepared for death because after reflecting on his life he realizes that it has been a waste of time. This is reflected in the quote, "A waste of breath the years behind / In balance with this life, this death.
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THE THOUGHT FOX
Introduction:
The Thought Fox is a poem about writing a poem. It has often been acknowledged as one of the most completely realised and artistically satisfying of the poems of Ted Hughes.
Subject of the Poem:
The poet is sitting in a room late at night, it’s dark outside and though he can’t see anything he senses a presence:
Something else is alive
Beside the clocks loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move
This presence is in the poet’s imagination, as you find out in the very first line:
”I imagine this midnight moments forest:”
It immediately shows a contrast between the first two lines. The first line takes place in the ‘real world’, then, we enter the realm of the poet’s imagination.
The Thought Fox is a poem about writing a poem. It has often been acknowledged as one of the most completely realised and artistically satisfying of the poems of Ted Hughes.
Subject of the Poem:
The poet is sitting in a room late at night, it’s dark outside and though he can’t see anything he senses a presence:
Something else is alive
Beside the clocks loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move
This presence is in the poet’s imagination, as you find out in the very first line:
”I imagine this midnight moments forest:”
It immediately shows a contrast between the first two lines. The first line takes place in the ‘real world’, then, we enter the realm of the poet’s imagination.
An idea stirring in the deep dark night of the poet’s mind and it is represented by a fox. This fox is present in the midnight forest inside the poet’s head; That "dark hole" is such a great metaphor for the empty mind of a writer seeking inspiration.
The fox in the poem emerges indistinctly from the forest and falling snow, one step at a time, seeking what cover it can find, lame from some trap it has barely survived. But the forest at midnight is also the time when the stranglehold of culture and rational intellect is at its weakest, can be, with sufficient courage, momentarily shed. The ‘clearing’ made by the poet’s openness and receptivity emboldens the fox to assume its confident, brilliant foxhood, to come about its own business, and to enter in safety its true home, the ‘dark hole of the head’.
Ted Hughes has shown us, a man in harmony with nature and his own mind. That he loves and respects both is evident throughout, and the result proves how they inspire him. Here is a poem that is an exultant affirmation of what man and nature are capable of creating, bringing everything together in triumph. "The page is printed" says it so perfectly.
Conclusion:
The Thought Fox contained what became one of Hughes's most famous images, an emblem of the ferocity of his own poetry: an idea entering the head with the violence of an animal, the "sudden sharp hot stink of fox". These rapturous encounters with nature's claws and teeth showed Hughes to be the finest English nature poet of his generation.
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