ANALYSIS OF NON-AFRICAN POEMS
Daffodils- Williams Wordsworth
“I wandered lonely as a cloud”
Summary
The speaker says that, wandering like a cloud floating above hills and valleys, he encounters a field of daffodils beside a lake. The dancing, fluttering flowers stretched endlessly along the shore, and though the waves of the lake danced beside the flowers, the daffodils outdid the water in glee. The speaker says that a poet could not help but be happy in such a joyful company of flowers. He says that he stared and stared, but did not realize what wealth the scene would bring him. For now, whenever he feels “vacant” or “pensive,” the memory flashes upon “that inward eye / That is the bliss of solitude,” and his heart fills with pleasure, “and dances with the daffodils
Commentary
This simple poem, one of the loveliest and most famous of Wordsworth’s poem, revisits the familiar subjects of nature and memory, this time with a particularly (simple) spare, musical eloquence. The plot is extremely simple, depicting the poet’s wandering and his discovery of a field of daffodils by a lake, the memory of which pleases him and comforts him when he is lonely, bored, or restless. The characterization of the sudden occurrence of a memory—the daffodils “flash upon the inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude”—is psychologically acute, but the poem’s main brilliance lies in the reverse personification of its early stanzas. The speaker is metaphorically compared to a natural object, a cloud—“I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high...”, and the daffodils are continually personified as human beings, dancing and “tossing their heads” in “a crowd, a host.” This technique implies an inherent unity between man and nature, making it one of Wordsworth’s most basic and effective methods for instilling in the reader the feeling the poet so often describes himself as experiencing
POETIC DEVICES
Language: In stanza one to three, the tense is in the past as in wandered, saw, stretched, danced, gazed” and in the last stanza, there is present tense. The past tense is used to recall the vision he had while the present tense indicates a permanent condition in the present, which is a positive mood. This twenty-four line poem presented in four stanzas contains six lines. This is referred to as sestet. All the lines have musical end rhymes. The first four lines of each stanzas contain alternate end rhymes while the last two lines are couplets. All the stanzas have regular rhyme pattern of ababcc.
Simile: This is used in line 1 and 7.
“I wandered lonely as a cloud”- line 1
“Continuous as the stars that shine”- line 7
Metaphor: This is used in line 4 where the poet described daffodils as golden
“A host of golden daffodils”
Inversion: Some sentences (lines) are deliberately inverted for aesthetic effects.
Examples
“ Ten thousand at a glance” Line 11
“What wealth the show me had brought” Line 18
“And then my heart with pleasure fills” Line 23
Alliteration: This is used in Lines 17 and 24
I gazed-and gazed-but little thought Line 17 (g,g alliterates)
And dances with the daffodils” line 24
Other alliterative examples are “ the stars shine”, “ten thousand” “what wealth” dances..daffodils”
Onomatopoeia: This is the use of words that suggest meanings in lines of poetry
“And twinkle on the Milky Way” Line 18
“Fluttering and dancing in the breeze” Line 6
Symbols: Several symbolic words are used in the poem. These include cloud, Milky Way, waves, vales, hills, flutter, twinkle, crowd, host etc
Personification: This literary device is exemplified in the poem by”
“the fluttering and dancing breeze
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance
The waves beside them danced”
Hyperbole: A deliberate exaggeration is employed in almost all the lines in stanza 2 but particularly in the daffodils as “the stars that shine/ And twinkle on the Milky Way”
Diction: The lyrical quality of the poem is enhanced by the common words used in the poem. The syntax of the poem is fairly simple. The understanding of the theme, mood and tone are enhanced by the ordinary language deployed.
Rhyme: The poem has four stanzas and each stanza has six lines.
Antithesis: The picture of the wondering lonely cloud contrasts sharply with the cheerful image of the dancing daffodils. The loneliness and sadness of the poet contrasts with daffodils which happily “dancing in the breeze” (line 6)
Imagery: In line with the characteristics of Romantic poetry, the poet employed various peaceful image of nature including a field of daffodils, lake, trees, stars and cloud.
Repetition: There are many examples but the prominent ones are the repetition of “daffodils line 4 and 24, dancing, danced” in line 6 and 24” gazed and gazed” line 17
Mood: The poet is overwhelmed by the realization that he is in fact not alone but surrounded by a crowd of friendly daffodils, hence the lonely mood in the opening line is turned and the poet is ever-ready to be cheerful when he remembers his experiences in daffodils field. The poem generates a general mood of awe and might and expressed in a gay and happy tone.
Themes:
Love for the simple things of nature.
The beauty of God’s creation.
The splendid and impressive nature of daffodils
The happiness in nature
Truth is undeniable
“The Sun Rising” by John Donne
Summary
Lying in bed with his lover, the speaker chides the rising sun, calling it a “busy old fool,” and asking why it must bother them through windows and curtains. Love is not subject to season or to time, he says, and he admonishes the sun—the “Saucy pedantic wretch”—to go and bother late schoolboys and sour apprentices, to tell the court-huntsmen that the King will ride, and to call the country ant to their harvesting.
Why should the sun think that his beams are strong? The speaker says that he could eclipse them simply by closing his eyes, except that he does not want to lose sight of his beloved for even an instant. He asks the sun—if the sun’s eyes have not been blinded by his lover’s eyes—to tell him by late tomorrow whether the treasures of India are in the same place they occupied yesterday or if they are now in bed with the speaker. By this, the persona means to say that with his beloved, he does not need any treasure. He says in bed there are the riches of the world. He says that if the sun asks about the kings he shined on yesterday, he will learn that they all lie in bed with the speaker. The speaker explains this claim by saying that his beloved is like every country in the world, and he is like every king; nothing else is real.
Princes simply play at having countries; compared to what he has, ‘’all honor is mimicry and all wealth is alchemy’’. The sun, the speaker says, is half as happy as he and his lover are, for the fact that the world is contracted into their bed makes the sun’s job much easier—in its old age, it desires ease, and now all it has to do is shine on their bed and it shines on the whole world. “This bed thy centre is,” the speaker tells the sun, “these walls, thy sphere.”
Commentary
One of Donne’s most charming and successful metaphysical love poems, “The Sun Rising” is built around a few hyperbolic assertions—first, that the sun is conscious and has the watchful personality of an old busybody; second, that love, as the speaker puts it, “no season knows, nor clime, / Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time”; third, that the speaker’s love affair is so important to the universe that kings and princes simply copy it, that the world is literally contained within their bedroom. Of course, each of these assertions simply describes figuratively a state of feeling—to the wakeful lover, the rising sun does seem like an intruder, irrelevant to the operations of love; to the man in love, the bedroom can seem to enclose all the matters in the world. The inspiration of this poem is to pretend that each of these subjective states of feeling is an objective truth.
Accordingly, Donne endows his speaker with language implying that what goes on in his head is primary over the world outside it; for instance, in the second stanza, the speaker tells the sun that it is not so powerful, since the speaker can cause an eclipse simply by closing his eyes. This kind of heedless, joyful arrogance is perfectly tuned to the consciousness of a new lover, and the speaker appropriately claims to have all the world’s riches in his bed (India, he says, is not where the sun left it; it is in bed with him). The speaker captures the essence of his feeling in the final stanza, when, after taking pity on the sun and deciding to ease the burdens of his old age, he declares “Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere.”
Form
The three regular stanzas of “The Sun Rising” are each ten lines long and follow a line-stress pattern of 4255445555—lines one, five, and six are metered in iambic tetrameter, line two is in dimeter, and lines three, four, and seven through ten are in pentameter. The rhyme scheme in each stanza is ABBACDCDEE.
POETIC DEVICES
Tone/Mood: The persona is angry that the sun shines through the windows and curtains to disturb them.
Imagery: The
Assonance “Busy old fool, unruly
why dost thou thus”
Alliteration: ”through curtains call on us
half as happy as we
Metaphor: “saucy pedantic wretch”
She is all states, and Princes’
Rhetorical Questions: through windows and through curtains call on us
Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
Why shouldst thou think?
Themes:
The effect of the sun on the universe
The sociopolitical role that the sun plays in human life
The importance of using nature very well
Genuine love is constant and permanent
Love is universal
Love is transient and brief
The Negro Speaks of Rivers-Langston Hughes
BIOGRAPHY
James Langston Hughes was born on Feb. 1 1902 and died on May 22 1962. He was an African-American and a Harlem Renaissance poet who suffered the racial segregation of the early twentieth Century America. He rose above the injustice meted out to African-Americans and felt love and compassion for all races. His acceptance is especially evident and assertive in his poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” which is cosmic voice that unites all races and people.
Background
African-Americans suffered discrimination years after securing freedom through Emancipation Proclamation in January 1 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln. Blacks were excluded from the American dream and suffered discrimination. Having endured great injustice through slavery these former slaves having no place to call home desired full integration in the American society. This attempt to assert their rights led to the Harlem Renaissance among blacks with cultural arts and entertainment from the early 1920s to mid-1930s. Before this cultural rebirth, blacks seem to have contented themselves with assimilating Eurocentric values which robbed them of their culture and history. In fact a leading black educator, Booker. T. Washington encouraged blacks to accept their inferior status and merely work towards economic improvement. Langston Hughes was one of the antagonists of Washington’s position. He unashamedly demonstrated pride in his blackness; he stressed racial consciousness and cultural nationalism without self-hate or racism. The Negro Speaks of Rivers is one of his expressions of these convictions.
Subject Matter/ Summary
The poem depicts an African-American who recognizes and reaffirms his connection to Africa and uses that African heritage as a source of pride. The poem is an excursion into the historical past of the African-Americans. It traces their history from the beginning of the world through the ages to the present in the US. The persona in the poem speaks of knowing certain rivers that are as old as creation. He points out the growth of his soul and likens its depth to the depth of the rivers he links with his history. These include the great rivers of the world like the Euphrates, the Congo, the Nile Mississippi.
Diction
The poet vocabulary or language is not hard to understand. He uses a common phenomenon like “rivers” to put across his message which is an attempt to inspire the Blackman who is presented as being intelligent and successful specie. Casual references are made to some historical places like River Euphrates, River Congo, Nile, Mississippi and the River in New Orleans and many other “ancient, dusky rivers”. The poem is delivered in free verse.
TONE/MOOD
The poem evokes a feeling of joy, love and fascination for the symbolic rivers. This river of life touches on the very point of his existence and our collective feeling of agape love for the things that bind us together as mankind. The mood of the poem is that of praise, appreciation and melody.
SYMBOLISM
The “rivers” which the “negroes” are speaking of in the poem are the soul and unity, togetherness and love which are found everywhere, if barriers are removed from the world.
Theme
1. Tribute to the African Heritage
2. Resilience of the Black Man
3. The poem carries the theme of love
4. An attempt to inspire the blackman
Language and Style
Allusion
Allusion is the reference to a person, place or to an idea in real life, history or another literary work. Such reference usually has historical, religious, or mythological significance. The references to the Euphrates, the Congo, the Nile and Mississippi in the poem have historical significance. Each of these rivers is used to draw attention to the different milestones in the black man’s history. The Congo draws attention to the bliss of Africa’s past before colonialism. The Nile marks the beginning of exploitation of the black man’s labour through slavery. The Mississippi draws attention to the continued exploitation of the black man by imperial powers from the West . The mention of Abe Lincoln who through the Emancipation declaration of 1863 abolished slavery is an historical allusion.
Symbolism
The first symbolic expression in the poem is the personal pronoun. The expression refers to the entire Africa-American community in the United States. and other blacks disporan communities, especially in the North and South America. The four rivers mentioned in the poem also have a symbolic implication. The Euphrates is connected to a speculated site of the Biblical Garden of Eden. It is symbolically used to represent the beginning of of man and by extension black man’s creation. The mention of Euphrates is can also be seen as representative of the different civilizations. The Congo represents the idyllic African root while the Nile with its adjacent pyramids represents ancient civilization in Egypt. The Mississippi represents the peak and abolition of slavery by the sixteenth US President Abraham Lincoln.
Repetition: Two separate expression are repeated in the poem
Line 1,2 and 11 I ‘ ve known rivers
My soul has grown deep like the rivers
The expressions are repeated in order to emphasize Negro message.
Simile
This is found in the following lines:
Line 2-1 I‘ve known rivers ancient as the world
My soul has grown deep like the rivers
These lines depict the rivers as analogous to eternity, the beginning without end, deep, mysterious and ever flowing. Through the comparison, the spirit or essence of the black man is also suggestively described as deep, mysterious and ever surviving.
Personification: Only one example is found in the poem, in lines 8/9 where the poet says” I hear the singing of the Mississipi when Abraham Lincoln/went to New Orleans.” Mississippi is here personified as a singer. The significance of this personification gets limpid when viewed as a kind of metaphor that signifies the triumph that the trip of Lincoln will later launch among the black slaves.
Metaphor
The use of metaphor is found in the following expressions
My soul has grown deep-Line 4
...when dawns were young-Line 5
and I ‘ve seen its muddy/bosom- Line 9/10
The expression grown deep is a metaphor for experience and wisdom , dawns were young” refers to the beginning of creation, “muddy bosom” implies the abused disposition of the blacks.
Use of Declarative Sentence
The poet uses declarative sentences in the poem. Except when there is enjambment, every line conveying an idea is expressed declaratively. The significance of this is that it gives an assetive and confident tone to the poem.
Imagery
By repeating references to river, especially to Euphrates, Congo, Nile, Mississippi, river imagery is made in the poem. A parallel to this is also evoked in “the flow of human blood in human veins.” With these mental pictures, the interconnection of the African-American to his root and that of other races is easily established.