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Department Of English
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MA (Final) Year
TERM
PAPER
ON
“Analysis of the use of symbols with reference to the poetry of W.B.
Yeats, Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas.”
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Declaration
THE ROSE:
I hereby declare that the concerned term paper entitled “Analysis of the use of symbols with reference to the poetry of W.B.
Yeats, Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas” is a work of ……………………….. a student of MA [Final]
Year, Department of English, Govt Edward
College, Pabna. He/She
has completed his/her term paper under my supervision and submitted for the
partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts [MA]
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page 3
Abstract
This term paper is an analysis of the use of symbols with reference
to the poetry of W.B. Yeats (1865-1939), Robert Frost (1874-1963), Dylan Thomas (1914-1953).
Poetry can follow a strict structure, or none at all,
but many different types of poems use poetic devices. Poetic devices are tools
that a poet can use to create rhythm, enhance a poem's meaning, or intensify a
mood or feeling. These devices help piece the poem together, much like a hammer
and nails join planks of wood together. A poetic device is a tool that serves
different purposes in a poem. Some of them are ornamental, some enhance the
meaning of the poem and others add to its rhyme and lyricism. A poetic device
is a way of using words to create meaning. Symbol is one of the most common
poetic devices. In this term paper, we are going to learn about the
use of symbol in the poetry of W. B. Yeats, Robert Frost and Dylan Thomas. we
are also learn about the device and look at examples of how they are used. We
will also discuss the purpose to understand the importance of using symbol
effectively.
W. B. Yeats's
early poetry, particularly The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), is often
considered ‘symbolist’. As the underlying poetic mode, symbolism brings
forty-six pages of notes to sixty-two pages of poems in The Wind Among the
Reeds. Yeats wrote an essay entitled ‘The Symbolism of Poetry’ in 1900 in
response to Arthur Symons's The Symbolist Movement in Literature. Symons
took his point of departure from Thomas Carlyle's remark in Sartor Resartus
(1831): ‘It is in and through Symbols that man, consciously or unconsciously
lives, works, and has his being...’. In another essay, ‘A Symbolic Artist and
the Coming of Symbolic Art’, Yeats offers an unambiguous clue to his thought on
symbolism. The essay was for The Dome of December 1898 on the work of
Althea Gyles, the designer of the symbolical covers of The Wind Among the
Reeds, The Secret Rose (1897), and Poems (1899). The current study is W. B. Includes
development of symbols in Yeats' poetry. In order to understand and fully
understand Yeats' poetry, some knowledge and cooperation are necessary to form
the basis of his philosophy and symbolic system. W.B Yeats is regarded as a
great symbolic poet. Arthur Simmons dedicated his work "Symbolism in
Literature (1919)" to W.B. Yeats.
The study of the poetry of Dylan
Thomas is incomplete if symbolism is not read or studied in depth with all its
nuances. Welsh poets like Vernon Watkins, Euros Bowen and Dylan Thomas were
drawn towards the aesthetics of symbolism. An essay by M. Wynn Thomas in the A Yearbook of Critical Essays played a
vital role in attracting the attention of these writers. Thomas familiarity
with the French symbolists is obvious as he chose symbolism as his medium of
expression. His urge to explore the inner essence to realise the true nature of
human existence and achieve the aesthetic element is evident and in his keen
observation and impeccable use of symbols. He is incomparable as a British symbolist.
The insights from Eliot and Yeats also played pivotal role in shaping Thomas’
symbolist engineering in his poetry. Imagery is another literary device which
is dexterously employed by the poet for adding the imaginative value in his
poetry along with symbolism. The impact of the Christian symbols and images
founds profound expression in his poetry. Dylan Thomas gave huge significance
to the use of imagery and for understanding his poetry it is necessary to
understand his imagery. Thomas’s vibrant imagery comprised of fractured syntax,
word play and personal symbolism. Thomas was an ingenious “language-changer”
who created the English language into an opulently creative blend of imagery,
rhythm and literary allusion; like Shakespeare, Hopkins, Joyce and Dickens.
Certainly symbolism is a key element of all of Frost's
poetry. In particular, you might like to think about how he uses the natural
world as key symbols in his poems to suggest much bigger and deeper ideas about
death, choices and success. Robert Frost takes the familiar objects as the
subject matters of his poetry but makes them highly suggestive and symbolic to
represent some universal wisdom. Frost’s poetry abounds in all familiar things like pastures and plains,
mountains and rivers, woods and gardens, groves and bowers, fruits and flowers,
and seeds and birds etc. But Frost treats all these elements of nature
differently from the English romantics. Though Frost is forever linked to the
stone-pocked hills and woods of New England,
he treated some themes that have universal appeal.
Symbolism
helps create meaning and emotion in a story. It's a vital tool that allows the
author to convey meaning and imagery and enhances the thematic element of the
literary work. Without symbolism of some kind, a story becomes nothing more
than a thematic sermon, or a two-dimensional series of
“this-happened-then-that-happened” events. Symbolism, in its many forms, weaves
together all the disparate threads of a story into a coherent whole, while
adding intellectual depth and emotional resonance. Symbolism is the
use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities, by giving them symbolic meanings
that are different from their literal sense. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to focus on the use of symbols with reference to the
poetry of W.B. Yeats, Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas.
page 4
Table of
Contents
Chapter – One
1.1 Definition of Symbol :……………………………………(put page number)
1.2
Function
of Symbol :……………………...............................
1.3 Use of Symbol in Literature :……………………………………….
Chapter – Two
2.1 Use of Symbol in the poetry of
W. B. Yeats …………………………..
2.1.1 William Butler Yeats as a Symbolist :………………
2.1.2 The Major Symbols of W.B. Yeats :………..
2.2 Use of Symbol in the poetry of
Robert Frost :……………………………….
2.2.1 Robert Frost as a Symbolist :………………
2.2.2
The
Major Symbols of Robert Frost :
2.3 Use of Symbol in the
poetry of Dylan Thomas :………………………………..
2.3.1 Dylan Thomas as a
Symbolist :………………
2.3.2 The Major
Symbols of Dylan Thomas :
Bibliography....................................................................................................
Appendix...........................................................................................
page 5
Chapter – One
1.1
Definition of Symbol :
A symbol
(pronounced SIM-bull) is any image or
thing that stands for something else. It could be as simple as a letter,
which is a symbol for a given sound (or set of sounds). However, symbols don’t
have to be the kind of things you only find on keyboards. A tree
might symbolize nature. Einstein symbolizes genius in our culture. Anything can
be a symbol, if we make it one. In literature, symbols are often characters, settings,
images, or other motifs
that stand in for bigger ideas. Authors often use symbols (or “symbolism”) to
give their work with more meaning and to make a story be about more than
the events it describes. This is one of the most basic and widespread of all
literary techniques. However, authors don’t usually give us a roadmap
to their symbolism, so it can take a lot of thought to figure out exactly
what the symbols in a work of literature stand for —to interpret them.
According to “Symbolism exists to adorn and enrich, not to create an
artificial sense of profundity.” (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
). SYMBOLISM = a word becomes a sign of something other
than simply itself.
Symbolism is the use of symbols
to signify ideas and qualities, by giving them symbolic meanings that
are different from their literal sense. Symbolism can take different
forms. Generally, it is an object representing another, to give an entirely
different meaning that is much deeper and more significant. Symbolism can
take different forms. Generally, it is an object representing
another, to give an entirely different meaning that is much deeper and more
significant. Sometimes, however, an action, an event or a word spoken by
someone may have a symbolic value. For instance, “smile” is a symbol of friendship.
Similarly, the action of someone smiling at you may stand as a symbol of the
feeling of affection which that person has for you.
1.2
Function of Symbol :
Symbolism gives a writer freedom to add double levels of
meanings to his work: a literal one that is self-evident, and the symbolic one
whose meaning is far more profound than the literal. Symbolism, therefore,
gives universality to the characters and the themes of a piece of literature.
Symbolism in literature evokes interest in readers as they find an opportunity
to get an insight into the writer’s mind on how he views the world, and how he
thinks of common objects. The item that seems to be a symbol can
represent itself. For example, a rose may be a gift from a man to a woman and
it is simply that: the gift of a rose. However, on a deeper, symbolic level,
the rose may also have some hidden significance.
Symbolism is a form of figurative language, which should
not be taken literally. Figurative use of language is the use of words or
phrases that [imply] a non-literal meaning, which does make sense or that could
[also] be true. It is not unusual to have to search for symbols in a story. One
indication that symbolism may be used in a story is the repeated reference to
an object. If the color red is used repeatedly, it's quite possible that it is
being used symbolically. While there may be one story being told on the
surface, the use of symbolism provides deeper layers to a piece of literature,
conveying another hidden message.
Symbolism is subjective in nature. If you are searching
for symbolism in a piece of literature, look for objects, colors, etc., that
are referred to continually. Search for the symbolic meaning and then
draw a logical correlation between the action of the story and the significance
of the symbol in providing deeper insights into the author's tale. There is
some poetic license that may be taken in searching for symbolism. If the
support is not there, you cannot make a case for the use of symbols: for
symbols serve to tell a story on a level different—perhaps hidden—from the
story on the surface. According to Kenzo Tange,
“There is a
powerful need for symbolism, and that means the architecture must have
something that appeals to the human heart. There is a powerful need for
symbolism, and that means the architecture must have something that appeals to
the human heart.”
Chapter – Two
2.1 Use of symbol in the poetry of
W. B. Yeats :
One of the greatest poets of the 20th century and a
recipient of the Nobel Prize, William Butler Yeats(1865-1939) spent his early
childhood in Dublin and Sligo before moving with
his parents to London.
His first volumes of poetry, influenced by the symbolism
of William Blake
and Irish folklore and myth, are more romantic and dreamlike than his later
work, which is generally more highly regarded. Composed in 1900, Yeats's
influential essay "The Symbolism of Poetry" offers an extended
definition of symbolism and a meditation on the nature of poetry in general.
Some poetry critics and most readers
who are a bit confused by W. B. Yeats’poems would call him the ‘master of
symbolism.’ He uses the mechanisms of poetry-rhythm, rhyme, meteralong with the
use of both emotional and intellectual symbols to express emotion and higher
meaning in a usually short and concise length of words. His theories on rhythm
and use of symbols are evident in his work, especially in such pieces as ‘The
Second Coming,’ ‘The Valley of the Black Pig’, ‘Byzantium’ and ‘No Second Troy’ Yeats’ feelings toward
emotion and the symbols and words that invoke them make both he and his work
unique.
In Yeats’ essay ‘The Symbolism of
Poetry,’ he explains his theory of how rhythm, rhyme, and meter should be
properly applied in poetry. Of rhythm, he says that it should be musical, not
stilted in any way by a strict form, and the same goes for meter. Throughout
his poetry there is an underlying rhythm and meter; he uses it in a way that
makes its presence come secondary to the ease of reading the poem naturally. He
does this with ‘The Second Coming’ and ‘The Valley of the Black Pig.’ In
places, through variation in rhythm, it is obvious that he is more worried
about the content of the poem than any particular meter. Lines such as,
1) “Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!
Hardly are those words out...”
2) “The dews drop slowly and
dreams gather: unknown spears
Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,...”
Yeats
explains about rhythm in his own words, ‘The purpose of rhythm...is to prolong
the moment of contemplation, the moment when we are both asleep and awake,
which is one moment of creation, by hushing us with an alluring monotony, while
it holds us waking by variety...’ What Yeats means is that rhythm lulls us into
a trance, as he says later, ‘...to keep us in that state of perhaps real
trance, in which the mind, liberated from the pressure of the will is unfolded
in symbols’. So Yeats believes that a natural, musical rhythm, through this
state of trance that it induces, helps the mind reach a dreamlike state in
which everything is expressed and understood in symbols and understood more
purely than if the logical side of the mind were to ‘pick’ at the poem. Thus,
his use of symbols is justified in one way through his preference of a looser
rhythm.
Yeats’ poetry is very dreamlike in its symbols and
allusions and in the emotional colors that those symbols paint in the reader’s
mind. This creates deep levels of meaning to his poems. If a poem, such as ‘No
Second Troy,’ is read lightly it gives off a simple emotion from its wording
and subject matter. But with deeper study into the history of both Yeats and
the poem, one learns who the woman is that he speaks of and why he says such
things of her as
“ taught to ignorant men
most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great...”
and
“With
beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,...” .
2.1.1 William Butler Yeats as a Symbolist :
William Butler Yeats is regarded as one of the most
important representative symbolist of the twentieth century English literature
who was mainly influenced by the French symbolist movement of 19th century.
Symbolism as a conscious movement was born in France as a reaction against
naturalism and the precision and exactitude of the 'naturalist' school
represented by Emile Zola. Further,
his symbolism is fully and firmly grounded in Irish mythology and legend and
this fact imparts to it a precision, definiteness, a clear lucidity, which the
French symbolism is wanting in. Yeats' symbols are not vague or hazy. They have
well-defined forms which perceptible meet the eye. They are thus not quite
obscure and indistinct.
Yeats'
symbolism has yet another characteristic quality which makes it stand apart
from the French symbolism. The symbols of Yeats are all-pervasive. There are
certain key-symbols round which a number of poems are arranged, and each poem
that follows in succeeding order throws light on foregoing ones and illuminates
their sense. For example, in The Rose Volume of verses, rose is the key-symbol.
In these poems, rose symbolically stands for intellectual Beauty, beauty of
woman (particularly that of Maud Gonne), austerity and also Ireland. Such symbols are not
adapted suddenly on the spur of the moment but they are firmly planted in
mythology and legends. Likewise, in the poem The Wild Swans at Coole, the swan
is the ever-recurring symbol. Another symbol which constantly glitters in
Yeats' poetry is Helen, symbolizing destructive beauty, and the linking up of
Helen with Dierdre and Maud Gonne furnishes to the poems like No Second Troy an
unthinkable vastness, complexity and continuous expansiveness. As his art grew
to maturity, Yeats' symbols become more and more complex and personal. This
complex nature of symbols is manifest in the poems included in The Tower and
The Winding Stair group of the poems. The Tower symbol partakes of both
traditional and personal character. It was a tower of real physical existence
where the poet lived for some time, and at the same time it is used as a symbol
of loneliness and isolation, a secluded place of retreat for the poet.
In A Prayer
for my Daughter; the tower hints at the poet's vision of the dark and dismal
future of humanity. All these associations and suggestions associated with the
tower, make it a symbol of high complexity. While they add to the richness and
elegance of the poem they also add to the perplexity and bewilderment of the reader.
The complexity of symbolism is no less intriguing in the Byzantium group of the poems. Such intricacy
of symbols increases the obscurity of Yeats' poetry. Yeats was a symbolist from
the very outset of his poetic career up to the last, even before and after the
brief spell of the French influence. As his powers attained maturity, his
symbols acquired richness of associations, evocative quality and intricacy.
Symbolism enabled him to make his vision and traces concrete and substantial.
Only in this way he could convey to his readers a definite picture of his
vague, fleeting sensations and experiences. Symbolism helped him to express the
richness of man's deeper reality, something mystical in essence.
2.1.2 The Major Symbols of W.B. Yeats :
W. B. Yeats has used different types of symbols in his
poetry. They were carefully woven into the pattern of the poem. He uses these
symbols to convey his inner sensations, his visions and his mystic experiences.
In his early poems his symbols are elementary. They are not complex. Thus they
put no obstacles in the way of the meaning. In this phase the poet makes use of
traditional symbols. Among these symbols 'the Rose' may be mentioned as the
major symbol. Gradually these symbols grow and develop. They become personal,
complicated and complex. The symbols used in the Byzantium poems are its fine examples. W.
B. Yeats used a number of symbols in his poetry. Among these symbols the major
symbols are- the rose, the tower, the gyre, the wheel, the sword, the sea, the
bird, the tree, the sun, the moon, the gold, the silver, the earth, the water,
the air and the fire. These symbols are drawn from myth, magic, history and
poet's personal world. They are not only the clusters of varied associations,
but they also grow, expand and change as living being. They are the integral
part of Yeats's poetry.
THE ROSE:
Yeats's symbols always convey more
than one meaning. ' The Rose' has been used as a symbol in several poems in
different context. It is an emblem of beauty. On the one hand it is a symbol of
earthly love and eternal love on the other. Sometimes it stands for life and
hope sometimes it becomes a symbol of Esotericism. Yeats wrote a series of
rose poems, including “To the Rose Upon the Rood of Time,” “The Secret Rose,”
“The Rose Tree” and “The Rose of the World.” For Yeats, the flower reconciles
the binary of temporal and eternal. It unifies these concepts in two ways.
First, the rose maintains its position as a representative or touchstone of
beauty unwaveringly. In other words, roses never go out of fashion. However, an
actual individual rose lives quite a short life. Similarly, the rose symbolizes
woman, both divine, transcendent woman and natural, sensual woman, and in doing
so, unifies them.
THE TOWER AND THE GYRE:
The number of his symbols is countless and implications inexhaustible. 'The Tower" is one of them. It is a traditional and personal symbol. It conveys a host of meanings. It symbolizes the ascendancy of the human soul. It stands for mental elevation, noble contemplation, permanence of philosophy and art. It signifies the dark future of humanity also. Like the tower,' The Gyre' is also a major symbol. Mainly it represents the cyclic movement of history and subjectivity and objectivity of human soul. They stand for the seal of Solomon used in magic. The gyre, a circular or conical shape, appears frequently in Yeats’s poems and was developed as part of the philosophical system outlined in his book A Vision. At first, Yeats used the phases of the moon to articulate his belief that history was structured in terms of ages, but he later settled upon the gyre as a more useful model. He chose the image of interlocking gyres—visually represented as two intersecting conical spirals—to symbolize his philosophical belief that all things could be described in terms of cycles and patterns. The soul (or the civilization, the age, and so on) would move from the smallest point of the spiral to the largest before moving along to the other gyre. Although this is a difficult concept to grasp abstractly, the image makes sense when applied to the waxing and waning of a particular historical age or the evolution of a human life from youth to adulthood to old age. The symbol of the interlocking gyres reveals Yeats’s belief in fate and historical determinism as well as his spiritual attitudes toward the development of the soul, since creatures and events must evolve according to the conical shape. With the image of the gyre, Yeats created a shorthand reference in his poetry that stood for his entire philosophy of history and spirituality.
THE SWORD, THE MOON AND OTHER ELEMENTAL SYMBOLS:
In the poetry of W. B. Yeats we find the presence of 'the
sword'. This may be categorized as a masculine symbol. It stands for life, war,
love and sex. 'The moon' is also a significant symbol. The twenty-eight phases
of this moon represents the human personality. The human soul passes through
all these twenty-eight phases. The Earth, the Water, the Air and the Fire are
symbolic of four phases of an individual as well as four ages of civilization.
The tree stands for age, sterility and the reality of life. The bird signifies
speed, lightness, freedom, flight and quickness of intellect.
SYMBOLS IN BYZANTIUM
POEMS :
The Byzantium
poems are highly symbolic. Here we get a lot of grave symbols. The utopian Byzantium stands for the
world of intellect and spirit. It is the platonic paradise where the soul is
purified. The entire poem is evocative and it has become a symbol for monuments
of unageing intellect. The gold is a symbol of purgation and the holy fire
stands for a mode of purification through suffering. If the golden bird
represents pure soul, immortality and art, the golden tree is the tree of life.
Thus the Byzantium
poems display Yeats's use of complex symbols.
The Swan :
Swans are a
common symbol in poetry, often used to depict idealized nature. Yeats
employs this convention in “The Wild Swans at Coole” (1919),
in which the regal birds represent an unchanging, flawless ideal. In “Leda and
the Swan,” Yeats rewrites the Greek myth of Zeus and Leda to comment on fate
and historical inevitability: Zeus disguises himself as a swan to rape the
unsuspecting Leda. In this poem, the bird is fearsome and destructive, and it
possesses a divine power that violates Leda and initiates the dire consequences
of war and devastation depicted in the final lines. Even though Yeats clearly
states that the swan is the god Zeus, he also emphasizes the physicality of the
swan: the beating wings, the dark webbed feet, the long neck and beak. Through
this description of its physical characteristics, the swan becomes a violent
divine force. By rendering a well-known poetic symbol as violent and terrifying
rather than idealized and beautiful, Yeats manipulates poetic conventions, an
act of literary modernism, and adds to the power of the poem.
The Great Beast :
Yeats
employs the figure of a great beast—a horrific, violent animal—to embody
difficult abstract concepts. The great beast as a symbol comes from Christian
iconography, in which it represents evil and darkness. In “The Second Coming,”
the great beast emerges from the Spiritus Mundi, or soul of the universe, to
function as the primary image of destruction in the poem. Yeats describes the
onset of apocalyptic events in which the “blood-dimmed tide is loosed” and the
“ceremony of innocence is drowned” as the world enters a new age and falls
apart as a result of the widening of the historical gyres. The speaker predicts
the arrival of the Second Coming, and this prediction summons a “vast image” of
a frightening monster pulled from the collective consciousness of the world.
Yeats modifies the well-known image of the sphinx to embody the poem’s vision
of the climactic coming. By rendering the terrifying prospect of disruption and
change into an easily imagined horrifying monster, Yeats makes an abstract fear
become tangible and real. The great beast slouches toward Bethlehem to be born, where it will evolve
into a second Christ (or anti-Christ) figure for the dark new age. In this way,
Yeats uses distinct, concrete imagery to symbolize complex ideas about the
state of the modern world.
Stone :
Unlike the
rose, the stone symbol does not unify opposed concepts. The stone’s dualism
comes from the fact that the qualities it represents -- solidity, steadiness --
may be positive or negative. The stone’s immovability may indicate strength or
stubbornness. As a result, stones often figure in poems in which Yeats grapples
with his ambivalence about Ireland’s
political climate. In “Easter 1916,” Yeats describes a stone in a rapidly
flowing river. In the image, the stone participates in a dualism; while the
stone never moves, the water never rests. The stone never bends; the water
constantly changes shape to flow around any obstacles.
Water
:
Water's significance differs between
poems. Yeats sometimes uses it to represent another world and devotes his
attention to species that are able to move in and out of water: dolphins, which
breathe air, and swans that both fly and swim. Yeats places this movement
between water and air parallel to movement between life and death. In both “The
Wild Swans at Coole” and “Byzantium,”
the speaker is a tired, aged man who is in awe of the immortality of the
water-dwelling creatures. While Coole Park is an actual place, the sea beside Byzantium is imagined by
Yeats, and the two poems’ symbols differ accordingly. The swans, gliding on
actual waters, represent the eternity of nature. The dolphins, swimming in an
imagined sea, allude to the Roman myth that dolphins carried souls to the
afterlife
Conclusion:
Thus Yeats is
one of the greatest symbolists in English literature. To conclude, it will be
better to quote Tyndall who says that 'he was a symbolist and that he was
symbolist from the beginning of his career to the end. To sum up, we may say
that Yeats’ use of symbols is complex and rich. Indeed, in Yeats’ poetry,
symbols give dumb things voices and bodiless things bodies. We may consider
Yeats as a great symbolist.
2.2 Use of symbol in the poetry of Robert
Frost :
Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in America. Known
for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American
colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the early
twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical
themes. Robert Frost is the master of
using literary devices in his poetry. Cleanth Brooks says, “Frost’s best poetry exhibits the structure of symbolist poetry. Much more
clearly than does of many a modern poet”.
In the poem ‘Mending Wall’, for example, Frost portrays a
typical farming work in the context of New England.
The New England farmers built walls as
boundaries to their farms. These walls often became weak and broke down. So,
they needed mending. The poem Mending Wall is also a poem about two neighbors
and a wall. The wall acts as a divider in separating estates-apple and pine
trees. It is a very common picture of farming life where the people believe
that "Good fences make good neighbors." But the suggestiveness of the
poem is very modern in its approach. The poem is based on the modern theme of
isolation. Modern men built boundaries and made themselves isolated from each
other. Frost’s metaphysical treatment of this physical and psychological
isolation is also an evidence of his modernity. In “Mending Walls”, Frost
juxtaposes the two opposite aspects of the theme of the poem and then leaves it
to the reader to draw his own conclusion. The conservative farmer says:
Good fences make good neighbor
and the modern radical farmer says:
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
But the question remains unsolved. And it is up to the
readers if they will keep the wall or pull down it. 'Stopping By woods on a
Snowy Evening' is another poem, in which the familiar things finally become
highly suggestive. Apparently, the poem describes the evening walk of a rural farmer,
may be the poet himself. But out of his evening walk beside a snowy woods, the
traveler discovers a truth universal in appeal.
There is a famous poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening”. On the surface, it is a poem about a traveler who feels tempted to go
into the woods which are “lovely, dark and deep” and to stay there in order to
enjoy their strange beauty and charm, but who is not able to carry out his wish
on account of the realization that he has promises to keep and miles to go. But
the poem has a deeper, symbolic significance. The words “promises”, “miles”,
and “sleep” have deeper meanings. “Promises” and “miles to go” imply duties and
responsibilities. “Sleep” symbolizes death. There are the promises which he has
made to himself and to others, or which others have made on his behalf. And
there are the miles he must travel through other kinds of experience before he
yields to that final and inevitable commitment-death. We are not told that the
call of social responsibility proves stronger than the attraction of the woods,
which are "lovely" as well as "dark and deep’. The dichotomy of
the poet's obligations both to the woods and to a world of promises is what
gives this poem a universal appeal.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
The closing stanza of the poem is especially symbolic.
The poem symbolically expresses the conflict which everyone feels between the
demands of the practical life and a desire to escape into the land of reverie.
The poem “The Road Not Taken” was also based on the
poet’s personal experience. It was based on his visit to the woods of Plymouth, New
Hampshire in 1911-1912. But the poem symbolizes the
universal problem of making a choice of invisible barriers built up in the
minds of the people which alienate them from one another mentally and
emotionally, though they live together or as neighbors in the society. At the
heart of the poem is the romantic mythology of flight from a fixed world of
limited possibility into a wilderness of many possibilities combined with
trials and choices through which the pilgrim progresses to divine perfection. 'Apple
Picking' describes the feelings, of a man who has been plucking apples from the
apple trees. He's describing how he takes them off the tree and places them in
a bucket and sends them off. His is a tired apple picker. He cherishes the
apples like they were jewels. After a long day’s work, the speaker is tired of
apple picking and feels sleep coming on.
Similarly
the Birch trees in “Birches” symbolize man’s desire to seek escape from the
harsh suffering man to undergo in this world. The poem Design is saying that
god is both good and evil and has a design for all things big and small. The
whiteness of the flower, spider, and moth represent purity. However the scene
itself could be construed as evil. But since everything is under god's design
he must have designed it to happen that way. Perhaps he is saying that
everything can be looked upon as good or evil depending on your perspective.
In the poem ’Fire and Ice”, fire symbolizes the heat of
passion while ice represents the cold hate. The extremes of both passion and
hate have the power to destroy and annihilate the world. Robert Frost’s
insightful yet tragic poem “Out, Out--” employs realistic imagery and the
personification of a buzz saw to depict how people must continue onward with
their lives after the death of a loved one, while also hinting at the selfish
nature of the human race, whom oftentimes show concern only for themselves.
Frost begins the poem by describing a young boy cutting
some wood using a buzz-saw. The setting is Vermont and the time is late afternoon. The
sun is setting and the boy's sister calls him to come and eat supper. As the
boy hears its dinner time he gets excited and cuts his hand by mistake.
Realizing that the doctor might cut his hand off because of this, he
immediately asks his sister to make sure that does not happen. By the time the
doctor arrives it is too late and the hand is already lost. When the doctor
gives him anaesthetic, the boy falls asleep never to wake up again. The last
sentence of the poem which states that "since they [the boys family and
the doctor] were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" shows how
although the boys death is tragic, people move on with their life.
2.2.1 Robert Frost as a Symbolist :
Undoubtedly,
Symbolism takes a greater part in a literary work. It implies an indirect
suggestion of ideas. A poet may not convey his through direct statement or he
can do it indirectly. Thus symbolism means a veiled mode of communication. A
poem may have a surface meaning but it may also have a deeper meaning which is
understood by the reader only by interpreting the deeper significance of the
words and phrases used. It is obvious that a symbolic poem should be richer and
more profound by the virtue of its use of symbols. However, Robert Frost’s
poems are found to be largely symbolic if they are perused closely and carefully.
“After Apple Picking” is an excellent symbolic poem of Robert
Frost. It is seen here in the poem that the speaker is picking apples in
autumn from his orchard and he is fatigued from picking up a good number of
apples. The act of harvesting apples symbolizes task in our life generally.
Afterwards, the speaker of the poem says that:
“Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.”
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.”
The speaker
senses that the winter is approaching after the autumn is over. Here ‘winter’
is the symbol of death and decay whereas ‘sleep’ is symbolic of death too.
However, the entire poem exists on the two levels: the literal harvest finishes
and the literal sleep to come, the harvest of life, now nearly finished with
the sleep of death to come. The speaker has worked hard in the harvest and now
he is tired and quite ready for death. He knows that his life is nearly over.
So he is drowsing off. The first poem in North of Boston, “Mending Wall”
has remained one of the most typical dramatic monologues with its setting in New England. In the poem, the speaker disagrees with his
neighbor at his excessive willingness to repair a wall towards the end of every
winter although the natural forces want it down. Despite it, the neighbor holds
firm to his father’s saying:
“Good fences make good neighbors.”
So, the
speaker tells him that he should always ask himself what he is willing in or
out before building a wall and who may be offended by it. Soon after that the
speaker says:
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.
That wants it down.”
That wants it down.”
“Fire and Ice” is another
symbolic poem by Robert Frost. The speaker of the poem is dwelling on
the two theories for the end of the world. Some contend that the world will
perish in fire, some ice. But the speaker favors fire and upon second thought;
he adds that ice is powerful enough to destroy the world. Here the fire
symbolizes desire or passion while ice is symbolic of cold hatred. They both
are capable of destroying the world. The underlying symbolic meaning is that
the intensity of man’s passions, which makes him human, creates the inhuman
forces of disaster. The speaker says:
“Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.”
Some say in ice.”
In “Desert Places” The poem’s speaker seems to be envious
of the woods. “The woods around it have it–it is theirs.” The woods represent
two different worlds of isolation versus society (Kolchak). Both have something
that belongs to the speaker, something he wants to become a part of. The
isolation and loneliness he speaks of is one that he wishes to have. He wishes
to be alone in order to contemplate his ideas without the distractions of the
outside world. Yet, while he wishes for the isolation, the way in which he
phrases his words shows that he also wishes for company.
In the line, “The loneliness includes me unawares,” The
speaker has shown a lost passion for life. He cannot express his feelings
easily because of this feeling of numbness. The speaker is well aware of his
situation, that he is alone in the world (Ogilvie). The speaker is now
beginning to realize that he was in this situation because he had shut himself
off to the world. He acknowledged that this winter “wonderland” represented his
life. He had let misery and solitude sneak into his life and completely take over
just as the snow had crept upon the woods and noiselessly consumed it. He
realizes that if he lets these feelings run his life, ultimately it would die
out much like the snow did to environment around him.
Robert Frost creates two winter scenes with different
outcomes. The first, “Desert Places” is a sad poem about loneliness and lost
enthusiasm. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is a rather uplifting poem
about enjoying simple things in life. Frost seems to draw upon his experiences
from living in rural New England and converts
those experiences into beautiful rustic, pastoral poetry.
2.2.2
The Major Symbols of Robert Frost :
Symbolism in Stopping by woods on a Snowy
evening:
The
most significant symbol in the poem “stopping by woods on a snowy Evening”
would be woods. Through the adjectives that the speaker uses in the poem, the
reader should recognize the tone and mood of mystery and danger. This is
evident when- he says. Through the descriptions and throughout the poem, it
becomes clear that the woods would symbolize the beauty and mystery of the
world that most people are too busy to appreciate. It is symbolic of the way
that most people always go through life – thinking only of them, being
self–centered and ignoring that mystery and beauty of the nature that surrounds
them.
Robert
Frost’s poem “stopping by Woods” symbolizes a journey of life and a movement
towards death. Almost every single element in the poem in that sense is
symbolic of something. The undefined traveler on horseback reminds one of the
knight’s of the Middle Ages in course of a heroic adventure. The cool and the
dead of night and the frozen lack in the woods. The ‘darkest
evening of the year’ – all these elements build an ambiance where the immanence
of death is at odds with the indomitable spirit of love, as exemplified by the
traveler.
The
owner of the woods is referred to but his name has not been mentioned. This can
be a reference to the mystic and almost unnamable presence of God. The oath of
the traveler to go on come what may keeping his promises before he has to
submit to the final call of death, an eternal sleep of sorts. The end of the
poem is thus related with philosophical symbolism. ‘Stopping
by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ the lovely, dark and deep woods. Why does he call
these dark snowy woods lovely? What we o associate with Dark and deep and the
answer is the grave, which is dark and deep but why does he love grave? Because
he has problem and he wants to die and release he so woods are as a symbol of
death and snow and woods under the snow might be the symbol of beauty of death.
The
woods may symbolize temptations in life, from a view they seem of mysterious
beauty. And some are tempted to stay and enjoy the view, but the traveler
chooses to continue his journey through life to reach his destination, which
should be our goals in life too. Here the frozen lake symbolize the period of birth
to death. Through the first line of the first stanza here Robert
Frost connects the word woods with life and the meaning of this line is that
life is lovely as well as dark. It symbolizes full of risk and difficulty.
So,
here the complexity of the life is symbolized with the word sleep. Last two
lines are very important.
“And
miles to go before I sleep,
And
miles to go before I sleep.”
Here this line suggests that Death is the ultimate reality of the life but
before that one has some duty to fulfill and the words like “miles to go”
indicates that there are so many works and responsibility and one has to
compete. So here “sleep” symbolizes the death.
Symbols:
Woods:
Here woods are symbolizes as contrast to civilization.
Through this poem woods
can be categorized as a symbol of death.
Nature:
In this poem, nature is the symbol and the snow is a symbol of coolness, while
frozen lake is a symbol of the death and chillness of life.
Horse:
In this poem Robert Frost takes Horse as a symbol, which symbolizes as a soul
of the poet.
Sleep:
Robert Frost conveys his ideas by the word ‘sleep;. So, this word symbolizes
Death and tells that before death an individual has to complete on fulfill
promises.
Village:
Village is symbolized here as society and civilization.
So, here Frost expresses his feelings
through various symbols.
Symbolism in Fire and Ice
The
concepts of Fire and Ice carry with them deep connotations that, in and of
themselves, prompt the recollection of the sensations they embody.For example
Fire elicits the feeling of heat and light, but also burning and pain.This
particular image is well used by Frost to create a duality with both Fire and
ice that then draws attention to the nature of the warning he creates.
Symbolism:
Symbolism is the key to
this poem. Frost very explicitly makes symbols as given below.
Fire:
Warmth, Emotions, Desire
Ice:
Coldness, Dryness, Hatred
Both
are extremes and these extremes lead towards destruction. Fire symbolize for
desire, and ice symbolizes here for hate. This coupled with the imgery that
these symbols evoke and creats a multidimensional complexity to the poem.
Because of the deeper meaning that fire and ice takes on the application and
understading of the poem is altered. Here some lines are there, which also give
symbolic imagery like.
“Fire and Ice” is
only poem of nine lines. Through this short poem Frost conveys his ideas and he
succeeded in opening our eyes for deeper meaning.
Desire to Fire and haste
to ice are haste to ice are human emotions, transformed into impersonal forces.
This poem is a lyric, which also expresses the poet’s dreaded acceptance of the
passion both of love and hatred in their most destructive from.
Symbolism in Mending Wall
“Mending
Wall” is a poem by Robert Frost, which has many symbols so
through these various symbols the poet here conveys his idea because this poem
has literal and hidden meaning, which symbolizes religious, political and
economic conflict, national, religious, racial and prejudices which divide man
from man and come in the way of mutual understanding and harmonious
relationship. Here this line symbolizes,
“Good fences make
good neighbors”
So this line is
symbolized with an old man his young neighbor, the two neighbors represent the
problem between traditional and modernity.
Age: Traditional
Here the young
wants to move away from his tradition on and rebuilt his society on the other
side the old uphold the value of the traditional and customary.
Young: Modernity
The poem seems
simple the richness of its texture is revealed only on a symbolic
interpretation, something in “Nature” is against all the fences and walls.
Symbolism in Home Burial
This poem is a
dramatic or pastoral lyric, using free-from dialogue rather than strict
rhythmic schemes. Frost generally use five stressed syllables in each lines and
divides stanzas in terms of lines of speech.
The poem describes two tragedies as
given below
1. The death of a young child
2. The death of a marriage.
So here this
poem can be read as a tragic double entendre. The mother in this poem can’t
forget that her husband himself dug the grave of their buried child. She thinks
her husband a callous person. The memory of the child has separated her from
her husband. The husband is a simple man and is baffled by the excessiveness of
her sorrow.
Home Burial symbolizes: Strain,
Isolation, and Alienation
The emotional
arguments of the mother in this poem are the symbol of strain, isolation,
alienation which is stuff of humanity in the modern age.
Symbolism in Design
“Design” is a sonnet,
which is written by Robert Frost. Here through this poem Frost conveys his
ideas as well as feelings. Here the concepts which has been taken by the poet
in this poem is an unique one.
In this poem
Frost talks about one spider who is write and the spider holds a white moth in
its mouth. Thus the pattern of whiteness is seen by the poet. The white spider,
the white flower, and the white moth with dead wings.
Here, the
pattern which Robert Frost observes is white, but in reality it is a bringing
together of different ingredients of “death and blight”.
In this poem the
poet believes that there is a power that governs things that occurs, some
unknown power weaves such appealing “designs of darkness”. But in the end the
poet admits possibility that there is no design or plans that coming together,
of the white spider, white flower and moth.
So at last Robert Frost tells and gives
nature as a symbol a kind of mother.
Symbolism in The Gift Outright
‘The Gift
Outright’ is a poem by Robert Frost, which is a patriotic poem.
This poem is a lyric. This poem ‘The Gift Outright’ symbolizes Religion.
Therefore, this poem begins with an account of the coming of the British
colonist in America.
So they become the colonials of America
and called our country as their motherland. They lacked the patriotic feeling
for the land they lived in. they believed in possession but not in
belongingness.
Here in this
poem the patriotic feeling for the country of an individual is observed or
rather than in very simple way.
Conclusion :
There are many symbolic poems, but the masterpieces are
only a few. Robert Frost is among the best poets. In his two poems “The Road
Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, Robert wrote with
boldness of conception and successfully used the symbolic medium. From these
two poems, the readers can see his originality. These two poems have the same
pattern. Both are composed of four stanzas. The subject matters are similar.
The first three stanzas describe the beautiful scene in order to foreshadow the
climax of the poem. The last stanza brings out the theme. After commenting on
these two poems, people may wonder why the poet used the farmhouse, wood… as
the background. It seems that the poet was addicted to writing rural scenery.
It is not hard to know the reason if you know a little bit about Frost’s life.
2.3
Use of symbol in the poetry of Dylan Thomas :
Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9
November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the
poems "Do not go gentle into that good night"
and "And death shall have no dominion";
the 'play for voices' Under Milk Wood; and stories and radio
broadcasts such as A Child's Christmas in Wales and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog.
He became widely popular in his lifetime and remained so after his premature
death at the age of 39 in New York
City. By then he had acquired a reputation, which he
had encouraged, as a "roistering, drunken and doomed poet". Thomas
was born in Swansea,
Wales,
in 1914. An undistinguished pupil, he left school at 16 and became a journalist
for a short time. Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a
teenager, and the publication in 1934 of "Light breaks where no sun
shines" caught the attention of the literary world. While living in London, Thomas met Caitlin
Macnamara, whom he married in 1937. In 1938, they moved to the Welsh
fishing village
of Laugharne
where from 1949 they settled permanently and brought up their three children.
Dylan Thomas is deeply influenced by French Symbolists
and has connotatively used symbols in his poetry to blend the complexity of
religious and sexual images which creates ambiguity and metaphysical nature of
words. Symbols are not only connotative but also evocative and emotive. They
evoke before the mind's eye a host of associations connected with them and are
also rich in emotional significance. It is emotive conveying the "pure
sensations" or the poet's apprehension of transcendental mystery. This research
paper attempts to analyse the types of imagery used by Dylan Thomas in his
poetry which in one way contributes the connotative meaning of the poetry but
in other way leads to ambiguity and complexity leading to layers of meanings.
Symbol is simply an image that appears continuously in a
work of art. Death` symbols in Thomas` poems are a power to understand the
whole poems. In I dreamed my genesis, Deaths and Entrances, Do not go gentle
into that good night and Elegy, the poet use an image of night as a symbol of
death. Night is something that should be struggled and faced without being
calm. Another death symbols are dust, grave, sea, bone, stairs, ghost, grass,
land, snow, fire and blood. Obviously, these symbols strengthen the atmosphere
of death in the poems. Those symbols also help the poet in making statements as
the concept of his life. The statements are `now say nay, sir no say, death to
the yes (Now), `do not go gentle into that good night` (Do Not Go Gentle into
that Good Night), `until I die he will not leave my sid` (Elegy) and so on. And
these statements would be understandable through heuristic and hermeneutic
analysis. So this analysis method provides spacious scope particularly for
student of letter department who want to make a research about sign and its
variants or any elements of literary convention in any work of art.
2.3.1
Dylan Thomas as a Symbolist :
Dylan Thomas makes extensive use of natural conventional
and prvate symbols to convey complex psychological states to his readers. He
draws symbols from different branches of sciences, philosophies, myths,
legends, literature, history, occult knowledge, bible etc.
‘Poem in October’ contains various types of
symbols. In the beginning of the poem the poet finds a heron on the shore. To
him the heron becomes a symbol of sacredness and is regarded as a priest
sitting on the seashore. The waves of the ocean rising high seem to the poet a
kind of prayer to heaven on the occasion of his birthday the call of the seagull coming from the shore the
crowing of the rooks from the wood and the knock of the sailing boats near the
harbor overhung with fishermen’s nets symbolize an invitation to the poet to
wake up and come out to enjoy the beauty of nature. The ‘Winged Trees’ symbolize the
poem in which the poet celebrates his birthday. ‘water birds and birds of
the winged trees flying my name’ here birds flying over the farms and white horses
seem to celebrate his birthday by proclaiming his name.
The word ‘dylan’ in English means ‘high tide’ and so the birds may simply be
flying the waves which are rising high. The line may simply be the fantasy of
the schizoid individual or it may refer to the present poem in which Dylan
celebrates his birthday or it may be merely the high tides which to the
poets imagination seem to be flying so high on the wings of the bird.
‘the white horses’ symbolizes something highly desirable. ‘And I rose in rainy
autumn’ signifies that the poet was born in October which is a month of autumn.
Further the ‘tall tales’ symbolizes imagination and fancy
while ‘The Gardens of Spring and Summer’ stand for the beautiful
glorious world as re-created by the imagination of the poet. ‘the weather turned around’ signifies the fact that
his escape into the fantasy world of boyhood was short-lived. The phrase ‘the
other air’ symbolizes the vision and memory of childhood. ‘parables’ and
‘legends’ stand for the wonders and glorious visions of childhood. To sum up Dylan’s
symbols are complex and many sided. Most of them are not universal but private
symbols devised by Dylan for his own.
Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle Into
That Good Night” is arguably the most famous villanelle compose in English. The
poem’s subject is death; more specifically, the death of Thomas’ own father.
Critical interpretations of the poem uniformly praise the poem’s imagery and
symbolism, while popular appraisals of the poem center around the poem’s
simplicity of language and its easily memorable, repeated lines. Though
technically restrained and simple from the standpoint of language and imagery,
the poem creates complex tensions and associations by the changing emphasis of
the repeated words and imagery.
Thomas crafted a poem which posited
his subjective experience of his father’s death and his subjective associations
with the consequences and realities of human mortality. The poem relies on
symbolic associations of a universal and enduring nature to describe a complex
interrelationship between life and death and the joy and despair of mortality.
It is due to these associations that Thomas’ poem has become one of the most
celebrated if not the most celebrated villanelle in English.
Symbols in Fern Hill :
.
Green (symbol)
Throughout
the poem, the color green symbolizes youth, innocence, and naiveté. In line 2,
the speaker is "happy as the grass was green,” possessing a simple,
innocent cheerfulness.” He repeatedly describes himself and his landscape as
green—the word appears seven times in the poem, and at least once in each
stanza. Late in the poem, children are "green and golden," but led
“out of grace,” altering the association of “green” to naiveté rather than
sweet childhood innocence. Finally, time holds the speaker “green and dying,”
associating the color that once represented youth and life with death instead.
Gold/golden (symbol)
The word “golden” appears in the poem
four times, second only in frequency to “green.” Early in the poem, the speaker
describes himself as “golden” when he is in time’s favor and mercy. Yet
eventually, the "green and golden” children are but led “out of grace” and
out of Eden,
and, like green, golden becomes a color of corruption and loss of innocence.
2.3.2
The Major Symbols of Dylan Thomas :
The famous
poet, short story writer, critic Edgar Allan Poe pioneered symbolism in poetry.
Symbolism is a literary movement which originated in France. The term ‘symbol’ broadly
signifies something therefore every word is a symbol. The study of the poetry
of Dylan Thomas is incomplete if symbolism is not read or studied in depth with
all its nuances. Poetry of Dylan Thomas is indeed like a musical evocation of
moods, vague, subtle and evanescent. The idea in Thomas’ poetry, compliment the
rhythmic association of words which is of par excellence. In literature the Symbolist
Movement began with the publication of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems: The Raven,
Ulalume, Lenore, The Haunted Palace etc. which turned out to be a landmark for
other symbolist poets. The movement was developed and found its full
articulation in 60’s and 70’s. The writers of 80’s were extremely impressed and
influenced by the aesthetics developed by Stéphane
Mallarmé and Paul
Verlaine. Jean Moréas was first to coin the term ‘symbolist’ and
later the entire western thought before Freud tried to explore the intricacies
of aesthetics through symbolism based on intuitive, instincts and suggestions.
Imagery is another literary device which is dexterously
employed by the poet for adding the imaginative value in his poetry along with
symbolism. Imagery works on all the human senses like taste, touch, sight,
smell and sound and helps to evoke the feeling of virtual reality in his poetry.
The inevitability of the sensory perception in a creative work by passionate
use of images, kinesthetic, organic or subjective imagery enhances the depth
and vividness of the world which helps the reader to connect the subjective
experience of the author to his own.
Imagery has
lots of significance in literature, the poets, playwrights and novelists use
imagery for many reasons. The main use of imagery in a work of literature is to
create mood. To help the readers understand the fictitious world, an author can
use imagery and the details of imagery frequently can be read symbolically. To
understand the mood and the symbolism in a piece while examining literature it
is essential to consider the imagery used. Strong forms of imagery use
metaphors to convey ideas.
Poem in October is an autobiographical poem of Dylan Thomas written to
celebrate his thirtieth birthday.
Dylan at this stage wanted the beauty of nature to sip into the core of his
being. He describes his leisurely walk towards the hills from the dock and this
unhurried walk in the beautiful natural landscape gives him plenty of time to
observe and articulate the natural beauty that surrounds him which is symbolic
as the upward movement depicts the journey of his life and the simple pleasures
of life which made this symbolic journey so beautiful and the climax is when he
arrives at the top of the hill which is the culmination of his youth to
maturity and the wisdom gained can be compared to the “wonder of summer”. The
first two stanzas of the poem explore the delight of youthfulness as implied in
the lines: “A springful of larks in a rolling.”
He salutes God for his existence as
he commemorates his birthday in Poem in
October:
It was my thirtieth
Year to
heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the
town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my
heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high
hill in a year's turning. (65-70)
The tone of
the poem is incantatory and the waves presume the shape of a prayer and on the
holy shore the mussels and the heron are working as the priests of the ceremony
who are blessing the parishioners. In the poems of Dylan Thomas the heron is a
symbol of holiness of thought. Therefore the nature is transcendent by the
poet. Another meaning of ‘Dylan’ is high tide. It appears as if the morning is
inviting him as he was rechristened on his birthday. The symbols in this poem
are all related to nature and have an aesthetic appeal. The poet is talking
about the change in the season’s, morning time, hills, water, gardens and
clouds which are the parts of nature and gives a soothing feeling to everyone
and pleases our senses. From the beginning till the end the poet has expressed
nature beautifully.
The use of the
word ‘rage’ in Do Not Go Gentle into That
Good Night illustrates the poet urging his father to have a strong
confrontation with death:
Do not go
gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. (1-3)
In Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
the fifth stanza is about the attitude of grave men:
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. (13-15)
Here the word
‘grave’ has two meaning, seriousness and death. These men have realised that
although they have become weak and are losing their sight, even then they can
use their vigour to fight against death. Symbolically speaking, though their
eyes are going blind, they can see with an irresistible conviction or ‘blinding
sight.’ The ‘blinding sight’ here symbolises Thomas’s father who had lost his
sight. Therefore, these men know that they are going to die, so before leaving
the world they want to see as much as they can. They believe that instead of dying
in blindness, they can ‘blaze like meteors’ which symbolises living life with
full intensity.
The poem Ceremony After a Fire Raid deals with
the death of a new-born baby in an air raid. It was written in 1945 and
published in Thomas’s Deaths and Entrances
in 1946.The theme of the poem is the death of the innocent infant in war who
got totally burnt in the arms of its mother. The poem is written into three
parts having a different structure for each part: the first part is having
grief and a confessional prayer, the second part describes the significance of
this death and the third part ends with a song of glory and joy.
In Ceremony After a Fire Raid,
the religious experience and symbolism becomes apparent as the poem progresses:
Forgive
Us forgive
Us your death that myselves the
believers (17-19)
To give
significance to the death of this child, which took place in a worldly awful
destructive war; the poet employs the biblical imagery and the symbols of the
Christian ritual and theology. The child’s death symbolically obtains some
attributes of Christ’s death and gives enlightenment to the difficulty of death
in the life of humans; but Dylan Thomas is not giving a sermon, he is just
taking pleasure in using these words, images and symbols for emotionally
elevating this poem and to please the readers aesthetically.
Fern Hill is the most famous poem of Dylan Thomas which was initially
included in Deaths and Entrances published
in 1945. The poem uses vibrant imagery and lyrical language to remember the joyful phase of childhood. The poem is
about youth and reminiscence of childhood and it tells about a period of life
when the idea of age is inconceivable. The poem is made of six nine-line
stanzas with the rhyme scheme abcddabcd.
In Fern Hill ‘time’ is personified.
“Time let me hail and climb / Golden in the heydays of his eyes,” (4-5) and
“Time let me play and be / Golden in the mercy of his means,” (13-14)
Thomas
creates imagery by expressing a feeling of freedom from the reality of time;
the speaker of the poem is young and ignorant of the momentary nature of time. Thomas
was inspired by Donne for the use of imagery and it appears that from him
Thomas obtained the facet of the principle of correspondences which became an
essential base of his symbolism. Some of Thomas’s imagery appears to emerge
precisely in the view of man as a small world and much of Thomas’ symbolism can
be significantly illustrated in terms of a mystical communication between the
spiritual world and the earthly world. In the poem "A Saint About to
Fall", Thomas views a religious meaning into the natural phenomenon of
birth and the body, where it looks like that the mother’s womb resembles
heaven, the birth of a child to the fall of a saint from heaven and the
nutritive liquid of the placenta to manna. In the poem "Altar wise by
Owl-light", it appears that the bone and blades of the spine and ribs of
the standing man signify the Jacob’s Ladder to heaven.
Conclusion
Dylan Thomas
gave huge significance to the use of imagery and for understanding his poetry
it is necessary to understand his imagery. Thomas’s vibrant imagery comprised
of fractured syntax, word play and personal symbolism. The poetic imagery of
Thomas demonstrates the use of a combination of numerous techniques, such as the
imagistic, surrealistic and metaphysical being the most important. Along with
these, his study of Shakespeare and other English poets and the Bible are also
the basis of his imagery. Semantic violations in poetry is also done by Dylan
Thomas to build peculiar but appealing aesthetic images, like the use of phrase
‘a grief ago’ in the poem A Grief Ago.
By using the word ‘grief’ with ‘ago’, to create poetic effect Thomas added the
characteristic of time-span to the word ‘grief’; though the noun phrase is abnormal,
it induces some emotions. The natural phenomenon of life and birth through the
use of images is portrayed aesthetically by Thomas in his poetry. Thomas was an
ingenious “language-changer” who created the English language into an opulently
creative blend of imagery, rhythm and literary allusion; like Shakespeare,
Hopkins, Joyce and Dickens.
Bibliography
1.
Stauffer, Donald A.
“W. B .Yeats and the Medium o f Poetry”. ELH. 3(September, 1948): 227-246
2. Jeffrey Meyers. Robert Frost: a biography.
Houghton Mifflin. Frost remained at Harvard until March of his sophomore year,
when he decamped in the middle of a term . 1996
3. Henn, T.R. The Lonely Tower: Studies in the Poetry of W.B. Yeats. Great Britain:
Methuen & Co, 1965.
4.
White,
Alana, "Symbolism in the Poetry of William Butler Yeats" (1972). Masters
Theses & Specialist Projects. Paper 1035.
5.
R.A. Brower, "The Poetry of Robert Frost:
Constellations of Intention", Oxford
UP, New York,
1963.
6. Thomas, Dylan. “Fern Hill.” PoemHunter.com. PoemHunter.com, 3 Jan
2003. Web. 27 June 2016
7. Davies, Aneirin Talfan. Dylan: Druid of
the Broken Body. London: J.M. Dent, 1964.
8. Holbrook, David. Dylan Thomas. Poetic Dissociation. Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1964.
9. Maud,Ralph. “Entrances of Dylan
Thomas I Poetry”. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963.
10. Tedlock, Dylan Thomas: The Legend S:!19. the Poet. London: Heinemann, 1960.
11. Thomas, Dylan. Collected Poems
of Dylan Thomas. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1957.
12. Treece, Beary. Dylan Thomas:
Dog among the
Fairies. New York:
John de
Graff.Inc., 1956.
Appendixes
“Symbolism exists to adorn and
enrich, not to create an artificial sense of profundity.”
― On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.
― On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.
“There is a
powerful need for symbolism, and that means the architecture must have
something that appeals to the human heart. There is a powerful need for
symbolism, and that means the architecture must have something that appeals to
the human heart.” - Kenzo Tange.
“Yeats draws his from nature, that same natural
world lorified by the romantics. Because Yeats thinks of himself as the ‘Last
of the Romantics,’a man born out of his time, he assigns his symbols other
values than the romantics did. Made ‘strange’ by those values, his ‘masked’
romantic images jolt us into recognition of their symbolical function.” - John
Unterecker.
“Frost’s best
poetry exhibits the structure of symbolist poetry. Much more clearly than does
of many a modern poet.” - Cleanth Brooks.
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