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    80 Classic Poems Summarized & Analyzed
    80 Classic Poems Summarized & Analyzed
    80 Classic Poems Summarized & Analyzed
    Ebook334 pages4 hours

    80 Classic Poems Summarized & Analyzed

    By Raja Sharma

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    About this ebook

    Poetry, undoubtedly, happens to be the most beautiful form of the expressions of human emotion, sentiments, images, and the subtle ideas, however, it happens to be the most difficult form of written literature, especially for the students of English literature, for they don’t happen to be prepared for the references, connotations, and the allusions which come across in the lines written by poets belonging to different eras.

    Once you have developed the tact, you will find poetry all round you. Generally, people think that rhyming and metrical lines, metaphors and similes, etc. are the essential elements of poetry and a layman thinks that it is a kind of lyric which is often sung or recited, but anything which gives us a sense of beauty is poetry. A painting can be very poetic; a paragraph can be very poetic, even an essay can be poetic if you draw something that is close to aesthetic from them.
    In this book I have included the summary and analyses of some of the best poems written by various famous poets in different eras. Having gone through this book, I believe, that your understanding of poetry will definitely be enhanced.

    It needs patience, but once you have developed tact and taste for poetry you will see that everything around you becomes poetic.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRaja Sharma
    Release dateApr 29, 2013
    ISBN9781301865109
    80 Classic Poems Summarized & Analyzed
    Author

    Raja Sharma

    Raja Sharma is a retired college lecturer.He has taught English Literature to University students for more than two decades.His students are scattered all over the world, and it is noticeable that he is in contact with more than ninety thousand of his students.

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      80 Classic Poems Summarized & Analyzed - Raja Sharma

      Preface

      Poetry, undoubtedly, happens to be the most beautiful form of the expressions of human emotion, sentiments, images, and the subtle ideas, however, it happens to be the most difficult form of written literature, especially for the students of English literature, for they don’t happen to be prepared for the references, connotations, and the allusions which come across in the lines written by poets belonging to different eras.

      Once you have developed the tact, you will find poetry all round you. Generally, people think that rhyming and metrical lines, metaphors and similes, etc. are the essential elements of poetry and a layman thinks that it is a kind of lyric which is often sung or recited, but anything which gives us a sense of beauty is poetry. A painting can be very poetic; a paragraph can be very poetic, even an essay can be poetic if you draw something that is close to aesthetic from them.

      In this book I have included the summary and analysis of some of the best poems written by various famous poets in different eras. Having gone through this book, I believe, that your understanding of poetry will definitely be enhanced.

      It needs patience, but once you have developed tact and taste for poetry you will see that everything around you becomes poetic.

      All the best

      Raja Sharma

      Chapter 1: Dejection, an Ode by S. T. Coleridge

      Summary of the Poem

      The persona remembers a poem which tells the story of Sir Patrick Spence. In the poem, the strange appearance of the moon indicates that a storm is about to come.

      The speaker points to the unsound understanding of the weather on the part of the author of the poem. He mentions that if the author of the poem understood the weather well, there would also be a storm this night because this night the moon looks as it looked in the poem.

      The speaker has a very strong desire that a storm should break out this night, because the violent nature of the storm would bring him out of his numb feeling. He says that he feels only a dull pain, a grief without a pang—a constant deadening of all his feelings. Speaking to a woman whom he addresses as O Lady, he admits that he has been gazing at the western sky all evening, able to see its beauty but unable fully to feel it. The speaker continues that staring at the green sky will never raise his spirits, for no outward forms can generate feelings: Emotions can only emerge from within.

      In the words of the speaker, we receive but what we give. He feels that the light must come from the soul which enables us to see the true beauty of nature, a beauty which is not within the grasp of the common people. He addresses the common crowd of human beings as the poor loveless ever anxious crowd. Calling the Lady pure of heart, the speaker says that she already knows about the light and music of the soul, which is Joy. Joy, he says, marries us to nature, thereby giving us a new Earth and new Heaven, / Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud.

      Continuing his thoughts, the speaker forcefully declares that there was a time when he was full of hope, when every tribulation was simply the material with which he found happiness. In his words, fancy made me dreams of happiness. At present he is afflicted and his afflictions press him to the earth; he does not mind the decline of his mirth, but he cannot bear the corresponding degeneration of his imagination, which is the source of his creativity and his understanding of the human condition, that which enables him to construct poetry. In his words, he says, from my own nature all the natural man. He hopes that he would be able to escape the viper thoughts that coil around his mind. Now the speaker’s attention is turned towards the howling wind which has begun to blow. He thinks of the world as an instrument played by a musician, who spins out of the wind a worse than wintry song. This melody first calls to mind the rush of an army on the field; quieting, it then evokes a young girl, lost and alone.

      Though it is midnight, the speaker is not in the mood of sleep. In his words he says that he has small thoughts of sleep. However, he hopes that his friend the Lady will be visited by gentle Sleep and that she will wake with joyful thoughts and light heart. He calls the Lady the friend devoutest of my choice, and he wishes that she might evermore rejoice. Towards the concluding lines of the poem, there seems to be rising hope in the speaker’s mind.

      Form of the Poem

      Dejection is an ode. It has long stanzas metered in iambic lines ranging in length from trimeter to pentameter. The rhymes alternate between ABBA and couplets CC, though there are some exceptions.

      Critical Analysis

      Dejection is the poem through which S. T. Coleridge philosophically explores the relationship between man and nature. This sophisticated philosophical exploration of the relation between man and nature was also found in his famous poem The Nightingale.

      The poet believes that human feelings and the forms of nature are essentially separate. In his poem he wants to convey the message that we should not consider that the nightingale’s song is melancholy only because it sounded so to the poet because he was sad. Likewise, in the present poem, he says that there is definite beauty in the sky before the storm but it is not able to fill him with joy because the source of human feeling is within. The external elements can hardly bring the feeling of joy if the experiencer is internally sad. Only when the individual has access to that source, so that joy shines from him like a light, is he able to see the beauty of nature and to respond to it.

      Through the lines spoken by the speaker, Coleridge seems to be blaming his desolate numbness for sapping his creative powers and leaving him without his habitual method of understanding human nature. Despite his insistence on the separation between the mind and the world, Coleridge nevertheless continues to find metaphors for his own feelings in nature: His dejection is reflected in the gloom of the night as it awaits the storm.

      Coleridge was in love with a woman named Sara Hutchinson. The poem Dejection was originally drafted in the form of a letter to her. The original version, the one which was in the letter, was much longer and it had many of the same elements which were in The Nightingale and his other poem Frost at Midnight, including the same meditation on his children and their natural education. This version also referred explicitly to Sara (replaced in the later version by Lady) and William (a clear reference to Wordsworth). Coleridge’s strict revision process shortened and tightened the poem, depersonalizing it, but the earlier draft hints at just how important the poem’s themes were to Coleridge personally and indicates that the feelings expressed were the poet’s true beliefs about his own place in the world.

      Chapter 2: Kubla Khan by S. T. Coleridge

      Summary of the Poem

      Kubla Khan by S. T. Coleridge is one of the finest examples of the poetic imagery. The poem is the description of Xanadu, the palace of Kubla Khan, a Mongol Emperor, the grandson of Genghis Khan.

      In the opening of the poem, the speaker describes the setting of the palace. The speaker calls it pleasure dome. The speaker tells about a river which runs across the land and passing through the underground caves meets the sea. The fertile land surrounds the palace. The area nearby teems with streams, sweet-smelling trees and flowers, and beautiful forests.

      In the ensuing lines, the speaker seems to be excited while again describing the river and the canyon through which the river flows. He changes the scene into a haunted place where one might find a woman wailing for her demon lover. The speaker says that the river leaps and smashes through the canyon. It first bursts into a noisy fountain and then ultimately calms down and flows through the underground caves and finally disappears into the ocean.

      Now the speaker begins to describe Kubla Khan, the emperor. The emperor is listening to the sound of the river and he is thinking about war.

      Suddenly, the speaker changes the scene and begins to tell about another vision he had. In his vision he saw a woman playing a musical instrument and singing. The song fills him with memories and longing. He imagines himself singing and he uses his singing to create a vision of Xanadu, the palace, pleasure dome.

      In the concluding part, the poem becomes more personal and mysterious. The speaker describes past visions which he has had. Then he has the vision of a final terrifying image with flashing eyes. The emperor is a very powerful person and he seems to be almost godlike. It seems as he is under intoxication. Lines 53 and 54 describe it so beautifully: For he on honey dew hath fed/ And drunk the milk of paradise.

      Form of the Poem

      The poet has used iambic tetrameter and alternating rhyme schemes. While reciting the poet, it gives the impression of a chant. S. T. Coleridge has achieved it so beautifully. The first stanza is written in tetrameter with a rhyme scheme of ABAABCCDEDE, alternating between staggered rhymes and couplets. The second stanza expands into tetrameter and follows roughly the same rhyming pattern, also expanded— ABAABCCDDFFGGHIIHJJ. The third stanza tightens into tetrameter and rhymes ABABCC. The fourth stanza continues the tetrameter of the third and rhymes ABCCBDEDEFGFFFGHHG.

      Critical Analysis

      Kubla Khan is one of the most popular and memorable poems composed by S. T. Coleridge. The story of the poem is equally famous in the history of English poetry.

      In the short preface of the poem, the poet has mentioned that he had gone to sleep after taking the drug prescribed. The poem appeared to him in his dream. The drug it is said was like opium. It is said that Coleridge was addicted to opium and under the intoxication of the drug he had dream visions. Before going to bed, he had been reading a story about Kubla Khan. In that story Kubla Khan commanded his people to build a new palace.

      According to Coleridge, when he was in deep sleep, he had a fantastic vision and he composed more than two hundred lines. He said that all that happened in his sleep.

      When he woke up, he began to write immediately. He was writing furiously. Having completed three stanzas of the poem, there was an interruption, a visitor came there. It took him about one hour but after one hour when he resumed writing, he says, he could not recall the rest of the vision or the poetry. It is thought that the final stanza of the poem, thematizing the idea of the lost vision through the figure of the damsel with a dulcimer and the milk of Paradise, was written post-interruption. The mysterious person from Porlock is one of the most notorious and enigmatic figures in Coleridge’s biography; no one knows who he was or why he disturbed the poet or what he wanted or, indeed, whether any of Coleridge’s story is actually true. But the person from Porlock has become a metaphor for the malicious interruptions the world throws in the way of inspiration and genius, and Kubla Khan, strange and ambiguous as it is, has become what is perhaps the definitive statement on the obstruction and thwarting of the visionary genius.

      The poem is definitely thematically rich but the story of the poem’s composition overshadows the original poem. People find the story related to the composition of the poem more interesting than the original poem. Actually, Kubla Khan is one of the most haunting and beautiful poems written by Coleridge.

      The first three stanzas are products of pure imagination: The pleasure-dome of Kubla Khan is not a useful metaphor for anything in particular (though in the context of the poem’s history, it becomes a metaphor for the unbuilt monument of imagination); however, it is a fantastically prodigious descriptive act. The poem becomes especially evocative when, after the second stanza, the meter suddenly tightens; the resulting lines are terse and solid, almost beating out the sound of the war drums (The shadow of the dome of pleasure / Floated midway on the waves...).

      In the fourth stanza the speaker says that he once had a vision of the damsel singing of Mount Abora; this vision becomes a metaphor for Coleridge’s vision of the 300-hundred-line masterpiece he never completed. The speaker insists that if he could only revive within him her symphony and song, he would recreate the pleasure-dome out of music and words, and take on the persona of the magician or visionary. His hearers would recognize the dangerous power of the vision, which would manifest itself in his flashing eyes and floating hair. But, awestruck, they would nonetheless dutifully take part in the ritual, recognizing that he on honey-dew hath fed, / And drunk the milk of Paradise.

      Chapter 3: The Nightingale by S. T. Coleridge

      Summary of the Poem

      It is the time after twilight. The speaker, his friend, and his friend’s sister are resting on an old mossy bridge. A stream flows silently below the bridge. The speaker hears a nightingale’s song. He remembers that the nightingale is called a melancholy bird. He does not approve of this term and he thinks that such an assignation is ridiculous.

      The speaker says that the nature itself can’t be melancholy. A human with melancholic mood might express it and he might feel that a natural object expresses his mood. The speaker feels regrets because so many poets have written about the melancholy song of the bird, the nightingale. He thinks that they should have listened to the natural music, leaving their pens aside.

      The speaker knows that youths and maidens generally happen to be most poetical because they believe that nature’s voices are full of love and joy. The speaker tells his friends that they are different from those youths and maidens.

      The speaker says that there is a huge castle and in that castle there is a neglected grove. The speaker knows that place. He says that that place is visited by more nightingales than he has ever heard in his life, at night. According to the speaker, the harmony the nightingales create with their music covers the air, as if in a layer. He further informs that it is said that a very gentle maid has been known to walk through that grove.

      Sometimes when the mood is behind a cloud, the nightingales go quiet, but when the moon appears again, they begin to sing joyfully.

      The speaker knows that he has little time left and he bids a short farewell to his friends and to the nightingale. But he continues that if the bird started singing again, he would stay there to listen to the song. He informs that even his young son loves that sound and the child feels comforted by the moonlight. He wishes that his son would soon learn to understand that nighttime is associated with joy. Finally, the speaker bids farewell to his companions and the nightingale.

      Form of the Poem

      The Nightingale by S. T. Coleridge is subtitled A Conversation Poem. It is a good example of Coleridge’s use of blank verse—unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter—to approximate the register of natural speech. Generally, Coleridge preferred to write rhyming poetry with perfect metrical arrangement but this poem is quite different. William Wordsworth often wrote speech like poetry. The Nightingale is like the speech like poems written by Wordsworth. It is one of his most Wordsworthian poems, both in form and in theme. The use of speech like lines is deliberate to make the verse more emphatic.

      Critical Analysis

      The Nightingale is one of several Conversation Poems by S. T. Coleridge. Such poems were written during the last part of the 1790s. This poem is almost similar to Frost at Midnight, another masterpiece written by Coleridge.

      Nature is the theme of the poem and Coleridge dwells deeply in his love for nature. A dramatic setting makes this poem more beautiful. The speaker’s friend, obviously William Wordsworth, and his friend’s sister, Dorothy, are at the mossy bridge. The setting, the grove where the nightingale sings, is highly meaningful and remarkable.

      Like his earlier poem Frost at Midnight, this poem also uses the language of immediacy. And hark! The nightingale begins its song! is quite relevant to create the scene of immediacy and it requires the immediate attention of his friend and his friend’s sister. The nightingale and its song serve as the metaphors which represent nature.

      In the concluding part of the poem, the speaker diverts his attention towards his young son and he wishes and hopes that his son would also learn quickly to understand nature and find his delight among the natural objects. In fact, The Nightingale is almost the social version of the solitary Frost at Midnight—while the one shows the speaker musing alone, the other shows him holding forth to companions; while the one is concerned with the mute frost and the silent moon, the other celebrates the melodious, expressive song of the nightingale.

      On the surface, the poem seems to be celebrating the beauty of nature, but if we dig beneath the surface we get the most important thematic idea that nature should not be described as an embodiment of human feelings. A person may be melancholy and if he listens to the song of a nightingale he might say that the nightingale’s song is melancholy, but it is just a fallacy. That man is reflecting his mood and he is describing the nature through his present mood. The nightingale’s song is definitely not melancholy. Philomela’s pity-pleading strains (a reference to the Greek myth that describes the nightingale as a transformed maiden) is not, for Coleridge, an accurate way to describe the nightingale’s song; instead, nature has its own immortality, and to project human feeling onto that immortality is to profane it. In simple words, the poet wants to covey to us that we spoil the beauty of nature through our own moods and our own personal conclusions about nature.

      Coleridge seems to be bringing us home the idea of essential joyfulness of nature and we should be inspired by it. We should not try to project our own feelings on the screen of nature, which we very often do, and which has been done by so many poets over the centuries. Coleridge’s speaker regrets that many poets have enforced their feelings onto the essential joyfulness of nature. The poet wants that his son should learn it quickly that nature is free from our personal feelings, and he feels that the poets who have not understood this fact have yet to learn it.

      Chapter 4: Frost at Midnight by S. T. Coleridge

      Summary of the Poem

      The poem begins on a frosty windless night. The frost has started to perform its secret ministry. Two piercing cries of an owlet shatter the prevailing silence. The inmates inside the speaker’s cottage are fast asleep. He is sitting alone, with a sleeping child in a cradle beside him. The absolute silence is highly distracting for the speaker. He feels that sea, hills, wood, and the populous village are almost like inaudible dreams. The thin blue flame of the fire burns without flickering; only the film on the grate flutters, which makes it seem companionable to the speaker, almost alive—stirred by the idling Spirit.

      The speaker remembers his childhood and declares that as a child he often watched that fluttering stranger on the bars of his school window and daydreamed about his birthplace and the church tower whose bells rang so sweetly on Fair-day. These images and thoughts made him sleep in his childhood, and he thought over them at school, only pretending to look at his books—unless, of course, the door opened, in which case he looked up eagerly, hoping to see Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved, / My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!

      The speaker looks at the sleeping child in the cradle and he addresses the child Dear Babe, that sleeps cradled. The child’s breath fills the silences in the speaker’s thought and he declares that it makes him very happy to look at his beautiful child.

      The speaker loves nature and he is happy for his child. The speaker was raised in the great city, but he is happy that his child will wander in the beautiful rural countryside. The child will be in the vicinity of lakes, shores, and mountains. The speaker thinks that the child’s spirit will be molded by God.

      The speaker declares that all seasons will be pleasant to his child. The summer, the green earth, the robin redbreast’s song between tufts of snow on the branch, the storm, the frost, and the icicles, etc. will be all round his child. He is highly satisfied and happy.

      Form of the Poem

      The poem Frost at Midnight is written in blank verse. The lines follow the iambic pentameter. It is a Romantic verse monologue.

      Critical Analysis

      It is believed that the speaker of the poem Frost at Midnight is Coleridge himself. This is a quiet poem which gives a very personal restatement of the themes of the early English Romanticism. Nature was the predominant theme of the most of the poems written by the poets during that era, however, there is a great difference between the theme of nature handled by Coleridge and his peers.

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