Mukhlis Tanveer Jan writer.

English Literature Tanveer Kurd.

Concepts in Literary Appreciation(III)

9. Hyperbole

This is the deliberate use of overstatement to create an impression, laughter or

humor.

Example;

Even ten thousand oceans can not wash away the filth.

10. Assonance

It is the repetition of similar vowel sounds in stressed syllables in lines of a poem

for musical effect.

Example;

Thou still unravished bride of quietness. (|ɪ| sound).

11. Ambiguity

This refers to a statement that does not have a clear meaning and has two or more possible meanings.

Example;

Stop trying to push the envelope. ( could mean that someone is pushing a real

envelope or push boundaries).

12. Rhetorical question.

This is a question that is asked to prove a point and does not require an answer.

Example;

Should we continue in sin so that grace may abound?.

Bat

BAT BY DH LAWRENCE FULL POEM/SUMMARY, SUBJECT MATTER AND THEME

By D. H. Lawrence

At evening, sitting on this terrace,

When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara

Departs, and the world is taken by surprise ...

When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing

Brown hills surrounding ...

When under the arches of the Ponte Vecchio

A green light enters against stream, flush from the west,

Against the current of obscure Arno ...

Look up, and you see things flying

Between the day and the night;

Swallows with spools of dark thread sewing the shadows together.

A circle swoop, and a quick parabola under the bridge arches

Where light pushes through;

A sudden turning upon itself of a thing in the air.

A dip to the water.

And you think:

"The swallows are flying so late!"

Swallows?

Dark air-life looping

Yet missing the pure loop ...

A twitch, a twitter, an elastic shudder in flight

And serrated wings against the sky,

Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light,

And falling back.

Never swallows!

Bats!

The swallows are gone.

At a wavering instant the swallows gave way to bats

By the Ponte Vecchio ...

Changing guard.

Bats, and an uneasy creeping in one's scalp

As the bats swoop overhead!

Flying madly.

Pipistrello!

Black piper on an infinitesimal pipe.

Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive;

Wings like bits of umbrella.

Bats!

Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep;

And disgustingly upside down.

Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags

And grinning in their sleep.

Bats!

In China the bat is symbol for happiness.

Not for me!

ABOUT DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE

D.H.Lawrence was born on 11 September, 1885 at Eastwood. Nottingham Shire in England, the fourth child of Arthur Lawrence and Lydia Beardsall. His father was a miner while his mother was of a higher social class. After teaching for a while in elementary schools, he attended Nottingham University College in 1906. He died on 2 March 1930 at Vence in the south of France. Lawrence was a prolific writer of poetry, novels, short stories, plays, essays and criticism.

POEM’S BACKGROUND

In the anthology of D.H. Lawrence titled Birds, Beasts and Flowers; the poet demonstrates love and hatred to some animals and plants. Lawrence combines ecstasy of praise and adoration with rational imagination for almond in the poem. “Almond Blossom”, Lawrence accuses the mosquito of intentionally harming humans in the poem, The Mosquito. In this poem, “Bat”, Lawrence states that he does not like bats because of their nature.

THEMES

(A) Hatred; The poet considers the bat as the ugliest of all creatures. The poet’s description of bat portrays the bird as awfully disgusting, nauseating, and noisome and an omen of ill-fortune. “Creature that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep And disgustingly upside down.” (Line 39).

(B)

One Man’s Food is another Man’s Poison: Although Lawrence depicts the bat in the apt images of ugly creature. “Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old days rags/ And grinning in their sleep”, the Chinese people consider the bat as a “symbol of happiness” (L.44). So, what the poet considers as a repugnant bird is a creature that brings gladness, joy, blissfulness and blessing to the people of China.

See also Full summary of "A Government Driver on His Retirement" by Onu Kingsley Chibuike, Theme and poetic devices

(C)

Nature: Nature is giving a priority in this poem by the ways the poet describes the beautiful setting. Names of ancient cities and places in Italy like Pisa, Florence, Mountains of Carrara, the arches of the Ponte Vecchio and River Arno are beautifully described. There is animistic nature worship in the presentation of swallows that show an acrobatic display in

“A sudden turning upon itself of a thing in the air /A dip to the water” (Lines 14 -15). Also, the poet gives credence to “the sun from the west”, “evening”, “tired flower”, “Brown hills”, “A green light”, “Stream”, “the day and the night”, “air”, “the water” as parts and parcels of nature.

CONTENT

It is very common that Lawrence is often conversational in his poems. This style is referred to as a dramatic monologue because an implied audience is being addressed. The nature of the tem shows the presence of the passive listener as in line 9 of this prem indicates: “Look up, and you see things flying” and lines 15 17 “And you think. The swallows are flying so late!”. This poem, “Bat” is a good example of dramatic monologue poem., It is the evening time as the poet sits on a terrace which is a flat area created on the side of a hill or a flat area next to a building where people can sit and relax. The opening stanzas introduces the reader to the poem’s settings in Italy where names of geographical landmarks are mentioned like Pisa, Florence, Mountains of Carrara, Ponte Vecchio and River Arno etc. The poet is observing the sunset beyond the hills in the West as the sunlight disappears gradually and darkness is falling in just as the flowers of Florence (a city in Greece) are losing their beauty. The hills around are dusty and brown because of the dryness of the season and hot weather. The vividness of the poem’s setting is illustrated in the curved pillars supporting Ponte Vecchio (a bridge across River. Arno in Greece), there is a green streak of light which is the reflection colour of the river from the sun setting.

The poet addresses the implied audience or passive listeners when he says: “Look up, you will see things flying”. The things fly at evening twilight or the transitional time between sunset and night fall. The lines made by the forward and backward movement of things (swallows) appear to act as the thread that can be used to join evening shadows together. The things or swallows in an acrobatic display move in a circle and through the “reflected light” make a mathematical curved line (parabola) under the Ponte Vecchio Bridge. The things or swallows fly forward and backward, and move up and down again to touch the water with their bodies. The things appear to be migratory birds (swallows) that often attach their nests to buildings. Swallow is a migratory swift-flying songbird with a forked tail and a long pointed wings feeding on insects in flight. The poet-speaker asks a rhetorical question: “and you think: The swallows are flying so late!” Swallows?”

Swallows are nocturnal birds but why are they flying in the evening time? Swallows have saw-wings and have a distinctive appearance with their imperfect movement in a curve crossing. It seems that swallows look like a black glove throw up and down with light in the background. The poet confesses the ‘things’ can never be swallows because they do not normally fly at night; hence, the “things” are “Bat!” The poet engages the military metaphor when he confirms that the swallow guard the bridge during the daytime while the bats do the same at night. The poet is irritated as the bats fly in battalions over his head and towards the sky. These small animals are flying about in the air swiftly and madly with their unpleasant shrill voices – like small kind of bat – “Pipistrello!”

Bats have the wings like a piece of a wretched umbrella, hang themselves upside down in rows to sleep, looking more like an

old rag. In this manner, the bats are odious, loathsome and sickening to look at especially when they “grinning in their sleep”. The poet concludes the poem in a laconic humour: “In china the bat is (a) symbol of happiness/Not for me”. In china, people regard a bat as a bird of good fortune and happiness but the poet demonstrates his powerful hatred for the creature that prowls the night and makes odious noise and sleeps like old rags.

POETIC DEVICES

(1) Language: In order to show his hatred for the bats, the poet refers to them and their characteristics in invective language like “Flying madly”, “voice indefinite”, “wildly indictive” “old rays” “disgusting” “Black Piper”. In fact, the use of “black” here has a negative connotation of “devil or evil”. The meaning of

“disgusting” is something “so bad. urfair, inappropriate etc that you feel annoyed and angry.

(2) Allusion: In the opening stanzas, allusions are made to medieval landmarks that serve as the setting of the poem. The Ponte Vecchio is a medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Amo River, in Florence, Italy. Another allusion is “Mountains Carrara” -Carrara marble is a type of white or blue-grey marble of high quality, popular for use in sculpture and building decoration. Carrara marble has been used since the time of Ancient Rome. Florence is a city found in Tuscany, Italy. The poem has a quality and adequate setting.

(3) Simile: The use of simile is apparent in this poem. The ugly appearance of bats is described in: “Wings like bits of umbrella”, “Creatures that hang themselves up like an

old rag…” “”Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the night”. The apt descriptions of bats show the poet’s aversion for the creature.

(4) Personification: Nature like sun, vegetation, the swallows, flowers and bats are all accorded human attributes to draw the reader to the poet’s belief system. The flowers in Florence are withered away, hence the poet says “When the tired flower of Florence…” (line 5) Flowers can never be tired like human beings. Swallows behave like human tailors when they are “sewing” the shadows together” (line 11). Bats behave like an insane person in being “Flying madly” (line 33).

(5) Alliteration: There are many examples of alliteration that add to the theme of this poem but prominent ones are: “When the tired flower of Florence…” (f.f) (line 4). “A twitch a twitter…. “(line 21) (t.t) Another

example is “Little lumps that My…”(line 36) (1.1).

(6) Rhetorical Question: The poet engages the rhetorical question to ask the silent audience about the identity of the creature of his discussion and to change his subject in line 19: “Swallows?” Later in the poem, Lawrence discovers the true identity of his discussion and shout: “Never swallows!/Bats”.

(7) Repetition: Although there is a little variation in the repetition, lines 38-40 are given the queer and awkward descriptions of bats as in: “Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep;/ And disgustingly upside down/ Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags”. The repetition of “upside down”, “old rags” and “disgusting” shows the poet’s strong hatred for bats. Other words repeated in the poem are “glove”, “Swallows” and “Bats”.

(8) Antithesis: Bats are the symbol of happiness and good fortune in China but the poet considers bats as a disgusting and ill-omen creatures. Hence, the poet develops chiroptophobia (fear of bats). This attitude confirms the fact that one man’s food is another man’s poison. The poet has a great love for swallows but bats receive a great condemnation from him.

(9) Metaphor: The seemingly sarcastic and negative charges against the bat make the creature a repugnant bird as in “And serrated wings against the sky” (line 22), “Black Piper”. (line 35) “Little lumps that fly in air” (line 36). Another example is “changing guard” which is a military metaphor, that is, the swallows like military men guard the bridge during the day time while bats do the same at night. Bats are therefore compared to black piper, little lumps etc.

(10) Visual Imagery: The poet is succeeded in presenting the horrible picture of bats through the visual imagery. In our inner mind, we see the image of disgust in the way bats fly, sleep upside down, their wings like a wretched umbrella. The worst description of bats is “And grinning in their sleep”.

FORM/STRUCTURE

With uneven stanzas of 45 lines, the poem is written in single prose-like form. It is a narrative prose- poem presented in free verse with occasional rhymes.

TONE

The tone of every literary work of art is whatever being read in light of the writer’s perspective. The writer state of mind is the tone. The tone of this poem is sarcastic because the poet could not see anything good in bats. The poet’s impression of bats is that they are horrible nocturnal creatures which see at night but blind during the day time.

ANALYSIS

Lawrence doesn't like bats, but this doesn't stop him writing about them in his poetry in a manner of real philosophical interest. For rather than anticipate Thomas Nagel's question and attempt to say what it's like to be a bat, Lawrence allows a proto-Derridean play of différance to infuse his writing, constructing a dummy creature with a mask-like face which parodies and subverts the very notion of an essential batness. In the short poem, 'Bat', for example, Lawrence first confuses them for swallows flying late in the Italian twilight and sewing the shadows together. But then he realises his mistake: Swallows? Dark air-life looping Yet missing the pure loop ...

A twitch, a twitter, an elastic shudder in the flight And serrated wings against the sky, Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light, And falling back. Never swallows! Bats!The swallows are gone. This realisation that he's watching bats and not birds flitting about the Ponte Vecchio and flying overhead, gives Lawrence an uneasy creeping in his scalp. He thinks of them as little clots of darkness with wings like bits of umbrella: Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep; And disgustingly upside down. Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags And grinning in their sleep.

Bats! They may very well be symbols of happiness and good fortune in China, but not so for this former resident of Eastwood. In the much longer and more amusing poem 'Man and Bat', Lawrence develops his chiroptophobia whilst again doing something of philosophical and literary import. The impure frenzy with which a bat flies round and round his room in mad circles of delirium disgusts and disconcerts him, but it also allows Lawrence to demonstrate not merely how experience might be transfigured into art and given poetic expression, but how writing is inseparable from a process of becoming. Lawrence, that is to say, establishes what Deleuze terms a zone of proximity with the bat, just as he does elsewhere with various other birds, beasts and flowers. He becomes-bat as the bat in turn becomes-rag or old umbrella. This is not something which is easy to accomplish.

But to affect a becoming of this kind is something which all great writers must achieve. Indeed, this is the very mark of literary greatness. fortune and survival of the unfittest. By presenting the free bird before depicting the caged bird, Angelou helps the reader visualize what the caged bird must have been like before its capture; the description of the two contrasting environments helps the reader feel the sense of loss of the captured bird because of its reversed fate. Even with its clipped wings, tied feet, narrow quarters, and bars of rage, however, the fragile, caged bird is still able to survive and to soar again through its song; this imprisoned bird truly epitomizes the survival of the unfittest, the major theme in the verse.

These contrasting environments—the freedom of the open world and the restrictive surroundings of the caged bird—create the setting for the poem. The reader can feel the breeze, see the sun, imagine the rich feast of fat worms, and hear the sighing trees of the world of the free creature; in contrast, the reader feels the fear and restricted movement, sees the bars, imagines the wants,...

Binsey Poplars

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,

Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,

All felled, felled, are all felled;

Of a fresh and following folded rank

Not spared, not one

That dandled a sandalled

Shadow that swam or sank

On meadow & river & wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we do

When we delve or hew —

Hack and rack the growing green!

Since country is so tender

To touch, her being só slender,

That, like this sleek and seeing ball

But a prick will make no eye at all,

Where we, even where we mean

To mend her we end her,

When we hew or delve:

After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.

Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve

Strokes of havoc unselve

The sweet especial scene,

Rural scene, a rural scene,

Sweet especial rural scene.

ABOUT THE POET

Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ (28 July 1844 — 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest.

His bold advances in poetry were often unappreciated by his Victorian contemporaries, and it was only in the early twentieth century that his genius was recognized.

His manipulation of prosody - particularly his concept of "sprung rhythm" established him as an innovative writer of verse, as did his technique of praising God through vivid use of imagery and nature. After his death, his posthumous fame established him among the leading Victorian poets.

By 1930 his work, was recognized as one of the most original literary accomplishments of his century. It had a marked influence on, such leading 20th century poets as T. S. Eliot. Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis.

Hopkins died in 1889, aged only forty-four.

BACKGROUND OF THE POEM

Gerard Manley Hopkins "Binsey Poplars" was written in the ‘19th century. 1879 to be precise. During this time, the English society was undergoing multiple transformations such as urbanization, change in ideology, etc. During the Industrial Revolution swathes of the countryside were destroyed to create railways and Hopkins was dismayed to discover that the wood from these very trees. Binsey Poplars was used to make brake pads for a local train company. whom he held responsible for carving up much local

farmland.

Hopkins. being a devout Jesuit, wrote about nature as a way to show God's greatness, through the wonder of creation. The felling of these trees affected Hopkins that he viewed it as a disfigurement of the beauty of Nature.

In this light, we can arguably deduce that the poem was written in response to the feeling of a double row of aspen trees. The poet bemoans man's reckless destruction of the environment as well as its effects.

SUMMARY OF THE POEM

In "Binsey Poplars", the poet mourns the loss of the aspen trees which grew along the river, a scene that he took in often, on his much-loved walks towards Binsey in Oxford.

He thinks of the act of tree felling as needless destruction and total environmental vandalism, and he thinks that such actions only strip Nature of her beauty.

It is important to note that it is not simply the trees that he misses, but the whole scene of which they were part, where water, air, and earth collided, to create a thing of wonder. Through the poem "Binsey Poplars", the poet persona seems to work, through the emotions of grief and sadness, anger, and finally wistfulness that this quietly glorious sight will never be available to future generations.

Finally. the poem accentuates the effect of the felling of trees to show the larger picture of the devastating effect of industrialization on the earth.

SETTINGS

The poem is set in the nineteenth century during the Victorian era. This era was marked as an immensely prosperous and chaotic time for the people of Great Britain. it was the beginning of industrialization and mechanization. However. the emergence of these inventions and more innovation led to the loss of more lands that cause a shift in the European mindset from nature and natural way of doing things to technology and innovations to get them done in an easier and faster way.

STRUCTURE AND FORM OF THE POEM

Binsey Poplars" is set out in two stanzas and follows the "sprung rhythm," the innovative metric form developed by Hopkins. In sprung rhythm, the number of accents in a line is counted, but the number of syllable's is not.

The result, in this poem, is that Hopkins can group accented syllables, creating striking onomatopoeic effects. In the third line, for example, the heavy recurrence of the accented words "all" and "felled" strike the ear like the blows of an axe on the tree trunks. However, in the final three lines, the repetition of phrases works differently.

Here the technique achieves a more wistful and song-like quality; the chanted phrase "sweet especial rural scene" evokes the numb incomprehension of grief and the unwillingness of a bereaved heart to let go. This poem offers a good example of the way Hopkins chooses, alters, and invents words with a view to the resounding of his poems.

Here, he uses "dandled" (instead of a more familiar word such as "dangled") to create a rhyme with '"sandalled" and to echo the consonants in the final three lines of the stanza. He also makes extensive use of internal rhyme and compound adjectives which lend the poem a certain urgency that effectively conveys his sadness and shock, that his beloved trees have been chopped down.

THEMES OF THE POEM

The Orderliness of Nature

Hopkins Binsey Poplar" intensifies that there is orderliness in Nature. This orderliness is captured in lines 12-15 of the poem: "Since the country is so tender/To touch, her being so slender/That like this sleek, and seeing ball/but a prick will make no eye at all." Here, the beauty and the orderliness in nature were glorified.

The Fierce Feeling of Loss

The theme of loss is another prominent theme, In stanza one, the poet eulogizes the tree with a tinge of melancholy and the whole of the poem revolves around a loss, First, the loss of some trees, especially poplars. Then he laments that the felling had disrupted the shade it provides from the sun.

Then in stanza two, the feeling of loss became intended as the poet persona now mourns the loss of familiar terrain, places he considers a heritage a natural beauty and a habitat that are now under threat from humans good intentions.

Nature is Beneficial to Human

Through this theme, the poet was able to emphasize the relationship between man and his environment, humans can't live in isolation from the environment, regardless of how hard he tries, The trees give shade and provide a cool spot for different elements of nature to find shelter from the sun.

However, humans do not reciprocate this kindness to nature. Humans would not hesitate to cut any tree with no thought of it as a negative effect on the environment, or even on humans.

Therefore, the poem emphasized that the relationship between man and nature is not balanced.

Effect of Civilization on Nature.

Civilization is good, it has brought man out of different ages from the time age to that of the iron age. Man. now has industrialization and mechanized tools that make his work, easier and faster but unfortunately, civilizations come with a steep price, and often time, nature pays for it. Factories and manufacturing companies have magnanimously contributed to the deforestation of many trees without replanting them. Also, they added to the problems by their massive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and the trees that could have absorbed this excess carbon have been felled.

POETIC DEVICES

Alliteration

The use of Alliteration in this poem makes the different words blend into each other and weave into each other harmoniously. Examples are:

Line 2. '"quelled, Quenched"

Line 3. All felled, felled are all felled"

Also See:

Line 4, Line 7, Line 8, Line 11, Line '19

Diction

The poet's use of words has been deliberately chosen to project the poet's message about the destruction of the environment. In line 6, the use of the word "dandled". which doesn't have a relation with what is being discussed in the poem base on its original meaning but the poet needed the imagery of the word as it applies to his idea.

Also, the poem contains words that are formal or high in a conversational structure. This technique is believed to give the poem some aristocratic and regal relevance.

Imagery

The poem is flush with the use of imagery. The visual images incurred by the reading of the poem are rich and magnanimous. In line one, the poet describes the tree branches as airy cages", this bears in the reader's mind that the trees retain air. In line 3, the use of the expression: "all felled. felled are all felled", is another visual image that is imaginatively created in the mind of the reader how the trees are falling and landing on the ground.

The poet creates sound imagery as seen in line 11, the use of hack, which has a sound impact of a cutting tool on a tree trunk.

Also. the poet use alliteration in various lines, and the selection of sound used in the poem create auditory imagery.

ANALYSIS

Analysis of Poem "Binsey Poplars" by Gerard Manley Hopkins Binsey Poplars is a lament Hopkins wrote after revisiting a river scene in 1879, close to where he had studied when at Oxford fourteen years earlier. He was shocked to find that a row of aspen trees had been felled, the wood being used for the boom industry of the time, the railways. Hopkins was clearly saddened by this, in his eyes, environmental vandalism. It was a sacrilege, an affront to his God, and he set about venting his emotions in a short yet poignant poem. What is unusual about this particular poem is the absence of any direct mention of divinity, which is present in many of his other poems. Some scholars do however refer to the opening lines of the first and second stanzas - My aspens dear and O if we but knew what we do - as evidence for the speaker acting as a Christ-like figure.

The very personal My and the parallel with Christ's statement on the cross - Forgive them Father for they know not what they do (Luke 23, v 24). Published in 1918 the poem is full of sprung rhythm, a metric invention Hopkins developed which he thought was closer to common speech and also held more musical energy. There's no doubting his love for and study of phonetics. Hopkins delved deep into the different sounds words make, the quality of the syllable and the weight of the word in the line.

This highly technical poet wrote in the posthumously published 1918 book: 'Sprung rhythm is measured by feet of from one to four syllables, stressed on the first....and any number of weak or slack syllables may be used for effect...any two stresses may follow one another running or be divided by one, two or three slack syllables.' Basically, what Hopkins sought was a change from the steady, plodding iambic verses common at the time he was writing. He called this kind of poetry the same and tame and so concentrated on his own unique metrics to create texture and unusual music.

He certainly did things differently. His use of invented words, alliterative and repeated language within the framework of a new rhythm, taken along by a startlingly varied syntax, began to stir up the world of poetry just around the time of the first world war. Unfortunately for Hopkins, recognition came posthumously because he died in 1889, aged 45 years of age. The devout Catholic, teacher and carer, had managed to publish only a handful of poems, known to a select few.

It was only when his long term friend and fellow poet Robert Bridges published the first book (in 1918) that his name and work came to the surface. These days he is generally held in high esteem, and his poems have become truly popular, despite the challenge of sprung rhythm, unfamiliar diction and quirky, inventive word play. Binsey Poplars is still relevant today and will more than likely go on to become increasingly known and appreciated.

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