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READ THIS
The poet writes about an incident from his childhood when he was continually confronted with lower class
boys whom his parents disliked and warned him to avoid.
Despite their warnings, however, the boy found himself admiring and possibly even envying certain
elements of their life although he was also afraid of their rough, bullying ways.
ABOUT THE POET
Spender was born in London in 1909. His parents were both literary people, his father being a journalist
while his mother was a painter and a poet.
Theirs was middle class society and typically for those days, they tended to despise the ways of the
working class. His parents' attitude would naturally influence the poet as a young boy -- hence the theme
of this poem.
The poet initially attended Oxford University but did not finish his degree. Indeed, he was very proud of
the fact that he had never ever passed an exam in his whole life.
While he was at Oxford, however, he fell under the influence of the poet W. H. Auden with whom he
did some major collaboration. Later he would also pal up with both Louis MacNeice and Cecil
Day-Lewis, as well has many other rising English poets.
Instead of finishing his degree, Spender spent time in Germany where he studied some of the German
poets.
Germany during the 1920s was a hotbed of socialism and Spender became caught up in this political
movement -- becoming for a time an ardent admirer of communism itself.
The world in which he lived, however, quickly came to be dominated by a struggle between fascism and
communism, and Spender became involved in this clash of ideals. Indeed, he even launched himself into
the Spanish Civil War where he opposed the fascist dictator, General Franco.
Despite his lack of a degree, Spender's proven poetic track record allowed him to teach at various
American universities. In 1965 he was appointed "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry" to the
United States Library of Congress.
He would eventually return to England, however, where he took up a post as Professor of Rhetoric at
Gresham College and, later, Professor of English at the University College in London.
As early as 1962, Spender was awarded a C.B.E. and was knighted in 1983. He died in 1995 at the age
of 86.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
"My parents kept me from children who were rough
and who threw words like stones and who wore torn clothes.
Their thighs showed through rags."
- Why should the poet's parents have despised the fact that these children wore "torn
clothes"? (4)
[Need help?]
Torn clothing was a sign of being working class. The poet's parents, however, were middle class who
despised anything that smacked of being working class. It was therefore a class thing, an elitist thing.
It wasn't so much the torn clothing as such but the fact that the torn clothes were ALL that the children
could afford to wear. It was the quality of their clothing which designated their class: they were too poor
to afford better quality clothing.
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- The poet mentions specifically that, as a result of their rags, the children's thighs showed. Why does
he specifically speak of their thighs and not, say, their tummies? (4)
[Need help?]
It was a moral issue. Middle class morality demanded that a person be well dressed but especially that
their sex area be fully hidden. Any girl, for instance, who wore revealing clothes would have been
regarded as a trollop and a tart.
Because of their torn clothing, these children often showed bits of flesh in the thigh area. A tummy would
have been OK but to reveal one's thigh was regarded as deeply immoral.
The parents of these children didn't care because their morality was different to the middle class.
By the way, the middle class had formed their morality from the idea that their wealth was a blessing from
God. But a blessing -- and therefore their wealth -- could just as easily be taken away.
The middle class was therefore very puritanical, trying to avoid sin at all cost. Because they saw sin and
sex as walking hand in hand, they focussed very largely on the type of clothing that they wore, wearing
nothing which might be regarded as sexual and therefore sinful.
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- What does one learn of the social status of the poet's parents and the children whom they appear to
despise? (4)
[Need help?]
This has been mostly answered in the previous answer.
The poet's parents were middle class and had middle class morality.
The children came from working class backgrounds and therefore did not have middle class morality.
Indeed, the poet's parents would have claimed that they did not have morality of any sorts.
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- Does the poet agree with his parent's attitudes? Explain. (4)
[Need help?]
A child does not really possess morality as such because morality is, after all, a philosophical standpoint.
A child sees things rather as being right or wrong. It's either black or its white. Whereas philosophy paints
things in shades of grey.
The child therefore saw some of the things done by the children as bad: e.g. bullying, teasing and fighting.
On the other hand, he saw other things as good: e.g. being able to play freely and splash around in the
streams. He would sometimes have loved to have played with these children if only they would have let
him.
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"They ran in the street
And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams."
- The parents would have despised these children because they "stripped by the country
streams". At the same time, however, the poet himself appears to have envied them. Be able to
explain their differing points of view. (6)
[Need help?]
Read an earlier answer about middle class morality.
Middle class morality placed a heavy emphasis on being properly clothed. Indeed, a partially clad person
was regarded as sinful.
During the poet's childhood, for instance, a woman's bathing costume would have covered everything right
down to her ankles. Men's costumes, on the other hand, were much the same as a modern female one-
piece costume. Anything more revealing would have been regarded as immoral.
These children "stripped by the country streams". It's doubtful that they would have stripped naked
but they might have stripped down to their underwear.
That would have been regarded as quite dreadful for the poet's middle class parents -- certainly not
something that they wished their little boy to see.
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- What did the parents find wrong about running in the street, climbing cliffs and splashing in country
streams? (4)
[Need help?]
It might have had something to do with schooling. Middle class children went to school. Working class
children did not.
These children therefore had the time to run around the streets, play in the forests and splash around in
the streams. They should have been in school!
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"They were lithe, they sprang out behind hedges
Like dogs to bark at our world."
- What is meant by "lithe"? (2)
[Need help?]
A good definition of "lithe" is "to be slender, moving and bending with ease".
The children were slender, mostly because they were working class who probably lacked sufficient food
to eat. But they were also very active children, playing all the time and keeping fit.
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- What is the implication of the words, "they sprang out behind hedges | Like dogs to bark at our
world"? (4)
[Need help?]
This is very derogatory, isn't it? The children are seen to be like little animals, not fully human.
Like little monkeys, they spring out of the bushes and hedges. And they are forever shouting, just like little
dogs that are forever barking at passersby.
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- Why are the children compared to dogs? What figure of speech is this? (3)
[Need help?]
It's very insulting. The very word "dog" carries a pejorative, insulting meaning. "What do you
expect from him? He's just a dog!"
The children are also shouting a great deal, like dogs that are forever barking.
This is a simile.
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- What is the difference between what the poet calls "our world" and the world of the
children? (4)
[Need help?]
This is again the class thing.
The poet's parents were middle class, whereas the children were working class. The middle class
regarded themselves as owning the world. They were usually the owners of the shops and the little
factories.
The village was therefore their world, which they owned.
The working class, on the other hand, were the workers. They did not own the world. Indeed, they owned
nothing except their clothes -- and these were often secondhand.
It was therefore a case of "them" and "us". "They" -- the working class children --
were therefore barking "at our world".
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