READ THIS
The poet looks through the eyes of an unborn child at all the fears that face modern humanity, and asks
God -- or humanity? -- to spare him or her these terrors.
ABOUT THE POET
Frederick Louis MacNeice was born in Belfast in 1907. Although he was known as Freddie in his youth,
he began calling himself Louis when he was a teenager.
MacNeice was educated at Marlborough College where he showed a deep interest for ancient literature
and civilisation. He then went to Oxford University where he studied in Classics and Philosophy.
While there, he began to immerse himself in poetry and began publishing his own work. He graduated
in 1930 and then started work as a lecturer in Classics at Birmingham University, at which stage he
married Giovanna Ezra.
He thereupon lectured Greek for a short time at the University of London before joining the BBC as a
writer and producer. It was there that he found a following for his poetry amongst his radio listeners.
Early in his career, MacNeice became identified with a group of politically committed poets and writers,
people such as Stephen Spender, W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood.
Although many of these were socialist in their leanings, Macneice himself remained sceptical of political
programs and steered clear of political philosophies.
He died of pneumonia in September 1963. He was then 56 years of age.
Have you looked at the questions in the right column?
|
TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer the following questions:
I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.
- Who is praying and from where? (2)
[Need help?]
This poem is essentially a social comment on conditions in the modern world, isn't it?
Here we have an unborn child -- a foetus -- begging his mother to consider the world into which he will
be born, asking to save him from that world.
|
- What is he praying for in this stanza? (2)
[Need help?]
The first things from which the child needs salvation are all the frightening creatures of the night, beasties
that would terrify a young child.
|
I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.
- The word "console" means: to tease; to comfort; to punish; a type of
glass? (1)
[Need help?]
"To console" means "to comfort".
|
- Name two figures of speech found in "with wise lies lure me". (2)
[Need help?]
We have here a combination of alliteration and assonance.
Alliteration is the repetition of consonants, as in "with wise" and "lies lure".
Assonance, on the other hand, is a rhyming within a line, as in "wise lies".
|
Provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.
- Why should the child pray for fresh water, grass, trees, birds, bright light? (2)
[Need help?]
This poem is very much a social comment.
The poet is dwelling on all the tragic things in the growth of industrialisation and urbanisation: things like
smog, polluted water and concrete jungles for cities, where there are no trees, no grass and not even any
birds.
|
Forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit.
- Why should the child ask for forgiveness for sins he hasn't committed, but which other people will
commit? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet is referring to the major problems confronting the modern, sensitive youth who are conscripted
into armies to fight wars with which they disagree, and are forced to kill in the name of peace.
Young people are often aware of the political intrigue behind the wars, realising that the soldiers are often
merely instruments of murder, committing sins through ignorance.
We have reflected in this poem, therefore, the concept of social conscience, together with corporate
responsibility where we as individuals are responsible for the sins of others.
|
Mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom.
- Comment on the language devices used in these lines. (4)
[Need help?]
There is a major use of personification, isn't there? Mountains are given the characteristics of
humans in their ability to frown. The waves and the desert call us.
At the same time, use is made of alliteration or the repetition of consonants, as in "white
waves", and "deserts" and "doom".
|
- What is the poet's main plea in this whole stanza? (6)
[Need help?]
The poet uses the tried and tested metaphor of life being a performance on the stage, where actors strut
about with rehearsed parts and using speeches prepared for them by other people.
There is a distinct fatalism here: the actor can do nothing but face up to the crises of life because these
have been written for him, either by the Great Playwright himself or certainly by other people.
Ultimately we humans have very little control over our destinies -- or so says the poet.
The poet's prayer, then, is that he will be given prompts or cues as to what lines he must recite for each
occasion.
|
O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine.
- What is meant by "would dragoon me into a lethal automaton", and "would make me a cog
in a machine"? (2)
[Need help?]
A very industrial image: that of turning people into parts of a machine, into robots which cannot think but
just do the work of those in authority, or if necessary becoming killing machines.
Is this really something new? Hasn't it always been like this -- only the political forces controlling it having
changed?
|
Those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither.
- What is "thistledown"? Why should it be blown "hither and thither"? (4)
[Need help?]
"Thistledown" is that fluffy stuff of which dandelions seeds are made, which gets taken by the wind
and blown whatever which way, and with no control over itself.
It becomes merely a victim of the wind and the other forces of nature.
In like manner -- according to the poet -- the youth of today have no control over their lives but just get
blown around by whatever political and social forces are in operation.
|
|