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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?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.
- What do all those creatures have in common? Why should the child be afraid of
them? (4)
[Need help?]
Are they not mostly nightly creatures that would tend to frighten a child? Although I'm not sure why the
stoat should be there. It's quite friendly, isn't it?
On the other hand, children are not naturally afraid of anything. They are taught to be afraid.
Does the poet perhaps have this in mind: please don't teach the child to fear. As Frank Herbert says in
Dune, "Fear only fear itself. Fear is the great destroyer."
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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.
- Why does the poet refer to the "tall walls", the "black racks", the "wise lies" and
the "blood baths"? (4)
[Need help?]
Social poets after World War II became very concerned with forms of state violence and attempts by the
modern state to manipulate the naive mind into acquiescing in propaganda.
Modern fascism -- such as in Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia -- lay at the forefront of the
imagination, but so did the more subtle forms of manipulation shown by the western democracies.
The "tall walls", the "black racks" and the "blood baths" all have direct physical origins
in the concentration camps and the genocides.
There is probably a metaphorical link as well: to the forms of mental oppression and tyranny which
confront modern youth.
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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.
- What do the images presented in this stanza tell us about the modern world as the poet portrays
it? (4)
[Need help?]
Is not the poet referring to all the things that have been disappearing in the growing cities of the modern
world: running streams, grass meadows and trees, birds?
Nature has traditionally also been linked to purity and goodness, hence the white light referred to by the
poet.
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forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.
- Explain the "sins" mentioned here. Why should the child feel responsible for them if he doesn't
actually commit them? (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, or are forced to kill in the name of peace.
Youth is aware of the political intrigue behind the so-called "wars to end all wars", realising that they
often become 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.
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rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me.
- What is the overriding image used here? Why would the child need help with the part that he
plays? (4)
[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
crises have been written for him, either by the Great Playwright himself or certainly by other people.
Ultimately, therefore, 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.
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I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.
- Why should this stanza be so short when compared to the other stanzas? (4)
[Need help?]
What is the greatest fear in life? Is it not the fear of the man who thinks he is God?
It can be argued that the rise of Fascism in the 20th century caused greater human destruction than any
other age since the collapse of the Roman Empire, apart maybe for the great European Witch-craze which
was driven by men of religion.
It is men who think they are God who cause such destruction.
And so, why such a short verse? Well, this fear can be put very simply. The very shortness of this verse
punches home its truth!
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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, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.
- What is the common theme with all the wishes contained in this stanza? (4)
[Need help?]
A very industrial image: that of turning people into parts of a machine, or into robots which cannot think
but just do the work of those in authority or, if necessary, become killing machines.
Is this actually a new thing? Hasn't it always been like this -- only the political forces controlling it have
changed?
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Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.
- In the last line, the child says, "Otherwise kill me". What is this act of killing
called? (1)
[Need help?]
This is abortion, isn't it?
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- Comment on this final stanza as a suitable climax to the poem. (4)
[Need help?]
A climax is a series of statements which culminates at the major point : "I came, I saw, I
conquered".
This poem is all about that: a series of social statements depicting the fears of the 20th century.
There were many married couples during the latter half of the 20th century who made the choice not to
have children because they feared bringing children into this world. Is not the poet echoing such
sentiments?
His final stanza therefore thrusts his point home in the ultimate climax : either guarantee the safety of the
unborn child, or abort the birth and not bring children into this frightening world.
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