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READ THIS
The poet remembers an incident which took place some 18 years earlier when his son, Sean, left him to
join a group of friends at school.
The incident was perfectly natural -- it happens to every parent -- but it reverberated down the years so
that, almost two decades later, the poet still remembered the event as clearly as the day on which it
happened.
NOTE ON THE POET
Cecil Day-Lewis was of Irish descent, having been born in Ballintubbert in County Laois, the son of a
clergyman and his wife.
He was just two years old, however, when his mother died, at which point his father moved to London
where the young child did all his schooling. He eventually graduated from Oxford University in 1927.
Despite this prolonged English education, he always regarded himself as Anglo-Irish although, when
Ireland eventually gained independence from Britain, he chose British citizenship rather than Irish.
He began work as a school teacher, then later became involved in the publishing industry before
eventually taking up a lecturing post at Cambridge University. Later he accepted a Professorship in Poetry
at Oxford before transferring to Harvard University in the United States.
For a while -- just before the outbreak of World War II -- he joined the communist party, during which
time his poetry took on a distinctly socialist flavour. Disillusion soon set in, however, and he parted
company with the socialists.
Day-Lewis had a troubled marital life, being married first to Mary King and then to Jill Balcon. These two
marriages resulted in five children. He also had several extra-marital affairs during which he probably
fathered a further two children.
He was appointed Poet Laureate of Britain in 1968 but died from pancreatic cancer just four years later.
He was then 68 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:
"It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day --
A sunny day with the leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled -- since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
Behind a scatter of boys."
This verse contains an example of parenthesis.
- What is the purpose of parenthesis? (2)
[Need help?]
Parenthesis refers to text which is placed inside brackets or dashes -- even perhaps between commas.
Its purpose is to supply additional but not absolutely necessary information in such a way that it does not
interfere with the main theme of the sentence.
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- Identify the parenthesis in this verse. (2)
[Need help?]
" -- A sunny day with the leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled -- "
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- What is the poet's purpose in using this parenthesis? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet wishes to say the following in his sentence:
"It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day
since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
Behind a scatter of boys."
He then wishes to add some information which is in no way important to the sentence as a whole but
which is nevertheless important to the poet's memory of that day, namely what type of day it was and what
he can now remember of the place where this event took place.
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"Something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature's give-and-take -- the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one's irresolute clay."
- What does the poet mean when he speaks of "nature's give-and-take"? (4)
[Need help?]
Within nature there is always give-and-take, birth-and-death, growth-and-decay.
In Chinese philosophy, this is referred to as "yin" and "yang" which are two principles at play
in life, one of which is negative, dark, and feminine (yin), while the other is positive, bright, and masculine.
"Yin" and "yang" then have interactive influences on the destinies of all creatures.
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- Explain the very rich image which the poet presents with the words, "the small, the scorching
ordeals which fire one's irresolute clay". (4)
[Need help?]
The image here is of the potter, is it not? The potter moulds his creation of clay but it is never complete,
never perfect until it has withstood the scorching heat of the potter's fire.
Inferior specimens will crack when tried by such heat, and will then be discarded. Only the perfect survive
and then go into the service for which they were created.
The clay is "irresolute clay" because it is soft and malleable, and can be moulded into whatever
fashion the potter can conceive. The "small, the scorching ordeals" are what takes away the
irresoluteness and gives the creation its eternal value.
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"I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show --
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go."
- If the poet has experienced "worse partings", why then would this "walking away" be the
one which gnawed at his mind even after eighteen years? (4)
[Need help?]
The "worse partings" could possibly be the sudden, more violent ones -- like death.
This "walking away" probably came unexpectedly. Although the poet would have been wise enough
to know that his son would gradually drift away into independence, perhaps he wasn't expecting it to
happen so soon and so completely.
One expects various emotions to continue to hold the child in orbit for a while longer so that, as other
forces start tugging, his orbit slowly begins to widen and widen until almost complete independence occurs
at around the time of adulthood.
In this case, however, the child was "wrenched" from its orbit, and the former relationship between
the father and his child would never be fully restored.
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- What emotions are conjured up with the word "gnaws"? (2)
[Need help?]
When a dog "gnaws" at a bone, or a rat "gnaws" a hole through a wooden skirting board,
the action is long and painful. "Gnawing" always carries the implication of hurt or pain.
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GENERAL QUESTIONS:
The poet concludes that there are two dramatic lessons to be learned from this "walking away".
What are they? (4)
[Need help?]
The two lessons are summed up in the following quotations:
- "Selfhood begins with a walking away";
- "Love is proved in the letting go".
In other words, only by means of letting the child go does that child progress into a mature, self-driven
adult being. In addition, real love of the father for his child is proved by this action of letting go.
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What emotions does the poet convey in his title, "Walking away"? (4)
[Need help?]
There would appear to be several possible emotions: pride, selflessness, sadness, fulfilment. Can you
think of any more? Be able to explain why.
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