|
READ THIS
This is a deeply descriptive poem set in the heat of summer somewhere near Louis Trichardt. The poet
dwells on the intense midday heat which causes all human activity to grind to a standstill.
Nearby, however, he hears the gentle cooing of a flock of wild doves, their sound bubbling forth as a cool
cascade of pleasure to the ears.
ABOUT THE POET
William Charles Franklyn Plomer -- pronounced "Ploomer" -- was born in Pietersburg in the
Northern Transvaal in December 1903. Today it is known as Polokwane in the Limpopo Province.
Because his father -- a magistrate -- wanted the best possible education for him, he was
home-schooled at first and then sent to England at a very early age. Later he would return to South Africa,
where he would graduate from St John's College in Johannesburg.
He turned down an offer for a degree at Oxford University but instead became a farmer in the Stormberg
region of South Africa.
He later forces with poet Roy Campbell to edit an Afrikaans literary journal known as Voorslag
but the magazine was not popular, and Campbell and Plomer had a falling-out over objectives.
Plomer became a loner, possibly because of the early separation from his family, but he also developed
an overt homosexual tendency, something which he made no attempt to hide.
He won fame in South Africa for a novel based on an interracial relationship, a theme which was new at
the time but which later became common.
He spent some years in Japan teaching at Tokyo School of Foreign Language and then at a private high
school but in 1929 returned to England which he made his base, although frequently returning to South
Africa.
He had diverse literary talents which included writing poetry, novels and even the librettos for several of
Sir Benjamin Britten's musical compositions.
He was the recipient of several honours such as an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Durham
as well as the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. In 1968 he was awarded the C.B.E.
Plomer died in England 1973 at the age of 70.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
|
TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
Morning is busy with long files
Of ants and men, all bearing loads.
The sun's gong beats, and sweat runs down.
A mason-hornet shapes his hanging house.
In a wide flood of flowers
Two crested cranes are bowing to their food.
From the north today there is ominous news.
Poets use imagery to paint a concise word-picture of a concept they have in their minds. Explain how the
imagery below achieves the poet's purpose.
- "Morning is busy with long files
Of ants and men, all bearing loads." (4)
[Need help?]
The morning is definitely very busy! There are long lines of ants working away, carrying loads which
appear greater than they can handle.
At the same there are long lines of labourers who, like ants, carry heavy loads on their backs.
|
- "The sun gong beats." (4)
[Need help?]
In colonial Africa, a gong was sounded to call the labourers to rest and to eat. In the heat of Louis
Trichardt, however, it is the sun which sounds the metaphorical gong.
In other words, when the sun reaches midday, it becomes just too hot to continue working and all collapse
into the shade to eat and sleep.
|
- "A mason-hornet shapes his hanging house
In a wide flood of flowers." (4)
[Need help?]
What is the hornet doing? He's building himself a home! What do masons do? They build! And so this
is a mason-hornet and it's building!
The poet is therefore cleverly linking together "mason" and "hornet" so as to provide the
reader with some crucial information.
At the same time, there are so many flowers in the trees that the poet calls it a flood of flowers.
|
Midday, the mad cicada-time.
Sizzling from every open valve
Of the overheated earth
The stridulators din it in
Intensive and continuing praise
Of the white-hot zenith, shrilling on
Toward a note too high to bear.
- What point is the poet making when he says that the cicadas are "sizzling from every open valve
of the overheated earth"? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet is stressing the heat of the day. It is as if the earth is a steam-engine, and steam hisses out
everywhere.
The cicadas then represent the thousands of little valves which allow the heat to pour out of the
earth-boiler.
|
- What image is the poet creating of the cicadas when he says, "The stridulators din it in intensive
and continuing praise of the white-hot zenith"? (4)
[Need help?]
The "stridators" are the cicadas, singing their endless song in their shrill way.
Again the poet wishes to stress the heat. The zenith -- the sky directly overhead -- is white hot with the
heat, i.e. the sun at midday is white in colour and glowing with super-heated warmth.
It is as if the cicadas are singing an everlasting hymn to this white hot disk in the midday sky.
|
Oven of afternoon, silence of heat.
In shadow, or in shaded rooms,
This face is hidden in folded arms,
That face is now a sightless mask,
Tree-shadow just includes those legs.
The people have all lain down, and sleep
In attitudes of the sick, the shot, the dead.
- What is the significance of the people sleeping "in attitudes of the sick, the shot, the
dead"? (4)
[Need help?]
The heat is so great that the labourers sleep where they fall.
There is no comfort here. It is as if they have been shot, or they are wounded, or they are desperately ill,
and they have collapsed onto the ground in the shade and just lie where they have fallen.
|
And now in the grove the wild doves begin,
Whose neat silk heads are never still,
Bubbling their coolest colloquies.
The formulae they liquidly pronounce
In secret tents of leaves imply
(Clearer than man-made music could)
Men being absent, Africa is good.
- If the topic of this poem is the "wild doves of Louis Trichardt", why does the poet wait until the
very last stanza before he introduces them? (4)
[Need help?]
It would seem that the poet wishes to contrast the heat of the day with the soft, cooling effect of the
dove-song.
For three stanzas, therefore, the poet stresses the super-heated conditions. Then, in only the final stanza,
he introduces the doves and at the same time tells of their cooling voices -- like a soothing, chill liquid.
An alternate translation is that if you do not suffer in the heat, you can never really appreciate the effect
of the dove-song.
So before pleasure, one needs to have pain in order to appreciate what one can get at the end of the day,
at the end of the suffering.
|
- Comment on the use of such words as "bubbling their coolest colloquies" and "the formulae
they liquidly pronounce" in the context of the poem as a whole. (4)
[Need help?]
The dove-song is like a cool, bubbling stream, is it not? Or it is like a gently cooling drink slaking the thirst
on a sizzling day.
|
- Why should the song of the wild doves imply that "Africa is good"? Comment on the
significance of these words as a fitting conclusion to the poem. (4)
[Need help?]
Despite the terrible searing heat of Africa, the dove-song provides such a cooling and relaxing effect that
it makes the heat completely worthwhile, and earns Africa the position of being a wonderful place.
|
GENERAL QUESTIONS
- What is the effect of the poet's using free verse rather than opting for a rhyming
scheme? (4)
[Need help?]
The problem with a rhyming scheme is that it can be rather stylised. Free verse, on the other hand, frees
the poet to paint his word picture in whatever manner he chooses.
|
- Contrast the themes of the first three stanzas with that of the final stanza. (4)
[Need help?]
It would seem that the poet wishes to contrast the heat of the day with the soft, cooling effect of the
dove-song.
For three stanzas, therefore, the poet stresses the super-heated conditions. Then, in only the final stanza,
he introduces the doves and at the same time tells of their cooling voices -- like a soothing, chill liquid.
An alternate translation is that if you do not suffer in the heat, you can never really appreciate the effect
of the dove-song. So before pleasure, one needs to have pain in order to appreciate what one can get
at the end of the day, at the end of the suffering.
|
|
