Reading Poetry

University Degree Historical and Philosophical studies

Part 2 Reading Poetry: The Faber book of Beasts

Explain what the poem is about and consider whether you think the poem is more traditional or dissenting.

Edwin Muir’s “The Horses” provides a story starting with pessimistic view of the nuclear holocaust, continues with the story of survivors and their move back to the life before technology, and ends with an optimistic image of the future after. In his poetry, beneath the story of his life he saw the fable of man—Eden, the fall, the journey through the labyrinth of time. Muir made much use of his dreams and of myths, for in them the fable is most clearly seen. (Christianson, 2004) In this poem, the poet relates to his temporal experiences —the Second World War and his perception of an underlying timeless reality. Muir experienced to the full the fear of the twentieth century: the Wars, new regimes, and changes in the world. In “The Horses” he describes a vision of life after the nuclear holocaust. The idea to go back to the nature after the war probably was based on Muir’s feelings that “a larger unity—between the human community and the animals and the natural surroundings.” (Christianson, 2004)

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The poem has no rhyme schemes or conventional metres as it is written in a blank verse, and it is divided into two. The first verse presents a picture of the pessimistic world after the nuclear holocaust - “war that put the world to sleep”, and the second verse makes a turn to the more optimistic change, the coming back to the beginning, return to the nature – “Tractors lie about in fields <...> moulder away”, “strange horses came <...> they were creatures to be owned and used”. The horses have symbolic meaning - the return to the past, “we had sold our horses in fathers’ time <...> now they were strange to us <...> yet they waited <...> their coming our new beginning”. In the poem, the neglect of technology - “the radios failed <...> dumb”, “we make our oxen drag our rusty plows”, “The tractors lie about our fields <...> We leave them where they are and let them rust” persuades the reader to prefer unity of humans and nature, which was Muir’s vision of life. The poem is modern and dissents from tradition. It has the appearance of being prose like, and has just been cut into verse to differ. Poetry techniques help us to gain a clear understanding of the poem, see that it talks about warfare and traditional poets did not usually write about this topic. However, poems that appear to be different always show traces of tradition. (Brown, 2008) Even though “The Horses” had been written in free verse the other poetry techniques used reveal traces of tradition. For example, the phrases “war that put the world to sleep”, “Old bad world that swallowed its children quick”, “the nations lying asleep, curled blindly” use a device of personification. This helps Muir to make the things described more vivid to the reader and was used by traditional poets. The use of a simile is found in the lines “like dank sea-monsters”, “like a wild wave charging”, “as fabulous steeds set on ancient shield” helps the reader to compare the feelings of people in the poem with their own. The alliteration of “dead bodies piled on the deck” highlights this short phrase and contributes to euphony of the verse, ending it a musical air. To present a bit softer approach to the poem, Muir uses euphemism – “the seven day war that put the world to sleep”, implies to the reader that the seven day war had deadened the world, but “sleep” softens the tone; “lying asleep” in the line “the nations lying asleep curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow” gives yet another softer approach to the meaning of death. The poem itself is related to Muir’s central vision of the mystery of our common humanity.

Bibliography

Christianson, A., ‘Muir, Edwin (1887–1959)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed, May 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35141, accessed 5 Jan 2011]

Brown, R., D. (2008) ‘Reading Poetry: The Faber Book of Beasts’, in Price, C. (ed.) Tradition and Dissent (AA100 Book 2), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 39 - 70.

Muldoon, P., ed. (1997) The Faber Book of Beasts, London, Faber and Faber, pp. 119-120.

OED (Oxford English Dictionary), Oxford University Press, online ed 2010, [ , accessed 6 Jan 2011]