‘Mayday On Holderness’ Stanza Two
By Ted Hughes
In the poem, “Mayday on Holderness”, Ted Hughes analyses the relationship between man and nature. The theme of the second stanza is strongly focused on death, playing a part of the poem’s overall theme - the cycle of life. Another focus point of the stanza is the eternal being of nature and man’s need for it.
Hughes picks up on the inferiority of mankind in comparison to “unkillable” nature. Hughes conveys the idea that nature is immortal and lives off our deads’ remains, we see this through the listing of “tributary graves” being part of what the North Sea “swallows”. This imagery is morbid and voices Hughes’ anti-pastoral feeling. He uses this poem to establish that nature is not
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Yet, we need nature to keep everything in equilibrium and without it we would not survive. The river is accepting and making use of what humans discard or have no use for, for example, the river swallows up all: “bog pools, dregs of toadstools”. The way Hughes calls the river Humber “Sheffield’s ores” is another reference to the importance of industry and also that nature is used by mankind in the same way Sheffield uses ores;
The article offers a unique view into Hughes’s poetry, revealing another side of Hughes’s expertise as a poet. Although she does spend a great deal of time on the discussion of the importance of Hughes’s diction to the rhythms he wanted to infuse into the aforementioned five pieces, Dickinson does more than the traditional literary analysis in order to explain Hughes’s talents as a writer. With special attention given to the five of his lesser-known works, she gives the reader an opportunity to hear the music within the lines of many pieces.
In the poem there is also an idea of man verses nature, this relates to the survival of the fittest. John Foulcher shows this through the use of first person point of view. For example in the second stanza “Then above me the sound drops” this again possesses sensory imagery creating a deeper human aura throughout the poem. Foulcher further uses a human aura to build a sense of natural imagery for example in the last stanza : “I pick up these twigs and leave them” adding closure
Similarly, the water being compared to a wolf causes the reader to believe that the ocean is dangerous, and warns that in response to our careless misuse of nature, there will be consequences. In this poem Wright attempts to portray a variety of messages. Firstly, Wright conveys an element of caution, especially given the nonchalant attitude of the Australian stereotype. We cannot live constantly in an insouciant manner, as it can leave us vulnerable to any harm or serious consequences. Secondly, that destroying nature will not cause us to gain power, as we will always subservient to nature. Nature is the one aspect of life that we must accept as
This poem talks about nature and death. William Cullen Bryant shares that nature can make death less painful. He says that when we start to think about death, we should go outside, and look around and listen to the natural earth sounds. This is supposed to remind us that when we die, we will mix back into the earth. The poem tells us that when we die, we will not be alone. We will be with every other person that has ever been buried, In the ground, which in this poem is called the “great tomb of man”. It also tells us that even those that are still living will soon die and join in the great tomb of man. This poem is meant to comfort those that are afraid of dying and death in general. At the end of the poem, we are told to think of death as
Death of naturalist This poem is a fertile mixture of imagery, sounds and an impression created by nature on people’s mind. Heaney sensualises an outstanding fear of the physical wonders of the world. He vividly describes his childhood experience that precipitates his change as a boy from the receptive and protected innocence of childhood to the fear and uncertainty of adolescence. As he wonders along the pathways of salient discovery, Heaney’s imagination bursts into life.
In the poem it states “I face death”. This shows that a hyperbole is used to show that he has so little in life because he has to come face to face with something that is just a natural occurrence. Also Hughes uses hyperbole to exaggerate his role he served in the military. In Hughes poem he states “I’ve helped this world to save”.
Nature has always had a role in providing for humanity. However, what does it provide for humanity? The poems that Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh, and William Williams present touches upon the topic of this. To help support their perspective on how nature provides for humanity, and what it provides, the three of them use both imagery and structure to go into detail as to why their perspective is so.
In the poem “Loch Ard Gorge” by John Foulcher he represents his vision of the world by describing a place called Loch Ard Gorge where there is a constant battle between life and death with death slowly winning. He does this by describing the Gorge in a way that compares life and death with the sea and the land, two places which can not exist without the other yet are difficult to reconcile.
It is the idea of contrast that Hughes imposes on the reader. Hughes not only focuses on the negativity aspects of life, but through the negative elements is one able to see the positive outcomes. It is the over all theme of overcoming these obstacles, that captures the audience. Towards the end of the last stanza of the poem, we, the audience, see a complete transformation of the speaker and his view on life. He now comprehends the extensity of his actions and views his emotions as a blinding element from reality. He does not have the need to commit suicide anymore, and now fully accepts the loss and embraces the lament. "Though you may hear me holler, and you may see me cry- I'll be dogged, sweet baby, If you gonna see me die. Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine! (Conarroe pg 242, 27-33). With the passage, the reader is now aware of the transformation of the speaker.
Unlike society, Wordsworth does not see nature as a commodity. The verse "Little we see in Nature that is ours" (3), shows that coexisting is the relationship envisioned. This relationship appears to be at the mercy of mankind because of the vulnerable way nature is described. The verse "This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon" (5), gives the vision of a woman exposed to the heavens. In addition, the phrase "sleeping flowers"(7) might also describe how nature is being overrun unknowingly.
Stevens makes this fact apparent from the beginning of the poem, when he notes not only “human revery” but also “the sexual myth” and the “poem of death” (1). Therefore, these defined formulations are only categories of a greater whole, which remains unmentioned in the poem. In deliberating on Stevens’s poems, we can come to understand this encompassing whole as the imagination, which impels an individual to make “eccentric propositions” about his or her life and fate (4-5, 10).
The poem suddenly becomes much darker in the last stanza and a Billy Collins explains how teachers, students or general readers of poetry ‘torture’ a poem by being what he believes is cruelly analytical. He says, “all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it”. Here, the poem is being personified yet again and this brings about an almost human connection between the reader and the poem. This use of personification is effective as it makes the
Disgusted, the speaker sees how society has morally degraded itself in exchange for wealth and greed. The frustrated tone of the poem becomes further elevated when the speaker exclaims, "We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" (4). Blinded by the daily drudgeries of life, people have become impervious to nature, despite some of the grand displays that one can behold. The speaker describes beautiful images of nature such as the sea, howling winds, and flowers that no longer create an emotional response in people. Since the world has become so out of touch with nature, mankind is no longer able to appreciate the drama that takes place between the wind and the moon. Additionally, the speaker claims that society has become so indifferent to nature that, "Little we see in Nature that is ours;" (3).
in which Hopkins expresses his feelings towards the beauty of nature in comparison to the wretchedness of man. Both poems have endeavoured to use their different rhyme schemes, language and similes to propose their own strong views on the world.
The man describes an identical situation at the end of the poem, saying, “Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season” (76). The concept of nature as a source of order is based on its function as a cycle. The old man waits for the cycle to deliver him from his spiritually dry state to a place of fulfillment. But nature brings no change to the man and leaves him in the same arid condition in which he began. The failure of nature to provide a cycle is supported by the natural, stationary images in the poem, such as, “Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds” (12), and the “Gull against the wind, in the windy straits” (70), which shows nature forcefully impeding the progress of the bird, just as its lack of cycle reinforces the stagnation of the old man’s mind, body, and spirit.