THE POET: Ted Hughes, the husband of Sylvia Plath, lived bewteen 1930 and 1998. He was an English poet also known for writing content that fits the children category.
THE POEM BACKGROUND: Hughes particular sailing experience is shared in the poem titled “Wind” though the word related to travelling was never seen in the poem (a prove that Ted Hughes is a very talented writer) but the mental images and repeated use of “Wind” in the poem tells the reader there was a journey going on. The first stanza had scenes of night time, while the second stanza was in the morning, there was also seedy scene to prove that the events in the poem were in motion_ take for example the forth stanza:
“The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap:
The wind flung magpie away, and a black”
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SUMMARY: In the first stanza, the poet sailed through the wet rainy night with a fierce wind. The poem still portrayed the heaviness of the wind in the second stanza of the poem though it was already daytime and sun created an orange sky. In the third stanza, the poem speaker strolled around the ship at noon but the fifth and the last stanza showed Hughes state of relationship with his companion (a fellow traveller).
SETTING AND DICTION: The diction is simple and the setting is in the ship or referrably on the sea, sailing.
THE CATEGORY OF THE POEM: It falls under travel based on the fact that the events in the poem detailed the poet’s sailing experience but from another angle, the poem belongs to nature where many natural things are given attention; the wind which at a point in the poem was considered stampeding, the hills which were booming, the sky which was also referred as orange, etc. It is important to also note that the poem reveals the supremacy of the inanimate over the animates with the wind (the inanimate) tormented the poet (the animate) and another classic poem that glorifies the inanimate over the animate is “Ode to a Grecian Urn” by John Keats where the urn held love far longer than two lovers who’s love are easily vanished by death.
THE MESSAGE IN THE POEM: The message of the poem is traced to the title “Wind” as it is mentioned multiple times in the poem “Wind stampeding the fields under the window” as seen in line three of the poem, “Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes” in line eleven of the poem, “The wind flung a magpie away, and a black” in line fifteen. So many factors called for the title of the poem and the first remains the impact it had on the journey. The second is how the wind influenced the poets relationship with his accompanied traveller as seen in the fifth stanzas of the poem “In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip/ Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought/ Or each other.”
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THE FIGURES OF SPEECH: I try look through the poet’s choice of beautifying words and I felt like the line 20-21 have a zeugma where the word “entertain” seems overused “...cannot entertain book, thought/ Or each other”. Others are “This house” in line one is a synecdoche used for representing the whole ship, “the stones cry out” is a personification, “wind wielded” is an alliteration, “orange sky” is a symbolism for a sunny afternoon, “flexing like the lens of a mad eye” is a simile, “burnt wind” is an oxymoron, “blade-light” is an imagery.
Enunwa Chukwudinma S. aka samueldpoetry
(the Leo with wings flying)
August 29, 2018
chose inanimate over animate in his poem "Ode to the Grecian Urn". In terms of beauty, the Grecian urn is everlasting while human beauty is limited to time, aging and death. Percy Shelley also followed the same footstep. Beside the theme of nature and its powerful influence in the poem "Ode to the West Wind", the poem also shows that nature is better than human in terms of strength. Shelley so much envied the strength of the West Wind to the extent that he longed to be servant of the West Wind_ knowing quite well that he couldn't measure up in strength.