Analysis of Poems and Literary Excerpts
Analysis of Literary Works
W. B. Yeats, “He Bids Beloved Be at Peace” (1899)
I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long (first lines)
HE BIDS BELOVED BE AT PEACE 1899, W. B. YEATS
The poet insists on a surprising dual invocation for horses. As the cardinal directions, they carry Apollo’s chariot (the sun) in the first six lines, even though they seem to be `shadowy horses’ of night. In the next six lines, they become `the horses of disaster.’ Yeats is pleasantly vague, but they have apparently transformed to evoke the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Yet disaster is not particularly imminent, and for Yeats `their tossing mane and their tumultuous feet’ only seem to remind him of the bittersweet passage of time, or the ephemerality of night and love. The message in the end is to relish the moment, which is apparently love of some description. We can find in the poem East and West expressions of tomorrow and yesterday respectively. But North and South seem to be pleasant evocations of the frigid northern climes, which he interestingly associates with night– and the warm outpouring of the Southern heat and love.
D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers (1913)
…They kept up a pretence of cheerfulness. Every morning when… (final, chapter XIV The release)
D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, 1913
Paul does not spend much time with Clara now, because he is occupied with his mother’s illness. Mrs. Morel gets gradually worse, and Paul spends much time caring for her. These lines reflect a conversation between Paul and Mrs. Morel in her room, asking her about her health and if she is okay. When Clara reminds him that it is her birthday, he takes her to the seashore, but spends most of the time talking about his mother and how he wishes that she would die. Paul tells Dawes that he will go abroad after his mother dies. Finally Paul decides to give her an overdose of morphia to put an end to all their suffering. He crushes all the pills they have into his mother’ milk, she drinks it to sleep. She sleeps all night and finally dies the next morning.
Rudyard Kipling, “The Secret of the Machines”
Do you wish to make the mounta. ( in a middle)
The Secret of the Machines, Rudyard Kipling
This poem is about the great status of machines in the age of industrial progress. The poet qualifies machines to define the situation from their point of view. At the beginning they describe how they were built and what their abilities are. After the illustration of the improvement in human relations over large distances assisted by machines for telecommunication, they mention the mobilization which makes bridging these distances possible. Besides the machines point out how able they are to transform nature.
In the last but one verse it is described which differences there are between humans and machines and which status they have in the world: they are more important and stronger than every human being, but they are no gods.
The poem finishes with a reminder that machines are transitory and after all created by humans.
The fifth and sixth stanza is talking about the relation of the machines to the environment. Machines can change landscapes, as written in l. 36 and the valley we have dammed becomes a lake. Machines help humans to deformate the landscape the way they want it to be. For example they dry up lakes or they flood valleys according to their specific needs.