An Introduction to Moths and Fireflies by Vidujith Vithanage

The title of Vidujith Vithange’s collection of poems, extracts, aphorisms and paintings Moths and Fireflies is intriguing enough in itself for someone browsing through a shelf of books in a book store to pause and pick the book up for a second look. Both moths and fire flies are creatures of the night; while one is considered a pestilence-bearing poor cousin of its showier diurnal relative the butterfly, the firefly is often a welcomed sight that evokes a smile in both the young and the old. The colour and the text type used in the cover of the book facilitate mystery the poet is aiming at through the selection of the title.

The book has a subtitle: “Fabled Metanoia of the Living.” The term metanoia refers to a change in one’s way of life resulting from penitence or spiritual conversion. Fittingly, the content of the book, fifty-two poems, deals with life changing events which the writer lists under three headings:

1.     Tragedy of Hits (poems 01-12)

2.     Thoughts Passing by (poems 13-33)

3.     Metamorphosis (poems 34-52) 

In the preface, Vithanage states that composition of poems is his way of reconciling with his “internal conflicts and realizations” when he is at “crossroads” of his life. The aphorisms/ extracts and the sketches that accompany almost all the poems in the book add to the reading experience. Sometimes, they also clue the reader in on what the poet is trying to say in more lay terms. All in all, the collection deals with themes such as terror, war, peace, life, death, divine will, politics, love, hope, heroism, and reason. Rain is a recurrent motif in this collection. 

Terror, War and Peace

The aptly named first section deals with life-altering tragedies, memory, fate and survival. The understated pathos in the first poem “The Curfew” is one of my favourites in the collection. The poet uses the interplay between the security personnel and the bereaved to underscore not only the profound sense of loss the man is feeling at the death of someone near and dear to him but also the human element in the men in uniforms. When the poetic persona offers the security personnel a death certificate in lieu of a curfew pass he sees the “grin melt into compassion”. However, in “Heavy Rains” deals with a disillusioned disabled soldier who has “given all to this land” to guard it against “armed terror” but left with nothing but “memories sweet” that “[b]lossom in dust”.  It hints at an ungrateful nation that has conveniently forgotten the contribution made by the armed forces to keep them safe in their most desperate hour. Continuing the same to topic in “Horrors Unknown” the poetic persona who had experienced a “[n]ightmare, three decades long”  and the subsequent peace wishes fervently for “[y]et another” to never to occur. In “Easter 2019” which the poet prefaces with Psalm: Mathew 5:43-48 which advocates the often quoted and much lauded Christian quality of loving one’s enemy, the poetic persona is resolved to hold on to his “faith” and allow God to be the judge for that “and many more crimes cold”.  

Looking at the historical military campaigns in “Ad Coronam Thermopylae (crown at Thermopylae)” the poet turns to the legend of the fabled Spartan Leonidas who is often considered to be synonymous with courage, heroism and self-sacrifice. The poetic persona sees war as an exercise set afoot by swollen egos of the invader which in the end leaves nothing but dust. However, they also offer men like Leonidas an opportunity to test their leadership qualities. The poetic persona urges the reader to remember that.  Yet, in “Stirred at Heart” the poetic persona questions the idea of heroism by presenting pictures of heroes as “grey men breathing” walking “the earth” – they are neither white nor black.  

Most human inventions are used to wage war with one another: the wheel, Vithanage says, as it turned emitted “[g]roans and mourns – barely heard.” It was the reason why Prince Siddhartha, “a prince from a land of east,” attempted to stop the wheel of Samsara which he thought as something that “burdened all that breathed/ [e]xtremes brought no fruits sweet” and resulted only in “agony bitter at rope’s end.”    

In contrast, in “Devilish Phase” the poet is engaged in a war against his inner demons: “All men hide devils in a closet down deep”. Continuing along the theme of personal battles, in “What I feel …”, the poetic persona who feels hemmed in is engaged in a battle with a judgmental society.  

As an answer to all the conflicts he has witnessed directly and indirectly, in “What if…” the poetic persona dreams of a world where there was no more “jealousy and hatred …/[f]estering within our souls”. It is a world in which human beings have stopped building “armor and walls” and in their place they are “laying bridges” so that “[n]o soul will starve or suffer anymore”.  

Life, Death and the Divine Will

In “Survived - Titanic”, the poetic persona tells the reader that his memory of the Titanic instead of fading with time gets “stronger with each passing year/ [w]ith every detail intact”. Why? One may ask. Was it because it had become a metaphor for his awareness of human frailty and overweening pride that increased with the increasing years? The poem reverses its course in the last stanza when Vithanage delegates the agency in orchestrating the tragedy to Fate instead of humans. Still preoccupied with the idea of the role in Fate, in “Mother’s Agony,” a young mother “weeps for the flesh of her flesh” and asks God to let her “fade” so that her child may “thrive”. In the last line a “profound whisper” is articulating a question that many throughout the ages have asked: “was it God’s scheme at play?” The same question is raised regarding the subject of the Easter 2019 incident when the poetic persona raises his bewildered traumatized eyes to the heavens and asks, “Was it fair, Oh lord?”  Yet, in “Let Them Hatch”, the last poem in the first section, the poetic persona takes the listener to task for not having patience and questioning the divine will. Echoing the well-known lines in the Bible the poetic persona says that the verdict would take “its own sweet time” to ripen.

However, the poet challenges this conclusion in the very first poem of the second section in which he urges a more active approach to understanding the Divine Will when he says “[t]o ‘know’ is the wisdom” and urges not to believe “[m]eekly, what we’d been told.” Vithanage’s collection is riddled with contradictory thoughts highlighting the nonlinear fashion in which the human mind works. In “A Stoic’s Melancholy,” the 28^th poem in the collection, the poetic persona once again concludes that instead of questioning one needs to learn to accept: “acceptance – a bliss,” he concludes.    

“A leaf on Float” sees life as something that is outside one’s free will: the individual is caught in something much larger than himself. Pushing the same line of argument, in “Mutare Venire (Change to Come),” the first poem of the 3^rd section of the collection subtitled Metamorphosis, the poet seems to suggest that accepting change as an inevitable part of life and learning to make the best of use of it is the best policy. “Phoenix in Flame” and “Fire-Ashes-Wind”,  too, urge the reader to see death/change as a positive regenerative phase of an endless cycle; it is the attitude one has towards death that needs changing, not the event itself. In “Greener Pastures Awaits”, a must-read poem in the selection, existence is a journey. One has to be “wise to know time’s call or lose/ [w]hen frames of thoughts forge cages to hold”. One has to take one’s “leave calmly or cease/ [t]he fire within, burning bereft a pause.”

Yet, in “Plight of Saul and Isilur’s Bane” Vitanage states that our lives are results of “chances and choices made” by us. Following the same line of argument of self-will and human agency, the little boy in “Little Johnny” asks, “Can’t I just be happy?/ [b]y doing what I please.” The last line is a strident call for freedom: “Life is mine! Not your dream to live.” One might question whether this is a too simplistic approach to the operations of power in any given society. After all it was no lesser person than the Metaphysical poet John Donne that famously proclaimed that “No man is an island”. In “A Ride in the Plains,” the poet concludes that “[l]ife well lived ain’t the years counted” but precious moments “cherished deep” which leave no regrets. Hence, in “A Wireless World” the poet laments that we have isolated ourselves in islands as a result of the technological advancements built first to link human beings; therefore, the poetic persona in “A Gush of Wind” yearns to go back to a more leisurely lifestyle. Consequently, one might say that on the issue of Vitanage’s take on human agency and self-will vs. divine plan, the jury is still out.     

One of my favourites in the collection is “Act of Creation”. In it Vithanage attempts to illustrates the minuscule-ness of human history when set against the vast canvass of universal history, meaningless of our adherence to “tongues – tribes – [and] rituals” and futility of our insistence on “reality”. He seems to posit that an all-encompassing homogenous heart/faith dominated attempt at understanding existence might yield better results when it comes to understanding being and in extension becoming. In “Envious Oceans”, too, the poet lets the reader see how puny even the mightiest creations of the mankind are when matched with the awful powers of nature. However, the poetic persona in the form of the mighty ocean that makes “[s]ailors tremble” at his “wrath” is envious of the more serene river whose life ends in the ocean. This reading is quite interesting if one is to consider the ocean as the divine and the river as the mortal. Reading this poem, I was reminded of the great Achilles’ conversation with King Priam towards the end of The Iliad in which the hero says that gods envy humans for our mortality and our capacity to feel.  

Rain

“Masks in Monsoon,” “Heavy Rains,” and “Drops or rain” are a few of the poems that feature the recurring motif of rain in Vithanage’s collection. In “Masks of Monsson” the poet deals with an interaction between the rich and the poor in an urban setting during pandemic. For the rich the lockdown sound “like a vacation” and the “[r]ains just made them [feel] cozier” whereas for the “boy, tanned, lean/ [s]oaked” it was a period of added stress. While the occupants of the luxury vehicles whose “mammoth wheel” he was attempting to change in the rain, sat inside oblivious to his discomfort, it is the nuts that held the inanimate wheel that yielded “to his will/ [a]s if steel knew his pain.”   

Politics

The poets loathing of politics in Sri Lanka is so succinctly illustrated in “The House in Colombo” where he with a few words denudes nearly 7 decades of party politics that had bleed the country dry. However, one may ask whether the voters are not similarly culpable as the rulers are nothing but an accentuated cross-section of the general populous itself. In “What I feel…” the poet explores the classic conflict between the individual and society. He feels hemmed in to the extent that he asks, “Does it really matter? What I feel…” In “Plight of Saul and Isilur’s Bane” Vitanage brings the Biblical figure Saul and Tolikn’s Isildur together to illustrate that power, in whoever’s hand it may be, ultimately corrupts.

In “A Play of Masses,” the poet uses a moment in Roman history to illustrate the power of the spoken (or written) word. It really does not matter who is right or wrong; it is the one who is best at rhetoric that ultimately manages to rouse the hoi polloi. Vithanage’s take on the afore said category might be called by some as elitist; yet, looking at the way recent events of Sri Lankan history have unfolded and the role of the spoken and written word in them, I feel the poet makes a valid argument.  

Love, Hope and Heroism

In “Love Unspoken” the poetic persona concludes love to be “[h]eart’s bane, words strain”; yet, he wishes it to be “a misery all men seek” underscoring the necessity of love as a fundamental essence that underpins the very framework of human existence. In “Compromised Living” too Vithanage claims that it is in our nature to “be daring against all odds/ [t]o bravely go into uncharted realms” where “[d]arkest corners may unveil the truest light.”

In “Heroes,” my favourite in the collection, the poet shares with the reader his dream of becoming a hero of his time. According to him, the type of heroes that “matter the most/ [l]ie” on bare earth without shelter. They are “sometimes/ [s]truggling to survive through their [own] misery.” They hold on to “warmth” in order to keep “bitterness” at bay. In “Dr. Who Dreamer,” too, is about the poet’s desire to be a fixer of “the mess-machine” who can set “right all wrongs ever done” and “put time-lines straight”. 

In contrast to the hopefulness in the previous poems, “Myths and Legends” is ambivalent about hope; acts of hopefulness in to form of heroic endeavours may end in “glorious demise or joyous bubble”. Further descending in to moroseness, in “Scribbled With Ink” the poetic persona states that good times are “just lines scribbled/ [o]n sand” and that they are “adorned/[w]ith glimmering beams” of brilliant colour in their brief moments of existence only to vanish “without a trace”.  “Starry Night”, too, is a poem charged with sadness born out of isolation and loneliness. The stars may appear “gentle, calm, and bright” to us who look at them from afar but they are “so lonely” and “cold”. “A Dame Befriended” offers an antidote to the bitterness in the poet born of hopes shatters. The poem is about a woman, his mother, who has made a strong positive impression of the poet: “Bitterness could never conquer/ [s]weetness or shroud her joy.” She lives in the moment and her advice to the poetic persona is “[s]eek no meaning – just live it”. The poet’s love for her shines through in the last two line of the poem; “A beacon to boundless souls/ [b]laze to few darling,” he calls her.

Reason

“Lost in Two Worlds” is a delightful short poem on a thieving pet cat caught “[b]arely a bite red-handed” while the dragonfly in “Oh Dragonfly” despite its ability to reach dizzying heights succumb to “What’s bright” just like the lowly fly and “circle” to its “doom/ [l]etting” reason down the gutter”. While the poetic persona is more understanding of the cat giving into its senses in order to satisfy its primary needs he is not so forgiving of the dragonfly’s irrational desire for gratification. However, Vithanage, in some of his earlier poems have quite emphatically privileged heart over head. In “Goliath and the Snake”, too, irrational Goliath “stir up” “worries” “[w]hen none is there ” and then go on to “complain/[s]aying [it is] too much to bear.” And of course, we know what happened to the giant who stirred up the snake. In “Chaotic Mind” the poet makes his final statement on the issue of the war between reason and passion. “Clarity bears fruit as it must/ [t]o a mind of warring thoughts”, says the poet as his last word on the issue.          

Weaknesses

Looking at ways to improve an already powerful debut collection of poetry, the poet’s tendency to over use inversion is the most notable flaw I have noted in the collection. Vithanage tendency to change the word order to maintain the end rhyme hindering the internal rhythm and make understanding the poem somewhat difficult. The first and the second stanza of “Stirred at Heart” is presents evidence to this:

In the golden age, ‘heroes’ of old

In tales and ballads, we were told

Men of great stature and bold

Was it their nature born?

Indeed, a mightier arm at play

To stir a surface still, in day

Hurry in, act now, you may

Whether divine or devil’s play

To ‘know’ is the wisdom, we pray

‘A plot’ set in, is on the way.

  In addition, one gets the idea that certain words are used at the end solely to maintain the external rhyme. In “[s]plashing on sand, smooth white/ [v]anished without a trace tight” (Scribbled with Ink) the word “tight” does not seem to serve any purpose except to maintain the end rhyme.     

 Also, the division of lines in several poems look questionable. The 2^nd stanza of “Ad Coronam Thermopylae” can be quoted as an example of this tendency:

‘Momento homo’ a faint whisper reverberated

Across the sands of time, ego swells doom follows,

Toiled hard, edifice to dust

A captain wields in his hands, the fate

In times desperate as tales murmured

Remember! Better late than never.

The same trend is visible in “Drops of Rain” and “A Sudden Change” among a few other poems.  Also, Vithanage’s use of what can be termed archaic terms as well as slang terms at times has a disturbing effect when it comes to reading some of his work.  

 

Answering context questions - GCE A/L (National Curriculum)

 

1.

In me/ thou seest/ the glowing/ of such/ fi-re – inversion – dramatic/rhythm //fire – extended metaphor

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, - personified

As the deathbed whereon it must expire   - rhythm – conversational /rhyme – sonnet convention  

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

The quotation is taken from “Sonnet 73” by the Renaissance poet William Shakespeare. This section comes in the third quatrain of the sonnet just before the volta/ the rhyming couplet. In this section the poetic persona – an older man who is close to death – is addressing these lines to a friend who remained loyal while others had abandoned him. Looking at the thematic relevance, the poet deals with the idea of impermanence in this section. Overall, the poem deals with impermanence of life and fickleness of many people as opposed to the fidelity of the poetic persona’s friend who remains steadfast despite the fact that there is very little time left in the poetic persona’s life. In order to convey the theme of impermanence, the poet employs an extended metaphor of a dying fire. The material that fed the fire has turned into ashes and the ashes are choking out the fire similar to the way the use of energy in the act of living generates waste that kills us. The poetic persona’s life is at a stage that is just about to be snuffed out by ashes. The tone the poet employs with regard to the reader – the friend – is one of fellowship, gratitude and admiration, while the tone he employs towards the subject matter is that of resignation. In the first line of the quote, the poet employs inversion, giving the section a dramatic effect as well as helping to maintain the iambic pentameter. The employment of the iambic pentameter gives the section a meditative yet conversational tone. Following the Elizabethan sonnet convention Shakespeare uses the rhyming pattern efef in this section, making it highly musical. Looking at the language used, the poet mainly makes use of monosyllabic Anglo-Saxon words which are economical and quick in delivery. Also they help to maintain a conversational tone.

2. 

Thou[M1] , when thou retutn’st, wilt tell me[M2] 

All strange wonders that befell thee,

And swear

Nowhere[M3] 

Lives a woman true, and fair[M4] .

 

The poem

The poet

Location

The extract is taken from “Go and Catch a Falling Star”, one of the so-called songs composed by the pioneering Metaphysical poet John Donne. This section appears in the second stanza in a poem with three stanzas. The poem being a lyric, the reader is encouraged to assume that it conveys the poet’s innermost feelings.

Who to whom why

Poetic persona’s reader – immature unsophisticated male

   Poet’s reader – friend 

 

The poetic persona in the poem appears to be a man who believes that beautiful women are incapable of being faithful which points to the fact that he may have had some unpleasant experiences with beautiful women. It appears that the poetic persona values fidelity to be the most important quality in a woman. Hence, the poetic persona is bearing his grievances to another man who seems to have a point of view that is different to his. Hence, the poetic persona, in logical lawyer-like fashion, is trying to convince the addressee of the poem the truth of his conviction. On the other hand, John Donne, the poet, may have written this poem to be shared with his friends in his courtly circle who would have needed very little tutoring on such matters.    

  

Theme of the text and the theme of the section – the relationship

The overall theme of the text is moral laxity of beautiful women. In the extract, the poetic persona drives that theme home by saying with such conviction that the addressee of the poem would tell him that he did not find a beautiful woman who was capable of fidelity even after travelling throughout the world in his quest to find such a woman. 

Tone – reader of the text and the subject matter

 

When considering the tone employed by the poetic persona in addressing the recipient of his advice, he employs world-weary tone of a jaded older man who had experienced much betrayal at the hand of the women in his life. He seems to pity the other man for his faith in women which he seems to see as lack of sophistication. However, it is not advisable to assume that the poetic persona and the poet are one and the same person as John Donne himself had not expressed such negative thoughts on women in any of his other poetry. The tone the poetic persona employs in dealing with the subject matter is quite serious to the point of being bitter. However, there are clues in the latter part of the poem which hints at the fact that the poet may not share the thoughts of the poetic persona as he allows the reader to see the loopholes in the poetic persona’s argument and his extremism.    

Techniques – how do they contribute to build the theme, tone 

The content of the poem – immorality of beautiful women – and its musicality which is evident in this section, too, are at odds with each other and hint at the fact that the poet does not take the poetic persona seriously. The section employs aabbb rhyming scheme. The internal rhythm of the first, second and the fifth lines are the same while the third and the fourth lines are dramatically short adding emphasis to the misogynistic point of view of the poetic persona. The poetic persona addresses the other man directly, “Thou, …”, creating a sense of immediacy as well as intimacy. The reader gets the idea that he is privy to intimate conversation and is compelled to sympathize with the trials and tribulations of the fellow injured male. Further the poet also makes use of inversion in the first line in order to maintain the internal rhythm and add a dramatic quality to the text. 

---

 [M1]Direct address

 [M2]inversion – helps to  maintain the rhythm and the rhyme

 [M3]line length – dramatic

 [M4]Rhyming aabbb

3. 

Thy generous fruits, though gather’d their prime (?)

Still show’d a quickness; and maturing time

But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhyme.

This extract is taken from the poem “To the Memory of Mr. Oldham” by the Augustan poet John Dryden. These three lines which forms a triplet comes towards the latter part of the poem. Dryden/poetic persona addresses the deceased poet John Oldham, a budding satirist – an example of the use of apostrophe – directly as “[t]hy” at the beginning of the triplet. In the poem poet aims to praise the younger poet while illustrating qualities that would make a good satirist. In this section, Dryden says, the younger poet had the skills but lacked the experience that would have made him an excellent poet which could be achieved only with aging. Looking at the tone employed by the poet towards the receiver, he seems to admire the younger poet on the surface; however, there is a note of implied criticism, too. Regarding the subject matter of the poem, the poet is quite serious in tone. The overall themes of the poem are the role of the satirist as well as the ideas of poiesis and techne. In the three lines, the poet says Oldham’s lines showed the composer’s talents as a born poet – he has the poiesis. However, he had not yet mastered the techne of his craft due to lack of experience. This showed in the lack of smoothness in rhyme in Oldham’s work according to the poet. He tries to downplay the criticism by calling rhyme “dull sweetness”; however, the three lines Dryden has produced here can be taken as examples of excellence in craftsmanship (techne). The poet employs unvoiced alliteration in “what we write”, internal rhythm and end rhyme with such ease borne of years of experience as well as natural skill.  Hence, through these lines Dryden expresses a note of unvoiced superiority bordering on smugness – he is supremely aware of his skill as a poet and he is being expansive in his praise of the younger deceased poet as an older established poet who is certain he had no immediate rival to his position as the top dog of his craft. The poet uses an extended metaphor from horticulture to illustrate his point when he compares Oldham’s poetry to immature fruit that is tart in taste. According to him more mature fruits – poems produced by more experienced poets - are sweeter as opposed to tarter younger fruits.

4. 

Not louder shrieks to pitying Heav’n are cast,

When husbands or when lap-dogs breathe their last,

Or when rich China vessels, fall’n from high,

In glitt’ring dust and painted fragments lie!

This section is taken from the mock-epic “Rape of the Lock” by the late neoclassical poet Alexander Pope. The two rhyming couplets appear towards the end of the prescribed section. The poetic persona addresses an unnamed reader and relates an incident that had led to an upheaval in his society. The theme of the extract is the superfluity of poetic persona’s social milieu and the need for practicing the Golden Mean in all matters of life. In the four lines quoted, the poet highlights how ridiculously inappropriate Belinda’s reaction had been to an equally un-heroic and indecorous act committed by the Baron, the “hero” of the poem. The poet invites the reader to evaluate Belinda’s reaction to the loss of a lock hair by comparing it with three other losses: death of a husband, death of a pet lap dog and shattering of a “rich China vessel”. The comparison is an example of the use of bathos which highlights the superfluity of the 18^th century English society which gave the same weight to the death of one’s husband to the death of a pet or the breakage of a China vessel. The tone the poet employs towards the reader is that of two people who understand each other. The tone he employs towards his subject matter is quite serious as befits a mock epic; however, it is that note of seriousness that invites humour. The poet makes use of parallelism when he begins sentences with “when” creating a piling up of evidence. Also, he employs visual imagery, especially in the description of the shattered China vessel.   

5.

Though at next door we might meet;

Though she were true, when you met her,

And last, till you write your letter

Yet she

Will be

False, ere I come, to two or three.

These lines appear in the third stanza of the poem, “Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star” by the pioneer metaphysical poet, John Donne. In this section, the poetic persona who can also be the poet himself, offers us a humorous critique of the ideal Madonna-like women idealized and idolized in Courtly Love Poems which were still popular among Donne’s contemporaries. The poetic persona’s strong conviction that beautiful women are inclined to be unfaithful is one of the themes in the poem. The short-liveliness of the fidelity of women is powerfully depicted through the short distance in the poetic persona’s visit to his next door where he would meet the “ true and fair” woman the listener should have found. It is quite interesting that in the lines before this excerpt, the quest to find a woman who is “true and fair” has been sanctified as a “ pilgrimage”. However, both quests finally ends up discovering the woman’s infidelity - her extra-marital relationships with two to three men. The poet has used inversion in the first two lines in order to emphasize the argument he conveys throughout the poem. It is at this point that his argument culminates. The juxtaposition of the two binary opposites “true” and “ false” illustrates the stark contradiction of the appearance and the reality of women. The emotional intensity of the cynical poetic persona whose argument is quite comic, is highlighted through the variety of line length: the shortest lines “ [y}et she/ [w]ill be” are pregnant with argumentative expression. These lines are one single sentence presented with enjambment and in a way it allegorizes “quest” which is a recurrent theme of the poem. The punctuation of the poem has been effective in  making the poem as a dramatic monologue. Use of the preposition “to” instead of “with” proves that even though act of being unfaithful is a joint venture of men and women, women are chiefly responsible for that.

6. 

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captiv’d and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be love’d fain,

   But am betroth’d unto your enemy;

These lines have been extracted from the “Holy Sonnet 14: Batter My Heart Three-person’d God” by the metaphysical poet John Donne. The poetic persona is addressing God and pleads for reassurance from God, being unable to defeat God’s enemy even with reason, the God-given faculty to the poetic persona. If the poet and the poetic persona are considered to be the same, the God’s enemy can be either Donne’s affiliations to Roman Catholic Church or the Devil - Catholics were considered heretics in his sociopolitical context. This section of the poem consists of two lines from the octave and the other two from the sestet following the Petrarchan tradition. Therefore, the problem he deals with and the resolution (volta) to which he comes by the end is bridged by the lines in the excerpt. The poet has dealt with the theme, heart vs. Reason, personifying reason as a viceroy of God. In an age of colonialism and imperialism , the poet seems to have used a familiar allusion to the colonial masters, who, here, represents the Almighty God - like the colonizers civilizing the colonized nations, God is taking the responsibility of purifying man’s soul. The God’s viceroy, reason has become either weak due to the poetic persona’s internal conflicts- as if many colonized nations rebelled against the power of their colonial agents - or unfaithful to his Lord, God. So, Donne has finally concluded that it is only faith that can make his comfort. Along with that metaphor, the poet has used another metaphor describing the poetic persona as a bride betrothed to God’s enemy. He expects God’s intervention to divorce him from God’s enemy as a more assertive God. This portrays one aspect of God which is also a theme of the poem. The reiterated first person singular pronoun “I” emphasizes the intimacy of the poetic persona to his God. This intimacy is extensively elaborated by the use of monologue in the sonnet form. The conversational tone employed by the poet and the truncation of words which maintains the internal rhythm of the poem are also crucial in making the poetic expression more vigorous.

7. 

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes

For they in thee a thousand errors note;

But’tis my heart that loves what they despise,

Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote. 

This excerpt has been taken from the “Sonnet 141” by the Elizabethan poet, William Shakespeare. This section appears as the first quatrain of the sonnet. The poem is dedicated to the Dark Lady. The poetic persona is perplexed by his perception that he is governed by his emotion instead of reason by desiring a woman who is not suited to be his mistress - who is non-aristocratic neither beautiful nor chaste. Highlighting the theme emotion vs. reason, Shakespeare has depicted the conflicting mindset of the poetic persona. However, in this war between reason and emotion, emotion becomes the victor. Therefore, he allows himself to continue desiring the woman. The symbolic use of the two words: eyes -  referring to reason; heart - referring to emotion -  has been effectively used in the conveyance of the poetic persona’s masochistic character in his relationship with her. Beginning with this part, throughout the poem we an observe a carnal allure in the Dark Lady which cannot be avoided by the poetic persona. As the interest the poetic persona has towards the Dark Lady is based on sexual drives, it is obvious that it is only an infatuation that he has; it is also a theme the poem deals with. As I believe, it is not only physical imperfections the poetic persona sees in her, but also moral faults if we are to consider that his eyes observes her with sociocultural lenses. Keeping the normal rhyming scheme -abab of the Shakespearean sonnet, the poem has been written in iambic pentameter. It keeps the poem very much English. Apart from that, it should be mentioned that by privileging emotion over reason the poetic persona is in contradiction with the ideal “renaissance man” who should overcome emotion by reason. By giving in emotion to control him, he makes himself less than a man.

 8.

In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This excerpt has been taken from the “Sonnet 73”by the Elizabethan poet, William Shakespeare. This is the third quatrain of the sonnet which is dedicated to the Fair Youth - the young handsome man. After the two extended metaphors in the previous quatrains, the poetic persona addresses the listener and asks him to see the way he is approaching his death. For this, the poet has again employed a metaphor of a dying fire which evokes a visual imagery in the reader’s mind. One’s youth is fuel to his/her life as though the fire is lit by firewood. But the same youth decades after reaching the prime of the middle age as if the fuel is eaten up and the fire glows before going to die. However, both fire and life end up with ashes and death. This conceit marks the themes of complexity of nature and the parallels between human life and nature. The picture of the ashes alludes to the burial prayer “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”. Through the use of the repeated line “[i]n me thou see’st” shows the emotional closeness of the listener to the poetic persona. There is an use of a hyperbaton as well in this line which further emphasizes his longing for the young handsome man’s love and reassurance from him. Using a dramatic monologue, Shakespeare has made the sonnet more into a personal level. However, the poetic persona is clear of his fate and seems rather relaxed in contrast to the Dark Lady poems. 

9.

And have not we affections,

Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?

Then let them use us well: else let them know

The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.

These lines  appear in the Act iii of Othello by William Shakespeare. The lines are spoken by Emilia, one of the main female characters in the drama, to Desdemona who’s one of the protagonists  in the drama as a response to Desdemona’s query whether she would dare to consider being unfaithful to her husband. Emilia’s reply highlights ideological and sociopolitical differences between the mistress and herself.  Desdemona belongs to the upper strata of the Venetian society has led a sheltered life and therefore has very limited experience on male- female  relations. Emilia who belongs to a lower stratum of the same society and has being married to the antagonist of the play Iago for a considerable period of time has a more cynical view of marriage and male female relations which comes out in these lines. Consequently these lines underscore the themes of loyalty and women as essentially fallen creatures. Emilia rejects the dominant idea that women should be held responsible  should they be unfaithful to their husbands as they are just mimicking  their husband’s behaviour towards  them: “Then let them use us well: else let them know/ The ills we do, their ills instruct us so”.  She finds it unfair that women should be considered fallen or sinful creatures for committing the same acts which men are not held responsible for. She conveys her resentment of unfair treatment of women through a series of rhetorical questions and parallel structures. The tone she employs towards her subject matter is quite charged with supressed anger resulting from a feeling of being unfairly treated. Consequently, the reader feels empathy and pathos for Emilia.

"Terrorist He's Watching'' By Wislawa Syzmborska

Wislawa Szymborska — the Nobel laureate (1996) from Poland was born in 1923 and died in 2012 at the age of 88. As a critic has noted:

Szymborska frequently employed literary devices such as ironic precision, paradox, contradiction and understatement, to illuminate philosophical themes and obsessions. Many of her poems feature war and terrorism. She wrote from unusual points of view, such as a cat in the newly empty apartment of its dead owner. Her reputation rests on a relatively small body of work, fewer than 350 poems. When asked why she had published so few poems, she said: "I have a trash can in my home".

The modern poem “The Terrorist, He is Watching” by Wislawa Szymborska is from the collection View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems. The poem has 5 stanzas of varying sizes and shapes. The line lengths are not the same. In addition, there is no discernable rhyming scheme. Through that the writer seems to be trying to convey the sheer irrationality of the acts of terrorism. Looking at the title of the poem “The Terrorist, He is watching” – somebody is watching the bar across the street, and that person is a “He,” a male. This male person who is watching the bar across the street is a terrorist. Usually, things like war and terrorism are considered male prerogatives – only things largely males are capable of. Women are usually considered guardians of life – not destroyers of life. The title is about “The Terrorist” – a particular terrorist known to the poetic persona. The readers are not told who the poetic person is; however, we know he/she has complete knowledge of what is happening at the moment: s/he knows where the bomb is, who has planted it and when it is going to explode. The question is how s/he has come to know these things? S/he cannot be another terrorist as s/he identifies the person s/he is observing as “The Terrorist” which implies that s/he is not one. S/he shares what s/he sees as s/he sees it using the present and future tenses with the reader. The tone the narrative persona initially employs is quite matter-of-fact. However, her/his experience wears down the façade and his indifference disintegrates.   

The bomb in the bar will explode at thirteen twenty.
Now it’s just thirteen sixteen.
There’s still time for some to go in,
And some to come out.

The first line of the first stanza is an end-stop line. In that, the poetic persona tells the reader quite very casually that a bomb is about to explode in a bar at a particular time. In this line the poet uses the simple future tense indicating a certain sense of inevitability. Though the poetic person has access to information, s/he is not going to intervene and stop the tragedy. The readers are not told why the poetic persona is incapable of intervening. Is s/he an undercover law enforcement officer or a journalist who cannot get involved – his/her role is only to report what is happening. One gets the notion that the poetic person might be connected to the military from the way s/he records time. We are told the bomb is set to explode at thirteen twenty (1.20 p.m.). In the second line, another end-stop line, the reader is given the present time. They had just 4 minutes before the bomb would explode, but despite the brevity of the period of time so many things happen and the poetic persona notes all those incidents carefully. The constant references to time – at times down to the precise second – generate suspense and tension. The poet uses enjambment (use of run-on lines) in lines 3 and 4. In them, the poetic persona euphemistically mentions “[t]here’s still time for some to go in, / [a]nd some to come out” – those who walk in, walk into their death and those who walk out, escape death.   

The terrorist has already crossed the street.
That distance keeps him out of danger,
and what a view- just like the movies:

The second stanza is a triplet. In the first end-stop line, the poetic persona states that “[t]he terrorist has already crossed the street” and thereby safe. By crossing the street and waiting to see the result of his diabolical action, the terrorist displays himself to be insensitive, cowardly and evil. He is subjecting others to something he is not willing to experience – through this line the poetess illustrates her criticism against using terrorism as a weapon/tool in order to realize sociopolitical and economic aspirations by certain groups. Those who use terrorism as a weapon to realize their aspirations use innocent people to do so. Unlike in traditional warfare in which the victims at least get an advance warning of the impending violence, terrorists do not give their victims any warning at all. Both the poetic persona and the terrorist have full view of the scene in front of them and the poetic persona concludes that the view looks like something form a movie. The stanza ends in a semi colon indicating that an example would be forthcoming. There is no rhyming scheme; however, the line length is more uniform in this stanza.  After this stanza, the poetic persona’s complete focus is on the victims and the survivors of this act of terrorism; s/he ignores the terrorist completely.        

A woman in a yellow jacket, she’s going in.
A man in dark glasses, he’s coming out.
Teenagers in jeans, they’re talking.
Thirteen seventeen and four seconds.
The short one, he’s lucky, he’s getting on a scooter,
but the tall one, he’s going in.     

In the third stanza the poetic persona offers us a description of the “movie” that is unfolding in front of his/her eyes. The first thing s/he notices is that “[a] woman in a yellow jacket, she is going in.” Here, the poet uses parallelism. The structure of the title is repeated whenever a person is mentioned – noun, noun + verb. Yellow is a colour associated with cheerfulness and hope. Why did she wear that colour that day? Who did she go in to meet? However, the woman is almost certain to die in the explosion. This generates a sense of pathos. In the next line a man wearing dark glasses comes out of the bar which spares his life. Both the man and the woman are grow-ups. Next he notices two teenagers “talking” in front of the bar. He checks time as if to see how close they are to death. Then he sees the “short one” “getting on his scooter” and moving away – he is going to be safe. The poetic persona concludes that it was luck that had saved him – the use of the word “lucky” indicates the sense of relief felt by the poetic persona. At the beginning the poetic persona was an uninvolved observer. However, by the third stanza s/he is becoming emotionally involved with the fates of the people in front of him/her. Then he sees “the tall one” walking into the bar. By walking into the bar he is walking into his death. All the victims of the explosions are unknown to the poetic persona and the terrorist as indicated by the use of “a woman,” “a man” and “teenagers”. The terrorist makes use of these unknown people to make a political statement – he doesn’t seem to have any regard for their lives. For him these people are just a means to an end.

Thirteen seventeen and forty seconds.
That girl, she’s walking along with a green ribbon in her hair.
But then a bus suddenly pulls in front of her.
Thirteen eighteen.
The girl’s gone.
Was she that dumb, did she go in or not,
we’ll see when they carry them out.
Thirteen nineteen.
Somehow no one’s going in.
Another guy, fat, bald, is leaving, though.
Wait a second, looks like he’s looking for something in his
pockets and
at thirteen twenty minus ten seconds
he goes back in for his crummy gloves.

The forth stanza has fourteen lines. The line lengths are quite uneven indicating the tenseness of the moment and its results on the mental state of the poetic persona. The poetic persona checks time four times within the course of the stanza. The stanza begins with the poetic persona checking time. Within the course of three stanzas one minute and forty seconds has passed. Only one minute and twenty seconds is remaining for the bomb to explode. Time is passing rapidly and the poetic persona is conscious of that. Every second decides life and death. Repeated references to the passage of time heightens tension. As soon as s/he has taken his/her eyes off the watch, s/he notices a girl, possibly someone very young, “with a green ribbon in her hair. Green as a colour stands for life and youth. The poetic persona’s view is of the girl being obstructed by the bus that stops in front of the bar. S/he is not sure whether she has gone into the bar or got on the bus. S/he almost callously states that both the reader and s/he would know “when they carry them out.” What s/he means here is that s/he would learn whether the girl has gone in or not when the bodies of the victims would be brought out after the explosion. The poetic person refers to the bodies of the victims as “they” – euphemism. Once again s/he checks time. Twenty seconds has passed and within that short time a person’s fate has been sealed. With a sense of relief, the poetic persona notices that no one goes in. In addition s/he notices “[a]other guy, fat, bald” walking out of the bar with relief and then becomes angry that he should sacrifice his life  with just twenty seconds to spare for the sake of getting his “crummy” gloves. The use of “crummy” to describe the gloves and “dumb” to describe girl illustrates the poetic persona’s concern for the safety of the man and the girl. He is frustrated to see these people walking into their death – and irrationally holds them responsible, ignoring the fact that they are unaware of what is going to happen soon. The anger of the poetic persona could be rooted in her/his inability to save them.  All the people the poetic persona sees are quite ordinary people who are in no way responsible for the grievances of the terrorist. They have to pay with their lives for the aspirations of the terrorist. The poet is raising a valid question about using violence to achieve sociopolitical objectives. Does one have the right to take away another person’s most fundamental right – the right to life – in order to realize his ambitions?  

Thirteen twenty exactly.
This waiting, it’s taking forever.
Any second now.
No, not yet.
Yes, now.
The bomb, it explodes.  

The last stanza has only 6 lines. Like the previous stanza, this too begins with a reference to time: “Thirteen twenty exactly”. Time seems to freeze. That moment seems to stand still. “This waiting,” the poetic persona says, “it’s taking forever”. He wants the explosion to be over and done with – which can be read as insensitivity. However, I would like to think that in his inability to interfere, he feels helpless. At this point, after observing for so long s/he has become emotionally involved with the victims and survivors of this tragedy – it’s too much for him/her. S/he wants closure. The two penultimate lines signal his mind moving back and forth between hope and despair. The last line of the poem - “The bomb, it explodes” – structurally echoes the title of the poem. The poem explores the irrationality and insensitivity of terrorism, the ethicality of using terrorism as a method to realize one objectives and transience of life. Another question raised in the poem is, whether what takes place in the poem – what the terrorist and his victims do – do they happen as a result of destiny or free will?  Szymborska is trying to get the reader to realize the fragility of life and destiny, how precious life is, and how even the smallest of decisions can change everything.

Critical reading

1.      In this poem, the poet presents a common event in contemporary society. How does he/ she make the reader feel it as a common/ familiar situation? A terrorist attack –

a.      conversational tone and lack of exclamation marks drawing attention to heightened feelings – one’s feelings are heightened if one is experiencing something that is extraordinary and rare

b.      use of the “we” to include the reader in the experience

c.      use of the phrase “just like movies”

d.      Everyone in the poem is nameless ordinary people and though time is mentioned repeatedly there is no reference to a specific date – this could happen to anyone, any day. 

e.      Using an ordinary place such as a bar for the setting  

2.      Is the poet conveying the idea that terrorism/ violence has become common in modern society? Yes

3.      What view of the terrorist is conveyed? The poet seems to feel that the terrorist is evil. She conveys this feeling by making the site of the act of terrorism a bar, a place community and good cheer, the victims are all ordinary people – men, women, children and teenagers – who just happen to be in the wrong place in the wrong time and for that “crime” they have to pay with their lives, instead of leaving the sight of massacre, the terrorist positions himself in a place out of danger and continues to watch the scene like a voyeur. He seems to enjoy the fact that he had power over life and death. 

4.      Does the poet convey the idea of destiny/ fate at any point – some are saved by chance? Others rush into fate?

The poet being a western Christian, the reader has to understand the worldview the poem promotes to be that of Christianity. Christianity privileges pre-destiny or design over free will – according to the Bible not even a sparrow would fall from the sky without God knowing about it. In that sense both the instigator and the victims of the bomb attack are enacting a divine plan. This takes free will/agency away from them. It is this sense of everyone being pawns in an invisible grand design that maddens the poetic persona. Through the sense of bewilderment felt by the poetic persona the poet conveys her own idea of the utter incomprehensibility of how destiny or fate operates in our lives.