CU-MA-Eng-SEM-IV-Specialization I - Postcolonial Poetry-Second Draft

3. Discuss Gabriel Okara as a black writer 4. Summarize the theme of the poem 'Piano and Drums' 5. What are the major works of Gabriel Okara B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. During ____________, Okara attempted to enlist in the British Royal Air Force but did not complete pilot training. a. World War II b. World War I c. Cold War d. Rose of War 2. Okara worked for the Nigerian Ministry of Information in the late ___________. a. 1950s b. 1960s c. 1940s d. 1930s 3. Okara found himself in conflict with some cultural aspects of the new _____________. a. Nigeria b. Andra Pradesh c. Africa d. America 4. In Okara’s “Piano and Drums\", the poet discusses the confusion that is created when western culture mixes with ___________ culture. a. African b. American c. Chinese d. Afghan 101 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

5. Celebration of ____________ is one of the themes of Okara's \"Piano and Drums\" a. Nature b. Life c. Dreams d. Imagination Answers 1-a, 2-a, 3-a, 4-a, 5-a 5.10 REFERENCES References book  Patel, G. (2007). Poetry with young people. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.  Thomas J. T. (2004). Child poets and the poetry of the playground. Children’s Literature  Bishop, Edward. (1989). A Virginia Woolf Chronology. Macmillan Press, London.  Spiropoulu, Angeliki. (2010). Virginia Woolf, Modernity and History: Constellations with W.Benjamin. Palgrave, London. Textbook references  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56907/raw-meditations-on-money-1-she- speaks-a-school-teacher-from-south-india Websites  https://d7.drunkenboat.com/db20/reviews/finds-larger-chaos-meena-alexanders- birthplace-buried-stones-wallis-wilde-menozzi  https://ijllnet.com/journals/Vol_5_No_3_September_2018/23.pdf  https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Raw+Meditations+on+Money-a077035217  https://poem.shivyogastudio.in/2021/03/a-school-teacher-from-south-india.html 102 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

UNIT – 6 JUDITH WRIGHT: “THE OLD PRISON, FIVE SENSES”, “MAGPIES”,“TO A CHILD” STRUCTURE 6.0 Learning Objectives 6.1 Author’s Introduction 6.2 The Old Prison - Poem 6.3 Analysis - The Old Prison 6.4 Five Senses - Poem 6.5 Analysis Five Senses 6.6 Poem - Magpies 6.7 Analysis – Magpies 6.8 To a Child - Poem 6.9 Analysis – To a Child 6.10 Summary 6.11 Keywords 6.12 Learning Activity 6.13 Unit End Questions 6.14 References 6.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to:  Understand the concepts of Australian poets  Expound the theme of the Judith Wright’s poems  Interpret Judith Wright’s works 6.1 AUTHOR’ S INTRODUCTION Judith Wright (1915-2000) Prolific Australian poet, critic, and short-story writer, who published more than 56 volumes of poetry and short stories. Judith Wright, whose work was deeply rooted in the landscape of 103 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

her native Australia, was an uncompromising environmentalist and social activist campaigning for Aboriginal land rights. She believed that the poet should be concerned with national and social problems. At the age of 85, just before her death, she attended in Canberra a march for reconciliation with Aboriginal people. Rhyme, my old cymbal, I don't clash you as often, or trust your old promises music and unison. I used to love Keats, Blake; now I try haiku for its honed brevities, its inclusive silences. Judith Arundell Wright was born near Armidale, New South Wales, into an old and wealthy pastoral family. Later she wrote of her family affectionally in The Generations of Men (1959). Wright was raised on her family's sheep station. After the death of her mother in 1927, she was educated under the supervision of her relatives. At the age of 14, after her father remarried, she was sent to New England Girls' School, where she found consolation in poetry, publishing in 1933 her first poem. In 1934 she entered Sydney University. Wright studied philosophy, history, psychology and English, without taking a degree. When Wright was in her 20s, she became progressively deaf. Between the years 1937 and 1938, she travelled in Britain and Europe. She then worked as a secretary-stenographer and clerk until 1944. From 1944 to 1948 she was a university statistician at the University of Queensland, St. Lucia. At the age of 30 Wright met her lifelong partner, the unorthodox self-taught philosopher J.P. McKinney, 23 years her senior. Their marriage was happy, the union between two creative minds. Officially they were married only a five years before McKinney died. He was a writer, too. He had fought in World War I and published a prize-winning novel, Crucible (1935), about a young Australian soldier on the Western Front. He wrote also a radio serial, The Noonan Family. Most of Wright's poetry was written in the mountains of southern Queensland. Her husband's thought was central to Wright's poetry, but McKinney himself found little response to his ideas in professional philosophical journals. After his death Wright stopped publishing poetry for a period but channeled her energy into activism. Protesting the policy of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Premier of Queensland, Wright left her home state in the mid-1970s, and settled in a remote property (she called it 'Edge') near the heritage 104 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

town of Braidwood, south of Canberra, where she wrote many of her later nature poems. Later in life she lived in a one-room flat in Canberra. At that time all her hearing was gone, and she suffered from poor eyesight and heart problems, but she led an active life, made new friends among local member of the Aboriginal Reconciliation movement, and gave occasional talks and poetry readings. During her career as a writer, Wright did not reject hack work, school plays for Australian Broadcasting Commission or children's books, as a means of livelihood. She lectured part- time at various Australian universities. In 1975 she published a collection of her addresses and speeches in Because I was Invited. Wright was appointed a foundation fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and an emeritus professor of the Literature Board of the Arts Council of Australia. Wright's memoir, Half a Lifetime (2000), covered her life until the 1960s. Wright died of a heart attack in Canberra on June 26, at the age of 85. Her ashes were scattered around the mountain cemetery of Tamborine Mountain. Wright had owned a strip of rainforest nearby, which she donated to the state so it could be preserved as a national park. Her daughter Meredith McKinney edited with Patricia Clarke a selection of letters by the author and Jack McKinney, entitled The Equal Heart and Mind (2004). Wright started to publish poems in the late 1930s in literary journals, such as Sydney Morning Herald, Bulletin, and Meanjin Papers. She made her debut in 1946 with The Moving Image, in which she showed her technical excellence free from the burden of fashionable trends. Most of the poems were written in wartime - in 'The Trains' Wright took the threat of the war in the Pacific as her subject. The main theme was the poet's awareness of time, death, and evil on a universal scale. With the following collections Wright gained a reputation as a wholly new voice in literature, with a distinctly female perspective. The title poem from Woman to Man (1949) dealt with the sexual act from a woman's point of view. 'The Maker' paralleled the creation of a poem and the creation of a child. Several of her early works such as 'Bullocky' and 'Woman to Man' became standard anthology pieces. Wright also wrote love poems to her husband. His death in 1966 and her increasing anxiety over the destruction of the natural environment introduced more pessimistic undercurrents in her work. Wright's lover for 25 years was Dr H.C. \"Nugget\" Coombs, the former Governor of the Reserve Bank, political adviser, and advocate for Aborigines. Coombs was trapped in an unhappy marriage and only close friends and family members knew of the relationship. I praise the scoring drought, the flying dust the drying creek, the furious animal, that they oppose us still; that we are ruined by the thing we kill. 105 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Wright's lyrical work was inspired by the various regions in which she lived: New England, New South Wales, the subtropical rainforests of Tamborine Mountain, Queensland, and the plains of the southern highlands near Braidwood. The natural world, like in the poems of Pablo Neruda, was the canvas to which she projected her relationship to her country. T.S. Eliot's influence can be seen in Phantom Dwelling (1985); other poets that influenced her were Wallace Stevens and W.B. Yeats. With McKinney she shared an interest in Jung's theories. A new period in Wright's life started in the mid-1950s: \"The two threads of my life, the love of the land itself and the deep unease over the fate of its original people, were beginning to twine together, and the rest of my life would be influenced by that connection.\" In The Two Faces (1955) she took Hiroshima as an example of man's power to destroy even the cycles of nature. Wright's activism on conservation issues led her to focus on the interaction between land and the language. Realistically, she also expressed doubts about the power of poetry to change the scheme of things. According to Wright, \"the true function of art and culture is to interpret us to ourselves, and to relate us to the country and the society in which we live.\" She started to see that her mission was to find words and poetic forms to bridge the human experience and the natural world, man and earth. \"Poetry needs a background in which emotional, as well as material values are given their due weight; and the effect of this shallowness of roots is easily traceable in Australian writing, with its uneasy attempts to solve or to ignore the problem of its attitude to the country.\" Alienation from the land meant for Wright crisis of the language. She criticized the education system for failing to teach students the pleasures of poetry, and promoted the reading and writing of poetry in schools. \"I think one of the best disciplines I know of, for young Australians brought up on a diet of English poetry, is to study Chinese and Japanese poems,\" she adviced an aspiring writer, Fiona Cook, who later became a novelist and wrote a book of the landscapes which inspired Wright. In the early 1960s, Wright helped to found Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland. She fought to conserve the Great Barrier Reef, when its ecology was threatened by oil drilling, and campaigned against sand mining on Fraser Island. A the time she expressed her concern about the secrecy surrounding the Australian Labor Party's uranium mining policy, she began to believe that her mail was intercepted. As Wright wrote in Born of the Conquerors: Selected Essays (1991), mining was a major issue with the States, \"including Labor States such as South Australia, where the proposed Roxby Downs uranium and gold mine was within land historically owned and occupied by the Kokath people. Their protest against this invasion of their territority was ignored.\" The passionate poem 'Australia 1970' expressed Wright's feelings of disappointment and anger, seeing her wild country die, \"like the eaglehawk, / dangerous till the last breath’s gone, clawing and / striking.\" The Coral Battleground (1977) was her account of the campaign to 106 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

protect the \"great water-gardens, lovely indeed as cherry boughs and flowers under the once clear sea.” In The Cry for the Dead (1981) Wright examined the treatment of Aborigines and destruction of the environment by settlers in Central Queensland from the 1840s to the 1920s. In 1991 she resigned as patron of the Wildlife Preservation Society because of its failure to support Aboriginal land rights. As a literary critic Wright enjoyed a high reputation and edited several collections of Australian verse. She was a friend of the Aboriginal poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal, whose work Wright helped to get published. They first met in the 1950s, her poems were sent to Wright by her Brisbane publisher. \"I am born of the conquerors, you of the persecuted,\" Wright said in a poem. Preoccupations in Australian Poetry (1965) was Wright's pioneering effort to reread such early Australian poets as Charles Harpur, Adam Lindsay Gordon, and Henry Kendall. When I was a child, I saw a burning bird in a tree. I see became I am, I am became I see. Wright received several awards, including the Grace Leven Prize (1950), the Australia- Britannica Award (1964), the Robert Frost Memorial Award (1977), the Australian World Prize (1984), the Queen's Medal for Poetry (1992). She had honorary degrees from several universities. In 1973-74 she was a member of the Australia Council. udith Wright was born on 31st May 1915, to Phillip and Ethel Wright. She was born in Armidale, a suburb of Sydney, in New South Wales, Australia. Judith Wright was the eldest child. Her mother died when she was young. She went to live with her aunt for a period, and then went to the boarding school, New England Girls’ School. Her father remarried in 1929. After graduating high school, Judith Wright went to the University of Sydney and studied philosophy, English, history, and psychology. When World War II broke out, she returned to her father’s farm to help him as the war had caused a shortage in manual labor. Career Judith Wright was not only a brilliant poet, but she was also a keen advocate for conservation awareness, and for Aboriginal land rights. Her poetry was very Australian in its content, focusing on the Australian environment. She wrote about the Australian bush (flora and fauna), indigenous Australians, and the settlers that came to Australia, and the relationships they had with each other. 107 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Judith Wright's works were translated into quite a few different languages, including Japanese, Italian, and Russian. With the help of friends, Judith Wright founded one of the earlier nature conservation movements, the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland. She strongly spoke out about the conservation of the Great Barrier Reef and Fraser Island. Judith Wright also spoke out loudly in support of the Aboriginal people, and shortly before she died, she took part in a march in the nation’s capital city, Canberra, for reconciliation between the Aboriginals and non-indigenous Australians. Judith Wright also lectured part-time, at several Australian universities. Her speeches and addresses were collected into a volume, Because I Was Invited, in 1975. Judith Wright was appointed as a foundation fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She was also an Emeritus Professor of the Literature Board of the Arts Council of Australia. Judith Wright had over 25 collections of poetry published, including titles such as The Gateway, The Two Fires, City Sunrise, and Phantom Dwelling. Her works were published between 1946 and 1994. She also wrote her memoir, Half a Lifetime, which was published in 2000, and was about the earlier part of her life. 6.2 THE OLD PRISON - POEM The rows of cells are unroofed, 108 a flute for the wind's mouth, Who comes with a breath of ice? from the blue caves of the south. O dark and fierce day: the wind like an angry bee hunts for the black honey in the pits of the hollow sea. Waves of shadow wash the empty shell bone-bare, and like a bone it sings a bitter song of air. Who built and laboured here? CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

The wind and the sea say -Their cold nest is broken and they are blown away- They did not breed nor love, each in his cell alone cried as the wind now cries through this flute of stone. 6.3 ANALYSIS Judith Wright was a poet with insights into indigenous people and nature. She told of patterns in life, and in Australia. She and Patrick White both saw patterns. I wonder if they would have got on well together, if anybody could indeed keep White as a friend. In Five Senses, we see that all five senses are equally important. They create a rhythm, a pattern. Apart, sometimes we cannot make sense of what we see, what we hear, or smell or feel. But together they dance. The senses working together create a pattern, which, when followed, can enhance a person’s life, make them whole. Like the world or community. When we are fragmented, we are only a part of a whole, incomplete. Sure, we can make our own music, but the symphony comes when all instruments work together, playing the same tune. Judith says:” pattern sprung from nothing- a rhythm that dances and is not mine”. The pattern or Rhythm of life was there before, it was only now that Judith has recognized it for what it is. By saying “It is not mine” acknowledges that the Rhythm comes from outside the body, but is implanted within us, perhaps that Rhythm of life is from God. The old prison referred to is the ruin at Trial Bay, near the now seaside resort of South West Rocks, Kempsey, New South Wales. In 1816 the brig 'Trial' was seized by some of the convicts aboard. In January 1817 its wreck was located in a wide, deep bay near the mouth of the Macleay River. The bay was then named after the wrecked ship. It became a place of shelter for coastal shipping and prison labour was brought in to enlarge the area with a breakwater. Work began on the construction of a prison, the first wing completed in 1879 but the first prisoners did not move in until 1886. The prison was closed in 1903 but re-opened during the 1914-1918 war. Over 500 German prisoners of war were held there but the building was once again closed after WW1. Many years later due to the ravages of war and vandals the ruin is but a shell of its former self but the atmosphere within the remaining walls is tangible. 109 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

A poem which affected me was The Old Prison, which is about the convict-built gaol at Trial Bay, near Kempsey. It was apparently “used for the internment of German aliens during world war one” The poem has a haunting tone which is icy, lonely and miserable. The images of arctic cold wind are enhanced by the metaphor of the prison being “a flute for the wind’s mouth”- meaning that the wind rattled through the buildings making sad and frightening sounds. The “hollow sea” is also mentioned which brings to the poem more empty and gloomy imagery. The wind is likened by simile to “an angry bee”, which I take to mean that it stings painfully. But most arresting is the phrase: “Each in his cell alone Cried as the wind now cries Through this flute of stone.” It implies that the miserable ghosts of the prisoners are still present at the gaol, and the sound of the wind through the cells will never allow it to be a happy place. Wrights’ repetition of the flute motif ensures this. The Old Prison made me feel moved and distressed at what the prisoners had to endure. Judith Wright’s word choice imparted a horrible, chilled feeling in me. “The site consists of the ruins of Trial Bay Gaol set on a north-facing granite promontory intruding into the wide sweep of Trial Bay. The gaol walls with its ruined cellblocks inside canbe seen from the nearby township of Southwest Rocks and the village of Arakoon… It is the only prison in Australia built specifically to house prisoners engaged in public works(the building of the Trial Bay breakwater) and represents a significant episode in thedevelopment of penology and the penal system in NSW.” The Old Prison ingeniously evokes a sense of the early inmates hardships. The usual concept of prison being unpleasant is made more specific through the sustained image of a harsh environment and, most specifically, through the personification of the wind blowing “from the blue caves of the South” “like an angry bee”. Nature, then, is no longer the inmates friend – far from it. It becomes part of what is to be endured during the incarceration. What makes this even more poignant is the reference to a lack of normal human activity. the concluding two quatrains describe this in; -Their cold nest is broken 110 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

and they are blown away- They did not breed nor love, each in his cell alone cried as the wind now cries Here we see the image of the inmates being in a nest but one that is very different from the normal concept of warmth and security. Instead, the nest is more like that of a seabird that constructs its nest precariously on a clff or crag. And, like the seabird (an albatross?) the inmates are “alone”, solitary figures devoid of normal human warmth and contact. \"The Old Prison\" is one of Judith Wright's best poems. It tells of the early days of settlement in Australia and the inmates’ hardships in - most probably - Port Arthur Prison. This poem uses a large number of similes and metaphors combined with some strong imagery. The notion of prison is made harsher through the sustained image of a stark environment and the personification of the wind blowing “from the blue caves of the South... like an angry bee”. Nature is no longer the inmates friend. It is to be painfully endured during their term of incarceration. References are made to the absence of normal human activity. The inmates are described as being in a nest but not one consisting of warmth and security. Their nest is more like that of a seabird that builds its nest precariously on the side of a cliff. Like them, the inmates are lone, solitary figures deprived of human love and warmth. 6.4 FIVE SENSES - POEM Now my five senses gather into a meaning all acts, all presences; and as a lily gathers the elements together, in me this dark and shining, that stillness and that moving, these shapes that spring from nothing, become a rhythm that dances, a pure design. While I’m in my five senses they send me spinning 111 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

all sounds and silences, all shape and colour as thread for that weaver, whose web within me growing follows beyond my knowing some pattern sprung from nothing- a rhythm that dances and is not mine. 6.5 ANALYSIS - FIVE SENSES In Five Senses, we see that all five senses are equally important. They create a rhythm, a pattern. Apart, sometimes we cannot make sense of what we see, what we hear, or smell or feel. But together they dance. The senses working together create a pattern, which, when followed, can enhance a person’s life, make them whole. Like the world or community. When we are fragmented, we are only a part of a whole, incomplete. Sure, we can make our own music, but the symphony comes when all instruments work together, playing the same tune. Judith says: pattern sprung from nothing- a rhythm that dancesand is not mine. The pattern or Rhythm of life was there before, it was only now that Judith has recognized it for what it is. By saying “It is not mine” acknowledges that the Rhythm comes from outside the body, but is implanted within us, perhaps that Rhythm of life is from God. 6.6 POEM - MAGPIES Along the road the magpies walk with hands in pockets, left and right. They tilt their heads, and stroll and talk. In their well-fitted black and white. They look like certain gentlemen 112 Who seem most nonchalant and wise? until their meal is served - and then what clashing beaks, what greedy eyes! CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

But not one man that I have heard throws back his head in such a song of grace and praise - no man nor bird. Their greed is brief; their joy is long. For each is born with such a throat as thanks his God with every note. 6.7 ANALYSIS - MAGPIES Magpies is a captivating and fun metrical composition, which explains the central completely different personalities of magpies. In this poem, the poet positions the lecturer to see theatrical role as mature, prim and proper, just in any case extremely wishful and egoistic. It successfully uses imagery, movement and strait devices to do this. The poetic devices similes, personification, rhythm, rhyme, beginning rhyme and assonance will be examined in this essay. This poem is astir (predicate) magpies, animals that are mature and relaxed, still when forage appears they lose these attri exactlyes and drag in a greedy and selfish behavior. Through this poem the poet wants to slip by that nature has two sides, one and only(a) being dangerous and risky, but at the same duration it brings peace and joy and is expressing its wonderment for God. The body fluid created in Magpies is one of relaxation and leisure time in the first stanza, until the piece where it changes to a frantic and loopy toughness and then in the third the poet cause the indorser to odour admiration and appreciation. This mood causes the ratifier to feel beaming and relaxed in the first stanza, calibre and stressed in the cooperate stanza and relaxed once more in the third. Structure and language hold been successfully manipulated in this poem Magpies. This poem consists of stanzas, which means divisions of a poem. This helps the reader to easily violate wipe out the data the poet is discussing in the poem. In Magpies, the reader slowly realizes through interlingual rendition the stanzas that the magpies are nonchalant and calm, but when their meal is served they rush into frenzy. The stanzas also help to slow gloomy the poem, making it easier for the reader to ensure the smash personalities of the magpies. A prevail of vocabulary and language has been apply to help build this blood personality that the magpies have. The language utilize in this poem is move but simple. We see traces of mythology, ritual, and other languages. Uniquely attuned to life in a globalized world, Alexander’s poetry is an apt guide, bringing us face to face with the power of a single moment and its capacity to evoke the unseen and unheard.In The Magpies by Judith Wright, magpies are likened to human. “They look like certain gentlemen who seem most nonchalant and wise” Magpies and men alike take pride in their appearance, often striving to preen themselves to create a favourable image, like the cutout of “nonchalant and wise”. However, 113 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

magpies and humans would do anything for survival, showing their greed and throwing aside their wise visage, as shown in “until their meal is served – and then what clashing beaks, what greedy eyes!” The punctuation of a dash highlights the stark contrast between the two sides of the magpies, just as it is shocking when the two faces of human nature are revealed. 6.8 TO A CHILD - POEM When I was a child I saw a burning bird in a tree. I see became I am, I am became I see. In winter dawns of frost the lamp swung in my hand. The battered moon on the slope lay like a dune of sand; and in the trap at my feet the rabbit leapt and prayed, weeping blood, and crouched when the light shone on the blade. The sudden sun lit up the webs from wire to wire; the white webs, the white dew, blazed with a holy fire. Flame of light in the dew, 114 flame of blood on the bush answered the whirling sun and the voice of the early thrush. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

I think of this for you. I would not have you believe the world is empty of truth or that men must grieve, but hear the song of the martyrs out of a bush of fire- \"All is consumed with love; all is renewed with desire.\" 6.9 ANALYSIS - TO A CHILD The poem opens with the description of the child, a foetus. The woman, the mother, is anxious about the child. She describes the child as an eyeless labourer that grows inside the darkness of her womb. She holds the child in her womb. The foetus is said to be shapeless and selfless. Childbirth is compared with the resurrection day. The child is safe, silent and swift inside her womb. It is enthusiastically expecting to see the world or the light outside its mother’s womb. The, according to the mother, “is no child with a child’s face”. This might refer to the identity crisis of aborigines in Australia or could plainly mean that the mother is unaware of the gender of the foetus. They, the woman and her husband, has not yet named the child. They both exist with the hope that the child would bring into their lives. They call the child as their and hunter and their chase. The child, to be born, would become the third member of their family. The child is the product of the strength of the man and the flesh of her breast. The child is said to be the crystal of their eyes, meaning their hope and faith of their posterity or future. The child is compared with an intricate rose. The child gives them paradoxical notions of their life in future. The child is considered as the question and answer and as the maker and the made. Being optimistic about the child’s future the poem culminates or concludes with a note of fear. The mother shudders at the thought of the child’s head butting out of her womb, to see the light reflected by the blade. This threat metaphorically informs us about the mother’s fear as an aborigine, who suffers the worldly life once been experienced to reality. 115 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

6.10 SUMMARY  Judith Wright has been called 'the conscience of the nation' for her commitment to the environment and Aboriginal land rights.  It is for her poetry that she is best remembered, poetry which has helped shape Australia's perception of itself as much as her tireless battles have helped to save it.  In Five Senses, we see that all five senses are equally important.  They create a rhythm, a pattern.  The Old Prison is a poem by Wright, an Australian who played a crucial role in the upholding of aboriginal Australians' rights and took strong decisions in protecting our environmental issues.  The poem, The Old Prison revolves around a convict-built jail and the emotional elegies that permeates although the premises of a bay where the jail stands.  The author used lexical repetitions to emphasize a significant image; that is repeated.  The poet used anaphora at the beginnings of some neighbouring lines. The same word all is repeated. 6.11KEYWORDS  Fawning -to display exaggerate affection  Nurture-in this context, care provided by a mother to her child  Crescent-an object with a steep curve  Corroboree-a tribal dance performed by the Aboriginal people of Australia  Nomad-a person who does not have a house or country to call his own  Wailing-crying  Foretold-in the case of an event, predicted a long time before it happened  Womanhood-the state of being a woman  Skeleton-the skeleton is the framework that provides structure to the rest of the body and facilitates movement  Monolithic- formed of a single large block of stone  Anaphora-Anaphora is the repetition of words or phrases in a group of sentences, clauses, or poetic lines 116 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

6.12 LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. Describe the impact on you of your favorite Judith Wright poem. ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 2. Analyze the works of Judith Wright ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 3. Justify how Childbirth is compared with the resurrection day. ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 6.13 UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. Confer about the poem 'To a Child' 2. Mention the key concept of the Magpies 3. What is most important in the poem, Five Senses? 4. Mention the awards of Judith Wright. 5. Give a short note on Judith Wright Long Questions 1. Explain the poem The Old Prison. 2. Discuss the work Five Senses 3. Analyse the theme of Toachild. 4. Evaluate the poem Magpies 5. Analyse the themes of Judith Wrights poems B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. Poems of Judith Wright have been translated into several languages, including Italian, ____________ and Russian. a. Japanese b. American 117 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

c. Australian d. Indian 2. Judith Wright helped found one of the earliest nature ___________ movements. a. conservation b. literary c. cultural d. Dalit 3. In Wright's 'The Old Prison\" revolves around a___________. a. Convict b. jailor c. warden d. poet's life 4. In Wright's \"The Old Prison\" the wind now cries as it passes through the flute kind cells of that ___________ prison. a. dilapidate b. well-constructed c. hygienic d. disciplined 5. Judith Wright was a poet with insights into indigenous people and _________. a. nature b. society c. culture d. youth Answers 118 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

1-a, 2-a, 3-a, 4-a, 5-a 6.14 REFERENCES References book  Patel, G. (2007). Poetry with young people. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.  Thomas J. T. (2004). Child poets and the poetry of the playground. Children’s Literature  Bishop, Edward. (1989). A Virginia Woolf Chronology. Macmillan Press, London.  Spiropoulu, Angeliki. (2010). Virginia Woolf, Modernity and History: Constellations with W.Benjamin. Palgrave, London. Textbook references  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56907/raw-meditations-on-money-1-she- speaks-a-school-teacher-from-south-india Websites  https://d7.drunkenboat.com/db20/reviews/finds-larger-chaos-meena-alexanders- birthplace-buried-stones-wallis-wilde-menozzi  https://ijllnet.com/journals/Vol_5_No_3_September_2018/23.pdf  https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Raw+Meditations+on+Money-a077035217  https://poem.shivyogastudio.in/2021/03/a-school-teacher-from-south-india.html 119 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

UNIT – 7 A.D.HOPE:“THEDEATHOFTHEBIRD” STRUCTURE 7.0 Learning Objectives 7.1 Author’s Introduction 7.2 Text – The Death of the Bird 7.3 Between Romantic symbol and Modernist Anti-symbol in the Poem 7.4 Post-colonial - The Death of the Bird 7.5 Analysis - The Death of the Bird 7.6 Mysticism in poetry 7.7 Summary 7.8 Keywords 7.9 Learning Activity 7.10Unit End Questions 7.11References 7.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to:  AnalyzeA.D.Hope works  Understand the concept of Australian poets  Interpret the importance of Hope’s poetry 7.1 AUTHOR’ S INTRODUCTION Australian poet and critic, born in New South Wales, educated at Sydney and Oxford Universities. Indefatigable defender and articulator of the central role of poetry in life, Hope has also directed his erudite wit at individuals, institutions, and values which, he believed, threatened such vital elements. Hope's writing was first collected in The Wandering Islands (1955), by which time he already had a reputation as a poet. Subsequent verse includes Collected Poems: 1930–1965 (1966), Collected Poems: 1930–1970 (1972), Antechinus: Poems 1975–1980 (1981), The Tragical History of Dr Faustus (1982), and The Age of Reason (1985). The Drifting Continent, and Other Poems (1979) included several comic bush ballads. His works of literary criticism include The Cave and the Spring (1965), Native 120 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Companions (1974), which gathered articles over forty years, and The New Cratylus (1979). As a poet and critic Hope's position has always been enigmatic: learned and traditional in his references, techniques, and symbolism, he has also demonstrated an iconoclastic relish in social and moral matters. Much of his energy in all his writings has been devoted to reinvigorating Australian life through imaginative access to the enduring and life-enhancing patterns of myth and symbolism as well as the literature and forms of the past. Hope was born in Cooma, New South Wales. His father was a Presbyterian minister and his mother a teacher. He was educated partly at home and in Tasmania, where they moved in 1911. Three years later they moved to Sydney. He attended Fort Street High School, the University of Sydney, and then the University of Oxford on a scholarship. Returning to Australia in 1931 he then trained as a teacher and spent some time drifting. He worked as a psychologist with the New South Wales Department of Labour and Industry, and as a lecturer in Education and English at Sydney Teachers' College (1937–44). He was a lecturer at the University of Melbourne from 1945 to 1950, and in 1951 became the first professor of English at the newly founded Canberra University College, later of the Australian National University (ANU) when the two institutions merged. At the ANU he and Tom Inglis Moore created the first full year course in Australian literature at an Australian university. He retired from the ANU in 1968 and was appointed Emeritus Professor. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1972 and a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1981 and awarded many other honours. He died in Canberra, having suffered dementia in his last years, and is buried at the Queanbeyan Lawn Cemetery. Poet and critic Although he was published as a poet while still young, The Wandering Islands (1955) was his first collection and all that remained of his early work after most of his manuscripts were destroyed in a fire. Its publication was delayed by concern about the effects of Hope's highly- erotic and savagely-satirical verse on the Australian public. His frequent allusions to sexuality in his work caused Douglas Stewart to dub him \"Phallic Alec\" in a letter to Norman Lindsay. His influences were Pope and the Augustan poets, Auden, and Yeats. He was a polymath, very largely self-taught, and with a talent for offending his countrymen. He wrote a book of \"answers\" to other poems, including one in response to the poem \"To His Coy Mistress\" by Andrew Marvell. The reviews he wrote in the 1940s and '50s were feared \"for their acidity and intelligence. If his reviews hurt some writers – Patrick White included – they also sharply raised the standard of literary discussion in Australia.\" However, Hope relaxed in later years. As poet Kevin Hart writes, \"The man I knew, from 1973 to 2000, was invariably gracious and benevolent\". Hope wrote in a letter to the poet and academic Catherine Cole: \"Now I feel I've reached the pinnacle of achievement when you equate me with one of Yeats's 'wild, wicked old men'. I'm 121 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

probably remarkably wicked but not very wild, I fear too much ingrained Presbyterian caution\". Cole suggests that Hope represented the three attributes that Vladimir Nabokov believed essential in a writer, \"storyteller, teacher, enchanter\". Hope's editor and fellow critic was David Brooks who was responsible for posthumously publishing the Selected Poetry and Prose of AD Hope in January 2000. Influence and impact Kevin Hart, reviewing Catherine Cole's memoir of Hope, writes that \"When A. D. Hope died in 2000 at the age of 93, Australia lost its greatest living poet\". Hart goes on to say that when once asked what poets could do for Australia, Hope replied \"oh not much, merely justify its existence\". In 1998 a celebration of his life and works, The Scythe Honed Fine, was published by the National Library of Australia. Private life In 1937 he married Penelope Robinson. They had a daughter, Emily, who predeceased her parents in 1979; and two sons, Andrew and Geoffrey, who survived him. Penelope died in 1988. Awards 1956: Grace Leven Prize for Poetry 1965: Britannica Australia Awards for Literature 1966: Australian Literature Society Gold Medal 1967: Myer Award for Australian Poetry 1969: Ingram Merrill Foundation Award for Literature (New York) 1969: Levinson Prize for Poetry (Chicago) 1972: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) 1976: The Age Book of the Year Award for A Late Picking 1976: Robert Frost Award for Poetry 1981: Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) 1989: New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Special Award 1993: ACT Book of the Year for Chance Encounters Honorary doctorates from four Australian universities 122 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

7.2 TEXT - THE DEATH OF THE BIRD 123 The Death of the Bird For every bird there is this last migration: Once more the cooling year kindles her heart; With a warm passage to the summer station Love pricks the course in lights across the chart. Year after year a speck on the map, divided By a whole hemisphere, summons her to come; Season after season, sure and safely guided, Going away she is also coming home. And being home, memory becomes a passion With which she feeds her brood and straws her nest, Aware of ghosts that haunt the heart’s possession And exiled love mourning within the breast. The sands are green with a mirage of valleys; The palm-tree casts a shadow not its own; Down the long architrave of temple or palace Blows a cool air from moorland scarps of stone. And day by day the whisper of love grows stronger; That delicate voice, more urgent with despair, Custom and fear constraining her no longer, Drives her at last on the waste leagues of air. A vanishing speck in those inane dominions, Single and frail, uncertain of her place, CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Alone in the bright host of her companions, Lost in the blue unfriendliness of space, She feels it close now, the appointed season: The invisible thread is broken as she flies; Suddenly, without warning, without reason, The guiding spark of instinct winks and dies. Try as she will, the trackless world delivers No way, the wilderness of light no sign, The immense and complex map of hills and rivers Mocks her small wisdom with its vast design. And darkness rises from the eastern valleys, And the winds buffet her with their hungry breath, And the great earth, with neither grief nor malice, Receives the tiny burden of her death. 7.3 BETWEEN ROMANTIC SYMBOL AND MODERNIST ANTI- SYMBOL IN THE POEM A. D. Hope’s poem “The Death of the Bird” seems to me one of the great lyric poems in English of the twentieth century. It is a recognized anthology piece in Australia, of course, but my impression is that outside the continent Hope’s poetry is not very well known and that few even of the most serious readers of English poetry are acquainted with “The Death of the Bird.” In contrast to so many lesser poets of the twentieth century, Hope’s artistry is deeply hidden, and what makes this poem so powerful, moving, and original is not easy to explain. What follows is an essay in the original sense of the term – an attempt to make clear to myself my own reactions to a poem that I have grown to cherish. In “The Death of the Bird,” Hope writes as if he were simply imparting information to the reader, conveying a thought-process that has taken form in his mind and that has immediately engendered the language by which it can be madeaccessible: For every bird there is this last migration: 124 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Once more the cooling year kindles her heart; With a warm passage to the summer station Love pricks the course in lights across the chart. The poet’s thought-process finds its form in elegiac quatrains (i.e., quatrains of iambic pentameter with alternating rhyme), as Gray’s does in the Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, a poem from which the elegiac quatrain takes its name and which must have had an important influence on Hope. The movement of ideas in “The Death of the Bird” is clearly demarcated by sentences, and every quatrain, with only one exception, ends in a period, so that grammar and form are almost completely congruent (here too the resemblance to Gray’s Elegy isstriking). Of course, the period around 1950 when “The Death of the Bird” was written saw a neo-classical revival, partly as a result of Eliot’s influence; but in contrast to so many poems written in quatrains in the middle of the century, “The Death of the Bird” has not the slightest trace of rigidity or archness or internal repression. Its tone is quiet and restrained, but at the same time it flows outward from thought to thought, line to line, and stanza to stanza with complete assurance until its resolution has been fully achieved. There is only one moment of rupture, and that moment is completely motivated and prepared by the theme. The poem has a classical finish, but at the same time it seems a spontaneous outgrowth of the poet’s imagination and the overflow of deep feeling. Part of this is achieved by Hope’s remarkable use of feminine rhyme – that is, rhyme in which the last two syllables rhyme and the accent falls on the penultimate syllable (in iambic pentameter, this makes for an eleven-syllable line). “For every bird there is this last migration,” the poem begins, and from this opening Hope’s elegiac quatrains develop a distinctive pattern marked by feminine rhyme in the first and third lines. Feminine rhymes are extremely difficult to control in English, and Hope had the option of dispensing with them after the opening stanza; but having spontaneously begun with “migration,” he chose to continue the pattern because it gave the poem a musical quality that he would otherwise have been unable to achieve. The consistent use of feminine rhyme, partly disguised by slant rhyme in several of the feminine endings (passion/possession; valleys/palace; dominions/companions; valleys/malice), is a feat of considerable technical virtuosity; but, paradoxically, it is this that imparts the extraordinary quality of spontaneity and pathos, sadness and truth, that the poem has toconvey. The play of feminine on masculine rhymes in the poem mimes the dialectical balancingof Romantic feeling and classical restraint that it manages – almost miraculously – to achieve: Hope’s bird is gendered feminine, but the poet himself is male, and, more importantly, the classical restraint or distance evinced by the poem’s tone is traditionally viewed as a “masculine” quality (however sexist these metaphors may be). The bird of Hope’s elegy is not a Romantic symbol, but neither is it a Modernist anti- symbol, which is more or less what the Imagist movement and its various off-shoots in the twentieth century strive to attain. Imagism rejects the Romantic quest for transcendence and 125 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

seeks in nature not the adequate symbols of a spiritual allegory but only “things as they are.” In this quest for objective reality, Imagism is deluded, however, because “things as they are” (or at least only as they are) have no poetic value; they have to be “changed upon the blue guitar,” as Wallace Stevens acknowledges. Insofar as images are merely objective, they are images (or perhaps symbols) of our alienation; and thus, the Modernist quest for “things as they are” turns out, ironically, to be a futile quest for negative transcendence. Stevens’ rejection of the “pathetic fallacy,” the projection of human emotions on nature, leads him to an infatuation with nothingness; his landscape in “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” is tantamount to Hegel’s “night in which all cows are black.” But in Hope’s “Death of the Bird” there is neither the Romantic nor the Modernist form of alienation. Hope is able to chart a middle course between the Romantic symbol and the Modernist image or anti-symbol through the sheer force of his intelligence and through his empathy for a form of life that he is capable of understanding, at least in some measure, because it is a form of life, however different from his own, and because he understands that he himself is a form of life and that, therefore, nothing living is alien to him. Hope is a superb metrist, and the underlying meaning of“meter “and “measure” is ultimately the same. In “The Death of the Bird,” he is able to take the measure of what he can understand and what he is unable to understand – about the bird, about himself, and therefore about life. Although to an unskilled reader it may seem as though Hope is resorting to the pathetic fallacy, this is not the case. On the contrary, in “The Death of the Bird” Hope takes his measure from a number of simple but undeniable facts of life – for instance, that birds migrate in the winter, drawn by the “invisible thread” of nature and their own nature, or that all forms of life are connected and that inferences about them are possible on thatbasis. Hope’s bird is entirely generic – not a skylark, nightingale, or blackbird; not a distinct species at all, and therefore completely anonymous. The pathos of anonymity and insignificance is joined to the pathos of death in Hope’s poem, as it also is in Gray’s Elegy. Yet life is lived by individuals, not by species or genera, and although the bird is only a bird, Hope renders it as a distinct being, capturing its experience as it goes on its last migration and eventually falls to its death. “There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow,” says Hamlet. To use the word “providence” in this connection would be saying too much, but certainly there is a sense in which the bird’s tiny being is being registered in terms of its specific (or special) existence – if not by providence, then at least by nature (whatever that might be), and if not by nature, then at least by the poet. The poem registers, in any event, both the specificity of the individual bird’s existence and the fact that it is a bird like every other bird and a form of life like every other form oflife. In his brilliant study of A. D. Hope, which has served me as a point of departure, my colleague Kevin Hart writes of the “[dark] sense of utter abandonment in an alien universe [that] 126 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

is given in ‘The Death of the Bird.’” “The natural order,” he adds, “is chillingly impersonal.”1 It seems to me, however, that if the universe is chillingly impersonal in the poem, this happens only with the intervention of death; it does not correspond to the way in which the bird’s experience of life is represented. If we examine the poem closely, we see that it is structured as a kind of fluid triptych, with discernible sections comprised of three stanzas each. The bird is impelled by some kind of life force, or élan vital, an eros that one might as well call “love” because it is what connects all beings, each nature to nature as a whole. “Heart” is a metonymy for the feelings, but that the cooling year should kindle the bird’s heart is not, again, a pathetic fallacy: Hope is not suggesting that the bird feels in the way we do, but simply inferring from the facts that the bird, being sentient, feels, and that there is a continuity among all sentient things. What Hope opens up for us, with a beautiful simplicity, is simply the mystery oflife. Nature in these stanzas is not “chillingly impersonal”; indeed, it is conveyed with a warmth that is very rare in twentieth-century poetry. In the second stanza, note the subtle rhythm and the play of sound in “summons her to come,” the slant rhyme on “come” and “home,” andfinally the way the rhymes are brought together to produce the beautiful cadence of “Going away she is also coming home.” The third stanza is conceptually more difficult and ambiguous. Something like memory, personal and collective, drives the bird: the ghosts are either its own parents or the imprint of its collective forebears; “exiled love” could again refer to parents or perhaps to a lost mate – the precise reference isn’t given and doesn’t matter. The bird obviously has no cognition, but on some level it must be aware – because we are aware – and this awareness without cognition is poignant because the same is so often true for us. In the three opening stanzas, Hope describes how the bird is impelled on its migration year after year and season after season, but in the second triad he begins to chart the actual journey that will culminate in its death. Something beyond its immediate location and reality is somehow vivid to the bird. Hope lavishes attention on this idea, embroidering it with beautiful images and with rare, almost recondite words and phrases (“moorland scarps” and “architrave”), as if to point to the world’s plenitude – even if that plenitude is shadowed by distance and otherness. In the next stanza, love is again emphasized, as the bird is summoned by the “whisper of love”: And day by day the whisper of love grows stronger; That delicate voice, more urgent with despair, Custom and fear constraining her no longer, Drives her at last on the waste leagues of air. But it is at this mid-point in the poem, when the bird takes flight, driven “on the waste 127 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

leagues of air,” that the poem’s tone changes. The language of plenitude now gives way to that of emptiness. In the second stanza the bird was impelled by “a speck on the map,” and now, in the sixth, she is herself “a vanishing speck”: A vanishing speck in those inane dominions, Single and frail, uncertain of her place, alone in the bright host of her companions, lost in the blue unfriendliness of space. That so tiny a creature should be drawn year after year by a tiny point on the map was part of the wonder and mystery of life, but though the adjective “vanishing” can indicate merely that the bird disappears from sight it clearly has the implication of death and nothingness here. Interestingly, both “vanishing” and “inane” derive from different Latin words that both mean “empty” (“inane” from “inanis”; “vanishing” from evanescere, “to disappear like vapor,” which in turn is derived from vanus,“empty”). “Inane,” moreover, has the effect of undercutting the vaguely religious tonality of “dominions,” and “the blue unfriendliness of space” has a Mallarméan or Pascalian ring to it that makes us question the harmony that had previously been established between the bird’s nature and nature as a whole. Granted that the connotations and echoes in the sixth stanza of “The Death of the Bird” raise questions about the poem’s ultimate meaning; nevertheless, I would still want to emphasizethat if the natural order becomes “chillingly impersonal” in the poem, this happens only with the bird’s impending death; the rift between the bird’s nature and nature as a whole is not intrinsic to life but something that happens in the course of life, as a result of death. The death of the bird is in the nature of things; it does not render nature as a whole meaningless. In any event, as I noted, the sixth stanza is the only one that does not end in a period but flows over into the next line and the next quatrain: “Lost in the blue unfriendliness of space, // She feels it close now, the appointed season.” The “appointed season” is ambiguous, just as “vanishing speck” was in the previous stanza: it could simply refer to the time of the next migration, but it could also refer to death. Does the bird instinctively feel the approach of death? Whether or not it does, the onset of death is experienced, in the seventh stanza, not as death itself – for death is too abstract to be experienced – but as an abrupt intrusion: metaphorically, as a breaking of the “invisible thread” and a dying – i.e., extinguishing – of the “guiding spark” of instinct. This is rendered not only conceptually but musically, on the level of the stanza itself, through the extremely dissonant movement between the first and second lines (not a transition but a rupture), which has the effect of disrupting the established balance of the elegiac quatrain: She feels it close now, the appointedseason: 128 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

The invisible thread is broken as she flies; Suddenly, without warning, without reason, The guiding spark of instinct winks anddies. Because our expectation makes “the appointed season” refer primarily to the next migration, the expected cadence in the following line is sundered; the line comes “suddenly, without warning,” as if to mime the rupture that comes with death, and as if the poet had lost the “invisible thread” of thought binding up his stanza. It is difficult even to read these lines; one is unsure what intonation to give them. The lines are again remarkable for their balance, and also for the way in which, without doing so explicitly, Hope frames the series of questions that underlie the poem. Hart points to the “relentless biblical rhythms” of the concluding stanza,”2 and indeed there is a hint of Job’s confrontation with the Almighty in the way the bird’s “small wisdom” is mocked by the universe’s “vast design.” But it is not at all clear that the world’s “vast design” is a transcendent one; and if there are gods, the question remains as to who and what they are. The traces of personification (or at least of some kind of agency) in the fact that the bird is mocked, that the winds “buffet her with their hungry breath,” and in the characterization of “the great earth,” which, though not capitalized, is made ever so slightly by the epithet to resemble and evoke the Gaia of Greek mythology, suggest that these may be pagan gods. The world of the concluding stanzas seems partly malevolent and partly indifferent – but insofar as it is indifferent, even that comes in a questionable shape. The “great earth” has “neither grief nor malice”: is this the indifference of Epicurean gods who are unconcerned with us, or is it the indifference of a nature that has no transcendent being? – in which case, even indifference would be a catachresis, a way of coming to terms with what has no attitude whatsoever. When the bird falls to earth, “the great earth / Receives the tiny burden of her death.” Does the verb “receives” imply some sort of acceptance, perhaps even the acceptance of a sacrifice, or merely that the bird falls to earth? Is the great earth, even if essentially indifferent, burdened or weighed down by the fact of death, and by the accretion of so many deaths, or is this again a catachresis, a way of pointing to the fact that the bird’s body is virtually weightless (literally and metaphorically), therefore essentially negligible in its significance, and hence no “burden” whatsoever? On the larger plane, is life negated by the fact of death, or does an individual merely come to anend? In the penultimate stanza, the world is “trackless” and the lights in the sky appear as a “wilderness” to the bird. Her “small wisdom” (another lovely catachresis) is not equal to the “vast design” of the universe. But this happens only with the intervention of death, and though the burden of the poem (a word that can mean “theme” and “song” as well as “weight”) is certainly the unknown significance (if any) that death has to life, I think it would be a mistake to draw a nihilistic interpretation from the poem’s conclusion. As the opening stanzas indicate – without the slightest degree of sentimentality – there is, in fact, love in the world. Whatever the truth of the world may be (and of course we don’t know any more than 129 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

the bird does – or Job did), we are entitled to call it love because that is our way of making sense of things. In any event, Hope’s ability to evoke love and tenderness – not only as a theme but through his language and the movement of his quatrains – is what makes the poem as extraordinary as it is. The artistic values manifested by “The Death of the Bird” are now thoroughly out of fashion, and I imagine that it would be difficult for most contemporary readers to recognize just how original it is. 7.4 POST COLONIALISM - THE DEATH OF THE BIRD Australian poet A.D Hope’s The Death of the Bird deals with aging and death, using a bird in migration as the overarching metaphor. “For every bird there is this last migration…”. The line tells us, for this bird, death is near, tells it without sentimentally. The heavy weight of the line foreshadows what is to follow. The bulk of the poem introduces us to the inner life of the bird- memories, sensations she has experienced year after year in the same migration she is taking now, but this year, we know, will be different. Indeed, we see the bird hasn’t the stamina or faculties she once had. “Single and frail, uncertain of her place, alone in the bright host of her companions, lost in the blue unfriendliness of space”. Finally, darkness overtakes the flying flock, and she falls to her death. The last lines of the poem summon up the poets view of the bird is received “without grief or malice” but simply as another of the numberless lives and deaths inhabiting the earth every day. yet, the tenderness with which the author presents the life of the bird belies this. The poem itself individualizes the bird, and therefore gives great dignity to its existence. In many works of literature, specifically those coming out of Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent, we meet characters who are struggling with their identities in the wake of colonization, or the establishment of colonies in another nation. For example, the British had a colonial presence in India from the 1700s until India gained its independence in 1947. As you can imagine, the people of India, as well as the characters in Indian novels, must deal with the economic, political, and emotional effects that the British brought and left behind. This is true forliterature that comes out of any colonized nation. In many cases, the literature stemming from these events is both emotional and political. A.D. Hope was born in Coma, southern NSW, in 1907, the son of a Presbyterian minister. He was educated at the University of Sydney and Oxford University, and lectured at Sydney Teachers' College and Melbourne University, before being appointed Professor of English at Canberra University College, later to become the Australian National University. He retired from this position in 1968 to devote himself to poetry. Australian poet A.D Hope's \"The Death of the Bird\" deals with aging and death, using a bird in migration as the overarching metaphor. The first line signals the theme of the poem: 130 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

\"For every bird there is this last migration...\" The line tells us, for this bird, death is near, tells it without sentimentality. The heavy weight of the line foreshadows what is to follow.The bulk of the poem introduces us to the inner life of the bird—memories, sensations she has experienced year after year in the same migration she is taking now, but this year, we know, will be different. Indeed, we see the bird hasn't the stamina or faculties she once had. \"Single and frail, uncertain of her place, alone in the bright host of her companions, Lost in the blue unfriendliness of space.\" Finally, darkness overtakes the flying flock, and she is no longer able to maintain her flight. Strong winds overcome her, and she falls to her death. The last lines of the poem summon up the poet's view of the bird's life—in remorseless nature, the passing of the life of a bird is received \"without grief or malice,\" but simply as another of the numberless lives and deaths inhabiting the earth every day. Yet, the tenderness with which the author presents the life of the bird belies this. The poem itself individualizes the bird, and therefore gives great dignity to its existence. “The Death of the Bird,” Hope writes as if he were simply imparting information to the reader, conveying a thought-process that has taken form in his mind and that has immediately engendered the language by which it can be made accessible: For every bird there is this last migration: Once more the cooling year kindles her heart; With a warm passage to the summer station Love pricks the course in lights across the chart. The poet’s thought-process finds its form in elegiac quatrains (i.e., quatrains of iambic pentameter with alternating rhyme), as Gray’s does in the Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, a poem from which the elegiac quatrain takes its name and which must have had an important influence on Hope. The movement of ideas in “The Death of the Bird” is clearly demarcated by sentences, and every quatrain, with only one exception, ends in a period, so that grammar and form are almost completely congruent (here too the resemblance to Gray’s Elegy is 2 striking). Of course, the period around 1950 when “The Death of the Bird” was written saw a neo-classical revival, partly as a result of Eliot’s influence; but in contrast to so many poems written in quatrains in the middle of the century, “The Death of the Bird” has not the slightest trace of rigidity or archness or internal repression. Its tone is quiet and restrained, but at the same time it flows outward from thought to thought, line to line, and stanza to stanza with complete assurance until its resolution has been fully achieved. There is only one moment of rupture, and that moment is completely motivated and prepared by the theme. The poem has a classical finish, but at the same time it seems a spontaneous outgrowth of the poet’s imagination and the overflow of deep feeling. 131 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

The play of feminine on masculine rhymes in the poem mimes the dialectical balancing 3 of Romantic feeling and classical restraint that it manages – almost miraculously – to achieve: Hope’s bird is gendered feminine, but the poet himself is male, and, more importantly, the classical restraint or distance evinced by the poem’s tone is traditionally viewed as a “masculine” quality (however sexist these metaphors may be). But the play of feminine on masculine rhymes, carried over from stanza to stanza, is reminiscent of another great poem about a bird (though not really about a bird), Shelley’s ode, “To a Sky-Lark”: Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert— That from Heaven, or near it, Purest thy full heart in profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Despite the generic difference between the two poems, the fact that Hope’s is an elegy and Shelley’s an ode, the interplay of feminine on masculine rhymes and the shared subject announce a similarity, and perhaps even an influence, that then underlines an important difference. For whereas Shelley candidly tells us that his ode is not really about a bird, but rather about themovement of the spirit, to which both the flight of the bird and its song can be likened, Hope’s poem, by contrast, really is about a bird. And this difference, in turn, points us to a connection, and then to another difference, that Hope’s poem has with a second great Romantic ode, Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale.” For whereas Keats, at the climactic moment of the Nightingale ode, famously asserts, “Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird,” Hope’s poem really is about the death of a bird. Shelley’s Sky-Lark and Keats’ Nightingale are, in essence, symbols of immanence: the skylark and nightingale engender their respective odes not because of what they are as natural entities but because the qualities these natural entities possess allow them to serve as symbols and focal points for a spiritual allegory based on the desire for transcendence. 7.5 ANALYSIS - THE DEATH OF THE BIRD ‘The Death of the Bird’ is a long poem written by the Australian poet A. D. Hope. Hope was largely influenced by Alexander Pope and other poets from Augustan age. In a trademark thematic concern, this poem deals with the idea of death against the vast indifference of the universe to it. It is shown through the life of a migratory bird. The poem is divided into 8 four-lined stanzas. It is written in an ‘alternate rhyme’ where every alternate line rhyme at the end. The rhyme scheme of each stanza is ABAB. Stanza 1 The poet is talking about a bird towards the end of her life. It is a migratory bird who move seasonally from one place to another in search of food and warmth. Now the cooling year (winter) is here again. Her love for the summer station (warmer region) is reminding her of the warm passage (path) to such a place. She remembers the course in lights (entire navigation details) by her heart. 132 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Stanza 2 There is a predetermined place (a speck on the map) on another hemisphere which means on the other half of the earth. It seems like she is being called to appear there. Again, and again, she has gone there. She has gone there so many times that it is her other home. What looks like going away is actually in a way coming home. Stanza 3 After migrating, the memory of the earlier place becomes a passion with which she feeds her young babies and builds the nest with straws to live in. But in her heart, the memory of that other place is still hiding. It is haunting her like ghosts. Her love to come back again is termed as ‘exiled love’. Stanza 4 Almost from the point of view of a bird, the poet is trying to show how the mourning in the bird has caused her to see the mirage (illusion) of valleys on the sands. Perhaps it is a desert. The image given in this stanza is illusory as the palm tree’s shadow is different from the way it should be. She is feeling the cold air coming out of the architrave (molding around the doors) of the temple or palace. Stanza 5 Slowly the call to go to that other place grows stronger in the bird. She can’t resist it anymore. Initially, the feeling was delicate but now it is full of despair. It feels so urgent now that she is able to cancel the comfort and fear which were stopping her. She finally flies into the waste leagues (an earlier way of measuring variable distance) of air. It seems like the poet anticipates her journey as a wastage. Stanza 6 The bird now looks stupid and weak against the vast region into which she has entered. Her existence becomes unnoticeable (a vanishing speck) there. She seems alone even among other companions. The poet is hinting at the sky through the metaphor of blue unfriendliness of space. It seems unsuitable for her weak body. Stanza 7 The bird has traveled far. She can sense that the season for which she came is somewhere nearby. Suddenly, something long anticipated happens. Due to her weakness, that invisible thread that was guiding her path is broken. The poet is describing the tragedy which has happened to the bird without any warning or reason. It is an instinct that navigates a bird, and, in this case, it has died suddenly. Stanza 8 133 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

The bird is trying her best to find a way but the whole world has suddenly become trackless. Without instinct, the light has also become wilderness, without any sign to guide her. The poet is describing the vast geography of this earth which is very complicated. Its design is so vast that it makes fun of the bird’s small wisdom. Stanza 9 The poet is pointing towards the direction, the eastern valleys, from which the darkness is rising for the bird who has just lost her way. The winds are striking her forcefully in a way like they are hungry. It ultimately kills the bird. The earth which is so great feels no grief for any death. It doesn’t even threaten anyone’s life intentionally. It is simply indifferent. The death of the bird is but a tiny burden on the earth. It receives her body indifferently. The Death of the Bird, by AD Hope (Alec Derwent Hope) is the final in our series of great Australian poems. AD Hope is probably the most world famous of the five poets we've featured this week. And as well as being a poet he was a critic, an academic and a satirist. He was born in New South Wales in July 1907 and died in Canberra in July 2000. His most famous poetry collection, The Wandering Islands, came about when he was quite young, and it was this collection that established his reputation. A bird lives in a country only when the season is favourable to it. If winter comes, the bird has to suffer without enough food, in shiver. So, whenever there is winter, the bird migrates to a country where there is summer. Thus, season after season, the bird is moving between two distant places. It is the bird’s love for life, survival that forces it for migration. It is just like a man moving from one city to another city for his survival. Birds which migrate from England to Australia, again migrate to England due to winter season. So, they have two homes- England and Australia. If they go away from England, it means that they come home, (to Australia). If they return to England, again it means that they come home, (to England). Because both places are their homes only. The bird here refers to not only the bird but also those people who migrated from England to Australia to settle there. Due to home sickness, they again return to England after some years. The very phrase, “last migration” indirectly refers to the last journey of the Bird during which it is going to die. The bird is flying in the sky, crossing several dangerous places beneath her – deserts, valleys, unnatural Palm trees, temples, palaces and moorland cliffs. Death is hinted by abnormalities in nature. For example, the poet says that Palm tree is casting a shadow that is not its own shadow. Migration means survival. But this last migration implies death. The bird suddenly lost its way. It was left alone, away from her companions. It became single and weak. It felt that it was the appointed season by God for her death. The invisible thread between soul and body broke. It’s instinct failed. It died and fell down on earth. 134 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Since there happens thousands of deaths on earth every day, the earth received the bird’s body, just as a small burden. It had no grief for, and no malice against the bird. The Death of the Bird is one of his more straightforward poems. It is, quite simply, about the death of a bird. But it has also become a controversial example of how to read a poem which has been part of the purpose of this series. Like each one of our examples this program features a close reading of the poem and gives different possible interpretations. We've spoken to AD Hope fan, Clive James and visited a poetry conference in Canberra where a quarrel over the poems meaning broke out. And to pin the bird down we added migratory bird expert John Barkla into the mix. The Death of the Bird is a fitting end to this extraordinary series by Lyn Gallacher. 7.6 MYSTICISM IN POETRY Mysticism is, in truth, a temper rather than a doctrine, an atmosphere rather than a system of philosophy. Various mystical thinkers have contributed fresh aspects of Truth as they saw her, for they have caught glimpses of her face at different angles, transfigured by diverse emotions, so that their testimony, and in some respects their views, are dissimilar to the point of contradiction. Wordsworth, for instance, gained his revelation of divinity through Nature, and through Nature alone; whereas to Blake “Nature was a hindrance,” and Imagination the only reality. But all alike agree in one respect, in one passionate assertion, and this is that unity that underlies diversity. Mysticism is basically an attitude to “see one changeless Life in all the Lives, and in the Separate, one inseparable.” Alec Derwent Hope (1907-2000), once referred to by an American journal as “the twentieth century’s greatest eighteenth century poet”, is one of the most influential and pre-eminent Australian poets as well as essayists of 20th century. He is also well known for his satirical bent. His poems are metaphysical, sensual, serious, frivolous, mocking and mystical in nature. He is highly influenced by Alexander Pope and many critics consider him a classic poet whose works are marked with mythology, legends and fables. Kevin Hart states that “when A.D. Hope died in 2000 at the age 93, Australia lost its living poet.” It is not that he only criticizes his homeland, sometimes he praises it also, but most of the time he censures it. He comments on the decadence he observed so far. In his poem “Standardization” too he satirizes the moral degradation, materialism, pollution, artificiality etc. After reading these lines some people might declare him a pessimist but in reality, he is an optimist and a visionary like all the mystics are, as his intention is not to hurt people. He just holds the mirror only to show the society its true picture, to make them realize their mistakes so that they could correct them. The poet argues that by moving away from Nature the people are losing their true identity. 135 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Symbolism possesses a place of great eminence in the sphere of mysticism. Symbolism, along with mythology, is the language of mystics. Symbolism is based on the belief that each and everything on this Mother Earth has something in common, something in which they are alike. For instance: Human love is symbolic of divine love, because although working on another plane, it is governed by similar laws and gives rise to similar results; or falling leaves are a symbol of human mortality, because they are examples of the same law which operates through all manifestation of life. Mystics use symbolism for the purpose of defamiliarization. It helps them to exhibit a common and direct truth in an indirect way, thereby, helping their followers apprehend the message easily which would have been difficult otherwise. “The Death of the Bird” by A.D. Hope stands as one of the perfect examples when mysticism and symbolism are under consideration. In this exemplar poem, Hope draws our attention, with the help of the metaphors of a bird, its migration and eventual death, towards the journey of human being from life to death. These metaphors symbolize and reinforce the ultimate truth that “All human things are subject to decay, when fate summons monarch must obey.” The poet goes on to describe the strange eventful story of the bird, which symbolizes man, and how it is being summoned by death and how season after season it is coming towards its final abode: For every bird there is this last migration: Once more the cooling year kindles her heart; With a warm passage to the summer station Love pricks the course in lights across the chart Year after year a speck on the map, divided By a whole hemisphere, summons her to come; Season after season, sure and safely guided, Going awaysheisalso cominghome. The phrase ‘last migration’ in the poem is symbolical of the migration from the earthly world to the ethereal world. The metaphor of ‘cooling year,’ here, stands for winter of life, i.e., old age after which follows the inevitable last migration which leads man to his final destination. The poet believes that the life on this earth is temporary. Through all these images and metaphors the poet is trying to impress upon the reader that death is certain, but it only kills the physical thing which decays with time. The spirit is untouched by death and decay and keeps migrating from one world to another. In the last stanza the poet describes how we literally become one with nature: And darkness rises from the eastern valleys, And the winds buffet her with their hungry breath, And the great earth, with neither grief nor malice, Receives the tiny burden of her death. The last two lines of the poem is highly mystical and symbolical, in the sense that the ‘great earth’ has been personified here and also presented as a mystic who is unaffected by ‘grief’ or 136 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

‘malice’. Even when it receives the dead body of its children it feels no sorrow, here, the underlying implication is that being a mystic she very well understands this ultimate reality that like the life on earth is transient death too is temporary; living beings die only to be reborn, this is the circle of life. According to Vedandic philosophy, our body is made up of five elements, namely, fire, air, water, earth and sky and gets mixed into the same after death. So, through the image of a dead body returning to the place from where it belongs, i.e. the earth, the poet, perhaps, is symbolizing the meeting of the simple soul with the Paramatman or God of which it is an inseparable part. Hope’s simple appearing poems are always resonant with deeper philosophies of life. Like Pope, who has been his inspiration, his satires too are very bitter, and is praised by many critics. Despite being labelled as old-fashioned and conservative by many critics, his works are widely appreciated and researched throughout the world. 7.7 SUMMARY  In \"Death of a Bird,” the speaker at first makes it clear the bird is near death and explains the bird's memories and feelings of past migrations.  The bird is becoming frail, and she struggles to complete this migration, both physically and mentally.  The landscape is unsympathetic to her aging state, and she dies as just another number to the earth  The speaker writes about the bird as an individual, which instead, implies that she is more than just a number. 7.8 KEYWORDS  Haunt- (used about a ghost of a dead person) to appear in a place regularly  Architrave - (in classical architecture) a main beam resting across the tops of columns, specifically the lower third entablature  Moorland - is a type of habitat found in upland areas in temperate grasslands  Custom - a way of behaving which a particular group or society has had for a long time  Vanishing - to disappear suddenly or in a way that you cannot explain  Malice- a wish to hurt other people  Strand - a single piece of cotton, wool, hair, etc  Hemlocks -a highly poisonous European plant of the parsley family, with a purple- spotted stem, fernlike leaves, small white flowers, and an unpleasant smell 137 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

 Plaintive- sounding sad, especially in a weak complaining way 7.9 LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. Interpret post-colonial concepts are in ‘The Death of the Bird’ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 2. Examine Ecocritical concepts are in ‘The Death of the Bird’ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 7.10 UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. What type of poem is death of a bird? 2. How does AD Hope describe the migration of the bird season after season? 3. When was Australia by AD Hope written? 4. Discuss the last two lines of the poem, 'The Death of the Bird' is highly mystical and symbolical. 5. Write any two messages from the poem, 'The Death of the Bird' Long Questions 1. Examine AD Hope as an Australian writer 2. Explain the plot and style of the poem 'The Death of the Bird' 3. List the images used in 'The Death of the Bird' 4. Critically analysis the poem ‘The Death of the Bird' 5. How does A.D. Hope describe death in his 'Death of the Bird'? B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. The bird is trying her best to find a way but the whole world has suddenly become ___ a. trackless b. useful c. waste 138 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

d. vast 2. The poet is describing the vast geography of this earth which is very ___. a. complicated b. big c. waste d. ruined 3. The poet is pointing towards the direction of the eastern ______ a. valleys b. rivers c. hills d. lands 4. The winds are striking her forcefully in a way like they are ______ a. hungry b. happy c. sad d. thirsty 5. The earth which is so great feels no grief for any ___. a. Death b. End c. Question d. Goods Answers 1-a, 2-a, 3-a, 4-a, 5-a 139 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

7.11 REFERENCES References book  Patel, G. (2007). Poetry with young people. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.  Thomas J. T. (2004). Child poets and the poetry of the playground. Children’s Literature  Bishop, Edward. (1989). A Virginia Woolf Chronology. Macmillan Press, London.  Spiropoulu, Angeliki. (2010). Virginia Woolf, Modernity and History: Constellations with W.Benjamin. Palgrave, London. Textbook references  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56907/raw-meditations-on-money-1-she- speaks-a-school-teacher-from-south-india Websites  https://d7.drunkenboat.com/db20/reviews/finds-larger-chaos-meena-alexanders- birthplace-buried-stones-wallis-wilde-menozzi  https://ijllnet.com/journals/Vol_5_No_3_September_2018/23.pdf  https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Raw+Meditations+on+Money-a077035217  https://poem.shivyogastudio.in/2021/03/a-school-teacher-from-south-india.html 140 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

UNIT – 8 STANDISH O’ GRADY-: “WINTER IN LOWER CANADA” STRUCTURE 8.0 Learning Objectives 8.1 Author’s Introduction 8.2 Poem – Winter in Lower India 8.3 Analysis - Winter in Lower India 8.4 Summary 8.5 Keywords 8.6 Learning Activity 8.7 Unit End Questions 8.8 References 8.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to:  Understand the analysis and interpretation of the O’ Grady’s work  Elucidate the theme of the poem  List the Literary Devices 8.1 AUTHOR’ S INTRODUCTION O'Grady, Standish James (1846–1928), writer and journalist, was born 18 September 1846 in Castletownbere, Co. Cork, one of eleven children of Thomas O'Grady, Church of Ireland rector of Castletown Berehaven and his wife, Susanna Dowe. The O'Gradys were an old Waterford family. Two of O'Grady's great-uncles, General Standish O'Grady and Admiral Hayes O'Grady, distinguished themselves in the Napoleonic wars; the Admiral was the father of the Celtic scholar Standish Hayes O'Grady (qv). The Dowes arrived during the Munster plantation and intermarried with the McCarthys. O'Grady's parents were affectionately portrayed in his boys' stories, The chain of gold and Lost on Du Carrig, whose heroes were modelled on his elder brothers while he appears as the youngest son, Charlie. His mother was the model for the heroine of his historical novel Ulrick the ready, whose theme of blending planter and Gael through intermarriage reflects O'Grady's pride in his ancestry. O'Grady 141 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

rejected his parents' evangelical faith, but retained their sense of supernatural forces underlying the everyday world; his social criticisms echo Old Testament prophets. When his mother inherited a small estate at Three Castle Head, west Cork, O'Grady played with the local children, went to the village school, and visited every cottage on the estate. This gave him a sense of brotherhood with the common people and an idealized vision of aristocratic paternalism. He was educated at Tipperary grammar school from 1856 and found separation from home traumatic but distinguished himself as a scholar and an athlete. He won an exhibitioner ship and a classical scholarship to TCD in 1864 and was a successful athlete and debater, winning medals for debating, ethics and philosophy. He was a leading member of the ‘hockey’ (i.e. hurling) team and always athletic, and in later life was a proficient golfer and tennis player. He studied divinity, but gave it up after two years, abandoning orthodox Christianity for pantheism influenced by Shelley, Whitman, Ruskin and Carlyle. He was called to the bar in 1872. O'Grady married a childhood friend, Margaret Fisher, daughter of the rector of Kenmare and they had three sons. She claimed to have psychic powers and practiced palmistry and O'Grady himself was obsessed with telepathy, which he believed transcended time and space and allowed the artist to make the past live again. He developed an interest in ancient Irish literature after discovering History of Ireland by Sylvester O'Halloran (qv) in a country house library. He produced two volumes of a history of Ireland (1878 and 1880), centered on a politically and sexually bowdlerised retelling of the Ulster cycle. These were not commercially successful, but they popularizedCúChulainn (qv). They had a profound influence on W. B. Yeats (qv) and George Russell (qv); Yeats called O'Grady ‘father of the Irish literary revival’. At intervals throughout his career, O'Grady produced revised editions of the same material. O'Grady's legal practice was slack, though the Unionist party employed him on electoral matters. He supplemented his income by leader writing for the pro-landlord Dublin Daily Express. In the 1890s he also wrote a column in the Dublin Warder and Weekly Mail. He preached an idealist neo-feudalism, influenced by Carlyle and Ruskin. Though he preferred aristocratic leadership to a ‘shabby and sordid Irish republic, ruled by corrupt politicians and ignoble rich’, his fierce denunciations of the aristocracy as insufficiently feudal led Lady Gregory (qv) to call him a ‘Fenian Unionist’. His Toryism and the tory democracy (1886), hailed Lord Randolph Churchill and told Irish aristocrats to redeem themselves by founding industries establishing the same mutual loyalty with their workforce which their ancestors maintained with tenants and soldiers. In the 1890s O'Grady studied the Elizabethan wars in Ireland, an interest dating from childhood encounters with traditions of the siege of Dunboy and O'Sullivan Beare (qv). His 142 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

researches are displayed in his 1896 edition of Pacata Hibernia, his story collection The bog of stars, historical novels about Red Hugh O'Donnell (qv), and Ulrick the ready. O'Grady's heroic advocacy coexisted with self-mockery. His researches mocked Anglo-Saxon supremacists, while emphasising the treachery of crown officials and ridiculing the claim by J. A. Froude (qv) that the English displayed moral and racial superiority and attributed the crown's victory to the ‘Celtic valour’ of native troops. He also ridiculed nationalists, pointing out that most chieftains, except Red Hugh, a second CúChulainn, temporized with the crown, and he argued that common people thought the crown less oppressive than the chieftains. O'Grady saw the anti-over taxation agitation of 1896–7 as a last chance for the aristocracy to reclaim leadership of the Irish nation, demanding a new Volunteer movement. The campaign was allegorically represented in The tale of a town, a play by Edward Martyn (qv), rewritten by George Moore (qv) and W. B. Yeats as The bending of the bough (1900). The uncharismatic visionary, Ralph Kirwan, who temporarily rouses the eloquent but weak aristocrat Jasper Dean to the leadership that Kirwan cannot wield, is based on O'Grady. He left the declining Express in 1898 and moved to Kilkenny at the invitation of Otway Cuffe (qv) and Ellen, dowager countess of Desart (qv), who had been encouraged by O'Grady's writings to start craft industries. They dominated the local Gaelic League and engaged in psychic research with Margaret O'Grady. He edited the Kilkenny Monitor between 1898 and 1900, but left festooned with libel writs after accusing the marquess of Ormonde, the bishop of Ossory, and other local notables of moral corruption for siding with an individual whom the Desarts accused of theft. The Desarts bailed him out financially and he concentrated on the All-Ireland Review, which he founded in 1900. O'Grady was hailed by the literary revival as a father figure and is portrayed respectfully, selectively and sometimes drunkenly by such memoirists as Yeats and Moore. O'Grady was ambivalent about the new movement and criticized theatrical dramatizations of the heroic tales as demeaning. His appeal extended to physical-force nationalists. Arthur Griffith (qv) praised him as an honest Unionist (a handy stick with which to beat other Unionists). Eoin MacNeill (qv) blamed O'Grady for infecting P. H. Pearse (qv) with an unhistorical and pagan imagery of self-regarding Celtic heroism. O'Grady's Coming of Fionn was performed at St Enda's College in March 1909, after which O'Grady addressed the pupils. His views on history as art influenced. The hidden Ireland by Daniel Corkery (qv) (1878–1964) and the satirical novel King Goshawk and the birds by Eimar O'Duffy (qv) introduces O'Grady's CúChulainn to 1920s Dublin for the purpose of social criticism based on O'Grady's anti- capitalism. After the closure of the All-Ireland Review in 1907, O'Grady suffered a physical and psychological breakdown from overwork; his financial position was eased by a civil list pension. He now saw the aristocracy, and modern civilisation in general, as hopelessly corrupt, turning to the labour movement as a possible vehicle for his ideas. In 1908 he wrote 143 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

for the Irish Peasant, published by W. P. Ryan (qv), telling urban workers to return to the land in Spartan-style communal colonies and he attempted to recruit Dublin clerks for such a scheme. O'Grady wrote Letters to the leaders of the Irish workers (1911–12) in the Irish Worker published by James Larkin (qv); these were modelled on Ruskin's Forsclavigera. He also advocated guild socialism for A. R. Orage's New Age. During the Ulster crisis, he argued that catholics and protestants should have equal representation under home rule and sympathised with the All-for-Ireland League promoted by William O'Brien (qv). O'Grady and his wife left Ireland in 1918 for health reasons. After living in the north of France and Northampton shire, they moved to the Isle of Wight. He was working on a final exposition of his ideas when he died suddenly, 18 May 1928. O'Grady's world view, reflecting the late nineteenth-century European reaction against positivism and liberalism, was frequently eccentric and sometimes sinister. Like his masters, Ruskin and Carlyle, he can be claimed by both left and right. His hostility to commercialism was linked to his preoccupation with the Aryan origins of the Irish and his belief that settlement colonies might become reservoirs of agrarian virtue redeeming a corrupt imperial metropolis. His son and biographer remarks that his heroes are all boys and he is pervaded by nostalgia for his wild, free boyhood on the cliffs of Berehaven. Nonetheless, the integrity with which he pursued his vision opened territories for greater writers to develop and makes him a significant critic of late Victorian Irish society. O’GRADY (Grady), STANDISH, farmer and poet; b. probably in 1789 or 1790 in County Limerick (Republic of Ireland), son of Standish Grady; m. Margaret Thompson, also of southern Ireland, and they had at least three children; fl. 1807–45. Standish O’Grady’s life in Ireland cannot be determined precisely; what information is known comes largely from his own writings and is occasionally contradictory. In addition, the existence of several contemporaries with the same name has led to some confusion. It appears that O’Grady entered Trinity College, Dublin, on 3 Feb. 1807 at age 17; he received his ba in 1810. On 3 Oct. 1813 he was ordained deacon of the Church of Ireland and on 24 July 1814 he was priested in the diocese of Limerick. He was collated priest of Tullybracky in this diocese on 16 Sept. 1817; before that he had been curate of Cullen in the diocese of Emly. From 1820 until his immigration to Lower Canada in 1836, he may have been rector of Kilnasoolagh and several other parishes in the diocese of Killaloe. His decision to emigrate was at least partly precipitated by the “tithe wars” that beset the Church of Ireland in the 1820s and 1830s and that left many clergymen without pay and, in his own words, in “the most abject state of distress.” O’Grady became “[disgusted] with the government, and unable to exist at home, . . . sailed for America, with a small competency.” A revenue of £382, owed to him since the early 1830s, was never paid. 144 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

O’Grady and his wife sailed from Waterford in early April 1836 and arrived in Quebec on 22 May. By August they were living on a farm near William Henry (Sorel); they remained in the area until at least 1842. A son was born in June 1836 but died the following January. Another was born in September 1837 and a daughter in March 1839. A young and an increasing family was only one of the many problems faced by O’Grady in his new home. Unaccustomed to hard physical work, unprepared for the severity of the Lower Canadian winter, and unable to cultivate a soil that was “a perfect compilation of sand not worth the labouring,” he did not succeed as a farmer. One winter “a Canadian stud horse with one miserable cow were the only remnants of [his] stock which survived.” His difficulties were exacerbated by the unrest resulting from the rebellions of 1837–38; unsympathetic to republicanism, he called Louis-Joseph Papineau* a coward who fled while “the bold, intrepid peasants” bled for his cause. In the end, poor health finally forced him to try to change his circumstances. O’Grady provides these details about his life as a Lower Canadian farmer in the lines and notes of his poem The emigrant. In the summer of 1841 O’Grady visited Montreal to sell subscriptions to “a poetical composition.” The editors of the Literary Garland, “favoured with glimpses at a few pages of this work,” reported in their issue of August 1841 that it bore “the character of an epic poem, enriched with a considerable store of notes, of a laughter-inspiring nature, and occasionally sparkling with wit and genius.” The lines they had read were “very beautiful,” and the “respectable names” on the subscription list, together “with the highly flattering notes addressed to the author,” afforded further evidence “that the work [was] of no inconsiderable merit.” The emigrant, a poem, in four cantos was printed and published in Montreal by John Lovell* in 1841, although it was probably not distributed until early in the next year. On 20 Jan. 1842 the Montreal Transcript contained a long, mostly favourable review, and the following week it reprinted a short, enthusiastic notice from the Montreal Messenger. The emigrant contains the first canto only of the title poem, along with copious notes and 13 short lyrics. In the preface O’Grady emphasizes that he is not “an enemy to emigration,” but recommends Upper Canada rather than Lower Canada with its “excessive” cold and “too long” winters. He promises to tell more in his “next Canto” about Upper Canada, “by far a more desirable emporium for our redundant population.” The first canto deals with several subjects, including the troubled state of “proud Erin,” emigration, the climate of Lower Canada, the customs of the Canadians, and the political strife in the Canadas. These subjects are given an emotional force by being linked to and interwoven with the poet’s own story and that of the fictional Alfred and Sylvia, young lovers who flee Ireland, elope to Lower Canada, and fail as miserably there as the poet himself. The canto, written in rhymed couplets, ends optimistically with the arrival of “rude spring” and “cheering hopes” because “mighty Wolfe [James Wolfe*] in Colborne [John Colborne*] still survives.” Yet the discontinuous way in 145 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

which the canto’s various subjects are presented reveals the sense of displacement and despair felt by O’Grady as he composed “this first volume” and dedicated it to “Nobody.” Shortly after the publication of the emigrant, the O’Gradys left William Henry. In March 1843 the Transcript reported that O’Grady was a member of a committee of Irishmen from Montreal who went to Lachine in an attempt to quell riots that had broken out between feuding Irish labourers from Cork and Connaught, who had gone on strike to protest low wages during the construction of the Lachine Canal. He “mainly contributed to the success of the mission, by bringing several hundreds of the Corkonians to the spot, where a reconciliation was effected. He received the warm applause of his countrymen.” By late 1845 “poor old O’Grady,” apparently living somewhere in Upper Canada, was a “distressing case,” according to the British Canadian, and Canada West Commercial and General Advertiser. Although “descended . . . from a highly respectable Irish Protestant family,” he now had “the chill hand of poverty pressing heavily upon him,” and “his grey hairs” were “descending in sorrow to the grave.” O’Grady was “silent” about his “wants,” so the newspaper was publishing “this brief notice – wholly unknown to him” – to ask for charity on his behalf. O’Grady could “be heard of” at the office of the British Canadian. As a result of this notice, the Montreal Gazette offered to receive “contributions” on O’Grady’s behalf. The Examiner, however, was incensed by the request for charity and hinted, somewhat obscurely, that O’Grady’s life had been one of “dissipation.” Nothing further is known about O’Grady. Most likely, he died somewhere in Upper Canada. His monument is the emigrant, incomplete and disjointed, but still frequently anthologized and quoted. In its mixture of hope and despair, alienation and accommodation, it is a fitting memorial both to O’Grady and to the thousands of other Irish emigrants – Protestant and Roman Catholic – who, driven from their native land, arrived in North America in the middle decades of the 19th century. 8.2 POEM - WINTER IN LOWER CANADA Thou barren waste; unprofitable strand, Where hemlocks brood on unproductive land, Whose frozen air on one bleak winter's night Can metamorphose dark brown hares to white! Here forests crowd, unprofitable lumber, 146 O'er fruitless lands indefinite as number; Where birds scarce light, and with the north winds veer On wings of wind, and quickly disappear, CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Here the rough Bear subsists his winter year, 147 And licks his paw and finds no better fare . . . . One month we hear birds, shrill and loud and harsh, The plaintive bittern sounding from the marsh; The next we see the fleet-winged swallow, The duck, the woodcock, and the ice-birds follow; Then comes, drear clime, the lakes all stagnant grow, And the wild wilderness is rapt in snow. The lank Canadian eager trims his fire, And all around their simpering stoves retire; With fur clad friends their progenies abound, And thus regale their buffaloes around; Unlettered race, how few the number tells, Their only pride a cariole and bells! To mirth or mourning, thus by folly led, To mix in pleasure or to chaunt the dead! To seek the chapel, prostrate to adore, Or leave their fathers' coffins at the door! Perchance they revel; still around they creep, And talk, and smoke, and spit, and drink, and sleep! ... With sanguine sash and eke with Indian's mogs, Let Frenchmen feed on fricassees or frogs; Brave Greenland winters, seven long months to freeze, With naught of verdure save their Greenland trees; Bright veiled amid the drap'ry of night, In Ice-wrought tapestry of gorgeous white, No matter here in this sad soil who delves; Still leave their lower province to themselves. Let patriots flourish, other deeds displace, CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Let adverse men new politics embrace; Yet come it will when wisdom may control, And one sound policy conduct the whole. 8.3 ANALYSIS – WINTER IN LOWER CANADA An Irish priest who emigrated to Canada to escape the wars of his country, O’Grady finds that the country of his settlement offers no cheer to him because of its extreme winter, which is so prohibitively cold that only the hardiest plants, beasts and men survive. The poet addresses the landscape and the swamp as ‘barren waste.’ The plants that grow are ‘hemlock,’ a poisonous plant as the land is not good enough to produce anything else. The winter brings heavy snowfall, and the brown hare becomes white covered in snow. Forests are many and they are useful only to be cut down as lumber (the people who work there are lumberjacks) and the land is barren of birds and the severest north wind makes it one of the bleakest landscapes. The only animal to exist is the bear, which has a rough coat to withstand cold and to the poet, even the bear appears pathetic as it has to satisfy its hunger licking its paws. There is one month in the whole year when birdsong is heard. But even the song of the bittern is “plaintive” and then the swallow appears, followed by duck, woodcock and other ice-birds. After this month of spring break, the winter steps in wrapping up the countryside in a blanket of snow. The poet tells us about the people who live in a harsh land like this. A lanky Canadian is busy lighting up the fire to keep him warm and the others gather around the lighted stove to sip some hot brew. All are covered in fur, including the small children, their progenies. The tales they narrate, says the poet scornfully, are good enough only to entertain their buffaloes, so lacking in sophistication. He calls them an ‘unlettered race.’ That which gives them something to brag about is only the tiny four-wheeled vehicle they have. Whether they are joyful or sad, they are foolish people, says the poet. They visit the church only to prostrate before God for some sin they have committed, or it is to bury their dear ones. The poet, who is also a churchman, laments their lack of devotion. When they indulge in revelry of some kind, it is but natural for them to drink or smoke or spit, clearly habits that the poet despises. Wearing a bright coloured sash and making out a living with the help of Indians and their children, the Canadian leads a life not like that of a refined Frenchman who eats meat cooked in its own sauce (fricassee) and frogs. These Greenland winters last for seven months in a year and except for the trees, there is no green anywhere on the ground. Even in the night, the snow-clad landscape shimmers in “gorgeous white.” Whoever takes the trouble to till this soil is ultimately forced to leave it as it does not bother to reward the one who struggles on it. 148 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

This is altogether a depressing kind of poem, especially for someone who came to Canada seeking greener pastures all the across an ocean. The poem Winter in Lower Canada is composed by an Irish poet Standish O’ Grady. It starts from Canadian geography and ends with universal ideas of equality. It basically is in elegiac form on the separation from birth land as well as a satire on the cruel behavior and climate of welcoming land, Lower Canada. Its themes are nature, humanity class discrimination and migration. All these will be discussed under the division of major and minor themes later on. The poet’s basic idea is weather, people’s intolerant attitude, their lack of emotions and mutual cooperation. But owing to this style and negative connotations he has been badly criticized by the contemporaries. All these hints will be explored one by in the critique. Critique Standish O’ Grady was born in Ireland in 1780. He became a protestant minister but due to circumstances he migrated to Canada on May 22, 1836, on a board “Ocean”. The ship carried 34 other people. He had two kids and one wife with him. The kids die due to sever climate and wife passed away next year. He was much disappointed and dissatisfied with Canadian climate and atmosphere. This grieve and complain became the base for his writings. The title has two connotations as on surface level it is about the winter season Lower Canada and the second interpretation is symbolic. Winter is the symbol of barren, wasteand unprofitability while Canada is the presenting the harsh and uncooperative behavior of the natives. It means the title tells about the severe attitude of Canadian barbarian people. In this poem the poet starts from Canadian geography and ends with universal ideas of equality and mutuality. In the start he criticizes the Lower Canadian land by using three negative adjectives,“barren, waste, unprofitable”. Perhaps he does so due to three possible reasons. May be his personal experience or he is representing the whole people or he is telling the fact and it could be a warning for newcomers. Then he shares his views about the coldness and dryness of the land that can, “Metamorphose dark brown hares to white”. After this he laments on the situation of the forests as their woods have no fertility and the birds do not want to live there. The condition of the climate can be divided into two periods because only one month the wild and land birds chirp but eleven months they disappear. Moreover, he categorize the people into three types native, emigrants and the settlers. He mocks at the natives as according to him they are“ unlettered race” and “ they creep, and talk, and smoke, and spit, and drink, and sleep…” It is because they have no sense of discrimination between happiness and grieve. They sing the same songs wedding and funeral. They live the dog’s life, and it is obvious from their daily life routine. Here the ellipse shows the continuity of this animal like behavior from 149 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

generations to generations. They are barbarian and cannibals who are notorious for eating human beings. Furthermore, he asserts about the emigrants that they should allow to utilize the recourses of the land equally. He says,“let Frenchmen feed on fricassees or frogs”. But owing to natives’ lack of tolerance and cooperation he advises emigrants to vacate the land for the natives, the selfish people. Despite this fact he is hopeful for the justice of God. He wishes to let the heart rule the world instead of the mind. In this respect he opposes the garrison mentality and favors equality. He hopes, “Yet come it will when wisdom may control And one sound policy conduct the whole” It is important to note that he not wishing only but he is quiet sure as he is not using the wishing verb “May” rather he is using the definite verb “will”. As far as themes of this poem are concerned there are many major and minor themes in this piece of writing. Major themes are nature, climate, racism, pessimism and heartverses mind. On the other hand, sub themes are illiteracy, humanity, migration, optimism and patriotism. Poet’s philosophy in this poem basically concerns about weather, people’s behavior, their lack of tolerance and mutual cooperation. Like Tennyson presents the negative side of the nature which is,“red in tooth and claws”. He on one stage laments on the separation from mother land while complaining against the cruel attitude of the welcoming land. Moreover, his policy is to prefer the heart “emotions and feelings” rather mind “wisdom and garrison mentality”. He is pure Irish in his writings that is why he is notorious for using negative connotations for the positive purpose. He uses punctuation marks abundantly. Most of the verbs used in this poem are presenting the imagery relating sensuousness. “licks his paw” sense of taste, “we hear birds” sense of listening and “we see the fleet-winged swallows” sense of looking. He uses motives that help to develop the themes of the poem. Like W.B. Yeats in his this poem there is a conflict between pessimism and optimism as in the whole poem he shows the negative side of the picture but in the end he is still hopeful for the change based upon equality. There are lots of figures of speech has used in this poem like“let patriot flourish” irony, “Bear subsists” imagery, “barren, waste, unprofitable” word-play, “and talk, and smoke, and spit, and drink, and sleep…” caesura and anaphora. The rhyming scheme of the poem is AABBCCDDEEFF…… and the form is pentameter. In this poem his approach is objective. 150 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)