Analyse the work of Louis MacNeice, entitled, The sunlight on the garden

In this essay, I shall analyse the work of Louis MacNeice, entitled, The sunlight on the garden. It is a modern verse that offers a self-reflexive commentary on t nonpareil and its key elements. In similarity to the tralatitious grand verse, the metrical composition is an chemical formula of the speakers particular personalities and motives. I intend to explore these two subjects in great detail in my essay. According to the Oxford English dictionary, a poetic compend is the process, or detailed examination of studying a meter o determine its nature, structure, or essential features. This is a common practice utilize by twain reader and critic in the narration of prose and verse take up and I will adopt this technique in my essay. MacNeices rime from the mid-thirties transcribes the period of great hardship in the Western World, as swell as the speakers self-hardship of love and death. The Wall Street Crash in 1929 started a worldwide frugal depression that lasted f or much of the decade and industries much(prenominal) as steel, ship-building and coal mining suffered.Moreover, unemployment in Britain soared which left a hollowed and pessimistic medical prognosis on life. This had a strong impact upon poetry of the beat, this particular rime illuminating the astonishments and irresolvable issues of the common man. There are many social and political circumstances that influenced MacNeices work, the First World War being the most significant. Though the level offt took place decades before the poets publication, there are strong elements of futility, death and declination in his linguistic communication.The line, we are dying, Egypt, dying in particular, is reflective of the dreary society that both the poet and the people lived by dint of. The poets reference to the Shakespearian tragedy suggests that the speaker or even MacNeice himself suffered from heartache or loss. The line, hardened heart expands this idea, revealing a meta-level of pic and egoism of both the poem and its writer. Moreover, MacNeices use of the pronoun we rather than, I highlights that this is a communal suffering, a contrast to the typical self-infliction of epic poems.There is great discussion as to the traditions of the poem, MacNeices experiments with classic meter and rhyme making the poem difficult to follow. The partial-serpentine rhymes, heartbeat within it for example, are demonstrative of his varying rhyme scheme and poetic technique. However there are evident poetic qualities which suggest that he is writing in the style of lyric-epic poets. Firstly, the poems occasion is focused on the then(prenominal) rather than the present-self. The line, but dexterous to have sat ith you emphasises the speakers preoccupation with noncurrent events and his eternal struggle with meter and death.Further much, the narration of events (combined with the speakers emotional and reflective self-expression), creates an individuality of the ly ric self that is not order in the traditional epic. The speakers constant preoccupation of the self and of death is a strong characteristic of elegiac poetry. Moreover, instead of using the typical third person perspective found in Greek epic poetry, MacNeice uses, we and you, typical of the lyric-epics of the condemnation.Perhaps the poet, like opposite modernist writers, aspired to move away from the traditional epic layout and create a more modernised work as this was a fashionable movement in the early twentieth century. The poet Wordsworth, for example, experimented with new styles and verse forms to re-invent and modernise the lyric. Having identified the poetic form and tradition, I am now going to analyse the language in MacNeices work. The use of imaginativeness in all forms of poetry is a common technique used to draw the reader into poetic experiences, principally through the senses.This is a characteristic in, The Sunlight on the garden, where the works title at onc e evokes a simple image of beauty, nature and hope. The first line however, at one time transposes ones expectations as MacNeices speaker descends into a metaphysical state of suffering, sunlight hardens and grows c sr.. Moreover, the imagery of Egypt dying also reveals the somewhat macabre state of his vision absent in love, emotion and feeling, hardened in heart.MacNeices vivid poetic imagery such as the line, nets of gold, arouses our senses and evokes the speakers pure and simple vision. Furthermore, the imagery of, birds and flying appeal to not and our sense of sight but also to the speakers hope for exemption. However, on a meta-level, once again our understanding is transposed as the imagery of Cage and net enforces not license but a sensation of being trapped and confined in ones self. In addition to imagery, an early(a)(prenominal) dominant characteristic of MacNeices poem is rhyme.The rhyming scheme follows the same pattern (ABCBBA) in each stanza. The partial-serpen tine rhyme of the poem acts as an enjambment, the syllabic meter from the previous line being carried to the next. This is again similar to the continuity of time and death that the poet discusses. The enjambment of the first line in the poem follows a rhyming word which then follows another rhyming word (garden hardens cold). In doing so, the unavoidable continuity of time and fate is highlighted.Moreover, the confusion of poetic forms and rhyme scheme add to the futility and the speakers drop of power or control. The use of alliteration cannot cage emphasises the futility of ones attempts to stop time. Again the speakers conceit is exposed by the poet as he ultimately fails in this, the line, we cannot beseech emphasising his vulnerability of self. The disjointed and reckless rhyme scheme, as well as the change pentameter, trochaic and heptameter, sound more fluid when spoken orally to an audience.MacNeice continues this old tradition of verbal poetry and in doing so, the beau ty of the poem overcomes the confusion of the poetic form, acting as a work of art for both the eyes and ears. Now that I have analysed rhyme and rhythm, I am going to look at the use of goods and services of the poem and the issues the poet raises. One of the basics purposes of the poem that presents itself is that the speaker has a constant preoccupation with love and regret. The line, our freedom advances towards its end is suggestive of a strong nostalgia and pessimism in the speaker.This is a self-consciousness that he readily admits to his audience, perhaps something that he could not have done through another medium. There is also a strong debate upon reading the poem that he could be talking to his lover. The sentiments in the last stanza, glad to have sat with you and, hardened in heart imply that the poems purpose is a written expression of his feelings towards her, a romantic perspective on the traditional lyric-epic. However, the most prominent purpose for MacNeices wor k is that the poem is the speakers farewell to his love ones.The line, we shall have no time for dances coupled with the endless discussion of time and indeed death, infers that life, indeed his life is running out and no yield how many a net of gold he uses, one cannot prevent it. Having analysed the purpose of the poem, I am now going to identify the implication of the poem on primarily the reader and the effects on society itself. At first glance, there is little political reference in the poem, something that one would not have expected, particularly at a time of economic turmoil and war. However there is a strong implication on our philosophical understanding of love, life and fate.The phrase we cannot cage the minute, for example, highlights the delicacy and futility of time that not even the speaker can stop or control. This in bust, highlights the vulnerability and weakness of man who has no control over fate, despite the nets of gold. This weakness of man represents a na tion under threat with the predict threat of another war, and the future economic difficulties in the thirties. There cleverness also be a political implication in the line, We cannot beg for pardon, relating in my mind to the horrors and mistakes made in the first word war.In conclusion, the poem, The sunlight on the garden written by Louis MacNeice, is a typical lyric-epic poem focused around love, loss and time. There are many other themes (the speakers gender for example) and aspects the poems structure that I could have looked at in greater detail, rather than focusing solely on imagery and rhyme. The poem educates us about the importance of time and the growing shift occurring in epic poetry, a movement which MacNeice evidently took part in and which in turn affected the evolution of poetry in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.