Nietzsche – Dionysus and Apollo

The Apollonian and Dionysian is a philosophical and literary concept, or dichotomy, based on certain features of ancient Greek mythology. Many Western philosophical and literary figures have invoked this dichotomy in critical and creative works. In Greek mythology, Apollo and Dionysus are both sons of Zeus. Apollo is the god of the Sun, of dreams, and of reason, while Dionysus is the god of wine, ecstasy, and intoxication. The Greeks did not consider the two gods to be opposites or rivals, although often the two deities were inter-lacing by nature. The Apollonian is based on individuality, and the human form which is used to represent the individual and make one being distinct from all the others. It celebrates human creativity through reason and logical thinking. By contrast, the Dionysian is based on chaos and appeals to the emotions and instincts. Rather than being individual, the barriers on individuality are broken down and beings submerge themselves in one whole.

Although the use of the concepts of the Apollonian and Dionysian is famously linked to Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, the terms were used before him in German culture.[1] The poet Hölderlin spoke of them, while Winckelmann talked of Bacchus, the god of wine.

Nietzsche's aesthetic usage of the concepts, which was later developed philosophically, first appeared in his book The Birth of Tragedy, which was published in 1872. His major premise here was that the fusion of Dionysian and Apollonian "Kunsttrieben" ("artistic impulses") forms dramatic arts, or tragedies. He goes on to argue that this fusion has not been achieved since the ancient Greek tragedians. Nietzsche is adamant that the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles represent the apex of artistic creation, the true realization of tragedy; it is with Euripides that tragedy begins its downfall ("Untergang"). Nietzsche objects to Euripides' use of Socratic rationalism in his tragedies, claiming that the infusion ofethics and reason robs tragedy of its foundation, namely the fragile balance of the Dionysian and Apollonian.

The relationship between the Apollonian and Dionysian juxtapositions is apparent, Nietzsche claimed in The Birth of Tragedy, in the interplay of Greek Tragedy: the tragic hero of the drama, the main protagonist, struggles to make order (in the Apollonian sense) of his unjust and chaotic (Dionysian) Fate, though he dies unfulfilled in the end. For the audience of such a drama, Nietzsche claimed, this tragedy allows us to sense an underlying essence, what he called the "Primordial Unity", which revives

our Dionysian nature - which is almost indescribably pleasurable. Though he later dropped this concept saying it was “...burdened with all the errors of youth” (Attempt at Self Criticism, §2), the overarching theme was a sort of metaphysical solace or connection with the heart of creation.

Different from Kant's idea of the sublime, the Dionysian is all-inclusive rather than alienating to the viewer as a sublimating experience. The sublime needs critical distance, while the Dionysian demands a closeness of experience. According to Nietzsche, the critical distance, which separates man from his closest emotions, originates in Apollonian ideals, which in turn separate him from his essential connection with self. The Dionysian embraces the chaotic nature of such experience as all-important; not just on its own, but as it is intimately connected with the Apollonian. The Dionysian magnifies man, but only so far as he realizes that he is one and the same with all ordered human experience. The godlike unity of the Dionysian experience is of utmost importance in viewing the Dionysian as it is related to the Apollonian because it emphasizes the harmony that can be found within one’s chaotic experience.

G.B. Shaw – Saint Joan

Saint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw, based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Published not long after the canonization of Joan of Arc by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises what is known of her life based on the substantial records of her trial. Shaw studied the transcripts and decided that the concerned people acted in good faith according to their beliefs. He wrote in hispreface to the play:

There are no villains in the piece. Crime, like disease, is not interesting: it is something to be done away with by general consent, and that is all [there is] about it. It is what men do at their best, with good intentions, and what normal men and women find that they must and will do in spite of their intentions, that really concern us.

Michael Holroyd has characterised the play as "a tragedy without villains" and also as Shaw's "only tragedy".[1] John Fielden has discussed further the appropriateness of characterising Saint Joan as a tragedy.[2]

Characters

Robert de Baudricourt Steward to Robert de Baudricourt Joan Bertrand de Poulengey Monseigneur de la Trémouille, Lord

Chamberlain            Duchess de la Trémouille Archbishop of Rheims Gilles de Rais ("Bluebeard") Captain La Hire Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais

Dauphin, Charles VII

Richard de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick

Dunois, Bastard of Orléans Page to Dunois John de Stogumber,

English chaplain Canon John D'Estivet Canon de Courcelles Brother Martin Ladvenu. Brother John Lemaître, The

Inquisitor Executioner English Soldier

GentlemanPlot

Shaw characterised Saint Joan as "A Chronicle Play in 6 Scenes and an Epilogue". Joan, a simple peasant girl, hears voices which she claims to be those of Saint Margaret, Saint Catherine, and the archangel Michael, sent by God to guide her conduct.

Scene 1 begins with Robert de Baudricourt complaining about the inability of the hens on his farm to produce eggs. Joan claims that her voices are telling her to raise a siege against Orléans, and to allow her several of his men for this purpose. Joan also says that she will eventually crown the Dauphin in Rheims cathedral. de Baudricourt ridicules Joan, but his servant feels inspired by her words. de Baudricourt eventually begins to feel the same sense of inspiration, and gives his consent to Joan. The servant enters at the end of the scene to exclaim that the hens have begun to lay eggs again. de Baudricourt interprets this as a sign from God of Joan's divine inspiration.

In Scene 2 (8 March 1429), Joan talks her way into being received at the court of the weak and vain Dauphin. There, she tells him that her voices have commanded her to help him become a true king by rallying his troops to drive out the English occupiers and restore France to greatness. Joan

succeeds in doing this through her excellent powers of flattery, negotiation, leadership, and skill on the battlefield.

In Scene 3 (29 April 1429), Dunois and his page are waiting for the wind to turn so that he and his forces can lay siege to Orléans. Joan and Dunois commiserate, and Dunois attempts to explain to her more pragmatic realities of an attack, without the wind at their back. Her replies eventually inspire Dunois to rally the forces, and at the scene's end, the wind turns in their favour.

Ultimately she is betrayed, and captured by the English at the siege of Compiègne. Scene 6 (30 May 1431) deals with her trial. John de Stogumber is adamant that she be executed at once. The Inquisitor, the Bishop of Beauvais, and the Church officials on both sides of the trial have a long discussion on the nature of her heresy. Joan is brought to the court, and continues to assert that her voices speak to her directly from God and that she has no need of the Church's officials. This outrages de Stogumber. She acquiesces to the pressure of torture at the hands of her oppressors, and agrees to sign a confession relinquishing the truth behind her voices, so that she can live a life in permanent confinement without hope of parole. Upon hearing this, Joan changes her mind:

Joan: "You think that life is nothing but not being dead? It is not the bread and water I fear. I can live on bread. It is no hardship to drink water if the water be clean. But to shut me from the light of the sky and the sight of the fields and flowers; to chain my feet so that I can never again climb the hills. To make me breathe foul damp darkness, without these things I cannot live. And by your wanting to take them away from me, or from any human creature, I know that your council is of the devil."

Joan accepts death at the stake as preferable to such an imprisoned existence. De Stogumber vehemently demands that Joan then be taken to the stake for immediate execution. The Inquisitor and the Bishop of Beauvais excommunicate her and deliver her into the hands of the English. The Inquisitor asserts that Joan was fundamentally innocent, in the sense that she was sincere and had no understanding of the church and the law. De Stogumber re-enters, screaming and severely shaken emotionally after seeing Joan die in the flames, the first time that he has witnessed such a death, and realising that he has not understood what it means to burn a person at the stake until he has actually seen it happen. A soldier had given Joan two sticks tied together in a cross before the moment of her death.

Bishop Martin Ladvenu also reports that when he approached with a cross to let her see the cross before she died, and he approached too close to the flames, she had warned him of the danger from the stake, which convinced him that she could not have been under the inspiration of the devil.

In the Epilogue, 25 years after Joan's execution, a new trial has cleared her of heresy. Brother Martin brings the news to the now-King Charles. Charles then has a dream in which Joan appears to him. She begins conversing cheerfully not only with Charles, but with her old enemies, who also materialise in the King's bedroom. An emissary from the present day (at the time of the play, the 1920s) brings news that the Catholic Church is to canonise her, in the year 1920. Joan says that saints can work miracles, and asks if she can be resurrected. At this, all the characters desert her one by one, asserting that the world is not prepared to receive a saint such as her. The last to leave is the English soldier, who is about to engage in a conversation with Joan before he is summoned back to hell at the end of his 24-hour respite. The play ends with Joan ultimately despairing that mankind will never accept its saints:

O God that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to accept thy saints? How long, O Lord, how long?

Edmund Blunden – Preparation for the Victory

My soul, dread not the pestilence that hags The valley; flinch not you, my body young. At these great shouting smokes and snarling jags Of fiery iron; as yet may not be flung The dice that claims you. Manly move amongThese ruins, and what you must do, do well; Look, here are gardens, there mossed boughs are hung With apples who bright cheeks none might excel, And there's a house as yet unshattered by a shell. 

"I'll do my best," the soul makes sad reply, "And I will mark the yet unmurdered tree, The tokens of dear homes that court the eye, And yet I see them not as I would see. Hovering between, a ghostly enemy.

Sickens the light, and poisoned, withered, wan, The least defiled turns desperate to me." The body, poor unpitied Caliban, Parches and sweats and grunts to win the name of Man.

Days or eternities like swelling waves Surge on, and still we drudge in this dark maze; The bombs and coils and cans by strings of slaves Are borne to serve the coming day of days; Pale sleep in slimy cellars scarce allays With its brief blank the burden. Look, we lose; The sky is gone, the lightless, drenching haze Of rainstorms chills the bone; earth, air are foes, The black fiend leaps brick-red as life's last picture goes. 

Analysis:

The principal element Blunden uses in "Preparations for Victory" is that of the separation of the self into three parts: the soul, the body, and the unnamed part of the self which addresses the other two, which we could call the will. The will is strong, idealistic, encouraging the soul to "dread not the pestilence that hags/ the valley" (lines 1-2) and the body to "Manly move among/ these ruins (lns. 5-6). While calling for nobility and heroism, it simultaneously tries to convince the others that the danger is not great, reminding them that some people, trees and houses have survived the devastation of battle, and that ìas yet may not be flung the dice that claims youî (lns. 4-5). The will, too, is the part of the mind which views the current activities as 'preparations for victory'; by insisting that the battle will be a success it attempts to make the other selves forget the danger. The will is the most actively conscious part of the soldier's mind, urging him to face the action which he knows he has to, drawing on whatever means possible to convince his other selves to face the combat and "what [they] must do, do well" (ln. 6). The inconsistency of simultaneously invoking heroism and down-playing the danger does not matter to the conscious will because its only interest is in motivating the self to the action it has to take. Actually going into such an horrific battle is so far beyond the normal scope of human endurance that the will must employ every means available, despite fear, logic or reality.

The second part, the soul, is timid, sad. It agrees to look at the will's examples of optimism, but cannot see them optimistically, since "Hovering between, a ghostly enemy/ sickens the light, and poisoned, withered, wan,/ the least defiled turns desperate . . ." (lns. 14-16). The soul here is the part of the self which absorbs and understands the carnage, which cannot blind itself to the horror. It is the philosophic self, the part which feels, which has analyzed the war and knows the battle to be beyond the limit of human endurance. It is the quiet analytical poet within the soldier, and cannot forget the tragedy it sees, not in the name of idealism or optimism. The will must control the soul, keeping a gloss of necessary optimism over its tragic poetry, since, while the soul does not control action, it is the inner core of the self, which the other components recognize as the source of truth, and if it falters, then the will will have no power to motivate, and the soldier will be powerless to go on.

The body, the last part, is not limited merely to the physical self, for the will addresses it, warning, not to endure the strain and tire not, as would be appropriate to the purely physical body, but to "flinch not" (ln. 2). The body, then, is not the husk of flesh but, rather, the husk of human limitations: fear, timidity, the simple emotions which the will must suppress. The soul threatens the functioning of the self by feeling the poetic tragedy of war, the body by feeling its simple terror. Connecting emotional weakness with the body seems incongruous, but Blunden summarizes the body as a "poor unpitied Caliban,/ [which] parches and sweats and grunts to win the name of Man"(lns. 17-18). The body, then, is the animal parts of the self, instinct and flesh, which society says we must suppress and conquer to prove ourselves civilized, human. Virtue, manliness, courage, these societal constructs demand that the will force the body beyond its physical and emotional limitations, so the self can face the un-faceable battle.

The first part stanza describes the 'preparations for victory', and in the descriptions of them we hear snippets of tone from each part of the self. The poetic soul sees "eternities like swelling waves" (ln. 19) and a "dark maze" (ln. 20), while what speaker but our 'unpitied Caliban' would describe the labor of preparation as "the bombs and coils and cans by strings of slaves/ are borne to serve the coming day of days" (lns. 21-22)? The soldier himself, of course, is one of those slaves. The will, meanwhile, struggles for "days or eternities" (ln. 19) to maintain control, while "Pale sleep in slimy cellars scarce allays/ with its brief blank the burden" (lns. 23-24), the ëblankí being the surcease of tension as the three parts join in empty unconsciousness.

This joining in the emptiness of sleep acts as a prelude to the death the soldier meets in the final lines. However valiant the willís effort to convince the self that he prepares for victory, in the end "we lose" (ln. 24), he dies, and in that loss of life the three parts of the self are joined. The final description uses abstract terms of pure sensation: "The sky is gone, the lightless drenching haze/ of rainstorm chills the bone" (lns. 25-26). Here we have none of the willís heroism, the soul's poetry or the body's instinct, only sensation and realization, terms common to all three selves and tied to none. Once he knows he is leaving the world forever, the soldier can relax the hold of will over the others and discard the separation society made between the animal self, the poetic self and the noble self. No longer divided, the he discovers that he has only one real self, and that that self is dying. "The black fiend leaps brick-red"(ln. 27), is the realization by a self of its own destruction, without morality or analysis. The soldier, whole at last, has no time to rue the war which destroyed both his unity in life and life itself, and he dies mourning the loss of the only truth common to all his former parts, sensation, lost as life's "last picture goes" (ln. 27).

W.H. Auden - The Shield of Achilles

She looked over his shoulder For vines and olive trees, Marble well-governed cities And ships upon untamed seas, But there on the shining metal His hands had put instead An artificial wilderness And a sky like lead.

A plain without a feature, bare and brown, No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down, Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood An unintelligible multitude,A million eyes, a million boots in line, Without expression, waiting for a sign.

Out of the air a voice without a face Proved by statistics that some cause was justIn tones as dry and level as the place:

No one was cheered and nothing was discussed; Column by column in a cloud of dustThey marched away enduring a beliefWhose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.

She looked over his shoulder For ritual pieties, White flower-garlanded heifers, Libation and sacrifice, But there on the shining metal Where the altar should have been, She saw by his flickering forge-light Quite another scene.

Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)And sentries sweated for the day was hot: A crowd of ordinary decent folk Watched from without and neither moved nor spokeAs three pale figures were led forth and boundTo three posts driven upright in the ground.

The mass and majesty of this world, all That carries weight and always weighs the sameLay in the hands of others; they were small And could not hope for help and no help came: What their foes like to do was done, their shameWas all the worst could wish; they lost their prideAnd died as men before their bodies died.

She looked over his shoulder For athletes at their games, Men and women in a dance Moving their sweet limbs Quick, quick, to music, But there on the shining shield His hands had set no dancing-floor But a weed-choked field.

A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,

Loitered about that vacancy; a birdFlew up to safety from his well-aimed stone: That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third, Were axioms to him, who'd never heardOf any world where promises were kept,Or one could weep because another wept.

The thin-lipped armorer, Hephaestos, hobbled away, Thetis of the shining breasts Cried out in dismay At what the god had wrought To please her son, the strong Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles Who would not live long.

Analysis:

The poem is Auden's response to the detailed description, or ekphrasis, in Homer's epic poem the Iliad of the shield borne by the heroAchilles, illustrated with scenes from daily life.

Auden's poem is written in two different stanza forms, one form with shorter lines, the other with longer lines. The stanzas with shorter lines describe the making of the shield by the god Hephaestus, and report the scenes that Achilles'mother, the Nereid Thetis, expects to find on the shield and which Hephaestus, in Auden's version, does not make. Thetis expects to find scenes of happiness and peace like those described by Homer.

The stanzas with longer lines describe the scenes that Hephaestus creates in Auden's version, scenes of a barren and impersonal modern world. In the first, an anonymous, dispassionate army listens while a crowd of ordinary people watch passively. In the third scene, a "ragged urchin" throws a stone at a bird; he takes it for granted "that girls are raped, that two boys knife a third," and "has never heard of any world where promises are kept / Or one could weep because another wept."

In the closing stanza in short lines, Thetis cries out in dismay at what Hephaestus has made for her son, "who would not live long."

The poem is frequently cited as an antiwar poem[citation needed], but it is also a study in language and responsibility: both Thetis and Hephaestus act on behalf of someone else, Achilles, and they take no personal responsibility for the results. And the results of their passive, impersonal stance is the passive, impersonal world portrayed on the shield.

An alternative reading: Auden reflects bitterly on the differences between the Achaean world as described by Homer—a world where, even amid warfare, imagination naturally ran to scenes of peace—and the world of totalitarian horror Auden himself imagines. At the same time, Auden criticizes Homer for attributing glory to warriors.

Auden's moral opprobrium is directed, not at Thetis or Hephaestus, but at "the strong iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles." The shield described by Auden is made by the god to please Achilles: the horrid world depicted there (and not the delightful world depicted in the shield described by Homer) is the natural result of the sort of iron-hearted manslaughter Achilles, and his comrades and rivals, practice.

Taking its cue from Homer’s epic Iliad, the analysis of The Shield of Achilles conjures an image of a meditative poem which seeks to draw a comment on how brutal and violent the world is. The poem begins with an unknown woman looking over the shoulder of another man whose identity is also unknown and is only revealed to the readers in the last stanza of the woman. However, any reader who is familiar with Homer’s work will be able to identify the characters from the very onset of the poem; the woman character is goddess Thetis, the mother of the Greek hero Achilles.

The theme of The Shield of Achilles gives us a glimpse of the great mythology which involves the classic Trojan War. The lines of the poem itself are dipped in the mood of the Greek classic; Legos vs. Pathoswho are the two main characters who dissent each other views and one’s triumph over the other paints a picture of humanity and its everlasting plight. Achilles happens to be the most celebrated Greek warrior who was an important member of the Trojan War. Achilles mother Thetis, takes a look at the shield of his son that hangs from his shoulder and stands as an emblem of valor and courage which reflects the aspects of Greek civilization and was made especially for Achilles by the blacksmith of Gods; Haphaestous, the blacksmith of the Gods. The poignancy of the poem is revealed though the lines where the Mother looks out;

For vines and olive trees, 

Marble well-governed cities

And ships upon untamed seas, 

But there on the shining metal His hands had put instead

An artificial wilderness

And a sky like lead.

Through the very lines, the theme of meditation poetry, i.e. life and its hollowness and futility is justly reflected. The very word, “artificial” is used to denote the superficial factor of life. The sky like “lead “is an echo of the frigid, metal like behavior that human beings have adapted to. Thetis, who is the mother of Achilles, personifies Hope because she acts in utmost desperation and wants to save her son before he plunges into the war of death. She also looks at his shield that Hephaestus has forged for protection and hopes to find a sign of strength that she thinks will protect her son from his impending death.

On the other hand, Hephaestus, the blacksmith is projected as an epitome of pragmatism. In the classical tale, he had been depicted as a “thin-lipped armorer" who "hobbled". Thetis, the mother is a beautiful nymph in the classic tale now seeks "vines and olive trees, marble well-governed cities and ships upon untamed seas", symbols of peace and prosperity. Amidst all this, it is Hephaestus who gives her "an artificial wilderness and a sky like lead congregated [by] an unintelligible multitude, a million eyes, a million boots in line, without expression, waiting for a sign" which rings the knell that heralds a furious war.

Thetis then goes on to seek "ritual pieties”, “libation and sacrifice", which is nothing but an appeal to the ancient deities for guidance and protection of her son. Hephaestus, the shield maker is the one who offers "an arbitrary spot where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)" seemingly in mockery of Thetis' hope and "three pale figures [whom] were led forth and bound to three posts driven upright in the ground". The Shield of

Achilles meaning changes continually with the introduction of an ironic element that serves to conjure a biblical image that draws a tangent to all attempts of assassination.

W.H Auden's work is also a sharp contrast between a Mothers vision and what is embossed on her sons shield by the blacksmith.’ (She looks for "vines and olive trees," "cities," "ships," "ritual pieties," "athletes," "Men and women in a dance," etc.). Here, Auden attempts to reverse the narration order of Homer; where he describes the war ("a million boots in line, / without expression, waiting for a sign."). Then, when he mentions, "a voice without a face" in order to portray the very idea that the cause for the war is justified. There is also a sharp resemblance to Christ’s death as conveyed through the lines; "As three pale figures were led forth and bound/To three posts driven upright in the ground."They "died as men before their bodies died."

Auden continues his wordplay to depict and pen picture a harsh reality where the tormentors are themselves tormented ("A ragged urchin, aimless and alone, Loitered about that vacancy; a bird Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone/That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third, Were axioms to him, who'd never heard Of any world where promises were kept, Or one could weep because another wept.) “To please her son, the strong/Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles/Who would not live long”-is perhaps the zenith of all emotions that tears away the magnitude of war that bodes ill and off for one and all.

Stephen Spender – Pylons

The secret of these hills was stone, and cottagesOf that stone made,And crumbling roadsThat turned on sudden hidden villages

Now over these small hills, they have built the concreteThat trails black wirePylons, those pillarsBare like nude giant girls that have no secret.

The valley with its gilt and evening lookAnd the green chestnutOf customary root,Are mocked dry like the parched bed of a brook.

But far above and far as sight enduresLike whips of angerWith lightning's dangerThere runs the quick perspective of the future.

This dwarfs our emerald country by its trekSo tall with prophecyDreaming of citiesWhere often clouds shall lean their swan-white neck.

Analysis:

The advent of pseudo-modernism onto a hitherto serene rural arena is the theme of Stephen spender's "Pylons". The poem was so famous that it heralded a new school of poets ,namely 'the Pylon Poets' to label the work of Spender and his associates.The literal meaning of 'pylons' point to tall metallic posts that hold electric wires .Though they appear to be the harbinger of electricity, he feels that they are an intrusion into the peaceful countryside. The emblem of the pylons possess powerful symbolic significance. Their being tall, they seem to have a 'towering' influence on our lives. Secondly, though they are static, their energy is kinetic and therefore shown to be all-pervasive. Their being metallic, it projects a picture of being frozen to human emotions. Besides, pylons are universal ,just as we cannot live without electricity and the most eloquent emblem of modern technology. They seem to run into everywhere and everything, as though runs the quick perspective of the future. Wordsworth defined poetry as the impassioned expression in the countenance of all science.

The poet begins by glorifying the hills and cottages that haunt our imagination, as they possess an elusive quality. The secret about these, says the poet was their 'stone': the only natural thing about them that nothing else could endow with. The crumbling roads rather than appear decrepit come across as enchanting as they uncover villages without prior notice, like rabbits from a magician's hat. He asserts, that they have now built the pylons that trail black wires. The poet's description comes across as black lines scribbled all over the painting of a beautiful countryside. The colour black forebodes 'gloom'. Spender also likens them to giant nude girls that have no secret to hide. They are as vulgar as naked girls that deliberately reveal. Further, note that these unclothed girls may be aesthetic also, but they are not ,as they are giant-like. They are devoid of modesty, principles and values where might is right.

The valley with its gilt and evening look

And the green chestnut

Of customary root,

Are mocked dry like the parched bed of a brook.

The evening look of the valley signifies it tranquility and the green chestnut prosperity. The phrase "of customary root" points the concept of tradition and deep roots. They are mocked dry with industrialization penetrating their very base and eating out the very core of nature leaving the picturesque countryside lifeless. As they appear as 'whips of anger' above, they are inevitable as:

'There runs the quick perspective of the future.

The poet thus holds an ambivalent attitude to the initiation of science and technology. It is also prophetic of a progressive prospect that we all do anticipate, and therefore the countryside dwarfs in comparison to such considerations. What Spender conclusively arrives at is that evolution of

science and technology is unavoidable for growth and advancement;however it has to be healthy and ethical. He appears "Shelleyan" in his prophetic stance in anticipating the future, and in his pervading revolutionary zeal and particularly in this last stanza for his lyricism:

Dreaming of cities

Where often clouds shall lean their swan-white neck.

Compare it with the following lines from Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind":

Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay,

And saw in sleep old palaces and towers

Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

The poet ends the poem on optimistic note reconciling two hitherto divorce entities :Nature and Science. Amid "shattering material events, such as wars and revolutions," he wrote, "the problem is to understand the nature of these events and transform them into a lucid language of the imagination, where they exist in their own right, coherent visions independent of reality, but nevertheless reflecting the truth of reality."

Stephen Spender - The Trance

Sometimes, apart in sleep, by chance,You fall out of my arms, alone,Into the chaos of your separate trance.My eyes gaze through your forehead, through the bone,And see where in your sleep distress has tornIts path, which on your lips is shownAnd on your hands and in your dream forlorn.

Restless, you turn to me and pressThose timid words against my ear

Which thunder at my heart like stones.'Mercy,' you plead, Then 'Who can bless?'You ask. 'I am pursued by Time,' you moan.

I watch that precipice of fearYou tread, naked in naked distress.To that deep care we are committedBeneath the wildness of our fleshAnd shuddering horror of our dream,Where unmasked agony is permitted.

Our bodies, stripped of clothes that seem,And our souls, stripped of beauty's mesh,Meet their true selves, their charms outwitted.This pure trance is the oracleThat speaks no language but the heart

Our angel with our devil meetsIn the atrocious dark nor do they partBut each forgives and greets,And their mutual terrors healWithin our married miracle. 

Stephen Spender - Ultima Ratio Regum

The guns spell money's ultimate reasonIn letters of lead on the spring hillside.But the boy lying dead under the olive treesWas too young and too sillyTo have been notable to their important eye.He was a better target for a kiss.

When he lived, tall factory hooters never summoned him.Nor did restaurant plate-glass doors revolve to wave him in.His name never appeared in the papers.The world maintained its traditional wallRound the dead with their gold sunk deep as a well,Whilst his life, intangible as a Stock Exchange rumour, drifted outside.

O too lightly he threw down his capOne day when the breeze threw petals from the trees.The unflowering wall sprouted with guns,Machine-gun anger quickly scythed the grasses;Flags and leaves fell from hands and branches;The tweed cap rotted in the nettles.

Consider his life which was valuelessIn terms of employment, hotel ledgers, news files.Consider. One bullet in ten thousand kills a man.Ask. Was so much expenditure justifiedOn the death of one so young and so sillyLying under the olive tree, O world, O death? 

Analysis:  

Its central concept is probably comprehensible to most audience on a very first perusal. In regards to tone, the poem is comparatively severe, articulating heartfelt and sincere views in a immediate and instant method.

An comprehending of Latin is clearly necessary to appreciate the title of Spender's poem, as translated into English, 'Ultima Ratio Regum' reads: 'The previous argument of kings'. This presents some notion as to the concerns of the poem. The title refers to war as getting the ultimate calculate in which monarchies, as opposed to democracies, settle their differences. This serves to reinforce Spender's credentials as a pacifist, as he is evidently referring to the horrors of all wars instead of just the Spanish Civil War.

'Ultima Ratio Regum' is in 4 stanzas, every single that contains 6 lines of varying size. It is associated in the third-individual by an unnamed narrator who describes the death of a young man who dies in motion in an unspecified conflict. The events explained are relatively vague and are not arranged in a sequential purchase, for instance, the 1st stanza informs us that "the boy lying dead underneath the olive timber / Was too young and also silly" while the third stanza opens with the line "O also frivolously he threw down his cap", as if he were nonetheless alive.

The poem's protagonist is conveyed as an alienated and anonymous young gentleman with no specific purpose in modern society. This impact is created primarily in the first three lines of the 2nd stanza. We learn that

"factory hooters by no means summoned him", indicating that he was either also youthful to work, or was of a class who wouldn't be predicted to operate in factories. We also find out even so that "Nor did restaurant plate-glass doorways revolve to wave him in" - a line which demonstrates that higher-course culture was less than welcoming to him. We obtain that he wasn't popular via the line "His brand never ever appeared in the papers". The line "The world preserved its standard wall" suggests that he was one thing of an outcast. The repetition of the term "wall" in the 3rd stanza is illuminating, especially in that it is described now as "unflowering", rather of "traditional", possibly which means it by no means yielded anything at all for the younger male. Now it is "sprouted with guns", and it looks somewhat unavoidable that the succeeding lines depict the protagonist's death, as if he experienced been ultimately gunned down by the culture that experienced earlier shunned him.

Spender doesn't portray the boy's brutal dying in graphically sensible detail but as a substitute adopts a noticeably figurative approach. This is achieved largely by way of imagery and symbolism. The "olive trees", mentioned in the 1st and final stanzas, are symbolic in the way that the olive department is used to express the idea of peace. There is a trace of irony in that the boy's entire body is "lying dead" beneath them.

Stephen Spender - An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum

Far far from gusty waves these children's faces.Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their pallor.The tall girl with her weighed-down head. The paper-seeming boy, with rat's eyes. The stunted, unlucky heirOf twisted bones, reciting a father's gnarled disease,His lesson from his desk. At back of the dim classOne unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream,Of squirrel's game, in the tree room, other than this.

On sour cream walls, donations. Shakespeare's head,Cloudless at dawn, civilized dome riding all cities.Belled, flowery, Tyrolese valley. Open-handed map

Awarding the world its world. And yet, for theseChildren, these windows, not this world, are world,Where all their future's painted with a fog,A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky,Far far from rivers, capes, and stars of words.

Surely, Shakespeare is wicked, and the map a bad exampleWith ships and sun and love tempting them to steal--For lives that slyly turn in their cramped holesFrom fog to endless night? On their slag heap, these childrenWear skins peeped through by bones and spectacles of steelWith mended glass, like bottle bits on stones.All of their time and space are foggy slum.So blot their maps with slums as big as doom.

Unless, governor, teacher, inspector, visitor,This map becomes their window and these windowsThat shut upon their lives like catacombs,Break O break open 'till they break the townAnd show the children green fields and make their worldRun azure on gold sands, and let their tonguesRun naked into books, the white and green leaves openHistory is theirs whose language is the sun.

Analysis:

Stephen Spender highlights the plight of slum children by using vivid images and apt words to picture a classroom in a slum. Through this he touches, in a subtle manner, the themes of social injustice and inequalities.

Lines 1, 2The opening line of the poem uses an image to contrast the slum children’s faces with those of others. The image used is ‘gusty waves’ indicating brightness, verve and animation. But these are missing from faces of these children. The next image of ‘rootless weeds’ produces double effect. ‘Weeds’ indicate being unwanted and ‘rootless’ indicates not belonging. The slum children are like ‘rootless weeds’ unwanted by society and not belonging to society. Their uncombed hair fall on their pale faces.

Lines 3 to 8Next, a few of the slum children are described. There is a tall girl whose head is weighed-down with sadness, disinterestedness or shame or a mixture of all the three. She is probably over-aged for the class. Another boy is thin, emaciated like paper and his eyes pop out from his thin body looking furtive like rat’s eyes. He seems to have inherited stunted and twisted growth of bones from his father. Spender has used the word ‘reciting’ to show that instead of studying/reciting, a normal activity in school, the boy had only his inherited crippling disease to show/recite in the class. This could suggest that the boy’s condition seem to have arisen because of his poverty especially his inability to avail heath services at the right time. Right at the back of the badly lit room is an unnoticed young boy. He is probably too young for poverty to have stifled his childish imagination. He daydreams of the squirrel’s game and about the tree house, absent mentally from the classroom.

Lines 9 to 12Spender then describes the classroom. The word ‘sour’ used to describe the cream walls of the classroom indicates its derelict condition. Contradicting this state and the slum children are Shakespeare’s head indicating erudition, the picture of a clear sky at dawn and a beautiful Tyrolese valley indicating beauty of nature and hope, dome of an ancient city building standing for civilization and progress and a world map awarding the children the world. The lines “Open-handed map / Awarding the world its world” could refer to the map of the world hanging on the wall of the classroom giving/showing (awarding) everyone (the world) the world out there to explore and know (its world).

Lines 13 to 16But the world of the slum children is the limited world that can be seen though the windows of the classroom and not what the map promises. All these seem ironic when contrasted with the misery and hopeless condition of the slum children. Their future is foggy, bleak and dull. Their life/world is confined within the narrow streets of the slum enclosed by the dull sky far away from rivers, seas that indicate adventure and learning and from the stars that stand for words that can empower their future. 'Lead sky' means a dullsky or a dimly lit sky. This symbolises the bleak, dull life and future of the slum children.

Lines 17 to 24The poet feels that the head of Shakespeare and the map are cruel temptations for these children living in cramped houses (holes), whose lives revolve around (slyly turns) dullness (fog) and hopelessness (endless night) as they imagine and long for (steal) adventure(ships), for a better future (sun) and for love. Their emaciated wasted bodies compared to slag (waste) heaped together seemed to be wearing the clothes of skin covering their peeping bones and wearing spectacles of steel with cracked glasses looking like bottle bits mended. The slum is their map as big as the doom of the city buildings and their life (time and space) foggy and dim. The poet repeatedly uses the word fog to talk about the unclear, vague and dull life of the slum children.

Lines 25 to 32The only hope of a life beyond the slums that enclose their lives like catacombs is some initiative by the governor, inspector of schools or a visitor. The poem ends with the poet fervently hoping that slum children will have access to better education and a better way of life. He uses the words ‘Break o break open’ to say that they have to break out from the miserable hopeless life of the slum world so that they can wander beyond the slums and their town on to the green fields and golden sands (indicating the unlimited world). These can become their teacher and like dogs lapping up food hungrily, they can learn directly (run naked) from the open pages (leaves) of nature and the world which is sustained (whose language) by the sun standing for energy and life.