Thomas Wyatt Hind analysis

Thomas Wyatt

Hind

A Complete Interpretation (New Criticism Approach)

Whoso list to hunt powerfully exemplifies the artistic skills of Sir Thomas Wyatt in Sonnet, which decorated with deep emotions and initiate use of literary devices. To England sonnet was introduced by Wyatt who was a diplomat in Italy, the birth place of sonnet and renascence, for some time. Sonnet during 13 to 16 century was the best and appropriate form of poetry at first for love subject; later for variety of subjects even nature in romantic period. Wyatt was in love with a woman by the name of Anne Boleyn, but the king of the time, Henry VIII, defeated him and won her before him. Thereafter he realized that he can't do anything about it because his opponent was the king. Later it is said she had done adultery with Wyatt; the king imprisoned Wyatt beheading Anne Boleyn. In this sonnet Wyatt with a very deep sorrow express his pure love toward Anne, and how all the rumors about her were nothing, but calumny. 

The form of this sonnet is petrarchan with rhyme scheme (ABBA-ABBA-CDDC -EE). Wyatt used Petrarchan sonnet form sometimes with a slight change in its rhyme scheme, he divided sonnet into three four lines stanzas and two last lines, 13th and 14thl lines, as couplet. The meter of this sonnet is iambic pentameter. The word choice, imaginary language, end-jumpment, grammatical disorder techniques, alliteration that makes the sonnet more musical, and metaphors that are used in this sonnet, make it more expressive and rich. The poet utilized first person point of view, using the pronouns I and me. It has three major themes  ¹power and weakness, or ruler and subjects, ² unreachable goal, ³unreachable love. In power and weakness the theme is about how the king can do and have whatever he wants and the subjects should obey without any complain. The next theme, unreachable goal, points out how man struggle to get to something unreachable although he knows he can't. The third theme, unreachable love, shows the speaker is in love with a lady which is in king possession. The tone of this work is hopelessness.

The title is repeated in the very first line of the sonnet like a clause of a long sentence, and the rest of the sonnet serves as complement. It is an exposition question means Whoever desires to hunt it really hooks the reader mind to see what the answer is. The word whoso means whoever;  list means desire, want, need; Hunt means chase, pursuit, and search.

In the first line 1 Wyatt introduces the reader to a metaphors used for the intended women, and hunt for wanting her. Whoso list to hunt,          I know where is an hind means whoever desires to hunt, I know a female deer. The hind here metaphorically refers to a lady. The words hind, doe, and gazelle in western literature metaphorically refer to beautiful women. These metaphors in the first line serve as the chief metaphors in the sonnet; the subject discuss around this subject until the end. The first line contains alliteration, too (whoso, hunt, hind). In line 2-3 the speaker describes himself as a hunter moaning his tiredness caused by vain attempt to hunt the deer. Line 2 and 3 also employ alliteration (me, may, more) and (so, sore). But as for me, helas, I may no more;  the vain travail hath wearied me so sore.  He says that he feels so sorry, for all his attempt were in vain to win her love and be united with her; now he is so wearied and sore( Haim Dictionary sore can be used for mental tiredness, too). The pronoun them in line 4 refers to the other hunters, men who were trying to win the lady's love. Lines 4-6 the speaker notes that although he fall behind than other hunters, he cannot take her out of his mind, and she eludes to be caught by the hunters. Fleet afore means escaping, running away far ahead. The lady running away from her lovers shows chasteness of her and how she isn't interested in them. Again in line 5 and 6 again alliteration is noticeable (may, means, my, mind).In line 7 he says since the deer runs ahead, he is losing hope to get to her (fainting, follow) is alliteration, fainting means hopeless, not intense. In the second half of line 7 he says he gives up because (Line 8) he realizes that all his struggles are in vain giving a proverb as an example, catching wind with a net; This metaphor illustrate the themes of the sonnet . In (line 9) another alliteration is visible (whoso, her, hunt). (Line 9) I Put him out of doubt means assure, guarantee. (Line 9-10) The speaker says the one who is trying to hunt the deer; I assure him his efforts will be in vain just like his. (Line 11) Graven means carved; diamonds diamonds are hard, bright precious stones. It is carved with diamond clearly, or frankly. (Line 12) means there around her beautiful neck it is written, visible to everyone. (Line 13) the poet used here an allusion in Latin taken from the bible.  Noli me tangere in English means don't touch me. it is a warning; like stay away from me. (Line 14) the word  Wild  means free, and rough showing she needed to be caught by a skillful strong hunter; tame means amenable. She says; you may fancy catching me since I seem tame, but in reality having me is impractical. In this line employs a paradox  wild for to hold, though I seem to tame.  There is a contradiction between words wild and tame. This paradox illustrates the attitude of the lady toward her lovers and how she neglects them. It also provides answer to the problem raised in octave. Diamonds are symbols of asset, and wealth; it makes clear two things. First, the lady is kings property and no one is allowed to covet her; second, the king is rich and already paid the price for her. 

Sir Thomas Wyatt in whoso list to hunt a metaphorical sonnet using his extraordinary talent telling his life story, how men are trying to have a lady who doesn't pay attention to them because she belongs to the king. Images, paradox, and alliterations all these make the sonnet more beautiful and musical. Any reader, by reading this sonnet, will sympathize with Wyatt and his unsuccessful and unreachable love.

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The dead crab summary and analysis

The Dead Crab

A rosy shield upon its back,

That not the hardest storm could crack,

From whose sharp edge projected out

Ban pin-point eyes staring about;

Beneath, the well-knit cote-armure

That gave to its weak belly power;

The clustered legs with plated joints

That ended in stiletto points;

The clas like mouths it held outside:-

I cannot think this creature died

By storm or fish or sea-fowl harmed

Walking the sea so heavily armed;

Or does it make for death to be

Oneself a living armoury?

The poem The Dead Crab by Andrew Young is a short and seemingly simple piece of work. However, its length and subject matter do not diminish the poem’s rich stylistic qualities.

In a general outline of the poem, it is a sonnet with an AABBCCDDEEFFGG rhyme scheme. From the first reading the reader can already discern the textual patterning of the poem. It is divided into two parts, which deviates from the conventional sonnet of 3 stanzas with four lines each and an ending couplet. The first part starts from line 1 to line 9, while the second part from line 10 to line 14. The first part is the persona’s physical description of the crab, but the second is his reflection of the subject. The Dead Crab also makes use of poetic license to make syntactic manipulation through the use of inversion, parallelism and principle of end-focus, as discussed later on.

The first part leaves little room for literary interpretation as it is a rather unambiguous description of the crab’s anatomy. However, stylistically, the persona leaves much room for analysis through his interesting choice of words and punctuation.

The first line alone is already foregrounded. The phrase rosy shield is prominent because these words do not belong in the same lexical set. The word rosy has feminine and gentle connotations, whereas shield is normally associated with the image of a strong object that protects one from danger. These two words matched together give quite a misleading idea of the crab; one may say it lulls the reader into having a certain presupposition or conjecture of how the poem would turn out as one reads on.

As one goes along, however, the innocuous image of the crab is dispelled through the use of words and adjectives that are more in contrast. Lines 1 and 2, when combined, give the impression of the crab shell’s durability, which the poet likens to a shield, a metal object that is almost indestructible by most elements. The persona puts further emphasis on the strength and hardness of the crab’s shell in Line 2 by saying that the shield of a crab shell is so tough that not even the hardest storm can crack it. The hardest storm, one might safely assume, would be able to destroy many things in its path, but here the poet asserts that it would not even crack the shell.

The crab’s physical description takes on a more menacing image from Lines 3 to 8. Words like sharp edge projected out, black pin-point eyes, cote-armure, power, plated joints and stiletto points may come very well under the semantic field of a soldier’s uniform. The reference to shield, cote armour, plated joints and stiletto points makes it rather evident that the persona likens the crab as being dressed for war like a soldier; indeed, he returns to that idea in the second half of the poem in Line 12, referring to the crab as “heavily armed.” The comparison reveals the extent of the creature’s power, danger and connotes a sense of invincibility.

However, there is an unusual prominence in Line 5, where the cote-armure is described as “well-knit.” Again, the occurrence of two lexically incompatible words happens; a semantic violation. The former is associated with soldiers and war, while the latter is associated with knitting and needlework. The persona refers to the physical characteristics of a crab’s underbelly that resembles a knitted item. Perhaps he is also referring to the image of a well-threaded, chain-linked yarn, crafted so that unravelling it would be almost impossible. Then, well-knit cote-armure would suggest that not only is the crab shell of unusual strength, but also of intricate craftsmanship by nature. The poet also employs an almost similar stylistic technique in Line 9, using a simile to liken the claws to mouths to note its physical resemblance.

What is interesting to observe is how the poet slickly cohere the words well-knit and stiletto. There are two denotations of the word “stiletto”. One is a noun that refers to a type of dagger with a blade that is thick in proportion to its width; this coheres with the lexical set of a soldier. The other is a verb that refers to action of a pointed instrument for making eyelet holes in needlework; this coheres with the adjective well-knit. The word stiletto here creatively functions as a lexical cohesion for two lexical sets used in the crab’s description by the persona. While before well-knit was foregrounded for being a semantic violation, stiletto now helps it to achieve lexical cohesion.

The first part of the poem produces three instances of linguistic exploitation. Line 2 has a syntactic manipulation through the inversion of the word not. It should be written as That the hardest storm could not crack. The poet’s inversion makes it clear that he uses linguistic exploitation for the purpose of stress, as his manipulation does make the line sound more emphatic. Line 6 shows another syntactic violation through the inversion of the word power. Syntactically, the line should be written as That gave power to its weak belly. However, the inversion makes the word power the emphasis of that line, employing the principle of end-focus. Line 9 is curiously missing two commas; the conventional syntactic structure would be The claws, like mouths, it held outside. Perhaps this is an exercise of poetic license?

In the second part of the poem, the tone changes. The use of I indicates the change from a tone of detached to personal, as well as the showing the poem’s segmentation from description to reflection. The poet uses syntactic manipulation for rhyming and emphasis reasons, in line 11 where grammatically it should be Harmed by storm or fish or sea-fowl. Again, he applies the principle of end-focus to this line. The inversion from front to the end of the line effectively shows the stress, especially when coupled with a corresponding rhyme in the next line. There is also a use of syntactic parallelism through the lexical repetition of the word or in Lines 11 and 13.

The persona has an interesting reflection in the poem’s second half. He affirms that the crab cannot have died in the hands of nature. It was not killed by a bird or fish or a storm, because of its powerful and deadly natural “armour.” The ending couplet is the most ambiguous of the poem, particularly due to the lexical contrasts in Line 13 and 14, which are death and living respectively. One interpretation of that is based on the irony of what protects you can also kill you. The persona is wondering if for all the protection the crab’s armour have provided, could it be that it is that very armour that killed it? Even he does not really know the answer, as he ends the couplet with a question mark.

The poem is highly cohesive in idea, form and sound. The cohesion in idea slightly intersects with the prior observation on textual patterning, where the overall presentational sequencing of the poem begins with the crab’s description, then tying in with the persona’s reflection of the crab at the end. The sequencing within the first part of the poem begins by describing the crab’s back, before moving on to its eyes and going below to its belly and limbs, where the legs are described first and the finally, the claws. Sequence in the poem’s second part is also very orderly. The persona eliminates the possible causes of the crab’s death methodically before ending with his own conclusion. Suffice to say that cohesion in idea is done in a very sensible order.

The form cohesion is found in rhyme. Despite the irregular segmentation of the poem – the first part of the poem ends at Line 9, the only unpaired line (in the first part of the poem) – the poet achieves unity in rhyme for Line 10 to cohere the two lines as well as making the shift from the persona’s description to reflection less detached as these two lines are paired in rhyme. The punctuation also helps in form cohesion. The separation of content is clear through the use of commas (to join Lines 1 & 2 together), semicolons (to cohere Lines 3 & 4; 5 & 6; 7 & 8; 10, 11 & 12; 13 & 14) and the question mark at the ending couplet. In Line 9 the punctuation is different from the others as it has a colon and a dash. This punctuation serves to make the transition of the two parts of the poem smoother, as it indicates that after the description of the crab, there is something else more important the persona wants to say.

Cohesion is not only achieved in idea and form, but also sound. The end syllables of each line are hard sounds phonetically (back & crack, out & about, armure & power, joints & points, outside & died, harmed & armed). The poet cleverly infuses cohesion not just between sound alone, but also coheres the lexical idea of the hardness and power of the crab by employing the phonetic equivalent through the choice of words with hard phonetic sounds. There are many instances of the use of plosive consonants at the end syllable of each line (back – crack, out – about, outside – died, harmed – armed), as well as fricative consonants (joints – points). While Lines 5 & 6 has a comparatively weak phonetic sound in comparison (armure – power), they instead become foregrounded in the midst of hard-sounding rhymes and that only serves to enhance the meaning of those lines. There is also another exception in the ending couplet (be & armoury) because they have a vowel end each. This causes the couplet to be foregrounded in speech because the poet intends to put emphasis on his reflection – after all, the whole raison d’être of the poem lies in the ending couplet.

The Dead Crab looks deceptively simple; it would not take much to understand the poem through literary analysis. However, one can only truly appreciate the ingenuity of the poem through thorough stylistic analysis.

تعليق

What would you compare the crab to…..for example a turtle or a bulldozer..??

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Break, break, break, By Alfred Lord Tennyson summary and analysis and Criticism

Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad!
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill:
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

تكسّر .. تكسّر
إحدى قصائد تنيسون العديدة في رثاء صديقه ارثر هلام. ومن الغرابة أن يقال أنها لم تنظم على شاطئ البحر، ولكن في احدى طرق لنكولنشاير بين الأسيجة المزهرة المنورة.

تكسّر... تكسّر

تكسّر ! تكسّر!
على صخورك الباردة الشهباء
يا بحر تكسّرّ
لكم أتمنى لو يستطيع لساني أن ينطق فيقذف
ما فيّ من خواطرَ تنبعث
وأفكارٍ تجيش.

آه!
هنيئاً لابن الصيّاد
هرجه مع أخته وقت اللعب!
وهنيئاً لولد البحريّ
غناؤه وهو على القارب في الخليج،
والسفن الفخمة في طريقها
إلى الميناء تحت الرابية؛
ولكن واحسرتاه!
للمسةِ يدٍ زالتْ واختفت
ولرنّةِ صوتٍ سكَنَ وركد!

تكسّر، تكسّر!
على أقدام صخورك الوعرة
يا بحر تكسّر!
فالبهجة العذبة ليوم مضى ومات
لن ترجع لي!
لن تعود!

analysis

Summary 

The speaker is looking at the ocean and wishing he knew how to express his grief. He sees a fisherman's kid hanging out with his sister, and he hears a sailor singing, but they don't cheer him up – they just remind him of the "voice that is still," or the voice of his dead friend that he can't talk to anymore. The ocean waves keep breaking on the beach, and time keeps marching on, but the speaker can't go back in time to when his friend was still alive.




Lines 1-4

Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me. 

• The speaker addresses the ocean directly, telling the waves to "break, break, break" onto the stony shore.
• After telling the sea to keep doing its thing, the speaker regrets that he can't express his thoughts.
• He doesn't come out and say, "I can't utter/ the thoughts," he says that his "tongue" can't "utter" them. This makes him seem kind of passive –he's not speaking, his "tongue" is doing it.
• He's not really thinking, either – the thoughts "arise in" him almost spontaneously, without effort.

Lines 5-8

O, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

• The speaker thinks it's all well and good that the fisherman's kid is "shout[ing]" and "play[ing]" with his sister.
• Repeating the same sentence structure, the speaker says it's great for the sailor who is "sing[ing]" in his boat.
• The repetition makes it sound like maybe the speaker doesn't really think it's all well and good for these people to be cheerful. Is he jealous, perhaps, of their happiness? Or of their ability to communicate it, since he admitted back in Stanza 1 that his "tongue" can't "utter/ the thoughts that arise"? 

Lines 9-12

And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

• The fancy, "stately ships" pass by the speaker and head to their "haven," or protected port.
• The port is "under the hill," so there must be a big hill overlooking it.
• The speaker isn't distracted by the ships, though. Sure, he notices them, but his mind is elsewhere. 
• He's just wishing he could "touch" the "vanish'd hand" and hear "the voice that is still." This is the first explanation of why the speaker is so sad. He's grieving for someone he loved who is now dead.
• He doesn't come out and describe the dead friend, though – he just lists a series of missing things: the "hand" and the "voice." The lost friend is described as a series of absent parts.

Lines 13-16

Break, break, break
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

• The speaker repeats the first line again, telling the waves to "break, break, break" again. 
• But it's repetition with a difference: in the first stanza, he tells the waves to break "on thy cold gray stones," and in the last stanza, he tells the waves to break "at the foot of thy crags."
• It's not exactly the same – time has gone by, and even the breaking of the waves has changed slightly. Maybe it's the tide coming in.
• The waves have changed slightly, and we see that time is passing, despite the tragedy that the speaker has suffered. Mournfully he says that the happy old days when his friend was alive will never return

Analysis of the Poem

It is a nice poem by Tennyson, in which the moods, images and rhythms blend
perfectly. Note the heavy, melancholy feel of 'break, break, break',
contrasted with the lighter 'that he sings in his boat on the bay', and in
general the way the various moods of the sea are evoked, from dancing,
rippling waves and gentle swells, to the mealncholy, insistent breaking upon
a cold and lonely shore.

Criticism:

Great ages are fortunate which find the one voice that can turn to music
their otherwise mute beliefs and endeavors, their joy and pain. Such was
Chaucer for his time; such were Shakespeare and Spenser for theirs, Pope for
his, and preeminently Alfred, Lord Tennyson, for the time of Victoria. Our
present disparagement of Tennyson is only our impatience with everything
Victorian; for his poetry peculiarly expresses the ideas and the enthusiasms
of the vast reading middle class of his day. He reasons like the middle-
-class liberal who keeps to the Christian faith and forms, at least in the
via media or middle course, with a mind open to the new difficulties rising
from the new science, and the prevailing evolutionary enthusiasm for
progress and some good time coming.
[..]
His poetry sings the virtues and enthusiasms of his day, domestic and
social, the patriotism, the humanitarian impulses, the utilitarian
prosperity, the fascination of death, the sombre religion or scepticism, and
the New Empire. At the same time he is nourishing and refining his age with
the beauty which it had lost, and which he shapes for its needs out of many
a corner of "the antique world." If he seems at times to be an aristocrat,
he is such with the middle-class conservatism and faith in the old English
order. He has as much of the body and fibre of English life in him as
Dickens--perhaps more--not its lusty humors so much as its peculiar and
irresistible charm mellowed by time.
[..]
He was first of all a careful, patient workman, and no man ever toiled
harder or more soberly to perfect himself in his craft. He kept it up all
his long life, revising and editing early poems, reading, observing,
travelling, scrutinizing the work of his many masters, inventing short
snatches and cadences which he saved for later use. With his minute care he
joined extraordinary range and variety--of metre, subject and material, and
final effect.
[..]
Like that otber great Alexandrian, Theocritus, Tennyson was essentially an
idyllist, a fashioner of small and highly finished pictures. Hundreds of
them are strewn from end to end of his work, from his Lady of Shalott, one
of the most idyllic, through his classical poems, his pageants of the Palace
of Art, and The Dream of Fair Women, his poems of English life, his
Princess, Maud, In Memoriam. Of this he seems to have been aware in his very
fondness for the word, "idyll"--"a small, sweet idyll," "English Idylls,"
and Idylls of the King.
[..]
But he has far greater gifts than fine minute craftsmanship. One is the
poet's supreme gift of making the language sing a new song, verse set to its
own indigenous tune, the gift of Burns, or Byron, and the Elizabethans. And
though it is usually peculiar to the youthful poet, it never wholly left
Tennyson from "Break, break, break" to Crossing the Bar.

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