Department of Distance and Continuing Education

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B. A. (Hons.) English – DSC-7

B.A. (Programme) – DSC-5 (Minor)
Semester - III
Course Credits - 4
ROMANTIC LITERATURE
As per the UGCF - 2022 and National Education Policy 2020
DSC-7: Romantic Literature

Editorial Board
Dr. Neeta Gupta, Dr. Seema Suri
Nalini Prabhakar

Content Writers
Rachel Mathew, P. C. Khanna,
Dr. Neeta Gupta, P. S. Nindra, K. Ojha,
Ankita Sethi, Mary Samuel

Content Reviewers from DDCE/COL/SOL

Prof. Tasneen Shahnaaz, Prof. Ratna Raman,
Dr. Mithuraaj Dhusiya

Academic Coordinator
Deekshant Awasthi

© Department of Distance and Continuing Education

ISBN: 978-81-19169-77-1
Ist edition: 2023
E-mail: [email protected]
[email protected]
Published by:
Department of Distance and Continuing Education
Campus of Open Learning / School of Open Learning,
University of Delhi, Delhi-110007

Printed by:
School of Open Learning, University of Delhi

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 B.A. (Hons.) English/B.A. (Programme)

This Study Material is duly recommended and approved in Academic Council

meeting held on 11/08/2023 Vide item no. 1015 and subsequently Executive
Council Meeting held on 25/08/2023 vide item no. 1267.

• The present study material is the edited version of an earlier study material
from the CBCS.
• Corrections/Modifications/Suggestions proposed by Statutory Body,
DU/Stakeholder/s in the Self Learning Material (SLM) will be incorporated in
the next edition. However, these corrections/modifications/suggestions will be
uploaded on the website https://sol.du.ac.in. Any feedback or suggestions may
be sent at the email- [email protected]

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Table of Contents

Title Prepared by Edited by Pg.No.

Unit-I

1. William Blake: Songs of Innocence and Rachel Mathew Dr. Seema Suri 01
Experience
(i) ‘Lamb’
(ii) ‘Tyger’
(iii) ‘Chimney Sweeper’ (Songs of
Innocence)
(iv) ‘Chimney Sweeper’ (Songs of
Experience)

2. William Wordsworth: (i) ‘Tintern Abbey’ P. C. Khanna Dr. Neeta Gupta 33

(ii) ‘London’ Dr. Neeta Gupta

3. Samuel Taylor Coleridge: (i) ‘Kubla Khan’ P. S. Nindra Dr. Neeta Gupta 75
(ii) ‘Dejection: An Ode’

Unit-II

1. Percy Bysshe Shelley: Nalini Prabhakar 119

(i) ‘Ode to the West Wind’ K. Ojha
(ii) ‘Ozymandias’ Ankita Sethi

2. John Keats: (i) ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ Mary Samuel Nalini Prabhakar 134
(ii) ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ Ankita Sethi
(iii) ‘Ode to Autumn’ Mary Samuel

Unit-III

1. Mary Shelley: Frankenstein Dr. Neeta Gupta Dr. Neeta Gupta 166

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 DSC-7: Romantic Literature

Unit-I(1)

SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE

William Blake
Rachel Mathew

1. INTRODUCTION

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience was first published in 1794. This study
material will introduce you to the historical background of the poet and his times, and discuss
his religious beliefs. Blake’s language is simple but there is a wealth of symbolism behind his
poetry. Each poem is analyzed in detail. After going through this study material, you should;
- become familiar with the historical and literary background to Blake’s poems;
- understand the symbols and poetic devices used by Blake; and
- appreciate Blake’s unique perspective on Christianity.

2. ROMANTIC POETRY

The European Romantic movement covers a period of about a hundred years, from the
middle of the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century. There was a vast
upheaval in every sphere of life – social, political, literary, and religious. The changes were
not sudden - there was a gradual rejection of traditional beliefs and institutions. England,
Germany and France were the epicenters of the Romantic Movement.
In the field of literature, England led the way and by the seventeen-sixties, the
Romantic Movement was well under way. Though the term Pre-Romanticism has been used
to describe the literary tendencies of poets writing in the middle of the eighteenth century,
and particularly in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, some of these tendencies may be
seen in some earlier writings also. Some of these poets are Thomas Gray (1716-1761),
William Cowper (1731-1800), Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774), James Macpherson (1736-
1796), Charlotte Smith (1749-1806), Robert Burns (1759-1796), and William Blake (1757-
1827). The term Pre-Romantic is not strictly definable since most of these poets did not
completely break with the traditions of eighteenth-century poetry, while they definitely

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anticipate, in their writings, the Romantic poetry of the nineteenth century. The Pre-Romantic
poets sought new subjects, new poetic forms, and fresh modes of feeling and expression.
The Augustan Age may be called the age of prose and reason and the Romantic Age
the age of poetry and imagination. During the period of transition, the Pre-Romantic poets
began to display imaginative and emotional qualities, a sense of heightened perception, a new
awareness of nature, and a strong sense of individualism. Classical models of poetry were
discarded and poets began to depend on nature and also on their own individual bent of mind.
Their poetry became a personal record of their ideas about man and nature.
It would be useful, at this point, to consider some of the basic differences between
Classical or Neo-Classical poetry and Romantic poetry. Classical poetry is a product of the
intelligence; Romantic poetry of emotion, passion, and imagination. Classical poetry deals
with city life and civilization, whereas Romantic poetry deals with nature and rural life. A
strong feeling for the picturesque, the splendid, the wild and the remote are characteristic of
the Romantic poet when s/he depicts rural life.
The Augustan poets employed a formal, artificial style and showed a marked
preference for the rhymed couplet. The Romantic poets did away with artificial poetic diction
and substituted it with the language of everyday speech. They chose simple subjects and
elemental themes from everyday life. They advocated the use of simple diction and a variety
of verse forms.
In the writings of the Augustans, everything was precise, polished, and correct. On the
other hand, the guiding principle of the Romantics was spontaneity. They believed that the
poetic genius was inspired. Their enthusiasm and their love of splendour led them in search
of the supernatural and mystic elements in life.
English Classicism flourished in an atmosphere of scientific and critical rationalism
which had been fostered by Newton and Thomas Hobbes. The eighteenth-century poets
adopted an objective approach in their appraisal of common, everyday experience. The
Romantic poets worked through intuition and allowed free play to the imagination.
The Romantics revolted against the doctrine of Reason which their predecessors had
upheld. Empirical philosophers, especially John Locke and David Hume had reduced the
universe to a mechanical universe. The Romantics, on the other hand, marvelled with awe
and wonder; at the majesty, the beauty, and the glory of the world. They rejected the concept
of a fixed, mechanistic universe and substituted it with the theory of an evolutionary society,

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gradually moving towards perfection. With their optimistic approach, they refined the
doctrine of the perfectibility of man.
The first guiding principle of the Romantic Movement – “Return to Nature” – was not
merely a love of the picturesque or a heightened awareness of the natural beauties of the
world. It was pitting the world of nature against the world of so-called civilization. The
Romantic spirit responded to the wildness, grandeur, and sublimity of landscape. The
Romantics were aware of the bond between man and nature. With their sensibility and
heightened vision, they interpreted nature and endowed every aspect of it with new meaning.
They re-established harmony between Man and Nature. The creed of Nature worship was
ultimately perfected by William Wordsworth. In the eighteenth-century, writers had already
begun to imbue their poetry with a feeling for the exquisite beauties of nature.
James Thomson (1700-1748) in “The Seasons” was one of the early eighteenth-
century poets to depict the real and natural landscape. Mrs. Radcliffe wrote her novels against
a picturesque background. In William Cowper’s poetry, the benign and spiritual influence of
nature is felt. A strong love for the Scottish countryside runs through the poems of Robert
Burns. The love of nature becomes increasingly important in the poetry of Cowper, Gray, and
Blake.
The Romantics sought solitude and isolation. This often gave rise to melancholy,
which led from the pleasing melancholy of early Romanticism to the bleak “weltschmerz”
(world-weariness) of the nineteenth century, displayed particularly by Goethe’s characters.
As early as the mid-eighteenth century, the gloomy, melancholic strain gave rise to what is
known as the “Graveyard” school of poetry. Edward Young wrote “Night Thoughts” (1742)
and Robert Blair “The Grave” (1743). Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard” (1751) is the most famous of these poems. It is a tribute to the obscure life as
well as a commentary on the vanity of human wishes.
A doctrine that was encouraged by the philosophers, particularly Rousseau in the
eighteenth century, was the doctrine of natural goodness. This resulted in the glorification of
the natural man and the “noble savage.” It was believed that men - savages and peasants -
retained their innate goodness by living close to nature. Oliver Goldsmith, in “The Deserted
Village,” grieved over the loss of rural virtues, with the shift in population from the village to
the city, as a result of the Industrial Revolution. William Collins wrote in favour of a simpler
pattern of life, similar to that of his forefathers. The simple, primitive man received the
highest treatment at the hands of Wordsworth, who exalted him into the “noble dalesman.”

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At the same time, a glorification of the child and childhood took place. It was felt that
the child, with its intuitive faculties and free from the intervention of analytic reason,
absorbed beauty, goodness and truth from nature by being in close communion with it.
Wordsworth and Coleridge believed in the intuitive wisdom of the child. Blake was the first
poet to invest the child and the state of childhood with a mystical aura. For Blake, childhood
was more than a mere condition of life: it was a spiritual state that adults could attain.
The eighteenth century, being an age of enlightened reform, saw an increase in
philanthropic activity. The poor, the oppressed, and the social outcasts were viewed with
sympathy. Dr. Johnson defended them, James Edward Oglethorpe worked to improve the
conditions of their lives, and John Wesley was engaged in the salvation of their souls. Blake
took up their cause and made a searing attack on the forces responsible for reducing a large
section of the population to a state of abject poverty and deprivation. Along with the
emerging compassionate attitude towards children and the poor, there developed a new
feeling for, and an understanding of ordinary country folk, tradesmen, and workmen. There
was a realization that even ordinary, humble people have their role to play in the vast arena of
life. People began to look upon even dumb animals with concern. All creatures great and
small were thus brought together as part of God’s scheme for the world. Blake’s poetry bears
witness to the sacramental view of life.
The eighteenth century was also an age of revolution. It witnessed two political
revolutions - the American Revolution (1776) and the French Revolution (1789). There was
ferment in the intellectual and social spheres as well. No poet of the age was untouched by
these changes. Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge were inspired by revolutionary ideas.
Blake was influenced by Thomas Paine, who wrote The Rights of Man (1791); William
Godwin, who wrote Political Justice (1793); and Joseph Priestley, who wrote fiery verses in
defense of liberty. Freedom to Blake and the Romantics meant not only political freedom but,
above all, it meant freedom for the human spirit.
Thinkers of the eighteenth century were stimulated by ideas of the French
Enlightenment. Rousseau had declared that man was essentially good and retrograde forces in
society were responsible for destroying his potential: “Man is born free and everywhere he is
in chains” (1). Rousseau emphatically refuted the doctrine of Original Sin. According to him,
mankind could be redeemed by the exercise of Reason. By the exercise of the “general will,”
a just and equitable society could be established. Poets like Blake accepted part of
Rousseau’s teaching; they felt that the social order should be changed. For Blake, the

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redemption of man lay not in Reason, which he denounced, but in the force of the
imagination.
The final but lasting current of thought which helped to mould the Romantic
imagination was the Idealistic philosophy of Germany; the philosophy of Schelling, Schlegel,
and Kant. They showed how the real and the ideal worlds could be united through goodness
and beauty, that the world within the mind of man was more important than the world
outside, and that the mind alone can give unity and validity to thought. Thus, arose the
doctrine of the individual man. Poets from Blake to Wordsworth and Coleridge, who valued
individualism, defined the role of the Poet-Prophet. The poet became the creative interpreter
of Man and Society.

3. THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)

William Blake, poet and artist, was born in London on 28 November 1757. He was the
second son of a respectable hosier of Broad Street. Except for three years in the country, he
lived his entire life in the city. He knew both the city and the surrounding countryside. The
great river, Thames, which he later represented as the River of Life, had a strong hold on his
imagination. Early in life, he displayed the power of visual imagination. He claimed that he
saw visions of God, the angels, and the major prophets. Blake had no formal schooling. At
the age of fourteen he entered into a seven-year apprenticeship with an engraver, James
Basire and when he had finished his training, he entered the Royal Academy of Arts. Blake
started writing poetry during this period.
In 1782, Blake married Catherine Boucher, the uneducated daughter of a market
gardener. It turned out to be a happy marriage and she was an ideal companion to Blake.
They lived in 23, Green Street, Leicester Fields for two years and then in 1784 moved to 27,
Broad Street where Blake set up a print-shop. He earned his living by engraving his own
designs or those of others for books or prints, and by the sale of his paintings and illuminated
books – which were first printed, then coloured by hand. He remained poor but many great
painters of the day; including John Flaxman, George Cumberland, and Thomas Stothard
befriended him. Another friendship that Blake formed at this time, in spite of his growing
dislike of the clergy, was with the Reverend Henry Mathew and his wife, who provided him
with financial assistance to set up his print-shop. Blake was shattered by the death of his
younger brother Robert, who died of consumption in 1787. He claimed that he continued to
converse with and was inspired by his dead brother’s spirit.

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In 1787, the Blakes moved to Holland Street where they lived for five years. Blake
devoted his time to the activities he loved – writing poetry, making sketches, engraving and
composing music. He wrote and illustrated “The Book of Thel” and Songs of Innocence,
using a method of his own invention, called illuminated printing.
About this time began the association of Blake with the Swedenborgians. Blake and
his wife became members of the New Church. In 1789, the year which marked the outbreak
of the French Revolution, Blake began to spend a great deal of time in the company of the
greatest revolutionaries of the day; Thomas Paine, Henry Fuseli, and Joseph Johnson. He
wrote books on both the American and French Revolutions.
Blake was living in Lambeth, struggling to eke out a meagre existence when, in 1800,
his second patron, William Hayley offered him accommodation at his cottage in Felpham on
the Sussex coast. It was a welcome change for Blake, who found it a peaceful place to study.
In 1803, Blake moved back to London, where he lived for twenty-four years. Blake’s
misfortunes increased and his genius was not easily recognized. Leigh Hunt attacked Blake’s
designs, while his brother Robert Hunt described him as a lunatic.
Blake’s later years were brighter for the friendship of a group of artists – John Linnell,
Samuel Palmer, John Varley and their set - who called themselves the Ancients and Blake’s
two rooms at Fountain Court the Interpreter’s House. Two years before Blake’s death, Henry
Crabb Robinson wrote this of him: “Shall I call him Artist or Genius, or Mystic or Madman?
Probably he is all” (qtd. in Symons 254). Blake died on 12 August 1827 and was buried in
Bunhill Fields, in a common grave which has not been located. Blake did not achieve much
success or recognition during his own lifetime but in the early twentieth-century, critics
began to recognize his poetic genius.

4. BLAKE’S THOUGHT

In order to understand the poetry of Blake it is essential to study his thought. Blake has been
variously labelled a visionary, a mystic, and a prophet. But none of these terms will suffice to
define the unique nature and profundity of his thought. He was a daring and original thinker
who strove to arrive at a vision of truth. The key word to an understanding of Blake’s poetry
and thought is “vision.” His poetry is a visionary interpretation of life.
Blake was a man of vision who thought he had found the original, ineffable secret. He
was a mystic, but not a mystic in the traditional sense of the term. There is some resemblance
between Blake and the English poets Thomas Traherne and Henry Vaughan; who belonged to

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the tradition of mystics who experienced mystic trances and in super-sensory moments,
beheld the Beatific Vision of God. For Blake, it was a quality that he experienced daily in
life; he possessed a special vision, the “double vision.” He saw with the inner eye, with a kind
of mental illumination which enabled him to behold the ultimate truth. He attempted to
explore that region of the human mind which became the region of Eternal Worlds. Blake
said, “I rest not from my great task! /To open the Eternal Worlds/ To open the immortal Eyes
of Man / Inwards into the Worlds of Thought /Into Eternity” (Jerusalem 233).
This was Blake’s task; to record in his poetry, this experience of the Eternal and to
communicate it to all men so that they too may develop their faculty of vision and
understanding and, through understanding, learn to act rightly - in love and mutual
forgiveness.

5. BLAKE’S SYMBOLISM

To present his world-view, Blake invented a set of symbols as he could not find satisfaction
in any established system. He is startlingly modern in his creation of a set of private symbols
and a forerunner of W. B. Yeats, who also invented an elaborate system of private myths and
symbols. Blake valued, above all else, the creative power of the imagination which helped
him to create his own system.
Blake’s complicated system of symbols is not a consistent one. This has led to confusion
and bewildered many readers. His symbols are derived from old English myths and folklore.
There are elemental figures embodying thought and meaning. The four main figures are
Urizen (Reason), Los (Imagination), Luvah (Passion), and Tharmas (Instincts).
Blake was an erudite scholar. His reading included the works of the mystics Emanuel
Swedenborg and Jacob Boehme; the philosophy of Locke, Hume, Berkeley and, above all,
the Holy Bible. Though Blake’s works are permeated with Christian doctrine and Christian
symbols, Blake is not a traditional Christian; his beliefs at times verge on heresy.
In the first place, Blake makes a clear distinction between the God of the Old
Testament, Jehovah, and the God of the New Testament, Jesus Christ. In his abhorrence of
institutionalized religion, Blake identifies Jehovah with Urizen - the false God of Reason,
who is responsible for the divisions in man. His other attributes are intolerance and over-
zealousness in safeguarding his own authority. He is not a loving Father, but a Nobodaddy, a
clock-work God in a clock-work universe. Blake constantly denounces eighteenth-century

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rationalism and logical empiricism. He blames the analytics of Newton and the skepticism of
Voltaire for the elevation of cold, abstract Reason.
Opposed to Urizen is Los or Imagination, whom Blake identifies with Jesus Christ.
Blake had learnt from Jacob Boehme that Imagination is the first Emanation of Divinity.
Christ is the Poetic Genius who dictates words of eternal salvation to poets like Blake. Blake
wrote that “the Eternal Body of Man is the Imagination, God Himself, the Divine Body -
Jesus Christ” (Laocoön 273).
Christ is incarnate within the mind of man. Blake did not believe in a God who was
wholly the other, a God who was out there but in an immanent God, the Godhead within man.
The Divine Imagination in man gives rise to intuition, or “spiritual sensations,” and teaches
man that “Thou also dwell’st in Eternity./ Thou art a man: God is no more./ Thine own
humanity learn to adore” (“The Everlasting Gospel” 521).
The cardinal sin for Blake is “hindering;” whether it is an attempt to hinder oneself or
another, to hinder one’s Energies, natural feelings or instincts. “Murder is Hindering Another.
Theft is Hindering Another. Backbiting, Undermining, Circumventing and whatever is
Negative is Vice” (qtd. in Frye 55). Urizen/ Jehovah, with his iron book of laws and
prohibitions, is responsible for “hindering.” Urizen, with his jealousy, cruelty, secrecy, hatred
of life and joy has been created by men out of their own vices. Urizen must be overthrown.
For Blake expression is good, repression is evil.
Blake was very conscious of his role as a Poet-Prophet or Bard. “Mark well my
words! They are for your eternal salvation . . . I am inspired. I know it is truth! I sing
according to the inspiration of the Poetic Genius who is eternal all-protecting Divine
Humanity” (Milton 95). Blake, the poet, is the intermediary between God and Man. He
reveals the words of God to men, sleepers in the land of shadows. He proclaims God’s plan
for the future. What the Bard has to offer to man is the abundant life. The final
consummation, the regeneration of Man will take place when, after having listened to the
poet, the human spirit is renewed and the human soul re-integrated. In conclusion, Blake may
be said to have fulfilled his aim in writing poetry.

6. A NOTE ON BLAKE AND NATURE

Blake was a pre-Romantic poet standing mid-way between the Augustan poets; Dryden,
Pope, and Johnson, and the Romantic poets; Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats. For
the eighteenth-century poets, nature meant human nature; studied against a background of

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drawing rooms, coffee-houses, or trimmed gardens. For the Romantics, Nature was all in all.
They, especially Wordsworth with his Pantheism, established a creed of Nature-worship.
Although Blake and the other forerunners of the Romantic Revival - Goldsmith,
Collins, and Cowper, broke with eighteenth century traditions, they did not advocate the
“Return to Nature” evident in Romantic poetry. They were at an early stage in the
development of a new awareness of Nature. They merely present the outward aspects of
Nature. But there is already a shift in perspective - the wild, picturesque, remote, or splendid
aspects of Nature are highlighted.
Although Blake spent most of his life in London, he was familiar with and enjoyed
the beauties of the countryside. He appreciated the fresh, green fields of rural England but
was aware of the horrors inflicted on the countryside by the Industrial Revolution. He
witnessed both “a pastoral heaven” and “a hell of dark, satanic mills”:
It is characteristic of his whole philosophy that he took both into account. A less
courageous soul might well have hated the city and loved the fields, or like Dr.
Johnson, loved the coffee-houses and shrunk from the solitudes of nature. Blake
felt with full intensity the martyrdom of the toiling, suffering humanity of
London, and he loved fields, green mountains, summer trees, but he saw the
human spirit at work alike amid the furnaces of hell and the fountains of
paradise. He desired to see a ‘marriage of heaven and hell’ and for him, the
innocence of pastoral man did not seem lost in the satanic mills. The hell of
experience is, for Blake, only the turning of the Wheel of life. The indestructible
purity of the human spirit returns, at the end of the circle of destiny, to its
original innocence again; the furnaces of the fallen world become once more the
fountains of Eden. It seems likely that much of Blake’s vision of a
reconciliation of two contraries – of good and evil, innocence and experience -
arose out of his own early memories of city squalor and suffering, side by side
with the world of hay-fields and harvesters under the hedgerow elms of Kent on
the south bank of the Thames. (Raine 387)
Appreciative as Blake was of the beauties of the natural world, it was not his duty to
enhance the readers’ appreciation of it as Keats, for example, did in his “Ode to Autumn.”
Blake’s approach was to see the symbol first and then the natural object, the reverse of
Wordsworth’s approach.
Blake was not concerned with the world of outward senses. He apprehended the world
through the mind, the Imagination. The trees that Blake drew did not exist in Nature; the
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Poison Tree or the Tree of Mystery bearing fruits of Deceit. Blake was concerned with the
world of external nature only insofar as it could provide symbols for the world within the
mind of man. In his poems, the sun-flower represents the desire of youth for love and
freedom, the lily stands for the purity of love, and the sick rose is symbolic of human beings
attacked by evil, destructive forces.
The world that Blake’s characters inhabit is not the world of nature, but a world of
their own making, which exists in their own minds. The carefree joy of a child who delights
in the flowers, the birds, and the streams is but a reflection of the joy in its own heart.

7. BLAKE’S POETRY

Blake’s first book of verse, Poetical Sketches (1783), is written partly in imitation of
Shakespeare, the Elizabethan song-writers, and Spenser. This collection includes the well-
known lyrics “My Silks and Fine Array” and “How Sweet I Roam’d from Field to Field.”
These poems have neither the exquisite lyrical quality of the Songs of Innocence and
Experience nor their originality, yet there is present in them a quality of “unreality” which is
typical of Blake and which marks the advent of a new poetic era.
In the Songs of Innocence (1789), Blake recaptured the innocence and joy of
childhood. Through visionary insight, Blake discovered that the sense of freedom and
happiness he experienced as an adult corresponded to the condition of childhood, which was
a state of innocence, happiness, and primal unity. Blake uses simple language and the verse
forms are akin to the jingle, the nursery-rhyme, the ballad, and hymns for children. The
setting is pastoral and the imagery conventional; drawn mainly from the Bible. The vision of
the world that Blake presents is that of the child - a world of joy, peace, love, purity,
happiness, and security. The poems echo with the happy, carefree laughter of children.
The Songs of Experience (1794) present an altogether different world. Blake raises his
voice in protest against the evils that he saw in society. He vehemently attacks the Church,
priestcraft, kingship, and the state - all that fetters the free mind of man. Blake writes with
passion, anger, and indignation but there is compassion as well, for poor children exploited
by a hardened society. His anger is directed especially against priests and their agents who
are symbolized as ravens, serpents, worms, and caterpillars; the imagery is of sickness and
disease.
There is a pervasive mood of fear. Fear and hatred, hypocrisy and selfishness have
entered the hearts of men with the worship of the false God Urizen, of the false religion,

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Mystery. The free and innocent love of the Songs of Innocence is turned into cankerous
selfishness. Among the powerful poems of Experience is “The Garden of Love,” which has
“Thou shalt not” written on the chapel door. Such prohibitions lead to guilt, misery, and
despair. In place of the benevolent guardians of the Songs of Innocence there are hostile
adults, nurses, priests, and howling animals of prey.
The poems in Songs of Experience are characterized by disillusionment. Blake was
appalled by man’s inhumanity to man and his revolutionary ardour quelled by the excesses of
the French Revolution. But Blake is not a mere social reformer. His aim in the Songs is to
present the contraries of the human soul; contraries which are an inalienable part of human
existence: “Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and
Energy, Love and Hate are necessary for human existence” (The Marriage of Heaven and
Hell 35). When the contraries are resolved through Vision and Imagination, the soul is re-
integrated. The Songs begin with delight and end in wisdom.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), written at the same time as the Songs of
Innocence is a satire. Written mainly in prose, in the form of aphorisms and proverbs, it deals
with the religious concepts of good and evil. Blake points out that Good has come to be
equated with a conventional code of morality and Evil as working in opposition to it. Both
Good and Evil are necessary, they are complementary. The true dualism is not between Good
and Evil but between Wisdom and Folly; not Body and Soul but Energy and Reason. It is the
mind, the Imagination, which is of importance. The purified mind will be able to perceive the
infinite in everything
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand
And Eternity in an hour.
(From “Auguries of Innocence”)
“The Song of Liberty” with which The Marriage ends is a short prose-poem of
revolution; it is an appeal to the nations to cast off their bondage - political, moral, and
religious.
Blake wrote two symbolic books, Tiriel and The Book of Thel (1789). In Tiriel
(unpublished) he exposes the folly of substituting the restrictions of law for the freedom of
the imagination. The Book of Thel is a lyrical narrative, in which Blake deals with the theory
of pre-existence, making use of Greek myths and symbols. The virgin Thel is afraid as she
gazes from her abode of Innocence into the World of Generation. To be born into this world
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of division, terror, and strife, would be death for her and she flees back to her original home.
It is an allegory of a pre-existent soul refusing to enter into the grave of earthly life.
Blake’s symbolic or prophetic works have proved to be a stumbling-block for many
who otherwise understood and appreciated his poetry. They were incomprehensible to most
of his contemporaries. In the early nineties, Blake spent a good deal of time in the company
of revolutionaries. Thomas Paine was one of his friends. Having witnessed two revolutions,
the American War of Independence and the French Revolution, Blake set about writing three
social prophecies: The French Revolution (1791), America: A Prophecy (1793), and Europe:
A Prophecy (1794). They are a mixture of history, drama, and allegory and constitute an
impassioned plea to men to cast off their shackles and be emancipated. Blake attacks
materialism, the Church, the State, the Pope, and current Christianity; as opposed to true
Christianity.
In Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), Blake deals with the miseries of
loveless but indissoluble marriage and enforced chastity. He criticizes marriage-laws on
account of which a man and a woman may remain trapped in a love-less marriage. This work
is understood to be a declaration of belief in the purity of the instincts, the evils of repression,
and even as a plea for free love.
In the Prophetic books: The First Book of Urizen (1794), The Book of Ahania (1795),
The Book of Los (1795), The Song of Los (1795), and The Four Zoas (unpublished), Blake
passes from history to mythology, from Time to Eternity, using the familiar story of the war
among the gods. Blake retells the story of the divisions in man caused by the warring
elements in him; Mind, Body, Heart, and Spirit. He calls them Urizen (reason), Tharmas
(Instinct), Luvah (Emotion), and Los (Imagination). Blake believed that man can be fully re-
integrated and return to his true home, Eternity, only after the contraries or different forces in
him have been re-unified in a perfect balance, and this is possible only through the power of
Vision and Imagination. The forces responsible for hindering man’s progress are
conventional morality, Church, State, and other man-made institutions.
The mythology of Blake’s later prophecies; Milton (1804-1810), and Jerusalem
(1804-1820) is based on Christianity or rather, Blake’s version of Christianity. Man is no
longer at war with external forces but is divided against himself. Vision or Imagination can
assist him regain his primal identity. Imagination, which was formerly Los, is now clearly
discernible as the Divine Imagination, Jesus Christ. Blake, the Poet-Prophet, has finally
achieved what he set out to do; pierced the mystery of existence. He wishes to share his
knowledge with all men. In his preface to Milton, he had appended the words; “Would to God
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that all the Lord’s people were Prophets.” (95) He has taught men, through his poetic faith,
how to re-build Jerusalem in England.
The cycle of life is complete. Blake has passed from a state of innocence, through the
dark night of experience, into a higher state of organized innocence. It is a hard-won fight
against selfhood, self-sufficiency, and codified law; victory over which leads to the realm of
spiritual truth. Blake’s poetry ultimately illustrates the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on
the Mount - love, kindness, and the mutual forgiveness of sins among men.

8. SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE: AN ASSESSMENT

Blake published the Songs of Innocence in 1789, the year of the French Revolution, using a
process of his own invention, known as ‘Illuminated Printing.’ He claimed that the secret of
this process was revealed to him by his dead brother in a vision. In 1794, he reissued the
volume together with the Songs of Experience to form a single book: Songs of Innocence and
Experience Showing Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.
The Songs are Blake’s unique contribution to English poetry. The appeal of the Songs
lies in the simplicity of their pattern and diction, and in their pure lyricism. Echoes of the
Spenserian and Shakespearian lyric, evident in the early Poetical Sketches, may still be heard
in the Songs; in their spontaneity and gaiety, their lightness and melody. But the subject
matter of Blake’s Songs is of a far more serious nature and critics have found complexities of
meaning in what otherwise appear to be simple, charming lyrics. Blake may perhaps be
credited with having produced a new genre, the “serious lyric.”
Blake’s Songs are linked, however tenuous the link may be, to a form of poetry
popular in the eighteenth century - poems and hymns for children, particularly Isaac Watts’
Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children. However, the similarities
are confined to the framework of the hymns. Both in form and content, Blake’s Songs are
remote from those of other hymn writers; such as Isaac Watts, William Cowper, or Anna
Barbauld; with their sentimental notions of piety and their rather complacent, at times even
uncharitable, moralizing. Similarly, though Blake used the pastoral form, his Songs have a
more serious intent than pretty pastoral poems do.
The vital element in Blake’s poetry is the visionary clement and the Songs are a
visionary interpretation of life. Blake said, “The Nature of my work is Visionary or
Imaginative,” and “it is an Endeavour to Restore what the Ancients called the Golden Age”
(The Marriage of Heaven and Hell 36). As Northrop Frye says, “By vision he meant the view

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of the world, not as it might be, still less as it ordinarily appears, but as it really is when it is
seen by human consciousness at its greatest height and intensity” (8). Blake’s understanding
and evaluation of human experience in the Songs are illustrative of this statement. Blake’s
imaginative vision helped him to see, not with, but through the eye. To him a tree appeared,
not only a tree but as a paradise of angels.
Joseph Wicksteed says that Blake, when he wrote the Songs, possessed a double
vision; “Blake saw all things two-fold. If the Soul had its contrary states, words and images
had their secondary and deeper meaning . . .” (196). Blake’s imaginative vision helped him to
see, not with, but through the eye. To him a tree appeared, not only a tree but as a paradise of
angels.
A cardinal feature of Blake’s poetry is his use of symbols. The symbols of the Songs
are easily intelligible. The lamb, the Lamb of God, the Good Shepherd, and the Guardian
Angel are all drawn from the Bible; particularly the Twenty-third Psalm and the New
Testament. They give substance to Blake’s sacramental view of life.
Raymond Lister refers to the Songs of Innocence as “happy evocations of the
innocence and joys of childhood” (28). Blake’s purpose is not limited to presenting pictures
of childhood or describing various stages in the cycle of life. Grierson considers Blake’s
poetry “a reading of life and death, Heaven and Hell, that should harmonize the painful
antinomies of life, the contrast between the innocence, joy, and confidence seen in the child
and the irrational sense of guilt, the haunting sorrow, the cramping inhibitions of adolescence
and maturity” (32). Blake viewed with anguish, the sufferings of human beings and their
futile attempts to reconcile the reality of suffering with the concept of a God of love. Blake’s
Songs are a statement of this problem, which he undertook to solve in the Prophetic Books.
Robert F. Gleckner finds Blake’s method in the Songs simple:
its roots lying in his concept of states and their symbols. Like many other artists
Blake employed a central group of related symbols to form a dominant
symbolic pattern; his are the child, the father and Christ, representing the states
of innocence, experience and a higher innocence. (92)
C. M. Bowra considers Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience as “contrasted
elements in a single design. The first sets out an imaginative vision of the state of innocence,
the second shows how life challenges and corrupts and destroys it” (29). For Blake,
childhood is both an actual state and a spiritual state. It is a symbol of a state of soul, which
may be found not only in childhood but also in maturity. The qualities of this spiritual
condition are innocence, joy, and trust. As Bowra comments:
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For him all human beings are in some sense and at some times the children of a
divine father but experience destroys their innocence and makes them fellow
specters and illusions. Blake does not write at a distance of time from memories
of what childhood once was, but from an insistent present anguish at the ugly
contrasts between the childlike and the experienced conceptions of reality. (30)
Blake believed that human beings can redeem themselves only through the
imagination. For him, “Imagination is the Human Eternal Body in Every Man. Imagination is
the Divine Body in Every Man” (qtd. in Bowra 7). For Blake, God, in the person of Jesus
Christ, and the Imagination are one. In other words, God is the creative and spiritual power in
man; the divine essence which exists potentially in every human being.
In the Songs of Innocence, Blake extols the divine qualities present in man - Mercy,
Pity, Peace, and Love. (“The Divine Image”) These qualities are debased in the state of
experience; especially love, which becomes selfish and possessive. Blake realized that the
state of experience, where man becomes aware of the sordid realities of life, is an essential
stage in the cycle of being. As C. M. Bowra writes:
Blake knew that experience is bought at a bitter price, not merely in such
unimportant things as comfort and peace of mind but in the highest spiritual
values. His Songs of Experience are the poetry of this process. They tell us how
what we accept in childlike innocence is tested and proved feeble by actual
events, how much we have taken for granted is not true of the living world, how
every noble desire may be debased and perverted. When he sings of this
process, he is no longer the piper of pleasant glee, but an angry, passionate
rebel. (37-38)
Blake’s Songs of Innocence are therefore “mild and gentle” and his Songs of Experience,
“terrific numbers” sung by the Poet-Prophet. However, even after exploring the states of
innocence and experience, Blake was still unable to find full and exhaustive answers. In the
Songs of Innocence and Experience he has studied the human crisis; man’s predicament in a
hostile and seemingly meaningless universe.
The consummation is yet to come, it is only hinted at, but the road is open to a state of
higher, organized innocence: “Innocence that dwelleth with wisdom, never with ignorance”
(The Four Zoas, 300). As yet, there is only religious affirmation and acceptance. Blake can
accept Experience as a state of purgation, from which one may emerge with a clearer
perception of life and of the interconnected contraries that give meaning to life. The unified

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soul which undergoes division may be re-integrated through imagination; through passion,
power and energy.
Blake’s conclusions are phrased in Christian terminology, though not necessarily
traditional Christian terminology. His gospel is the gospel of liberty, his creed the
brotherhood of man. Blake rejects the prohibitions of a tradition-ridden priesthood; the “Thou
Shall not . . .” of Jehovah; the angry, jealous, selfish God. Blake believed that Christ came
into the world not so much as to atone for the sins of mankind as to offer a new law of
freedom, love and the mutual forgiveness of sins; “Mutual Forgiveness of Each Vice/ Such
are the Gates of Paradise” (“For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise” 259). To enter the gates of
Paradise one has to become a little child; “Except ye be converted and become as little
children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (New Jerusalem Bible, Mathew. 18:
3-5).

9. STUDY GUIDE

9.1 “The Lamb,” Songs of Innocence

Introduction
The lamb is a symbol of innocence in The Songs of Innocence and the tiger, in the Songs of
Experience, a symbol of experience. Since the two contrary states of the soul are not
completely independent and often coexist, it has become customary to read the poems
together and contrast them. However, it is better to read the two poems independently, as the
poet desires us to do. The lamb symbolizes all that is gentle, meek, and innocent; as the infant
Jesus. For Blake, Innocence is a state of mind and Experience crucifies this state of mind.
The poem “The Lamb” celebrates this state of mind and the speaker is totally unaware of
his/her future or its corruption at the hands of Experience.
In the “Introduction,” the first poem in the Songs of Innocence, the child on the cloud
asks the piper to pipe a song about a lamb. He then commands him to sing the song. The
child on the cloud appreciates the music and weeps with joy. In a child-like, peremptory
manner he orders the piper to write down the poems and vanishes. We can assume that the
poem “The Lamb” is written by the piper/poet in the “Introduction.”
Although the lamb is a recurring symbol in many of Blake’s poems, it stands for
different things in each poem. The lamb in this poem is not the lamb imagined by the speaker
in “The Little Black Boy,” joyfully dancing round the tent of God, in the other world. There,
the lamb in heaven is a consolation or a comfort for the suffering innocents. It is not the
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idyllic or the innocent lamb of the poem “Night,” where the lion and the lamb live together.
The lamb in this poem is a real lamb and the speaker, an innocent child, believes that it is a
symbol of Christ. It is this child-like faith that Blake equates with the state of Innocence.
The Lamb
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee

Little Lamb I'll tell thee,

Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.

Study Notes
2 Dost thou know: old English for ‘Do you know?’
4 mead: short for meadow.
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5 clothing of delight: soft, virgin wool, a pleasure to watch, feel and wear.
8 vales: valleys.
13 For he calls himself a Lamb: in the Gospel of John, it is John the Baptist who gave Jesus
the title Lamb of God; “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The
imagery of Jesus as a lamb originated in Old Testament descriptions of the suffering
servant of God.
16 He became a little child: a reference to the belief in the incarnation of God, the Son, as
Jesus Christ.
18 We are called by his name: we are known as Christians, followers of Christ.

Critical Analysis
In this poem, the child questions the lamb about its origins. The questions are rhetorical: it’s
not as if the child doesn’t know the answers but s/he is reaffirming her/his faith in Jesus
Christ. By doing so, s/he is able to remind the lamb about God; the Father, the Creator, and
the watchful Shepherd. S/he reminds the lamb of God’s bountiful goodness - the gift of life,
warm and protective clothing, and a pleasant bleat.
This poem, steeped in Christian doctrine, passes from the image of the Good
Shepherd (the Shepherd of the parable of the lost sheep) to the great paradox of Christianity;
that God himself took on a human form and dwelt on earth as a man – as gentle, meek, and
mild as a lamb. Blake’s emphasis in this poem is not on Christ the man but on Christ the
child– the infant Jesus. The child, the lamb, and Christ are unified in a sacramental view of
life.
The world presented in this poem is one of joy, innocence, and meekness; a world as
yet untainted by suffering and pain. And the God of this universe is an immanent, not
transcendent God. He becomes the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep. He
is also led like a sheep to the slaughter; a reference to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
The child’s unquestioning acceptance of Christ as a lamb is to be noted. In this
beautiful little hymn, Blake would like us to appreciate the ability of the child to see the
outside world in terms of Christian symbols. It is an intuitive, rather than rational approach to
life.

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Check Your Progress

i) Who is the narrator in this poem?
ii) Mention some of the Christian symbols used in this poem.
iii) Explain the line: “He became a little child.”

9.2 “The Tyger,” Songs of Experience

In the first poem of the Songs of Innocence, the “Introduction,” a Piper is inspired by a child
on a cloud to write happy songs, and happy they are. Although “The Lamb” and “The
Chimney Sweeper” are both about the most exploited sections of society, the outlook of these
poems is joyful. The speakers demonstrate faith in Christian teachings and, with their
imagination, are able to transcend their painful circumstances.
In the two poems from Songs of Experience that you will study, you will notice a
change in tone and atmosphere. The speakers in “The Chimney Sweeper” and “The Tyger”
have no faith in redemption or salvation. The speaker of “The Tyger” has none of the joyful
belief in the external world, as the child in “The Lamb” does.
Introduction
This poem, which is considered Blake’s masterpiece, has been variously interpreted by
critics. On a superficial reading it appears to be a presentation of contraries, good and evil,
but the implications are far greater than a mere conflict between good and evil.
The speaker expresses his wonder at the beauty, the power, and the sheer
magnificence of the tiger. The poem is framed as a series of questions. Some questions are
incomplete in form, suggesting that the poet is overwhelmed by awe. The terror which the
beast inspires is communicated through the repetition of such words as ‘dare,’ ‘dread,’ and
‘terrors.’ To the narrator, it appears daring, even for God, to undertake such an awesome act
of creation. It seems incredible that the God who created the lamb could also create the tiger:
“Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”
The tiger is Blake’s symbol for regeneration and for Energy, which is opposed to
Urizen or Reason. Urizen, the false God with his iron laws, has crushed man. For Urizen, the
Energies (which Blake equated with human emotions, especially love) are evil and shameful.
Blake believed that the Energies should not be suppressed for they are inspiring and powerful
forces in life. Only by giving expression to the Energies can man attain happiness and
fulfilment. In this poem, the tiger symbolizes these Energies. However, even without

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reference to Blake’s symbols, the poem can be read as an expression of awe at the
paradoxical nature of divine creation.
The Tyger
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears

And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

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Study Notes
1 Tyger: Blake uses the older, archaic spelling of tiger; most probably for poetic effect.
1 burning bright: the tiger’s vivid orange colour resembles a fire in the forest.
2 forests of the night: symbols of Church and State.
3 immortal hand or eye: the speaker imagines that the creator/ God has a human form.
5 deeps: valleys.
7 wings: a reference to God. In Blake’s print “The Elohim Creating Adam,” God is
represented as a winged figure.
8 dare seize the fire: the courage of the creator reminds the speaker of the Greek myth of
Prometheus, who dared to steal fire from heaven.
9 art: here, it means the craft of the ironsmith, a person who makes articles from iron.
10 sinews: tendons, that join muscle to bone in the body.
12 What dread hand? & what dread feet?: here, ‘dread’ is used as an adjective and it means
‘to cause fear and worry.’ The narrator wants to know which hands and feet could dare
to seize the tiger, once its heart started to beat.
13 the chain: an image of fettering and binding. It is implied that no one can chain the
ferocious tiger.
14 furnace: the speaker imagines the creator is perhaps an ironsmith, and that the tiger was
created in the furnace in his workshop.
15 anvil: block of iron, on which metal can be hammered and shaped.
17 stars: interpreted by several critics to symbolize the angels, particularly the rebel angels,
followers of Lucifer.
20 the Lamb: the Tyger is the counterpart of the Lamb. God created both the lamb and the
tiger. Both the meekness and gentleness of the lamb and the power and passion of the
tiger are necessary for human evolution.

Critical Analysis
In the poem, “The Lamb,” from Songs of Innocence, the little child asks questions and
joyfully answers them himself; secure in his innocent belief in a benevolent creator. Like this
poem, “The Tyger” is also a poem where the speaker wonders about the Creator but with a
crucial difference; in “The Tyger,” the questions remain unanswered. The narrator gazes on
the ferocious creature, wondering at the skill and power of its creator. The poem is in the

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form of a series of questions that have no answers; all that he can conclude is “Did he who
made the Lamb make thee?” The speaker’s understanding is limited; he can think of the
creator only in human terms, with hands and eyes. It is difficult for him to accept the
existence of God without questioning it. Compare this to the speaker’s attitude in “The
Lamb,” where the little child is secure in his knowledge of a benevolent Christ, imagined as a
lamb. Experience questions whereas innocence accepts without doubt.
Another way to read the poem is with reference to Blake’s symbolism: as a
celebration of the imaginative power of the human soul - symbolized by the tiger. The tiger
has the ferocity to break the “mind-forg’d manacles” and burn the “forests of the night.”
According to C.M. Bowra, Blake believed that “the creative activity of the imagination and
the transformation of experience through it are possible only through the release and exercise
of awful powers. He chooses his symbols for these powers in violent and destructive things”
(47). Blake wrote that “the tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction,” the wrath
which Blake found in Christ, his symbol of the divine spirit which will not tolerate restriction
but asserts itself against established rules, was the means by which he hoped to unite
innocence and experience in some tremendous synthesis (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
40).
The poetry of this desire and what it meant to Blake can be seen in “The Tyger.” This
is the pure poetry of his trust in cosmic forces. The tiger is Blake’s symbol for the fierce
forces in the soul which are needed to break the bonds of experience. “The forests of the
night,” in which the tiger lurks, are ignorance, repression, and superstition. The tiger is
created by unknown, supernatural spirits, who beat out living worlds with their hammers.
Martin K. Nurmi considers “The Tyger” as
a kind of dialectical struggle in which Blake strives to bring his emblematic
tiger’s two ‘contraries’ - ‘its deadly terrors’ and the divinity in which it
participates by having been created by an immortal hand or eye’ – into the
‘fearful symmetry symbolized by the animal’s natural symmetry of ferocity and
beauty and even by its contrasting stripes . . . the final poem thus emerges quite
clearly as a complex but essentially positive statement affirming the dread
tiger’s divinity, and not a probing of good and evil, as it has sometimes been
interpreted. (669)
D.W. Harding dismisses all interpretations of “The Tyger” as a conflict between good
and evil:

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At simplest reading the poem is a contemplation of the fact that besides

peacefulness and gentleness the world includes fierce strength terrifying in its
possibilities of destructiveness but also impressive and admirable, a stupendous
part of creation and seemingly a challenge to the idea of a benign Creator. To
see that the tiger’s fierceness and the lamb’s gentleness are also contrasting
qualities of the human mind is a very slight extension beyond the simplest literal
sense. The theme is a commonplace, and also a fact of supreme human
significance, the focus of sharp, psychological conflict in human minds and of
unending theological and philosophical discussion. What Blake’s fine poem
does, is to let us contemplate the facts in their emotional intensity and conflict,
and to share his complex attitude of awe, terror, admiration, near bafflement and
attempted acceptance. (33)

Check Your Progress

i) Describe the creator of the tiger, as visualized by the speaker.
ii) Discuss the structure of the poem, as a series of unanswered questions?
iii) Comment on the tiger as a symbol of the creative imagination.

9.3 “The Chimney Sweeper,” Songs of Innocence

Introduction
The poem was published in 1789 and at that time it was common for little boys, and
sometimes girls, as young as six years old, to be employed as chimney sweeps. They were
usually little children sold off by their poor parents or orphans from the workhouses;
apprenticed to adults known as master sweeps, who were paid by the parish to train these
children. The chimneys in the houses had very narrow flues and they required regular
cleaning of soot deposits so that fires could burn efficiently. Because the chimneys were very
narrow (the standard size was 14x9 inches) and angular, little boys were made to crawl up the
chimneys; pushing themselves up with their knees and elbows to clean the soot with their
brushes. They were not paid money for their labour; only food and lodging were provided.
They slept on the same sacks they used to collect soot, got up around 3 a.m., bathed once a
week, and had only one holiday in the year. Working and living in such horrific conditions;
many of these little children suffered from cancer, died of suffocation or burns, and were ill-

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treated. They wore black clothes and would go around the streets, calling out “Sweep’
sweep” to let people know that they were around. Blake was distressed to see the condition of
the sweeps and, as he does in many of his poems, he connects the social problem to the
spiritual malaise in society. If you search on the internet, you can see old photographs of
chimney sweepers in Europe.
There were humanitarian concerns about little boys being forced to climb chimneys,
resulting in inadequate laws. In one such influential pamphlet, Jonas Hanway’s A Sentimental
History of Chimney Sweeps in London and Westminster, published in 1785, the author
advocates opening of Sunday schools to teach the chimney sweepers about Christianity; “in
Sunday schools, young chimney sweepers are collected and taught their duty instead of
permitted to loiter and indulge in vice” (52). But Blake’s poem raises wider political issues
of exploitation and indoctrination. The Angel in “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of
Innocence represents the way in which organized religion and the Church exploit poor
children and offer them religious teachings to maintain discipline. It was not until 1875, that a
bill was passed in the British parliament to put an end to this inhuman practice.
The narrator in the poem is a little sweeper and the central event from which the
moral is drawn is a dream. The dream is only an illusory comfort; like the golden lambs
dancing round the tent of God in “The Little Black Boy.” Blake here is protesting the
exploitation of the impoverished or deprived class by the ethical dogmas of the dominant
class. Blake hated this kind of Christianity and its Church and the morality imposed by it. The
illusory comfort which the angel inspires in Tom Dacre’s dream is not freedom, but a kind of
prison to manipulate the child to be a good boy and continue doing his duty in a disciplined
manner. Such religious preaching persuades innocent, deprived humanity into submission and
passive acceptance of suffering.
The Chimney Sweeper
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry “'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!”
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head

That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved, so I said,
“Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.”
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And so he was quiet, & that very night,

As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black;

And by came an Angel who had a bright key,

And he opened the coffins & set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,

They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark

And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

Study Notes
3 ‘weep! ‘weep!’: the young child’s pronunciation of the word sweep. Ironically, it sounds
like a cry of pain.
4 soot: a black powder, composed mainly of carbon, produced when coal or wood is
burned. The little boys were made to collect it in sacks, as it could be sold for use as
fertilizer.
5 Tom Dacre: another chimney sweeper, who works with the speaker.
6 like a lamb’s back: the simile of the lamb recurs frequently in Blake’s poetry. Here, the
shaving of Tom’s hair is connected to the image of Jesus as the sacrificial lamb.
6 was shaved: the little chimney sweeps were forced to get their heads shaved to prevent
the soot from sticking to it when they climbed up the chimneys.
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8 white hair: for Blake, white symbolizes innocence and purity.

10 had such a sight: the dream that Tom Dacre has.
11 thousands of sweepers: a disturbing image. In London alone, at the time this poem was
written, there were a thousand boys working as sweeps.
12 coffins of black: the narrow and dark chimneys the little boys climb up resemble the
inside of coffins. An ironic comment on their death-like existence.
13 by came an Angel who had a bright key: the Angel is a messenger of God and the key is
an apparent reference to death as deliverance.
16 wash in a river: once a week or so, the little chimney sweeps were taken to the river and
allowed to wash and play. This was, perhaps, the most pleasant part of their difficult
lives. That is why Tom Dacre’s dream is a recreation of that experience.
17 their bags left behind: in terms of dream symbolism, it could be freedom from their
punishing work. The bags hold their cleaning brushes.
21 rose in the dark: the little boys would begin work before dawn as people would get their
chimneys cleaned after the fires had burnt all night.
A Critical Study
The opening lines of the poem are dramatic. The chimney-sweep narrates his poignant story
in a matter-of-fact tone; almost an understatement. Blake presents a Dickensian situation of
squalor and suffering. The presentation is all the more compelling because Blake avoids
cynicism and bitter irony. He is even able to transform the suffering of the child to a spiritual
triumph, by equating it with the quiet and unresisting suffering of Christ – the meek and mild
Lamb of God. Blake shocks the reader by the manner in which the child recounts the death of
his mother and the cruel manner in which his father sold him when he was still a young child.
There is horror in the spectacle of the child sleeping, on a cold winter night, on a bed of soot.
In the second stanza, the main actor in the drama, Tom Dacre is introduced. Tom was
deeply distressed when his fair hair was shorn. It was customary to shave the hair of chimney
sweeps to prevent it from catching soot. There is an obvious reference here to the Prophet
Isaiah’s description of Christ as a lamb before its shearers. Tom was inconsolable till his
friend offered him words of spiritual comfort. The little chimney-sweep, himself a sufferer
becomes the guardian of Tom Dacre. That night Tom had a dream that he, along with
thousands of chimney-sweeps, was released from earthly bondage and led into the presence
of God. The moral of the poem is uttered by the Angel - that if Tom were a good boy and did
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his work, he would not lack joy. When Tom awoke the next morning, he was comforted by
the thought that if he did his duty he would come to no harm.
Into the world of innocence, Blake introduces distress, sorrow, and care. But the
miseries of the world are transcended by Tom Dacre’s dream of a visionary existence beyond
the skies, in Heaven, which he will attain after having been washed clean in the River which
forms the boundary between Life and Death and on the far shore of which stands God, the
Father, waiting to comfort His children. This vision which has descended on Tom like Grace,
warms his heart and fills it with hope and joy. He is convinced that the ills of the world can
be borne, if they are but a prelude to the joys of Heaven. This is evidence of the inner purity
of the children which cannot be destroyed by outward circumstances.
Even though Blake fills the heart of the chimney-sweeper with Pity, Mercy, and Love
which constitute the “human form divine,” he cannot refrain from indicating that the words of
consolation spoken by the chimney-sweep are words of cold comfort; “So if all do their duty
they need not fear harm.” There is scathing criticism implied here - the irony is that all are
not doing their duty. The little chimney sweeper himself is unaware of the irony in his words.
Blake is sharply critical of the work-ethic preached by the ministers of the Church and
supported by the upper classes, the vested interests of the day, that every calling is a vocation;
a divine calling, howsoever humble it may be. Blake is voicing his protest against the
injustices inherent in a hardened society which can thrive only at the expense of the poor,
who have no other choice but to remain entrenched in the lowest stratum of society.

Check Your Progress

i) Who is the narrator of this poem?
ii) Why is little Tom Dacre upset? Describe his dream?
iii) What does the Angel tell Tom?
iv) Explain why the last line of the poem is ironical?

9.4 “The Chimney Sweeper,” Songs of Experience

Introduction
The sorrow of the chimney sweeper in the Songs of Innocence is temporarily put to rest by
the promise of some kind of reward in the world to come. This reward is marketed by the

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ruling class; the Priest and King, so that they can live in comfort. All the doctrines and
dogmas, and the institutions of mercy thrive because they can imprison innocent minds and
condition and inhibit their spiritual growth. In Songs of Innocence, the chimney sweeper
lacks the knowledge of experience and therefore, is easily tricked into accepting some kind of
illusory reward and is prepared to suffer and still feel happy.
The chimney sweeper of the Songs of Experience has a clearly disillusioned view of
religion. The eye of experience sees through the hypocrisy hidden from the eye of innocence.
The tragedy of experience lies in the fact that it demystifies the knowledge imparted by the
institutions of Church and State. These rulers invest for their seat in heaven through the kind
of mercy and pity they show towards the poor and the weak. Therefore, poverty must prevail.
The child of innocence can comfort himself by inventing a heaven out of the dogmas thrown
to it and morals taught to it. But the child of experience can only weep. There is no comfort
for him, only woe.
We should not imagine that innocence is about childhood and experience is about
adulthood; they are the two contrary states of the human soul. The state of the soul which
finds comfort in protection and is capable of imaginative invention is innocence, and the state
of soul which realizes that all security is futile is experience.
Blake wanted to destroy all that binds man to exploitative institutions and he also
wanted to destroy man’s obedience to those moral precepts that hinder the full power of his
creative will to assert and revolt. God, the father, has become a source of exploitation in the
hands. of religious hypocrites who want to earn their heaven out of the miseries they inflict
upon the poor and the oppressed.
The Chimney Sweeper
A little black thing among the snow,
Crying "weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe!
"Where are thy father and mother? say?"
"They are both gone up to the church to pray.

Because I was happy upon the heath,

And smil'd among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

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And because I am happy and dance and sing,

They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,
Who make up a heaven of our misery."

Study Notes
1 a little black thing: the narrator sees a little child in the snow, covered with black soot.
Note how Blake uses the contrasting colours (black and white) to highlight the child’s
pitiable condition.
2 ‘weep! ’weep! in notes of woe: The weeping of the innocent chimney sweeper is easily
converted into joy, but the weeping of this chimney sweeper is condemned to permanent
woe.
3 ‘Where are thy father and mother? say?’: the narrator asks the little chimney sweep
about the whereabouts of his parents.
4 They are both gone to the church to pray: at first the little sweep’s answer seems to be
without resentment but in the next few lines, he complains about their neglect of their
parental duties and their hypocrisy.
5 heath: an area of land where grass and small plants grow.
7 clothes of death: the chimney sweeps wore black clothes so that the soot couldn’t soil
them. Black is a colour associated with death.
8 notes of woe: the little child is forced to work as a chimney sweeper. When he calls out
‘sweep’ sweep,’ in the streets, as was customary in the trade, his voice carries the pain of
his suffering.
11 God & his Priest & King: the child expresses his anger at his parents who have sold him
off and think he is happy. There is bitterness in the child’s narration; he indicts the
Church, the caretakers of religion, and the state - for failing to do their duty.
Critical Analysis
The narrator sees “a little black thing” in the snow and notes the sorrow in his cry. The
chimney sweeper is out in the cold, dressed in his black work clothes, calling out for work in
the street. The reader’s attention is immediately drawn to the child’s pitiful condition. The

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narrator asks him about his parents and the implication is clear - he wants to know why this
little child is wandering alone. The child is suffering the misery and fate of an orphan. The
chimney sweeper’s replies are an expression of his anger and resentment at his condition; he
tells the narrator that his parents have effectively killed his childhood by apprenticing him to
a master sweep. The parents believe that because the child still dances and sings, he is happy
with his work.
The parents are guilty of neglecting their duty towards the child. But Blake doesn’t
stop there. In the last two lines, there is a powerful indictment of those institutions which
should have protected the little boy instead of allowing him to be exploited;
‘And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King,
‘Who make up a heaven of our misery.’
Note that the first letters of ‘Priest’ and ‘King’ are capitalized. The little child is not taken in
by religious doctrines; especially the one that considers suffering as a prelude to a place in
heaven. He understands that his misery is the foundation on which religious institutions
thrive. At this point, it is essential to compare the poem to “The Chimney Sweeper” in the
Songs of Innocence, where little Tom Dacre finds comfort in the words of his friend, whereas
the little chimney sweeper in this poem, demonstrates an awareness much beyond his years.
He is disenchanted with religion and sees through the hypocrisy of religious institutions.

Check Your Progress

i) What does the narrator see in the snow? What does he ask the little boy?
ii) What are the little chimney sweep’s feelings towards his parents?
iii) Comment on the significance of the last line.

10. SUMMING UP

In the preceding two sections you have read about the four poems in your course. Although
each poem can be read independently, and appreciated without reference to the others, you
need to form a wider perspective and identify the common thread in each section of the Songs
of Innocence and Experience.
The first point you need to remember is that the narrator in each poem is different;
what you hear is not the voice of the poet but a narrator. For instance, the narrator in the first
poem of the Songs of Innocence is a piper and in “The Chimney Sweeper,” it is a little
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chimney sweep. The speakers in these poems, as well as “The Lamb” are all innocent but not
in the conventional sense of the word, as being simple and uncorrupted. Their faith in God/
Jesus is unquestioning and they have the imagination to look beyond suffering and
exploitation at the possibility of heaven. The little chimney sweeper’s words of comfort for
his friend Tom Dacre are couched in Christian terminology and the belief in a benevolent
God. You might wonder - is William Blake suggesting that the solution to some of society’s
most pressing problems lies in unquestioning faith in the will of god. That is not the case.
Although Blake presents childlike faith as an admirable quality in humans, he knew that such
a state of mind will eventually be contaminated by experience - an inevitable step in the
progression of the human soul. The chimney sweeper of the Songs of Innocence becomes the
chimney sweeper of the Songs of Experience; he is not taken in by religious platitudes and
has realized that his misery feeds the Church and its priests. He is full of anger and
resentment towards his parents. Similarly, the speaker in “London,” is unable to see beyond
the suffering he witnesses in his depressing walk through the city. His consciousness is
essentially flawed; unable to perceive any redeeming feature in the world around him.
Experience, for Blake, was a state of soul that has lost its divine ability to see; for instance,
the speaker in “The Tyger” can only question.
For Blake, individual redemption or salvation lay in breaking free of the chains
imposed by society, with the help of the imagination. His poem, “The Tyger” is a celebration
of the spiritual forces in the human soul that can empower him/her to break free of the mental
bonds created by a false religion. Though Blake was sharply critical of the concept of heaven
peddled by Christian preachers, he didn’t reject the core teachings of Jesus Christ. What he
objected to was the refusal of the Church to alleviate the sufferings of the poor and innocent.
He felt that Christianity had not been interpreted in its true spirit.
Assignment Questions
i) Compare and contrast “The Lamb” with “The Tyger.”
ii) Discuss various symbols used in Blake’s poems.
iii) With reference to “The Lamb” and “The Chimney Sweeper,” from the Songs of
Innocence, explain what Blake meant by a state of ‘innocence’?
iv) With reference to “The Tyger” and “The Chimney Sweeper,” from the Songs of
Experience, explain what Blake meant by a state of ‘experience’?
v) Discuss William Blake as a social critic, with special reference to the two “The Chimney
Sweeper” poems.

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REFERENCES
Blake, William. “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” 1790. The Complete Prose and Poetry
of William Blake. Edited by David Erdman, New York: Anchor Books, 1982. pp. 33-
44.
---. “Milton.” (1804-11). Erdman, pp. 95-143.
---. “Jerusalem.”1808. Erdman, pp. 231-245.
---. “For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise.” 1818. Erdman, pp. 259-268.
---. “The Everlasting Gospel.” 1818. Erdman, pp. 518-519.
---. “Laocoön.” 1826-27. Erdman, pp. 273.
---. “The Four Zoas.” 1893. Erdman, pp.300-407.
Bowra, C. M. The Romantic Imagination. Oxford: OUP, 1957.
Frye, Northrop. Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1947.
Gleckner, Robert F. “Point of View and Context in Blake’s Songs,” English Romantic Poets:
Modern Essays in Criticism. Edited by M. H. Abrams. Oxford University Press, 1975.
pp. 90-111.
Grierson, H. J. C. Lyrical Poetry from Blake to Hardy. Hogarth Lectures. No. 5. London:
Hogarth Press, 1928.
Hanway, Jonas. A Sentimental History of Chimney Sweepers in London and Westminster.
1785. Michigan: ECCO Print, 2010.
Harding, D. W. Experience into Words: Essays on Poetry. Cambridge University Press, 1963.
Lister, Raymond. William Blake: An Introduction to the Man and his Work. London: G Bell
& Sons, 1968.
Nurmi, Martin K. “Blake’s Revisions of the Tyger.” PMLA, Vol. 71, No. 4, 1956, pp. 669–
85. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/460637. Accessed 23 August 2023.
Raine, Kathleen. Blake and Tradition. UK: Routledge, 1968.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract. 1762. New York: Carlton House, 1939.
Symons, Arthur. William Blake. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1907.
Wicksteed, Joseph H. Blake’s Innocence and Experience: A Study of the Songs and
Manuscripts. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1928.

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Unit-I(2)

(i) “TINTERN ABBEY” (ii) “LONDON”

William Wordsworth
P. C. Khanna
Dr. Neeta Gupta

1. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

This study material aims to do the following:

• Introduce you to the poet.
• Bring out Wordsworth’s significance as a Romantic poet.
• Familiarize you with aspects of Wordsworth’s poetry.
• Understand the role of Nature in his poetry and how he draws upon simple everyday
occurrences for his themes.
• Draw your attention to the simplicity and beauty of Wordsworth’s language.
• Understand the role of the poet as envisaged by Wordsworth.
• Help you understand and appreciate the two poems under consideration – “Tintern
Abbey” and “London”.

2. A SHORT BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was the son of John Wordsworth and Anne Cookson and
was born at Cockermouth. His boyhood was spent among the wild hills of his beloved Lake
District. He lost his mother when he was eight and his father when he was thirteen, but
relatives helped to educate Wordsworth and his brothers and their sister Dorothy. His
schooldays at Hawkshead are vividly described in The Prelude. In 1787 he went to St. John’s
College, Cambridge where he read a great deal, but paid little attention to the prescribed
courses of study.
In 1790 and in 1791-92 he was in France, where he became a convinced
revolutionary. In 1793 he was back in England and the outbreak of war with his beloved

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France caused him anguish. When the excesses of ‘The Terror’ broke out, he lost his belief in
the Revolution and turned to Godwin’s anarchical doctrines for consolation: barren stuff for a
poet whose huge inspiration was struggling to find adequate expression. In 1795 a legacy
enabled him to set up a house with his sister Dorothy in the Quantocks, and in her
companionship, he rediscovered joy in Nature. His friendship with Coleridge released the
creativity within him. In 1798 Lyrical Ballads was published, and in the following year he
returned to Lake District. From then until 1805 he succeeded in writing his greatest oeuvre of
works. He had discovered the true purpose of his life; his marriage with Mary Hutchinson in
1802 brought him joy, his belief in Nature was “the nurse, the guide, the guardian of [his]
heart, and soul of all [his] moral being was unimpaired” (“Tintern Abbey”, lines 100-111).
The great 1807 volume of poetry was the golden harvest of these fruitful years. The
loss at sea of his brother John in 1805 was a deep grief, and his poetry lost much of its
spontaneous joy after this. Nor was it John’s death alone and the decay of Coleridge that
saddened him; the glories of his visionary powers were waning and he felt that he had
exchanged youth for middle age:
“Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?”
(“Immortality Ode” line 60, in Selincourt, 460).
He turned to Duty and the memories of “the dream” to prop his remaining years.
Throughout the rest of his long life, he met with increasing evidence of the esteem in which
he was held. The abuse that had greeted the Lyrical Ballads was exchanged for honours,
pensions and the Laureateship. He died in 1850 and was buried at Grasmere. After his death
The Prelude was published. He had finished it as early as 1805 but deliberately held it back
for posthumous publication, knowing the publicity that must attend this autobiographical
epic. Wordsworth is one of our greatest poets. His greatness lies principally in his power of
expressing the awe and rapture that a sensitive man experiences when confronted by the
grandeur of natural beauty.
Wordsworth was the first poet who raised simple, bare and naked words to the level
of poetry. He did not depend upon any poetic cliche, mythology, or any other stereotyped
rhetoric. What distinguished Wordsworth from all other poets, is not only his attitude towards
Nature, or his language but also his views on the role of a poet as an individual and his
special concern for the “still sad music of humanity”. We shall here consider how these
aspects of his poetry are realized in some of his finest poems.
Wordsworth’s claim to the title of a great poet, as many critics believe, rests upon the
work of a single decade: his poetic genius showed at its best in what he wrote between 1798
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and 1808. The Lyrical Ballads, (which Coleridge and Wordsworth conceived together), the
Lucy poems, some of his great Sonnets and “The Immortality Ode” all belong to this period.
“Tintern Abbey”, which was the last poem of the first volume of The Lyrical Ballads and
which, it is believed, contains the central theme of all his major works, was written in 1798,
the year which marks the shaping of the great soul of a poet in the making.
In his “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads”, Wordsworth asks “What is a poet?” and
answers by saying that “he is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with more
lively sensibility more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human
nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind, a
man pleased with his own passions and volitions and who rejoices more than others in the
spirit of life that is within him: delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as
manifested in the goings-on of the Universe and habitually, compelled to create them where
he does not find them,” (Preface, in Bret and Jones, 250).
Wordsworth is a man speaking to men in a language which rejects all poetic
ornaments and mechanical devices. As Coleridge observes in Biographia Literaria, in The
Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth for his part was “to give the charm of novelty to things of every
day and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by directing it to the loveliness and
the wonders of the world before us.” He attempts to give charm and novelty to things of
everyday life by “awakening the mind’s attention from the lethargy of custom,” (Coleridge,
53), to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate and describe them,
throughout, as far as possible, in a selection of language really used by men, and at the same
time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should
be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect, and further, above all, to make these incidents
and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws
of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which he associates ideas in a state of
excitement. For this reason, “humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that
condition the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their
maturity and because in that condition passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful
and permanent forms of nature” (Preface, in Bret and Jones, 284). The rustic and humble
people lacked sophistication, spoke a language which contained the elemental force of pure
and primal emotions and showed human nature untrammelled by the conventions of
upbringing, custom and education. “All good poetry, he believes, “is the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings and takes its origin from emotions recollected in tranquility.
The emotion is contemplated till by a series of reactions the tranquility gradually disappears
and an emotion kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually
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produced and does itself actually exist in the mind” (Preface, in Bret and Jones, 240). In this
mood, successful composition begins and it is in this mood that it is carried on. We shall
actually see it happening when we study “Tintern Abbey”. Here the powerful role of memory
in retaining certain images, and the contemplation of this memory in tranquility, recreates the
entire experience and growth of his mind in arriving at a certain maturity of vision and
thought. The language and movement of the poem is simple, natural and powerful. It is
always true to the emotion, the objects which caused this emotion and the philosophy or view
of life which sprang from this emotion.
Wordsworth is a poet speaking to men and his main concern is man and his mind. But
he regrets that man’s basic or inherited tendency is to lose the paradise naturally gifted to
him. Wordsworth regains this paradise in Nature and is therefore regarded as a poet of Nature
and a worshipper of Nature. But Wordsworth’s basic preoccupation is not with the paradise
he regains, but with man, who is gradually losing his paradise, or the “still sad music of
humanity”(“Tintern Abbey”, 94 ).
Wordsworth’s basic conviction is that man by alienating himself from Nature is
unconsciously orphaning himself. Away from the parent Nature there is no rest for his mind
or peace for his soul. Nature, with all its loveliness, is a living presence to him and co-exists
in the mind of man. The soul which is in unison with Nature is blessed by her peace. He
sincerely believes that the natural piety which binds all men together is best sustained with a
simple communion with Nature.
Wordsworth’s attitude towards Nature is different from that of other Romantic poets.
In them we find that the poet’s joy or melancholy is transferred to natural objects or rather, a
selection is made of natural objects in which a sympathetic analogy can be traced and then
these objects are endowed with the appropriate mood. For Wordsworth, however, Nature has
her own life, a sense sublime, which also dwells in the mind of man. Mind and Nature always
act and react upon each other. It is a continuous process, consisting mainly of three phases,
the “glad animal moments” of childhood, the “passions’ and ‘appetites’ of youth, and lastly
that serene and blessed mood in which mind and nature achieve complete harmony and “we
are laid asleep in body and become a living soul,” (“Tintern Abbey”, 42-47). Nature thus
plays an active role in shaping the soul of man. So, in Wordsworth, we find that the great
union of Mind and Nature is consummated by a process of association which links up at
every stage of his life, experience and the experiencing self, leading from sensation to
feeling, from feeling to thought and then creating a union of all these faculties when the
mighty world of eye and ear ceases to exist; and the same sublime sense which dwells in

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Nature becomes coexistent with the mind of man, and though the same impulse animates all
objects and all thought, the mind rises above the objects it contemplates to the creation of a
moral being, a soul.
In “Tintern Abbey” and “The Immortality Ode” we experience this pilgrimage of the
poet’s soul inspired by Nature. We also realize the moral influence it exercises on him while
shaping his soul. The “still sad music of humanity”, and man’s inherited tendency to lose his
paradise, haunts his songs.
Wordsworth’s concern for mankind’s slow march to doom with the growth of
industrialization and neglect of Nature can be felt in “London”. This shows that the poet
Wordsworth is a man speaking to men and although he finds a temple for himself, his main
worry was the fate of mankind which was gradually drifting from that temple.
The two poems we are going to study combine in them the essence of Wordsworth’s
poetic achievement and indicate the major milestone of the growth of his mind.

3. “Tintern Abbey”: THE POEM

“Lines Composed a Few Miles Above “Tintern Abbey”, On Revisiting the Banks of the
Wye During a Tour. July 13, 1798.”
Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 10
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
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'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone. 20

These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:- feelings too 30
Of unremembered pleasure: such perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world 40
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Is lightened: that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on,—
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft – 50
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro’ the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,

With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity, 60
The picture of the mind revives again :
while here 1 stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

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1 came among these hills; when like a roe

I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man 70
Flying from something that he dreads than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days.
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all. – I cannot paint
What then 1 was. The sounding cataract
Hunted me like a passion: the tall rock.
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood.
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love, 80
That had no need of a remoter charm.
By thought supplied, nor any interest,
Unborrowed from the eye—That time is past.
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes 90
The still, sad music, of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy

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Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused.
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air.
And the blue sky. and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels 100
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods.
And mountains; and all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear, –both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse.
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 110
Of all my moral being.

Nor perchance,
If I were nor thus taught, should 1 the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of the wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once.
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
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The heart that loved her: ’tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy; for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life, 130
Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 140
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor perchance-
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence— wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream 150
We stood together; and that I so long
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A worshipper of Nature, hither came

Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love-oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

4. “Tintern Abbey”: AN ANALYSIS

4.1 Introduction
Written in 1798 “Tintern Abbey” is a a reflective and meditative piece that explores the
relationship between nature, memory, and the human mind. The poem is set against the
backdrop of the River Wye and the ruins of Tintern Abbey, which Wordsworth visited after a
five-year absence. He reflects on how his memories of the landscape have changed over time
and how his experiences with nature have shaped his sense of self.
The poem was composed on Friday, July 13, 1798. It concluded the Lyrical Ballads,
written partly in collaboration with Wordsworth’s friend Coleridge. It is not only a great
poem of flawless and noble beauty but also one of his most personal pieces, wrought from his
inmost mind and heart. It sums up all that Nature, Man, and his own history meant for him in
the light of his own thinking and impassioned observation, quickened by the constant
companionship of Coleridge and Dorothy.
Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy went to Bristol to see Lyrical Ballads through the
press. During their stay they did a tour on foot and by boat up the Wye valley to Tintern. At
Tintern Abbey Wordsworth recalled his earlier visit there five years ago in the tumultuous
period of revolutionary enthusiasm when war with France had lately broken out. He
meditated on the new quality he had found in Nature since that time. And as was usual with
him, meditation led to composition. Verses formed in his head as he walked back to his
lodging near Bristol.
The setting of the poem is significant for several reasons. First and foremost, the
Abbey itself serves as a physical and historical marker of the passage of time, reminding the
speaker of the changes that have occurred in both the natural world and in his own life since
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he last visited the site. The ruins of the Abbey also serve as a symbol of the transience and
impermanence of human existence, standing as a testament to the way that even the most
enduring monuments of human history are ultimately subject to the ravages of time and the
forces of nature.
At the same time, the Abbey's location in the Wye Valley is significant for its natural
beauty and restorative power. The surrounding landscape is described in rich and evocative
detail, with Wordsworth using vivid language to capture the sights, sounds, and sensations of
the natural world. By placing the Abbey within this context, Wordsworth is suggesting that
nature has the power to heal and renew the human spirit, providing a source of solace and
inspiration that can help us to transcend the challenges and difficulties of daily life.
Finally, it's worth noting that the Abbey's location along the River Wye is significant
for its symbolic value as well. The river serves as a kind of metaphorical current that
connects the speaker to his past and to the larger rhythms of the natural world, providing a
sense of continuity and connection that transcends the boundaries of time and space. Overall,
the setting of Tintern Abbey is essential to the poem's larger themes of memory, nature, and
the human spirit, providing a rich and evocative backdrop against which Wordsworth's
meditations can unfold.
4.2 Subject and Theme of the Poem
Wordsworth describes in “Tintern Abbey” his attitude to Nature at different stages of his life
- the “glad animal movements” of childhood, the “passions” and “appetites” of youth, and
lastly “that serene and blessed mood” when “we are laid asleep in body and become a living
soul”.
“Tintern Abbey” is at once a Hymn of Praise, and a Confession of Faith. Nature is
extolled for she still enlarges her bounty to the measure of man’s growing needs:
“Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; it’s her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy.”
Nature is described here as Man’s “prime teacher”, exercising a purifying influence
on him. It enables him to “see into the life of things” and brings to him the sense of an all-
pervading spirit that “rolls through all things”. Wordsworth recognizes Nature as not merely
the guide of feeling and heart but also as the “soul of all his moral being”.

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Overall, the poem is a celebration of the beauty and power of nature and its ability to
inspire and uplift the human spirit.
4.3 Summary
Wordsworth is revisiting Tintern Abbey, after five years. The setting is full of great natural
beauty and quietness. It is the same landscape as he had seen before. Only now does he have
a more sober appreciation of it. The quiet scene gives rise to deep thoughts in his mind. The
steep hills and the poet’s own thoughts connect the landscape with the quiet of the sky. The
plots of cottage ground, the orchards with the green unripe fruits mix easily with the groves
and bushes. The smoke going up in silence reminds the poet of some wanderers, settled for
the time being somewhere inside the woods, or of some holy man, sitting alone by his fire.
The scenes haunted the poet’s mind even when he was away from them. They calmed his
mind in the midst of the fever and the fret of city life. They influenced him in his small acts
of kindness and love, such as a good man performs daily, almost unconsciously, forgetting
them soon afterwards. These forms of Nature have, moreover, brought to him spiritual
knowledge beyond the reach of the physical senses.
The river is addressed, as though it were a human being. The poet acknowledges the
happiness which its remembrance brought to him in days of despair. He knows, moreover,
that the memory of this scene will make him happy in the future also.
The poet in his early boyhood felt pure animal delight in roaming about in the mountains
by the riverside; with adolescence and youth, his passionate delight in Nature did not require
any promptings of a thoughtful mind. The pleasure was absolute and sensuous. He became
aware of unknown modes of being in Nature that disciplined his mind. With the passage of
time the poet loses that acute pleasure in Nature, but he gains something instead. In his
mature years he looks upon Nature as a manifestation of the divine spirit, which is present
everywhere in everything whether animate or inanimate. The poet now realizes the beauty
and the sadness of human life which has sobered him in his attitude to Nature. The realization
of this essential unity of all universe has given new dimensions to the love of Nature. The
beauty which enters the poet’s mind through his senses is further nourished by his
imagination. The poet acknowledges Nature as his teacher, guardian and friend, the source of
all his purest thoughts and the guide of his morality.
Dorothy’s presence reminds him of his own youthful delight in Nature. She is told that if
ever in future she meets with any misfortune, Nature will surely come to her aid. Nature
never fails one who is really devoted to her and fills his mind with joy and tranquillity. The

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poet affirms that the landscape is loved by him both for its own sake and because it is
associated with the presence of Dorothy.
In this way, we learn of the development of Wordsworth’s mind through this poem. In a
nutshell then the growth of the poet’s mind in his relationship with Nature has passed through
three stages.
• The first one related to the purely animal delight of his boyhood days.
• The second stage was of the poet’s adolescence and youth. At this stage he felt a
purely sensuous and passionate delight in Nature.
• Lastly, in his sober and mature years, with his knowledge of human sorrow, he
learnt to look upon Nature with a chastened and subdued spirit. He came to
realize that Nature is infused with the divine spirit that pervades everything,
animate or inanimate.
He acknowledges his debt to Nature and regards her as his friend, philosopher and guide,
the unfailing fountain of his mental peace and the source of his spiritual knowledge of the
ultimate reality. And thus, the poem is rounded off with a hymn sung in praise of Nature, the
object of this total devotion.

Check Your Progress

1. Under what circumstances was “Tintern Abbey” written?
2. How does Wordsworth describe nature in “Tintern Abbey”?
3. What is the difference in the poet’s attitude towards Nature in his mature
years as compared to when he was a boy?
4. Describe briefly the three stages in the development of the poet’s attitude to
Nature.

5. DETAILED ANALYSIS OF THE POEM

5.1 Stanza I (Lines 1-21)

Wordsworth is revisiting Tintern Abbey after five years. After “five summers” and “five long
winters!” as he puts it. By using the words “revisiting” and “five long winters” the poet

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invites us to share with him some very crucial and important moments of his life. Whenever
we revisit a place we start travelling back in time. Our memory is activated, and it activates
our awareness of our present and confronts it with the recollection of our past. It keeps on
uniting as well as contrasting our present with our past. The revisit is always a value-based
probe to determine where we have reached in our thinking after all these years. The
seriousness of this confrontation of past and present and the gravity of the consequent value-
based probe depends upon many factors:
➢ It depends upon the experiences of the life spent during this interval (the phrase
‘five long winters!”) thus becomes significant and the sign of exclamation makes
the agony of the winter more poignant.
➢ It depends upon the mood when he first visited the place and the nature of
impressions it then left on his mind.
➢ It depends upon the present mood, the reasons which have persuaded him to
revisit the place and the expectations with which he is revisiting it.
All this is a very common human experience. That is why it can be considered that by using
the words “revisiting” and “five long years!” Wordsworth has invited us to share his poetic
experience and to join his value-based probe which raises a big question as to whether his
capacity to live life has increased or decreased. Life is a very relative term but to all
discerning and sensitive people it means living meaningfully in harmony with the universe
outside.
The revisit begins when the poet says, “again I hear.” The poet catalogues all the
components of the landscape just to reassure himself. By saying “again” (2) or “once again”
(1, 4, 9 and 14) the poet is trying to re-establish his “I-thou” relationship with Nature. His
first contact with the landscape or his revisit is auditory. Leaving behind the “din” of the city
life, he now hears “the soft inland murmur” of “these waters rolling down from their
mountain springs. It is a soft inland-murmur since the poet is still outside the scene. The
scene is not within his visual grasp. But the “din” of cities is annihilated. The visual
communication is soon established when the poet beholds the lofty cliffs which “connect the
landscape with the quiet of the sky” (L.8). As Benziger observes:
The “quiet of the sky” (L.8) is perhaps the most significant phrase in the poem. ...
Nowhere more magnificently than in “Tintern Abbey” does Wordsworth’s imagery
express this quietist phase of his philosophy. The greatly not-to-be desired life of the
cities is characterized by din. The nature which in his earlier days had aroused in him

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dizzy raptures had spoken through the sounding cataract. Now in the valley of the
Wye upon his second visit the sounds are less insistent... Indeed, in the imagery of the
poem there are two progressions to quiet rather than just one: from din to murmur to
silence, and from human life to vegetable life to the cliff and sky. (Benziger, pp 238-
39).
Auditory communication indicates a moment of descent and visual communication indicates
a movement of ascent. The entire poem is one long record of these moods of ascent and
descent which alternate with each other and help the poet to see visions of his romantic ideas
without losing grasp over reality.
The “steep and lofty cliffs” perform two functions simultaneously. They elevate the
poet from his horizontal plane of reality to a vertical plane of “thoughts of more deep
seclusion” and they also “connect” the landscape with the “quiet of the sky,” Thus we
perceive there are two movements in the poem as the poet describes the landscape, the
movement of his physical eye and the movement of “inward eye”: the eye of his soul. His
physical eye reminds him of his earthly reality and his inward eye craves for “the quiet of the
sky”.
We see a harmony is established between the landscape, the mind of the man and the
quiet of the sky. This is the great Cosmic Harmony, Wordsworth now “reposes” (19) and
“views” (10) the same harmony on the horizontal plane. The “cottage ground” the “orchard-
tufts” and “groves and copses” all lose their individual identities and get dressed in the same
green garment. The first seventeen lines, which celebrate the poet’s visit to Tintern Abbey
after a gap of five long years are soaked in an atmosphere of peace, tranquility, calm and
harmony inspiring in the poet thoughts of more deep seclusion and deeper realization of
Nature and its Oneness.
The poet first hears’ the waters rolling down, then he “beholds” the steep mountain
cliffs which impress upon him thoughts of more deep seclusion. He then reposes and views a
cosmic harmony. So far he is a passive receiver of certain sensations and impressions which
are tranquil and speak of harmony. But when the poet comes to hedge rows and smokes, the
poet also “sees” (14). Seeing is different from hearing, beholding, reposing and viewing.
When you “see” you not only behold and view but also interpret. That is what the poet does
when he says, “once again I see”. The hedgerows he imagines are not dividing woods from
the cultivated land. They are uniting man with nature and they run wild with happiness in this
game of theirs. Then there is smoke among the trees! The poet is rightly surprised when he
sees “wreaths of smoke/Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!”(L.14). The words “sent
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up” and “silence” contrast this smoke with the industrial smoke of the cities which is always
associated with noise, and being heavier than air, always falls down rather than go up. But
this smoke, a product of silence is moving heavenwards, to join the “quiet of the sky”. The
poet’s imagination traces the smoke to the activity of some vagrant dwellers or to a lonely
Hermit who is sitting by his fire all alone in a cave. The stanza begins with a great cosmic
unity of Nature, uniting man and “quiet of the sky” and ends in a solitary human activity.
We must observe that the landscape description of stanza I is far less objective than
might be thought on a purely superficial reading. The strong sensory assertions (“I hear”, “I
behold”, “I see”) unexpectedly lead to a somewhat dubious statement that the smoke - which
the poet does “see”, gives some indication “Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods /Or
of some hermit’s cave, whereby his fire / The Hermit sits alone” (Wordsworth, 20 - 22).
In a way, this intimation of human presence brings the landscape description to a
climax. Wordsworth had endowed the conventional eighteenth-century hermit with a
significance that goes beyond the merely picturesque: his solitariness exemplifies the highest
form of contemplation and wisdom; hermits are men stripped of all un-essentials, living in
intimate communion with nature. As observed by Gerard “the hermit in his cave carries a
faint suggestion of human ideals towards which Wordsworth was striving at that time, and
which he was to define with greater assurance in later poems” (Gerard, pp. 60-61).
Study Notes
2. of five long winters!: The adjective “long” lends a subjective colour to an objective
description of the landscape. Winter symbolizes lack of warmth, read stanza II (25). The sign
of exclamation emphasizes the poet’s personal loss and complaint during five years of
separation which include five long winters.
2. again I hear: The poet is visiting the place once again and his first contact with the
landscape is auditory.
3. inland: from within the valley. The poet is still at a distance.
6. wild: untamed, here means a place which has not been urbanized or industrialized.
The poet has a special dislike for cities and towns. Read stanza II and III.
6. secluded: A secluded place is quiet, private and undisturbed.
7. thoughts of more deep seclusion: thoughts which have nothing to do with ordinary
routine life of cities which to the poet mean only a “fretful stir” (stanza III 1. 52)

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6-8. steep and lofty.... quiet of the sky: The lines reflect the poet’s emotional response to
the scene. The steep and lofty cliffs perform two functions. They connect the horizontal
landscape with the “quiet of the sky” and also lift the poet’s mind to great heights.
8. quiet of the sky: The poem is a journey from the noise of cities to the “quiet of the
sky”. It is a gradual ascent from noise to soft inland murmur and ultimately to “quiet of the
sky” which according to some critics is a symbol of the Divine Quiet, the Eternal Silence as it
is called in The Immortality Ode.
11-18 These plots of cottage... very door: The world of man of pastoral forms and plots
of cottage ground merges gently, through orchard and hedgerow, into Nature’s copses and
woodland, and the world of organic nature by way of the lofty cliffs, merges gently with the
inorganic “quiet of the sky”.
13. One green line: green symbolizes peace and protection. Through the green landscape
Wordsworth hints at the great cosmic harmony in Nature.
17-18 sent up in silence....the trees!: The use of passive voice (sent up) denotes a human
activity. The sign of exclamation (the trees!) emphasizes the poet’s surprise at the presence of
human life among the trees and contrasts Wordsworth’s personal loneliness of five long
winters with the loneliness of “The Hermit” or the “vagrant dwellers”. Wordsworth is
surprised by the presence of life among “trees” and is compelled to compare his personal
loneliness of “five long winters” with the loneliness experienced by the person or persons
living in the lap of this Great cosmic harmony. Perhaps the loneliness among the trees reflects
what Wordsworth later calls the “still, sad music of humanity.” The two signs of
exclamations in stanza 1 symbolize two kinds of loneliness. The loneliness of the cities which
is a compulsion forced by the society (which means cities divorced from nature) and the
loneliness of the wild secluded landscape which is a refuge and shelter.
19. uncertain notice... might seem: So far Wordsworth has been sure of what he is
describing. He has been using the words, “1 hear”, “behold”, “see” but when it comes to a
human activity Wordsworth suddenly switches to conjecture. The phrases “uncertain notice”
and “might seem” show that while describing nature Wordsworth is certain but while
describing a human activity or a human condition Wordsworth can only guess. Wordsworth
had a great fascination for these “solitaries” (“The Solitary Reaper”, “Resolution and
Independence”) and he always tried to guess what they sang or said but the mood is always of
great tragedy which is at once chaste and chastening.

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20. Of vagrant dwellers... woods: houseless woods express Wordsworth’s dislike for
urbanization or cities which are full of houses, housing lifeless people or all the forces which
are inimical to nature. That is why they become homes for “vagrant dwellers”, persons who
refuse to adopt the city and its ways or to Hermits who know the significance of “the quiet of
the sky”.
21. Hermit: a hermit is a person who lives alone with a very simple lifestyle away from
people and normal society, especially for religious reasons. That is why perhaps Wordsworth
uses a capital letter for Hermit.

Check Your Progress

1. What is the significance of the fact that Wordsworth is visiting the place
after five long years?
2. What is the poet’s purpose behind inclusion of the Hermit?
3. How does the poet compare the city with the verdant surroundings of the
Wye?

5.2 Stanza II (Lines 23-50)

Five Years Separation
The poet now speaks of the five years which separated him from Tintern Abbey. The stanza
is a tribute to the beauty of Tintern Abbey. Here the poet talks about the influence on his
mind of the “beauteous forms” that he sees and the role of memory that helps to recreate
these forms in his mind’s eye whenever he requires them. Memory thus contrasts the actual
physical return to Tintern Abbey of Stanza I with the mental returns which he experienced
while he was far away from it, alone in the “lonely rooms” of cities. These lines also contrast
the condition of the “Vagrant dwellers” and the lonely “Hermit” with that of the lonely poet.
The vagrant dwellers and the lonely Hermit are living in peace, in harmony with nature
whereas the lonely poet is vainly struggling with burden of city life even though the memory
of these “beauteous forms” always comes to his rescue. The “I-thou” relationship made
unreflectingly with the landscape is refreshingly retained by the memory. The memory of
these beauteous forms healed him not only physically but induced in him certain sweet
sensations which he could feel in his blood and heart and these sensations travelled to his
purer mind, restoring in him a unique tranquility. This tranquility in its train brought feelings
of unremembered pleasures. The poet calls them “unremembered” since they are ordinary or
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routine pleasures. But they are very significant, since it is these pleasures which spring into
“little nameless” acts of kindness and love and which constitute the best part of a good man’s
life.
The poet is struggling with the weariness caused by the din of cities. These
“beauteous forms” induce in him a tranquil restoration. This sensation is transformed into a
feeling of pleasure. This pleasure governs the best part of a good man’s life. The memory of
the scene becomes more important than the actual scene itself. The ‘ Vagrant Dweller or the
‘Hermit’ in the cave living away from mankind (although living in the lap of nature) cannot
experience these little acts of love and kindness. The poet now remembers another debt
which he owes to the memory of these beauteous forms. He recalls a phenomenon almost
supernatural and mystical in its nature, of a “blessed mood”, of some “sublime” moments,
when “the mystery of this unintelligible world”, the “vast unknown”, was suddenly revealed
to him and he felt intensely relieved. But the poet is not very certain whether these moments
were inspired by these beauteous forms:
... Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift (31 -32)
His physical self is now laid asleep to cut the barriers which the body creates between
man and man, and man and Nature. So profound and enormous was the impact of “this
blessed mood”, that he felt that he ceased to live physically and became “a living soul”. The
soul, the essence of being which is common to all living things and “the life of things”
dictates his entire being. In these moments the eye is “made quiet” by the power of harmony
and the deep power of joy. This is similar to the significance the poet attaches to “the quiet of
the sky” in Stanza I.
The journey begins from Tintern Abbey, its harmony and its lonely Hermit and takes
the poet back to the lonely rooms of the cities where the memory of Tintern Abbey restores
him from the fatigue caused by the din of the city life. The tranquility thus achieved is
transformed into a feeling which accounts for the best portion of a good man’s life. And this
good man, he ardently hopes, is in the “blessed mood” transformed into a lonely Hermit of
the cities who understands the mystery of this universe and the “quiet of his eye” and need
not view and interpret “the life of things” since it sees through them. As Wordsworth turns
from an objective, symbolic description of external Nature to an analysis of his inner self,
Nature appears as the main causal factor in his moral evolution.

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The first sentence deals with two “gifts”- “sensations” and “feelings” which are pre-
sented as undoubtedly originating in Nature. It also deals with the psychological and moral
consequences of those gifts: in the first case, the sensations sweet, have wrought a “tranquil
restoration” of the poet’s “purer mind”; in the second, a note of diffidence creeps in as
Wordsworth passes from the psychological to the moral plane: his feelings of un-remembered
pleasures have perhaps led him to acts of kindness and love. There is thus a gradual ascent
from the sensory to the psychological and moral. On the other hand, slight undertones of
doubt are introduced in the passage from the psychological to the ethical. This pattern is
reproduced and developed in the second sentence too. Besides the sensations and feelings,
Wordsworth”s recollections of nature have also kindled in him a blessed mood; this mood is
described at a great length and with considerable eloquence.
Study Notes
22-23. “beauteous forms ... long absence”: Remember “long winters” in stanza I.
24. “As is a landscape ... blind man’s eye”: Wordsworth attached great importance to the
faculty of sight. One can refuse to listen, smell, touch or taste but one cannot refuse to see.
Visual impressions get embedded in one’s mind. It is through these visual impressions that a
person animates his present with his past. Wordsworth is celebrating the role of memory. A
blind man’s memory and his imagination perhaps work differently.
25. “mid the din of towns and cities”: Wordsworth equated cities with “din”, a
meaningless noise.
26 – 30 “... I have owed to them .... tranquil restoration”: After a period of five years to
witness this great majesty and cosmic harmony he now tries to recollect the role played by
the memory of “these beauteous forms”. The first impact of their memory induced in him a
“tranquil restoration”. He begins to receive “sweet sensations”, which relieve him from the
“din” in the cities and hours of weariness and bathe him in a tranquil restoration.
31. “Unremembered pleasure”: Small ordinary pleasures, which come and pass away
unnoticed without becoming a part of one’s memory unlike great happy events (like the visit
to Tintern Abbey) which stayed in his mind.
30-35. “feeling too ... of kindness and love”: The second impact of the memory is
psychological. The memory of the valley used to uplift him morally and make him do little
acts of kindness and love in his daily life, A man is good not because of some great things he
does for the entire mankind but for his little acts of kindness and love in his everyday life
while dealing with other men. (Read Wordsworth’s complaint in stanza V. “Nor greetings
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where no kindness is” 130). It is these acts which account for the “best portion of a good
man’s life”.
35-36. “Nor less, I trust... To them I may ... of aspect more sublime”: The words “trust”
and “may” depict a note of diffidence and uncertainty. Wordsworth was very certain when he
was describing the sensory or psychological impact. But when he talks of aspect more
sublime, he is not certain whether the memory of the Wye was responsible for this gift.
39-41. “The burthen of mystery ... lightened”: One gets awakened to the very essence of
life and its meanings, and the mystery of life is revealed to us.
43. Corporeal: means involving or relating to the physical world rather than the spiritual
world.
48. “an eye made quiet”: an eye which sees and understands and not an eye which sees,
reacts, interprets and records accordingly. An eye which sees and becomes at once attuned to
what it sees. There is no difference between the image and the object.
41-49. “The serene and blessed mood ... into the life of things”: The poet now achieves a
trance-like state in which all the physical functions which separate man from man and man
from Nature are suspended. Only the soul dictates. “This living soul” with “an eye made
quiet” can understand and see “into the life of things”. The entire green landscape which gets
connected with “the quiet of the sky” in Stanza I gets embodied in his “living soul” through
the “eye made quiet”.

Check Your Progress

1. How is the poet able to return to the beauty of Tintern Abbey even when he is
in the city?
2. How does the lonely poet compare with the lonely hermit?
3. What according to the poet constitutes the best part of a man’s life?
4. What role does memory play in the poet’s life?

5.3 Stanza III (Lines 50-57)

The Blessed Memory
Stanza III begins with a note of doubt. If this “Be but a vain belief” that those “beauteous
forms” could inspire in him a “blessed mood” in which the mystery of the “unintelligible

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world” was revealed to him and he could “see into the life of things”, then he is grateful to
the memory of the river Wye for many other comforts. He now addresses the river Wye, the
Wanderer of woods, as if it were a living person and recalls the various occasions when it
brought relief to his troubled soul. He talks of his frustrated moments of despair and
confusion, his fruitless struggles for existence and the fever which such useless daily worldly
struggles inflict upon his body and mind. His spirit, in all such desperate moments, turned to
the memory of the river Wye and he felt cured. In Stanza I he had described the great cosmic
harmony of the landscape. Later in stanza 11 he celebrates the memory of this harmony.
There is a lingering doubt whether this memory is also responsible for certain mystical
moments in which he could see “into the life of things.” That is why lines 37-48 which
describe his great trance-like experience begin with “Nor less. I trust” . . . To them 1 may
have owed another gift (35-36). And in stanza III he confirms his suspicion when he says, “If
this/Be but a vain belief.” He then recalls the numerous ways in which the memory of the
river Wye had been helping him physically in his hours of meaningless distress.
Study Notes
50. vain: empty
52. joyless daylight: It is the daylight (or light) which enables us to see. It becomes a
joyless daylight since we are not pleased to see what we see. Seeing becomes a mechanical
ritual. (See “light of the common day”, in The Immortality Ode in stanza V).
51-52. “Many shapes....daylight”: The various moods of the day from dawn to sunset
are all joyless, since they are all meaningless. Cities express the same fever from morning till
evening.
52. fretful stir: an unhappy struggle
54. “have hung ....heart”: They have weighed upon the free movements of my heart.
They did not allow my heart to pulsate naturally,
56. Sylvan: belonging to woods and trees
56-57: “O Sylvan Wye !.... thee!”: The memory of Sylvan Wye always came to his
rescue in his moments of meaningless “fretful stir” and “the fever of the world”. The lines
contain two signs of exclamations. The poet finds a solution for his loneliness in the memory
of the river Wye and not in the inspired moments in which he is able to see into “the life of
things”. The river Wye therefore becomes more important for him. The natural conclusion is

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that the blessed mood did not cure him of the fever of the world and hence his spirit depends
once again upon the memory of the Sylvan Wye.

Check Your Progress

1. Comment on the importance of the river Wye in this stanza. How does its
memory help the poet?

5.4 Stanza IV (Lines 58-111)

His Loss and His Gain
In this stanza Wordsworth brings us to his immediate present with the words - “And now”
(58) This “now” is very significant. It is kindled by “the gleams of half-extinguished thought”
and contains “many recognitions but they are dim and faint.” The poet’s problem is that he
does not know why and how the thought was half-extinguished. He wants to know what
made the recognitions dim and faint. That is why, the “now” is pregnant with as a sad
perplexity.” The poet hopefully believes that Nature will continue to be a source of comfort
in his future years. “And so, I dare to hope/though changed, no doubt from what I was” (165-
66). But his present pleasure is only a pleasing thought. The word “sad perplexity” describes
the tragic dilemma of his mood and compels him to contrast his entire past with his present.
As a boy his love for Nature was simply physical. He enjoyed nature with the unthinking
delight of a healthy child whose playground she was. The second stage was reached at the
time of his first visit to Wye in 1793 (“Five years have passed”) like a roe he ran along the
rivers, across the mountains wherever Nature could lead him. His efforts were more like that
of a man who is seeking to escape from something he fears, rather than those of a person who
is finding pleasure in something he likes. This passionate love for Nature which involved
only his physical being was an attempt to run away from something sinister. The sounding
cataract, the tall rock, the mountain, the deep and gloomy wood, all thrilled him with a
physical appetite, a feeling that amounted to sensuous love for all those objects. This physical
pleasure never involved his mind or stirred his imagination.
The time of maddening physical raptures and aching joy is over now. He is a changed
man and he does not react to Nature the way he used to. But he does not weep over this loss.
This loss has been more than compensated. But the words “I would believe” (87) remind us
of his sad perplexity. The words “I would believe” and “I have learned” (88) provide us with
the reason of his sad perplexity. This uncertainty regarding the role of Nature was seen earlier
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also in stanza II, “Nor less 1 trust/To them I may have” (35-36). Whenever the poet is
transported into a “blessed mood” of sense sublime,” the poet is perplexed. He has learnt to
look upon Nature differently. He has grown out of his thoughtless youth and hears in Nature
the “still, sad music of humanity,” which is not harsh enough to compel him to revolt but is
sufficient to chasten and tone down his physical delight. He does not attempt to run away
from the still sad music of mankind and seek selfish refuge in Nature, which he did in his first
visit. The healing influence of Nature (i.e., of its memory) during his hours of darkness and
despair, before he visits Tintern Abbey again, has enlarged his vision and chastened his
pleasures.
The poet now feels in Nature the presence of a spirit, a being which kindles him with
the joy of elevated thoughts. Nature is no more a physical manifestation of certain beautiful
objects which inspire sweet sensations. It is a sublime spirit, a holy being which he feels
everywhere in the light of setting suns, the round ocean, the blue sky and also in the mind of
man. The realization of the essential Oneness of mind of Man and Nature, of all living things,
all objects of all thought gives a new dimension to his love for Nature. The poet in this
elevated mood reaffirms his love for Nature in all its manifestations, all that we behold from
this green earth, meadows, woods and mountains. The physical harmony of stanza I of the
greenest of the landscape with the “quiet of sky” now becomes spiritual harmony. The
mighty world of eye and ear is always imbibing what it sees. There is a continuous mating
between the senses and the objects of sense. The mighty world of eye and ear “half creates
what it perceives”. What is half created is recreated when he transforms his perceptions into
thoughts, and Nature thus becomes the anchor of his purest thoughts. In his reaffirmation of
his faith in Nature, he feels it to be his nurse, his guide, the guardian of his heart and the “soul
of all my moral being.”
His sad perplexity anticipates another kind of uncertainty, which is the subject of
stanza IV and which is concerned with his valuation of changes -the losses and the new gifts
which time has wrought in him. In those introductory lines, past, present and future are
closely correlated; so are sadness and pleasure. The reason for the sadness and perplexity is
the plain fact that his pleasing thoughts: “That in this moment there is life and food for future
years”, although deduced from his past experience are less assured than the tranquil, self-
possessed praising might suggest: they are not more than a “hope” which the poet dares to
entertain.
As the poet contrasts what he is with what he was. We again notice the three-stage
ascending travel already perceived in stanza II; from “the glad animal movements” of

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his boyhood, through the passionate love of natural forms characteristic of his youth
to the more thoughtful attitude of his early maturity. But in this respect too, the
repetition is incremental: the ascending movement, we might say, takes us higher up
in stanza IV than in stanza II. It takes us to a more sweeping vision of cosmic unity. In
the former passage, the poet merely “sees” into the life of things; in the latter, man is
included in his vision and the life of things is seen to reside in an all-pervading
presence, which is described in grandiose terms.
Study Notes
58. And now: The poet so far has been telling us what the memory of the river Wye has
been doing for him for five years after he first visited Tintern Abbey. When Wordsworth
says, “And now”, he suddenly turns to his immediate present. “And now”.... the picture of the
mind revives again” (61) in the picture retained by his memory which gains new life when
Wordsworth stands once again in the Wye valley.
58. gleams: if an object or surface gleams, it reflects light because it is shining and clean
58. half-distinguished thoughts: thoughts which have lost half their significance.
59. “recognitions dim and faint”. Wordsworth’s response to landscape especially when
he compares it with its memory, is not very sharp and bright.
60. sad perplexity: the poet is sadly confused and worried. There is a confusion in stanza
I when the poet is not sure of the source of the smoke’s origin. The poet is confused in stanza
II when before talking about the blessed mood he says “Nor less, I trust/To them I may have
owed another gift”..... and confusion travels to stanza III when he says, “If this/Be but a vain
belief.”
In stanza IV when he talks of “now,” the confusion haunts him all the more and
acquires a tragic dimension - this confusion lies in his fear whether Nature will continue to
inspire him in the same way, for in lines 111- 14 (“Nor perchance if I were not thus taught”)
the poet almost confesses that Nature has stopped teaching him.
61. revives again: The use of word “again” is in continuation of stanza I where “again I
hear once again/ Do I behold”. “again repose” and “once again I see” were used to describe
the landscape. Here it is used to describe his present mental landscape.
63-67. “With pleasing thoughts... came among these hills”: The poet does not allow this
“sad perplexity” to destroy his present pleasure. He even becomes optimistic that this present
moment will be good for his future years in the same way as his first visit helped him for five

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long years, but he only “dares to hope” so (65) and he confesses that on his second visit he
finds himself a changed person. The significance of this present moment will be clear in
stanza V. Wordsworth hopes that the scene will provide not only immediate pleasure, “but
life and food/for future years.” And this hope is entertained in spite of the knowledge that his
earlier and more spontaneous joy of nature - a joy, which was passionate and unreflecting,
has been left behind with the growth of a new mode of feeling.
70. “Wherever nature led”: all his movements and reflexes were controlled by nature.
70. bounded over: frisked about; leaped about.
73. Flying from something: the fear that Nature inspires rather than the love she instils.
74-85. When the poet first came to the valley there was a passionate zeal and intense
desire for the objects of nature. The falling water, the dark forest and the lofty mountains
inspired in him a spontaneous feeling of love. He loved the objects of Nature for their own
sake.
76 coarser pleasures: his delight in the sights and sounds of Nature was dominated by
the animal instinct of physical enjoyment.
75-76. I cannot... I was: Wordsworth is afraid to contrast his present self with what he
was. Perhaps it involves immense pain and is one of the reasons for his sad perplexity (70).
76. the sounding cataract: The cataract was sounding in 1793 and today it is the “soft
inland murmur” (4)
80-81. “remoter charm ..... supplied”: The physical gratification was so complete and
fulfilling that he never had to resort to spiritual pleasures which are provided by elevated and
inspired thoughts. Read stanza I (7) “thoughts of more deep seclusion” and stanza II (41)
“that serene and blessed mood”.
83. unborrowed from eye ....: The physical visual pleasure provided by the beauty of
Nature was consummate and complete and it was never accompanied by elevated thoughts.
There was no need for him to stir his mind.
83. That time is past... dizzy raptures: Wordsworth begins this stanza with the words
“And now”. His life, not only of “the five years” interval about which he talked in stanza II &
III and in which restoration was mixed with some transcendental moods, but his entire
lifespan gets sandwiched between lines 58-60 and 83-85. The poem has moved through one
complete circle of his life which begins with “coarser pleasures” and moves on to dizzy
“raptures” and ends in a “sad perplexity.” The poem does not grow in such a linear manner,
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or we can say that the timewise growth of the poem is not chronological or historical. There
is double time in the poem, the inner time i.e., the time which describes the movements of his
inward eye and the physical time which says that he is five years older and different. In
counterpoint to this outer time, is the inner time which makes the experience of the poet’s
visit recoverable in the memory. It is a time which is not homogeneous but is full of ups and
downs, of ascents and descents.
87. “I would believe”: Wordsworth is not certain of what he is saying. The poet is not
certain whether nature is really responsible for this “abundant recompense”. This confusion is
there in the earlier stanza also and perhaps accounts for his sad perplexity.
88. “I have learnt”: Wordsworth does not elaborate this learning process; he does not
say whether nature taught him and therefore he learnt or certain other things made him learn
to look upon nature differently from what he used to do. The poem now ushers in a different
phase and acquires a new dimension.
88-93. “For I have learnt... chasten and subdue”: The still sad music of mankind is not
harsh and jarring. It does not make him revolt because this music is the ultimate fate of all
men or Mankind, therefore the music is “still,” (remember the phrase “quiet” of the sky and
Hermit with capital H in stanza I) and it has a chastening effect. This is a mood of resignation
and simultaneously a mood of universal sympathy.
93-99. “And I have felt... in the mind of man”: This is the second ascent of the poet’s
mind - the first ascent is seen in stanza II where he can see into the life of things. In this
second ascent of the mind the things get rarefied. He feels a special “presence deeply
interfused” and its dwelling place is the light of setting suns, the round ocean, the living air
and the “blue sky” and “in the mind of man.” All these places are animated by this special
presence, or a “living soul” but they are living silently (Remember the emphasis on “quiet” in
stanza I and his dislike, for “din” in stanza II) and without any turbulence. The second ascent
of mind in stanza IV is different from that of stanza II in the sense that it includes mankind,
the “universal mind of man” and not the mind of an individual though all this happens in the
mind of an individual, the poet Wordsworth.
100-102. “A motion ... all things”: There is great emphasis on the “All( ness)” of the
universe and this all(ness) is vibrated though a motion and a spirit. “Both motion in the
physical world and spirit in the mental world that which not only prompts the thoughts of
men but also sustains the laws (of gravity) by which all objects move; and which therefore is
doubly present in all experience (rolls through all things).

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102. Still: despite the loss and despite his uncertainty regarding the source which
compensates for this loss, he still maintains his relationship with Nature since it can still
animate his present with his past by activating his memory.
102-106. “Therefore, I am ... and ear”: This reminds us of Stanza I, “The steep and lofty
cliffs”, “the ... cottage ground “all clad in one green line” and “the quiet of the sky” The only
difference is that the great cosmic unity of the stanza I is here invested with a living presence
and includes the mind of man.
106-107. “Both what they half create and what perceive”: Take in at once the landscape
of the world ... and half create the wondrous world they see.
109. “anchor of my purest thoughts”: Nature becomes the anchor of his purest thoughts.
111. “Soul of all my moral being”: In Stanza II, III, IV Wordsworth lives on two planes.
He talks of “lonely rooms” and “fever of the world”. He also talks of “life of things” of a
presence which unites the “life of things” with the “mind of man”. Wordsworth, here, is more
concerned with his moral being, an elevated self which sees beyond his personal problems
into “the still sad music of mankind”. Nature is the soul of all his moral being. The word “all”
includes the world of Nature and the world of man.

Check Your Progress

1. Trace the three stages of the poet’s response to Nature.
2. Discuss how Nature elevates the poet morally.

5.5 Stanza V (112-159)

Brother-Sister and Mother Nature
Wordsworth feels obliged that but for the education given to him by Nature the pain being
inflicted by the gradual decay of his genial powers would have been unbearable. The rest of
the poem is addressed to his sister Dorothy who is accompanying him on the present tour,
Wordsworth sees in his sister Dorothy his earlier self. Her voice, and the shooting lights of
her eyes, express the same delight that he experienced on his earlier visit. He assures her that
Nature never fails a person who is devoted to her. By reliving his past through his sister,
Wordsworth is trying to assure himself that Nature never betrays. Nature continues to teach
and elevate a person to higher levels of happiness. Nature will always help her in her hours of
darkness and despair during the dreary course of daily life and the belief that all we behold in

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Nature is full of blessings will be more firmly rooted. While talking to his sister, Wordsworth
is again meditating over what he has gained and lost during the five years which separate the
two visits. The presence of Dorothy on this second occasion, who is almost an image of his
former self, dramatically juxtaposes the two visions and recreates the tortuous but sacred
Pilgrimage which his soul undertook during these five years. He prays the same benign
influence should smile on Dorothy. Here he again emphasizes the role of memory which is
the “sacred” dwelling place for all sweet sounds of harmonies and always comes to the rescue
of a person in his hours of despair and agony and elevates him with the healing thoughts of
tender joy. Wordsworth, while exhorting his sister, is recapitulating his personal experience
and unconsciously seeking shelter in his love for Dorothy. That is why the elevated moods of
stanzas II and IV are suddenly substituted by his dear friend. He finds his past reflected in her
eyes and he wants his present to be Dorothy’s future.
We must remember that Dorothy was not a child as it appears in this stanza. Dorothy
was only two years younger to Wordsworth. On his second visit when he finds that his
response to the great landscape is no longer the same, and though he tries to reassure himself
that the loss has been more than compensated, yet his need for her love suddenly becomes
more intense. That is why he wants to share his present mood with her. He wants her to
remember in future that they stood together once on the bank of this delightful stream.
Dorothy is not merely a companion but also a co-observer of the green pastoral landscape.
She is herself a part of Wordsworth’s sober pleasure in the “steep and lofty cliffs” which are
the more precious to him for her sake. The nobility of the human heart and its need for honest
love feed on this green pastoral landscape. Wordsworth rediscovers himself in Stanza V when
the landscape becomes dearer, not for the comfort its memory always provided him. The
landscape is more precious to him, because of his love for Dorothy which is real and
sustaining. The poem is a journey from loneliness to human love. The poem is a proclamation
of the belief that lonely flights of imagination may solve the mystery of the unintelligible
world and enable him to “see into the life of things and may unite” “all living things with all
objects of all thought” but do not sustain a man for long. It is human love which is real and
certain that makes Nature more meaningful.
The address to Dorothy is an indirect way for Wordsworth to turn back to his own self
and such assurance as he may have gained so far. Indeed, the last stanza repeats, on a smaller
scale, the ambitious time scheme of the whole poem. In his sister’s present Wordsworth
relives his own past as recreated in stanza IV. The imaginary landscape which surrounds
Dorothy, with its misty mountain winds is reminiscent of the picturesque presentation of
Nature in stanza IV rather than the quiet harmony of stanza I. Likewise Dorothy’s “wild
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eyes” and wild ecstasies, recall her brother’s past “aching joys” and “dizzy raptures” rather
than his present soberly meditative mood. The identification is pushed so far that Wordsworth
projects his own present into his sister’s future (137-146); not only will her mood be one of
sober pleasure, but her memory of Nature will play the same restoring role that is assigned to
it in very similar terms in the beginning of stanza II and III. “Lovely forms” (140) and “all
sweet sounds and harmonies (142) echo with significant precision the beauteous forms (123)
and the sensations sweet (27) of stanza II. They will provide healing thoughts, (144)
analogous to the “tranquil restoration (130) to which she will be able to turn in times of
“solitude, or fear or pain or grief (143) in the same way as her brother now turns to his
recollections of natural beauty for solace in lovely rooms and “mid the din of towns and
cities” (25-6) in “hours of weariness” (27) when “oppressed by the fretful stir unprofitable”
and the “fever of the world” (52-3). Dorothy is thus presented as a sort of duplication of her
brother and the close correspondence of their characters and interests and sensibilities may do
much to account for the feeling that existed between them. While turning to his sister,
Wordsworth is in fact turning imaginatively to his own self and experience. There is, in his
anticipation of Dorothy’s future as identical with his present, an omission which so far as 1
know, has passed unnoticed and is both puzzling and significant.
There is hardly a line in the last stanza which does not refer to some earlier passage.
But it contains nothing that might be considered as echoing those parts of the poem where,
clearly, Wordsworth’s poetic power is at its most intense: the end of stanza II and IV. Nor is
there any reference in it to acts of kindness and love or to the “still sad music of humanity”;
indeed, human society is invoked in negative terms (128-31) strongly reminiscent of the first
part of stanza II and III. In other words, all the elements which carry with them overtones,
however slight, of diffidence or uncertainly, are left out of the concluding stanza. And the last
description of Nature’s benevolence (122-34) is couched in terms as general as those of
stanza III.
But the dynamic nucleus which gives the poem its impetus is of course
perplexity. Wordsworth had reached the age when a man pauses to reckon up
his losses and his gains for the first time. What his losses were was quite clear
to him; he had lost the intimate emotional relationship with nature that was his
five years before. The gains were less obvious “for the other gifts” twice
mentioned in the poem are of a less ascertainable nature dealing as they do
with metaphysical intuitions. Twice in the course of this poem Wordsworth’s
inspiration gathers force and soars to mystical heights. But although his poetic
eloquence testifies to
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the intensity of accompanying emotion, his intellectual honesty prevents him

from presenting as fact what is only conjectural. Hence the perplexity. For if
the other gifts are but vain belief, the loss, obviously is total and irrevocable.
(Albert Gerard. Exploring Tintern Abbey. pp 65-67).
Study Notes
112-119. “For thou art with me … may I behold in thee what I once was”: The poet pays a
glowing tribute to his sister, Dorothy Wordsworth. She lifted him out of the depression and
helped to resolve the mental conflict which afflicted the poet from 1793 to 1797. She not only
restored his faith in life but also facilitated his return to Nature. The poet knows that had
Dorothy not helped him, he might have remained a frustrated and depressed individual. See,
how he is grateful to his sister Dorothy in whose eyes he sees the gleams of his past
existence. In her he finds the same wild exultant delight in nature that he had experienced in
his earlier years.
These lines contain a confession that Nature does not teach him anymore. If he were
not “thus taught” he might seek inspiration in his sister’s less tutored sense of Nature, which,
echoes that of his own youth when his pleasure was not in “the joy/of elevated thoughts,” but
a spontaneous life reflected in her “wild eyes”. The beginnings of Stanza IV and Stanza V
reflect Wordsworth’s longing to reject his present and relive his past. In this stanza
Wordsworth turns from nature to his sister who is a companion of his heart, his “dear, dear
friend”. Wordsworth is trying to recreate his past, but not alone through the memory of those
beauteous form but through his dear friend, his sister Dorothy.
122. “Knowing that Nature never did betray”: When he says Nature never did betray he
is trying to reassure himself or even trying to conceal and contain a doubt that though Nature
remains the same, man does not react to it in the same way. Stanza IV does express his
longing for the past. He now wants to relive his past by recreating it in his sister’s innocent
self. Nature never betrayed was his experience in the past - but it may betray.
125-134. “From joy to... is full of blessings”: Wordsworth recounts his experiences –
“from joy to joy, with quietness and beauty, that all which we behold is full of blessings.” But
it is not the joy of elevated thoughts, the quiet is not the quiet of the sky. There is nothing
elevated here. Wordsworth paints in these lines all those factors which are inimical to Nature
as well as to an innocent heart such as “evil tongues”, “sneers of selfish men” “greetings
where no kindness is”; “the dreary intercourse of daily life”. The lofty thoughts will not help
them by not allowing these inhuman factors to “prevail against” them. Wordsworth focusses
Nature’s blessing and its role to a very limited canvas of the “dreary intercourse of daily life.”
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There is no mention of the “blessed mood”, “the living soul” and the “presence” of a sense
sublime. Wordsworth’s doubt, his confusion, his sad perplexity is turning real. He avoids
them and turns to his love for his sister which is real.
134-137. “Therefore, let the moon... against thee”: Wordsworth imagines these
experiences for his sister.
137-146. “In years after... my exhortations”: Wordsworth says that Dorothy’s mind will
mature in the same way his own mind matured. Memory will play a similar role and will help
her in fighting solitude, fear, pain and grief. He does not mention the still sad music of
humanity.
146-155. “Nor perchance ... we of holier love”: The fact we stood together becomes
more significant than everything else. The present scene is not valuable for its actuality but
only for its memory. He is a worshipper of Nature and he has come untired to perform his
duty to pay his tribute, but the moment is of special significance since the beauty of Nature is
reanimated because of Dorothy’s presence.
155-159. “Nor... though ... for thy sake”: The landscape of stanza I which was beautiful,
quiet and serene which spoke of Great Cosmic Harmony now becomes more meaningful
because it is full of human love, the human presence is not the Hermit or the vagrant dwellers
who were remote for him. The human is his sister Dorothy, his “dear dear friend.” The poem
celebrates the victory of human companionship of the holy heart. He loves nature but loves
man first. In the end Wordsworth connects his love for Nature with his love for human
affections and finds that this is a “holier love”.
“Tintern Abbey”, as you have noticed, is not primarily about a place. It is about
Wordsworth revisiting a place and about the change that has come over him in these five
years. Five years ago, young Wordsworth was not disillusioned with the French Revolution.
His response to Nature was ecstatic and passionate. “The sounding cataract” haunted him like
a passion. But that time has passed. All its “aching joys” and “dizzy raptures” are no more.
He now looks on nature with a sober eye, linking his joy in it with the “still sad music of
humanity”.

6. SUMMING UP

“Tintern Abbey” is a celebration of the connection between humans and nature and a
reminder of the importance of embracing the natural world as a source of inspiration,
comfort, and renewal.

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The poem is notable for its focus on the relationship between nature and memory. As
Wordsworth suggests, Nature has the power to awaken memories and connect us to our past
experiences and emotions. He also explores the spiritual and emotional connection between
people and Nature, suggesting that Nature has the power to uplift and inspire us.
The last stanza celebrates the need for human love and human relationships. Nature
becomes a living language through which this relationship can flourish peacefully.
Wordsworth becomes united with his past and aspires to a living continuity with his future
through his love for Dorothy. The entire process of ‘Hermitization’ of escape into spiritual or
mystical flights is deliberately avoided. Although man’s world is dehumanized and
dehumanizing, it has to be borne through love which feeds upon the memory of “the
beauteous forms.”

“London”

7. INTRODUCTION

The poem “London” is a sonnet written by Wordsworth in the same year but published in
1807 in Poems in Two Volumes. At that time England was in the midst of the Industrial
Revolution and its neighbouring country France was still reeling under the aftermath of the
French revolution. It was a time of sweeping changes which poets like Wordsworth felt were
taking people away from the simple beauty of Nature and leading to a moral and spiritual
degradation of society.
The main theme of “London” is a call for the restoration of moral and social values in
England, which the speaker sees as having been lost or corrupted in their own time. The
poem expresses a longing for a return to the heroic virtues of the past and sees the poet John
Milton as an exemplar of these virtues who could help bring about this restoration. The poem
begins therefore, with a call to Milton with a suggestion that he should be living at this hour
as England needs him and only he can pull it out of its present degraded state. The
implication of course is that the values of Milton’s era hold a promise of restoration of
England to its former glory.
The theme of “London” is thus a call for the restoration of traditional English values,
and an appeal to the example of John Milton as a way of achieving this restoration. The poem
speaks to the anxieties of its own time, and its themes of loss and restoration continue to
resonate with readers today.

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“London” is a sonnet and follows the Petrarchan tradition. It has fourteen lines where
the first eight lines form the octave and the last six form the sestet. It is written in iambic
pentameter and follows the rhyme scheme ABBAABBACDDECE.

8. THE POEM – “London”

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

9. ANALYSIS

The poem begins with an apostrophe to Milton and jolts the reader into attention
immediately. The exclamation mark after Milton’s name serves the purpose of underlining
the anxiety in the speaker’s mind. “England needs thee” asserts the speaker and the next few
lines paint a dismal picture of what England has become in present times.
Lamenting the state of English society, the speaker describes it as a “fen” which
means a marshy swamp whose waters are “stagnant”. Metaphorically speaking the poet
implies that England has lost its former glory and moved towards moral and spiritual
degradation. There is no movement or progress in any area of life whether it be religion
(“altar”), military power (“sword”), literature (“pen”), domestic life (“fireside”), or wealth

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(“hall and bower”) - and suggests that these things have lost their essential qualities of
happiness, heroism, chivalry, and cultural identity. The speaker acknowledges that he and his
contemporaries are “selfish men”, because they are passive and disinterested towards the
immense suffering that the French Revolution has caused for their fellowmen. He implores
Milton to return and restore English society to its former greatness - to show people the right
way of life, with manners, virtue, morality, freedom, and power.
The octave or the first eight lines of the sonnet have presented the problem before us.
The last six lines of the poem that form the sestet are a tribute to Milton through whom
Wordsworth is presenting a solution to the problem.
“Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.”
The speaker goes on to praise Milton's character, describing him as a star that shines
the brightest, and as possessing a voice that was as powerful as the sea. The similes are drawn
from the natural world. Unlike the image of the marshy swamp to which the poet had
compared present England, Milton is compared to a shining star, and the powerful sea which
are positive images drawn from Nature. The Romantics’ belief in Nature as being symbolic
of divinity is glimpsed here.
The speaker characterizes Milton's soul as pure as the “naked heavens” or the clear
skies and also majestic, and free, and notes that even though he travelled the same path as
others, he did so with a cheerful godliness, and remained humble and dutiful despite his great
talent. Milton though being a successful poet still lived as a simple and humble man. In him
Wordsworth has presented the ideal that his countrymen must emulate.
In conclusion we can say that “London” is a poem that expresses the speaker's
concern about the state of England at the time, and his belief that the country needs a figure
like Milton to help restore its virtues and ideals. The poem combines an apostrophe to Milton
with a reprimand to the people of England to recognize and uphold the values of “manners,
virtue, freedom, and power.” The poem concludes with a call to emulate Milton whose purity,
simplicity, modesty and humility shows the way.
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Study Notes
Fen: a marshy swamp with stagnant waters. The image is used by the poet as a metaphor to
describe the state of inertia that England is in. The lack of movement in the swamp
metaphorically means lack of progress in England.
Altar: used as a synecdoche where a part represents the whole. Here the word refers to the
Church. The image is used to refer to the state of religion in England.
Sword: the sword here suggests the whole army. Once again used as a synecdoche.
Pen: writers and artists
Fireside: used as a synecdoche and refers to the fireplace in homes thereby meaning the
domestic space which according to the poet is also in decline.
Bower: refers to a grove or a retreat most often in a castle and meant for ladies. Such places
are also in decline. The poet is hinting that chivalry is on the decline.
Dower: is that money which is given to the bride by the groom at the time of marriage to
support her in case she becomes a widow. It may also be used for “dowry” which the bride’s
family presents to the groom. It is a kind of inheritance. The word is used as a synecdoche to
refers to the greatness of England which the people had inherited but have now forfeited.
Along with it they have forfeited their happiness.
Dwelt apart: the poet is trying to say that Milton stood apart from others as he was unique.
Lowly: here it means that Milton was humble and modest and never made a show of his
greatness. He graciously accepted the ordinary duties of a citizen.

Check Your Progress

1. Who is the poem addressed to?
2. Why does the speaker invoke Milton?
3. Why is the poet unhappy with the present state of England?
4. What is the solution being presented in the last six lines of the poem?

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10. SUMMING UP

“London” argues that England needs to return to the values of the past in order to address its
present problems and sees Milton as a key figure who can help bring this about. Milton is
praised for his purity, his steadfastness in the face of adversity, and his ability to live a life of
humble devotion to duty. The poem suggests that by following his example, England could
rediscover its moral and social centre and begin to move forward once more.
In terms of theme, “Tintern Abbey” and “London” both explore the human experience
and the relationship between the individual and society. However, “Tintern Abbey” focuses
on the restorative power of nature and the importance of human connection to the natural
world, while “London” emphasizes the need for moral reform in the face of societal decay
and a return to the values of the past.

11. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Point out lines that show/describe the following:

(a) Wordsworth’s belief that the Universal Spirit pervades every object of nature.
(b) his love of nature in his boyhood.
(c) the mystical experience that enables him to see into the life of things.
2. Describe briefly the three stages in the development of the poet’s attitude to Nature.
3. Explain the following phrases /lines:
(i) sensations sweet
(ii) that serene and blessed mood
(iii) life of things
(iv) fretful stir
(v) fever of the world
(vi) still sad music of humanity
4. “Nor less I trust. /To them I may have owed another gift” What is this other gift the
poet is referring to ?
5. Explain the following lines with reference to the context :
The picture of the mind revives again;
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While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years.
6. These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blindman’s eye;
But oft, in lonely rooms and mid the din /Of towns and cities,
I have owed to them,/ In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood and felt along the heart,
(a) Identify the passage.
(b) What does the poet mean by “sensations sweet”?
(c) What “beauteous forms” is the poet referring to?
7. . . . that serene and blessed mood,/ In which the affections gently lead us on,/-Until,
the breath of this corporeal frame,/ And even the motion of our human blood/ Almost
suspended, we are laid asleep /In body, and become a living soul:
(a) Identity the passage and relate it to its context.
(b) Comment on the significance of the phrases: “serene and blessed mood” and “a
living soul”.
8. “In the renewed presence of a remembered scene, Wordsworth comes to a full
understanding of his poetic—self.” Discuss this view of “Tintern Abbey”.
9. ... nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
is full of blessings.
(i) Identify the passage. What, according to the poet, is the dreary intercourse of
life?
(ii) Comment on the last two lines of the passage quoted above.
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10. Discuss “Tintern Abbey” as a poem that concerns itself with the “still, sad music of
humanity”.
11. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened :- that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
(i) Analyse this passage and relate it to its context.
(ii) Briefly elucidate these phrases: “The burthen of the mystery” and “an eye made
quiet by the power of harmony”.
12. ...That neither evil tongues,
Rash judgement, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all,
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e’er prevail against as, or disturb
Our Cheerful faith, that all which we behold
is full of blessings.

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(a) Analyse the lines and place them in their context.

(b) Does the poet place Dorothy and himself against the rest of mankind? If so, why?
What is that “cheerful faith” which he believes (morally) belongs to them alone.
13. Wordsworth’s escape into Nature in “Tintern Abbey” is short-lived. The last stanza of
the poem is “a fatigued attempt to convert his loss into a negative triumph”. Discuss.
14. Discuss the title of the poem “London”.
15. Why does Wordsworth invoke Milton in his poem “London”?
16. Discuss some of the figures of speech in “London”.
17. Discuss the form of the poem “London”.

12. SUGGESTED READINGS

Bret, R. L. and A. R. Jones. Lyrical Ballads. Methuen, 1968.

Brooks, Cleanth. The Well Wrought Urn. Methuen London, 1968.
Coleridge. Biographia Literaria, ed. George Sampson and Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.
Cambridge University Press, 1920.
Cowell, Raymond. Critics on Wordsworth. Universal Book Stall, New Delhi, 1989.
Durant, Geoffrey, Wordsworth and The Great System. Cambridge University Press,
1970.
Graham, W. The Prelude, Books I & II. Basil Blackville Oxford, 1968.
Jackson, R. J. Poetry of the Romantic Period. Routledge Kegan Paul, 1980.
Jones, Alun R. and William Tydeman. Wordsworth Lyrical Ballads: A Case Book.
Macmillan Education, 1987.
Knight, G. Wilson. The Starlit Dome. Oxford University Press, 1971.
McFarland, Thomas. Romanticism and the Forms of Ruin. Princeton University Press,
1981.
Onorato, Richard J. The Character of the Poet: Wordsworth. Princeton University Press,
1971.
Parker, E.W. and S. H. Burton. A Pageant of Longer Poems. Longmans, 1961.

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Parry, P. H. William Wordsworth: Selected Poems. Longman, York Press, 1982.

Read, Herbert. Wordsworth. Faber and Faber, 1975.
Selincourt, Ernest de. The Poetical Works of Wordsworth. Oxford University Press,
1961.
Thurley, Geoffrey, The Romantic Predicament. Macmillan, 1983.
Trilling, Lionel, The Liberal Imagination. Oxford University Press, 1981.
Watson, J. R., William Wordsworth’s Vital Soul. Humanities Press, New Jersey, 1982.

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Unit-I(3)

(i) “KUBLA KHAN”

(ii) “DEJECTION: AN ODE”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
P. S. Nindra

1. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

This study material would enable you to:

• Know about the life and times of the poet.
• Be familiar with the characteristics of Romantic poetry.
• Understand the two poems prescribed for you – “Kubla Khan” and “Ode to
Dejection” through a detailed analysis of both.
• Appreciate Coleridge”s contribution to the poetry of the Romantic movement.

2. ABOUT THE POET

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on the 21st of October 1772, in the town of Ottrey,
Devonshire. His father was a simple-minded clergyman. The poet, the youngest of thirteen
children, displayed from his earliest years a great fondness for reading, and entered Grammar
School when six years of age. When he was eight years old, he ran away from home after a
quarrel with his brother who had provoked him and slept that night on the bank of a stream,
an adventure which he dated as the beginning of his continuous later ill-health.
In 1782, Coleridge”s father died, and a place was found for him at Christ”s Hospital,
the London charity school where Charles Lamb was his junior. In 1791, he entered Jesus
College, Cambridge. His years at the University were spent in stirring and stormy times. He
firmly embraced democratic and communistic views and had deep sympathy with the French
Revolution of 1789. In religion, as in politics, his views were strongly radical. An interesting
development took place at this time: owing to debt, and disappointment in love, Coleridge
disappeared in December 1793 and enlisted in the Light Dragoons at Reading under the name
of Silas Tomkyn Comberbache (Coleridge retained the initials). In April 1794, he was
discharged after his family and friends intervened on his behalf, and he returned to
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Cambridge. His marriage to Sara took place on October 4, 1795, at Bristol. The couple settled
in a cottage in Clevendon in Somerset. In September 1796 their first child Hartley as born.
Coleridge had no means of supporting a home, beyond an offer of payment, for a
verse he might write, made by a publisher named Cottle. He tried several schemes for gaining
a livelihood: delivered lectures on various topics, literary and political, published his first
volume of poems, wrote for the press, and finally started The Watchman, a magazine devoted
to politics and literature. But with the tenth number, the publication of the magazine came to
an end.
On the marriage front, Coleridge did not enjoy domestic harmony. In fact, there was
no real sympathy and understanding between him and his wife. Thus, domestic anxieties and
depression of spirits brought on attacks of neuralgia and it was probably at this time that he
began the use of opium as a relief, a habit which was to mar his best years, and indeed the
whole of his life.
In 1797, began his famous friendship with William Wordsworth and his sister,
Dorothy. The friendship between the two poets stands as one of the most famous and most
fruitful in the annals of English literature. The stimulus of Wordsworth”s companionship
helped to mature his poetic genius, and the sympathetic, intelligence of Dorothy Wordsworth
also had the happiest effect upon Coleridge”s imagination. Free for a time from domestic
anxiety, and happy in the new company, Coleridge rose to the zenith of his poetical career.
Their walks together on the Quantock hills resulted in the epoch-making volume of poems
called The Lyrical Ballads. (1798). The Ancient Mariner formed part of the Ballads. Indeed,
during the short time-from June, 1797 to September, 1798 — that this close friendship lasted,
Coleridge wrote almost all his best poetry—”The Ancient Mariner”. “The Nightingale”, the
first part of “Christabel”, “The Ode to France”, “Fears in Solitude”. “Frost at Midnight”,
“Kubla Khan”, and so on.
This brief and fruitful period also marks the completion of Coleridge”s poetical
career. Two poems alone of later date can claim to rank with those just mentioned: the second
part of “Christabel” (1800) and the melancholy “Dejection: An Ode” (1802).
After the publications of Lyrical Ballads, Coleridge started for a tour through
Germany with Wordsworth and Dorothy, to learn the language and study contemporary
philosophy and science. German philosophy and literature peculiarly fascinated Coleridge.
On his return to England in 1800, Coleridge aimlessly moved from place to place.
When Wordsworth married and settled at Grasmere in the Lake district, Coleridge and his
family followed in July 1800, where they, in turn, were followed by the Southeys.
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Relations with his wife worsened, and Coleridge plunged into depths of misery. He
fell in love with Wordsworth”s sister-in-law, Sarah Hutchinson, a woman of deep sympathy
and understanding. He even toyed with the idea of taking a separation from his wife.
Failing health induced him to try the effect of warmer climates. So, he left for Malta
in June 1804, where he was very well received by the English Colony. He was appointed
there as the temporary secretary to the governor Sir Alexander. Cut off from friends and a
congenial intellectual environment, he found life unbearable and returned to England after
two years but soon got involved in a miserable quarrel with Wordsworth which was never
completely patched up.
Separation from his wife took place at this time, and this was followed by
estrangement from many old friends too. Continuing ill-health at last forced him to place
himself in the hands of a sympathetic doctor from Highgate, in the year 1816. He lived in the
doctor”s house until his death, eighteen years later, and under his care he gradually overcame
the craving for opium and regained some measure of restored health. He renewed old
friendships, formed new ones and showed occasional flashes of genius. During this period, he
produced the Lay Sermons, Biographia Literaria, with its invaluable analysis of the
principles and language of poetry, The Aids to Reflection, and the Notes on Shakespeare.
Coleridge had extraordinary powers of conversation, and it was as a talker, a
marvelous talker that he is noted for during the last ten years of his life. His reputation and
his attractive personality brought to Highgate some of the finest minds of the day. In fact, he
became the sage of Highgate, and the house a place of pilgrimage for writers and thinkers.
He died on 25 July 1834 and was buried at Highgate churchyard.

3. A BRIEF NOTE ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTIC

POETRY

Let us take a brief look at the development of English poetry to place Romantic poetry in its
context. Of course, you must supplement this account with a reading from any good History
of English Literature.
Modern English Poetry is about six hundred years old. It can be conveniently
discussed under the following headings.
1. Age of Chaucer.
2. The Elizabethan Age.

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3. The Puritan Period.

4. Restoration Period.
5. The Classical Period.
6. The Romantic Revival.
7. The Victorian Age.
Now follows a brief estimate of all these periods.
3.1 Age of Chaucer (1340-1400)
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) has rightly been called the father of modern English poetry.
He was a many-sided genius. He adopted an eleven-syllable line as his favourite verse-form
from the Italian poet Boccaccio.
Chaucer”s most important and endearing work is Canterbury Tales. This poem is the finest
narrative in English literature, abounding as it does in story-interest, humour and
characterization.
The Age of Chaucer is notable for the development of the popular ballad, metrical
romance, dream allegories and satire.
3.2 The Elizabethan Age
Broadly speaking the period (1580-1620) may be regarded as the Elizabethan Age. It is one
of the greatest periods in English literary history. Its two main characteristics were:
(i) Growth of Nationalism.
(ii) The influence of Renaissance learning.
Both these tendencies are reflected in contemporary literature. Amongst the foreign
influences Italian, French and Spanish were more pronounced.
The Elizabethan Age was primarily the age of drama. Shakespeare wrote all of his
famous dramas between 1591 and 1611. In poetry, however, new verse forms like the
“sonnet” and “blank verse” were introduced and experimented with. Songs, pastoral poems,
and sonnets were extremely popular. Spenser was the greatest Elizabethan poet, and his
masterpiece, The Faery Queen was written during 1589-96. The sonnets of Spenser, Sidney
and Shakespeare were also quite popular.
The general trend of Elizabethan literature was “Romantic”. Display of imagery and
emotion were two marked traits of poetic diction.

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3.3 The Puritan Period

This period covers the years (1625-1660). It is also known as the Age of Milton as he was the
most prominent poet of this period. This age was characterized by a reaction against earlier
Elizabethan extravagance and imaginative enthusiasm. The poetic pendulum swung towards
sober intellectuality and controlled emotion. Milton perfected blank verse as an instrument of
poetic expression.
This period was one of gradual transition from the vigour, gaiety and imaginative
freedom of the Elizabethan to that of artificial cheer, philosophic melancholy, and Puritan
sobriety.
3.4 Restoration Period
Also known as the Age of Dryden, it extends over the years 1660-1700. John Dryden was the
greatest poet of this age. Poetry was marked by intellectual verve, wit and polish, and
dominated by classical traits—balance, exactness and elegance. It lacked emotion and high
imagination: and it was didactic (moralistic) or satirical in intention. The ode was also a
favourite form. Blank verse was replaced by the heroic couplet.
3.5 The Neo-Classical Period (1700-1750)
It is also known as the Age of Pope or the Augustan Age. Alexander Pope was the greatest
poet of this period. Classicism dominated English Poetry throughout the greater part of the
eighteenth century. Main characteristics of classicism were as follows:
(a) Reason and common sense were preferred to “emotion and imagination”.
(b) Nature and supernaturalism were seldom the subjects of poetry.
(c) Mostly it was the poetry of urban rather than rural settings.
(d) Poetry was chiefly in the Heroic couplet.
(e) It was satirical or didactic in intention.
(f) Diction and imagery were conventional.
(g) Poetry abided by rules which were practiced by the Age of Dryden and the
contemporary French poets.
(h) Metrical regularity was strictly adhered to.
(i) Poets widely cultivated conciseness and a didactic spirit.
(j) Elizabethan qualities of rhetoric, eloquence, conceit and bombast were discarded. In
their place “classical” qualities of balance, exactness and polish were encouraged.
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Pope”s contribution to the development of classicism in England was the largest. He

perfected the heroic couplet. He also laid down rules for writing poetry by publishing his
famous “Essay on Criticism”. He taught his contemporaries to “Follow Nature”— but in a
different sense. What he meant was an exact reproduction of everyday life and manners, as
opposed to anything wild or extravagant. It was not to describe flowers and the trees and the
changes of season,—it was to copy the men and manners of polite society.
3.6 Romantic Revival and Romantic Revolt (1798-1832)
In English, this period was ushered in by Wordsworth and Coleridge with the publication of
the Lyrical Ballads in 1798, as a protest and revolt against the so-called classicism of the
previous century. The movement started as a conscious reaction against the Neo-classical
poetry of the 18th Century. In this sense, the movement was known as the Romantic Revolt.
But it is also known as the Romantic Revival, in the sense that the romantic qualities, earlier
suppressed in the Age of Pope, were revived during this period as was interest in Spenser,
Shakespeare and Milton. Since the spirit of Romantic poetry was akin to that of the
Elizabethan age, the Elizabethan literary forms and subjects were revived again—the sonnet,
the lyric, the pastoral, the blank verse, the Spenserian stanza, the ballad, and so on. The same
fullness of imagination, richness of language, vastness of conception, lyricism and
picturesqueness which pervaded the great Elizabethan works are to be found in Romantic
Poetry. In it was revived passion, restlessness and curiosity, The sense of wonder and
mystery, which marked the age of Elizabeth was once again witnessed in the poetry of
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats
We can sum up the main characteristics of the Romantic poetry as follows:
(i) Emotion and Imagination were once again preferred to reason and common sense.
(ii) “Individualism” as opposed to obedience to “Authority” was revived. The poet was
not bound to follow the “Ancients” or “fixed rules”. He was free to write as he
pleased.
(iii) Interest in Nature and the Supernatural was revived.
(iv) Interest in the common man—the peasant, the labourer, the shepherd—was revived,
(v) Interest in the Past, the Middle Ages, was a marked feature of Romantic poetry,
(vi) Interest in Greek art, myth and literature was another characteristic feature.
The Romantic Revival was the “second great creative period” in English Poetry—the first
being the Elizabethan Age. Poets who enriched the romantic tradition by making significant
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contributions flourished during this period. Thus, Wordsworth revived an interest in Nature
by authoring such poems as “Tintern Abbey”. He struck a democratic note by publishing his
short lyric, “The Solitary Reaper”. Coleridge revived the elements of wonder and mystery by
writing “The Ancient Mariner”, “Kubla Khan” and “Christabel”. Shelley enriched lyricism
by penning such immortal lyrics as “Ode to the West Wind”, “The Cloud”, etc. Keats”s
contribution was no less outstanding. He revived interest in the Middle Ages in his poems
“The Eve of St. Agnes” and “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”. Besides, he was a great Hellenist
(a lover of Greek art and literature), as is evident from his “Ode on the Grecian Urn”. Byron
popularized the qualities of romantic sadness by creating the Byronic Hero. All these famous
poets were lovers of nature, although they appreciated it in their own individualistic manners.
3.7 The Victorian Age (1832-1870)
Romantic rather than classical spirit prevailed during this period. It was, however, modified
to reflect current attitudes in science, religion, politics and philosophy.
The two famous poets of this period are Tennyson and Browning. Poetry of this
period was romantic in so far as:
(i) It was dominated by imaginative and emotional elements
(ii) It experimented with new verse forms.
(iii) It was dedicated to the worship of beauty.
The Victorian Poetry differed from the poetry of the Romantic Revival in three important
aspects:
(i) It was more intellectual in tone,
(ii) It treated serious problems of society,
(iii) It evinced a higher degree of technical perfection.
The Lyric remained a favourite form during this period. Robert Browning developed a new
type of lyric known as the dramatic monologue.
Coleridge”s name, in the history of English poetry, is always associated with
Wordsworth. Keats, Shelley, and Byron for all these poets were subject to the same
influences and present such characteristics that link them together into a group. The
tendencies that they show and the qualities which they impart to their poetry have won for
them the name of Romantics, and the movement which they represented has come to be
known in English literature as the Romantic Movement. Coleridge”s poetry reveals that he

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had a marvelous power of imagination that helped him to dream and see visions which he
translated into great poetry.

4. “KUBLA KHAN”; OR A VISION IN A DREAM. A FRAGMENT

In Xanadu did “Kubla Khan”

A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! That deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! As holy and enchanted
As e”er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail.
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher”s flail:
And “mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.

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Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And “mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny measure—dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song.
To such a deep delight “twould win me.
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! Those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry. Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread.
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For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

5. “KUBLA KHAN”: AN ANALYSIS

“Kubla Khan” presents certain serious problems for the readers as well as critics. On the first
reading, especially without any background knowledge, everyone is bound to ask the
question: what is it all about? Is there any connection between the first and the second part?
Is it merely a fragment?
These questions are not easy to answer. But it definitely stirs up an old argument:
Should we enjoy the poem as it is —as a self-contained independent unit? Or should we seek
background knowledge— poet”s life, his other interests and preoccupations, and so on.
Votaries of the former belief, no doubt, have some point. But “Kubla Khan”
presumably supports the latter view—that we do need to understand the background in order
to comprehend and appreciate this poem.
This poem, written probably in 1797-98, was published for the first time in 1816. A
few lines from Coleridge”s Preface to the poem are worth quoting. He wrote:
“In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely
farmhouse between Porlock and Lynton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and
Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed,
from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading
the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas”s Pilgrimage:
“Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden
thereunto. And thus, ten miles of fertile ground were enclosed with a wall”. The
Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external
senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have
composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called
composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel
production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness
of effort. On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the
whole, and taking his pen ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines
that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person
on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his
room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained
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some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the
exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away
like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas
without the after restoration of the latter” (From “Kubla Khan” text
(victorianweb.org)
Modern readers do not give much credit to the Preface that Coleridge wrote much after the
composition of the poem. They hold the Preface responsible for much of the confusion and
mystery that the poem has given rise to over the years.
What is the position of modern criticism? For one, it does not consider the poem as a
“fragment”, as claimed by Coleridge. For another, it detects an essential unity between the
two parts (Lines 1-35, and Lines 36-54). Further, regarding its theme, there is also a measure
of consensus that the poem is about the act of writing poetry. As George Watson claims with
an assertiveness: “What is “Kubla Khan” about? This is, or ought to be, an established fact of
criticism: “Kubla Khan” is a poem about poetry. It is probably the most original poem about
poetry in English” (p. 122). For others like Graham Hough, what underlies the poem is the
theme of poetic inspiration.
Earlier critics like Livingstone Lowes (The Road to Xanadu), tracing the references
that Coleridge gathered from his immensely wide reading of these months, concludes that the
poem is meaningless. He treats the relation between the parts as “inconsequential”. He also
talks of the “vivid incoherence” of the second part. All this is indeed the result of having been
told beforehand that the poem was a dream, or the result of a dream. And Humphry House”s
pertinent questions acquire an added force when he asks:
“If Coleridge had never published his Preface, who would have thought of “Kubla
Khan” as a fragment? Who would have guessed it as a dream? Who, without the confession,
would have supposed that “in consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been
prescribed”? (House, p. 114).
Is the poem a fragment?
The Preface to “Kubla Khan” had stirred up a great deal of critical activity. The best way to
approach the poem is to adhere to a simple and easily accepted approach. We proceed with
the premise, then, that “Kubla Khan” is not a fragment; it is a complete whole, with the two
parts having a basic unity. What is this basic unity? It is this point which remains to be
discussed.

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We know one thing for certain that this poem contains echoes and reminiscences of a
number of other books which were sub-consciously influencing Coleridge”s thoughts and
fancies. The elements of the remote, of the distant in time and space, of luxury and
extravagance, of art and music and dance, of incredible sweetness and glamour are all
suggested at once.
All these are established facts, but can lead us nowhere in so far as the basic question
is concerned: what is the poem about? Medical evidence brushes aside the notion that opium
produces either dreams in sleep or waking hallucinations. Of course, this poem may have
been written in great speed, but it does not follow that it was written “in waking” up after
dreaming a dream. It seems to have been written deliberately, consciously, with a lot of
preparation (reading etc.) and a definite critical theory about poetry.
The first 35 lines of the poem
Let us take the poem as it is and see what it offers. The fifty-four lines of the poem divide
clearly at line 36. The first section, often in coldly literal detail, describes Khan”s “rare
device”. Purchas”s Pilgrimage (1613) tells hardly more than that the Khan built a movable
palace in a beautifully enclosed park. Coleridge is much more specific, and concentrates
many of Purchas”s details, and some others, into a closely consistent picture.
To begin with the beginning: what do we find in the first thirty-five lines? Somebody
(Kubla Khan, in fact) did something specific—decreed the erection of a pleasure dome; its
shadow “Floated midway on the waves””; and it was a “miracle of rare device” since, though
it was “sunny” it contained “caves of ice”. But right in the beginning, the importance of river
Alph is emphasized: the pleasure-dome is ordered to be built where the river Alph ran, and it
is “sacred”.
The “so” of line 6 conveys the impression that the location was chosen deliberately by
the Khan: because the sacred river ran here, so he ordered the pleasure-dome to be built here.
Then follows a detailed description of the setting: the size of the tract of fertile ground
that Kubla had walled as an immense garden, with walls and towers, gardens and rills;
flowers borne by the plants and trees were fragrant like incense; there were sunny spots of
green lawn amidst thick forests—a place of paradisal happiness.
But most of all, the description deals with the sacred river with special reference to
the chasm from which the river issued, the fountain hurling up the huge fragments, and the
disappearance of the river into the “caverns measureless to man”.

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You will notice that the impression that we get is that the setting is more important than the
pleasure dome itself.
Besides, what sort of atmosphere is sought to be evoked through these images? (12-
30). Well, an atmosphere of fear, enchantment, violent and uncontrollable energy, oblivion
and death, and forebodings of strife and struggle.
Thus, this work of art, so to speak, is not set down just anywhere in nature but has
been very carefully accommodated to its natural setting. It crowns nature.
The place indeed is special: it is dominated by the sacred river; it is carefully walled off and
set apart, a kind of earthly paradise, walled off like Milton”s paradise.
But we must pay attention to the opening of line 12, which presents a curious
grammatical problem. What is the force of “But”? in the opening of the line? Does it mean:
but how unlike the rest of the garden was the chasm? Or: In what sharp contrast to the
enfolded sunny spots of greenery was that awesome chasm? The landscape is cleft by the
chasm and it makes the place “savage”.
At any rate, the “But oh” signals a shift in mood, from sunlight to shadow, or from
sunlight to moonlight.
The place is savage, holy and enchanted, and the appropriateness of the spot as one in
which a woman might wail for her demon lover connects the place with the darker aspects of
the supernatural. The more sunlit and paradisiacal aspects of its sacred character have been
emphasized in the first eleven lines. The description of the chasm completes the picture of a
place suffused with feeling of holiness and mysticism.
It is sacred in all the senses of that word—-not merely the divine but including the
demonic—-in short, the supernatural as primitive man apprehends it.
The river Alph participates in this quality. If it waters the blossoming garden of the
incense-bearing trees and sparkles in the sun, it is also violent and darkly mysterious. The
river is associated with both the past and future. In its tempestuous descent “Kubla Khan” can
hear the voices of the past (“ancestral voice”) predicting the future (“prophesying war”). The
river Alph has metaphorical significance as well. It represents the surge of imagination, of the
creative powers of the poet. (See Study Notes).
The pleasure dome as a thing of art, then, is imposed upon a very special portion of
nature. It is located very precisely in the enclosed tract. Its shadow is reflected in the waves
of the river at a point midway between the bursting forth of the river and its disappearance—

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at a point, at least, where the sound of the source fountain and of the waterfall into the abyss
can both be heard as a “mingled measure.”
The dome crowns and dominates but it also incorporates some of the polarities” of
nature. The sunny dome imitates the heavens, but it imitates the earth as well with its ice
caves. Its holding together in one artifact such extremes is referred to as miraculous:
“It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure – dome with caves of ice.”
Indeed, harmony and reconciliation are the essential features of the dome. Or should we say
reconciliation of opposites, which makes it a “miracle of rare device”.
But the walled garden, reminding one of an earthly Paradise, contains knowledge of
the threat of its own possible destruction. Kubla Khan”s fortune is precarious. According to
the prophecy, he faces war. Earthly paradise is not held as a permanent gift, it is subject to
change, subject to destruction. In other words, the ideal life is always open to forces of evil.
The last 18 lines
Now we come to the real problem-the last eighteen lines of the poem. Here is the most
characteristic dream-feature of the poem-the sudden switch from Kubla and the Xanadu
landscape.
As stated earlier, many scholars who regard this poem as a fragment do not see any
logical connection between the first thirty-six and the last eighteen lines. But it can be argued
that the last eighteen lines actually complete the poem, and that the break between the two
parts is a “meaningful” break.
No doubt, with the second part, we come to a new topic, and the poet now speaks in
the first person and has a vision of an Abyssinian maid singing of Mount Abora. If the first
section of the poem might have been read from a book or presented in a dream or sketched in
reverie, suddenly we now have a person speaking. “I once saw a damsel with a dulcimer in a
vision.”
The damsel is from a far-away land, playing a music of unutterable melody and
sweetness. And now comes the crucial line “Could I revive within me.” As Humphry House
points out, this line can be interpreted in two ways. If a strong emphasis (and therefore
necessarily also a strong metrical stress) is put upon “could”, the word can be taken to imply
“If only I could, but I can”t,” and the whole poem can be made to appear to be about the
failure and frustration of the creative power. But if the emphasis on “could” is slight, then the

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condition is an “open” condition, like “Could You make it Wednesday instead of Thursday, it
would be easier for me”, then it would imply that there is every possibility of creative
achievement.
The second interpretation, of course, seems to be more appropriate because, as House
says: “not only is it biographically relevant to point out that in 1797-98 Coleridge, so far from
bemoaning the loss of creative power, was only just discovering its strength; but also, the
whole rhythmic character of the paragraph requires this view” (115).
Coming back to our discussion of the poem, we observe that the “I” of this poem will
not, of course, build the dome as Kubla did, He will build it with music. But he sets a
condition: if he could revive in himself the music of the maid in the vision, it would so stir
him to joy, that he would become truly creative and could himself produce a musical
recreation of the Khan”s pleasure dome. Or, we can say, he will build that dome in words, in
poetry. But, if the speaker could indeed recover the vision and build the dome for us, he
would pass beyond the bounds of poetry as we know it and become himself a numinous
thing-a creature to be held in awe and dread as one who had indeed been in paradise and
tasted its milk and honeydew. Poetry reaches beyond itself and aspires to a vision so intense
that the poet becomes seer and prophet, the teller of truth. In proportion as the poet succeeds,
he becomes the man set apart from his fellows, to be viewed with superstitious dread.
Notice that in the line “I would build that dome in air”, the speaker seems to be
challenging a comparison with the Khan. Of course, the Khan is an oriental despot -- all
powerful—who has merely to decree and Lo! There is this pleasure dome. But the poet seems
to say something to this effect: “I will build what Kubla built”. But his mode of building sets
him at the other extreme from the great Khan. He becomes not emperor or ruler, (in order to
bring into existence a miracle of rare device”, a person has to be no less than an all-powerful
ruler), but a poet who needs nothing but divine inspiration; he needs to be in a state of poetic
frenzy. He becomes a man cut off from his fellows by a magic circle and of whom all cry,
“Beware, beware”. If the shudder of awe and the warning whispered by those listening to his
song are a compliment and a testimony to his power, they also mark his exile and his
isolation. In other words, to recover the joy excited by the revived visionary music would
involve its penalties as well as its triumph.
By now, perhaps, the relationship between the two parts is somewhat clear to you. It
is just because the first part presents the dome and the river with all its setting so completely,
beautifully and finally, that we accept the authenticity of the creative impulse in the second
part and find in the last word “Paradise” a fact, not a forlorn hope. “Kubla Khan”, observes
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Humphry House, “is a triumphant positive statement of the potentialities of poetry. How
great those potentialities are is revealed partly in the description of its effects at the ending of
the second part and partly in the very substance and content of the first” (115).
To reinforce the argument that “Kubla Khan” is a poem about poetry, let us quote
George Watson here in Coleridge the Poet: Anyone who objects that there is not a word
about poetry in it should be sent at once to the conclusion and asked, even if he has never
read any Plato, what in English poetry this is like:
“Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise”.
There are dozens of parallels in Renaissance English to this account of poetic inspiration, all
based—though rarely at first hand—on Plato”s view of poetic madness in the Ion or the
Phaedrus— The “flashing eyes” and “floating hair” of Coleridge”s poem belong to a poet in
the fury of creation. Verbal resemblances to the text of Plato itself confirm that the last
paragraph of the poem is a prolonged Platonic allusion. Socrates, in the Ion compares lyric
poets to “Bacchic maidens who draw milk and honey from the rivers when under the
influence of Dionysus” and adds that poets “gather their strains from honied fountains out of
the gardens and dells of the Muses. ..Ion himself, describing the effects of poetic recitation,
confesses that when I speak of horrors, my hair stands on end...The very phrase “holy dread”
is Platonic (Laws 67 ID). That “Kubla Khan” is in some sense a comment on Plato”s theory
of poetry is not really in doubt (Watson, p.122).

6. STUDY NOTES
L 1: Xanadu: province of Tartary; the name of a town said to be not far from Pekin, the
ancient capital of the Chinese Empire and the summer capital of the emperors. Its Chinese
form is Shangtu. “Kubla Khan” (1216-1294), was the founder of the Mongol Dynasty in
China, and one of its greatest rulers. He conquered China in 1267, and thus overthrew the
Ling dynasty, which had ruled for 319 years. The Chinese capital of Peking was built by him;
also, the grandson of Genghis Khan, the notorious world conqueror, who made an inroad into
India, Kubla lived in great style and grandeur. Marco Polo spent seventeen years at his court.
These two names —Xanadu, Kubla Khan— sound the note of remoteness and
romance arising from unfamiliar objects and names.

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L 2: Pleasure-dome: a palace for pleasure or holiday enjoyment

dome: rounded top of a building. Here dome stands for a grand, magnificent structure
with all the usual architectural features.
Decree: order to be built.
L 3: Alph: a legendary river. Rivers and springs are commonly associated with poetry in
classical and Renaissance poetry, “The very name “Alph” offers an easy clue in its
resemblance to the Alpheus of Milton”s Lycidas, where it is associated with the
Sicilian Muse of pastoral poetry. And the river of poetry was a preoccupation of
some Romantics too… The sacred river is the most traditional element in a poem
otherwise evasive in its sophistication” (Watson, p. 134).
Why the river was sacred has not been made clear. This idea is particularly Hindu or
Eastern, for only in the East do people treat rivers as holy. For example, the Ganges
is a sacred river in India.
L 4: Caverns: Caves, underground gorges. One of the widespread beliefs about rivers is
that they run underground for some distance.
Measureless to man: the depth of which cannot be ascertained by man.
L.5. Sunless Sea: not exposed to the rays of the sun. Some dark, subterranean lake. This
is another detail which is hard to imagine but which makes for the picturesqueness
of the description.
L.6. twice five mile: an archaic form of saying ten miles.
L.7. girdled: encircled.
L.8. sinuous rills: streams winding in and out like serpents; tortuous rivulets.
L.9. incense-bearing tree: Trees laden with fragrant blossoms. (A sensuous phrase)
This is an echo of Shakespeare”s description of Arabian trees yielding gums which
are fragrant like incense.
L.11 sunny spots: ground exposed to the warm rays of the sun.
L.12. But oh! etc.: Suddenly, the poet rivets his attention on a different scene which he
views with awe and wonder, as shown by the exclamation.
Romantic chasm: a narrow ravine, gorge or deep hollow is called romantic in the
sense of its being mysterious and fearful to look into.

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L.13. athwart: across

Cedarn cover: through a wood of cedar trees; the cedar is an evergreen tree,
L.14. Savage place: the place was strange, primitive and fearful. Why fearful? Because it
held unknown terrors of magic and witchcraft. The words holy and enchanted
reinforce an atmosphere of vague fears and magic associations.
L.I5. a waning moon: The waxing and waning moons are ascribed different powers and
virtues in magic and witchcraft.
L.16. demon-lover: ghostly lover; those who claim that the poem achieves its effect
mainly by “far-reaching suggestiveness” cite particularly lines 12-16 as an
example. Other lines being 29-30. Furthermore, the proper names used are also
highly emotive and suggestive: Xanandu, Kubla Khan, Alph, Abyssinian and
Mount Abora, even Paradise. These names undoubtedly add to the total effect of
the poem.
About demon-lover: it is important to point out that this is a reference to Eastern
legends where a woman, after falling in love, discovers that her lover is a demon
(or a supernatural spirit), and thereafter seeks for him in places such as this chasm.
L.17. seething: coming up with a hissing or bubbling noise; bursting forth.
L.18. The whole line stands for one word: “earthquake”, when the earth seems to pant
and feel suffocated and bursts out in cracks and other fearful noises.
L.I 9. Momently: every moment, always; this is a peculiar use of the word.
Was forced: gushed forcefully.
L.20. half-intermitted burst: the bursting of the current being but now and then.
L.21. vaulted: made a circular motion or somersault; in other words, huge fragments
leapt up, and then fell down in a semi-circular movement.
Rebounding hail: like hailstones leaping up after striking the earth; a picturesque
simile and the result of close observation: as hail falls and is shattered, it flies in
fragments. So did the objects thrown up by the current inside the cavern.
L.22. again, an apt simile from day-to-day life; the flying pieces of rock were like the
grains flying up when struck with a flail by a farmer.
Thresher, a person who threshes grain that is, one who separates grain from chaff
with an instrument known as flail.

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L.23. at once and ever: continuously; the water intermittently threw up pieces of rock.
L.24. It: the fountain.
L.25. meandering: winding with a mazy motion: the river Alph followed a tortuous,
bewildering course. Note the musical effect of this line; it is onomatopoeic—the
sound echoes the sense; alliteration leads to the musical effect.
L.28. sank in tumult: flowed tumultuously, noisily, only to become silent afterwards.
Lifeless ocean: This can mean that the sea was calm, with no waves in it. Or
perhaps there were no living creatures in it.
L.29. Ancestral voices …war: highly suggestive and elusive line; much is left to our
imagination. The impending war can only mean that Kubla”s earthly paradise is
under threat of destruction. It is claimed by some critics that the line, like others in
the poem is of value for its sonority and suggestiveness rather than for its
“meaning.”
L.31. dome of pleasure: the dome is a characteristic feature of Islamic architecture and is
appropriate to the Khan referred to as the emperor of China in the poem.
L.32. Since the pleasure-dome stood on the banks of the river Alph, the shadow of that
magnificent luxury-palace fell in the middle of the river.
L.33. mingled measure: mingled sounds of the gushing waters of the fountain and the
swift current of the river Alph flowing through deep hollows.
L.35-36. It was the work of cunning artists and designers. Rare and marvellous human skill
had gone into its construction; “it was most wonderfully planned”; the rarity
consisted partly in the contrast between the sunny dome and the caves of ice. Line
A sunny…ice: Note the contrast between the sun at one end and ice at the other.
The oxymoron promotes wonder instead of incredulity.
Line 37. An abrupt transition, but we have already established the basic connection between
the two parts. Dulcimer: a musical instrument; a kind of primitive piano; the word
has an archaic and musical appeal.
L.39. An Abyssinian maid: a girl belonging to Abyssinia (in Ethiopia); introduced
apparently as another element of romance.
L.41. Mount Abora: seems to be reminiscent of “Mount Amara” in Milton”s Paradise
Lost (Book IV, L.218)
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Mount Amara: was a high mountain, said to be near the source of the river Nile.
The children of Abyssinian Kings were brought up in beautiful garden palaces on
the top of this mountain, lest they should rebel. The place enjoyed perpetual spring
and was claimed by many to be the true Paradise. The girl of Coleridge”s dream
probably sang in praise of Mount Abora. What sort of praise? She probably sang in
praise of its exotic splendour, eternal charm and exquisite beauty.
L.42-47. The lines depict the power of poetic imagination. The poet needs only “inspiration”
to emulate Kubla”s feat; he does not need to be a tyrant with full authority over his
surroundings.
L.43. Symphony and song: melody and music of her song.
L.44. could win me: enrapture, enthuse, enchant me.
L.45. that music…long: the inspired poet would also come out with such impassioned
verse, may be sung to the accompaniment of some musical instrument, that those
who “heard” him would be able to clearly visualize that “sunny pleasure-dome”
and those caves of ice in their imagination, i.e., his poetry would call up in the
imagination so vivid a picture that the hearers would think they saw the real
objects. The power of music is well-known.
L.49-54. Beware! Beware! Why? Because people would take him to be a magician. Only a
magician can attempt such a feat.
L.51. Weave…thrice: i.e., perform magic incantations for protection from him, since his
ability to call up this vision proves that he possesses occult powers.
An inspired poet is almost like a magician with glittering eyes and disheveled hair. He
radiates a mysterious and uncanny power and has to be contained within a circle, so that
others may not be affected by him. (a common practice in magic; you are already familiar
with the importance of the word “thrice”). He is nearly divine in his inspiration, for he is
brought up on the food of the gods. His exaltations, ardours and enthusiasms are the result of
poetic inspiration: and poetic inspiration is sustained by divine visions and immortal
longings. He is on the earth, but his mind and soul are lost in heavenly pursuits.
Such a poet can produce the illusion of reality in the minds of listeners.
Notice that Lines 49 to the end mark a further transition in the poem: from the lady with
a dulcimer to the poet inspired by magic powers.

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L.50. His flashing…hair: the typical signs of one under the influence of supernatural
powers; poets are supposed to be under such an influence when visions come to
them.
Flashing eyes: “the seeing eyes” as Carlyle puts it, of the poet.
Floating hair: poets are usually found growing their hair long.
L.53-54. These are the signs of his being a favoured or immortal creature. He is not a man
like other men.
According to Coleridge, the poet is specially gifted, being endowed with special
susceptibilities and sustained by food which comes to him direct from heaven. That
is, he lives on divine impulses and inspirations more than other men.
Holy dread: the sacred idea of divine awe and reverence which is due to the poet.
For he…Paradise: for the poet has partaken of the same divine food as was
dropped from Heaven to save the hungry Israelites.
Honey-dew: in this word the allusion is to the book of Exodus of the Old
Testament of the Holy Bible: God Almighty appeared before Moses in a dream and
commanded him to lead the Israelites, the chosen people of God, out of Egypt and
added that He himself would appear before them in the form of a cloud by day and
the Pillar of Fire by night to show them the way in the wilderness and He showered
Manna or Divine Food upon the hungry Israelites and the milk of Paradise to
quench their thirst.
All this means that the poet had received the gift of divine inspiration by reviving
the song of the Abyssinian maid.
L.54. Paradise:
Here is what House has to say:
“Positively, it causes a distortion of the poem if we try to approximate this Paradise
either to the earthly Paradise of Eden before the Fall or to the Heavenly Paradise which is the
ultimate abode of the blest. It may take its imagery from Eden, but it is not Eden because
“Kubla Khan” is not Adam. “Kubla Khan” himself is literally an oriental Prince with his
name adapted from Purchas. We may, if we persist in hankering after formal equations,
incline to say he is the Representative Man, or Mankind in general: but what matters is not
his supposed fixed and antecedent symbolic character, so much as his activity. Within the

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landscape treated as literal he must be of princely scope, in order to decree the dome and
gardens: and it is this decree that matters, for it images the power of man over his
environment and the fact that man makes his Paradise for himself. Just as the whole poem is
about poetic creation at the imaginative level, so, within the work of the imagination, occurs
the creativeness of man at the ethical and practical levels. This is what the poet, of all men, is
capable of realizing… the name of Kubla is repeated only once after the first line, and the
place of its repetition is significant:
“And” mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war”.
This is essential to the full unity of the conception: Paradise contains knowledge of
the threat of its own possible destruction. It is not held as a permanent gift; the ideal life is
always open to forces of evil; it must be not only created by man for himself, but also
defended by him. It is not of the essence of this paradise that it must be lost; but there is a.
risk that it may be lost.” (Coleridge).
Towards the end, we quote Allan Grant:
“Many of the features of the landscape of “Kubla Khan” are referable to specific
sources in books of oriental travel and history. One could not, however, even if one wanted
to, map out or diagrammatize the relationship of the river, plain and caverns. Yet within the
poem they seem to suggest very powerfully a sense of the surging up of the river of life, Alph
(or Alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet), and the fertilizing of the garden of life before
it sinks into an unfathomable sea of death.” (A Preface to Coleridge).

Check Your Progress

1. What is the full title of the poem?
2. What is the poem about?
3. What is the significance of the name “Kubla Khan?”
4. Is the poem just about a dream?
5. ““Kubla Khan” is an ecstatic reverie on the power of the poet.” Discuss.
6. Is “Kubla Khan” a poem about Poetry? Give a reasoned answer.

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7. Give a brief appreciation of the poem “Kubla Khan”.

8. Would you regard “Kubla Khan” as a fragment? If not, then show how is it a
complete poem possessing basic units.
9. Discuss the romantic elements in the poem.

7. “DEJECTION: AN ODE”

Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon,

With the old Moon in her arms;
And 1 fear, 1 fear, my Master dear!
We shall have a deadly storm.
(Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence.)

I
WELL! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade
Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes,
Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes
Upon the strings of this Aeolian lute,
Which better far were mute.
For lo! the New-moon winter-bright!
And overspread with phantom light
(With swimming phantom light o”erspread
But rimmed and circled by a silver thread)
I see the old Moon in her lap foretelling
The coming-on of rain and squally blast.

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And oh! that even now the gust were swelling,

And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast!
Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed,
And sent my soul abroad,
Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give,
Might startle this dull pain, and make it move and live!

II
A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief.
In word, or sigh, or tear-
O Lady ! in this wan and heartless mood.
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo”d,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,
And its peculiar tint of yellow green:
And still I gaze-and with how blank an eye!
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars;
Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:
Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew
In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;
I see them all so excellently fair,
I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!

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III
My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?
It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west:
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

IV
O Lady ! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live:
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud !
And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the Earth-
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element !

V
O pure of heart ! thou need”st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be!
What, and wherein it doth exist,

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This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,

This beautiful and beauty-making power.
Joy, virtuous Lady ! Joy that ne”er was given,
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Life, and Life”s effluence, cloud at once and shower, Joy,
Lady! is the spirit and the power,
Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower
A new Earth and new Heaven,
Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud
We in ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light.

VI
There was a time when, though my path was rough.
This joy within me dallied with distress,
And all misfortunes were but as the stuff
Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness:
For hope grew round me, like the twining vine,
And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.
But now afflictions bow me down to earth:
Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth;
But oh! each visitation
Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,

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My shaping spirit of Imagination.

For not to think of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient, all I can;
And haply by abstruse research to steal
From my own nature all the natural man
This was my sole resource, my only plan:
Till that which suits a part infects the whole,
And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.

VII
Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind,
Reality”s dark dream!
1 turn from you, and listen to the wind, .
Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream
Of agony by torture lengthened out
That lute sent forth ! Thou Wind, that rav”st without,
Bare crag, or mountain-tarn, or blasted tree,
Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb,
Or lonely house, long held witches” home,
Methinks were fitter instruments for thee,
Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers,
Of dark-brown gardens, and a peeping flowers,
Mak”st Devils” yule, with worse than wintry song,
The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among.
Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds !
Thou mighty Poet, e”en to frenzy bold !

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What tell”st thou now about?

“Tis of the rushing of an host in rout,
With groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds –
At once they groan with pain, and shudder with cold !
But hush ! there is a pause of deepest silence !
And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd,
With groans, and tremulous shudderings -all is over-
It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud!
A tale of less affright
And tempered with delight,
As Otway”s self had framed the tender lay,-
“Tis of a little child
Upon a lonesome wild,
Not far from home, but she hath lost her way:
And now moans low in bitter grief and fear,
And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.

VIII
“Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep:
Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep !
Visit her, gentle Sleep! with wings of healing.
And may this storm be but a mountain-birth,
May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling,
Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth !
With light heart may she rise,
Gay fancy, cheerful eyes.

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Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice;

To her may all things live, from pole to pole,
Their life the eddying of her living soul!
O simple spirit, guided from above,
Dear Lady ! friend devoutest of my choice,
Thus mayest thou ever, ever more rejoice.

8. “DEJECTION: AN ODE”: AN ANALYSIS

This poem describes the feeling of apathy and despair which was at once a cause and a result
of Coleridge”s indulgence in drugs and which finally destroyed the best part of his poetic
career. Before we take up the poem for discussion, it would be appropriate to understand the
term “Ode”.
8.1 The Ode
The Ode is a form of a Lyric poem, characterized by its length, intricate stanza forms,
grandeur of style and seriousness of purpose, with a long and venerable history in classical
and post-Renaissance poetry. It is often written in celebration of some special event.
The Greek poet Pindar (518-438 B.C.) established this form. His odes were written to
glorify the winners of the Olympic and other games. His poetry is marked by elevated
thought, bold metaphor, and the free use of myths. He modelled his stanzas on the dramatic
chorus, using a threefold pattern like the dance rhythm of strophe (moving to left),
antistrophe (moving to right), and epode (standing still); the rhyme scheme is fixed.
Some English poets like Gray in “The Progress of Poesy” (1754) followed the regular
or Pindaric ode. Others, like Cowley, came out with the modified form of the Pindaric Ode,
called the irregular ode: each stanza follows its own pattern with varied line lengths, rhyme
schemes and number of lines.
Cowley”s modified version of the Pindaric ode, with its freedom to alter the form in
accordance with changing argument, subject matter and feeling, proved quite influential.
Coleridge and Wordsworth use irregular ode form for their “Dejection” (1802) and
“Intimations of Immortality” (1807) poems respectively.

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8.2 Dejection: An Ode

“Dejection: An Ode”, belongs to a group of poems popularly known as “Conversation
Poems” composed between August 1795 and April 1798. “The Eolian Harp”, “Frost at
Midnight”, “This Lime Tree Bower my Prison”, “Fears in Solitude” are some of the other
poems in this group. “Dejection: An Ode” is considered to be the most extended of the
Conversation Poems. Though a conversation is an exchange between two people, these
poems are rather monologues addressed to either wife, son, a loved one or a friend. They
display a distinctive style and have been called “meditations in blank verse.”
“Dejection: An Ode” was first written as a poetical letter of 340 lines, dated 4 April
1802, and sent to Sara Hutchinson. An intermediate version-shortened and with considerable
revisions, and this time addressed to Wordsworth, appears in a letter sent to a friend, William
Sotheby, on 19 July 1802. The final version was published for the first time in The Morning
Post of October 1802. Where “Edmund” is substituted for the” Sara” of the first version. In
his collected works of 1817, Sibylline Leaves, Coleridge uses the word “Lady !”, and is
addressed to his wife Sara.
Watson sums up the position thus: “It seems best to think of the first version of 1802
as a conversation poem which, by some vagary, has been cast into the form of a rough-and-
ready ode. In the ensuing months it was trimmed to less than half its original length, purged
of most of its private reference, and set forth upon the world as one of the oddest
compromises in English poetry: an intensely, bitterly, almost indecently private poem of an
unhappily married poet, cast into that most public of all forms, the neoclassical Pindaric. The
language swirls upwards and downwards from a studiously conversational opening (“Well! If
the Bard was weather-wise…”) to passages of a grave sublimity that Coleridge had scarcely
ever achieved.... It is by this startling contrast of the formal and the informal that the poem
lives, and for just this reason there can be no doubt of the superiority of the final version,
where the original 340 lines have been reduced to a tight-packed 139. Coleridge is so
exuberant a poet, and so little self-critical in his creative moments, that it is exceptional to
watch him at work, as here, with the pruning-hook...... On the whole, it is surely clear, the
reduction of the ode to its familiar form is a continuous triumph of critical acumen,” (George
Watson, p.74-75).
“Dejection: An Ode” is one of a number of poems written in the early months of 1802
by Coleridge and Wordsworth. They include Wordsworth”s “Resolution and Independence”,
and Intimations of Immortality ode. Each of them is a response to a sense of irreparable loss,
and the phrase “There was a time” from “Dejection: An Ode” becomes the opening line of
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the Immortality Ode. Each poet seems to be suffering a crisis of confidence in his poetic gift,
fearing the loss of his creative imagination; and each uses the word “Dejection: An Ode” to
describe the accompanying mood. Each poet conceived of and responded to the crisis in his
own way and the paradoxical result was the creation of three Romantic poems on the subject
of the loss of the poetic imagination. The paradox is most clearly stated and felt in the final
“Dejection: An Ode” which had by now become a poem about the inability to make poetry.
An interesting point about this poem is that in it we find a change in Coleridge”s
attitude to Nature. And you can understand this change better if you read two of his earlier
poems: “The Eolian Harp” (1795) and “Frost at Midnight” (1798). In the first poem the poet
expresses the idea that the same Divine Spirit pervades the entire universe. The poet thinks
that one cannot help loving all things in a world which is so permeated by the Divine spirit.
The poet shows his keen sensitivity to Nature and to every object of Nature. Wordsworth,
you should remember, firmly believed in this idea.
“Frost at Midnight” shows Coleridge”s attitude to Nature much more clearly, and
Wordsworth”s complete and overwhelming influence is quite evident. In the third stanza of
the poem, the poet says that God speaks through Nature and that Nature will educate and
mould his child. Nature exercises a great educational influence.
This is one attitude to Nature. But in the first stanza of this poem itself, we find the
poet expressing the belief that outward objects merely reflect or mirror our own thoughts and
moods. This idea provides us with a clue to Coleridge”s later view of Nature. It is in
“Dejection: An Ode” that we find the above belief fully developed :
O Lady ! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live:
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud !
He now believes that Nature can give no joy to those who have no joy already in their hearts.
Bitter failures and disappointments in life led Coleridge to lose faith in Nature as a healing
power.
The final version of the Ode is often compared with the original verse letter addressed to Sara
Hutchinson. Many critics feel that the original version is more personal and painful and
therefore more “sincere”. That may be the case, but we must guard ourselves against giving
undue importance to Coleridge”s private griefs during the period preceding the composition
of the original version. For, it was not for nothing that he reworked the poem so as to cut out
all the associations that had occasioned the poem originally. He wanted to bring before the

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public a finished work of art, and not a mere rambling sort of piece. But does the Ode convey
a sense of completeness and unity? Humphry House on this point observes: “I think it is the
opinion of many readers of the Ode, that brilliantly successful as most of it is, as parts, yet it
fails to achieve complete artistic unity. By comparison with “Frost at Midnight” or “The
Ancient Mariner” or “Kubla Khan,” it is not a whole poem” (p. 134).
One more point needs your careful attention. The poem will make complete sense
only if you do not forget that after cutting and pruning the original version, it was brought
forth as an Ode addressed to William Wordsworth. It was only after some estrangement with
his friend that Coleridge substituted “Lady” for “Edmund” and the poem was altered so as to
erase al1 allusions to their friendship. But that does not alter the fact that Wordsworth”s
personality is all pervading in the Ode. What is more, as we mentioned earlier also,
“Dejection” and “Immortality Ode” have interesting points of comparison and contrast. In the
VI stanza, Coleridge refers to his past joy and describe his present mood of grief.
Wordsworth, in the opening stanza of his Ode, expresses the same idea: “It is not now as it
hath been of yore.” But in Wordsworth”s Ode grief finds relief and ends in joy; in
Coleridge”s poem grief finds no relief and ends in dejection.
Both poems reveal the irregular rhyme pattern and the interspersing of long and short
lines. (See C. M. Bowra”s, The Romantic Imagination, for a discussion of the two Odes).
8.3 Study Notes
The poem begins with the speaker recalling a few lines from the ballad of Sir Patrick Spence.
The first four lines form a part of this ballad from “Percy”s Reliques – “Ballad of Sir Patrick
Spence.” In this ballad, Sir Patrick Spence has superstitious fear of “new Moon/with the old
Moon in her arms”, as it portends a “deadly storm,”. Coleridge incorporates this idea in his
poem. Thomas Percy”s collection of ballads Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) made
a great impression on the Romantic poets.
8.3.1 Stanza I
In the first stanza the speaker asserts that if the poet of the ballad had a good understanding of
the weather then a storm was likely to break out on this night too because the appearance of
the moon is similar to how it has been described in the ballad. The speaker wishes the storm
would break out hoping that it would pull him out of the depressed mood that he is in. In the
past nature has made him feel alive. He hopes that the forces of nature would be able to do
the same even now.

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Well: The conversational tone of the opening line gives the poet the opportunity to make his
whole poem a gradual crescendo.
Bard: The poet who wrote the Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, which describes the wrecking of
Sir Patrick”s ship off Aberdeen shire in a violent storm, Sir Patrick had correctly foreseen the
advent of a “storm.
Weather-wise: having the ability to speak wisely about the weather.
that......trade: winds which are more busy, i.e., more rough, and stormy.
lazy flakes: mild wind, as compared with active wind, breaks the cloud in pieces or
fragments which move about in the sky lazily.
dull....draft: dull, melancholy breeze
rakes upon: touches gently
Aeolian lute: While discussing the poem The Eolian Harp, Allan Grant Comments: The
aeolian or wind-harp was a German invention of the early seventeenth century consisting of a
sounding board designed to amplify, as in any stringed instrument, the vibrations of the
strings stretched over it. Lying near an open window it would produce a thin “ethereal” sound
in response to the wind blowing over it. producing a “natural” music. Its appropriateness as a
metaphor for Romantic poetry is obvious. Compare its appearance in “Dejection: An Ode”:
an ode..... Wordsworth used it in his verse.... (Prelude, 1805. Book I)... Shelley and Hazlitt
both referred to it explicitly when attempting to define the nature of poetry. (Allan Grant: A
Preface to Coleridge, p.106).
(Aeolus in ancient mythology was the god of the wind).
For lo !: The poet now gives reasons for the lute to remain silent (the preceding line).
Winter-bright: as bright as in winter.
I see ....lap: The new moon is covered with an unearthly light and is thus encircled by a
thread-like circular line producing the impression that the old Moon is in the lap of the new.
(There was a superstition that if the old moon was seen in the lap of the new, there would be
heavy rains and furious storms. Coleridge takes this idea from Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence.)
And oh!. so far the poet has only stated the possibility of the coming of a furious storm.
But now, in these lines, the poet already notices the wind developing into a storm and rain
falling in a slanting direction.

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those sounds... and live: There was a time when natural objects moved him deeply. But
it is not so now. The poet”s heart is benumbed by pain; he welcomes the approaching storm,
hoping that it would “shake” him out of his paralyzing pain. It may not relieve his pain, but
certainly it will at least give some life to that pain and break the sluggish monotony of that
pain.
8.3.2 Stanza II
The first four lines of this stanza give expression to Coleridge”s grief. But these are not
ordinary lines. Sadder lines than these were never perhaps written by any poet in a
description of his own grief. What has actually occasioned this feeling of intense
dissatisfaction, this sense of utter “Dejection: An Ode” and hopelessness? A large part of it
was occasioned by an increasing awareness of the fact that his inborn gift of imagination was
decaying and that his interest was shifting to philosophy and metaphysics, or “abstruse
research”—as he calls in this “Ode”. In other words, he was becoming more and more of a
philosopher or thinker and less and less of a poet. The “shaping spirit of Imagination” was
deserting him. This change greatly distressed him and finds expression in this heart-rending
and deeply pathetic poem.
A pang: a deep-rooted sense of pain
Void: empty
Drear: desolate, dull and monotonous.
Stifled: suppressed unimpassioned grief; grief which manifests no deep feeling, no sense
of total involvement.
A grief.... or tear: Intensely moving lines, expressing the poet”s dilemma and pathos in
the choicest of words.
O Lady: This may be considered as the second part of the stanza. Originally, in the
manuscript, the expression was “O William”, i.e., William Wordsworth, you will realize that
this makes far more sense.
The poet now gives a beautiful picture of the skyscraper late in the evening. But he
views everything with a “blank” gaze. He cannot feel the beauty of the sky and the stars.
Wan: pale, cheerless
heartless: joyless
throstle: a kind of singing bird.
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woo”d: induced, persuaded. The song of the bird persuades the poet to forget his grief
and think of other things—things which can give him some relief.
blank an eye: with a vacant eye ; without any expression in the eyes ; without reacting
to the scene in anyway ; empty of emotion and intelligence.
Crescent Moon: semi-circular moon.
I see them... they are: The poet can “see” but cannot “feel”. Coleridge here gives
expression to an experience of double consciousness. His sense perceptions are vivid and in
part agreeable ; his inner state is faint, blurred, unhappy. The power of “feeling” has been
paralyzed by metaphysical or abstract investigations. The power of “seeing”, less dependent
upon bodily health, stands aloof, somewhat indifferent, and yet mournful and critical. By
“seeing” he means perceiving and judging; by “feeling” he means that which induces one to
react. We can call these Coleridge”s different modes of perception. But, as Humphry House
insists, this is “not primarily a poem about modes of perception. It is a poem about
unhappiness, love, and joy. Of the later autobiographical poems there is least of self-pity in it,
the self-analysis being all the clearer and more mature therefore, because the sense of love
and of joy is so strong. This idea of joy was a guiding principal of Coleridge”s life.”
(Humphry House, p.138).
Humphry House is of the view that in our zeal to find some sort of philosophy
reflected in his poems, we should not overlook the presence of affections and feelings in
them.
8.3.3 Stanza III
The mood, in this stanza as well as the previous one. is peculiarly modern, recognizable as
free-floating anxiety to the psychoanalyst or as existential dread to the existentialist
philosopher. Its chief characteristic is that it is a generalized and inexplicable feeling which
cannot be located in any particular source,
(Existentialism is a philosophical trend which stresses the importance of existence, as
opposed to the view held by most philosophies and theologies that man”s actual existence in
the world is less significant than some pre-existing essence. In general, existentialism takes
the view that the universe is an inexplicable, meaningless, and dangerous theatre for the
individual”s being, his existence. Everyone has to assume the responsibility of making
choices that determine the nature of this existence. This freedom puts man into a state of
anxiety, surrounded as he is by infinite possibilities, while remaining ignorant of the future,
except for the fact that his life is finite, and will finish, just as it began in nothingness.)
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genial spirits: sympathetic, sociable; or happy, cheerful spirits.

smothering weight: pressing, crushing burden.
passion: stirring of feelings ; excitement.
whose.... within ; whose real source of joy, happiness and creativity lie in the heart
itself. (The metaphor of the fountain is, like the aeolian lute, an important Romantic image. It
appears in “Kubla Khan” and in Wordsworth”s definition of poetry in the 1800 Preface as
“the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” Fountain is used as a metaphor for
creativity).
I may not .....within: We can also explain it like this: “I cannot hope to derive from
external Nature the life and depth of emotion which have their source in the soul.”
8.3.4 Stanza IV
An important stanza, depicting Coleridge”s changed attitude to Nature, contradicting his own
earlier stand, and also Wordsworth”s philosophy of Nature—the belief that Nature has a life
of its own, that a Divine spirit passes through all objects of Nature, and so on.
In this stanza, the poet says that Nature has no life of its own, and that we transfer to it
our own moods and our own feelings.
O Lady !: The poet addresses, Sara, his wife.
We receive...give: We find in Nature whatever we have transferred to it from our own
hearts. In other words, we see things according to our own moods.
And in...live: Nature lives only in our imagination. It has no life of its own. If it seems
full of life, it is because we have endowed it with life.
Ours.... shroud: Wedding garments symbolize festivity, joy and happiness. Shroud is a
cloth in which a dead body is wrapped. Hence it is a symbol of grief or mourning. What the
poet wants to convey is that it is our thoughts which make Nature bright and attractive or
dark and gloomy, as the case may be. If we are happy, Nature too seems to be joyous, as
though celebrating a festival. But if we are sad, Nature too seems to be in mourning. In other
words, it is our thoughts which make Nature seem happy like a bride or wretched like a dead
man. Thus Coleridge here is contending against the Wordsworthian doctrine of the influence
of Nature. (Recall here The Ancient Mariner, Lines 244-247; then lines 313-317, depicting a
close affinity between the outside world and the mental state of the poet. This is what links
the two poems together.)

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And would....Earth: If we wish to see anything of high and noble quality in nature, so
that it may give some solace to the wretched, ever-worried mankind, then from our own souls
some light should come forth and envelop the whole Earth. We pretend to read a deep
significance in Nature (as Wordsworth did. and Coleridge himself did in his earlier poems
like The Eolian Harp). But in fact, the cold and lifeless objects of Nature do not lend any
inspiration to care-worn mankind, nor can they teach us moral or spiritual lessons. The light
which illumines dark Nature comes from our own hearts and minds.
And from, . . . element: The soul of a human being must itself send forth a sweet and
powerful voice which will endow the varied sounds of Nature with sweetness.
Of its own birth: having its origin in the soul itself and not in any external object.
Of all...element: a sweet and powerful voice, coming out of the soul itself, gives life and
cheerfulness to all the sweet sounds of Nature. Thus, the joy, the radiance, the inspiration to
stir and stimulate a man come from his inner self and not from Nature.
The above stanza shows Coleridge”s complete disillusionment with Nature and as we
said earlier, contradicts Wordsworth”s view of Nature as expressed in the following lines in
Tintern Abbey:
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
8.3.5 Stanza V
In this stanza, the poet touches upon the source of the “light”, the radiance, the bright mist
which pervades all objects of nature. The source lies in the joy in one”s heart. And it is this
joy which leads to acts of poetic creation.
What is this “joy” anyway? According to Humphry House, “the joy of “Dejection: An
Ode” must be understood as involving the “deep delight” which “Kubla Khan” shows at the
centre of creative happiness” (p.138). It is a special kind of joy, a solemn joy, a state of being
when the emotional and intellectual faculties are in equipoise. It is closely related to the

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“shaping spirit of imagination”—something which activates the poet”s imagination, which in

turn “creates” and forms.
This beautiful...power: The power of the soul, or the mental light, is not only beautiful
in itself but is also capable of creating beautiful things. In other words, the poet, with his
fertile imagination, can make beautiful objects.
Life...and shower: Joy is at once life and the thoughts and feelings which arise from life;
joy is at once that cloud which pours forth the shower and the shower itself.
Joy...Heaven: in other words, if we ally or unite ourselves with Nature, i.e., open our
hearts and minds to the influences of Nature, then it is joy, and joy only, in our hearts which
enables us to view the Earth and Heaven in a new light.
We...rejoice: It is because of the joy in our own hearts that we feel happy,
We thence...sight: From there flows all that delights our eyes or ears.
All melodies...light: All the sweet sounds of the external world are echoes of that sweet
and powerful voice, and all the beautiful colours that we see in the external world reflect that
light (which flows from the joy in our own hearts). In other words, an artist”s main source of
inspiration is the joy in his own heart. External nature cannot help him at all if there is gloom
or distress in his heart. (This was the case with Coleridge, and hence his dejection).
8.3.6 Stanza VI
The opening line should remind you of some other poem—also by a Romantic poet.
Which poem?
This stanza throws light on the real cause of the poet”s sense of dejection and grief.
This joy,..,distress: The joy within me enabled me to make light of my sufferings.
And all happiness: “All misfortunes served merely as material for my Fancy” to weave
new visions of happiness.”
For hope, . . . . seemed mine: a beautiful simile, merging into a metaphor. Hope is
compared to a climbing plant which twines round a tree. Just as the fruits and leaves of a
plant growing around a tree seem to belong to the tree itself, similarly many bright prospects,
spawned by hope, seemed to belong to the poet, even though they belonged to someone else.
But now...birth: Earlier, hope kept his spirits high, but now sufferings and misfortunes
have almost crushed him ; the poet doesn”t care if these sufferings have robbed him of
hisnative joy.
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But Oh!...Imagination: Now comes the real crush. What galls him most is that every fit
of mental dejection obstructs the operation of that faculty which enabled him to “create” and
“form”, and which he was endowed with by nature at the time of his birth. In other words, his
sorrows and misfortunes have weakened his inborn creative imagination.
my shaping...Imagination: “my imagination, which creates and forms”.
For not ...all I can ; Coleridge says that his only resource against his increasing
melancholy was deliberately to divert his mind from his feelings, to cultivate a quiet mode of
life, and to immerse himself in deep metaphysical studies, in the hope of changing his nature
and conquering his excessive sensitiveness.
Till that...my soul: the metaphysical speculations which at one time formed only one
small part of his nature, gradually took possession of his whole being; with the result that
speculative and philosophical strain in him has become the “habit” of his “soul”, weakening
thereby his creative faculty. In other words, abstract or metaphysical investigations, which he
began as a bulwark against “afflictions”, have completely taken possession of his soul. It is
this fact which he regrets, for it has led to a complete drying up of his creative powers.
8.3.7 Stanza VII
We said in the beginning that some critics claim that the Ode fails to “achieve complete
artistic unity” and is brilliantly successful only in parts. And it is Stanza VII which primarily
comes in the way of accepting the Ode as a whole. Let us see what Humphry House has to
say on this point.
“In the received text, the opening of stanza VII especially, and its placing and
relevance, are serious obstacles to accepting the poem as a whole. The stanza opens with a
sudden twist of thought, in very awkward language :
Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind,
Reality”s dark dream!
1 turn from you, and listen to the wind, .
Which long has raved unnoticed.
And the “viper thoughts” against which this revulsion occurs are the famous meditative
stanza about the loss of his “shaping spirit of imagination”, ending with the lines :
Till that which suits a part infects the whole,
And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.
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The phrase “reality”s dark dream”“ then applies to the firm, sad honesty of self-analysis
which make the greatness of that stanza” (Humphry House, p. 134). The purpose of quoting
House”s views at length is to enable you to form your own opinion also. Let it also be
remembered that House”s analysis of the poem is based on his close comparison between the
published Ode and the original version. If we forget the original version, then perhaps we can
find coherence and unity in the poem.
Viper thoughts: poisonous thoughts ; a viper is a kind of poisonous snake.
that coil...mind: “poisonous thought which wind about my mind just as a snake coils
itself round its victim”. The bite of a viper is deadly. Similarly, the poet seems to say, if he
remains engrossed in thoughts of “Dejection: An Ode” and sorrow, and if he continues to
mourn the loss of his “shaping spirit of “Imagination”, then his own will and mind would be
totally paralyzed and benumbed.
“Viper thoughts”, perhaps, can also be applied to the ideas expressed in the previous
stanzas. For, even though the thought-process is somewhat rambling and loose, a clear theme
emerges—the poet”s intense pain and a sense of desolation. And in this stanza he wants to
get away from all this— “reality”s dark dream”. Reality is too cruel, and makes life appear
like a frightening dream.
turn, . . . unnoticed: During all these thoughts, the wind has been raging furiously for a
long time. It is as though the poet suddenly remembers the wind which he mentioned in the
first stanza.
What . . . forth: (The place of the lute in this poem is in sharp contrast to the
speculations it gives rise to in The Eolian Harp.) Beginning in a “sobbing moan” the kite
sends out a scream of agony by torture lengthened out at the wind”s height. In other words, to
the poet, the sound of wind playing upon the lute seems to be the lengthened scream of one
who is being tortured and who cannot bear the pain. (In “The Eolian Harp”, the lute gives rise
to different speculations.)
The verse gathers momentum here.
Crag: rock
mountain-tairn: small mountain lake.
clomb: the old past tense of climb.
peeping flowers: flowers peeping from amongst the leaves.

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Mad Lutanist: The wind is called a frenzied, reckless lute-player because of” Devils”
“Yule” that it makes.
Devils” Yule: Christmas weather, with wild revelry fit for devils. Yule: Christmas.. The
wind is supposed to be celebrating Devils” Christmas, hence, an unholy Christmas.
The idea is that if Devils were to celebrate Christmas, (which can”t be a happy occasion
for them) they would scream and shriek and make a terrible noise—the like of which was
being made by the wind at present.
With worse...song: The wind is making sounds which are even worse than those which
are heard during the bleak months of winter. (There is more of howling and shrieking of the
wind - storms etc.- in the winter season.)
Thou Actor: The poet now imagines new roles for the wind: as a tragic actor, and as a
bold mighty poet.
perfect.... sounds !: it can produce all the sounds that are sorrowful.
thou.......bold: thou powerful poet who, in a state of frenzy (poetic inspiration) can
boldly express whatever you want to describe.
host in rout: army running away in defeat. (The poet now guesses the meaning of
wind”s sounds.)
deepest silence: the fury of the storm subsides: the wind is now silent, but in this mood
also, she is not inactive (to the poet, of course).
It tells....loud: the poet is now reminded of a different story.
Otway: Thomas Otway (1652-85) was a dramatist, noted for The Orphan and Venice
Preserved, both plays containing heroines whose sorrows drowned contemporary audiences
in tears. In the original draft of the poem, Coleridge wrote Wordsworth”s for Otway”s and
the allusion in lines 121-5 is to Wordsworth”s Lucy Gray. There is no similar episode in
Otway”s works. In a way Coleridge is paying tribute to Wordsworth in these lines.
(The emphasis in this stanza is not so much upon the creativeness of the wind (as Actor
and poet) as upon the evils, torments, and sorrows which it appears to create.)
8.3.8 Stanza VIII
This stanza ends on a quieter note. The poet, though still restless himself, is full of
tenderness and good wishes for his wife. It presents quite a contrast with the previous stanza.

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Full ....keep: The poet does not want his wife Sara to keep awake.
Vigils: sleeplessness: to keep vigils means to remain awake.
but a mountain-birth: this has been taken for an allusion to the mountains in travail
which will bring forth nothing of importance. Another explanation is May the storm be only
local, confined to the mountains. The first interpretation seems to be more appropriate. The
line should be taken as a wish that what seems to be terrible and destructive (“may this
storm”) may turn out after all to be a mere nothing, or a trifle that cannot disturb Sara”s
peace.
Joy... Voice: joy should raise her spirits and lend a sweetness to her voice.
from pole to pole: from one end of the world to the other end.
To her ...live: all things may live for her sake only.
eddy: a whirlpool; a whirlwind ; as a verb, to move round and round.
The metaphor of the whirlpool in connection with the spirit or soul is quite apt. All
things of this world may not only dedicate their existence to her but may also become a vital
force like a whirlwind, to add energy and strength to her spirit.
guided from above: guided, getting inspiration from Heaven. The last three lines seem
more appropriate as being addressed to Wordsworth. Wordsworth, still a child of Nature and
getting divine inspiration, has not lost his inborn joy, which is the life-breath of poetry. But
since Coleridge himself is out of the race now, he seems to be passing on the torch of poetic
creation to his best friend.

Check Your Progress

1. What is an Ode? Describe some of its features.
2. How many versions of the poem are there?
3. Is the poem a poem about the inability to write poetry?
4. “I think it is the opinion of many readers of the Ode, that brilliantly
successful as most of it is, as parts, yet it fails to achieve complete artistic
unity.” Do you agree with this assessment of the Ode. Give a reasoned
answer.
5. Write a note on the “mood” of the poet in the Ode and account for it.

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6. What attitude does Coleridge express towards Nature in “Dejection”? In

what way does this attitude differ from that of Wordsworth and from his
own earlier attitude?
7. Give a brief critical appreciation of “Dejection: An Ode”.
8. The Ode “is a psychological analysis as acute as it is tragic, of his own
mental, emotional state viewed throughout in conscious and deliberate
contrast with that of his poet friend, Wordsworth.” Comment on this
statement.

9. SUMMING UP

“Kubla Khan” and “Dejection: An Ode”, are both beautiful and thought-provoking poems
and distinctly different in their content, structure, and themes. Though both deal with the
creative process and the power of imagination, “Kubla Khan” uses symbols, metaphors, and
images to show the poet”s creative power at work while “Dejection: An Ode” talks about the
loss of that power and the resultant despair. Paradoxically however, even while exploring
what happens when the poet loses his power of creativity, the poem simultaneously shows
that agency at work in the creation of the poem.
“Kubla Khan” is a dream-like poem that describes a fantastical vision of Xanadu, the
summer palace of the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan. The poem is filled with vivid and surreal
imagery, and it uses musical language and a fragmented structure to create a sense of
fragmentation and a dream-like quality. The theme of “Kubla Khan” is the power of the
imagination, and the poem suggests that art and creativity have the ability to transport us to a
higher plane of existence.
In contrast, “Dejection: An Ode” is a more introspective and personal poem that
explores the themes of loss and melancholy resulting from the loss of the creative process.
The poem begins with a description of the speaker”s emotional state, and then goes on to
explore the relationship between creativity and despair. Unlike “Kubla Khan”, “Dejection:
An Ode” is written in a more traditional structure of the Ode beginning on a conversational
note, having a speaker addressing a person (who is absent in this case). It is an irregular ode

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having varying stanza and line lengths, rhyme and meter and uses a more simple language
which is at the same time richly descriptive.
The stress on imagination and the creative process as well as the concept of the poet
as creator in these poems are distinct features of poetry of the Romantic period. The emphasis
on the role of nature in our lives as explored in these poems is yet another feature of the
same. While both poems deal with themes of creativity, they take different approaches in
exploring this concept. “Kubla Khan” celebrates the imagination as a transcendent force,
while “Dejection: An Ode” recognizes the darker side of the creative process and the
emotional turmoil that often accompanies it especially with a constant and nagging fear of
losing the power of creativity.

10. SUGGESTED READINGS

1. Abrams, M.H., edited., English Romantic Poets: Modern Essays in Criticism, New
York: Oxford University Press, 1975.
2. Bowra, C.M., The Romantic Imagination, New York: Oxford University Press, 1961
3. Grant, Allan, A Preface to Coleridge, University of Michigan: Longman, 1972.
4. House, Humphry, Coleridge, University of California: R. Hart Davis, 1962
5. Watson, George, Coleridge the Poet, University of Michigan: Barnes and Noble,
1966.

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Unit-II(1)
(i) ‘ODE TO THE WEST WIND’
(ii) ‘OZYMANDIAS’
Percy Bysshe Shelley
K. Ojha
Ankita Sethi

1. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

This lesson is will enable you to:

• Understand and appreciate the poetry of Shelley
• Critically engage with the genre, form, themes and literary devices used by the poet
• Comprehend the attitude of the poet towards the idea of decay and mortality/
immortality
• Acknowledge the impermanence of power and glory

2. GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Shelley: Life and Works

P.B. Shelley was born on August 4,1792 at Horsham in Sussex. He was the eldest son
of a country squire, Sir Timothy Shelley, a man of ancient and distinguished race. Shelley
was the darling of his parents and his grand-father Sir Bysshe Shelley, a fabulously rich
landlord, and a gentleman. All of them had great expectations from the young boy. His father
started teaching him at an early age and his mother read poetry to him. He also began to study
Latin from the curate a Welshman named Evan Edwards. Shelley became an exceedingly
good scholar. His parents wanted him to follow his father’s footsteps as a politician, as a man
of time, as a landowner and also as a practical agriculturist in short, as a capable Sussex
squire.
Shelley wrote pamphlets in support of the Irish cause. He was tremendously
influenced by Godwin’s political thought. He read avidly and became a radical, who believed
that all religious, social, political and cultural institutions were redundant and corrupt. They
crushed man’s individuality and liberty. Society needed an overhauling. He continued to
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write pamphlets against oppressive laws and suffocating social values. His ideas were not
acceptable to the conservative authorities, and created problems for the Shelleys. Law-
Keepers were after him. He could not live in peace. His family life was made miserable by
his wife, the pretty, empty-headed Harriet, and dominating sister-in-law Eliza. Shelley and
Harriet separated. Harriet remarried but later became morbid and insane and committed
suicide. Shelley married Mary, Godwin’s daughter from his first wife. His children from
Harriet were taken away by law and were entrusted to Harriet’s father. Harriet’s death and
then the separation from his children were great blows to Shelley.
Shelley was utterly out of sympathy with the England of his days-he could not live
within the constraints laid down by the conventional thinkers and administrators in learning,
religion and morality. He wrote articles, pamphlets, and poems criticizing and condemning
social and political laws, striving at reforming the society, creating a Utopian world, based on
liberty, fraternity, love and equality, a world where there will be no oppression, no exploiter,
no cares and no anxieties. His unorthodox views were not acceptable and he created hostility
everywhere. Before settling in Italy, Shelley visited Naples and travelled in the Italian lakes.
He described his journey in his letters to Thomas Love Peacock. At Venice he met Byron. In
the splendid poem Julian and Maddalo (who are actually Shelley and Byron) he threw vivid
light upon his brother-poet. The poem is remarkable for the poetical treatment of ordinary
things. Prometheus Unbound and his great tragedy The Cenci were published in 1819. Before
the publication of Prometheus Unbound a number of poems were written by Shelley. They
were Lines written among the Euganean Hills, The Mask of Anarchy, Peter Bell the Third,
Popular songs, Rosalind and Helen. Commenting on Shelley’s early poems Stephen Gurney
in Bloom’s Period Studies: English Romantic Poets(2004) writes, “Shelley, in short, was a
seer; and despite his faith in the inexhaustible goodness of human nature, his utopian visions
were millenarian and apocalyptic. It is this mix of revolutionary politics and sidereal
perfection that makes his early poems an often incongruous farrago of contradictions.”(p.303)
According to him, it is in “Prometheus Unbound” that Shelley “ successfully integrated the
two sides of his complex nature…”(p.307)
In the year following 1821, Keats died and Shelley wrote the great elegy- Adonais.
Adonais not only mourns the death of Keats but also establishes the supremacy of death
which liberates human soul from chains of sufferings and humiliation. Adonais was followed
by Hellas which was inspired by the keen interest Shelley took in the then raging war of
Greek independence, and The Defence of Poetry an essay dealing with Shelley’s concept of
poetry and the role of the poets.

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In 1822 the Shelleys, with their friends Mr. and Mrs. Williams, spent the summer at
Lerici, on the Gulf of Genoa. Shelly enjoyed yatching in his yatch Don Juan. He also began
writing The Triumph of Life and a tragedy, Charles I, which he could not complete.
Accompanied by Mr. Williams and a sailor Shelley set sail for Lerici. On his way back to
Leghorn, on July 7 a great storm arose and the yatch capsized. After eleven days the poet’s
body was found near Via Reggio. After cremation, the poet’s ashes were buried in the
Protestant Cemetery at Rome, so beautifully described by himself in Adonais as the burial
place of Keats, and his own son, William.

3. ODE TO THE WEST WIND

K. Ojha

In Shelley’s notebook, presented by Sir John Shelley-Rolls to the Bodleian Library, this Ode
begins under the simple heading ‘October 2’. His own published note on it amounts to an
instance of his success as a weather-prophet (and Mary Shelley thought him a good one) and
a marine botanist. In the draft the much-quoted final line was in the form of an assertion; as a
question it is far superior. If any literary model was in Shelley’s mind as he wrote, it was
Coleridge’s Ode on the Departing Year, which was largely inspired by the political upheavals
of Europe. Shelley’s is so much of a personal ‘confession’ that even the withered leaves
round him are compared with his own early grey hairs.
1.
O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’ s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o ‘er the dreaming earth, and fill

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(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)

With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!
2.
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotion,
Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven mid Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine: aery surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from me head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the Zenith’s height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulcher,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!
3.
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’ s bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou

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For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!
4.
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud
5.
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!

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And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

3.1 Introduction
‘Ode to the West Wind’ is one of the best lyrics written by Shelley. It was written at Florence
in the autumn of 1819. According to Shelley’s own notes the poem “was conceived and
chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno near Florence and on a day when that
tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once wild and animating, was collecting the
vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began as I foresaw, at sunset with a
violent tempest of hail and rain, and attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning
peculiar to the Cisapline regions.” (As quoted in Bloom,1959, p.69)
The poet addresses the wild west wind of autumn and identifies his spirit with its
spirit. Ode to the West Wind consists of five stanzas. In the first three stanzas the speaker
invokes the spirit of the west wind, which is the ruler of the vegetation of the earth (stanza I)
of air (stanza II) and water (stanza III) and highlights its inevitability—its unconquerable
force. He appeals to this wild spirit-impetuous spirit- to use him as a lyre. Irene H. Chayes in
“Rhetoric as Drama: An approach to the Romantic Ode” points out that in the concluding
stanza the speaker does not ask the wind to enable him to merge his character with its own,
and become its instrument, rather he wants the wind to become him.
‘Be thou. Spirit fierce,
My spirit! be thou me impetuous one’

3.2 A Detailed Analysis

Stanza I
Shelley invokes the Spirit of the Wild West Wind. “To invoke the Spirit that is in the wind is
not to invoke the wind or the autumn only. Again the helpful analogue is in the Biblical
poetry; the God of Job is not the God of the whirlwind or in the whirlwind, but He is the God
of the whirlwind also. This also is Thou but this is not Thou. The Spirit that moves in the
west wind need not be a Spirit that moves in the west wind only.” (Bloom,1959, p.75) In
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Stanza one the unseen presence of the Spirit manifests itself in the west wind as a magician,
an enchanter, “a necromancer who also exorcises.” (Bloom,1959, p.75) Like a magician/an
enchanter he drives away the dead and dry leaves the leaves fly away like ghosts.The dead
leaves are driven to destruction but the winged seeds (live seeds) are charioted with full
protection to their dark wintry bed. The wild west wind-the tempestuous powerful wind- is
not an indiscriminate destroyer. He is a protector, a preserver also.
The first five lines of the stanza one concentrate on the theme of destruction. The
wind destroys whatever is useless and dead. The leaves are dead, they are sapped of all life,
they are ‘yellow, black, pale and hectic red’ (the colours indicate they are dying) and they are
also compared to ‘the pestilence-stricken multitudes’ they are like diseased human beings
who are on the verge of death. The breath of autumnal tempestuous wind, with its thunder
and lightning frightens the decaying leaves (leaves dead) and they flee like ghosts-they are
driven to their death-beds. Very skillfully the poet introduces another theme-man and his
relationship with nature, by comparing the dying leaves with pestilence-stricken multitudes.
The same wind gently chariots the winged seeds to their wintry bed, in the bowels of
the earth. These seeds allow themselves to be carried. They have a full potentiality for more
abundant life so they are well-protected in the bowels of the earth. They sleep peacefully in
the earth-thus they escape ‘the grounding mutable death of everything taking place on the
surface of the earth during the autumn and winter season.’ Each seed lies like ‘a corpse’
within its grave - so long the seeds don’t germinate, they are almost dead. The west wind
protects them from sure death.
In the first five lines the wind’s awesomeness and wrath have been highlighted. But
when Shelley uses ‘chariotest’ the wind’s new aspect is revealed. “The chariot, the vehicular
form of divinity when it is conveyed as man in many traditions, including Hinduism and
Judaism- Christianity” suggests ‘the divine impulsiveness of the force that drives the seeds,
that moves the cycle of life, that destroys and preserves, inexorably.’ ( Bloom, 1959, p. 76)
The second part of the stanza (line six onwards) projects the image of the preserver
and the creator. The tempestuous wind preserves the seeds (which have full potentiality of
life encased within themselves) so that his azure sister, the harbinger of spring, may help
them to germinate. The useless, the dead, the unwanted, the diseased are completely
destroyed, The west wind’s azure sister will, then, usher in a new living world. She will blow
her clarion. At the call of the clarion the soundly sleeping winged seeds will wake up, will get
out of their earthly bed and appear on the surface to have fresh air and then the ‘frosty’ earth
will be covered with ‘living hues’ and ‘odors’. The lines suggest ‘a submerged image of
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human, of quasi-Christian resurrection.’ The clarion here is not merely the clarion of
judgement (reference to The Day of Judgement), but also of a shepherdess (or a shepherd).
The azure sister (of the spring) is a shepherdess at whose call the seeds come out like the
flocks of sheep to feed in the air. The clarion will not only proclaim the end of temporal,
annual winter but also the end of the eternal winter, on the Day of Judgement, “The image is
religious pastoral”. When Shelley refers to the flocks he has perhaps Jesus Christ in mind.
Jesus is the harbinger of peace and love. ‘The sweet buds driven over the landscape prophesy
a finally redeemed nature (by implication the world) which will accompany the last change of
season’.
The final couplet joins the two parts of the first stanza:, the wind is both the preserver
and the destroyer-the emphasis is on the present, the wind is moving ‘everywhere’ implying
the prophetic call to the individual to turn now. The second and third stanzas follow the
pattern of the first. Each stanza ends with an appeal “oh, hear!” -a prayer of the I of the poet
to the Thou, the wind.
The poet describes the impact of the wind on the earth, air and water with great
precision. But the focal point of the poem, according to Harold Bloom is Thou-I relationship-
the mythmaking and the prophetic voice.

Check Your Progress

1. How are the two contrary aspects of the west wind described by the poet?
2. What image of the west wind is projected in the second part of the stanza?

Stanza 2
In the second stanza the sky is likened to a stream or an ocean (deep), thus the word
deep connects the stanza with the next one (3rd) and when the poet talks of “the tangled
boughs’ the stanza automatically gets linked with the first one. Deep also means that the sky
looks like a bowl. Exploiting the natural-phenomena of the evaporation, Shelley creates an
image of destruction and preservation. The water of the ocean evaporating, rising up, forming
clouds in the sky is skillfully presented. Shelley is describing natural phenomena through a
poetic imagery.
Thick water vapours are rising from the ocean, going up, higher and higher, and then
spreading in the sky, forming dense solid clouds. It appears that a tree has grown out of the

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ocean and its boughs and leaves have spread in the sky. The wind blows fiercely and seems to
shake “the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean” consequently the clouds are scattered in the
deep sky from horizon to the zenith’s height like the ‘decaying leaves. But the clouds are not
dead sky leaves’ they are angels of rain and lightning. Why angels? They will revive life
(natural) and give sustenance to the earth, Angels thus are associated with the winged seeds;
destruction and regeneration occur simultaneously.
The formation of the clouds from the’ dim verge of the horizon to the Zenith’s height’
is presented through the image of frenzied Maenad’s scattered, uplifted hair. The dark clouds
with accompanying storms are as terrifying as the frightening appearance of Maenad with her
loose uplifted hair. Maenad symbolises the destructive force here. Shelley through the image
of Maenad is once again presenting the wind as a destroyer. The west wind here “prophesies
a storm (a revolution) which tears down kingdoms human lives as well as trees and leaves…
The sound of the wind moving through the forest is dirge like, commemorating the death of
the year. The year and all that lived with it are sepulchered by the blackening dome of the
storm-driven sky, the association being manifold but here, especially political mainly.”
(Bloom, 1959, p. 81)

Check Your Progress

1. Analyze the image of destruction and preservation created by the poet.

Stanza 3
The impact of the wind is felt both by the peaceful Mediterranean and the vast
Atlantic, The Mediterranean is lulled by the gentle waves and is dreaming of the glory of the
ancient Greece and Rome. ‘The calm of the Mediterranean idealizes the best of the past’. The
outward appearance of the sea is the reminder of’ a graciousness and peace that is Elysian
and that can be found in this life at its best movements.’ The reflection of old palaces and
towers in the crystal-clear calm water of the sea are his summer dreams. The old palaces and
towers are the emblems of once despotic power, but now they have been subdued and
mellowed, have become ‘that regret for what has passed and is passing’.
The Mediterranean is rudely awakened by the west wind from its dreams. Even the
great Atlantic is terrified. The waves of the Ocean cleave themselves into chasms to allow the
wind to move without any hindrance. The sapless foliage, plants, flowers and woods,
growing inside the ocean, on hearing the thunderous voice of the wind, grow gray and shake

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with fear and drop themselves - they surrender to the might of the wind. The poet appeals to
the wind to hear him. But the wind is so much engrossed in its’ activities that the poet’s
appeal goes unheeded.
Reference to summer is significant in this stanza. Summer is over, it is autumn which
will soon be followed by spring. The present is thus linked with the past as in the first stanza.
The present autumn also refers to the future spring when all the gloom will disappear and
there will be resurrection, rejuvenation of life.
By implication (in the first three stanzas) Shelley asserts that only a radical revolution
can destroy the values, ideas, institutions and beliefs which have become useless and which
have chained human beings. This revolution will be a blessing for it will lay down the
foundations of a Utopian world. The wind-the uncontrollable, powerful and fierce wind -
becomes the symbol of the revolution, Shelley, the visionary, had always dreamt of it.
In these stanzas “Shelley has also established the supremacy of the wind over the
earth, the sky and the ocean and highlighted the ferocious and destructive nature of the wind
as well as its power of preserving life.” He concentrates on “thou-I’ relationship and realizes
that Thou is both a destroyer and the preserver. It is omnipresent and omnipotent. Shelley’s
‘I’ has been persistently appealing to the ‘thou’ of the wind,’ Oh, hear! In the next stanza-he
has to make a choice-either he should surrender himself to the wind as an object for it to
experience (like a leaf, a cloud or a wave) or to command the wind to be one with him.

Check Your Progress

1. How does the west wind-the uncontrollable, powerful and fierce wind-become
the symbol of the revolution?
2. Comment on the ‘I-Thou” relationship.

Stanza 4
He realizes that his enthusiasm for a change in the world for the welfare of mankind
has been subdued by the adverse circumstances, yet he is not fully ‘dead’. The ‘spark’ is still
there-it only needs to be enkindled. The poet, the reformer, the dreamer in him is still alive.
He continues to address the wind as Thou (in stanzas 4+5) and also recognizes his
human situation. He cannot be it like the leaf, the wave and the cloud to be carried away by
the wind-his ‘I’ needs the wind’s protection. The poet asserts that he is not an object - a thing
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without emotions, feelings, intellect, understanding and imagination. If he were a dead leaf, a
swift cloud or a wave, he would have surrendered himself to the powerful wind and allowed
it to lift him up, throw him around and share its might. But he belongs to human species-
hence he has been an active participant in humanity’s successes and failures. As a young boy
he has been as uncontrollable as the tempestuous wind and had always challenged it, tried to
outstrip it, but now he has fallen on the thorns of life and is bleeding. Is Shelley indulging in
self-pity here? Or is he drawing our attention to the failure of the French Revolution, to the
set-back received by the freedom fighters in Europe and also the mass movement of the
workers which ended in a massacre? Being a radical, a rebel, a visionary, and a fighter for
human liberty, he is upset at the sufferings of human beings at the hands of anarchists, tyrants
and tyrannical institutions (religious, political, social and educational). Out of disgust and
despair he appeals to the wind.
Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf and a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy chain of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee......
The tone of the stanza is a little bit subdued. Shelley the poet-who was “once like
thee’-uncontrollable-and who often competed with the ‘speed’ of the wind in his boyhood
days has been ‘chained’ and ‘bowed’ by hours, has fallen upon the thorns of life and is
bleeding-the “depth of the protagonist’s alienation ‘from the indomitable spirit of the wind is
highlighted”. When Shelley says that he has fallen upon the thorns of life and is bleeding, he
is presenting himself as a Prometheus, Orpheus and Jesus figure.
’In this Ode the song that breaks in the fourth stanza has lost in timelessness,
swiftness, pride, when it rises again in the final stanza, but it has gained ‘a deep autumnal
tone, sweet though in sadness’. (Bloom, 1959, p.85)

Check Your Progress

1. ‘Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf and a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy chain of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee...’. Explain.

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Stanza 5
The myth-making (that is Thou-I relationship between the west wind and the poet)
takes a new-shape in the final stanza. In this stanza the wind is still thou for the poet, but the
poet’s / has almost changed into it and so in the concluding stanza he first identifies himself
with the forest trees. What Shelley implies here is that the dead thoughts (despondent
thoughts) have crippled him and symbolically he has become ‘useless’ or ‘dead’ like a leaf, a
wave, and a cloud. He desires the wind to destroy all that is not required, remove this
despondency so that his prophetic voice is not subdued.
Harold Bloom explains the stanza five thus: “The thoughts are dead only in that they
have also become it, they are poems already written. But the l (spirit) of the poet is not yet
dead, nor is it to be submerged in the wind... when the poet says ‘Let your spirit be my spirit’,
he implies that the impetuosity, and energy of the wind may be his, and ‘my message may be
your message’. As the Prophet needs God and God also needs the Prophet, the poet needs the
wind as the latter needs the Poet. No mystical merging into a larger Identity but mutual
confrontation of two realities is what is involved here.” (Bloom, 1959, p.87)
Let the aeolian harp (lyre) of the forest be combined with the ‘mighty harmonies’ of
the wind’s spirit for producing ‘the deep autumnal tone’. Both the Poet’s spirit and the spirit
of the wind must join together to sound ‘the trumpet of prophecy,” before the clarion is
blown by the spring. What’s the prophecy?
If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
And thus Shelley in his “Ode” has achieved his goal - he has made the ‘thou’ of the
wind, ‘I’ of the poet.
.......Be thou. spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one.
The Oneness has been achieved.
The visionary poet in Shelley has established a rapport with the Spirit of the Wild
West Wind/This coming togetherness will sound ‘the trumpet of the prophecy’, the poet’s
words will be scattered among mankind. The voice of the wind will be the voice of the poet
himself and the un-awakened earth (not yet aware of its liberating power) will wake up and
then winter would disappear forever and spring-joy, happiness, liberty, love, equality and
brother-hood will reign the earth.

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Check Your Progress

1. How does the Thou-I relationship between the west wind and the poet, take
a new-shape in the final stanza?
2. What kind of togetherness does Shelley envisage with the Spirit of the wild
West Wind?
3. ‘If winter comes, can spring be far behind?’. Analyze this line in the
context of the entire poem.

4. OZYMANDIAS

Ankita Sethi
4.1 Introduction
An unconventional sonnet in the iambic pentameter, Ozymandias deals with crucial themes
like role of art, the idea of decay and mortality. Like the poet who rejected religion and defied
social conventions, the poem also defies the set pattern of a sonnet. Shelley formed his own
rhyming scheme for the poem which was a radical innovation in his day. The poem follows
ABABACDCEDEFEF rhyming scheme which is a far cry from the traditional one. The poem
is also unconventional because sonnets are usually written by the men who profess their love
in the form of verse and the subject in such traditional sonnets is the beloved. This poem
takes Egyptian King/Pharaoh Ramses the Great, the Greeks knew him as Ozymandias. He
was considered as one of the most powerful and eminent ancient Egyptian King.
4.2 Critical Analysis
Lines 1-8
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
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The poem starts with narrator’s recollection of a memory of a traveller who came from an
ancient and exotic empire. The traveller told him a tale of desolation and ruined state of the
empire which used to be great. In the second line ‘two vast trunkless legs of stone’ vividly
depicts the derelict and broken statue of a seemingly great man who is unknown to both the
narrator and the reader. Near by the statue, its head, ‘a shattered visage’ lay ‘Half sunk’ in the
sand. The narrator appreciates the sculptor who carved it out of the stone. The sculptor was
deft and perceptive enough to understand visage’s emotion and imprinted it with the same
passion. Shelley also comments on the romantic ideal of the timelessness of art. Here, the
poet/reader knows about the statue not because of the sculptor but because of the statue’s
symbol as an art that lasts forever.

Check Your Progress

1. What does the title refer to?
2. Elaborate upon the kind of feelings that words like ‘frown’, ‘wrinkled lip’
and ‘sneer of cold command’ induce?

Lines 9-14:
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

The next verse or sestet informs the reader about the identity of the shattered and sunken
visage in the previous verse or octet. The noble language of the inscription instantaneously
reflects megalomania (obsession/delusion about one’s power) and vainglory. The treatment
could be seen in a way which inspires awe in the same way epic poetry does. The statement
by Satan in the great epic, Paradise Lost, ‘Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven’
serves as an example of such psyche. The very next line immediately negates the idea with a
powerful irony. The king who so proudly boasted his achievements that others would despair
at his feet, was laid waste by time and history. Ozymandias’s once great empire was reduced
to nothing. The poet shows decay everywhere and the great statue of the ‘supreme Egyptian

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emperor’ is now but a colossal wreck. Here Shelly comments upon the ephemeral nature of
civilizations where everything is bound to be lost into oblivion. The statue which was symbol
of strength and power is now humbled. The great civilization of Egypt is long gone and only
crumbling vestiges of the old empire remains.
The poem also acts like a double metaphor. The first one symbolizes political
metaphor. During Shelley’s time, King George III was the ruler of Great Britain. He ruled
longer than any monarch before him and was quite oppressive as the country was involved in
many militaristic conflicts around the world. Shelley abhorred the idea of such an oppressive
regime and thus the poem was written as a scathing criticism of unchecked power. Influenced
by the ideals of French Revolution, Shelley voiced his criticism against monarchy. Through
this poem, he comments upon human pride and the downfall of monarchy; no matter how
great it is, time and history will ultimately level it. The second metaphor acts on a general
level, for the didactic purpose of reader. The broken statue of Ozymandias also symbolizes
the pride of humanity. The proverb, “pride comes before fall” fits rightly as Shelly asserts
upon its short and glorious life followed by its decline and eventual ruin. Pride is also an
emotion which is manifested in violent ways. It must also be noted that Shelley believed in
peaceful protest as opposed to violent protests. Thus, the reader can understand his
disapproval of anything that incites violence.

Check Your Progress

1. Comment on timelessness of art in context of this poem.
2. Comment upon the poem as a metaphor.
3. “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my works, ye Mighty,
and despair!” What do you understand by these lines?

4.3 Works Cited:

1. Bloom, Harold. Shelley’s Myth Making. New Haven: Yale UniversityPress,1959.
2. Chayes, Irene H. “Rhetoric as Drama: An Approach to the Romantic Ode.” PMLA, 79
(March 1964): 67-79.
3. Gurney, Stephen. “Byron and Shelley.” Bloom Period Studies: English Romantic
Poetry. New York: Chelsea House, 2004.

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Unit-II(2)

(i) ‘ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE’

(ii) ‘ODE ON A GRECIAN URN’
(iii) ‘ODE TO AUTUMN’
John Keats
Mary Samuel
Ankita Sethi

1. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

The lesson will enable you to:

• Understand and appreciate the lyric form of poetry- the Ode
• Critically analyze the three Odes by Keats prescribed for your study

2. GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Keats’s adopted ode form in place of narrative form as it gave him an opportunity to invoke
the spirit of the ‘object’ described and identify his I with the spirit. “Like prayer, lyric
apostrophe addresses the other in the hope that the act of speech will lead to communication
between the “I” of the poet and the presence invoked...The Odes’ unforced quality comes not
just from the spontaneity with which they were composed, but Keats’s discovery of a form
which is built on tension between what is and what might be. The very nature of the lyric ode
assumes the subject and object are not one. Keats’s complex urges to affirmation, questioning,
and doubt are allowed full and unselfconscious play by the Odes’ clear distinction between
speaker, object addressed, and reader. The admitted subjectivity of the genre is the basis of
the Odes’ hard won objectivity.” (Barnard, 1987, p.98)
Keats’s famous Odes appeared in Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, and Other Poems
published in 1820. In this collection of poems Keats seems to concern himself with the
attitude of the Victorian public who were influenced by Bentham’s theory of Utilitarianism
towards poetry. The Benthamites ridiculed poetry because it had no utilitarian purpose, and
propagates unprofitable idealism. In many of these poems Keats shows the conflict between

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the visionary or imaginary world and the actual mundane life on this earth.” Whatever we see
‘imaginatively’ is short-lived for the perplexed or retarded mind is forced to come back to the
actual existence.
Compared with “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, the “Ode to A Nightingale” is a more mature
and complete poem. John Barnard writes, “Its tensions between flux and stasis, process and
annihilation, being and non-being, are integral to structure and meaning. Means and end
match perfectly. With consummate ease, the ‘Nightingale’ plays backwards and forwards
between the spontaneous song of an actual bird and the poet’s conscious and deepening
reflections. Neither a goddess nor an object, the nightingale allows for an unforced
meditation, an internal dialogue which is simultaneously an exchange between human and
non-human.” (Barnard, 1987, p.108)
Keats is always concerned with felt experience and common experience for he is a
poet of sight. His Odes “are not about landscape, but about figures and people, and are
concerned about how it feels to be puzzled and pained, yet joyful and ecstatic.” His ‘essential
experience is the Oxymoronic realization that the pain is indivisible from joy.” (Barnard,
1987, p.112)
In order to write the Odes he made certain adjustments in the stanzaic forms. He
experimented with the sonnet. He invented a stanza which allowed thought-to be developed
across several stanzas without losing ‘the interwoven and complete’ (Keats’s words)
character of the sonnet. Keats refashioned the sonnet form to suit his requirements in the
Odes. The ten-lined stanzas are formed with the combination of a quatrain (abab) and sestet
(generally cdecde). The quatrain gives an anchor to the verse and the sestet provides enough
room to the verse to expand. In ‘Ode to A Nightingale’ the line eight has been shortened
while in `To Autumn’ a septet has been used in place of a sestet.
The figure of personification gives vitality to inanimate objects or abstractions.
Autumn is given a subtle personification—’conspiring with the sun,’ sitting careless on a
granary floor.’
Keats has also used alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds) and assonance
(repetition of vowel sounds) in these Odes. The musicality of the Odes is o ften
dependent upon the sound sequence and very often they reinforce in sound the sense
which the words express. The sound of insects is clearly present in the nasal on and n
and in the s sounds of “murmurous haunt of flies on the summer eves” as is the
effervescence of wine in the explosive bs of “beaded bubbles winking at the brim”

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(“Nightingale”). The knobbly bark of the trees, the weight of the fruit and crispness of
apples may all perhaps be felt in enunciating “moss’d Cottage—trees” (`Autumn’).

Check Your Progress

1. Why did Keats’s adopt the ode form in place of narrative form?
2. How did Keats refashion the sonnet form to suit his requirements in the
Odes?
3. Give examples of personification and alliteration in the poems
prescribed for you.

3. ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE

Mary Samuel

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk.
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
`Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, 5
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 10
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!

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O for a beaker full of the warm South! 15

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 20
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, 25
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 30
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night; 35
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster’d’around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 40
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

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But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Where with the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild: 45
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
And mid-May’s eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 50
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 55
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod. 60
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 65
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 70

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Forlorn! The very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! The fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! Adieu! Thy plaintive anthem fades 75
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now ‘tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep? 80

3.1 Introduction
The “Ode to A Nightingale” was written in May 1819. The speaker (the poet) is
overpowered by the spontaneous melodious song of a Nightingale, he hopes to follow it into
the forest dim, leaving behind the spectacle of human death, suffering, fret and fever, and
die so as to perpetuate the ecstatic moment. The poet on the viewless wings of poesy
moves into ‘the eternal realm of song’ and is able to feel the charm of the embalmed
beauty of nature and experience and visualise the magical effect of the song of this
immortal bird not only on himself but also in remote times on Ruth, Kings, Clowns and the
maidens imprisoned in the castles located on the shores of perilous seas. The poet is
transported to a world of eternal joy and immortality, his return to actuality is very shattering.
The nightingale impresses upon him the consciousness of his own mortality and sharpens the
contrast between sensation and thought. The poem also highlights the contrast between the
raptures of the bird’s song and consecutive reasoning of the perplexing and retarding “dull
brain.” Like the “Ode to Psyche” this ‘’Ode on a Nightingale” extols the autonomous power of
imagination which can create ‘beauty as a compensation of the life’s losses’. The bird’s song
also reveals how beauty consists of ‘the ecstasy’ of fulfilment as well as the “plaintive
note” of disillusionment. If Keats suspects the power of visionary experience in the “Ode to
Psyche”, in this Ode he is unable to sustain the ecstasy of that experience till the end of the
poem and he is forced to return to the actual world, from the realm of fancy. The ending of
the poem—Do I wake or sleep—undermines the poet’s song-inspired visionary flight and
casts doubt on the whole nightingale episode.

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3.2 Summary
Keats listens to the song of the nightingale. He feels extremely happy at its happiness. He
experiences an aching pleasure (pleasure felt as pain) on listening to it. He seems to have
forgotten his surroundings. The poet longs for a cup of wine to escape into the happy world
of the nightingale. He is then acutely reminded of the tragedy of human life -- the fever and
fret of life. Keats then seeks the help of poetic imagination. With Poesy, he finds himself
transported into the world of the nightingale which has all the beauty of early summer. His
happiness is intense and he is completely lost in that happy world. The pleasure that he feels
is so rich and true that he wants to make this luxurious moment a permanent one. So he
yearns for death. ‘It is rich to die’ in that temporary heaven. It would be a luxurious
experience for him because the nightingale is singing in ecstasy and he would die listening to
it. Thus death would become a boon, a positive, healthy experience for Keats now. Soon he
realizes the impossibility of the fulfilment of his desire. The idea of death reminds him
strikingly of the immortality of the bird (its song), nature’s music as contrasted with human
mortality (change and decay). The nightingale is immortal in the sense that its song knows no
death. The beauty and joy of the nightingale’s song do not change with the passage of time.
Its song is the same today as it was heard ages back, by kings and peasants, by Ruth, the
Moabite woman in the days of the Old Testament and by princesses in forlorn fairy land in
the middle ages of magic and romance. So the song of the nightingale knows no historical or
geographical limits. The closing of the 7th stanza with the word ‘forlorn’ wakes him up from
the world of poetry. He realizes that he cannot escape from the realities of the world as easily
as he had desired and pretended to. He bids the bird good-bye and imagines the bird fading
away into distant lands. The poet returns to the realities of life, somewhat dazed – ‘Do I wake
or sleep?’. He is uncertain what is real—the little happiness that he was lulled into or this dull
life he was living.

Check Your Progress

1. In what sense is the nightingale immortal?
2. Why does Keats think it is ‘rich to die’ while listening to the nightingale’s
song?

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3.3 Stanza-wise Summary with Study Notes

Stanza I
Keats describes here the effect of the song of the nightingale upon his mind. As the poet
listens to the song of the nightingale, his heart aches, it is a feeling experienced due to
excessive joy at the bird’s song. That is so say, the happiness that he shares is so intense
that it becomes an aching pleasure, a pleasure felt as pain.
The poet feels that a numbness creeps over him—that his senses have been paralysed
as if he had taken some sleep inducing drink (narcotic) like hemlock or some sedative drink
made from opium. This again is due to excessive happiness at the bird’s song, the joy that
he feels overpowers his senses. In a minute the poet seems to forget his surroundings and is
rapt in the song of the nightingale. He feels as if he had sunk into Lethe (the river of
forgetfulness in Greek and Roman mythology, one of the rivers of the underworld or Hades).
The souls of the dead, according to ancient Greek belief, had to drink from Lethe
before they entered the Hades, the home of the dead.
The aching pleasure that the poet feels is not because he is envious of the bird singing
so joyously but because he feels too happy in the happiness of the nightingale. The result is
that he is completely lost in it.
The poet loves the bird as it sings like a Dryad (wood nymph) who is supposed to be
the presiding deity of the forest in Greek mythology. The poet regards the bird as the spirit of
joy that is found in the woodland world. The poet imagines the nightingale to be a spirit of the
wood-land singing of the glories of summer so spontaneously in some “far off scene, of
woodland mystery and beauty”.
Melodious green: a green plot of ground, overgrown with beech trees and
resounding with the melody or music of the bird’s song.
Shadows numberless: light and shade falling upon the grassy plot as the light of the
sun filters through the foliage of trees.
Singest of summer: Probably it was due to the drugging effect that the poet felt
as the poem was written in the spring season.
Full throated ease: a rich and condensed expression. Like an expert musician, the
nightingale is straining her throat to the fullest, yet the song is not strained but natural and
spontaneous.

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Check Your Progress

1. How does ‘The Ode to a Nightingale’ open?
2. What is a Dryad? What is its point of comparison with the Nightingale?

Stanza II
The Poet shows an intense desire to escape or pass into the delightful world of the
nightingale, leaving the miserable world of the Man. He seeks the help of wine to affect
this escape.
Keats longs for a draught of the richest wine, rare old wine cooled in the deep
cellars of the earth for long years. It should be rich with the romantic spirit of the spring-
season when festivities are held in honour of Flora, the goddess of spring, by the grape
gatherers in the warmer regions of Southern France (Provence).
In other words, the wine that the poet would like to drink, should be rich with its
associations of the rustic and merry making activities like song and dance held in honour of
Flora in the country green (the village common) by the sunburnt Italian and French grape
gatherers.
Italy and Provence being in South of Europe are comparatively warm hence the
natives of these regions are ‘sunburnt’ as we Indians are. People in South regions of
Europe are more cheerful and romantic because the climate itself is inspiring these
qualities.
Warm South: wine prepared in the warm regions of Italy and Provence. The poet does
not want ordinary wine, but one rich in contents and distilling all the romantic associations
and spirit of the warm southern regions especially of France and Italy. The greenness of the
happy earth, the sweetness of the flowers, the mirth and mystic of the sunburnt children of
Provence. All things should combine to add to its flavour, taste and delicacy.
Blushful: red. Note that good wines are generally colourless. But the poet, to indulge
his taste for rich colours, must have it red.
Hippocrene: Greek word for the fountain of Horse. A fountain on Mt. Helicon in
Greece, is said to have arisen where Pegasus kicked Helicon. It was sacred to the Muses

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who preside over all arts and poetry. Its waters were said to be capable of imparting
poetic inspiration. Here it means stimulant of fancy or poetic inspiration.
Beaded bubbles: bead like bubbles.
Winking...brim: it is a graphic description of the idea of effervescence. As old, well-
fermented wine is poured into a glass or beaker, bead like bubbles rise to the brim of the
glass and then burst and disappear.
Purple stained mouth: the mouth of the glass or its brim is stained purple with
the frothy wine.
The poet desires for a beaker full of the wine of the fountain of Hippocrene with
the bubbles I shining at the surface and even the mouth of the beaker may be stained
with the purple or red colour of the wine.
Note: “The poet desired wine as a means of escape from the pain of his own
thoughts and of the world”. By drinking the wine Keats hopes to be absorbed wholly in the
nightingale’s song and thus be happy with the bird in the shady wood.
These lines bring out clearly one of the characteristics of Keats as a romantic
poet—his sensuousness.
We have an abundance of sensuous imagery in this stanza where the poet expresses a
passionate desire for some Provencal wine or wine from the fountain of muses. The original
and highly expressive phrases like “blushful Hippocrene, ‘beaded bubbles winking at the
brim’, ‘embalmed darkness’, ‘are highly pleasing to the sense of sight and sense of taste.
Matthew Arnold says, “Keats as a poet is abundantly and enchantingly sensuous”.

Check Your Progress

1. What kind of wine does the poet wish to drink? And why?
2. Comment on the imagery.

Stanza III
Pain and misery of life is depicted. The stanza starts with the poet’s intense longing to
escape from the world of pain and misery and to become one with the bird and its happy
woodland life. In the very effort to forget his own misery or melancholy, Keats remembers

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only too acutely, the universal tragedy of human destiny, the ills that assail life from all
quarters sparing neither age, nor sex nor beauty. Man suffers from boredom, disgust and
despair, from irritation and feverish excitement. Misery is widespread. People helplessly
hear each other groan. All those things which we value most—youth, beauty and’, love-are
subject to disease and decay. A thinking person is subject to grief and trouble. Keats feels
bitterly that Love and Beauty, -the two things that he desired most are short-lived. The
thought of it fills him with sadness.

Check Your Progress

1. Why does the poet long to escape from this world?

Stanza IV
Gloomy thoughts about human destiny are soon dismissed together with the possibility
of wine as an escape from them. Soon, the vehicle of flight is no longer wine but poetic
fancy or imagination- ‘viewless wings of poesy’. He is already with the nightingale among
the branches of trees in a summer garden hidden from the light of the moon who like a fairy
queen holds her court in the sky surrounded by her courtiers i.e. the stars. [Poetic imagination
helps the poet to pass from the real world to the ideal world.] Although the moon is shining
in majestic glory in the sky, it is only when the night breezes sway the branches and part the
leaves that the gleams of moonlight somewhat lessen the darkness under the trees full of
green foliage and along the zigzag moss-covered paths between them.
verdurous glooms — the green shadows of the forest
heaven — the (moonlit) sky
Note: Poetic fancy is a state of mental exaltation.

Check Your Progress

1. What does Keats consider as the ‘viewless wings of poesy’?

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Stanza V
The poet is already with the bird in the forest in imagination. The place is dark but filled with the
perfume from the flowers growing on the bushes around his feet. Though he cannot see,
from the scent emanating from the flowers he can guess what flowers are at his feet or what
blossoms are above his head. He can feel more than the sensory eye can see. The
atmosphere is filled with the sweet fragrance of flowers. From the sweet smell he can name
several flowers and plants that bloom there. He calls the darkness ‘embalmed darkness.’ He
guesses that the white hawthorn, the eglantine, the violet, the wild fruit trees, the first flower
of mid-summer (middle of May) the musk rose which is soon to blossom and which is full of
dew and honey to which the buzzing bees are attracted by its fragrance, are around the place.
Soft incense: a delicate, soothing perfume (A reference to the sense of smell).
The seasonable month: the month which is favourable to the growth of season’s
flowers (Spring).
Pastoral eglantine: .a kind of wild rose which grows in country places.
Fast fading violets: short lived violets.
musk: a substance with a very strong smell, obtained from the male musk deer and
used for making perfumes.
Mid-May’s eldest child: the first flower to bloom in the middle of May,
The coming musk rose: the musk rose with the fragrance of musk which is about
to bloom. This was most probably written in early May.
Dewy wine: full of dew and honey (dew drops in the cup of the flower are
referred to as wine by the poet).
Murmurous haunt: haunted by flies or bees with a murmuring or buzzing sound.
embalmed darkness: The whole darkness of the garden has been made fragrant by
the flowers of the season (darkness filled with a balmy fragrance). Embalmed is also
associated with death.
Stanza V shows the delighted response to the sensuous beauty of the physical world.
The poet is not describing what he actually sees around him. He tells us explicitly that there is
no light for him to distinguish the flowers growing on the ground from the blossoms on the
trees and hedges. He can only guess what they are from their scents.

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Notice that ‘soft incense’, ‘embalmed darkness’, ‘dewy wine’, ‘seasonable month’,
are word pictures. Only Keats who is abundantly and enchantingly sensuous can convert
incense and perfume into something virtually solid. In this stanza we can say he has woven
scent, warmth, colour, taste and sound into a texture of unforgettable beauty.

Check Your Progress

1. How does Keats use scent, warmth, colour, taste and sound to create a
texture of unforgettable beauty?

Stanza VI
While listening to the song of the nightingale in the dark, the poet feels that it would be ‘a
luxurious experience’ to die at such a moment, to fade away from existence without
suffering any pain at the mystic hour of midnight while listening to the rapturous and
ecstatic song of the nightingale. In fact, the poet wants to perpetuate this moment of
enchantment, and ecstasy. It will be rich to die now for the nightingale’s song will be a
funeral prayer for Keats and he will die listening to it. The nightingale would go on singing
even when he is dead and can no longer hear it.
Note: By the end of this stanza human and nightingale’s worlds have been entirely separated.
Call’d...names: have addressed him by many endearing epithets.

Check Your Progress

1. What kind of death does Keats wish for in this stanza?

Stanza VII
The idea of death gradually brings him back to reality. The process starts in stanza 7 and
ends in stanza 8.
The poet calls the nightingale an immortal bird. The nightingale has now been
transformed into a symbol of its race and the song of the nightingale heard by countless
generations over centuries is symbolised by its permanence. The- poet here means that the

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song or voice of the nightingale carries the same freshness and music as it did in the past
and it will continue to do so in future (though this particular bird will die).
Generations of nightingales follow one another, and they remain immortal in their
songs, their song is as sweet and charming today as it was in ancient days, in the Bible-
history or even in .fairy romance.
Immortal bird: The epithet is justified if the nightingale is taken as the type and
symbol of its race.
No hungry...down: the bird is not crushed to death in a savage struggle for
existence such as is waged in human society.
The song of the nightingale that the poet now hears is exactly the same song that
was heard in ancient times. It is this characteristic that makes the poet give the title of
immortality to the nightingale. The bird’s song opens. the flood-gates of the poet’s memory
and takes him into the far-off age of legendary romance. It is the same song that the
nightingale has been pouring out since the beginning of the world, the same song which in
ancient days must have been heard by king and peasant alike; the same song which Ruth
heard when she stood sad and lonely in the cornfield of a strange land; the same song to hear
which maidens dwelling in magic castles, must have opened their casement windows in
desolate fairy lands. The magical effect of the song has been highlighted.
These castles are built on rocks of stormy seas in forlorn fairy land. The song of the
nightingale must have cheered the heart of a disconsolate princess held in duress by her
demon lover.
this passing night: to-night. -
emperor and clown: the greatest and the humblest. Clown here means common
person.
the sad heart of Ruth: A reference to the story of Ruth in the Old Testament.
Ruth, a woman of Moab, was married to a Jew in Moab whose father had come from
Bethlehem of Judea. After her husband died, she migrated with her mother-in-law Naomi
to the distant ancestral land of Judea i.e., Bethlehem. There she began to glean corns of
barley left by the reapers in the field of Boaz, a distant relation of her father-in-law. He
treated her kindly and afterwards married her.
The Bible story does not say that Ruth was homesick or sad, but this would be
natural even if the sense of duty to her mother-in-law had led her to leave her home.
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sick: pining, longing.

alien corn: foreign fields as she migrated from Moab.
The poet explains why he considers the nightingale immortal.
In Romantic stories like Arabian Nights, we hear of enchanted castles in which
princesses are imprisoned in magic castles and their magic windows open on the
stormy waves of a wild sea; opening and shutting automatically by magic. As the
nightingale passes over the enchanted castle singing its magic song, windows open of
themselves to allow some imprisoned princess to hear its song.
fairy lands forlorn: some far off deserted uninhabited lands of the fairies
or legendary countries of romance as in the Arabian Nights.
forlorn: solitary or deserted.
“These two lines condense the whole world of romantic imagination and conjure
up by their suggestion, the very world of romance. In all poetry, there is no better
expression of the spirit of romance than these lines”.
We see the voice of the nightingale is made immune first to history then to
geography; it can establish a rapport with dead generations or fairy lands.

Check Your Progress

1. Why does the poet call the nightingale an immortal bird?
2. Who is Ruth?

Stanza VIII
The mood of exaltation is over. The use or thought of the word `forlorn’ acts as a rude
reminder to the poet of his own forlorn or solitary condition (Mention of the world ‘forlorn’
has broken the spell of imagination). The word has brought him back to reality. It is just like
the tolling of a bell that reminds him of some forgotten work. It reminds the poet of the
realities of life which he had forgotten on account of the nightingale’s song.
The poet finds that after all the powers of fancy are exaggerated. Man cannot ignore
the sad realities of life even with the help of fancy or imagination. As the spell of imagination
breaks, the poet feels that the bird has flown away and he bids good-bye to the nightingale.
He is disappointed in man’s imaginative faculty, which is commonly believed to have great
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powers of making people forget themselves and their surroundings. In his case, the spell of
imagination has been short lived, he is already awake to the sad realities of life.
The poet is not sure whether he had been seeing a vision in sleep or dreaming while
awake. “Was it a vision of a waking dream? Fled is that music. Do I wake or sleep?” There is
at least one clear change in the situation. He has ceased to hear the nightingale’s song. How is
he to explain this?
plaintive anthem: song full of complaint. It refers to the legendary story of the
nightingale. Her human name was Philomel. They were two sisters. Her elder sister
married and went off with her husband. But she loved her so much that she sent back
her husband to fetch Philomel. On the way, he raped her and to conceal his secret, he
cut off her tongue. The gods turned her into a nightingale, and she goes about pouring
out her complaint against that injustice.

Check Your Progress

1. How does the ode end?

3.4 Summing up
Ode to a Nightingale contains the spirit of romance and is extremely passionate and sensuous
in its descriptions and expressions. The sensuousness of Keats should not be misunderstood
for delight in cheap sensual pleasures. Keats’s sensuousness is in fact a higher conception
of beauty. He presents the details with such expressions that the reader’s eyes, ears and
other senses perceive and appreciate and feel what he describes.
The descriptions of the poet’s desire for a cup of cool Provencal wine tasting of
flowers, dance and sunburnt mirth and his longing for a beaker of the warm southern wine
which would inspire him like the water from the fountain sacred to the muses (Hippocrene)
are highly sensuous and appeal to the reader’s sense of sight, and smell. Equally pleasing to
the senses is the description of the flowers and plants in the embalmed darkness of the
forest and of the white hawthorn, fast fading violets, mask rose, mid-may’s eldest child etc.
These are concrete pictures which the reader can see easily with his inward eye and derive
an aesthetic satisfaction.
Allied to his sensuousness is the love of nature, again an aspect of romanticism
revealed in this poem. The Nightingale’s song is dear to the poet. Nothing can surpass the
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delicate beauty of the heavenly light that falls when blown by the breezes, on the ‘verdurous
glooms’ and ‘winding mossy ways’. In this ode as in several others, we find a note of
sadness, in the background of the music of Nature and Art. Melancholy is again a romantic
quality. Stanza III depicts the pain and misery of life and transitoriness of the things we value
most—youth, beauty and love. Keats sees this in contrast to the happiness of the
nightingale’s world.
The last three lines of the Stanza VII, “The same that oft times hath/Charmed magic
casements, opening on the foam/Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn” breathe the spirit of
romance. Keats’s love of the sensuous luxury of the medieval atmosphere is also visible
here.
It may also be noted that the poem is highly self- revealing which is again a romantic
quality. With all these qualities, the poem finds a responsive echo in the hearts of the
reader.
The poem is an expression of an intense personal mood of the poet, a sense of pity for
himself (presented obliquely) and sympathy for humanity, and as such it possesses much
human interest. It expresses a familiar mood, a desire for death, for release from this worldly
life of sorrow and struggle, from fever and fret of this life into the world of the nightingale
which to the poet is a world of lasting peace and happiness, of music, joy and beauty. Thus we
get a painful contrast between the world of Man and the world of the Nightingale. The world
of the Nightingale appeals to the poet for it is a world of richness and beauty, of deep
sensuousness and of natural loveliness.

4. ODE ON A GRECIAN URN

Ankita Sethi

4.1 Introduction
Written by John Keats in the year 1819, the poem Ode on a Grecian Urn describes the
curiosity and fascination of the speaker for the Grecian urn. The poets raises a number of
questions on themes like art, beauty and immortality. Inspired by his visits at the British
museum and witnessing the aesthetics of the Grecian urns, the poem idealizes beauty as the
highest and the eternal truth. The images on the urn and its depiction by the poet, represent
the complex nature of art and the innate contradictions.

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4.2 Critical Summary

Stanza 1
Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

The poem begins with Keats addressing the Grecian urn as ‘the unravish’d bride of quietness’
which immediately establishes the urn as an object to whom poet’s reflections are directed. In
the first stanza, the poet is speaking to the urn and addresses it as an offspring of silence and
slow time. The urn is a result of an artist’s skill and creativity on a piece of stone. The aging
process of earth is much slower and in a way it projects the illusion of ageless continuity,
whereas art itself exists on a plane which is beyond the temporal. Thus, the poet sees it as an
eternal object of art unaffected by decay. The poet also addresses it as a Sylvan Historian, the
etymology of this word comes from ‘Silvanus’ the Roman god of forests. It has been
addressed as a peaceful and pleasant historian who is recounting a tale of a distant past
through pictorial language on its body. Keats plays with the ambiguity of the narrative and
represents a mere ambiguous outline of men chasing women. It must be noted that ancient
Greece wine jars also called amphora, depict many mythological and legendary tales
including chase and seduction of women by men.

Check Your Progress

1. What has the urn been referred to?
2. How does the urn become an object of poet’s reflections?

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Stanza 2
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

The theme of ambiguity develops further in this stanza. The writer does not define the images
in the strictest sense and reiterates his approach with the same subtlety. ‘Heard melodies are
sweet, but those unheard are sweeter’, connotes that anything that attracts our physical senses
is definitely beautiful and sensuous, but the ones that appeal to our soul or deeper
consciousness are invisible to the senses and are metaphysical in nature. The ode’s focus is
mainly on art, beauty, love, transcendence and eternity. These ideas are enumerated in the
second part of the second stanza when he addresses the bold lover who cannot kiss his
timeless beloved as she exists beyond the temporal plane, the same way the Grecian Urn
exists. However, the urn represents art as timeless, whereas the beloved represents love or
lover as eternal. Keats also subtly conveys paradox as a meta-narrative; the lover cannot kiss
his beloved, thus unable to bring fruition or consummation of their love, it stays eternal. In
the same way, in the first stanza, the pictures of men chasing women convey motion and yet
they never seem to get hold of any of them. Both are representations of objects/ideas frozen
in time.

Check Your Progress

1. What is the relevance of the phrase ‘those unheard are sweeter’ in context
of the poem?
2. How has the beloved been compared to the urn?

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Stanza 3
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

The poet keeps addressing things and people so as to bring the wider themes to the reader. In
the third stanza Keats talks to a tree who doesn’t bid the Spring adieu by holding on to its
leaves. The imagery of frozen in time is maintained throughout and especially in three lines
which repeatedly use words ‘forever’ referring to the paradoxical and timeless idea of art,
beauty and love as symbolized in the ‘unheard melodies’. However, a novel paradox arises;
since everything is timeless, everything is youthful and motionless. This living-death
confounds Keats and he tries to reach a resolution in the next stanza by introducing a new
perspective.
Stanza 4
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore

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Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

Keats now turns his focus to the idea of sacrifice as expressed in the paintings by Claude
Lorrain and Raphael. The poet imagines the crowd of citizens and speculates whether such a
place exists outside the realm of art. He now challenges art itself for its limiting beliefs but
arrives at a conclusion that one can never ascertain the credibility, location or existence of the
subject concerned. Thus, the questions remain without any possibility of a definite answer.
Stanza 5
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
Thus, Keats comes back to subject of his poem, the Grecian urn and declares it being a work
of timeless art. Since it is timeless, it is cold and distant from mortal and ageing human
beings. Its existence as an object of eternity is incomprehensible to the mortal beings. Despite
that, it was shaped with emotions by a human being and the urn will be able to instruct
humanity like a ‘historian’. It becomes an ambiguous task for the reader, to find whether in
the conclusion, the Grecian urn is a mouthpiece of the poet who explicates his philosophy or
is simply recounting romantic ideal ‘beauty is truth, truth beauty’. In fact, one doesn’t really
know if it is Keats interacting with the urn or if it is the reader interacting with the work of
art.

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Check Your Progress

1. What according to the poet is the function of art?
2. What did you understand by the concluding lines of this poem?
3. What do you understand by ageless continuity in context of the poem?

5. ODE TO AUTUMN

Mary Samuel

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy. hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

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Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,
—While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

5.1 Introduction
In his spring Odes written in 1819 Keats deals with the themes of the inevitability of
change and death. He reveals that we can imaginatively create a world of permanent joy
and beauty, but this visionary world is not `eternal’, since imagination or poetic fancy is
a deceiving elf. We are soon transported to the real world of mutability, hardships and
changeability. The theme of inevitable change is once again taken up in the To Autumn.
The pictures of warm autumn with its stubbles inspired Keats to write “To Autumn”. The
poet graciously accepts the beauty of Autumn without probing the meaning of its
transience.
For Keats, “Autumn is the time of fulfilment, plenitude and harvest. The whole
poem is structured in answer to the question posed at the beginning of the third stanza,
“Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?” This powerful threat to the
celebration of autumn calls up the alternative image of autumn as the melancholy precursor

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of winter and death. The Ode’s reply is silently argued through its images and its plot. The
annual cycle of the seasons, the movement from rebirth to death, is as natural to man as it is
to nature. Without autumn’s movement into winter there could be no spring. Human and
natural life are intrinsically tied to the pattern of the change and renewal. Autumn’s beauty is
particular, to itself, dependent upon the fact that it is neither winter, spring, nor summer.
Hence thou hast thy music too.” (Barnard,1987,p.138)

Check Your Progress

1. What according to John Bernard is the basic theme of ‘To Autumn’?

5.2 Critical Summary

Stanza-1
The poem consists of three stanzas, each depicting a particular aspect or picture of autumn—
its beginning to its end. The plot develops from the pre-harvest ripeness (stanza one) to the
contented country side human beings busy in ‘harvesting’ (stanza two) and concludes with
the poignant emptiness following the completion of the harvest. Each stanza shows one
phase of autumn and nature in a different relationship to mankind.
The opening line—“season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”—sums up the character
of autumn. Autumn is a ‘productive’ season, a season of ‘ripeness’ and ‘maturity’—
‘mellowness’. And its mists herald the approach of cold and damp winter season. The first
stanza is loaded with meanings. Autumn is “the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”,
conspires with the “maturing sun” to fill “all the fruit with ripeness to the core.” The sun
and the Autumn are “close bosom friends” so they secretly conspire to fill the fruits to the
core. The maturing sun may be considered a male figure and “Autumn” a female—they
mysteriously conspire to overload fruit and flowers. There is no indication of the presence
of human beings although the thatch eves, the moss’d Cottage-trees, gourd and bees point
to the houses of the inhabitants who might have planted these trees earlier. But it is the
mysterious conspiracy of the sun and the autumn which loads and blesses with fruit the
vines, bends the cottage-trees with apples and fills all fruit with ripeness to the core. The
poet has predominantly used tactile imagery to highlight natures’ strange power to “plump”
and “swell” the vegetable world. Thus the first stanza is crammed with images suggesting
plenitude and fullness of vegetation—“load”, “bend”, “swell”, “plumps”—we get an insight
into the fullness and ripeness to the core—of the hazel nuts. The seemingly endless budding
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of flowers is also a result of the conspiracy. The bees are befooled. They think that the
summer will never end as if they pay no attention to the mist. “For summer has o’er
brimmed their clammy cells.”
The scene of stanza one is a cottage garden. The intimacy of the setting is suggested
by “close-bosom friend” and by the image of the bees’ clammy cells. It appears to be “a
small, tightly knit world.”

Check Your Progress

1. What is the setting of stanza-1?
2. What aspect of Autumn is portrayed by the various images used in this
stanza?
3. Who are the “close bosom friends”?

Stanza-2
There is mobility in time and space as we go from stanza to stanza The poem moves
outwards in space and time. The first stanza also suggests morning and space with the
reference to mists, but in the next stanza we come across the languor of mid-day heat. From
the cottage the poem moves to the wider, yet limited, span of space—to the fields, the
granary, the cider press etc. The second stanza concentrates on human activities associated
with the ripeness and abundance of the autumn. In the early hours of the day—nature has
been actively engaged in producing abundant fruits, flowers and warmth. Now it is noon
time. Autumn is presented ‘as four figures completing harvest tasks.’ This stanza is the
greatest example of personification in English poetry. Autumn is seen assuming the shape of
people in various scenes typical of the season—winnowing, reaping, gleaning, cider-
making. With that intimacy and concreteness of detail Keats presents Autumn! The last
four lines are fine instances of enactment. Autumn now figures as a gleaner who is
seen stepping across a small stream with a bundle of corn on her head. The very
movement of the gleaner can be visualised in the words, ‘keep’ and steady’.
The first figure is perhaps that of a woman, ‘sitting carelessly on the granary floor,
Her hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind’. ‘Soft’ is used to frame a compound world—
soft-lifted, once again we have soft in the third stanza “soft-dying day.” ‘Soft is a word of
harmonious warmth.’ The second figure is presumably that of a man who is asleep “on a
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half-reaped furrow” “drowsed with the fume of the poppies.” He is so much drugged that
he cannot finish the job. If the two figures are pictures of the “blissful lethargy,” the third
one—a gleaner (apparently a woman for women and children usually did the gleaning when the
reaping was completed) is pictured walking on the bridge across a brook, trying to balance
herself so that the load on her head does not fall down. The last figure could be a man or a
woman. The figure is patiently and leisurely watching the oozing from a cider press. ‘All
these figures are ordinary human beings at their autumn occupations.’
It is interesting that the reaper is depicted with “a hook not with a scythe. This
description associates the figure with the eighteenth-century portrayals of Autumn as a man
with a sickle, while the poppies in the cornfield `suggest the presence of Ceres, the Roman
goddess of corn and harvests.” (Barnard,1987, p.139) The reaper is sound asleep not
because he is exhausted with work but because he is drugged by poppies “is arrested in
mid action in reproach for the necessary destruction of the beauty of ‘the next swath and
all its twined flower.’ That is why with the exception of the gleaner, other figures are
inactive and satiated.” ( Barnard,1987,pp.139-140).
The stanza two stresses the role of nature. The wind not only winnows. the grain, but
also idly lifts the sleeper’s hair, the poppies drug the reaper, the cider-press’s “last oozings
hours by hours” seems to be ‘more accomplished by the fruits themselves than by any
human intervention. Human labour of harvesting is dependent on nature’s generosity for its
accomplishment. The stanza abounds in visual imagery—pictorial presentation of activities.

Check Your Progress

1. What is the setting of stanza-2?
2. Which human activities are described in this stanza?
3. How is Autumn personified in this stanza?

Stanza-3
In the third stanza we move towards evening and setting sun and our attention is focused on
the distant land and the sky.’ The shift is from human beings to autumn’s music. The
stanza takes us to the evening when we observe the “barred clouds bloom the soft-dying
day/And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue.” It is not `a maturing sun’ of the morning

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it is the soft-dying day—the time sequence runs from morning to evening, from early to late
autumn, from the maturity of the fruits on trees to the gathering and reaping of
harvest, to the evening when only stubbles are left in the fields—on the plains. The
sounds of non-human life could be heard. The music of autumn ranges from “the wailful
choir of gnats” to the bleatings of “the full-grown lambs”—the music includes ‘the sounds of
natural life, beyond man’s control and the animals reared by human beings. The robin
whistling from a “garden croft” is something between the wild and the tame. Swallows
twittering away indicate the temporary loss of something beautiful they build their nests in
buildings to which they return annually, but now they are flying away.’ If swallows remind
us of the pattern of loss and return which governs both human and non-human life, the full
grown lambs represent ‘the inevitable return of spring and renewal of life.’ In the third
stanza the auditory imagery has been used. Commenting on the third stanza Brian Stone
says “The poem lifts from the serenely swelling and sweetening of the insides of fruits, nuts
and flowers in the first stanza, to the human efforts to store the autumnal plenitude made
possible by nature in the second stanza. In the third stanza it must lift again, not only to
universalise and consolidate these two experiences, but to take the reader into the acceptance
of autumn’s essential farewell, with its suggestion of death…. Keats’s device for this is two-
fold: he opens out from the local human scene of the second stanza to the natural perimeters
of the English rural world, with its skies, clouds, winds, hills and rivers; and he does this
largely, but not exclusively, by sound symphonies which complement the visual symphonies
of the second Stanza”.
In the first four lines of the stanza two or more senses have been synthesised. The
“rosy” reflection of sunlit evening clouds (the barred clouds) can be seen on the stubble-
plains. Their visual effect is described as `music’ associating it with the first, two lines. To
this ‘imagined music’ is added the music of mourning gnats, full grown bleating lambs,
singing crickets, whistling robins and twittering swallows. Twitter and whistle-the two
onomatopoeic words make the last lines more poignant with “the notion of departure and
possibly death”. Thus, we see in the third stanza, the music of Autumn is introduced in a
scene of sun set glory. The little birds, the small insects, the gurgling brook, the whistling
winds, the gentle breeze, the bleating lambs, in short small and big things of Nature are
instruments of music and contribute their share in Autumn.

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Check Your Progress

1. What is the setting of stanza-3?
2. How is the evening described?
3. What do the swallows and the lambs represent?
4. ‘…thou hast thy music too’- explain in the context of stanza-3.

5.3 Poetic Devices

In To Autumn Keats has added a line to the ten-line of the Spring Odes and made a couplet
before the final line. The poem uses eleven-line regular iambic pentameter rhymes in each
stanza. The rhyme scheme is abab cd ed cce. The poet gives ‘a rounded power’ to the rhythm
of each stanza statement in the poem, the whole of which is unassailably tranquil. The
language is simple, more mono-syllabic and Saxon, full of vowels and clusters of consonants,
so one has to go slowly. Beginning with the phrases such as “close bosom friend,” “mossed
cottage-trees”, with a sweet kernel to “until they think warm days,” we have ‘a meditative
slowness of utterance’. The poem appeals to the senses, it is ‘made up of the sights, sounds,
scents and particular feel of things which Keats evokes.’ ‘Alliteration is used effectively. `P’
sound in stanza one suggests ripeness to the core and fullness to bursting, ‘f” and ‘w’ sounds
are used for the light wind in the next and ‘z’ sound in ‘oozings’ brings before our eyes the
picture of juice of the apple dripping drop by drop slowly and leisurely into the vessel from
the cider-press. Keats deliberately ends a line with a little pause to stress the opening of the
next line.
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook.
The-pause after ‘keep’ and the emphasis on “steady” make us feel the efforts of the
gleaner to balance herself and to save herself and her bundle from toppling into the water.
The rise and fall of the cloud of gnats synchronise with the rise and fall of the verse at the
end of one line and beginning of the next.
Among the river swallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies.
The poem uses concrete images and personification has been used with great subtlety
creating an intimate relationship between the season and the poet. Autumn, being a close
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bosom friend of the conspiring sun, loads, blesses, bends, fills, plumps etc. It is a benevolent
deity blessing the earth with plenitude. In the next stanza Autumn appears as human beings
engaged in various activities. The poet addresses Autumn in the third stanza “think not” of
“the songs of springs “for” thou hast thou music too”. But by the time we reach the end of
the poem the Autumn flies away like the frittering swallows. “The nostalgic effect is created
with the description of the ‘soft dying day’ and the end of the season. But the note of
hope for the renewal is also implicit for the swallows will return in due course of time,
the revolution of the seasons is a continuing process.”

Check Your Progress

1. What is the rhyme scheme of the poem?
2. Write a note on the effective use of imagery, personification and
alliteration in the poem.

5.4 Study Notes

Stanza I
bosom-friend: intimate friend.
Maturing: ripening, bringing to fruition or full growth.
conspiring: joining together.in a plot, used here playfully. The plot here is to bring about
a profusion of fruit and flower.
bless: the word indicates the beneficent quality of the sun and the season to endow
vines and trees with fruit and plants and creepers with flower.
vine: the creeper that bears grapes.
thatch-eves: over-hanging edges of the thatched roofs.
core: centre, inner-most part, the fruit is fully ripe, not half ripe.
L.7. Note the careful selection of the words, ‘swell’ to describe the round shape of the
gourd and ‘plump’ to suggest the softness and juiciness of the hazel nut.
plump: used here as a verb meaning to fatten.
hazel: hazel nuts.

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kernel: Soft, edible part inside the hard shell of hazel-nut.

later-flowers: summer, the season of flowers is over, but early Autumn is still warm
enough for flowers to bloom.
clammy: sticky.
Stanza II
careless: relaxed, free from cares.
L.15. Autumn is sitting at ease in her granary.
winnowing: it is the process by which grain is separated from the chaff after
threshing, that loosens the chaff from the grain.
soft-lifted: moved gently by the breeze.
LL 16-17. Autumn is seen in another aspect. Autumn is out in the field where the
corn is being cut.
half-reaped: half cut (corn) with a sickle.
drows’d: put to sleep. Poppies are often found growing with the wheat. Autumn half-
way through reaping is over-come with the fragrance of the poppy flowers, and falls asleep
on the furrow. Opium is extracted from the poppy flowers—here the fragrance of the
poppies is shown having a sleep producing effect.
Furrow: long, deep cut in the ground made by a plough.
hook: sickle for cutting the corn.
swath: ridge of grass, barley wheat etc. lying after being cut.
L-18. Half the corn is cut on the furrow, the rest with which the poppy flowers are
twined are spared for the moment while Autumn has fallen asleep.
LL.19-20. Another activity of harvesting is described here. Autumn has been busy
gleaning. Gleaning is the gathering of the ears of corn that are left behind after reaping is
complete. Peasant women gather for their own use what the reapers have left behind.
Autumn, seen as the gleaner here carefully walks with the bundle of corn on her head,
over the stepping stones or a narrow bridge across the little stream, on her way home. A
lovely picture of a woman balancing a load on her head.

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L.21-22. Here the poet takes us where the ripe apples that have been gathered are
being squeezed in a machine to make cider (drink made from apples) Autumn is seen
patiently standing and waiting, watching the last drops to fall from the cider-press (machine
for pressing juice from apples) into the vats where they are collected.
L.22 Note the slow, lingering movement of the line: ‘Thou watchest, the last
oozings hours by hours.’ There are six long sounds here and only four short. You really get
an idea of the long and patient waiting of the Autumn standing by the cider press, watching
the last drops of the juice slowly falling one by one.
Stanza III
barred clouds: streaky clouds, clouds that gather at sunset in long lines or ‘bars’
above the west. Clouds through which the sunrays pass.
bloom: touch with colour, a beautifully suggestive word evoking memories of
flowers.
Soft-dying day: long twilight of northern climates is referred to here. The twilight
lingers and fades away slowly, not suddenly as in the tropical regions where the darkness
descends as soon as the sun sets.
the stubble plains: the fully reaped fields left with only the stumps of the wheat
plants sticking up after the harvest. Their yellow and brown colour is made rosy by the
touch of the soft rays of the setting sun, giving • them a beauty and a warmth Keats
described in his letter to Reynold.
wailful choir: the mournful orchestra of nature. The music i.e. the sounds of late
Autumn are described in clear and concrete terms. The sounds of the gnats, full-grown
lambs, hedge crickets and the red-breasts and swallows are not joyous but sad and low.
Hence wailful choir.
sallows: a kind of low-growing willow tree. The willow is a symbol of mourning and
the mournful sounds of gnats produce the effect of sadness.
Lines 28-29 the sound is carried by the breeze and comes to the ear by fits and
starts. Borne aloft: carried over.
sinking: fading out, becoming inaudible.
bourn: boundary The lambs are bleating in the distance where they are enclosed for
the night in their pens.

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hedge crickets: insects like grass-hoppers that chirp in the hedges.

treble: high-pitched sound.
the red breast: Robin red breast, a common bird in England; brown all over except
for a red patch on the breast. It does not migrate.
garden croft: a small, enclosed garden adjoining a house.
Line 33. The line indicates that this is the end of Autumn. The approach of winter is
clearly shown by the swallows getting ready to migrate to the warmer southern climates
for the winter.
5.5 Summing up
To Autumn, the last of the great Odes of Keats, is a superb specimen of analysis. In the
three stanzas Keats describes three stages of the season. Early, mid and late Autumn is
described with a wealth of details and with rich imagery. In the first stanza he presents
before us a wealth of details of the objects seen in Autumn with great clarity and
concreteness. The second stanza is the greatest example of personification in English poetry.
Autumn is seen assuming the shape of people in various scenes typical of the season—
winnowing, reaping, gleaning, cider-making. The third stanza captures the music and
beauty of Autumn.
5.6 Work Cited:
1. Barnard, John. John Keats. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1987.

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Unit-III(1)
FRANKENSTEIN
Mary Shelley
Dr. Neeta Gupta

1. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study material is to:

• Introduce you to the author with a special emphasis on aspects from the author’s life
that have a direct bearing on the novel.
• Familiarize you with the circumstances surrounding the writing of the novel
especially the various developments taking place in the scientific world.
• Acquaint you with a new genre of writing, namely Science Fiction.
• Explain the gothic elements in the novel and help you understand why it is a gothic
novel with a difference.
• Help you identify the myriad other issues in the novel that are philosophical, social,
moral and even psychological in nature.
• Bring to the fore the amazing relevance of the novel even today.
• Facilitate you to appreciate the novel in all its complexity.

2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Shelley was the daughter of two very famous radical intellectuals whose seminal works
have become landmarks in their respective fields of thought. Her mother, Mary
Wollstonecraft, was a pioneer in the feminist movement and her work A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman (1792) had jolted the patriarchal world out of its complacency. In this work
she argued vociferously for women's education, their independence and an overall
improvement of their circumstances. Mary Shelley's father, William Godwin was a
philosopher who revolutionized political thought through his study entitled An Enquiry
Concerning Political Justice (1793). Here he argued for an ideal state along the lines of the

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French Enlightenment thinkers. His political treatise was translated to fiction in a later work
by him called Caleb Williams (1794).
Being the daughter of such eminent radical literary personalities, it is not surprising
that Mary Shelley would give the world a work which would become a cultural myth and a
point of reference to explain man’s predicament, his aspirations and his limitations in all
times to come.
Mary Shelley was born on 30th August 1797 and her mother died within ten days of
giving birth to her, out of complications arising from childbirth. Within a year William
Godwin married Mary Jane Clairmont, a woman who was not Godwin's intellectual equal.
She had two children of her own.
Though Mary’s stepmother looked after all her physical needs, yet she could not
channelize her intellectual curiosity. She did nothing to encourage her reading but rather
decided that she had no need to go to school and could very well study at home. Even though
Godwin recognized his daughter's intellectual superiority as compared to her sister Fanny or
Mrs. Clairmont’s children, yet he too fell in line with Mrs. Clairmont and agreed that Mary
needed no formal education. So, Mary Shelley never went to a school but her innate
capabilities and the strong desire for intellectual stimulation found sufficient gratification in
the numerous books in her father's library and in the company of his friends such as Charles
Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The favourite pastime of this child of famous
personalities was to write stories.
The conflict-ridden relationship between Mary and her stepmother worsened over
time and ultimately Godwin decided to send his daughter off for a long stay with a family
acquaintance in Scotland. This was the Baxter family and Mary was shipped off to them in
1812. With the Baxters however, Mary had her first experience of a loving and close-knit
family where members depended on one another for emotional sustenance and followed the
right values in their lives. Mary came to idealize the bourgeois family as 'a community of
emotionally dependent, equally respected and equally self-sacrificing individuals' (Anne
Mellor, p.16). Her experience with the Baxter family was to have an important influence in
the writing of Frankenstein and particularly in her portrayal of the De Lacey family. In fact,
in her 1831 'Introduction' to the novel she recalls these times in that particular context.
On November 10, 1812, Mary returned to London for a visit that lasted seven months.
It was during this visit that she met Percy Shelley, who was the latest addition to her father's
circle of friends and admirers. Shelley was accompanied by his wife Harriet and a sister-in-
law too but that did not deter this good- looking and flashy young man to be drawn towards
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Mary who was extremely beautiful at sixteen. In addition to her exceptional beauty, she
carried within her the legacy of her parents’ extraordinary intelligence, a sharp poetic
awareness and a commitment to revolutionary ideals. The two eloped to France on July 18,
1814, and took Mary's stepsister Jane along as a chaperone. Percy Shelley, educated at Eton
and Oxford and having published works like The Necessity of Atheism and Queen Mab, never
considered Mary’s literary talents as equal to his and assumed the role of her guide in these
matters. He controlled her reading and studying and together the two would sometimes spend
hours reading and discussing various works. This had an important bearing on the revisions
of Frankenstein by Shelley.
The trio (Percy, Mary and Jane) toured various parts of France, Switzerland, Germany
and Holland. Mary kept a journal for these days and wrote long letters home to Fanny,
describing the innumerable places they visited. Later, a published account of their travels
came out of these letters and journal entries. The descriptions of the beautiful and sublime
landscapes in Frankenstein were witnessed and experienced by Mary and she dwells
extensively on them while writing the novel. On September 13, 1814, they returned to
London.
After Mary’s elopement her father had broken off all contact with her and refused to
communicate with her even when she returned to London. He continued, however, to
persuade Jane to return home. Percy's wife Harriet, who was six months pregnant at that time,
sued him for financial support and demanded legal guardianship for her children. Percy fell
into financial difficulties and was pursued by his creditors for the next eight months.
Meanwhile Mary conceived her first child. As her pregnancy advanced and it became
difficult for her to accompany Percy on his walks and visits, he began moving towards Jane
for company and the two often left Mary at home while they went out together.
Percy’s ‘harem psychology’ and his proclamations of ‘free-love ethic’ made it easier
for him to flit from one woman to the other. Earlier he had even invited his wife Harriet to
join his group when he was travelling around Europe with Mary and Jane. Harriet of course
had refused in disgust. Percy tried to encourage Mary to have an affair with his Oxford friend
Thomas Hoggs. But, as Anne Mellor has observed, what Percy was trying to do here was to
work out a ‘sexual quid pro-quo’ (p.30) with Mary — her affair with Hoggs for his affair
with Jane. Mary tried to do as her husband desired but only got increasingly annoyed with the
situation and particularly with Jane. Her daughter was born two months premature and did
not survive. Percy conveniently left the job of consoling Mary to Hoggs and went about his
daily life taking Jane as his companion.

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Mary went into depression after losing her child. Childbirth for her became associated
with death. She had caused her mother’s death when she was born and now her own child had
died and she blamed herself for it. She became increasingly anxious about ever being able to
create life. Her experience with childbirth too had an important bearing on the writing of
Frankenstein as the novel has been read as a story about Mary’s own anxieties about
pregnancy and childbirth. After losing one daughter Mary gave birth to a healthy baby boy
William, on Jan 24, 1816.
Jane meanwhile had begun pursuing Lord Byron and the trio set off for Switzerland to
stay with the renowned poet. Byron and Percy immediately became good friends and Byron's
house at Villa Diodatti became their home for some time to come.
It was at Villa Diodatti that these friends decided to write one ghost story each to pass
the time. In her 1831 'Introduction' to the novel, Mary admitted that Frankenstein was a part
of that ghost story contest. The year 1816 saw the birth of Mary’s son William but the same
year ended with two suicides. Fanny Imlay, Mary's half-sister, committed suicide in October
1816 and Percy’s wife Harriet killed herself by drowning in the month of December.
After Harriet’s death, Mary and Percy Shelley married immediately. This led to
reconciliation between Mary and her father. All these events that took place in Mary's life
form a backdrop to the writing of Frankenstein because while these things were happening on
the personal front Mary was busily writing her novel. The theme of parental irresponsibility,
which is a major concern of Frankenstein, stems from the behaviour of both William
Godwin, her father and Percy Shelley, her husband. Their irresponsibility towards their
respective offspring was in sharp contrast to the close bonding that Mary had witnessed and
experienced while staying with the Baxters in Scotland.
Her third child Clara was born in September 1817 and Frankenstein was published
the following year. The first published version of the novel did not carry the author's name. A
'Preface' by Percy Shelley led readers to assume that the novel was written by him. The
couple left for Italy and were constantly on the move despite the ill-health of the two
children. Finally, both William and Clara succumbed to illness and died. In 1819, the only
surviving child of Mary and Percy was born and was named after his father Percy Florence
Shelley. But just two years later tragedy struck again when Percy Senior drowned in the Gulf
of Spain. Mary was heartbroken and returned to London. She never remarried and continued
to write. She even edited her husband's Poetical Works and his Essays. She died in London at
the age of fifty-three on February 1, 1851.

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Her Works
Mary Shelley was a prolific writer and began writing from a very young age. Her writing
covered a variety of genres including essays and reviews, travel writings, mythical dramas
and biographies. The short story was also a favourite form of writing with her and she was a
regular contributor to ‘Keepsake’ Annuals. Some of her stories show her preoccupation with
the issues she had tried to tackle in her novel Frankenstein. Notable among these are her
stories ‘Transformation’ (1831), ‘The Mortal Immortal’ (1834) and ‘The Mourner’ (1830).
The theme of monstrosity, immortality, scientific invention, the role of domestic affections is
variously taken up in these stories.
Mary Shelley was deeply concerned with the role of the family and domestic
affections and what happens if man alienates himself from these positive influences. She had
dealt with the theme in Frankenstein and deals with it again in her later novels Valperga
(1823), The Last Man (1826) and Perkin Warbeck (1830). Her other novels include Mathilda
(written in 1819 but published posthumously); Ladore (1835) and Falkner (1837). These later
novels are concerned with the father-daughter relationship. The family and its values are
upheld once again but with a critical eye on the circumscribing of those women who do not
look beyond the family circle.
The most well-known and the most enduring of all Mary Shelley’s works has of
course been Frankenstein which she referred to as her ‘hideous progeny’ when she bade it to
go forth and prosper. The future showed it prospering all right. A second edition came out in
1831 and carried a lengthy ‘Introduction’ by Mary and revisions to the 1818 text. Since that
time there has been no looking back. Innumerable editions, stage productions and film
versions have turned Mary Shelley's novel into a cultural myth. It is now an essential reading
for understanding the nineteenth century as well as understanding the modern consciousness.

3. INTRODUCTION

It is amazing how a story written in the nineteenth century, by a nineteen-year-old girl, as part
of a ghost-story contest could carry within it such astounding relevance for the times to come.
Frankenstein has become one of our most enduring cultural myths. It has emerged as a
metaphor for the modern consciousness and a grim reminder of the human predicament in a
world that relies more and more on scientific inventions that often go out of hand. Even two
centuries after the novel was first published, its popularity has not waned as each successive
generation of readers has located within it a frame of reference relevant to its own time. The

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book lends itself to various readings, the most recent among them being the feminist readings
of Frankenstein.
This was not always the case, however, initial responses to the novel were mixed,
ranging from William Beckford calling it ‘the foulest toadstool that has yet sprung up from
the reeking dunghill of present times’ to Sir Walter Scott’s admission that he preferred
Frankenstein to any of his own romances (The Blackwood’s Magazine, 1818). As the
readership grew, so did the interpretations and responses to the novel and the various re-
workings of it in stage productions and films. Today it would be next to impossible for any
first-time readers to approach the novel without having preconceived notions about it. These
notions may have their source in either a film or a stage production or even just hearsay. The
extent to which the actual text may have been embellished or improvised is evident from the
fact that those of us who may not have read the novel, believe that ‘Frankenstein’ is the name
of the monster that a mad scientist creates. The factual reality of the text however is that the
monster is nameless and it is the scientist who is called ‘Frankenstein.’ Interestingly enough,
the error that accompanies this popular conception is the first indication of the ambiguity and
the ambivalence that characterizes the novel. What has withstood all improvisations and has
defied time, however, is the continuing relevance of the novel for any age and all
circumstances. It is difficult to believe that a slip of a girl could have looked so far ahead into
the future and been able to warn successive generations of the dangers that lie buried within
individual aspirations. Aspirations that fail to see the monstrous consequences of their acts.
One is surely intrigued to know how such a novel came to be written.
3.1 How Frankenstein came about
It was in the summer of 1816 that a group of friends ensconced in the Villa Diodatti in
Switzerland, decided to pass their time reading and telling stories about ghosts and super-
natural matters. This group of friends included Lord Byron (to whom the Villa belonged),
Percy Shelley, Mary Godwin (not yet married to Shelley), Mary’s stepsister Jane and Byron’s
personal friend and physician John Polidori. It was at one of the tale-reading sessions that
Byron suggested they each write a supernatural tale.
In her 1831 ‘Introduction’ to the revised edition of Frankenstein, Mary traces in some
detail the events that were linked to the conception of the idea of Frankenstein and the
writing of it. When the idea for writing a ghost story was floated, Mary recounts how she was
the only one whom the creative inspiration eluded. As she recalls:

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‘I felt the blank incapacity of invention which is the greatest misery of authorship,
when dull Nothing replies to our anxious invocations: “Have you thought of a story?”’
Not only was her contest at stake, more importantly her claim to an intellectual
heritage was at stake too. This minor event became a platform where she had to prove herself
worthy of her heritage as well as prove her intellectual worthiness as Percy's companion. Her
literary capabilities were never thought to equal those of her parent’s or her lover’s and in this
group of eminent literary personalities like Byron and Shelley, she had to struggle hard to
come up with something that would be worth a consideration. Finally, she writes in her
‘Introduction’:
‘I busied myself to think of a story -- a story to rival those which had excited us to this
task. One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken
thrilling horror -- one to make the reader dread to look around, to curdle the blood and
quicken the beatings of the heart’.
Inspiration for such a story still eluded her until one night, after having listened to and
participated in a discussion about galvanism and Dr. Darwin’s successful experiment in
causing a piece of vermicelli to move voluntarily, she had a ‘waking dream.’ She writes:
‘My imagination unbidden, possessed and guided me ... I saw -- with shut eyes, but
acute mental vision -- I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the
thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and
then, on the working of same powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an
uneasy half-vital motion.’
She saw how the pale student of unhallowed arts felt terror after having animated the hideous
corpse with a spark of life and tried to wish it away by sleeping but is awakened. She writes
further:
‘. . . he opens his eyes; behold the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening his
curtains and looking on him with yellow, watery but speculative eyes.’

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With the coming to life of that ‘horrid thing’ Mary Shelley’s ‘hideous progeny’ is
born!

Such was the genesis of Frankenstein. An idea was born in the creative unconscious
but we must not forget that the immediate occasion for writing the novel involved not just a
desire to write a compelling ghost story that would ‘curdle the blood’, but also lengthy
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discussions on serious intellectual issues concerning the developments going on in the

scientific world as well as on the political matters arising out of the French Revolution whose
aftermath had not been forgotten or put behind as yet. Mary Shelley's Monster therefore lends
itself to scientific as well as political and social readings. As we discuss the novel we will
realize that a lot more has gone into it than just the contemporary scientific and political
scenario. An intellectual temperament inherited from her parents and nurtured by her husband
considered the various seminal texts from the world of literature and philosophy as well.
Milton, Rousseau, Locke, Burke, Plutarch, the Enlightenment thinkers, the Romantics,
Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft — all these and many more writers, philosophers and
thinkers lend their ideas in the shaping of the story. The same, however, are affirmed and
upheld or subtly refuted by the young writer after being filtered through her own intellectual
processes her intellectual consciousness. It would be worthwhile to take a look at these
various shaping influences working in Frankenstein in order to see the connections it makes
with the author’s life as well as with the literary heritage and the contemporary scene.
3.2 What influenced the writing of Frankenstein?
The major influences that shaped the writing of Frankenstein fall broadly into four categories
— biographical, literary, historical, and scientific.
3.2.1 The Biographical Influences
The circumstances in the life of Mary Shelley that surrounded the writing of Frankenstein
subtly and artistically make their way into the novel and influence the presentation of certain
major concerns. The death of Mary’s mother, in childbirth, for example, leads to a near
absence of women in the story and they are mostly disaster-prone too. Childbirth gets linked
to death once again in her life -- this time with the death of her own daughter in 1815, just a
few months before she starts writing Frankenstein. The novel thus articulates the anxieties in
a woman’s mind regarding the process of giving birth and creating a new life. There are fears
whether things will go alright. There are concerns for the consequences whether the end
result will be good. For Mary Shelley, the dominating concern was whether she will ever be
able to give birth to a healthy child. Feminist readers and critics such as Ellen Moer have read
the novel as a ‘birth myth’ and also seen it as reflecting Mary Shelley’s own birth as an
author.
Another off shoot of biographical circumstances is that of parental neglect. In her own
life Mary had borne the brunt of Godwin’s indifferent parenting as a child. Later she
witnessed and experienced a similar insensitivity from her husband Percy towards their
children. This leads to an extremely important alternative reading of the Monster’s actions in
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the novel and one tends to sympathize with him when he says that he was not born evil, but
his creator’s as well as society’s neglect has made him a fiend. Mary Shelley’s tale carries
within it a warning for all creators to love their creations or be prepared for unthinkable
consequences.
In Mary’s own life the suicides of Fanny and Harriet once again forcibly underline the
disastrous results of paternal indifference. Both women died isolated and lonely -- one
abandoned by her adopted father and the other abandoned by the father of her children. These
suicides too form a backdrop to the writing of Frankenstein and contribute towards Mary
Shelley placing an important emphasis on the role of nurture in a child’s life. The theme of
the orphaned child, alone and unguided in this world is a direct result of the theme of parental
neglect (especially paternal neglect because mothers rarely live for long in Mary Shelley’s
novels). A number of characters in Frankenstein are orphans -- Victor, Elizabeth, Justine,
Walter and finally the Monster himself. In fact, Mary identified closely with the Monster in
this regard. Anne Mellor has traced these links in her insightful book on the works of Mary
Shelley titled Mary Shelley: Her Monsters and Her Art.
3.2.2 The Literary Influences
The genre of the Gothic and the Romantic Movement were two major literary forces that
influenced the writing of Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s Gothicism, however, differs from her
predecessors in the sense that she does away with the conventional trappings of the haunted
castles and other medieval paraphernalia and replaces it with experimental science. She
combines science with supernatural or the supra-natural to stake a claim to another branch of
literature which is known as Science Fiction. In fact, Frankenstein has been hailed as the
work that pioneered the genre of Science Fiction. Mary Shelley on her part read and
incorporated imaginatively and creatively many of the recent findings and theories of science
to write her own tale.
The novel has also been seen to be a work that has significant connections with the
Romantic Movement. This was hardly avoidable as Mary lived through that movement
surrounded by some of the best exponents of the age such as Byron and Shelley. A close
reading of the novel, however, reveals that rather than celebrating Romantic ideals,
Frankenstein emerges as a critique of the same. The literary influence of the Romantic
Movement is evident in the novel no doubt, but its presence indicates and points to all that
was wrong in this movement. Mary Shelley subtly questions the Romantic excesses of
imagination. While Romanticism glorifies the individual artist who tries to recreate the world
through his poetry, Mary Shelley points an accusing finger at him. The artist as creator, in
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trying to usurp the power of God, is no different from Mary Shelley’s scientist as creator who
too is trying to do the same. In showing the disastrous consequences in the latter case Mary
Shelley is warning the Romantics of the dangers inherent in their enterprise.
A similarly ingenious and insightful use of material from seminal literary texts is
evidenced in the title of the novel, its epigraph and its dedication. Subtitled ‘The Modern
Prometheus’ the novel immediately draws attention to the Greek myth of the great Titan,
Prometheus, who created man from clay and then stole fire from the Gods for benefiting his
creation. He was punished by the angry Zeus and condemned to never-ending labour and
physical torture. (See Maya Joshi's ‘Introduction’ to the Worldview edition of Frankenstein)
The novel’s subtitle indicates that it may be a reworking of this myth of Prometheus
and the theme of the over-reacher or the figure of the rebel against authority would play an
important role here. Given the literary setting in which the work was undertaken, it would
seem to contemporary readers that the challenge to authority would be celebrated here since
the Promethean figure was a hero for the Romantics -- both as a rebel and also as a creator.
He was a prototype of the Romantic artist who was also seen both as a creator and as a rebel.
As we move on, however, we read the epigraph from Milton’s Paradise Lost and an
interplay of another ground-breaking literary work guides our responses to the title. The
creature’s anguished questioning here casts a doubt on the romantic perception of the creator
and we are checked in our acceptance of the Romantic glorification of the Promethean figure.
At the same time, we realize that by pitting the title and the epigraph against one another
Mary Shelley has subtly and ingeniously indicated that the Romantic ideology would come
under her critical gaze here. and the novel may pose to be a critique rather than a celebration
of the same. Mary Shelley’s focuses more on the egoistic, almost misanthropic tendencies of
Romanticism. Tendencies that make men anti-social and self-absorbed which in turn lead to
their alienation and isolation.
A similar surreptitious criticism is intended in the dedication to William Godwin who
is referred here not as Mary’s father but as the author of Caleb Williams which is a fictional
rendition of his political treatise An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Political Justice. In
his above mentioned most influential philosophical work Godwin had envisioned a future
form of humanity which would be the result not of sexual intercourse but of social
engineering. He dispenses with mothers and children and envisions a world populated only
by a race of men who would be immortal. It was a thoroughly male-oriented utopia. A
‘Dedication’ normally suggests a celebration of ideas upheld by the person/s to whom the
work has been dedicated. One would expect the same here. But by placing the ‘Epigraph’
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very strategically before the ‘Dedication’ Mary Shelley has indicated her intentions of
critiquing rather than embracing Godwin’s political and philosophical ideas. Here the new
creation is crying out in anguish at being created at all!
3.2.3 Historical Influences
The late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was a time of great social and political
upheaval in Britain which in turn was the result of the inroads made into the world of science
and technology. While on the one hand technology had resulted in the industrial revolution
mechanizing human life, the scientific discoveries on the other hand were gradually chipping
away at the traditionally held age-old beliefs about God and Religion and man’s place in the
universe. The Luddite disturbances of 1811-17 were an expression of revolt by the working
classes which were feeling increasingly threatened by the technological advances that would
leave many jobless. One machine could now do the work of ten people and out of those ten,
nine stood to lose their livelihood. Thus, factories were attacked and machines were
destroyed.
The Pentridge Uprising of 1817 threatened Britain’s government with a working-class
Revolt and brought back memories of the horrific French Revolution of 1789 when just such
a revolt had ultimately led to the execution of the king. By extension this meant that the word
of God was defied since the king is supposed to be the representative of God on earth.
A large section of the people in Britain had supported the French Revolution
especially the Romantics who saw it as a sign of the beginning of a new era in the history of
Europe. The sad part is that though the intentions of the revolutionaries were good and were
aimed at overthrowing a despotic regime and replacing it with a more democratic one, yet the
path adopted was a bloody one and also, somewhere along the line, the original intentions got
blurred. This resulted in chaos, anarchy and a lot of bloodshed in the end. In fact, many
critics such as Anne Mellor and Lee Sterrenburg have read a direct analogy between the
French Revolution and Shelley’s Monster. The Monster is seen to represent ‘a gigantic body
politic... originating in a desire to benefit all mankind... but so abandoned and misused that it
is driven into an uncontrollable rage’ (Mellor, p.82).
Lee Sterrenburg points out that Shelley uses the symbolism of the French Revolution
but scales it down to domestic size. In a symbolic manner, however, her novel too points at
the social injustice that can ultimately result in revolutionary violence. The desire for reform
is greatly felt in face of social injustice and yet there is no hope of any better alternatives. The
end result of an overthrow of an oppressive regime is merely anarchy and not reform. The

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novel thus takes its cue from the French Revolution to debate upon the issues of suppression,
oppression revolt and anarchy.
3.2.4 Scientific Influences
At the centre of Mary Shelley’s novel is a scientist who creates a monster with an apparent
aim of benefiting mankind, but then abandons his creation and refuses to take responsibility
of the consequences that follow in the aftermath. Mary Shelley is here commenting strongly
on the various scientific developments and discoveries taking place around that time. Most
notable among these was the works of Humphry Davy, Luigi Galvani and Erasmus Darwin.
In fact, Mary Shelley follows Davy’s pamphlet A Discourse, Introductory to a course of
Lectures on Chemistry, very closely in writing out material for Professor Waldman's lectures
in Frankenstein. These scientists working to uncover the secret of life indulged in a number
of experiments to locate the source of that life. In his pamphlet, Davy distinguishes between
those scientists who sought only to discover and understand the secret of how Nature works
and those that sought to interfere with the workings of Nature and to alter it and control it.
Mary Shelley, while agreeing with this distinction, expresses her fear of the scientist who
seeks to control nature and applauds only the ones who seek to understand. In this respect she
admires scientists like Erasmus Darwin who constantly endeavour to understand nature. The
distinction between a good scientist and a bad scientist is therefore quite clear-cut and Victor,
who is a creationist rather than an evolutionist like Darwin, belongs to the latter group who
seeks to interfere with the workings of nature and seek to control it.
Mary Shelley was keenly aware of the developments going on in the scientific world
because of her temperament and also because of Shelley’s immense interest in the same.
Discussions on the subject were a common feature in the Shelley household and Galvani's
experiments on ‘animal electricity’ impressed them most and became the basis for Mary
Shelley’s novel which highlights the darker side of these interferences.
Galvani talked about a secret life force, ‘animal electricity’ which later came to be
known as ‘galvanism.’ He argued and partly proved that we all carry within us a vital force,
similar to electricity that animates us and gives us life. There is a difference in this electricity
and that produced by lightning. He further argued that this animal electricity was produced by
the brain and used nerves to conduct it to the muscles which in turn were animated by it. He
proved his theories by re-animating corpses momentarily and we can see where the germ of
Victor Frankenstein’s idea of animating his monster comes from. The consequences of
Victor’s creation however are a grim warning of what the future will hold if man usurps the
role of God and takes the process of creation in his own hands.
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4. A NOTE ON THE TEXT

Frankenstein has been referred to as ‘a text in process’ or ‘a novel in transmission’ because

of the time and changes it took to bring it to its present version. From the manuscript of 1816
that was written for a group of friends, to the first published version of 1818 that carried some
initial changes made by Percy and also a ‘Preface’ written by him, to the final mature
product, the second edition of 1831. The 1831 edition carried extensive revisions by Mary
and also reflected her adult views. The changes wrought in Mary’s life by her personal
experiences matured and mellowed her and the same is reflected in the 1831 edition when the
more radical elements are either revised or changed.
The 1818 edition was published anonymously partly because of the sensibilities of the
nineteenth century reader who would have been appalled to know that this ‘hideous progeny’
is of an eighteen-year-old young girl. It was turned down by publishers twice and ultimately
published by Lackington Allan and Company -- a rather obscure publisher of cheap popular
sensational books. Due to the Preface written by Percy Shelley, many thought that he had
authored the novel too. Yet because of the ‘Dedication’ to William Godwin and also because
of the social themes of the novel, many others thought that Godwin himself was the author.
When it was reprinted in 1823 the mystery of authorship was solved and the work was
acknowledged by Mary Shelley to be hers. The 1831 edition came out after a gap of fifteen
years.
In her ‘Introduction’ to the 1831 edition, Mary was careful to point out that she has
left the ‘core and substance of it untouched.’ She also points out in the same ‘Introduction’
that even though Shelley urged her to develop the idea of a ghost story into a full length
novel, yet she says ‘I certainly did not owe the suggestion of one incident, nor scarcely of one
train of feeling, to my husband...’ It was entirely her own, her ‘hideous progeny’ which she
sends into the world to ‘go forth and prosper.’ And prosper it did as we have seen in our short
estimate of its abiding relevance.

5. A SHORT SUMMARY OF FRANKENSTEIN

Frankenstein is a novel in flashback mostly, where Victor Frankenstein relates the

experiences of his life to Robert Walton, a British sailor who has found him on the icy shores
of the Arctic Ocean. The flashback of Victor’s life does not begin however till four letters
from Walton to his sister have been written. The narrative therefore follows a pattern of one

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narrative within another and as we proceed into the novel we realize towards the middle of it
that there is yet another narrative embedded inside Victor’s narration too. So, Walton’s letters
to his sister provide a framework for the story of Victor and his monster and the novel also
ends with a letter from Walton, thus completing the frame.
The first four letters inform us about Walton’s early life, his interest in the life of a
sailor and his resolve to find a tropical Paradise at the North Pole. We are given details of his
preparations for the expedition to the North Pole, his progression as he sets out on his quest
and we are brought to the point when due to bad weather conditions Walton’s ship gets stuck
in ice and he is stranded in the Ocean along with his crew.
In Letter 4, Walton catches a glimpse of the Monster riding in a sleigh. His crew on
the other hand rescues Victor and takes him on board. After talking to Victor, Walton realizes
that he may have found the friend he had yearned for all his life. Yet, he finds that this friend
is greatly agitated and disturbed. Walton informs Victor about his quest which only increases
the latter’s agitation and he tells Walton that a similar ambition had driven him to despair. He
decides to tell Walton the story of his life and we are brought to the first chapter of the novel
which launches the flashback.
Victor begins from the very beginning by giving us an account of his family
background. Starting from the moment that his parents got married, he tells of the peaceful,
affectionate domestic life they enjoy at Geneva. He recounts the inclusion of Elizabeth in the
household, of the birth of his younger brother and so on. He mentions his interest in science
and tells of his unguided reading of outdated scientists. He goes on to relate how his keen
interest in science takes him to the University of Ingolstadt where his experiments lead him to
a discovery of the secret life-force. With this knowledge he is able to animate a gigantic
human form that he has pieced together from various corpses. When his Monster comes to
life, Victor is horrified and abandons him and has a nervous breakdown himself. Henry
Clerval, Victor’s close friend, looks after him and nurses him back to health. Meanwhile, the
Monster just disappears and is not to be seen anywhere.
While Victor is recovering from illness, he receives a letter from his father informing
him of his brother William’s death. Victor is overcome with grief and sets off immediately
for Geneva. As he nears the city he catches sight of the Monster. Seeing him there he at once
concludes that he is the one responsible for William’s murder. But Justine, a member of the
Frankenstein household is held responsible. Her guilt is proved by circumstantial evidence
and she is executed. Victor, knowing she is innocent, is still unable to tell the world that the
misdeed is of the Monster’s doing. He watches Justine go to the gallows even though he is
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tormented by guilt and almost goes mad. Victor decides to go to the Alps in search of some
peace but meets the Monster face to face in the wilderness. On seeing him Victor is filled
with rage but the Monster compels him to listen to his side of the story before concluding
how much he ought to be blamed for what happened.
We are now taken back into time once again by the Monster and he relates the history
of events which took place after he found himself abandoned by his creator in a world that
was new and alien. It was also a world where people rejected and mistreated him for no
apparent reason except that he was monstrous and ugly. The Monster recounts how he hid in
a hovel next to the De Lacey’s household and how he taught himself to read and speak by
observing the members of that family. The Monster at this point is only monstrous in looks.
At heart he is kind and tries to help the De Laceys and feels great affection for them. But
when he presents himself before them, they are aghast! All their generosity, their compassion
vanish and they drive him out in horror.
On being mistreated the Monster becomes violent and burns the De Lacey’s house
down. From some papers that he has in the coat he had worn when leaving Frankenstein’s
laboratory, he comes to know of Victor Frankenstein, the man who created him. On thus
learning the identity of his creator he sets off immediately to seek him out and take his
revenge upon him. He reaches Geneva, murders William on learning who he is and
incriminates Justine. His narrative now reaches the point where Victor is listening to him and
the Monster entreats him to understand before condemning. He goes on and expresses a
desire to have a mate with whom he can share his life and thus drive away loneliness that
threatens to overwhelm him. He promises to disappear and become like his original
benevolent self if Victor creates a female monster for him, to be his companion.
Victor is swayed from his earlier hatred for the Monster and sees a point in what the
latter has related. The Monster’s demand for a companion is however loathsome but he
agrees, thinking that probably that would control and check the monster in his evil deeds. He
agrees to make a female companion for the Monster. Meanwhile, Victor’s father expresses
his wish that Victor and Elizabeth should now get married. Victor delays the marriage and
instead goes to England to accomplish the horrible task the Monster has set for him. Clerval
accompanies him without having any idea of the real reason for this trip to Britain. He stays
with him till they reach Perth in Scotland and leaving him there Victor proceeds alone to the
Orkney Islands.
At Orkneys, Victor begins work on constructing a female monster but just as he is
about to finish he has second thoughts about it. While debating what he should do he looks up
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at the window and sees the Monster peering in quite gleefully and being visibly happy at the
prospect of a female companion. The sight makes Victor decide immediately against the
whole exercise and he tears his work to pieces thus destroying the Monster’s half-finished
female companion. Seeing his dreams destroyed thus, the Monster goes mad with anger and
promising to be with Victor on his wedding night he vanishes from the scene.
Victor puts his laboratory apparatus and the remains of the female monster in a boat
with the intention to throw it all into the sea. He manages to get rid of the disgusting cargo
but his boat drifts off to the coast of Ireland. There he is arrested for the murder of a young
man. On seeing the body of the man, he is supposed to have murdered, Victor is filled with
horror for it is none other than Henry Clerval. Immediately he knows that this has been the
doing of the Monster but is unable to explain the same to people around him. His father,
informed by the magistrate, comes to see him through the trial. Victor is proved innocent and
both he and his father leave for Geneva.
Victor's marriage to Elizabeth takes place and as promised by the monster Elizabeth is
murdered by him on the wedding night. This proves to be the last straw for Victor and he
vows to destroy the Monster and begins pursuing him with an obsession akin to madness. It is
this pursuit that has landed him in the Arctic Ocean when he is rescued by Walton’s
crewmen.
Victor’s narrative comes to an end here but the story is carried forward by Walton in
yet another letter to his sister in which he informs her of Victor’s death. He writes of how he
had found the Monster mourning over Victor’s dead body -- experiencing remorse at what he
had done. He tells of the Monster’s determination to destroy himself by fire surrounded by
the icy waters of the Arctic. He concludes the letter by relating how after expressing his
determination to destroy himself, the Monster jumps from the cabin window and is lost to
sight -- gone -- presumably forever.

6. DETAILED SUMMARY WITH CRITICAL COMMENTS

6.1 Walton’s Letters

6.1.1 Letter - 1
The novel begins with a letter addressed to Mrs. Saville of England from Robert Walton. As
we read it is revealed that Mrs. Saville is Walton’s sister. Walton writes of his safe arrival in
St. Petersburg and of his plans to go on an expedition to the North Pole. We are informed
about Walton's desire for discovering the secret of the gravitational force or of discovering an
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easier direct passage to those countries which at present seem inaccessible due to the long sea
routes to them. Walton prepares for the expedition with mixed feelings -- both apprehension
as well as excitement. We are given a brief account of his life where he recounts to his sister
how he had been attracted to the seafaring life right from his childhood. Though his father’s
injunction against such a thing had restricted him for some time -- he had been unable to
resist the lure once he had money at his disposal which came to him as he inherited his
cousin’s fortune. So, Walton has decided to put his plans into action and we are given details
of how he goes about procuring a ship and crewmen for his voyage to the North Pole.
Critical Comments
Mary Shelley opens her novel in an epistolary style where Walton's letters to his sister are
going to provide the broad frame narrative to the main story. The rest of the narratives will be
embedded within this frame narrative. Walton and Victor are similar in many ways. Like
Victor, Walton’s education too has been neglected and he has tried to chart out an unguided
course for his life. Thus, he too has set out to seek the impossible and has rejected a life of
ease and luxury in favour of discovering the unknown. But it is not a philanthropic or totally
utilitarian exercise. There seems to be a desire for personal glory along with a desire for
working for the betterment of mankind. A similar desire for personal glory will be noticed in
Victor’s quest for the secret of life and this brings us to the big question. Are both these men
using the apparent stated objective of their quests merely as a cover up for their own
unchecked ambition that seeks to cross all limits? If that is so then Mary Shelley is making a
subtle comment on all such endeavours which are undertaken in the guise of altruistic
motives but actually have personal ambition as the driving motive behind them.
Similarities between the figures of Walton and Victor are established at the outset
even though we will become aware of them only after having proceeded well into the
narrative. Since Walton is seen as Victor’s double we need to notice not just the similarities
between the two men but also the differences and the most important of these differences is
that Walton is not as isolated or alienated as Victor is. He values domestic affection, longs for
friendship, looks after his crew and discharges his responsibility towards them when the time
comes. These differences draw attention to the flaws in Victor’s character which become
partly responsible for his fate.

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Check Your Progress

1. What is the purpose of Walton’s letters in the narrative structure of the novel?
2. How does Walton anticipate Victor?
3. What is the difference between Walton and Victor even though both of them
are ambitious?

6.1.2 Letter - 2
In the second letter dated 28th March Walton has reached Archangel and informs his sister of
his having hired a ship and his crew members. He once again experiences a deeply felt need
for an intimate friend -- one whom he has been unable to locate from amongst his crew.
Though he praises his lieutenant for being a man of wonderful courage and enterprise, he is
as desirous of glory as Walton is himself. The master is singled out for his gentleness and
mildness and we are given a brief glimpse of his noble nature when Walton relates how in the
past he has helped the girl he loved to marry a man of her choice and gives the couple all his
material wealth.
Critical Comment
As Walton moves further and further away physically from his home, his sense of isolation
and alienation increases and correspondingly the need for a friend increases in equal
proportion. The theme of alienation is an important theme of Frankenstein and is thus
introduced at the outset. We see Mary Shelley illustrating and analyzing it through the
characters of Walton, Victor and later through the Monster. Mary Shelley is pointing at
ambition being an important reason for alienating and isolating people. The reference to the
albatross serves as a reminder of the figure of the Wanderer who has to carry the burden of
his guilt everywhere along with him. We are being subtly prepared for the events that will
unfold.
The ship’s master is seen as a corrective to ideas of extreme individualism. His quest
is thoroughly disinterested and divorced from any quest for personal glory. He is an
embodiment of goodness and of values that give importance to affection and emotions.
According to Anne Mellor, the master’s character functions in this novel ‘as a moral
touchstone of disinterested sympathy from which to measure the fall of both Frankenstein
and Walton’ (p.21).

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Check Your Progress

1. How is the theme of alienation introduced?
2. Write a short note on the shipmaster. How is he a corrective to the extreme
ideas of individualism?

6.1.3 Letter - 3
The third letter is dated July 7th and merely reiterates Walton’s hope and belief in his
expedition at the same time highlighting the dangers it entails. The voyage commenced with
nothing much untoward happening till this stage.
Critical Comment
Walton’s wish that he be remembered to his English friends, and his obvious affection for his
sister in the manner of signing as ‘most affectionately yours’ — are subtle indications of the
loneliness and isolation that is increasing as Walton’s ship moves away from inhabited
places. Walton’s question ‘What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man’
(Shelley, p.13), anticipates the events to come in the next letter.

Check Your Progress

1. How do we know that Walton’s loneliness is increasing?

6.1.4 Letter - 4
This letter is written in three parts and takes the form of a journal with the entries dated 5th
Aug., 17th Aug and 19th Aug. In the first entry we are told of the bad weather conditions that
have led to the freezing of the sea. As a consequence, Walton’s ship is stuck in ice and unable
to move. There is an atmosphere of gloom amongst the crewmen. While waiting for the ice to
crack Walton along with his crew beholds a strange sight -- of a gigantic man being drawn in
a sledge driven by dogs. The sledge proceeds rapidly towards the north and is soon lost to
sight. A short while later the ice cracks thus freeing the ship but Walton decides to wait for
morning in order to avoid the ice boulders that might be floating around.
The morning brings another strange occurrence when Walton discovers his sailors
talking to a man ‘dreadfully emaciated with fatigue and suffering’ (Shelley, p.15), and trying
to persuade him to come aboard. From his looks he seems to be a European and speaks
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English with an accent. He agrees to come aboard only after confirming that they are bound
on a voyage of discovery towards the North Pole. It is revealed later that the man they have
taken aboard is in fact Victor Frankenstein. While conversing with him Walton learns that
Victor has been in pursuit of the gigantic man they had seen earlier. He refers to the giant as a
demon and is most eager to be on the deck and watch for his sledge.
Walton seems drawn towards this strange but gentle and benevolent man. He finds
him ‘attractive and amiable’ and daily his affection grows for him till he begins ‘to love him
as a brother’ (Shelley, p.16).
The second part of the letter is concerned with Walton’s comparison of his ambitions
to his newfound friend. The stranger is at once pleased with Walton’s confidence but at the
same time is overcome with gloom and despair at the memory of all that he has lost. In the
third part of Walton’s letter we get to know the reason for his grief and his apprehension at
Walton’s enterprise. As he says: ‘you seek for knowledge and wisdom as I once did, and I
ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you as mine
has been.’ He decides to relate his life’s adventures and misadventures to Walton so that the
latter may take heed and decide against continuing his quest. Walton, on his part decides to
record faithfully all that Victor is going to narrate to him and decides to send the same to his
sister.
Critical Comment
This letter brings into focus the problems of perception that we are going to face in this novel.
While Walton and his crewmen perceive Victor’s creature as a human being -- Victor refers
to him as a demon. Then, Walton’s perception of Victor as a noble, gentle, benevolent, and
almost divine being is not sustained by the narrative that follows. Mary Shelley is here
creating one kind of expectation and then will be putting it to the test in the subsequent
narrative. What is noteworthy however is the fact that it is the stranger’s eloquence that draws
Walton the most towards him. Language plays an important role in this novel. Even the
monster will be able to win Victor over to see his point of view due to his eloquence in
presenting his case. The similarities between Walton and Victor are once again brought into
focus by Victor’s comment that he too had been a seeker after knowledge just as Walton but
had met with gloom and despair.
Our curiosity is aroused on many counts. Who is this wanderer? Why is he pursuing
the gigantic being? Why does he call him the demon? Why is he so full of despair and why
does he dissuade Walton from his quest? Very effectively Mary Shelley has prepared the
ground for the main narrative to unfold.
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Check Your Progress

1. How does the author introduce Victor and the Monster to the readers?
2. What is your impression of Victor?
3. What is Victor’s warning to Walton?

6.2 Volume I
6.2.1 Volume 1 ~ Chapter I
Victor’s account begins with a brief mention of his antecedents -- his coming from a family
of counselors and syndics in Geneva, and goes on to recount his parent’s courtship and
marriage. His father, a respected public servant holding high office had a friend who had
fallen on bad times and had retreated into oblivion. Victor’s father makes concerted efforts to
seek him out only to find him dead with his beautiful daughter Caroline weeping beside his
coffin. Victor’s father brings the girl back with him to Geneva and becomes her protector,
placing her with relatives. After an interval of two years, he marries Caroline and retires from
public life desiring to devote more time to his family. Victor is born in Naples and remains
the only child for six long years filled with domestic bliss when his parents look after him
and guide him. Victor’s father had a sister who had married an Italian gentleman and left the
country with him. They have a daughter Elizabeth who becomes the next addition to the
Frankenstein family after the death of her mother. Caroline Frankenstein decides at that early
stage itself that Elizabeth would prove to be a good wife for Victor. She becomes Victor’s
play fellow and friend.
Continuing the account of his upbringing Victor informs us of two more inclusions
into the family -- his brother Ernest who is six years younger to him and William who is the
youngest. In addition, Victor’s close friend Henry Clerval is introduced who is fond of
daydreaming. romanticizing and acting out the tales of Robin Hood, Orlando, Amadis and the
like. Victor’s interest however is in the scientific aspect of things and he recalls the moment
when he comes across a volume of Cornelius Agrippa, a German scientist whose science
borders on the occult. When Victor approaches his father for guidance on his reading of the
works of Agrippa, he brushes him aside and forbids him from wasting time on such ‘sad
trash’ (p.24). As children normally do, Victor is attracted more towards Agrippa’s works
because he has been forbidden and becomes obsessed with a desire to find the secret of life.
A thunderstorm reveals to him the immense power of electricity which his father

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demonstrates for him through an experiment with a kite. All these modern experiments
should have dissuaded him from studying the outdated works of Agrippa and Paracelsus. But
as fate would have it, Victor is unable to attend the lectures on modern science and
consequently loses interest in it. He busies himself with a study of the languages and of
mathematics spends the remaining time in instructing his siblings and looking after them. The
chapter ends with a close -up of the Frankenstein family warm with the glow of domestic
bliss where ‘mutual affection engaged us all to comply with and obey the slightest desire of
each other’ (p.27).
Critical Comment
You must make note of the fact that we have here a narrative within a narrative. Walton’s
letters which form the frame narrative for the main story have now ended. The epistolary
style has given place to direct narration as we embark on Victor’s narrative.
From Victor’s account of his life two things are evident. Firstly, he belongs to a
family of considerable social standing and secondly the society is strongly patriarchal where
a distinct division is apparent between the public world of men and the private world of
women. There are distinct roles assigned to the two sexes so that while the men dominate the
sphere of work and action the women hold sway over the domestic world of affections.
‘Domestic affections’ is an important theme of the novel and is seen at work in
Victor’s portrayal of his family. Women of the family play a significant role in it. They are
almost idealized and spiritualized and we find use of religious imagery in the description of
Caroline and Elizabeth. The division between male and female spheres of occupation and
interest is firmly established by the author when she shows Victor and Clerval busy
‘investigating the facts relative of the actual world while Elizabeth busied herself in
following the aerial creation of the poets’ (p. 22).
Victor’s interest in natural science and his desire to discover the elixir of life that
would banish disease from the human frame all seem noble ideals. But he even tries to raise
ghosts and devils and it is another matter that his incantations fail. Yet, his hungering after
forbidden and impossible knowledge begins to establish him as the modern Prometheus, the
Over-Reacher who stole fire from the Gods. Only in this case does the secret of life lie not in
fire but in electricity which becomes its scientific equivalent. The relevance of the subtitle
has begun to unravel and so also the fact that Mary Shelley’s use of the myth of Prometheus
will modernize it in the context of new scientific developments.

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The blissful domestic circle, however, prevents Victor from spreading his wings and
Mary Shelley points out the narrowness and claustrophobic nature of this world as far as
realization of personal ambitions is concerned.

Check Your Progress

1. What do we learn about Victor’s early life?
2. Which important theme is introduced in this section of the novel and how?
3. To which two literary figures does the author compare Frankenstein? What is
the similarity?

6.2.2 Volume I ~ Chapter II

Victor’s parents resolve to send him to the University of Ingolstadt for further studies for the
purpose of acquainting him with customs other than those of his native country. But before he
can leave, an unfortunate event occurs. Elizabeth is taken ill and Caroline nurses her back to
health but herself succumbs to the illness and dies. Her dying words remind Victor and
Elizabeth of her future plan for both of them and she implores Elizabeth to now take her
place in the house as the protector and caretaker of her younger cousins. Elizabeth performs
this duty well.
Victor leaves for Ingolstadt after three months. Clerval is prevented from
accompanying him because of his father’s belief that a businessman needs not a cultivated
mind. Victor proceeds to the university alone -- away from the amiableness of the domestic
world. Yet his ardent desire for knowledge pushes away all gloomy thoughts and gives him a
sense of freedom. His meeting with Professor M. Krempe, of natural philosophy, is a rude
shock for he berates him about reading. Agrippa and Paracelsus and chides him for burdening
his memory, with ‘exploded systems and useless names’ (p.30). Victor is admonished by him
and asked to begin his studies anew and the Professor gives him a list of books to read.
For Victor, the Professor’s ugly and repugnant countenance inclines him towards
dismissing him as a prospective teacher. What attracts him more is the grandeur of earlier
scientific endeavours rather than the realities of the present one.
Victor’s meeting with Professor M. Waldman goes better than the one with M.
Krempe. The appearance of Waldman and his impressive lecture on chemistry both make a
favourable impression on Victor’s mind. He even listens patiently and without contempt to
Victor when the latter tells him of his interest in Agrippa and Paracelsus. Waldman’s lecture
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removes Victor’s earlier prejudice against modern chemists and he seeks the Professor’s
advice on books he ought to read. The Professor expresses his happiness at having gained a
disciple like him and advises him on his future course of study.
Critical Comment
Victor’s confession of feeling cooped up in one place as long as he stayed at home and of his
dreams to enter the wider world hint at the suffocating nature of domestic life. He yearns to
expand his horizons but his desire is thwarted by the stifling nature of domestic life and he
wants to break free. He takes a step towards this freedom by moving away to the University
of Ingolstadt. His persistent interest in occult sciences, however, does not bode well.
Physical appearance again plays a significant role in determining reactions and the
importance of good looks is stressed once again in the contrast between the appearance of M.
Krempe and M. Waldman. Physical appearance will play a key role in determining people’s
reaction to Victor’s creature in the subsequent narrative.

Check Your Progress

1. How does Victor’s domestic life get in the way of his aspirations?
2. Compare the two professors and their influence on Victor.

6.2.3 Volume I ~ Chapter III

Under the guidance of his two teachers M. Krempe and M. Waldman, Victor throws himself
with full vigour into a study of the sciences. His rapid progress astonishes his fellow students
and even his peers. For two years he does not visit Geneva. The study of science almost
becomes an obsession with him and he pursues it to the exclusion of everything else. Just
when he decides to return to his native town his interest veers suddenly towards physiology
and particularly towards discovering the secret of life.
To understand life, he must first understand death and consequently spends days and
nights at various vaults and charnel houses observing the progress of decay. Finally, one day
he succeeds in discovering ‘the cause of generation and life’ and becomes capable himself of
‘bestowing animation upon lifeless matter’ (p.34).
The next step is to prepare a frame that will receive the animation, the life force
discovered by Victor. He begins creating a human being and creates a giant because he is
unable to handle the minute parts of a normal human frame. An almost frantic impulse urges

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him on and he works in isolation, completely cut off from the normal life around him. He
forgets his family and friends. The unhealthy pursuits take a toll on his physical and mental
health too and every night he suffers from a slow fever, and extreme nervousness.
Critical Comment
Some major themes of the novel come into play in this chapter. Victor’s pursuit of forbidden
knowledge recalls Milton’s Paradise Lost and Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit. In
retrospect he can moralize about it and warn Walton against the acquirement of such
knowledge that nature forbids. For his part, however, he pursues it relentlessly to the
exclusion of everything else in his life. This in turn highlights once again the theme of
alienation and isolation which is the outcome of such unhealthy pursuits.
Mary Shelley takes utmost care to present Victor’s search for the animating principle
in scientific terms. Thus, science poses a challenge here to the spiritual aspect of the theory of
creation. Yet the quest for this knowledge is not glorified as it has its roots in places where
death has been. Also, a question mark is put on Victor’s claims of altruistic motives behind
discovering the principle of life since it is obvious that he has a strong desire for personal
glory. He wants to usurp the role of God and also to eliminate women from the act of
creation. He wants to create a new species that would ‘owe their being’ solely to him. The
theme of overreaching ambition which intersects with the Faust myth and also with the figure
of Satan in Paradise Lost is thus ingeniously woven into the narrative by Shelley.
We must pay attention to the imagery used to describe the whole process of creation
here. It is suggestive of the normal process of labour, and birth where nature’s ‘hiding places’
or the ‘workshop of filthy creation’ (p.37) may refer to the womb. This in turn reflects on
Victor’s repugnance for normal sexuality which critics have seen to be the reason behind his
desire to eliminate women from the process of creation altogether. The same repugnance also
determines his future behaviour with Elizabeth.
Victor’s narrative in this chapter is interrupted twice when he addresses Walton
directly expressing regret at his unhealthy aspiration, warning him against such forbidden
pursuits and advising him not to reject domestic tranquility and affections. Yet it is important
to note that Victor’s despair and grief result more from the end product of his efforts rather
than the effort itself. He moralizes a lot and offers himself as an example of the dangers of
over-ambition, of over- reaching. Yet towards the end of the narrative, he does not deny the
importance of such pursuits and says that another may succeed where he had failed. Mary
Shelley therefore refuses to resolve the conflict about the pursuit of knowledge.

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Check Your Progress

1. What mars Victor’s noble research?
2. How does science pose a challenge to the spiritual aspect of the theory of
creation?
3. Is the conflict about the pursuit of knowledge resolved in the end?
4. How does the theme of the Over-Reacher come into play?
5. Why does Victor want to eliminate women from the process of creation?

6.2.4 Volume I ~ Chapter IV

It is on a ‘dreary night of November’ that Victor finally succeeds in his efforts. The gigantic
human form that he had pieced together with infinite pain and care, ferreting for parts in
vaults and charnel houses, finally comes to life. It breathes and opens its dull yellow eyes.
Victor’s reaction is entirely in contradiction to expectations. Instead of being jubilant at his
success, he is overcome with horror and revulsion.
Victor is disgusted and horrified because the Monster is horribly ugly and repulsive.
The description given is one that would prove even a mummified body to be better looking
than Victor’s Monster. Additionally, this creation of nightly toils is an unnatural creation.
Unable to endure the aspect, Victor rushes out of the room to his bedchamber where he falls
into tormented sleep. Even in sleep his suffering continues. He dreams of Elizabeth who turns
into a corpse the moment he kisses her. This makes him wake up with a jolt only to discover
the Monster standing by his bedside, looking at him with one hand outstretched while the
moonlight streams through the window. Victor runs away from this monstrous apparition and
meanders around the streets of the city all night. Next morning, he is met by Henry Clerval
who has just arrived after being able to persuade his father to let him study at Ingolstadt.
Victor’s behaviour suggests a physical as well as mental upheaval. Finally, he has a
complete nervous breakdown. Clerval nurses him back to health after tending him for several
months. Only in spring does Victor begin to recover and the chapter ends with Elizabeth’s
letter arriving for Victor.
Critical Comments
Mary Shelley sets the scene for Victor’s unhealthy toils coming to fruition. It is a ‘dreary
night’ (p.38) in the cold month of November with rain beating dismally against the windows.

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The spark of life that animates the Monster could very well have come from the lightning that
accompanies rain. However, Shelley leaves the animation part to the imagination of the
readers.
The description of the Monster can be compared to the description of any newborn
child in which case the initial visual impact is also not very appealing. Until the child is
cleaned up and dressed in clothes it appears as a blood-covered mass of bones, muscles and
skin. This immediately suggests that the process of giving birth has just occurred but it is an
unnatural birth because the woman has been completely removed from the picture. It is a man
who has undergone the labour of creation and has brought forth a gigantic monster. This
unnaturalness also contributes to the ultimate horror and revulsion.
Pay careful attention to the fact that the physical ugliness of the Monster once again
determines Victor’s reaction to a considerable extent. From the Monster’s point of view
certain pathos is created when his creator abandons him in an alien world, rejecting his
outstretched hand. This is again an important and a major theme of the novel and forms a
vital component of the debate whether monsters are born or created by circumstances. One of
these circumstances is paternal indifference and rejection which will be explored in some
detail in the subsequent chapters.
Victor’s dream is highly symbolic. On the one hand it hints at his revulsion at normal
sexuality since a kiss turns Elizabeth into a corpse and on the other it foreshadows the events
to come when Elizabeth will in fact die on her wedding night.
The reference from Coleridge’s poem The Ancient Mariner once again points towards
the intersecting texts in this novel. The exact quotation suggests a similarity between Victor
and the Ancient Mariner — both of whom are dogged by fear, horror and guilt at the act they
have committed.
Victor’s physical and mental breakdown once against suggests the unnaturalness of
his act. The spring buds he sees at his window when he finally recovers are, however,
indicative of a new beginning and a rebirth for him as it were. Though Victor banishes the
Monster from his mind yet the same lurks in the minds of the readers with questions like
where would he have gone? What would have happened to him?

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Check Your Progress

1. Comment on the unnaturalness of the birth of the Monster.
2. Why is Victor repulsed by his own creation?
3. How does the theme of parental indifference come into play?
4. At this point does the Monster evoke sympathy from the readers?
5. Which literary text intersects with the novel here? What are the similarities?

6.2.5 Volume I ~ Chapter V

This chapter can be divided into two parts. The first part of the chapter resorts to the
epistolary style and we have Elizabeth’s letter arriving for Victor and bringing him all the
news about the family for the time that he has been away. The family has been safely
ensconced in the warmth of domestic affections and the members are consequently well both
physically and mentally. Plans for Earnest’s future indicate a farming career which is an
occupation in tune with nature. The rest of the letter is about the story of the beautiful, gentle
girl Justine Moritz who has been given shelter by the Frankenstein family on account of her
being mistreated by her parents. She is a servant in the household but is regarded more as a
family member.
The second part of this chapter is directed at Victor’s restoration of health, his
aversion to science and a tour of the region which is aimed at a complete physical and mental
recovery for Victor. The captivating scenic beauty and the idyllic images of nature revive
Victor completely as he prepares to return home.
Critical Comment
Mary Shelley continues to expand on her theme of domestic affections by highlighting that
those who had remained enveloped by domestic bliss have had to endure no such suffering as
Victor had done by isolating and alienating himself from the world. Justine’s ill-treatment at
the hands of her own parents gives us a different perspective on family life. Incestuous
overtones in the relationship between Justine and her father are also noticeable. This gives
Mary Shelley a chance to introduce the theme of social injustice. Through the figure of
Justine, Shelley also attempts to make a comparison between treatment of servants in Geneva
and elsewhere.

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Justine’s story which begins in Elizabeth’s letter, will be carried further in Victor’s
narrative and will finally be completed in the Monster’s narrative. Her story therefore
becomes a good illustration of Mary Shelley’s narrative technique which makes use of
interconnections between multiple narratives and narrators.
Though the chapter ends with a false sense of security arising from the idyllic
descriptions of nature and community-living yet we as readers, cannot rid ourselves from the
thoughts of the Monster who must be lurking somewhere and just biding his time. Thus, an
uneasy calm prevails at the end of this chapter.

Check Your Progress

1. Write a short note on Justine.
2. What perspective do we get on family life from Justine’s story?
3. Briefly comment on the theme of social injustice as explored through the
character of Justine.

6.2.6 Volume I ~ Chapter VI

Chapter VI too begins with a letter, which bears the shocking news of William’s death. The
letter is from Victor’s father. The death has not come about under any natural circumstances
but rather the child has been found strangled to death with the print of the murderer’s fingers
on his neck.
Victor and Clerval are both overcome with grief and Victor sets off for Geneva
immediately. He travels first to Lausanne and remains there for two days observing the sights
of the beautiful mountains and lakes which had been his companions since childhood.
Nothing has changed in his six-year absence yet such a great and unfortunate change awaits
him at home. He visits the spot where William’s body had been found and is caught in a
storm.
Amidst the terrible thunder and lightning he sees the Monster he had created two
years back and is immediately convinced that it is he who is the murderer. All night he
wanders in the surrounding area contemplating the evil that he has let loose upon the world.
As morning approaches, he takes his steps homeward and is reunited with his family amidst
tears of grief. He is, however, surprised to find that Justine Moritz has been accused of
William’s murder. He repeatedly emphasizes her innocence but is unable to reveal his ugly

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secret. Elizabeth enters the narrative and expresses her belief in Justine’s innocence and
hopes Victor would be able to prove it and aid in releasing the poor hapless girl.
Critical Comment
The epistolary style is used once again with yet another narrative being added to the main
narrative. The purpose of Elizabeth’s letter is now clear from the point of view of the plot of
the novel. The chapter introduces us to those characters in the novel that will have a
significant role to play in the narrative that follows. William, who was mentioned earlier as
the sweetest child on earth, is dead and it comes as a shock to the reader. The long narrative
about Justine and her goodness prepares us to believe in her innocence when she is accused
of William’s murder.
The Gothic elements of sublime landscapes, terrifying thunder and the atmosphere of
gloom and foreboding are used effectively.
Mary Shelley introduces here the idea of the ‘doppelganger’ or the ‘double.’ When
Victor discovers the Monster lurking around the spot where William was murdered, he is
convinced of his guilt and at the same time he feels responsible. As he says the Monster is
‘my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave and forced to destroy all that was
dear to me’ (p.56) Mary Shelley is, however, moving away from the traditional features of a
Gothic novel and has begun internalizing the conflict and presenting it in psychological
terms. From that perspective the Monster can now be seen as representing those aspects of
Victor’s psyche which he has repressed till now. His rational self too does not understand
these repressions but which nevertheless threaten to explode in his face.

Check Your Progress

1. Comment on the use of the doppelganger.
2. How is Mary Shelley using the traditional features of a gothic novel? What is
the difference in the use of gothic by the author?

6.2.7 Volume I ~ Chapter VII

This chapter takes the readers through the trial and the execution of Justine Moritz. During
the trial a lot of circumstantial evidence casts the ballot against the otherwise innocent girl.
Elizabeth vouches for her good moral character but is unable to save Justine from the
gallows. Unable to hear the verdict Victor rushes out of the court.

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In the morning the family learns that Justine has confessed to her crime. Justine’s
confession coupled with evidence against her has put a seal on her fate. But she has asked to
see Elizabeth. Elizabeth goes with Victor even though her confidence in humanity is greatly
shaken. When they meet Justine they learn from her that the confession had been forced from
her. Unable to do anything to change the course of misdirected justice Elizabeth can only
rave and rant ineffectually against it. Justine tries to comfort her but is resigned to her fate
and accepts it with a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes.
Critical Comment
This chapter provides Mary Shelley with an opportunity to expound on the theme of injustice
which is fostered by the corrupt legal system and an equally corrupt Church. It is part of the
larger theme of critiquing an unjust society that goes on in the novel consistently as an
undercurrent.
The emphasis that had been placed on beauty both in the case of Elizabeth and Justine
is continually linked with goodness. But neither beauty nor goodness is able to help in the
situation. Both are shown to be futile when they are pitted against a harsh and cruel world.
The domestic and the public spheres therefore again stand separated and divided. Elizabeth,
whose goodness is so effective in the domestic sphere is unable to influence the decision
makers in the case of Justine.
The struggle is once again internalized in Victor’s case who considers himself as the
‘true murderer.’ He compares himself with Justine and finds that his misery is greater than
hers and says, ‘the tortures of the accused did not equal mine.’ He even compares himself to
Satan because like the latter he too ‘bore a hell within him.’
To project his struggle and his misery as greater even than that of the person who is
condemned unjustly, points towards Victor’s egoistic and self-absorbed nature. He finds his
wretchedness of such magnitude that words fail to express his inner struggle. The importance
given to the power of eloquence in this novel, a power which can be used to persuade and
influence decisions elsewhere, is shown to fail here both in the case of Elizabeth when she
tries to argue in favour of Justine and also in the case of Victor when he is unable to express
the wretchedness inside him.
Mary Shelley’s psychoanalysis takes the help of Milton’s Paradise Lost as Victor
compares himself to Satan. Hell is no external construct, Shelley agrees with Milton, but lies
within us in our minds, if we have done wrong. Milton’s Paradise Lost will continue to

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reappear and constant comparisons will be made between situations in the novel and those in
Milton’s epic.
The social construction of a monster is hinted at in Justine’s comment that because
everybody was saying so she herself began to think that she was the monster that she was
being made out to be.

Check Your Progress

1. Critically comment on Elizabeth’s speech in defense of Justine.
2. Does the power of eloquence fail here? Why?
3. What impression do you get of Victor in this section of the novel?
4. Illustrate how Mary Shelley internalizes the conflict.
5. Which other literary text intersects here and what does it achieve?
6. What points towards the social construction of the Monster?

6.3 Volume II
6.3.1 Volume II ~ Chapter I
In this chapter the focus continues to be on the inner wretchedness of Victor who holds
himself responsible for the deaths of William and Justine both. His heart is full of despair,
guilt and remorse. Once again he finds language failing him when he tries to give expression
to his grief. He is tempted to kill himself but is unable to because he is afraid of the tortures
that his monstrous creation would inflict on those he loves. There is a sense of impending
doom and foreboding that the worst is not over yet.
Victor’s father decides to take the family on an excursion to the valley of Chamounix.
He had earlier made a similar attempt in moving out of the city to their house at Belrive.
Victor’s isolation and alienation continues to increase as he wants to spend more time by
himself. The scenic beauty of the places the family travels to is unable to lift his spirits.
Critical Comment
Victor continually holds himself responsible for the tragic fate of William and Justine. This
carries forward the idea of the doppelganger or double. He speaks of the fiend that lurks in
his heart and reiterates that he had been the ‘author of unalterable evils.’ He re-emphasizes
his role in the crime saying “I, not in deed but in effect, was the true murderer” (p.70).
Elizabeth’s comment on Justine's unjust death brings into focus the problems of perception in
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this novel. To her men appear “--- as monsters thirsting for each other’s blood”(p.69). Mary
Shelley is here once again pointing to the social construct of the monster. Who really is the
monster in Justine's case? The creature who has falsely implicated her in the crime by placing
circumstantial evidence on her person, or the numerous people who condemn her on the basis
of that evidence even though they know her to hold a good moral character. A critique of
society thus continues to blur the boundaries between what is monstrous and what is human.
Who exactly is the monster here?
The scenic descriptions of the places that the family travels to accentuate the paradoxical
nature of such beauty that inspires both admiration as well as terror. The descriptions are
Gothic in nature and are used only as a backdrop by Shelley. She draws upon her own
experiences of the tour of Switzerland undertaken by Percy and her both. This part of the
novel reads like a travelogue.
Victor’s isolation and alienation amidst this scenic beauty continues to increase and so does
the sense of foreboding as thunder clouds gather on the horizon. If you recall, the appearance
of Victor’s Monster has always been accompanied by thunder and lightning.

Check Your Progress

1. How does the author blur the boundaries between what is monstrous and what
is human?
2. What is Mary Shelley trying to highlight trough Justine’s unjust death?
3. How does the theme of the doppelganger come into play here?
4. Mary Shelley seems to be illustrating that monsters can be socially
constructed. Do you agree? Give a reasoned answer.

6.3.2 Volume II ~ Chapter II

A major event takes place in this chapter in the form of the long-awaited meeting between
Victor and the Monster. While the family is still vacationing at the Valley of Chamounix and
trying to overcome its grief, Victor feels his spirits lift due to the sublime scenes around him.
He decides to go to the summit of Montanvert. The awe-inspiring beauty of the mountains
fills him with ecstasy and his soul soars up to a world of light and joy. We are given a
detailed description of the precipitous ascent, the desolate scene, the somber and melancholy
atmosphere that is enhanced by the incessant rain that pours from the dark sky. This leads

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Victor to muse upon the finer sensibilities that man is endowed with but which only render
him less free than the brute who has none.
Victor finally reaches the summit of Montanvert and gazes at Mont Blanc which rises
above all peaks in awful majesty. His heart fills with joy at this sight. But just at that moment
he sees the figure of a man moving with alacrity and agility that seems superhuman. It is the
Monster! Seeing him Victor is consumed with unspeakable rage and horror and rejects him
even before giving him any chance to speak, calling him wretch, vile insect, demon. The
Monster, however, implores him to listen to his side of the story telling him that it was he
who was abandoned in an alien world. The world rejected him too and rather than feeling like
Adam in Paradise he feels more like the fallen angel who has been driven from heaven.
He holds his misery responsible for making him a fiend. If only Victor would take
away that misery and make him happy, he promises he would again become virtuous. Victor
is thus persuaded into listening to the Monster’s side of the story and they both proceed to a
hut on the mountain where the Monster’s narrative begins to unfold.
Critical Comment
This chapter is important as it weaves together many important themes that have surfaced in
the novel so far and also blurs the distinction between good and evil, leading once again to
the crucial question -- who exactly is the monster here? Victor’s language is full of expletives
and he addresses the Monster as the vilest creature on earth but when the Monster speaks in
return we are surprised by the solemnity of his language and also by his eloquence and
persuasive power.
Victor’s reaction is once again determined by the physical ugliness of the Monster (as
is everyone else’s we learn later). Shelley is asking a vital question here -- is physical beauty
or ugliness a determining factor for goodness and evil too? The Monster highlights the point
when he places his hands over Victor’s eyes when the latter wants to be relieved of the
detested sight. If we only hear him and not see him the impression we get is not of
monstrosity but of solemnity, and dignity. This is the first time we hear the Monster speak
and instead of brute sounds that he should be uttering he takes us by surprise with his
eloquence and his rationality. His use of Biblical comparisons to describe his own
predicament is most impressive.
Victor’s language on the other hand is full of insults, threats and a lot of melodrama.
In comparison to the Monster Victor’s words seem powerless and impotent. Though Victor

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calls him an insect, the Monster can easily turn the tables on Victor and quash him like one.
Yet he respects his creator and calls him his ‘natural lord and king’ (p.75).
The relevance of the epigraph drawn from Paradise Lost begins to emerge as the
Monster repeatedly emphasizes that Victor is his creator and ‘I am thy creature.’ If Victor is
seeking to usurp the role of God as creator then the Monster should be another Adam except
that the analogy does not work in this manner. Rather, the Monster feels more like the fallen
angel driven out of heaven but without any fault of his own. The reason he gives is that
unlike God who made Adam in His image, the Monster’s creator i.e., Victor has not made
him likewise. He has been made in the image of Satan, the most abhorred of beings. The fault
therefore lies with the creator rather than the creature.
Victor’s ravings against the Monster show him up as more monstrous. The boundaries
between the human and monstrous thus dissolve and Mary Shelley points out that one cannot
ever be sure of who the real monster is.
The Monster pitifully insists that he was born benevolent and good and misery made
him a fiend. He longs for acceptance, for love and affection and therefore is in no way
abnormal. In comparison it is Victor who appears abnormal for he is forever seeking solitude
and rejecting love and affection. The theme of Rousseau’s ‘noble savage’ thus makes an
appearance here and the Monster is projected as one. Parallel to this is the theme of the
critique of society -- if responsibilities are not honoured it can create monsters. Parental
rejection of their children can lead to abnormalities in the latter. This is what has happened in
the case of Victor’s creature. At the end of the chapter Mary Shelley succeeds in
problematizing the question of perception in this novel. Who is human and who the monster?
There is a blurring of roles here that can give us no clear answer.

Check Your Progress

1. Compare and contrast Victor and his creation, the Monster.
2. How is the epigraph from Paradise Lost relevant here?
3. How does the theme of Rousseau’s noble savage apply to the Monster?
4. Who do you think appears more monstrous in this section of the novel? Why?

6.3.3 Volume II ~ Chapter III

Beginning with this chapter we enter the innermost narrative of the novel. This is the
narrative of the Monster where he relates his story from the moment he gained consciousness.

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He begins his narrative by recalling the very first experiences he had when he was brought to
life. There is vagueness about the Monster’s first waking moments and he appears confused
by the various senses that he experiences. He recalls how he had run away to a forest near
Ingolstadt, how he learnt to distinguish between the senses of touch, taste, sight, smell, and
hearing. He relates how he assuaged his hunger with nuts and berries found in the forest and
quenched his thirst with the clear water in a brook. He goes on to tell about his discovery of
fire and how he is then able to keep himself warm and even learns to roast some roots and
nuts on it. He learns too that fire can give both pleasure and pain when he thrusts his hand
into it and gets burnt. Food finally becomes scarce and he decides to move away. His alien
appearance makes people drive him out of a village that he had entered with a lot of hope.
Driven out into the open country he takes refuge in a hovel that adjoins De Lacey’s cottage.
He makes that hovel his home and makes it comfortable and observes the De Lacey family
from the chinks in the window frame.
Critical Comment
In this novel of narrative within narratives we finally reach the innermost narrative of the tale
of Frankenstein with the Monster’s story which is spread over six chapters. We must not
forget that while the first person pronoun ‘I’ is being used here and refers to the Monster, the
narrative is in fact being written by Walton as told to him by Victor who has been told this
story by the Monster himself.
Mary Shelley is able to rouse the sympathy of the reader when she shows the Monster
struggling to adapt in an alien world in which he has been abandoned by his creator. He is
like a child who has to learn about the world. Links with Rousseau’s concept of the Noble
Savage are evident here and so also his concept of the tabula-rasa. The Monster is a harmless
being, appears to be quite benevolent in nature, does not intentionally harm anybody but is
rejected because of his horrible physical appearance. Make a note of how the Monster learns
to distinguish between his various senses on his own and also how he learns by himself to use
the fire for his benefit. Here comes the concept of the tabula-rasa. He has no preconceived
notions about anything. He is like a clean slate on which he has to write his experiences and
learn from them.
The idea that monsters are made by society rather than be monsters by birth, begins to
gain ground in this chapter itself when the Monster is shaken by the barbarity of the humans
who reject him on the basis of his appearance. The way he is driven out of the village he
enters prompts us to ask the question -- who is the monster here? Is it Victor’s visually
horrendous creation or those human beings who hurt him for no apparent reason?
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The De Lacey family provides the Monster with a distinct perspective on human
beings. He learns about the softer side of life. He learns about love and affection. In other
words, he learns about emotions which at times can be a combination of both pleasure as well
as pain.
The Monster’s language had impressed us earlier and once again his reference to
pandemonium and fallen angles, points to the fact that he has read Milton’s landmark epic.

Check Your Progress

1. Why is the Monster’s narrative the innermost core of the narrative structure of
the novel?
2. How does the concept of tabula-rasa apply to the Monster?
3. Do you feel sympathetic towards the Monster? Why?
4. How do we know that the Monster is well-read?

6.3.4 Volume II ~ Chapter IV

In chapter IV the process of the Monster’s self-education continues. He remains in his hovel
watching the De Lacey family closely and learns from what he sees, hears, and observes. It is
a patriarchal world where the duties of men and women are clearly demarcated. As he
observes ‘the young man was constantly employed out of doors, and the girl in various
laborious occupations within.’(p.84).
The Monster finally understands that extreme poverty is the reason behind the
family’s despondency. Since his personal needs were only for the basic essentials, he is
unable to understand this at first. But when he does he begins to help the family in his own
small ways, like cutting the wood from the forest at night and constantly replenishing their
stock.
Observing them talk, the Monster begins to pick up words in order to learn their
language. He becomes so close to the family that even though he observes them from a
distance, he feels happy when they are happy or sad when they are feeling so. He constantly
admires their fine forms and beauty but is shocked one day to see a reflection of his own
deformed image in a pool. He knows his ugliness will make any human reject him outright.
Acquiring knowledge of their language becomes even more important now. He believes in
the intrinsic goodness of the De Lacey family and also believes that if he can put his case

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forward eloquently, they will accept him in their fold. On this hope he determines to acquire
their language and applies himself with double effort towards it.
Critical Comment
The De Lacey family is presented here as the ideal bourgeois family and Mary Shelley has
based this model on her own experiences with the Baxter family in Scotland with whom she
had spent a few months of her life. Mutual affection, cooperation, emotional dependence are
all values upheld by the bourgeois family unit. The Monster longs to be a part of this. His
kind nature is evident in the manner in which he tries to help the family. His sensibility is
glimpsed in the way he responds to their joys and sorrows. His discovery of his own
monstrous ugliness, however, terrifies him and he begins to believe that he is in fact the
Monster that people think him to be. The scene is a parody from a similar scene in Paradise
Lost Book IV when Eve discovers her beauty in a pool of Eden.
A parallel process of revelation goes on constantly in this chapter. On the one hand
there is the Monster’s kindness, his benevolence, and his sensibility. At the moment he has no
murderous or monstrous tendencies except his ugly exterior. Intrinsically, he is a kind and
benevolent creature -- ‘the good sprit.’ On the other hand, we are constantly alerted to the fact
that people can reject someone purely on the basis of their alien countenance. Thus, the
power of language emerges as a force that can check this social injustice and the Monster
begins to believe that if he acquires this power he will be able to overcome the disability of
his physical monstrosity.
This chapter therefore establishes the fact that the Monster was not born with evil
tendencies. External forces have contributed to his present state and our curiosity is
appropriately raised in that area. The reader’s sympathy remains with the Monster in this
chapter too.

Check Your Progress

1. What are the author’s views on the bourgeois family unit? Comment with
special reference to the De Lacey family.
2. Why does the Monster begin to believe in the power of language? What does
he think language can achieve and why?
3. How is the Monster portrayed in this part of the narrative? Does he gain the
reader’s sympathies?

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6.3.5 Volume II ~ Chapter V

The first sentence of chapter V continues to explore the question of how are monsters made.
The Monster wants to get quickly to that part of the story which will explain why he became
what he is at present.
A new character is introduced in this chapter. This is Safie, a beautiful Arabian
woman whose advent immediately wipes off all gloom and despondency from Felix’s face
thus revealing the fact that he is deeply in love with her. Safie, however, does not understand
the language of the De Laceys and consequently Felix is determined to teach her so they can
communicate better. The Monster avails itself of the opportunity too. Felix draws on Volney's
Ruins of Empires to aid him in his task.
This book reveals to the Monster many things about the world. It familiarizes him
with the basic facts about the history of various nations along with their politics and their
religion. But more importantly he learns from Volney, a great deal about human nature. He
wonders at the human being who can be ‘at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent,
yet so vicious and base’ (p. 92). At one time man appears to be ‘a mere scion of evil principle
and at another as all that can be conceived of as noble and godlike.’ He is unable to
comprehend how a man can go forth and murder his own fellow and he is filled with disgust
and loathing. He learns of ‘the division of property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty,
of noble descent and noble blood’ (p.92).
The most important and relevant lesson he learns is that nothing alien is accepted by
man. Either riches or noble birth can win acceptance in society. He possesses neither of these.
In addition, he is saddled with an extremely ugly exterior. When he looks around he sees and
hears of none like him which leads him to ask the tormenting question “Was I then a monster,
a blot upon the earth, from which all men flee and all men disowned?” (p.92). He consistently
questions his identity in this chapter. “What was I?” he asks but is answered only with gloom.
He learns that the only means to overcome the sensation of pain was death. But that is a state
he does not yet understand.
Critical Comment
Chapter V Vol. II carries forward the idea that monsters such as these are not born as
monsters. On the other hand, there are constant revelations of human monstrosities in the
novel. Thus, once again the chapter blurs the clear-cut distinction between what is monstrous
and what is human. Mary Shelley’s critique of society and human injustice continues.
Another idea which begins to gain ground is that of Nurture. The monster expresses

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regretfully: “No father had watched my infant days; no mother had blessed me with smiles
and caresses….” (p.93).
The theme of opposites also gains ground with the mention and illustration of man’s
dual nature -- at once vicious and evil at one time but kind and noble on the other.
The Monster is carefully laying the ground that social injustice and oppression caused
him to become monstrous.
Safie becomes the tool, a requirement of the plot to facilitates the Monster’s
education.

Check Your Progress

1. Who is Safie? What is her role in the novel?
2. How does the Monster’s education progress?
3. Why do we feel pity for the Monster?
4. Why is Nurture given so much importance by the Monster?

6.3.6 Volume II ~ Chapter VI

Chapter VI provides the history of the De Lacey family as has been acquired by the Monster
from all that he has heard and observed in the past few days. The family originally hails from
France where they had a good social standing with De Lacey respected by his equals, Felix
bred in the service of the country and Agatha ranking with ladies of highest distinction. All
this undergoes a dramatic change, however, when the lives of Safie and her father get
entangled with those of the De Laceys.
Safie’s father a Turkish merchant is unjustly accused for a minor offence and is
condemned to death. Felix helps him escape because he sees the injustice of it all but at the
same time falls in love with his beautiful daughter Safie. Safie, though the child of a Muslim
father, is also the child of a Christian mother and has imbibed the value of independence from
her and has no intention of being incarcerated in a harem of some Muslim man. Instead, she
wants to be free and belong to a free society. In Felix she sees a promise of this freedom and
is understandably attracted towards him.
Though Felix manages to help the merchant escape, his plan is discovered and as a
punishment his father the senior De Lacey and his sister Agatha are put in prison. Felix has to
leave Safie and her father and return to help his own family. He too is jailed. The case comes
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up for trial and the family is stripped of all its rank and fortunes and the three of them are
exiled from the country. They find refuge in a small German town where the Monster had
discovered them. Safie too manages to trace them down and finally joins them.
Critical Comment
Though the events seem a bit too far-fetched to seem realistic, Mary Shelly’s main purpose
here is once again to highlight the injustice and corruption in society. Both Safie and the De
Laceys are aliens in a new world and have suffered social injustice. A link is therefore
established between them and the monster. At the same time one can interpret it as a critique
of the Monster’s plea that he had turned monstrous because of social injustice. However, in
the case of the De Lacey family and Safie the same adverse effect of injustice is not seen and
we are prompted to look for reasons.
As a character Safie seems to be a foil to both Elizabeth and Agatha. The two latter
women are characterized by spiritual goodness but also passivity and helplessness which
result from their circumstances. Safie’s desire for independence makes her overcome her
circumstances and she emerges as a more assertive independent and effective figure who can
make her own decisions and carry her plan to fruition. Safie’s character is modeled on Mary
Wollstonecraft’s advocated ideal of a woman in her work entitled A Vindication of the Rights
of Woman. Thus, in Safie, Mary Shelley is presenting a critique of the way society treats
women and is also showing the way to counter such treatment and assert one’s independence.
Passivity and helplessness need not be the only lot of women.

Check Your Progress

1. What is the purpose of the story of the De Lacey family?
2. What is the link between the stories of the Monster, the De Laceys and Safie’s
family?
3. How is Safie a foil to both Elizabeth and Agatha?

6.3.7 Volume II ~ Chapter VII

Three important developments take place in this chapter. The Monster’s education is further
facilitated by his discovery of three books which play a key role in shaping his thinking and
also his acquisition of language skills. These books are Paradise Lost, Plutarch’s Lives and
Goethe's The Sorrows of Werther. He sympathizes with and feels deeply the sorrows of

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Werther; he learns about high thought from Plutarch; he begins to identify at first with Adam
but then more with Satan in seeing the similarity of their fates.
The next important thing that happens is the discovery of Victor’s journal which he is
now able to read and thus learn of the identity of his creator and also comes to know about
the circumstances of his creation. He is sorrowed and angered by his creator’s revulsion and
calls him ‘cursed creator’ (p. 101), who had created him not in his own image as God had
created Adam but in an image that is only a ‘filthy type’ (p.101) of his creator. He laments his
isolated existence and longs for a companion. Even Satan had other fallen angels as his
companions whereas the Monster has none.
To overcome this loneliness, the Monster finally decides to approach the De Lacey
family for succor. He approaches the senior De Lacey when the latter is alone.
The Monster is sure that the blind man’s reaction will not be prejudiced by his
physical monstrosity since he would not be able to see the repulsive exterior. With his
eloquence the Monster puts his case before the father very effectively. But just when he is
about to reveal who he is, the rest of the family members return.
As expected and feared by the Monster, they are shocked and repulsed by his physical
monstrosity and without giving him a chance to explain Felix drives him away with a blow
from his stick.
Critical Comment
This chapter is important from the point of view of the revelation of the Monster’s character -
- as it develops and evolves. It is also important from the point of view of plot since a crucial
turning point in the Monster’s life occurs here when the De Laceys repulse him.
We now understand where the Monster’s heightened sensibilities come from and are
able to trace his eloquence and the serious Biblical style of his speech to his reading of
Milton’s Paradise Lost. All the authors and their works teach him something. He identifies
with Werther’s misery which makes his own alienation more pronounced. Plutarch teaches
him ‘high thoughts’ and the value of virtue in life. The lives of the heroes elevate him from
his own miserable condition as he feels transported to different worlds. Paradise Lost,
however, is what he identifies most with.
In the Biblical creation of Adam, he sees similarities with his own creation but
striking differences too which he points out. Adam, created in the image of his creator, is
happy; he is taken care of and not abandoned by his creator. He is given a companion to share

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his happy life and even when thrown out of Eden he has Eve as a companion with him
whereas the Monster is utterly alone. This makes him see more similarities with Satan and
like him he is envious on seeing others happy.
The Monster’s belief in virtue is shattered when the De Lacey family, who according
to him is the ultimate paragon of virtue, also rejects him on the basis of his physical
appearance. Mary Shelley is again emphasizing the point that physical appearance is a strong
determinant when it comes to reactions of people. Also, a critique of the bourgeois family
unit is glimpsed here when the author shows that such a family can admit no alien intrusions
and is thus a closed and rigid structure.

Check Your Progress

1. How does the education of the Monster proceed?
2. The Monster identifies most with Adam in Paradise Lost. What are the
similarities and what are the differences?
3. What is the turning point that occurs in the narrative at this point?
4. What according to the Monster is the creator’s responsibility?
5. How has the author critiqued the bourgeois family unit here?

6.3.8 Volume II ~ Chapter VIII

A number of events take place in this chapter that prove to be a turning point in the Monster’s
life. Rejected by the De Laceys and driven out from their home, the Monster is filled with
rage and feelings of revenge. Having lost all hope, he is now overcome with despair. He
curses his creator who has made him so repulsive and is overpowered by negative feelings for
the first time. Having taken refuge in the forest he gives vent to his feelings and howls in
anguish. But going over the events he gradually convinces himself that he needs to win the
trust of the senior De Lacey so that he can present his case to his children. With renewed
hope he returns to the cottage only to find that the family has vacated it forever. In a fit of
uncontrolled rage and despair he burns down the cottage and decides to seek out his creator
and thus turns his steps towards Geneva.
A long and arduous journey brings him to Switzerland. One beautiful day, as he walks
through a forest, he finds his former benevolent self-emerging once again under the calming
influence of the beautiful natural surroundings. Just then he sees a young girl slip and fall into

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the river flowing by. The Monster dives in and saves her but in return is shot at by the girl’s
rustic companion.
This is the last straw and the Monster vows vengeance on the whole human species.
He reaches Geneva and in the forest, comes across Victor’s youngest brother William.
Not knowing who he is but perceiving him as just a young child, the Monster resolves to
make him his companion for he believes that as yet this child’s mind would be free of
society’s prejudices. To his horror he discovers that William has already adopted those
prejudices and thus rejects him as a ‘wretch’ and an ‘ogre.’ Learning who he is, the Monster
is enraged and kills William and then exults over the fact that his act will bring sorrow and
despair to his creator.
He finds a portrait of Caroline around the boy’s neck. Gazing at this beautiful and
divine looking woman, the Monster is ‘softened and attracted’ (p.112) but then is checked in
his response by the knowledge that he would forever be denied the companionship of any
such woman. His rage resurfaces and seeing Justine he is angered further as she too is a
reminder of his predicament. To take further revenge the Monster slips the locket into
Justine’s pocket and lays the ground for her implication in the crime.
All alone and miserable, the Monster has ranged the icy mountain and now confronts
Victor with a request for a mate who would be as ‘deformed and horrible’ (p.113) as him. He
asks him to create a she-monster for him.
Critical comment
This chapter reinforces the idea that social injustice and rejection is responsible for creating
monsters in society. Due to the rejection by the De Lacey family, the Monster is filled with
feelings of rage, hatred and revenge for the first time. The question being asked repeatedly is
once again “who is the actual monster here?” This question recurs with increased poignancy
when the Monster is spurned even when he saves a drowning girl and again when William, a
young child rejects him on the basis of his appearance. There are constant allusions to Satan,
the arch fiend and the Monster tells Victor repeatedly that he too “bore a hell within” (p.106)
him.
The transformation from Adam to Satan becomes more prominent. Mary Shelley is
pointing out that this change has come over him only by his interaction with society.
Society’s prejudices have conditioned even a young child’s response to the Monster and
Shelley illustrates through William how quickly these prejudices can take hold of the mind.

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The Monster’s request for a female companion, however, again forges links between
his situation and that of Adam but with obvious differences.
Justine’s story finally concludes in the Monster’s narrative.

Check Your Progress

1. How does the definition of a monster get complicated here?
2. What role does physical appearance play in creating monsters? Is it alone
responsible?
3. Is the Monster’s request for a female companion justified?

6.3.9 Volume II ~ Chapter IX

The Monster had placed a request to Victor for a female companion in the previous chapter.
Victor now refuses such a request outright because he cannot bring himself to create another
being like the Monster he has already created.
The Monster’s eloquence, however, is at work again and he explains to Victor that he
is a monster because he is miserable. Had people responded towards him with kindness none
of this would have happened He has now stopped expecting any kindness from man since
there is an insurmountable barrier between him and the species. Thus, he makes a request for
a companion of his own kind.
He assures Victor that if he had a companion it would take away his misery, his
loneliness and despair and he will again become benevolent. If, however, Victor fails to do
so, he will continue to wreak havoc on man but mostly on his creator till he has destroyed
him completely. But leaving the threats aside, he once again implores Victor to understand
his need and assures him that if he creates a female companion for him, the two of them
would live by themselves in contentment, cut off from rest of the world.
The Monster’s argument moves Victor and he feels there is justice in it. As his
creator, he feels a sense of responsibility too for the first time. The Monster is quick to
perceive the change in Victor’s attitude and renews his efforts. Yet Victor is hesitant for he is
afraid the Monster will return to human habitations. The Monster ultimately convinces Victor
that all his vices are the result of his forced solitude. Once that is taken care of all his vices
will disappear. Finally, Victor agrees to grant him his request and the Monster vanishes with
a promise to appear again once the task is accomplished. Victor returns to Geneva.

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Critical Comment
Mary Shelley effectively illustrates the power of words, of language, of eloquence in swaying
our thoughts and influencing our decisions. The Monster’s physical sight, as always, brings
forth hatred and revulsion in Victor’s heart but the Monster is able to overcome the
disadvantage by using language very effectively in order to persuade Victor. He succeeds and
the belief that he had in the power of language when he had approached the De Laceys, is
now seen to be working whereas earlier it had failed.
Victor’s sense of responsibility towards his creation emerges for the first time. The
theme of parental indifference, says Mary Shelley, plays a strong role in the development of a
child’s personality. In this case the child is Victor’s Monster who was abandoned by Victor,
his creator/parent. The Monster’s request for a female companion makes the situation a
parody of Paradise Lost where Adam makes a similar request to God his creator.
When Victor returns to his family he feels even more alienated than before and
gradually, as the novel progresses this sense of alienation continues to increase. The theme of
domestic bliss, of domestic affections comes into conflict with the theme of alienation which
takes Victor away from domestic happiness. The most deeply embedded narrative in this
novel of framed narratives now comes to an end with this chapter.

Check Your Progress

1. What is the Monster’s reasoning for desiring a female companion?
2. Comment on the power of the Monster’s eloquence here.
3. Discuss the theme of parental responsibility vis a vis the Monster and Victor.

6.4 Volume III

6.4.1 Volume III ~ Chapter I
The Monster has placed a request for a female companion but doubts still assail Victor who is
reluctant to fulfill his promise to the Monster. As a result, his despondency and gloom
increase further as does his alienation. His father, observing his mood and his desire for
solitude, brings up the subject of marriage and asks if his present mood is the result of his
reluctance to marry Elizabeth for some reason or other. Victor denies this and his father then
proposes that the two should think of getting married now. Victor’s reaction at the thought of
this ‘union’ with Elizabeth is one of ‘horror and dismay.’

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The apparent reason given is that he wants to be a free man before he embarks on any
such course of domestic happiness and resolves to leave for England to complete the task that
weighs heavily on his mind. He is reluctant to stay in Geneva with his family to create the
she-monster. He plans to go to England and suggests that Clerval accompany him too at least
initially. The rest of the chapter deals with sublime and beautiful descriptions of their travels
through Germany and Holland. Mary Shelley follows the route they take from Rotterdam till
they arrive at London.
Critical Comment
We are back to Victor’s first-person narration and are at the point when he is forced to
comply with the Monster’s request. As his desire to work against nature increases, there is a
corresponding alienation from family and the circle of domestic bliss. He has to dissociate
himself from this circle and execute his task in isolation.
Much can be read into Victor’s reaction to his proposed marriage with Elizabeth. He
refers to it as a ‘union’ rather than marriage and his reaction is one of ‘horror and dismay.’
This fear, this horror has been seen by readers to stem from a horror of his own sexuality
which he will have to confront once he enters into marriage.
The theme of the Monster as Victor’s double appears again when Victor expresses his
surety that the Monster will follow him to England.
The description of the travels through Germany and Holland, are based on such a tour
undertaken by the Shelleys themselves. This part of the novel once again reads like a
travelogue which was a favourite form of writing around the time. The sublime and gothic
descriptions of majestic mountains and ruined castles, however, form only a backdrop to the
action. Clerval is shown once again as a foil to Victor but the latter’s words about him have
an ominous ring to them and we begin to fear for Clerval’s life.

Check Your Progress

1. How does Victor refer to his proposed marriage to Elizabeth? Why?
2. Critically analyze the reason for Victor’s isolation.

6.4.2 Volume III ~ Chapter II

Having spent some time in London, Victor and Henry continue their tour of England and at
the invitation of a friend decide to wend their way northward to Scotland. The chapter largely

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takes up descriptions of a tour of England and continues to read like a travelogue. Victor’s
alienation and isolation increases with each passing day, and finally when they reach Perth,
Victor tells Henry that he wishes to spend time by himself and asks him to proceed to
Scotland where he proposes to meet him after a month or two. Thereafter Victor proceeds to
the remote Orkney Islands and locates a site suitable for his detestable task. All the while he
is at it, there is an impending sense of doom. In his first experiment there was enthusiasm.
Now there is only horror.
Critical Comment
Mary Shelley’s travels of Europe again find a place in Frankenstein in this chapter and the
travelogue form of writing continues. What is noticeable is Victor’s increasing estrangement
and seclusion, which again indicates that his detestable task is going to be an act against the
natural order of things. A premonition of imminent doom takes away from the joy of visiting
new places and meeting new people. The feelings of horror and foreboding of evil begin to
prepare us for the coming chapter. Though the Monster makes no appearance yet he lurks in
Victor’s mind all the time and the fear that he might kill Henry to take revenge on Victor
proves to be only too correct. Yet, this premonition once again prompts us to think on the
lines of the Monster being Victor’s ‘doppelganger’ his double.

Check Your Progress

1. What are the indications placed by Mary Shelley to show that Victor is
working against Nature?
2. In what way can we say that the Monster is Victor’s double?

6.4.3 Volume III ~ Chapter III

While Victor is at his task of creating a female monster he begins to have doubts and he
ultimately convinces himself that he would be doing a wrong to humanity at large by
unleashing two monstrous beings into the world that would have the capacity to propagate
further. The prospect chills him to the bone. Just at that moment he sees the Monster looking
at him through the window. His malicious and evil countenance determines Victor’s resolve
and he tears his work to pieces. The Monster leaves howling in despair only to return a little
later to threaten Victor with dire consequences. Victor is undeterred in his resolve and the
Monster leaves with a promise to make him the most wretched being on earth. He also
declares that he would keep a date with Victor on the latter’s wedding night.

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Victor receives a letter from Clerval and decides to join him at Perth. He puts all his
instruments and the remnants of his experiments in a basket and sets off in a boat in order to
throw them all into the sea. He manages to do that but as he lies down and relaxes in his boat,
he falls asleep and gets lost. Finally, he is washed up on the shores of Ireland where he is
received with suspicion and rudeness. He is arrested in connection with the murder of a
gentleman.
Critical Comment
The power of false but persuasive arguments is highlighted once again when Victor manages
to convince himself that he should not be fulfilling his promise of making a female monster,
as this would only unleash further misery on the world. His destruction of the female monster
sets the stage for the Monster’s later destruction of Elizabeth. Victor’s confrontation with the
Monster in this chapter, however, is significant because it throws into high relief the fact that
tables have now turned. Earlier the Monster was prepared to listen to and obey his creator but
now he establishes his power saying “you are my creator but I am your master. Obey!”
(p.133).
For the first time we also see a distinction drawn between man, as a species, and the
Monster, thus underlining the difference. The Monster refers to Victor as ‘Man’ while Victor
refers to the Monster as ‘Devil.’
The Monster’s promise that he shall be with Victor on his wedding night can be
interpreted in two ways. Firstly, on the literal level it means that the Monster will inflict a
similar blow on Victor by killing Elizabeth on their wedding night. Victor understands this to
be a threat more to him than Elizabeth. In Freudian terms, however, this can mean that on his
wedding night Victor will have to come face to face with his sexuality and also with all his
repressions regarding the same. The plot takes another twist when Victor is arrested for
murder and the author is able to create enough suspense to keep the readers glued to the
novel.

Check Your Progress

1. Do you agree with the view that Victor’s irresponsible creation has gone out of
his hands?
2. What does the Monster mean when he says that he will be with Victor on his
wedding night?

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6.4.4 Volume III ~ Chapter IV

Victor is taken to prison and is produced before the magistrate. Eyewitnesses recount how
they had discovered the body of a young man on shore with black finger marks around the
neck. Hearing about the black finger marks Victor becomes agitated for he remembers the
murder of William in a similar manner. His agitation is interpreted in his disfavour. To
ascertain his involvement in the crime the magistrate takes him to see the body of the
murdered man. To his horror Victor discovers that it is Henry Clerval, his childhood friend.
Groaning with despair Victor collapses in convulsions and is confined to bed for two months
in a delirious state. The kind old magistrate tries to help Victor and arranges for his father to
come after he discovers the address on one of the letters found in Victor’s jacket. Alphonse
Frankenstein comes and tries to nurse his son back to health. But progress is slow for
repeatedly Victor keeps holding himself responsible for the murder of William, Justine and
Clerval. Finally, he is acquitted when it is proved that he was at the Orkney Islands at the
time the body was discovered. Victor’s father arranges for them to leave for Geneva. Victor,
however, is unable to rejoice either in his freedom or in the prospect of going home. He is full
of guilt and remorse and feels wretched all the time and resolves to live out his destiny. He
now decides to stay with his family and protect them from the Monster’s next blow.
Critical Comment
In this chapter Mary Shelley is once again blurring the boundaries between the physical
circumstances and the psychological reality. When Victor confesses to the murders of
William, Justine and Clerval he is once again making a strong case for the possibility that the
Monster is his own ‘double’ -- a manifestation of his repressed desires. Anticipating Freud,
Mary Shelley has almost presented here a case of schizophrenia. Victor is ill both physically
and mentally.

Check Your Progress

1. How does Mary Shelley blur the boundaries between the physical and
psychological realities?

6.4.5 Volume III ~ Chapter V

Victor begins his journey homeward with a heavy heart. He continuously insists on having
caused the deaths of William, Justine and Henry and thus convinces his father that he is
mentally deranged. Alphonse Frankenstein tries to divert his son’s mind by talking about

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other subjects. A letter has arrived from Elizabeth in which she expresses her fear that
Victor’s misery is partly due to the fact that he loves another woman. Victor is almost roused
from stupor by this letter for it comes as a reminder of the Monster’s threat “I shall be with
you on your wedding night.” He writes to Elizabeth reassuring her of his feelings for her and
tells her of his desire to share a secret with her the day after their wedding. A day is fixed for
the marriage of Elizabeth and Victor. All this while Victor continues to interpret the
Monster’s threat as directed against his own life. He therefore goes about now armed with
daggers and pistols. Victor and Elizabeth are married and set off for Evian for their
honeymoon.
Critical Comment
Victor’s naivety is a little difficult to understand here. It is very obvious that the Monster’s
threat is directed towards Victor’s prospective wife. The Monster will not let Victor
consummate his marriage as he has deprived the former of the same by destroying his female
companion. Killing Victor’s wife would consummate the Monster’s revenge. The pun on the
word ‘consummate’ (p.150) is obvious. But Victor is unable to see things as they are. He
talks of “paradisiacal dreams of love and joy” (p.151) comparing himself to Adam and seeing
Elizabeth as his paradise. The difference in the situation, however, is that in Victor’s case the
forbidden fruit of knowledge has already been eaten. The paradise is therefore lost to him
even before he can gain it and he is painfully aware of it. The scenic beauties that had earlier
always helped lift his mood now fail to revive his spirits. His isolation increases with each
passing moment as the time of reckoning draws near.
In psychological terms Victor is fast approaching that moment when he will finally
have to confront his sexuality. Victor’s fear of normal sexuality and his resistance to it are all
evident in his behaviour.

Check Your Progress

1. Comment on the parallels between Mary Shelley’s novel and Milton’s
Paradise Lost?
2. What are Victor’s reactions to his approaching marriage?

6.4.6 Volume III ~ Chapter VI

Victor and Elizabeth reach the spot they have chosen for their honeymoon. Night falls and
with it comes a violent thunderstorm. Victor’s agitation increases with each passing moment

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and Elizabeth tries to calm him down asking him what it is that he fears so much. Pacing up
and down Victor replies “…this night, and all will be safe: but this night is dreadful, very
dreadful” (p.155). He sends Elizabeth to their bedroom while he goes about the house
checking all doors and windows and looking into all nooks and corners. Suddenly he hears a
shrill scream from Elizabeth’s room and he is paralyzed with fear momentarily. Another
scream follows and he rushes to the room to discover Elizabeth murdered and her body ‘flung
by the murderer on its bridal bier’ (p.156). Victor loses consciousness. On recovering he sees
the Monster’s grinning face at the window and he points to Elizabeth’s corpse. Victor rushes
out to try and catch him but in vain. He now fears for the lives of his father and brother Ernest
and resolves to return to Geneva. On receiving the news of Elizabeth’s death, Victor’s father
dies heart broken. Victor has to spend some time at a mental health facility for he behaves
like a mad man. But when released from there he resolves in his heart to revenge himself. He
goes and relates his story to a magistrate who, though listens to him calmly, is nevertheless
incredulous and refuses to take any action. Victor’s rage knows no bounds. “Man,” he cries,
“how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you say”
(p.160). So speaking, he leaves with a pledge to find some other means of taking his revenge.
Critical Comment
The rain and thunder prepare us once again for the Monster’s arrival. Victor’s obtuseness
regarding the danger to Elizabeth’s life persists. His words to Elizabeth that “this night is
dreadful” can be interpreted on the psychological level to indicate Victor’s fear of natural
sexuality. The moment has come when he cannot avoid the consummation of his marriage
with Elizabeth but the thought repulses him and the night therefore becomes dreadful.
The Monster keeps his promise and kills Victor’s mate just as Victor has destroyed
the Monster’s female companion. A psychological reading would see the Monster become
the embodiment of all of Victor’s repressed and twisted sexual desires which when unleashed
on Elizabeth cause her destruction. The notion of the ‘double’ once again comes into play
therefore and the Monster becomes an externalization of Victor’s unnatural sexual impulses.
Victor’s words to the magistrate are ironic when he tells him “how ignorant art thou
in thy pride of wisdom” (p.160). In retrospect Victor’s own behaviour is well characterized
by these words for in his relentless pursuit of knowledge he had remained ignorant of the fact
that all knowledge is not beneficial. Only when it brings misery on his head does he realize
that he has lost more than he gained.

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Check Your Progress

1. Why does the Monster kill Elizabeth? What does her death signify?
2. Bring out the irony in Victor’s words to the magistrate.

6.4.7 Volume III ~ Chapter VII

This last and final chapter of the novel is a lengthy one and brings Victor’s narrative to a
close. Continuing from the moment he resolved to take revenge on the Monster, Victor
describes a visit to the cemetery where all his loved ones lie buried, murdered by the fiend.
Surrounded by graves, Victor proclaims to the world his determination to seek out the
Monster and destroy him. A laugh echoes around in an answer and he hears a voice whisper
in his ear: “I am satisfied: miserable wretch! You have determined to live and I am satisfied”
(p.162). So begins Victor’s relentless pursuit of the Monster from Black Sea of Tartary and
Russia and finally to the North Pole. Victor brings us to the point when he is discovered by
Walton and his men, marooned on his ice raft. Enfeebled by his failing health, Victor entreats
and implores Walton to continue the Monster’s pursuit and kill him if Victor should die.
Victor’s narrative ends here and Mary Shelley resorts once again to the epistolary
style with Walton’s last letter to his sister. Walton expresses his admiration for Victor calling
him ‘a glorious creature’ and ‘noble and godlike in ruin’ (p.169). He feels he has finally
found the friend he has been looking for and wants to restore him to life and happiness. But
Victor rejects this offer saying that nothing and nobody can take the place of those who have
gone. All he now desires from life is revenge on the Monster.
The weather worsens meanwhile and Walton’s ship is encrusted with ice making them
unable to move. The crew begins to despair and demands to return home once the ice breaks.
Victor attempts to rejuvenate their spirits in a moving speech. The sailors, though moved, still
demand a promise from Walton to return home once the ship is freed from ice. Walton
promises even though he is disappointed.
The last letter written over the space of a few days concludes the novel. Victor once
again argues with himself and justifies his desire to kill the Monster He begs Walton to
continue the quest and dies. Sometime later Walton discovers the Monster bending over
Victor’s body and lamenting his death. He is full of grief and also reproaches himself. When
Walton reprimands him he explains his behavior, emphasizing that it was the ill treatment of
others that has made him a fiend. He compares himself to Satan but with a difference that
unlike Satan he is all alone. Now with Victor’s death, the Monster seems to lose the purpose
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for living and with the intention of killing himself on a funeral pyre he jumps out from the
cabin window and is soon ‘lost in darkness and distance’ (p.180).
Critical Comment
The above chapter brings the narrative to a close except that we do not get a sense of
‘closure’ because the Monster is not killed. He is just lost in darkness and distance. Victor,
however, dies and his death is lamented by Walton and his crewmen as well as by the
Monster. A sense of closure eludes us also because none of the issues raised in the novel get
resolved and we read the last page with a number of questions in our mind and with very few
clear-cut answers.
Mary Shelley uses this chapter to put across the impression that Victor has had on the
people immediately, around him, Walton calls him ‘a glorious creature’ and ‘a noble soul.’
The crewmen are also full of admiration for him. Later when Victor dies, we are shown the
Monster bending over his body and lamenting his death, torn by guilt and remorse at what he
had done to this great man. The admiration that Victor inspires in Walton, in the crewmen
and also in the Monster is somehow not very convincing. The rest of the narrative has almost
nothing to support this view. Most especially, the Monster’s reaction is not understandable
especially after he has been accusing Victor throughout of abandoning him, denying him the
right nurture which has turned him into a fiend.
The comparison with Satan continues and we find that both Victor and the Monster
compare themselves to the fallen angel in their excessive misery.
In this last chapter of the novel, the power of language to persuade, finally fails.
Victor is unable to convince Walton to disregard the wishes of his crewmen. Walton decides
to return rather than go ahead in his dangerous pursuit of knowledge and discovery.
The Monster’s last speech once again highlights the fact that society is responsible for
making Monsters. At the same time, the distinction between what is monstrous and what is
human is once again obscured. “Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind
sinned against me,” (p.178), asks the Monster. Who is the monster here, the creature who
looks monstrous or the people who shun and reject him even when he tries to help?
The injustice of it all has made the Monster what he is and Mary Shelley has
effectively blurred the distinction between monstrous and human.
The final picture is that of the Monster lost in darkness and distance. He has declared
his intention of immolating himself and putting an end to all the misery. The fire that gives

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life will now be used to destroy life. The quest has come full circle and Shelley seems to
suggest that such quests that work against nature can only end in destruction and disaster.
As against Victor, Mary Shelley has presented the figure of Walton who serves as a
foil. Victor has been unable to live up to his responsibilities especially towards the being that
he created. In contrast, Walton abandons his ambition for individual glory in order to fulfill
his responsibility towards his crew members and is saved from a fate similar to Victor’s.

Check Your Progress

1. Comment on the ending of the novel.
2. How does Mary Shelley obscure the boundaries between the monstrous and
the human?
3. Is Walton a foil to Victor? Is Mary Shelley presenting him as an embodiment
of knowledge with responsibility?

7. MAJOR THEMES

There is an ambiguity, an ambivalence that runs throughout Frankenstein and dares us to put
fixed meanings on characters, roles, themes, and interpretations. Characters overlap, themes
interplay and a continuous effort at resolving problems of interpretation has to be undertaken
in order to understand Mary Shelley’s novel. One cannot say that there is one particular
theme of Frankenstein. One cannot even say that Victor is the creator though he has created
the Monster single handedly. He also becomes the destroyer when he destroys his next
creation – the female monster. On the other hand, the Monster seems to be less of a monster
than the people who hurt him and shun him even when he is trying to help. A psychoanalytic
reading would indicate that the Monster is Victor’s double, his “own Vampire” that he carries
within him which finally externalizes all of Victor’s repressed savagery and violence. It is
therefore obvious that in this novel roles overlap and so do interpretations. Consequently, a
reading of Frankenstein has to take cognizance of a number of perspectives. There can be no
single way of looking at a multi-layered text like this novel.
The major themes at play are those of Birth and Creation; Nature vs. Nurture;
Alienation that results from self-absorption and isolation and Domestic Affections that need
to be nurtured. There is also the very important theme of the ‘Doppelganger’ or the ‘Double’
that subtly intersects with an equally significant theme of the Monstrous and the Human.
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Linked to this is the Critique of a Society which creates monsters and underlying all these
themes is the fear of sexuality that probably leads Victor to eliminate woman completely
from the process of birth and creation. Very often one has to read between the lines to fully
comprehend Mary Shelley’s treatment of a particular theme. Under apparent agreement there
may lurk a subtle criticism or even a subversion of the obvious idea. Let us now look at some
of the major themes of the novel in detail to arrive at a better understanding of the text.
7.1 The Process of Creation
Frankenstein is the story of a man’s efforts to usurp the role of God in creating life and also
to usurp the role of woman in creating that life in the natural way. The myth of creation, as
explored in Frankenstein has no place in it for a woman or for God. It has therefore often
been read as a parody of the Biblical myth of creation. In Frankenstein, the creation of life is
man’s unaided achievement. Yet there are indicators that Mary Shelley’s attitude towards the
process of birth in this case is ambivalent. Even before life can be created, death has to be
explored. The living being here is created from dead matter. In his quest for the secret of life
Victor is “led to examine the cause and progress of decay …and forced to spend days and
nights in vaults and charnel houses” (vol.1 chapter3). There is a secrecy involved in the
whole endeavour and Victor pursues ‘nature to her hiding places’ (p.36). Nobody can
conceive ‘the horrors of [his] secret toil’ as he collects bones from charnel houses and
disturbs ‘with profane fingers the tremendous secrets of the human frame’ (p.37). The infinite
secrecy that is involved in the entire process is a sure indication that the whole effort is
geared against nature and Victor’s ‘workshop of filthy creation’ will only produce an
unnatural being – a monster.
Rather than creating a being in his own image as God had done in creating Adam,
Victor can create only a monstrously ugly being. The analogy drawn from the Bible only
serves to highlight the difference in the two situations. At the same time, it also highlights
Victor’s presumption to usurp the role of God. His desire and ambition for personal glory is
evident in his belief that he will be able to create a species that will bless him as its creator.
As he says: “A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and
excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his
child as completely as I should deserve theirs” (p.36). He eventually hopes to renew life
where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption but ends up creating a monster
who curses him:

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“Cursed creator!” he cries. “Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you
turned from me in disgust? God in pity made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image;
but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid from its very resemblance . . .” (p.101).
Victor had hoped to be blessed but is cursed instead. He had dared to imitate the
divine act of creation and presumes to become God. The end result of his nefarious
endeavour proves that working against Nature can only bring harm and no good. His desire to
‘renew life where death had been’ may have a direct relevance to certain circumstances in the
author’s own life. Mary Shelley might have indulged in wishful thinking as a child to have
her dead mother come alive for her. Just before she began writing Frankenstein, her own
daughter had died within few days of being born. In her journal she recalls how she dreamt
that the baby came back to life again! Mary Shelley’s personal anxieties about pregnancy and
childbirth are reflected in her preoccupation with the process of creation. By the time she
came to write this novel she had given birth and also lost her child. It is possible that she had
begun to doubt her own capability of ever being able to create life again.
If seen from a feminist point of view, the novel can be read as a book about what
happens when a man tries to have a baby without a woman. Thus, we find that the novel is
concerned with the natural as opposed to the unnatural modes of birth and creation of
production and reproduction.
7.2 Parental Responsibility and Nurture
Closely linked to the theme of birth and creation is the theme of Nurture. Victor’s crime is
double-pronged:
• He has presumed to become God and has endowed dead matter with life.
• He has abandoned his creation rather than fulfill his responsibility towards it.
Abandoning his creation seems to be a more heinous crime than endowing dead matter with
life. When children are born into this world, their parents owe them the responsibility of
nurturing them and caring for them till at least the alien world becomes familiar to them.
Victor on the other hand abandons his child in this world that is totally alien to him. At one
stage the Monster reminds Victor of his duty: “How dare you sport thus with life? Do your
duty towards me and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind” (p.75).
Rejection, at first by his creator and then by the rest of society for no fault of his, turns
the creature into a monster. Having listened to the creature’s eloquent defense of his
behaviour, Victor is forced to accept his share of the responsibility: “For the first time I felt

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what the duties of a creator towards his creature were, and that I ought to render him happy
before I complained of his wickedness” (p.77).
Parental abandonment more particularly paternal abandonment had been a painful
experience of the author’s personal life. She had seen its disastrous results in the case of her
stepsister Fanny who had committed suicide when she learned that she had been abandoned
by her natural father. Thus, the themes of Parental Responsibility and Nurture form an
important aspect of the message that Mary Shelley is trying to convey through her novel. It is
not merely a cautionary tale against the excesses of science and technology. It is also a mirror
that shows up the fact that one has to be accountable for the consequences that may result
from one’s actions. Running away from responsibility can only bring destruction in its wake.
7.3 Political Interpretation
The theme of Responsibility links up with a political interpretation of the novel where the
Monster is seen to be an embodiment of the causes for as well as the consequences of the
French Revolution. The desire for change, the desire to break away from the confining
traditional set up of society had resulted in the French Revolution. A similar desire for change
had resulted in the creation of Victor’s Creature. Just as the revolutionaries failed to shoulder
the responsibility of the change they had wrought and turned destructive, so also Victor’s
failure to fulfill his responsibility towards the creature turns him into a monster – hideous and
destructive. (See Lee Sterrenburg’s essay ‘Mary Shelley’s Monster: Politics and Psyche in
Frankenstein’).
7.4 Critique of Imperialism
Imperialism refers to a system in which powerful nations extend their influence and control
over weaker regions or countries, often for economic and political gain. It involves the
exploitation, domination, and subjugation of other cultures and peoples. Although not a
central theme in the novel certain aspects of it can be interpreted as reflecting a critique of
imperialism.
Victor Frankenstein's pursuit of knowledge and scientific ambition can be seen as a
metaphor for the imperialistic mindset. He seeks to exert control and dominance over nature,
disregarding the potential consequences of his actions. He operates without considering the
moral and ethical implications of his creation, mirroring the exploitative nature of
imperialism.
The creature created by Frankenstein can be seen as an embodiment of the
marginalized and oppressed ‘Other’ in imperialistic societies. The creature is initially rejected
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by society, isolated, and treated as a monster due to its appearance. Similarly, imperial
powers often dehumanize and oppress the native populations of colonized lands, treating
them as inferior and denying them basic rights and dignity.
The Monster’s experiences of alienation and loss of identity can also be interpreted as
a critique of the destructive effects of imperialism. The creature is denied companionship and
acceptance, leading to a sense of isolation and a loss of connection to humanity. Similarly,
imperialism often results in the erasure of indigenous cultures, and the destruction of
traditional ways of life. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s essay “Frankenstein and a Critique of
Imperialism” is of special relevance here.
7.5 The Over-Reacher
The theme of the Over-Reacher is also treated with ambivalence in this novel. In defiance of
the limits that society and religion impose on man, Victor, like Faust, and Prometheus, steps
over those limits and usurps the role of God in creating life. The act of creation is linked to
the Promethean myth and to the Romantic notion of poet as creator. In the Frankenstenian
world miracles take place more through scientific developments than through spirituality. In
his lecture on chemistry Waldman talks of these scientists and pays them a handsome tribute.
“These philosophers,” he says, “whose hands dabble in dirt and their eyes to pour over the
microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles . . . they have acquired new and
almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake
and even mock the invisible world with its own showers” (p.31).
Victor, intoxicated with the professed success of science and the miracles that it can
now erform, fails to consider the morality or even the aesthetics of his act when he decides to
create a human form and endow it with life. He oversteps the limits placed by society and by
religion. The theme of the overreacher in Frankenstein is further complicated by the fact that
as events unfold, we get the feeling that Victor’s sin is not so much the act of creation as it is
his refusal to take responsibility for his action. He sounds a word of caution to Walton:
“Learn from me, if not by my precepts at least by my example, how dangerous is the
acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to
be the world than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow” (p.35).
Nevertheless, he ends his narrative by saying “yet another might succeed.” From Victor’s
remark that another might succeed where he had failed we get a clue to understanding some
of the complexity of the theme of the overreacher.
It is important to note that Mary Shelley is not discounting individual aspirations. She
is acknowledging the fact that without such aspiration, stagnation may result in society that
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would stifle individuals and social structures. Figures with whom Victor is implicitly
compared – Faust, Prometheus, even Satan – are all overreachers but there is grandeur in
their aspirations and the same is allowed to Victor too. The danger lies in the fact that such
aspirations must be accompanied with a full knowledge of one’s responsibilities. Victor may
be a ‘living parable’ of the dangers of overreaching yet he is also an embodiment of that
individual spirit that seeks change without which there cannot be any progress.
7.6 Rebellion
Related to the theme of the overreacher is the theme of rebellion though in this case it applies
not just to Victor but many other characters in the novel. Victor rebels against the
conventional bourgeois education his father had planned for him and charts out a different
course for himself. He rebels against the confines of domesticity and sets off on his pursuit of
alchemical wonders. In his pursuit of knowledge and his desire to discover ‘whence did the
principal of life proceed’ he becomes a rebel against God. Yet, Mary Shelley has been
extremely careful not to give her story a religious or metaphysical colouring. Her rendering
of the myth is secular and consequently we have here a perfectly plausible scientific
procedure which is backed by various developments and experiments going on in the
scientific world at that time. Victor’s rebellion, however, takes him over the limits that should
govern even scientific endeavours. His failure to accept responsibility for his actions further
blights his success.
Henry Clerval and Walton are the two other characters in the novel who like Victor
also rebel against the idealistic bourgeois system of education which is service oriented.
Henry wishes to pursue a literary career rather than indulge in commerce and Walton is
interested in a seafaring life and has dreams of finding an easier route to the North Pole. Both
rebel and go against the wishes of their respective fathers. Walton comes closer to Victor in
having strong ambitions for personal glory. Unlike Victor, however, he is ready to sacrifice
his ambition for the good of his crewmen.
The Monster too becomes a rebel in this novel but he rebels against the injustice of his
creator as well as the injustice of the society that rejects him for reasons beyond his control.
His ambition is not for any personal glory. He aspires to be part of a domestic circle that
binds people together in love and warmth of affection. In other words, he longs for love and
companionship that have been denied to him right from the moment he opened his eyes in an
alien world. A desire for domestic affections makes the Monster rebel whereas in Victor’s
case the opposite pattern takes shape. He rebels against domestic bliss in order to achieve
personal glory.
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7.7 Isolation/Alienation
Isolation is a natural outcome of the rebellion that we witness in the case of two major
characters in the novel. [Henry is the only one who remains in tune with society despite his
rebellion against his father’s wishes. His rebellion is small in scale and devoid of ambition for
personal glory]. Victor’s rebellion and his search for forbidden knowledge takes him further
and further away from normal family life and the affections of people. Yet his isolation is
self-imposed and is not just physical isolation but moral isolation as well. Victor works
secretly in his ‘workshop of filthy creation.’ Progressing with his narrative he recalls: ‘The
summer months passed by while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was a
most beautiful season . . . but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. And the same
feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends
who were so many miles absent and whom I had not seen for so long a time’ (p.37). In
retrospect he realizes that ‘a human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and
peaceful mind, and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do
not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule’ (p.37).
Victor, who had been surrounded by loving and caring people, exchanges this
domestic bliss for the solitary chamber of his ‘filthy creation.’ His physical isolation is self-
imposed and the moral isolation and alienation result from his knowledge that his actions are
certainly unlawful and must be kept a secret.
The Monster’s isolation on the other hand is neither sought by him nor desired but is
imposed upon him firstly because of his hideous appearance and secondly because of his
actions which become as hideous as him. Rather than rejecting domestic bliss he seeks it but
is shunned and rejected by the people he approaches. He is isolated from the moment he is
born and becomes a rebel because of his isolation. As he implores Victor to believe him he
says: “I was benevolent, my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone,
miserably alone?” It is his loneliness, his isolation that turns him into a monster. As he says
“I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy and I shall again be
virtuous” (p.75). This leads to his demand that Victor create a female companion for him. He
has stopped expecting that he will ever be accepted by human kind. Therefore, he wants
Victor to make him a companion, one who would be like him.
Both Victor and the Monster rebel in their own way and both face the consequences
of their rebellion. They become increasingly isolated and alienated from the rest of the world.
Mary Shelley’s treatment of the narrative material obfuscates the moral perspective and there
are no clear-cut distinctions between what is good and what is evil. Is Victor wrong in
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dreaming and then achieving the impossible? Is the Monster wrong in desiring
companionship?
Isolation is imposed on both just as in society ‘any singularity is punished by the
community, either by forcing isolation or by literal imprisonment.’ Yet Mary Shelley’s novel
can be looked at from two perspectives. As put succinctly by George Levine, it may be ‘taken
as a parable of the necessity of limits in an entirely secular world,’ but at the same time it
may also be read as a ‘parable of the social and political limits that frustrate the noblest
elements of the human spirit’ (Levine, p. 12).
7.8 Domestic Affections
When Frankenstein was first published in 1818, it carried a ‘Preface’ by Percy Shelley in
which he categorically stated that the major preoccupation of the novel is with ‘the exhibition
of the amiableness of domestic affection and the excellence of universal virtue.’ Domesticity
and the bourgeois family unit are held up as the repositories of all social and moral virtues.
Domestic bliss is what the Monster craves for. The picture-perfect life of the De Lacey family
derives its strength from family ties and affections in its trying times and becomes the ideal
that the Monster wishes to attain. Victor too often regrets the loss of this domestic bliss due to
his own misguided endeavours. Warning Walton never to forego these family ties he
moralizes in retrospect:
“If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections
and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then
that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule was
always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquility of
his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his
country; America would have been discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico
and Peru had not been destroyed” (p.38).
While domestic affection and family ties are thus being idealized Mary Shelley has
very subtly also questioned these values and the family unit. Often Victor refers to his family
as ‘the domestic circle’ from which ‘care and pain seemed forever banished’ (p.26). Yet, the
idea of a circle that circumscribes rather than throws open possibilities is a sure indicator of
the confining and restricting nature of this idealized bourgeois family life. As Victor leaves
for Ingolstadt, he carries mixed feelings. There is sadness at leaving the loved ones behind
and apprehension at what is to come yet he says, “I had often, when at home, thought it hard
to remain during my youth cooped up in one place and had longed to enter the world and take
my station among other human beings” (p.29).
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The cord of family affections may be ‘a silken cord’ but it is a cord, nevertheless. It is
such a cord that ties one down instead of allowing one to soar and rise above the given
circumstances. Thus, within the family unit there seems to be hardly any scope for the
fulfillment of individual aspirations. The same is the case with Henry Clerval and Walton.
Personal ambition or individual aspiration has no place in the circle of domestic bliss.
Kate Ellis’s essay, ‘Monsters in the Garden: Mary Shelley and the Bourgeois Family’ is an
enlightening piece of work on Mary’s surreptitious criticism of the institution of the
bourgeois family. She points out how this unit circumscribes and limits individual aspirations
and also results in a gendered demarcation of roles. Women, who are idolized as angels in
such a system, are reduced to passive and ineffectual beings. We see this happening in the
case of Elizabeth too when she is unable to help Justine despite being convinced of her
innocence. Moreover, this idealized family unit can survive only if it is able to maintain its
insularity. This in turn results in its exclusion of anything that does not comply with its tenets
or appears to pose a threat to its security. Thus, while the beautiful and angelic Elizabeth is
included in the Frankenstein household, the ugly and the hideous Monster whose very
appearance poses a threat to domestic tranquility, is excluded and driven away. Frankenstein
can therefore be read as an attack on the very tradition of bourgeois society rather than a
celebration of it.
7.9 The Critique of Unjust Society
The family as a unit forms an important and integral part of Mary Shelley’s analysis of social
institutions in this novel. At the same time, she examines and criticizes various other
institutions of the established social order highlighting the injustice that is rampant in society
in general. The history of the De Laceys is one long litany of woes stemming from corrupt
social establishments. Justine too suffers, is wrongfully condemned and executed due to the
corrupt and unfair justice system. The Monster suffers injustice at the hands of various people
who call themselves human. Justine’s unjust execution prompts Elizabeth to make a very
revealing comment on society when she says, “men appear to me as monsters thirsting for
each other’s blood” (p.69).
The Monster’s monstrousness is the result of society’s injustice. He deserves our
sympathy when he says: “I desired love and fellowship and I was spurned. Was there no
injustice in this?” We see his point when he asks, “Am I to be thought the only criminal when
all human kind sinned against me?” Felix, who drove him from his door without as much as
asking him what he wanted; the rustic who shot him even though he had saved his child from
drowning or the numerous other people who shunned him only because he was ugly to look
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at. The Monster tells Walton how his “blood boils at the recollection of this injustice”
(p.178).
Shelley’s critical examination of society once again blurs the distinction between
monstrous and human, civilized and barbaric. The emerging idea is that society itself is
monstrous with corruption rampant in its established social institutions as the Church and the
system of law and justice.
The idea of injustice leading to a desire for revolution gains ground in the Monster’s
own eloquent defense. In such a society “high and unsullied descent united with riches” is
what can guarantee one an admittance in the bourgeois social circle. Without either of these,
however, a man is “considered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and a slave,
doomed to waste his powers for the profit of a chosen few” (p.92). The metaphor of the
monstrous is thus problematized when in his last speech to Walton the Monster clearly states
that the society that shuns him is as monstrous as he is.
7.10 The Monstrous and the Human
The word ‘monster’ as explained in the OED refers to ‘an imaginary creature, usually large
and frightening, made up of incongruous elements.’ The dictionary also explains that the
word originated from Latin word monstrum which in turn came from the word moneo which
means ‘to warn.’ In other words, a monster was something that was huge and frightening and
also served as a visible warning of wickedness or cruelty.
Mary Shelley’s Monster, though large and frightening because of his hideous
appearance, questions the traditionally understood meaning of the term. His eloquence and
his rationality too belie the notion that monsters are uncivilized beings. It is only his physical
appearance that suggests his monstrosity. His speech is impressive and his kind and
benevolent nature makes him more human than the many people who profess to be human.
He turns wicked and cruel only after he is put through a lot of suffering at the hands of people
whom he tries to help.
Shelley is therefore problematizing the very notion of monstrosity in this novel. Is
monstrosity the result of suffering oppression and rejection? If the Monster is wicked then
what about those humans he comes across who either stone him or shoot him? What about
those men who send the innocent Justine to the gallows? It is almost as though Mary Shelley
is voicing her personal opinion through Elizabeth when she makes the latter say, “men appear
to be monsters thirsting for each other’s blood.” The crucial question is who is after all the
monster here and who is human? The two are almost indistinguishable.

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While society itself is seen to be monstrous in its unjust and corrupt nature, it is also
seen to create monsters because of its oppression and unfairness. But are monsters created
just by social factors? Shelley seems to indicate that psychological factors are equally
responsible as in the case of Victor. His monstrous creation becomes an externalization of all
his suppressed aggressions. This in turn gives rise to the notion of the ‘double’ or the
‘doppelganger’ where the monstrous and the human are two sides to the same personality.
The Monster is Victor’s double and vice versa.
7.11 Fear of Sexuality
Not only does Victor usurp the role of God but also displaces woman from the process of
creation. A psychoanalytical reading of the novel points towards a fear of normal sexuality in
Victor’s mind and therefore a fear and revulsion for the normal process of birth. This is the
reason why he probably has a horrific nightmare just after he has finished his creation of the
Monster. He dreams of meeting Elizabeth on the streets and when he tries to kiss her she
turns into a corpse. When he looks at the corpse he finds that it is not Elizabeth that he has in
his arms but his dead mother. This particular nightmare has prompted readers and critics to
conclude that incestuous desires lurk beneath Victor’s apparently ‘noble’ exterior and he is
frightened by these desires. Whenever his father mentions marriage, Victor is appalled at the
idea and says that to him ‘the idea of an immediate union with [his] Elizabeth was one of
horror and dismay’ (p.119). The choice of the word ‘union’ further supports the reading that
Victor is afraid of normal sexuality. Even when Victor and Elizabeth are married he looks
upon the wedding night as ‘dreadful, very dreadful.’ The obvious and stated reason for his
feelings of dread is of course the Monster’s threat that looms over his head. It is possible,
however, to convincingly link it to his horror of sexuality.
In the context of the above reading, the Monster becomes an embodiment and an
externalization of all of Victor’s repressed sexual desires. These are the desires which he
rejects but is unable to obliterate completely. These savage desires are ultimately unleashed
on Elizabeth by the Monster. These interpretations, however, are subjective and open to
different perspectives.
The theme of the ‘doppelganger’ or the ‘double’ intersects at this point and aids in our
interpretation. The fear of accepting normal sexuality only leads to perverted and savage
desires which find an externalization in his double – the Monster.
7.12 The Double or the Doppelganger
The notion of the double is so strong in Frankenstein that the popular conception of the
novel mistakenly assumes that Frankenstein is the name of the Monster. It is only when we
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read the novel do we realize that Frankenstein is not the Monster but the scientist who created
that Monster. As the novel proceeds, however, the notion that this Monster is actually
Victor’s ‘double’ gains ground. He often refers to him as ‘my own vampire’ or ‘my own
spirit let loose from the grave . . . forced to destroy all that was dear to me.’ It is from
comments like the above that one gets a strong sense of the fact that Victor and the Monster
may be doubles where Victor is the civilized being and the Monster becomes an
externalization of all the repressed desires and aggressions of this civilized being.
The motif of the ‘doppelganger’ is a very popular motif in Gothic fiction and has been
put to effective use by Mary Shelley in her novel. In her depiction of the concept of the
‘double’ she almost anticipates Freud in presenting the double as contained within the same
person giving rise to the divided self or schizophrenia. As George Levine puts it, the Monster
and his creator can be seen as ‘fragments of a mind in conflict with itself, extremes
unreconciled, striving to make themselves whole. Ambition and passivity, hate and love, the
need to procreate and the need to destroy, are seen in Frankenstein as symbiotic: the
destruction of one is . . . the destruction of the other.’ (Levine, p.16).
The doubling, however, is not limited to just Victor and the creature. It extends
further and overlaps with other characters too. Thus, while Walton and Clerval both become
other aspects of Victor, Elizabeth can be seen to carry within her aspects of Victor’s mother,
of Justine and of the female monster who is destroyed even before she is completed.

8. NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE

Mary Shelley makes use of the complex device of framed narratives in Frankenstein just as
Emile Bronte uses it later in Wuthering Heights or Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness. In
Frankenstein we have not one but multiple narrators and their different narratives are
embedded one within the other with the movement being from the outermost frame to the
innermost core and then back to the frame narrative on the outside. We begin with the
outermost frame narrative in the shape of letters from Captain Walton to his sister Mrs.
Saville in which he expresses his intention of recounting his experiences as he seeks fame
and glory on his expedition to the North Pole. At this stage, the narrative follows the
epistolary style.
8.1 The Framed Structure
• Walton’s letters provide the frame for Victor’s narrative which begins to unfold from
volume 1 chapter1.

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• Victor’s narrative thus is embedded within Walton’s narrative and we have to assume
that Walton is transcribing word to word whatever Victor is recounting to him. The
second frame therefore is of Victor’s narrative where Victor is the narrator and
Walton is the listener.
• In Victor’s narrative itself we take a further step inward when the Monster’s narrative
begins to unfold within Victor’s narrative. In the Monster’s story the Monster is the
narrator while Victor is the listener.
• At the same time, we must not forget that ultimately the story is working outwards too
since the ultimate listener/reader is Mrs. Saville to whom a written account is being
sent in the shape of letters from Walton.
• If we work our way outwards rather than inwards then first the Monster is the narrator
and Victor is the listener. When the Monster’s story is related to Walton then Walton
becomes the listener and Victor is the narrator. Ultimately when Walton writes of it to
his sister then he becomes the narrator while Mrs. Saville becomes the listener or
rather the reader and we too take our place beside her as readers.
• Within the Monster’s narrative too there is another story embedded – that of the De
Laceys and Safie in which case the De Laceys are the narrators and the Monster is the
listener.
• Thus, each of these narratives is enclosed by a frame which is provided by the
narrative that precedes it and the outermost frame is provided by Walton to whom the
text returns towards the end for its conclusion and once again the epistolary style is
resumed.
8.2 The Purpose Behind Framed Narratives
The question we might well ask is what really is the purpose behind the technique of framed
narratives? While it provides a tight structure to the bizarre, horrific and often unbelievable
events of the novel, the device of framed narratives by different narrators is put to further use
in the novel.
• Firstly, it helps in distancing the reader from the events of the novel in order to allow
for some objectivity.
• It also helps in distancing the various listeners from the narratives they are listening
to. Walton, who at the beginning of his meeting with Victor is fired with a similar zeal
as he moves forward in his quest for fame and glory, at the end of the various
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narratives is able to make the right decision to return home as other lives are at stake.
He decides against unbridled individualism for he has seen the havoc it has wrought
in Victor’s life. It is possible for Walton to be objective because of the distancing that
is achieved through the framed narrative structure of the novel. Victor too is able to
look at the Monster’s request objectively once the framed narrative structure distances
him from the Monster with the ending of the latter’s narrative. Thus, distancing is
achieved by using multiple frames.
• In addition to distancing, the framed structure of multiple narratives aims at giving us
different perspectives or different points of view.
The various narratives are all written in the first person ‘I’ nevertheless we have to assume
that it is Walton who is transcribing these various narratives. The question of point of view is
therefore, not simply understood in this novel. The crucial question of who is actually the
speaker gets complicated and problematized. Do we have three different first-person speakers
or just one? It should be possible to make a distinction between different speakers by looking
at their particular use of language. Their choice of words their sentence structures, their
fluency or lack of it and so on. Unfortunately, such distinctions are not very obvious in
Frankenstein as they are in Wuthering Heights. Walton, Victor, and the Monster adopt a
similar use of language as far as their manner of speech and choice of words is concerned.
They adopt a similar solemnity of style too which makes it difficult for us to distinguish
between who really is speaking here. Yet the differences are there in the emphasis placed on
the importance of the oral/heard narrative.
8.3 Use of Rhetoric
Both the Monster’s narrative and Victor’s narrative are spoken narratives and each has a
listener. (As against their narratives, Walton’s narrative is in the written form and has a
reader instead of a listener). Each of their respective narratives emphasizes the power of
language to persuade. Its rhetorical use is explicitly evident in the Monster’s case who uses
his eloquence to present his point of view forcefully and effectively and makes Victor realize
his responsibility towards his creation. Similarly, Victor makes an effective use of language
to persuade the ship’s crew to desist from their demand to return home and ultimately he uses
his persuasive powers to make Walton promise to take revenge on the Monster in case he
dies. The listeners in both these narratives are thus being persuaded to achieve a specific
purpose.

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8.4 The Tone

What is highlighted in Frankenstein is the fact that this persuasive power of the word, of
language is enhanced when it is delivered in a certain manner and in a certain style. We can
call it the ‘tone’ or the ‘voice.’ Thus, when Victor speaks in his ‘full-toned voice’ with its
‘varied intonations,’ it sounds as ‘soul-subduing music’ to Walton’s ears. Like the Ancient
Mariner’s glittering eye, Victor’s voice compels the listener to pay heed. The ship’s crewmen
are fired with a new enthusiasm and no longer indulge in despairing thoughts. They no longer
want to go back home. As soon as that voice is silenced, however, as soon as Victor breathes
his last, the effect is lost and the sailors revert to their demand of returning home.
Similarly in the Monster’s narrative, while the Monster speaks in his carefully chosen
words and in a voice that is ‘harsh but has nothing terrible in it,’ he is able to persuade Victor
to accede to his demand for a mate. But as soon as that voice is distanced it loses its effect
and Victor tears his work to pieces. Even in Walton’s case, though he may have been
temporarily mesmerized by Victor’s ‘soul subduing’ voice, once that voice is silent he is able
to think objectively and take a decision that is in the larger interest of his crew. The framed
narratives therefore give an opportunity to the listener/reader to distance himself/herself and
consider the events objectively and dispassionately.
8.5 The Chinese Box Structure and the Links between Narratives
Beth Newman in her incisive article on the narrative technique of Frankenstein uses the
analogy of the Chinese box to describe the structuring of the novel. In a Chinese box we have
a box within a box and more such boxes. All these boxes can exist independent of one
another. The analogy would imply that the various frames of Frankenstein can also exist
independently.
What we see happening, however, is that continuous links are being forged between
different narratives in the novel. Sometimes these connections are obvious and at other times
they are not so obvious but are there, nevertheless. As a result, the progression of the plot is
also not linear or chronological but we keep going back and forth with the events of the
novel.
To understand this line of reasoning further you can think of the point at which Victor
makes his entry in the story. If you look at events chronologically then Victor enters the story
at a point when his own narrative is almost over. In a linear progression of his own story this
moment should have come towards the end of his narrative rather than at its beginning. The

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beginning of Victor’s narrative is located in Walton’s narrative and thus a link is forged, a
connection is made.
Another good example that illustrates the point further is seen in Justine’s story. Her
story makes a beginning in Victor’s narrative and is completed in the Monster’s narrative
where the pieces finally fall into place as the Monster tells us what really happened that
implicated Justine in a crime she never committed. Towards the end when Walton confronts
the Monster grieving over Victor’s dead body, we get a moment where the narrator of the
most deeply embedded narrative comes face to face with the narrator of the outermost frame.
None of the narratives is therefore complete in itself or can exist independent of other
narratives. They are all interconnected and dependent on one another.
8.6 The Parallels Between Stories
The interconnectedness and interdependence of these different narratives makes for parallels
between stories, situations, events, and characters. These parallels make for similarities as
well as differences. There are similarities between Walton and Victor in that they both share a
dream for achieving the impossible. In pursuit of their dreams, they both become increasingly
isolated. But this parallel also highlights the difference in the characters of these two men.
While Victor’s isolation is sought by him, Walton’s is forced upon him by the physical
distance between him and his loving sister. As against Victor, he longs for companionship
and friendship. This in turn draws a parallel between him and the Monster who likewise longs
for affection and domestic happiness.
Towards the end when Walton decides to accede to his crew’s demand and return
home, it calls for another parallel which alternatively highlights a difference rather than show
a similarity. Victor had pursued individual aspirations to the exclusion of everything else.
Walton on the other hand has aspirations too but knows where to draw the line.
8.7 The Open-Ended Conclusion
The closing chapters of the novel find us returning to the outermost frame and back to the
epistolary style with Walton’s letters. Victor is dead and Walton has decided to return home.
We know nothing decisive, however, of the Monster who is ‘lost in darkness and distance.’
Before vanishing he had expressed a desire to immolate himself but does he actually do so we
can never be sure. It is left to our imagination. Even Victor’s death does not bring a sense of
closure with it because the Monster still lives. The novel therefore remains open-ended so far
as the resolution of plot is concerned. It also remains open-ended so far as interpretation of
events and characters is concerned as we are given multiple perspectives through the different
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framed narratives. There is no one single way of looking at the various things happening in
the novel nor can there be any one single explanation or interpretation of the events.

9. FRANKENSTEIN AS ‘A GOTHIC NOVEL WITH A DIFFERENCE’

Despite appearing on the literary scene in the same year as Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was a resounding success because of its emphasis on the dark
side of our nature. In addition, the novel offered immense possibilities for a variety of
interpretations ranging from social, political, religious, psychoanalytical and feminist.
Various adaptations for the stage followed and the image of the cruel creator and his
rebellious monster was used in satirical comic strips to comment on the oppression faced by
various classes and so on. The novel lent itself very effectively to a psychological
interpretation and for this reason it became a precursor for later Victorian Gothic novels like
Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde or Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Frankenstein was ostensibly modelled on the lines of the gothic genre. We can refer
here to Mary Shelley’s 1831 Introduction to the novel where she writes that her intention was
to write a novel that would ‘curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of the heart.’ Her
admission that she relied heavily on imagination, her ‘waking dream’ and the specific detail
that tells us that the story was written for a contest of ghost stories -- all points to the fact that
Mary Shelley had a Gothic tale on her mind.
Percy’s ‘Preface’ to the 1818 edition: In his Preface Percy Shelley tries to point at
other features of Frankenstein saying that the novel is not a ‘mere tale of specters and
enchantment’. He emphasizes that the novel works towards an ‘exhibition of the amiableness
of domestic affection, and the excellence of universal virtue.’ On the one hand we have the
writer pointing towards the gothic bent of the novel and on the other hand we have Percy
Shelley pointing out that it is not just a sensational story about supernatural events. So where
are the similarities with the gothic genre and where are the differences?
9.1 An emphasis on rationality and reason rather than on imagination or fancy: The
first and most obvious difference is that the novel is grounded in a secular and
material world. The epistolary style with which the novel begins provides a realistic
frame for the actual story to unfold. The immediate occasion for the story is therefore
not mere fictionality. Through Walton’s letters to his sister, we seem to be constantly
in touch with the real world. Walton’s quest is lodged in science and reality too and
carries within it a strong element of possible achievement. When Victor

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Frankenstein’s story begins to unfold we notice that that too has scientific reasoning
as its basis and his experiments follow an empirical method which is apparently
rational.
9.2 Traditional trappings are missing: The traditional Gothic setting of dark woods and
haunted castles is absent. If at all it features in the novel it is there as a backdrop.
There are no headless nuns, no uncanny apparitions, and no unexplained evil villains.
The similarity, however, lies in the atmosphere of dark impending gloom and there is
suspense and mystery but there is no supernatural element in the novel. The central
protagonist is not a beautiful damsel in distress imprisoned by a tyrant in a haunted
castle but an ambitious scientist iming at creating life single handedly.
9.3 Scientific experiments placed within the literary conventions of the gothic mode:
Mary Shelley makes a very effective use of the images of darkness and repression.
What is so horrific about this mad scientist is the use of reason to serve the purpose of
an unnatural and unbalanced ambition. Shelley uses the traditional gothic device of
the doppelganger but explains it psychologically. Thus, the monster is Victor’s ‘own
Vampire’ risen from the grave. The gothic trope of the dream or nightmare too is used
effectively and with psychological plausibility in Victor’s nightmarish vision on page
39.
Where is the difference located? How is Frankenstein a gothic novel with a
difference? Horror and cruelty are the benchmarks of a conventional gothic novel
which in a classic gothic novel are conveyed through the traditional trappings of the
genre. We have seen that in Frankenstein these traditional trappings are missing.
Where then is the horror located and how is cruelty generated in such a novel?
9.4 The Supernatural is replaced with Science: In a novel that is firmly positioned in a
secular and material world, Mary Shelley replaces the supernatural with science
which in turn becomes the instrument of the miraculous, the marvelous. Whatever
happens in the novel can be rationally and scientifically explained. There is an
insistence on the modern, secular setting, absence of the supernatural, emphasis on
reason, a dependence on science rather than superstition.
9.5 Power of Destruction lies not with any external agency: What we find here is an
attempt to take the reader directly into the midst of the horror of the situation rather
than distancing him from it. Horror becomes more intense here because the power of
destruction lies not with some external agency but within the human being. When
horror becomes familiar and possible it becomes all the more terrifying. As long as
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horror was being generated by headless nuns or ghosts and apparitions one could still
deal with it but when it gets located in ordinary human beings the terror multiplies
manifold. Horror of removing woman from the sphere of birth: Horror also of creating
life without taking responsibility for it. Frankenstein is bothered only about personal
glory. He dreams of creating “a new species …” that would bless him (p.36). This is
the fatal hubris of intellectual overreaching.
9.6 Frankenstein’s thematic content too makes it a gothic novel with a difference:
Not only are there immense possibilities of a psychological interpretation of the
events it can also be seen as an exploration of the social and political changes
occurring around that time. The gothic genre had been used earlier as a means to
explore the injustice in society at various levels. It gave voice to the suppressed in a
covert manner. In Frankenstein we see this happening throughout the narrative –
Justine’s story, the De Lacey’s story and most importantly the Monster’s story. The
Monster’s voice brings in the created being’s consciousness into the story thus
inverting the usual power structure of patriarchal literature.
9.7 The Gothic as a particularly female domain: The Gothic was seen not only as a genre
whose major writers were women but whose maximum readers were women too.
Anne Radcliff, Clara Reeve, Charlotte Smith, Mrs. Inchbald, Mary Robinson and of
course Mary Shelley. But there is yet another reason for calling it a female domain.
This mode of writing afforded a convenient form to express the hitherto unexpressed
feelings regarding women’s sexuality. This genre of writing enabled the women
writers to talk about their unfulfilled desires, their agonizing fears in a metaphorical
and symbolic manner. Readers and critics like Ellen Moer, Sandra Gilbert and Susan
Gubar, have looked at this aspect of the novel too and have called it the ‘Female
gothic.’ For such readers Frankenstein is an exploration of giving birth and creating
life – the feelings associated with it conventionally and the feelings that may actually
be present in a woman’s mind in such a situation. The growing child in the womb
takes control of the woman’s body. There is a sense of resentment, of being
overwhelmed. There is revulsion too at the first sight of the child. But if the process of
birth is taken away from the woman’s domain it can only lead to an unnatural
situation, a crossing of boundaries and will surely result in horror. Mary Shelley
emphasizes the horror of birth without woman, ‘the horror of a male pregnancy.’
Frankenstein has been described as ‘distinctly a woman’s myth making on the subject
of birth’ because of its concentration of horror in the traumatic reaction to the
aftermath of birth – the taboo emotions of ‘fear and guilt, depression and anxiety’
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which a woman might feel after the birth of her child (see Ellen Moer’s ‘Female
Gothic’ in George Levine, and U.C. Knoepflmacher, edited, The Endurance of
Frankenstein: Essays on Mary Shelley's Novel, p.81).
Because of its differences from the classic gothic genre Frankenstein became a precursor to
all novels and films and plays that dealt with the themes of unchecked ambition, scientific
excesses, schizophrenia, nature versus nurture and other myriad issues so as to become a
modern cultural myth that holds a mirror to the contemporary world. The enduring relevance
of the novel even stands testimony to the fact that Frankenstein is not a mere horror story.
With its emphasis on scientific reasoning and plausibility of events, the novel came to be
viewed as a new mode of writing altogether -- that of Science Fiction.

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Appendix A
A Quick Look at the Sequence of Events

Volume 1
Letter 1
The novel begins in epistolary style with a letter from Captain Walton to his sister Mrs.
Saville of England. He describes his formative years in this first letter and tells of his decision
to set off on a quest to the North Pole.
Letter 2
Walton describes the progress he has made from Petersburg to Archangel. He also describes
his crew, particularly the ship’s master and the courageous lieutenant.
Letter 3
In this short letter Walton reiterates his belief in his quest.
Letter 4
The Monster is sighted by Walton and his crew. Victor is taken aboard the ship. Walton tells
Victor of his ambition.
Chapter 1
Victor’s narrative begins. He describes the circumstances of his parent’s marriage, his own
birth and Elizabeth’s inclusion into the family.

Chapter 2
Victor’s account of his upbringing continues. His friend Henry Clerval is introduced. Victor
is drawn towards the works of Cornelius Agrippa discovers his interest in science. He dreams
of discovering the secret of life.
Chapter 3
Elizabeth falls ill. Caroline looks after her, catches the illness and dies. After an initial delay,
Victor leaves for Ingolstadt. He is impressed by Professor Waldman’s lecture and returns to
his quest for the secret of life with increased determination.

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Chapter 4
Victor discovers the secret of life. He constructs a Monster from pieces of dead bodies.
Chapter 5
Victor succeeds in animating the Monster and infuses its huge form with life. The shocking
result, however, leads to Victor’s nervous breakdown. Henry arrives and nurses him back to
health.
Chapter 6
A letter arrives from Elizabeth informing Victor of the general well-being of the family.
Victor continues to regain his health.
Chapter 7
Victor receives a letter from his father informing him of William’s death. A shocked Victor
decides to return home. As he reaches the outskirts of his city he sights the Monster amidst
thunder and lightning.
Chapter 8
Justine Moritz is accused of William’s murder. A trial is held and she is executed.

Volume II
Chapter 1
This chapter concentrates on Victor’s increasing isolation and alienation. He tries to
overcome his despondent mood by going on a tour to the valley of Chamounix.
Chapter 2
Victor recovers temporarily when he is surrounded by sublime landscapes. The Monster
makes an appearance and both argue. The Monster pleads that Victor at least gives him a
chance to explain himself and hear his side of the story.
Chapter 3
The Monster’s narrative begins. He starts from the moment he gained consciousness and
describes his early life and the struggles he faced. He introduces the De Laceys.

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Chapter 4
This chapter illustrates how the Monster learns from the De Laceys as he observes them from
the hovel adjoining their house where he lives. He begins to help them.
Chapter 5
Safie arrives. The Monster’s lessons in human nature continue. Felix and Agatha tutor Safie
in the English language. The Monster makes use of the opportunity and learns while he
observes and listens.
Chapter 6
This chapter reveals the history of the De Lacey family. We are told about Safie, her father
and how she and the De Laceys came to be in Germany.
Chapter 7
The Monster discovers three books in the woods -- Milton’s Paradise Lost, Goethe’s The
Sorrows of Werther and Plutarch’s Lives. Being able to read now he learns a lot about human
nature from these books. He also discovers the identity of his creator. Having now learnt to
speak he decides to approach the De Laceys but is repulsed.
Chapter 8
The Monster goes berserk with rage. Burns down the De Lacey’s cottage and decides to seek
out his creator. He murders William on being repulsed by him. He makes a case for desiring a
she-monster as a mate.
Chapter 9
After listening to the Monster’s narrative, for the first time Victor realizes his responsibility
towards his creation. He decides to make a female monster and returns to Geneva.
Volume III
Chapter 1
The senior Frankenstein wishes that Victor and Elizabeth should now get married. Victor
decides to create the She-Monster before his own marriage takes place. He leaves for Britain
with Clerval.
Chapter 2
This chapter reads like a travelogue and much of it is devoted to describing the various places
that Victor and Henry tour. Victor leaves for the Orkney Islands and begins work on the she-
monster.
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 B.A.(Hons.) English/B.A. (Programme)

Chapter 3
Halfway through the making of the she-monster Victor begins to have doubts. At that
moment he sees the Monster peering in from the window and tears his work to pieces. The
Monster howls in rage and leaves with a threat. Victor drifts off in his boat and reaches the
shores of Ireland where he is arrested for murder.
Chapter 4
The murder-victim turns out to be Henry Clerval. Victor is delirious and is put in prison. His
father is called. Victor is finally released.
Chapter 5
Victor returns to Geneva with his father. His marriage with Elizabeth takes place. They both
decide to go to Lake Geneva for their honeymoon.
Chapter 6
Elizabeth is murdered by the Monster on the wedding night. Victor vows revenge.
Chapter 7
A long account of Victor’s pursuit of the Monster ends Victor’s narrative. A series of letters
from Walton to his sister continue the story. Victor dies. Walton’s sailors want to return
home. Walton talks to the Monster when he discovers him mourning over Victor’s dead
body. With the declared intention of immolating himself the Monster disappears into
darkness and distance.

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Appendix B

Sources: List of Books and Articles Referred

Given below is a list of books and articles that proved of immense help in the writing of this
Study Material. You may read a few of these articles or relevant essays in the books listed
below. As far as the Text is concerned, you can use any of the listed editions but for the
writing of this material the Worldview edition has been used.
A number of websites too proved helpful but they are too many to be listed. You can do your
own search on the internet as there is always more to explore.
The Text
Hunter, J. Paul ed., Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus: A Norton Critical Edition.
New York & London: W. W. Norton and Co. 1996.
Hindle, Maurice. ed., Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. Harmondsworth: Penguin
Books, 1985.
Joseph, M. K. ed., Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. Oxford University Press:
London. 1961.
Joshi, Maya ed. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. New Delhi: Worldview
Publications 2001.
Suggested Readings
Baldick, Chris, 'The Politics of Monstrosity,' in Botting, ed., Frankenstein. 48-67
Botting, Fred, ed., Frankenstein: Contemporary Critical Essays (New Casebooks) London:
Macmillan, 1995
Brooks, Peter, '"Godlike Science/Unhallowed Arts": Language, Nature, and Monstrosity,' in
George Levine, pp. 205-20
Ellis, Kate, 'Monsters in the Garden: Mary Shelley and the Bourgeois Family,' in George
Levine, pp. 123-142
Gilbert, Sandra and Susan Gubar, ‘Mary Shelley’s Monstrous Eve’ in The Gothick Novel (A
Casebook) ed. Victor Sage.
Grylls, R. Glynn, Mary Shelley: A Biography. London: Oxford University Press, 1938
Kilgour, Maggie, The Rise of the Gothic Novel. Routledge: London & New York, 1995
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 B.A.(Hons.) English/B.A. (Programme)

Levine, George, and U.C. Knoepflmacher, eds, The Endurance of Frankenstein: Essays on
Mary Shelley's Novel, University of California Press, 1974
Mellor, Anne, Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters. London: Routledge, 1988
Moers, Ellen, 'Female Gothic,' in George Levine, pp. 77-87
Newman, Beth, 'Narratives of Seduction and the Seductions of Narrative: The Frame
Structure of Frankenstein,' in Botting, pp. 166-90
Poovey, Mary, '"My Hideous Progeny": Mary Shelley and the Feminization of Romanticism,'
PMLA, 95, 1980, pp. 332-47
Poovey, Mary, '"My Hideous Progeny": Mary Shelley and the Feminization of Romanticism,'
PMLA, 95, 1980, pp. 332-47(Also available in The Gothick Novel (A Casebook) ed Victor
Sage.
Punter, David ed. A Companion to Gothic. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000.
Sage, Victor, The Gothick Novel: A Selection of Critical Essays (A Casebook), Macmillan,
1990.
Scott, Peter Dale, 'Vital Artifice: Mary, Percy, and the Psycho-political Integrity of
Frankenstein,' in George Levine, pp. 172-204
Spivak, Gayatri Charavorty, “Frankenstein and the Critique of Imperialism” in “Three
Women’s Texts and a Critique of imperialism”, Critical Inquiry 12 (Autumn 1985) 243-61.
Vasbinder, Samuel Holmes, Scientific Attitudes in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Michigan:
UMI Research Press, 1976.

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Appendix D

Questions for Discussion

1. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a Gothic novel with a difference. Discuss.

2. Victor Frankenstein’s crime is not so much that he usurps the role of the Creator but
that he fails to take responsibility for his creation. Do you agree? Give a reasoned
answer.
3. Would you agree with the view that in Frankenstein Mary Shelley has blurred the
distinctions between the monstrous and the human?
4. Domestic affections play a key role in the lives of both Victor and the Monster. Do
you agree? Support your answer with illustrations from the text.
5. The theme of birth and creation as explored by Mary Shelley places more emphasis
on nurture rather than creation. Do you agree with the statement? Illustrate your
answer.
6. Comment on the narrative technique of Frankenstein.
7. Frankenstein is not merely a cautionary tale about the misuse of science. Do you
agree? Give a reasoned answer.
8. What do the subtitle, the epigraph and the dedication reveal about Mary Shelley’s
intentions in Frankenstein?
9. Would you agree with the view that the Monster is Victor’s double? Support your
answer with illustrations from the text.
10. Comment on the observation that Walton, Clerval and the Monster are all foils to
Victor Frankenstein.

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