29 July 2024 by Jian Zhi Qiu
Quote from Dear Su Yen pp.61-66
Dear Su Yen
I liked your description of Elizabeth's sonnet as, 'modest and pure'; I might have said, 'sincere,' or, 'honest,' (not all love poetry is that), but when I think more about it I think your words are better. And you are right about Shakespeare being more complex and imaginative. I also thought fun was not the right word for such a serious subject, but perhaps it is fun at the end for I'm sure they would have laughed a lot.
It is always a pleasure for a teacher in England when a student has his or her own ideas and maybe even disagrees; perhaps it is different in Chinese culture. It is said that the great Dr Samuel Johnson, who wrote his famous dictionary in the eighteenth century and helped to standardize our English spelling for the first time, loved to be contradicted; I suppose because he loved an argument to sharpen his mind and to consider new ideas. As I said, I don't claim that what I tell you is true; these are just ideas for you to think about. Different people will like different poems for different reasons.
I thought you might like to try some more recent English poetry. I hope you will find this next poem to be a happy one for you, although for me it has a deep sense of loss too. The poet Dylan Thomas was born in 1914 into a Welsh family; he became an alcoholic, and as a result his life was a short one. He used words in an unconventional way which is very intriguing and stimulating to a reader and which creates vivid 'word-pictures'. Fern Hill describes the experiences of a young boy growing up and playing on a farm. To an English person this may seem to be an ideal life, though perhaps not to a Chinese person. The poem is full of the things which he remembers and which evoke that happy life: the apple boughs, or branches; the starry nights; the wagons; the daisies; the foxes barking; the owls; the horses; the farmhouse; the hayricks; the swallows; the lambs; the 'lamb-white days'.
The poet avoids clichés, or over-used phrases, by changing them. To appreciate how clever this is you need to know what the original phrase would have been. For example, in England we conventionally start a children's fairy story, which is the name we use for a magic story, with the phrase, 'Once upon a time'. He changes this to, 'And once below a time,' which means the same, but is refreshingly different. We say, 'All the day long,' for all day; he says, "all the sun long,': the sun makes the day. We say, 'Happy as the day is long,' meaning very happy; he says, 'happy as the grass is green, which has the same recognisable form and means the same, but is different and original: the summer day is very long, the grass is very green, the boy is very happy; but now the ideas of green grass and of happiness are merged together, or conflated, to produce a word picture of a child playing on the cool, fresh grass with, perhaps, little white and gold daisy flowers in it.
Thomas describes the house as, 'lilting,' that is as singing; can a house sing? A lilt is an apparently simple and primitive song sung by people in remote areas and especially in the Celtic areas of Britain, such as Wales; perhaps he means the idea of the house effects the same homely feelings in him as do the songs, and so the house "sings' to him. He talks of, 'The tunes from the chimneys': smoke, not tunes, rises from chimneys: curling, formless and always changing yet always the same, like the tunes of the lilting songs.
But the poem is really two poems twisted together; within these happy memories there is a growing sense of foreboding, a warning. It concerns that thing which affects us all: 'Time'. If a dog is attached to a very long lead he may forget he is on the lead until he reaches the end of it. The poet imagines that Time holds him on a very long lead, or chain, which he does not notice when he is young until he reaches the end and, with a great sense of loss, he, "wakes to the farm forever fled from the childless land'. He has grown up and nothing seems the same anymore. He speaks of the, 'children green and golden': as corn ripens in the fields so it turns from green to gold: and then it dies, as does childhood. This inner, sadder poem can be picked out and made to stand alone. See if you can find any more of these sad lines.
I have to admit to a strong personal preference for this poem: it is so evocative of my own childhood that I cannot read it, or even think of it, without tears coming into my eyes. One function of poetry is to arouse our sympathies. For me this poem does this more than any other I know, though perhaps it is a personal sympathy, with the poet, and not a universal one. Maybe other people will not be so moved. However, it is a wonderful poem and full of imagination and should appeal to anyone who can look back with nostalgia to a happy childhood. If you do not understand all of it just read it aloud and enjoy the music of the words.
Dylan Thomas is best known for a long poem, Under Milkwood, which describes a small Welsh town and many of the people who live there; it uses words in the characteristic way we have seen here. You might find it in a bookshop.
Fern Hill, by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
