EU 10504 Contemp. Brit. Lit. & Film Comp. Poems

Katja Buthut, 06/07

University of Bath

Department of European Studies and Modern Languages

2006/ 2007, Semester 1

EU 10504 Contemporary Literature & Film on the British Isles

Referee: Katja Buthut

October 30th 2006

Task: Identify, analyze and discuss the treatment of two of the following themes (one from

List A and one from List B) in poetry written in English in the British Isles since 1945. You

should quote from two poems on each theme (a total of four different poems).

List A: Love, Loss, Death, Friendship, Loneliness/ Alienation

List B: Society, Politics, Nature/ Environment, Art, Language

Contents:

1. A comparison of the themes of `Death′ and `Loneliness′ in "Not Waving but

Drowning" by Stevie Smith, and in "Warning" by Jenny Joseph

p.

1

2. A comparison of the theme of `Society′ in "Poor Soul, Poor Girl!: A Debutante"

by Stevie Smith, and in "This be the Verse" by Philip Larkin

p.

4

3. Bibliography

p.

6

A comparison of the themes of `Death′ and `Loneliness′ in "Not Waving but Drowning"

by Stevie Smith, and in "Warning" by Jenny Joseph

To the present day there is no scientific evidence for a human creature coming back from the

death, even though there are a number of people claiming to have had close-death

experiences. A common theme in literature and film, there are a couple of works that attempt

to describe how it would be to go through death and come back to life, among them the

Resurrection of Christ in the Bible and Mary Shelley′s

Frankenstein

, to mention a famous

work. But also more recent pieces treat the same subject: the 1990 Columbia Tristar movie

Flatliners

shows a group of ambitious young scientists who, in an arrogant experiment, cross

the border of life and death on purpose only to come back and describe the experience. All

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EU 10504 Contemp. Brit. Lit. & Film Comp. Poems

Katja Buthut, 06/07

those works, however, are the bare attempt to paint a picture none of us will probably ever be

able to verify. Literature, even so, has dealt with this subject for a long time and hand in hand

with this goes also the theme of `Loneliness′, as everybody dies alone.

In her poem "Not Waving but Drowning" Stevie Smith deals with the both of the subjects

exceedingly, no matter what short the text may look like at first glance. Using everyday

language and employing a down-to-earth style, the author is capable of revealing the whole

misery of someone who has died. There are at least three distinctive voices speaking in the

poem; one of whose being the narrative voice that tells the reader what has happened. A man

was out at sea, presumably swimming in the cold water. He was "much too far out" (Smith),

so he called for help by waving his hands in order to make somebody be aware of his

situation. But apparently the people on the beach misunderstood his gestures and did not help

him. He died alone. After his death people, who obviously knew him little, talk about him and

the reason why he died. They say he was a man who "always loved larking" (Smith). But the

dead man replies them, "moaning" (Smith), that he needed help, not only in this final fatal

situation but throughout his whole life. But nobody saw it coming, even though he had been

warning them throughout his life, by metaphorically waving his arms.

The poem has only three stanzas with four lines each, but shows an internal and external

symmetry. The external symmetry is easy to discover by looking at the rhymes scheme; the

author has employed in every single stanza the scheme of a-b-c-b, the simple 4-line scheme.

The internal pattern refers to the rhythm of the words, the measure. In this poem, though not

really constantly, the words seem to follow a dactyl measure, meaning that only the first of

three syllables is stressed. This reminds the reader of the rhythm of a waltz, a ¾ time, a very

steady and almost rigid beat. One could even go so far as to associate the time of the words

with the unchanging and regular voice of the sea, the movements of the waves, that is often

connected to the passing of time and to the invariable flow of life.

To underline what has been said before there are some stylistic devices that emphasize this

interpretation. The elliptic form of the title and the repetition of the very same words during

the text: "Not Waving but Drowning," (Smith) which is echoed at the end of stanza one and

stanza three, giving the poem a circular movement by putting this sentence at the beginning

and at the end of it. Also the phrase "much further out" (Smith) and its intensification "much

too far out" (Smith) are repeated in those stanzas. The second stanza seems to stand out, for

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EU 10504 Contemp. Brit. Lit. & Film Comp. Poems

Katja Buthut, 06/07

its contents and also the lack of what seems to be typical in this poem, regarding the stylistic

devices. In this second stanza the scene is removed from the dead man to the people on the

beach who talk about him and keep misunderstanding him even after his death. This is

probably also the reason why it stands aside.

The situation presented to us in the poem could be a dialogue, and, in fact, it seems intended

to be such. But as the people on the beach cannot hear the voice of the dead man it becomes a

monologue after all; he dies a lonely death, and life goes on without him, just like the waves

of the sea.

In another poem, "Warning" by Jenny Joseph, the same subject is treated less gravely. It is

written from the point of view of a woman who reflects on the fact of becoming an old

woman. Even though this work of art could be interpreted from a different perspective, that of

a social criticism, in this essay the dealing of the themes of `Death′ and `Loneliness′ will be

regarded at.

In Jenny Joseph′s "Warning" the narrative voice, which is the only voice that speaks to the

reader, unlike the several voices in "Not Waving but Drowning," imagines all the things she

will do before her death when she grows old. It is intended to sound funny to the reader

because it recalls an image of old women of our days that everybody can relate to. The

narrative voice wants to do all the things an old woman is allowed to do ­ because she is old ­

and you cannot do when you are young and supposed to be reasonable and serious; e.g. "And

gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells" (Joseph) or "And pick flowers in other

people′s gardens" (Joseph).

The poem is written from the point of view of a woman who is not yet old but is not afraid to

becoming so. This is also one of the reasons why, in contrast to "Not Waving but Drowning,"

the use of present tense with sometimes a future meaning is employed: "When I am an old

woman I shall [...]" (Joseph). The repetition of the phrase "I shall" (Joseph) and the word

`and′ ­ as the neglecting of punctuation ­ simply adds to the feeling of an enumeration of

things you can do when you are old.

Despite the common use of vernacular speech in both poems, in its external form this second

poem sharply differs from Stevie Smith′s poem. There is no rhyme scheme to be seen in any

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