The last line of the poem, which suggests suicide before dawn, certainly reinforces this meaning. This poem is another version of the dirt and filth of the urban rubbish observed by the speaker while walking down a street in the midnight and reaching his residence at four a.m. The street lamp muttered, This perspective is common in Modernist writings. The lamp muttered in the dark. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. As a reader would probably expect, the moon is referred to as a female The repetition of She in these lines is known as anaphora. Eliot is highly distinguished as a poet, a literary critic, a dramatist, an editor, and a publisher. His nocturnal encounters have revealed that the moon has lost her memory, there is no connection to the transcendent to be found anymore, and the city at night is filled with mere vice. T.S. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. A quirky and interesting visual interpretation of Eliot's poem. Our Mission FAQ Schools Parents Advertising . She could also represent the violence and debase aspects of human nature which found their way into Modernist writing, serving as subject matter and inspiration. Sign up to unveil the best kept secrets in poetry, Home T.S. You can read the full poem here and more of T.S. Some of the phrases from Rhapsody on a Windy Night appear in the lyrics to the song Memory from the Andrew Lloyd-Webber musicalCats, which was inspired by Eliots book of light verse for children. However, as you will notice with the next references to the time, he marks the note as half-past. The intended effect is to embody the sense of being stuck in limbo he is neither here nor there. Unlike the street lamps which look on him constantly, La lune ne garde aucune rancune. It does not hold a grudge against him for what he does or how hes lived. Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay. Her eye Twists like a crooked pin.. Not affiliated with Harvard College. In the second stanza, time continues to move linearly, but with a gap. The secret of its skeleton, The hour is thought by some to be the best time for pagan or witchcraft rituals to be performed. Memory has taken something that once worked, broken it, and made it useless and old, covered in rust. From the first lines, the setting of the poem is clear. The last twist of the knife. There she is, peaceful and ignorant, perhaps because she cant remember. "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" describes a town scene and is based on a musical idea. She smiles into corners. This makes the memories hes reflecting on all the more confusing. It is composed of strophes, which are irregular rhetorical units of free verse, determined by rhythmic or emotional completeness rather than by metrical pattern. 74The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair. The reminiscence comes Held in a lunar synthesis, 21. Contact Us Half-past one, | Its divisions and precisions. Night is personified in order to show its importance to the speaker, and the geranium is added into the text as it is has symbolized at points, folly, or foolishness. Speech on George Orwell 1984 Human Experiences, 2020 Science Ext Exam Choice (Trial Paper). Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. The abrupt tone furthers that sense of certainty, but also contributes to the establishment of a rising sense of dread, as we consider what could explain the drastic change in pace and tone. Now one lightthe man-made, personified street lampurges the speaker to regard another: the moon. PDF downloads of all 1725 LitCharts literature guides, and of every new one we publish. His memory does not function normally. The first stanza immediately establishes a time: twelve oclock. Under a magical spell cast by the time of night, the moon, and the . 1 May 2023 . The only alternative to this disappointed search for meaning is the monotonous day to day routine of preparing for life. He goes to sleep, the last twist of the knife, which ironically rhymes with life, but means the opposite: its a painful death. We respond to all comments too, giving you the answers you need. This is probably only happening inside his head but it shows how consuming his mental state is. Midnight is the beginning of the witching hour, a time of night associated with supernatural events in folklore. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. This struggle is expressed through two images, that of the street lamp and that of memory. For instance, the light of the streetlamps seems to emit a sound as well as a light (fatalistic drum), and the abstract midnight appears to possess agency, shaking the speakers memories about much as a madman shakes a flower (the implication being that this time of night exercises this effect upon our memory without it being conscious of what it does, like the madman). has spoken an incantation, a chanted spell or curse. Rhapsody on a Windy Night Summary & Analysis. This appears to be the vestiges of a romance that has passed, something that the moon holds onto after she has lost her memory of it. A Reading by Jeremy Irons This, along with the term automatic to describe the childs hand, suggests that the child is an automaton, a soulless collection of impulses. This notion is evident in the lines, The street lamp sputtered the streetlamp muttered the street lamp said the personification of the street lamps distorts the familiar sense of rational judgement thus creating feelings unease and anxiousness. The street lamp provides light, illuminating the darkness and allowing the speaker to see a series of vignettes. High and dry can also mean abandoned in a difficult position. He is at the correct doorway, has the right key, and goes inside. Her eye is feeble and she smiles and smoothes the hair of the grass. A reader can connect the description of the woman in the second stanza to this one of the moon. Eliot was fond of naming his poems after musical forms; other examples include Preludes and Four Quartets. Probably the most familiar meaning of the word rhapsody is an ecstatic expression of feeling, an enthusiastic frenzy. LitCharts Teacher Editions. The fifth stanza is the shortest by far. All of the complex similes and metaphors of the past five stanzas fade away and the language becomes much clearer. Rhapsody generally refers to a piece of music that has an irregular form but can also be used to mean a dream. Eliot, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. i love to analyze poetry, literature and society. Memory is figured as a dead flower, being shaken by a madmana sad image intimating that there was nothing living there to begin with. The opening reference to the time, Twelve oclock. Commands our attention and injects the poem with a tone of certainty. show, or the shapeshifting professor McGonagal in Harry Potter.) This location represents the debasement of living beings in modern urban life. Usually, this is employed to enhance the meaning or emphasize an element of the scene. The logic of this follows the poetic techniques of Imagism, a movement founded by Eliots friend Ezra Pound. That the cat devoursrancid butter implies that he is starving, and willing to eat something rotten. Shop 3, 1 Mona Vale Road, Mona Vale, NSW 2103. The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall, T.S. This corrupts ones experience of the world, making it harder to determine what is real and what is not. Her face is twisted, and the scene has a sinister feel. It is midnight, and memories twist and blur. In a simile, the speaker associates the street lamps with drums beating, which means that they have a rhythm; they are either flickering or simply creating an alternation of light and dark as he passes. Whispering lunar incantations Poem: "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" (1911) Techniques: Allusion, direct address; Analysis: In this poem, Eliot is using a fragmented and disjointed narrative style to convey the feeling of disorientation and confusion that can accompany a night in the city. Time comes to life in this personification and prompts the reader to question reality and the reliability of memory. This stanza is a meditation on memory, which, like the sea, throws up high and dry sense impressions, after consuming and breaking them. Refine any search. In the last stanza of Rhapsody on a Windy Night it is 4:00 AM. Anyway: the lamp instructs the speaker to look at the moon, and recites a line in French which translates as the moon holds no grudges. Some used the images without trying to attach deeper meaning to them, attempting capture the moment (the Imagists). It was written in 1911, around the time Eliot was studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. It is accompanied by the man recalling some of the memories he lost. The associative nature of memory in Rhapsody on a Windy Night parallels the fragmented, anxious and uncertain nature of the human psyche and illustrates the futility of life. A wide range of resources, featuring work by and about T.S. The fact that Cologne is capitalized makes it refer not only to an odor (i.e., an eau de cologne, a perfume), but to the city in Germany, which may be a historical reference. The citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates. The second is the date of A washed-out smallpox cracks her face, In a way, the only real character in this poem is the speaker . eNotes.com In music, 'rhapsody' is an instrumental composition, improvisational, and irregular and form, the most famous being Franz Liszt's 'Hungarian Rhapsodies' for the piano. Rhapsody On a Windy Night: Summary and Analysis: 2022 This poem was written during 1915, when people affected by the war were looking for all sorts of escapism, ultimately turning to books and poems for it. With the progression of time, it asks the speaker to Remark or again, notice, the cat that is flat in the gutter. This image seems to call up an image from the speakers childhood, when he saw a child slipping out its hand in one darting movement (like the cats tongue slipping out to devour the butter) to pocket a toy that was running along the quay (were back at the beach again perhaps a childhood holiday at the seaside?). Rhapsody on a Windy Night. His words in his poem are so dark that makes you wonder what inspired him to write this piece. These dark images add to the already depressing mood of Rhapsody on a Windy Night. In another simile, he relates what the night is doing to his memory, shaking it, disorienting it, to a madman shaking a dead geranium. He is describing lunacy, or temporary insanity brought on by changes in the moon. The poem alternates between their two perspectives, so that stanza 2nd deals with the lamp, stanza 3rd with memory; lines 33-37 with the lamp, lines 38-39 with memory; lines 46-61 with the lamp, lines 62-68 with memory; and stanza 6 with the lamp. The lines are a variety of lengths, as are the stanzas. The poem eventually concludes with the speaker returning to his apartment. A street lamp comes to life, directing the gaze of the speaker, illuminating and narrating images of the life of the city. Firstly, Eliot is continuing his references to the time. Hi! The speakers mental state becomes increasingly tense and unstable. The last date is today's The poem then moves back to the beach, where the man remembers an experience with a crab who gripped a stick he offered him. Rhapsody on a Windy Night By T. S. Eliot Twelve o'clock. The torn, stained dress represents she has experienced dirtiness and violence often associated with prostitution. While this poem follows the formal definitions of the word, it is in fact the opposite of ecstatic: it explores themes of isolation, decay, and despair. The second date is today's Curiously, time has also slipped backward from the present into the past tense, becoming a memory related by the speaker in some unknown future. 44An old crab with barnacles on his back. Learn about the charties we donate to. In the second part of the sixth stanza a few more, less endearing details are added to the moons depiction. 61That cross and cross across her brain.". / The last twist of the knife. Eliots poem ends with a devastatingly effective piece of irony, as the persona realises that as distressing as his hallucinatory experience has been, the real tragedy is that the life he returns to is just as unimaginably tortured. The speaker offered the crab a stick, in hope of connection, and the crab gripped it. Is this speaker drunk, or just sleep-deprived? "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" is an early poem by one of the 20th century's foremost literary figures, T.S. The wanderer hears the street lamps making noise, and eventually speaking. Eliots Rhapsody on a Windy Night, explores these feelings of hopelessness and futility through delineating the fragility of human existence, showing the parallel between the associative nature of memory and the uncertain mental psyche of individuals and illustrating the corruption of the human psyche caused by living in a despairing urban environment.The illogical nature of Rhapsody on a Windy Night creates a sense of foreboding in order to illustrate the futility of human existence. Your first week of Year 11: whats on stake, what to take, smash this piece of cake. Note: When citing an online source, it is important to include all necessary dates. Her clothes are torn and stained with sand. She is standing in an open doorway, which sinisterly appears like a grin. The street lamps also tell the speaker, through a strange simile, to take note of the corner of her eye. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. This also brings the poem back to the motif in the first stanza, and the context for this night of lunacy. Memory! | He falls under a spell cast by the time of night, the moon, and the rhythm of light produced by street lamps. The atmosphere of the poem: The poem Rhapsody on a Windy Night records the memory and fancy of a young man, returning to his lodgings between twelve and four at night. A high-level analysis of T.S. Everything is as he left it, mundane and commonplace. She smoothes the hair of the grass. Eliot". At midnight, the speaker wanders the streets of a city and observes the moonlight on the streets and the ways in which it renders everything even the speakers own memories vague and indistinct. In the first part of the sixth stanza, the speaker returns to the lamps again. The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall, / Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life. The theme is the passage of time, and the street- lamp at various times of the night releases the memory from its routine organization. The next line adds that she has lost her memory. This is important because of the general theme of madness that runs through the piece. The speaker arrives at home, at his front door (the number on the door). The lamp sputtered, It smells old and dead. Eaten smooth, and polished Eliot - The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock ANALYSIS Saturday 22nd, October 2022. This encounter brings on some of the strange memories that are distorted by life. A rhapsody is also the name of a musical composition that is one extended movement, with irregular form and an improvisatory character. Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site. Jeremy Irons recorded for BBC Radio 4 five episodes of reading from T. S. Eliot's work, all available here: jeremyirons.net/2017/01/20/jeremy-irons-reads-ts-. It contains only three lines, but it continues the pattern. His poems have had a lasting influence on a generation of writers. She has smallpox scars on her face, a metaphor used to describe the craters and cracks on the moons surface. In a rhyme of life and knife, the rhythm of sleeping and living is revealed to be a meaningless, monotonous death. It also reminds us that the speaker is still walking down the street. "Four o'clock, That tone is continued through the mystical reference to the moon, which holds the street in a lunar synthesis. The chaos then begins however with the imagery Dissolve the floors of memory, as the persona sets off on his journey through a deconstruction of time and space. First, there is the symbolism of time. These lines are something of an interlude in the story, showing that time is passing and darkness and madness remain. The street is deserted. The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair, There are a number of elements of this piece that create a feeling of unity in the text, one of the most important of these is time. Each of these can be read as metaphors for the woman, or as entirely fanciful associations. Eliot's most difficult poems to deconstruct. The street lamps beat like a fatalistic drum, which invokes ideas about drums used in pagan rituals. The poem explores the mood of the moment for six lines before the speaker appears, walking down the street past street lamps. For example, they understand the dark imagery and fragmented structure to represent a futile existence, where society is fragmented and individuals are isolated and doomed to a meaningless existence. Rhapsody on a Windy Night Eliot uses the dichotomy between natural light of the moon symbolising love & also the artificial light of the street lamp to symbolise the decay of love & a broken society, as a result of modernism The streetlamp symbolises the rise of urbanisation & thus a decline in traditional values Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. Accessed 1 May 2023. He states that the streetlamp are beating like drums. While this poem follows the formal definition of the word Rhapsody as one irregular, jumbled piece, it is the opposite of the tonal definition, meaning ecstatic. Twelve o'clock. An aside is a dramatic device that is used within plays to help characters express their inner thoughts. Its purpose is to evoke a mood of nightmarish horror as well as to convey an idea of the squalor of urban life. I could see nothing behind that child's eye. The reference to a Windy Night adds to the feeling of unpredictability. online is the same, and will be the first date in the citation. The poem takes place between 12 and 4am, when the hours in which contact with the supernatural realm is most possible (with ghosts, demons, goddesses, etc.). The verb Eaten sounds predatory, while polished sounds like something a collector would do. As a madman shakes a dead geranium. Enter your email address to subscribe to this site and receive notifications of new posts by email. Not only could it be lines from age and weariness, but it could also be a reference to the Egyptian symbol of the Eye of Ra. The first stanza sets the poem in a city at midnight. "Rhapsody on a Windy Night - Analysis" eNotes Publishing Madness is intimately connected to the struggles with memory in the poem. This is an obvious reference to pagan ritual sacrifice to the goddess of fertility. It explores themes of memory and fate. Rhapsody on a Windy Night twists the romantic expectation of poetry to create a despairing view of life in the modern city.

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