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Explication de Texte

Exercices & ExemplesPratiques

DEUG I &IIUFR du Monde Anglophone

Raphaël Costambeys-Kempczynski

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‘You used to speak the truth but now you’re clever’The Happy Mondays

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Introduction

You will have already read the booklet discussing various methods of tackling thevery French exercises of ‘Commentaire Composé’ and ‘Explication de Texte’. However,though it is necessary for you to grasp the theories and methods behind the various forms oftext analysis, without concrete examples they can remain quite abstract, difficult to bothvisualise and conceptualise. This booklet, therefore, offers a number of practical exampleswhich should help you come to grips with the different techniques you need to master as astudent of literature.

For the benefit of clarity it is important to stress that when I refer to text analysis from now on,I am referring to the exercise of ‘Explication de Texte’ and NOT to ‘Commentaire Composée’.

Though the exercises are similar, the examples of text analysis given below are ALL examples of‘Explication de Texte’.

Ideally, you would begin by doing your own text analyses of the four texts providedhere, using the guidelines provided in the booklet Fascicule de Méthodologie Littéraire:Commentaire Composé et Explication de Texte. Then, and only then, would you read the textanalyses that follow. For this reason, the texts that will be studied here, are provided at thestart of this booklet, one per page, so that you can cut them out and work on themindividually.

I should stress that the text analyses that you will find here are only examples. Theyshould not be considered definitive analyses (no such thing exists), they are simply oneperson’s point of view. Nor should they be considered as the type of work expected from youas first and second year students, they are purely something for which to aim. So don’t panic.

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Getting Started

The four texts provided here are all poems. Though prose is often just as challengingto analyse, poetry seems to pose the greatest number of difficulties. This is undoubtedlylinked to the forms of the poems themselves. Moreover, the question of form is a Pandora’sBox releasing problems of prosody, rhetoric, poetic language, verse-form, etc. So what betterway to deal with these difficulties than throwing you in at the deep end?

The added bonus of working on poems is that you won’t be tempted to place themwithin the context of the “rest of the book”. This type of text analysis, ‘Explication de Texte’,requires you to analyse the extract provided, and that extract only. Instead of concentrating onhow the extract (inherently) functions, students tend to err into the realm of reconstruction,offering a surrounding context – whether they have read the book or not! This, needless tosay, must be avoided.

The poems are all contemporary giving you the rare opportunity as students to readsomething published in the past twenty years. This also means that there is a good chance youwon’t have come across the poets before, avoiding the temptation of writing about the authorand his intentions.

INTENTIONAL FALLACY:[The idea that intentionalist criticism commits a fallacy has long been argued.] [Though]there are numerous ways by which critics can show how art and personality, art andconsciousness are indissolubly linked together, inevitably requiring the critic to take intoaccount historical and biographical contexts for the proper interpretation and judgement ofliterary works…, [t]he anti-intentionalist position denies that knowledge of a poet’s intentionis necessary to the proper critical appreciation and judgement of a poem. For anti-intentionalists, poems are verbal structures made out of public language, which is governedby the conventions of a language community; what ambiguity or obscurity there may be inpoem occurs not because a private language has crept into the poem but because theconventions of a language community permit it, since it adds to the aesthetic richness of thepoem. [Therefore, we must not confuse] inquiries beginning with “why” (our reasons forfinding a poem interesting and successful) with inquiries beginning with “how” (the way thepoem came about).

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics(Preminger A. & T.V.F. Brogan, eds., 1993. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 611-612)

One need not go as far as this explanation of the intentional fallacy to understand why,for this type of exercise, talking about the author and his intentions should be avoided. Firstly,when doing an ‘Explication de Texte’, you could be given a short extract from any piece ofliterary work. You are not expected to be able to recognise or to have read every single pieceof literary work written in the English language. How then, if offered a text written by IanRankin, would you talk about the author’s schizoid relationship with his home town ofEdinburgh, if you had never heard of the author?

Secondly, once a literary work is published, it belongs to the public domain. What theauthor wanted to say is not as important as what the reader understands. It is not because theauthor wanted to express one particular thing that he managed to do so. To paraphrase TonyHarrison, literature is in the hands of the receivers.

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Be careful: this does not give you licence to say any old rubbish. One frequentcriticism is that literary analysis allows the critic to make a text say whatever he wants it tosay. Though each critical reading of a text will be individual, the criticism provided is only ofany value if it can be related back to the original text, if it can be justified. This, of course,means that you can’t say any old rubbish, and also means that though some elements of youranalysis will be strictly personal, chances are the main foundations will be shared with otherreaders as they will belong to common grounds (beginning with the conventions of thelanguage community mentioned in the above extract from The New Princeton Encyclopediaof Poetry and Poetics).

Finally, you would be justified in wondering what purpose such an exercise serves.This type of analysis offers, of course, an apprenticeship in reading. Not a simple syntagmaticreading we may offer when reading for entertainment, but a critical reading that will help usunderstand how a text and the language it employs, function beyond the page. For this reasontext analysis is an important constituent with regards to literary study, and much can be drawnfrom it for use in other disciplines such as translation, as well as for understanding socio-political or philosophical implications in the studies of culture and community.

There are four poems in all: two by Stephen Romer, one by Simon Armitage and oneby Michael Hofmann. Stephen Romer’s poems are analysed in depth, whereas shorteranalyses are offered for the other two poems. The analyses of Romer’s poems are divided upinto subsections, and each subsection is subtitled. These subtitles, though not obligatory, canhelp impose guidelines not only on yourself as you write, but also on your reader so that he isalways aware of what specific point you are trying to make.

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The Poems

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Great Sporting Moments: The Treble

The rich! I love them. Trust them to supposethe gift of tennis is deep in their bones.

Those chaps from the coast with all their own gearfrom electric eyes to the umpire’s chair,

like him whose arse I whipped with five choice strokesperfected on West Yorkshire’s threadbare courts:

a big first serve that strained his alloy frame,a straight return that went back like a train,

a lob that left him gawping like a fish,a backhand pass that kicked and drew a wisp

of chalk, a smash like a rubber bulletand a bruise to go with it. Three straight sets.

Smarting in the locker rooms he offereddouble or quits; he was a born golfer

and round the links he’d wipe the floor with me.I played the ignoramous to a tee:

The pleb in the gag who asked the viscountwhat those egg-cup things were all about -

‘They’re to rest my balls on when I’m driving.’‘Blimey, guv, Rolls-Royce think of everything’ -

but at the fifth when I hadn’t falteredhe lost his rag and threw down the gauntlet;

we’d settle this like men; with the gloves on.I said no, no, no, no, no, no, no. OK, come on then.

Kid (Faber 1992)Simon Armitage

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Friction

Resistance, the hum of ohms, the coiled wirecries out in its vacuum, in the too-powerful bulb.

Our silence is irksome and confrontational.As you sit across from me, I could wish you away:

turning the pages of a book, your pen grindingon my paper - I quarrel with each manifestation.

Your new dress is in an older, plainer style,belted but voluminous. It would double for pregnancy.

Asleep, motorized, tidal, you drive me to the wall.Each cycle you complete is a waste of youth,

a chemical sadness. The time passes. Doesn’t loveentail risks? We hope, pretend, take precautions.

Amplitude is for the future, it needs confidence.I stay on home ground - cageyness, stasis, ennui -

but even that’s untenable… When you left me again,I took out a pipe-cleaner and caught a drop of tar

on its thin, fleecy tip -as if that caused the impediment!

Acrimony (Faber 1986)Micael Hofmann

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Succesion

A fragment of time in the pure state...I remember it

as a mile of revelation,rain thick as vodka on the windscreen,

midnight blue above the gableof the Grand Hotel at Cabourg, a double

rainbow drilling the plough...In the same place, I think of it now,

of how the yellow milk in that horizonis overlaid by this one

rapidly closing down,and of how my own son

zigzagging through the monochromewill overlay me in time.

Plato’s Ladder (OUP 1992)Stephen Romer

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After Conference

We had learned to avoideye contact with beggarsand walked with purposebut the pious mouthingsof our impeccable unease where we hobnobbedon the High Commissioner’s lawnstuck in our gulleton that traffic islandwhere the maimedare dumped by van.The pressure buildingour pockets burningwe were bankruptin that pausewhen the traffic of Indiarefused us passage.

Plato’s Ladder (OUP 1992)Stephen Romer

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Text Analyses

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Text Analysis N°1: ‘Great Sporting Moments: The Treble’by Simon Armitage

Great Sporting Moments: The Treble

The rich! I love them. Trust them to supposethe gift of tennis is deep in their bones.

Those chaps from the coast with all their own gearfrom electric eyes to the umpire’s chair,

like him whose arse I whipped with five choice strokesperfected on West Yorkshire’s threadbare courts:

a big first serve that strained his alloy frame,a straight return that went back like a train,

a lob that left him gawping like a fish,a backhand pass that kicked and drew a wisp

of chalk, a smash like a rubber bulletand a bruise to go with it. Three straight sets.

Smarting in the locker rooms he offereddouble or quits; he was a born golfer

and round the links he’d wipe the floor with me.I played the ignoramous to a tee:

The pleb in the gag who asked the viscountwhat those egg-cup things were all about -

‘They’re to rest my balls on when I’m driving.’‘Blimey, guv, Rolls-Royce think of everything’ -

but at the fifth when I hadn’t falteredhe lost his rag and threw down the gauntlet;

we’d settle this like men; with the gloves on.I said no, no, no, no, no, no, no. OK, come on then.

This poem is written in the first person, suggesting a confessional tone, or rather, in this

particular case, a pseudo-confessional. We are drawn straight into the poem by an instant

conversational mode: “The rich! I love them”. Immediately we have the impression that the poet-

narrator is addressing the reader directly. The familiar tone used also helps make the poem accessible

to the reader right from the first line. Nearly every line contains some sort of colloquialism: “in their

bones”, “their own gear”, “whose arse I whipped”, “gawping like a fish”, “he’d wipe the floor with

me”, etc.. There is even a joke from lines seventeen to twenty, something one could well have heard in

a pub. Even the title is familiar: ‘Great Sporting Moments: The Treble’. It could be the title of a

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programme or video retracing the football season of a particular club. It leaves us in no doubt that the

poem is going to talk in some way about sport, and chances are three sporting events.

The three sports spoken about in the poem are tennis, golf, and boxing. The duality appears

to be between the rich from the coast (supposedly the south coast) and the poet-narrator, apparently of

modest means, from West Yorkshire. The rich versus the poor. The south versus the north. The

favourite versus the underdog. We are, of course, dealing with a typical English cliché, and the

underdog turns out to be the winner – not only is the poet-narrator a better sportsman but he is also

more intelligent. He plays the “ignoramous to a tee”. There is even a pun here just to drive the

message home.

The rich are given a negative image by being arrogant – they claim to be naturals in all

sporting disciplines: “Trust them to suppose / the gift of tennis is deep in their bones”, “Smarting in

the locker rooms he offered / double or quits; he was a born golfer” – and by being over the top –

“with all their own gear / from electric eyes to the umpire’s chair”. Even with his wealth, though, the

poet-narrator wins easily at both tennis and golf, and at the end of the poem the gauntlet is thrown

down – representing the duel – and things end with a boxing match, the noble art.

Everything in this poem is explained clearly, there is no ambiguity. Metaphors are kept to a

minimum, and there is only one simile in line nine. But even this is constructed in a very precise way

with the use of “like” which limits the comparison to only one aspect of the comparer, in this case the

way a fish ‘gawps’. The poem finishes by underlining its conversational mode with the repetition of

“no”, and the “OK, come on then”.

We can note that this poem is completely in the past tense, suggesting the narration of a story

rather than the posing of a general truth. Also, one can note the strong use of full rhymes. This helps

give a rigid structure to the poem, guiding the reader, again helping to make the poem more accessible.

We can conclude by saying that in this poem all the elements are given to us, the poem is

directly accessible, hardly any interpretation is necessary. One could almost say that the poem is

disposable: one reading is enough to get out of it all that it can give.

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Text Analysis N°2: ‘Friction’ by Michael Hofmann

Friction

Resistance, the hum of ohms, the coiled wirecries out in its vacuum, in the too-powerful bulb.

Our silence is irksome and confrontational.As you sit across from me, I could wish you away:

turning the pages of a book, your pen grindingon my paper - I quarrel with each manifestation.

Your new dress is in an older, plainer style,belted but voluminous. It would double for pregnancy.

Asleep, motorized, tidal, you drive me to the wall.Each cycle you complete is a waste of youth,

a chemical sadness. The time passes. Doesn’t loveentail risks? We hope, pretend, take precautions.

Amplitude is for the future, it needs confidence.I stay on home ground - cageyness, stasis, ennui -

but even that’s untenable… When you left me again,I took out a pipe-cleaner and caught a drop of tar

on its thin, fleecy tip -as if that caused the impediment!

Hofmann’s poem is written in the simple present up until the fifteenth line where the

presence of suspension marks indicates a shift in tense to the preterit. The preterit, like the present, is a

simple form. However, the preterit indicates that the action or event which is defined by itself cannot

under any circumstances take place at the time of utterance; between the time of the utterance and the

moment of the event there is a disconnection. We are placed on a different plane from the immediate

present. In the poem this is a clever way of reflecting the disconnection between the poet-narrator and

his partner. The shift in tense helps underline the “friction” between the couple.

The title ‘Friction’, has no surface determiner. We are plunged directly into the concept, and

the concept behind “friction” immediately plunges us into duality. “Friction” has a scientific

signification with regards to the resistance of one surface to another, but it is also used to relate to

disagreement or conflict between people or parties with different views. Thus, the tone is immediately

set, and is reinforced by the first word of the first line: “Resistance”. In fact, the first couplet is heavily

loaded with scientific terminology: resistance, ohms, coiled wire, vacuum – all the component parts of

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a light bulb, a “too-powerful bulb”. However, what are interesting are the metaphorical elements

contained in the first two lines of the poem. What is suggested by a bulb described as being “too-

powerful”? We can argue that it suggests a light which is extremely bright, “too-powerful” because it

casts a truthful light on the problems that are to be exposed in the poem. Another interesting element

in the opening couplet is “the coiled wire / cries out in its vacuum”. In a true vacuum sound cannot

travel and is therefore suppressed, the silence is forced. This suggests something such as a problem

which is having trouble getting out, being expressed. This forced silence foretells the silence between

the couple which is expressed in line three.

Line three begins with the possessive determiner “our” and contains a copula in the simple

present. ‘Our’ either signifies belonging to us, or belonging to all people, and combined with ‘is’ could

be interpreted as constructing a general truth. Either the silence between the poet-narrator and his

partner is always “irksome and confrontational”, or silence between all people is “irksome and

confrontational”. The only other time we come across a pronoun relating to the collective is in line

twelve: “We hope, pretend, take precautions”. Again this is presented as a series of general truths.

Note that the only things that seem to have any force of unification are silence, hope, pretence, and

precaution. What purpose do these two lines serve? It is possible that they help create a distance

between the two protagonists of the poem. A distance which is underlined by the constant assertion of

the dichotomy ‘I’ (which has seven references) and ‘you’ (six references).

Separation is immediately suggested in the first half of line four (“As you sit across from

me”), and is strengthened in the second half (“I could wish you away”). The idea of separation is again

suggested in lines five and six: “your pen grinding / on my paper”. Notice how it is the word

“grinding” dividing the two, “grinding” which sends us back to the concept of friction. The fact that

the poet-narrator quarrels with “each manifestation”, may reflect the pettiness of the situation, or it

may also highlight the silence seeing that the noise of pen on paper is annoying for the poet-narrator.

The idea of noise reappears in line nine: “Asleep, motorized, tidal, you drive me to the wall”. This

suggests that the poet-narrator’s partner snores – again there is separation as one half of the couple is

asleep, with the poet-narrator wide awake precisely because his partner is asleep.

We are introduced to the problem causing the friction in lines seven and eight of the poem.

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The dress is qualified as being “older” and of a “plainer style”, metaphorically hinting that the couple

is getting older and that maybe their relationship is getting plainer. And it is through the dress that we

are confronted to the lack of pregnancy as “it would double for pregnancy”. The influence of the past

tense marker, “would”, on the basic value of will is very important, because “would” is a de-

actualising form, and can construct various values one of which is a hypothetical value. It is this

hypothetical value which interests us here, the conditions of which in this example are implicit: “It

would double for pregnancy” suggests ‘if you had a child’. The utterer predicts the validation of the

predicative relation at a future time, and this validation depends on the validation of the implicit

clause. So we have a hypothetical prospective validation where the non-validation of the relation is not

totally excluded in this modal form.

This de-actualised prediction is the main value of ‘would’ in clauses depending on

conditions, and that is why this use is often called ‘the conditional’. However, the prediction is

founded on the fact that the utterer can attribute volition or a characteristic to the subject of the

predicative relation, ie. his prediction of the hypothetical future is based on his present knowledge of

the inclinations, characteristics, habits, etc., of the subject of the predicative relation. Here it is obvious

that the use of “would” by the poet-narrator relates to his prediction of the hypothetical future based on

his present knowledge that his partner does not want a baby.

This brings us back to line nine, the central line of the poem: “Asleep, motorized, tidal, you

drive me to the wall”. There is an ironic tone present here, the idea of “motorized” snoring “driving”

our poet-narrator “to the wall”. To be ‘to the wall’ means to be in a difficult or desperate situation,

which once again reflects the friction between this couple. However, it also suggests the expression ‘to

drive somebody up the wall’, signifying making someone mad, which would relate more to the

snoring. In fact, what the poem cleverly does here is avoid a cliché by combining a pun with a shift in

conventional image.

As the beginning of the first half of the poem, the beginning of the second half of the poem

carries some scientific signification: “Each cycle you complete is a waste of youth, / a chemical

sadness”. This, needless to say, relates to the menstruation that is ‘wasted’ because of the pill. Each

cycle represents the “hope” of line twelve followed by the playful pretending. The “chemical sadness”,

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the pill represents the precautions taken. Of course, the completion of each cycle also represents the

passing of time, the fact that the couple are getting older (“Your new dress is in an older, plainer

style”):

[…] The time passes. Doesn’t loveentail risks?

Notice the construction of the couplet here. If we take the first line separately it is as if the poet-

narrator is asking if love passes like time does. The enjambment, though, asks another question: what

are the risks that love entails, or rather, what are the risks not being taken here? That of having a child?

Notice also the use of the determiner ‘the’ before the noun ‘time’, we are not simply dealing with ∅

time. ‘Time’ combined with ‘the’ has a generic value. Time passing represents the passing of all

things, maybe even love.

“Amplitude” at the beginning of line thirteen sends us back to “voluminous” in line eight.

Amplitude through pregnancy or amplitude through the putting on of weight with age? Remember that

the dress “would double for pregnancy”, but is not primarily large for that purpose. We can suppose

that primarily the poet-narrator is referring to pregnancy, a pregnancy which is for “the future” (again

generic, no specificity), a pregnancy which needs “confidence”, which needs a feeling of certainty.

This certainty, however, is lacking as the poet-narrator chooses to “stay on home ground”, chooses not

to take risks or say overtly what is on his mind, he remains within the safeness of his “cageyness,

stasis, ennui”. And yet even this offers no excuses, is “untenable”.

The end off the poem offers a sort of anecdote which suggests some sort of symbolism. As

we have already seen there is a shift in tense in the fifteenth line: “When you left me again”. Once

more this suggests separation and interminable repetitive cycle that leads to nothing.

I took out a pipe-cleaner and caught a drop of tar

on its thin, fleecy tip -as if that caused the impediment!

It is as if this action holds some sort of metaphorical value, though at the same time it reflects a

banality of life. It is as if the poet-narrator has shut himself away, concentrating on cleaning his pipe,

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shutting away the real problem: silence and the difficulties that occur when couples stop

communicating.

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Text Analysis N°3: ‘Succession’ by Stephen Romer

Succesion

A fragment of time in the pure state...I remember it

as a mile of revelation,rain thick as vodka on the windscreen,

midnight blue above the gableof the Grand Hotel at Cabourg, a double

rainbow drilling the plough...In the same place, I think of it now,

of how the yellow milk in that horizonis overlaid by this one

rapidly closing down,and of how my own son

zigzagging through the monochromewill overlay me in time.

Introduction

‘Succession’ is made up of seven half-rhyming couplets. The couplets physically separate

the poem into elements and are often used as a method of concentration, a way of disciplining the

thought process. Couplets also lend themselves well to poetic dialogue, and the fact that these couplets

are half-rhyming adds impetus to the movement of the poem and its poetic dialogue; full rhymes

would slow this movement down.

The title of the poem, ‘Succession’, lacks an article, a surface determiner, which means that

there is no specific identification. This in turn means we are dealing with the generic, the very notion

of “succession”. We are plunged directly into the conceptual – the concept of “succeeding”, the

process of “following in order”. We immediately know, therefore, that we are dealing here with one of

two things (and probably even both): either physical succession in space, or abstract succession in

time. A closer look at the rest of the poem will hopefully illustrate this.

The intertextual mark

The first thing we notice when we begin reading the poem is the italicised first line. This is

an obvious example of surface structure, so the question that naturally follows is Why? Often, textual

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markers of this type indicate some form of intertextuality, and in this particular case we are dealing

with a quote from Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past – a quote that is also a translation. Of

course, intertextual reference will only work if the reader recognises this as a quote from Proust and

has read Proust. Thus, we can question the type of voice employed here by the poet-narrator, and what

is lot from our understanding of the poem if we do not know that the opening line is a quote from

Proust.

In answer to the first question we can say that an implicit literary tone has been added to the

inherent one – a reference to the literary canon included within the very literary form that is a poem.

The answer to the second query is slightly more complex. We find another allusion to Proust’s work at

line 6 where the poet-narrator talks of “the Grand Hotel at Cabourg” – “Cabourg”, of course, is

Balbec. If we can spot that the poet-narrator is making allusions to Remembrance of Things Past, then

it will cast a different light on the poem than if we did not. We can tell that the poem grows out of, or

clusters around the first line, and that this quote acts as a source of inspiration. So one answer may be

that it is important to have some knowledge of Proust’s work. However, we must not forget that the

poem does have its own separate identity, it is not parasitic, and it would be a mistake to forget this.

What I propose to do here is give you some details about Proust’s work that I think may be of some

importance.

A touch of Proust

As the two ‘ways’ of the narrator’s childhood in Remembrance of Things Past, (the paths to

the Swann’s and to the Guermantes’) have merged with the marriage of the Swann’s daughter with a

Guermantes son, so the elderly man is suddenly made particularly aware by a blinding flash of

involuntary memory that past and present also merge into one. He now realises that these moments

reveal the true reality behind appearances, the reality which he had long struggled to find. When these

moments were experienced he was filled with joy: “Tout un coup un toit, un reflet de soleil sur une

pierre, l’odeur d’un chemin me faisaient arrêter par un plaisir particulier qu’ils me donnaient, et aussi

parce qu’ils avaient l’air de cacher, au-delà de ce que je voyais, quelque chose qu’ils invitaient à venir

prendre...”. Compare the details here to those at the beginning of the poem and the way that they also

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lead on, over and above, to something else:

rain thick as vodka on the windscreen,

midnight blue above the gable[...], a double

rainbow drilling the plough…

Compare also the way the two paths merge into one to “I think of it now / of how the yellow milk in

that horizon / is overlaid by this one”.

Of course, the most important theme of Proust’s work is memory, and this poem centres

around recollection: “I remember it” [l.12], and “I think of it now” [l.8]. Now see how these two

quotes from Proust’s Time Regained, in the original French, aptly fit themselves to the poem:

[…] si le souvenir, grâce à l’oubli, n’a pu contracter aucun lien, jeter aucun chaînon entre lui et laminute présente, s’il est resté à sa place, à sa date, s’il a gardé ses distances, son isolement dans lecreux d’une allée ou à la pointe d’un sommet, il nous fait tout à coup respirer un air nouveau,précisément parce que c’est un air qu’on a respiré autrefois, cet air plus pur que les poètes ontvraiment essayé de faire régner dans le Paradis et qui ne pouvait donner cette sensation profondede renouvellement que s’il avait été respiré déjà, car les vrais paradis sont les paradis qu’on aperdus.[...] la mémoire, en introduisant le passé dans le présent sans le modifier, tel qu’il était au momentoù il était le présent, supprime précisément cette grande dimension du temps suivant laquelle la viese réalise.

Proust 1954, Paris: Gallimard, pp. 866-1034.

Let us now look at the first line as a unit belonging to the poem. We can see that this line

ends with suspension marks (surface structure) and contains no verb. How are we to understand this

beyond the fact that we are dealing with a quote? It is as if the allusion to Proust’s work is posited as a

spring from which the rest of the poem will grow. The suspension marks are a way of telling us that

the sentence in Proust’s original is not finished, but they also tell us that the rest of the poem is born

out of this one line.

The content of this line itself is allusive. The beginning, “A fragment of time”, seems easy

enough to understand. We are not talking about minutes or hours because they are means of measuring

time. Here we are dealing with Ø time, that is the notion of time (vs. the time, or even a time), and

we are especially concerned with “a fragment” of that time. The indefinite article posits the validation

of an occurrence of the notion to which the noun refers. We may even go as far as taking the whole

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thing as a compound: “A fragment of time”. The indefinite article also means that there is extraction of

one element from the clan and this is underlined by the word “fragment”. So, how are we, all in all, to

understand “A fragment of time”? If we are dealing with the notion, the concept of time, and, more to

the point, an extraction of an element of that time, then I believe what we have here is a memory. The

memory of a person is the length of time over which the memory of that specific person extends. A

memory is the recollection and extraction of a specific part of the memory.

What about the second part of this first line: “[...] in the pure state...”? The use of the definite

article presupposes some sort of anterior knowledge, it pinpoints to a certain referent. So how are we

to understand “the pure state”? We do not really have any anterior knowledge constructed by the poem

itself as this is still the first line. This may suggest that it could be necessary to refer to Proust’s work

because it is that work which is the anterior knowledge. One could also view this matter slightly

differently – what if the concept referred to was that of the platonic notion of ‘Ideas’. Generally

speaking this is understood to entail the thought that all the things we experience on earth are just a

reflection of their ideal – their pure state – that exists in the shadowy place, the ‘sea of Ideas’. The

memory that concerns us here is, therefore, one that is linked directly to this ‘sea of Ideas’, it gives the

poet-narrator direct access to “the pure state”. Thus, even without recognising the reference to Proust,

the reader can still ascertain the notion of memory and its contruction being alluded to.

The construction of detail

Right at the beginning of line 2 the poet-narrator physically intervenes with the elliptical

statement “I remember it”. The poet-narrator here is talking in the first person singular and this could

lead us to believe that either a dialogue is being struck up between poet-narrator and reader (as in

confessional verse), or that the poet narrator is thinking to himself (an interior monologue – remember

that all monologues are dialogues between the utterer and himself).

The use of “it” here is very important. What is “it” that the poet-narrator remembers? The

“fragment of time”? If so, what “fragment of time”? ‘It’ is anaphoric and can be one of two things.

Firstly, it can be the reprise of something stated earlier. Secondly, it can be used as an effect of

anticipation. In the first case it may relate back to the “the fragment of time”. In the second case it may

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refer to something that the poet-narrator is just about to reveal to us, hence, perhaps, its positioning at

the end of the line. The use of ‘it’ therefore leads to a certain amount of referential interference or

jamming, and this in turn leads to a situation of destabilisation. This destabilisation occurs via a

linguistic procedure which aims at not making the “it” wholly explicit. Of course, the fact that “it”

arrives at the end of the line helps us cross the physical break between the couplets without too much

hindrance. In fact, this is true for each couplet – there is a specific use of enjambements.

There then follows “as a mile of revelation” [l.3]. The function of “as” here is not obviously

comparative. Of course, what the poet-narrator is saying is that how he recalls “it”, it was like “a mile

of revelation”. This turns line 2 into a set phrase and gives it an almost phatic quality. On the other

hand, what the poet-narrator might also be saying is that he remembers “it” precisely as it had first

appeared to him (ie. “in the pure state”). What is interesting here is the combined use of a physical

distance (“a mile”) and a metaphysical experience (“revelation”). The way these two words are

reconciled within the same line, the way they contaminate each other, reflects the way the time past

and the time present can be reconciled and how they affect each other. “[R]evelation” has an obvious

use here tied in with its semantic content, viz. the act or instance of revealing, the supposed disclosure

of knowledge. This supports the idea that somewhere along the line Plato’s theory of Ideas is an

underlying notion.

The “as” in line 4, however, appears to be used comparatively. Comparisons have two

functions. They either help the interlocuter to understand better, ie. the heuristic or pedagogical

function, and also they carry metaphorical elements. It is imporatnt to note that this comparison is

constructed with ‘as’ rather than ‘like’. ‘Like’ is more intellectual than ‘as’, it disguises, underlines the

difference. ‘As’ is closer to identification, it is closer to the metaphor, we are halfway between ‘like’,

where the person giving the comparison is dominant, and the metaphor where that person disappears,

ie. we are caught between two states. Are we not in a way close here to the second form or memory as

stated by Proust, viz. the involuntary and penetratingly analytical? Is it not this type of memory that

the whole of the poem is dealing with? Is it not the fact that we are dealing with the penetratingly

analytical that in the first half of the poem we are dealing with such intense detail? Maybe it is because

of that intense detail that a simile is used here and not a metaphor. A simile limits the comparison to

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one aspect of the comparer, and it is because we are dealing with precise recollection that the trope

used is also precise. If one tries to use a metaphor instead of the simile it does not really work (eg.

“vodka rain on the windscreen”). In this way the poet-narrator has also managed to escape the use of

any cliché.

Another function of the simile is its ability to recover a loss of intensity by the effect of

anomaly – a metaphor cannot afford to do this without the risk of being incomprehensible as the

compared is totally absent. This is why it is vital to study the semantic content of this simile. We can

note that the semantic field of the comparer is already narrowed down by the adjective “thick”, and it

is on this quality upon which we must focus, ie. the thickness of vodka. However, the thickness of

vodka is not the first quality of this alcoholic drink that springs to mind. In this way the poet-narrator

shifts away from the mainstream, and the intense detail is once again underlined – not only that the

rain was thick, but also that vodka is thick).

The recollection of detail

As we read on, the recollection of detail continues. “[M]idnight blue” [l.5], is a highly

specific colour, and colour is very important in this poem. Later on we will come across the “yellow

milk” [l.9], and even “the monochrome” [l.13]. Next, in line 6, is the naming of a specific location:

“the Grand Hotelat Cabourg”. The naming of a real place, a real hotel, is a way of anchoring us down,

the situation is stabilised via a process of toponymy.

What follows next is wonderful imagery:

[...] a double

rainbow drilling the plough…

As “a double” comes at the end of the line it brings into play the “vodka” from earlier on. The

“double” could well relate – and the poet-narrator undoubtedly plays on this – back to the drink, but it

also cleverly leads the reader on. The images created by these two lines are so loaded and precise that

the picture we conjure up is necessarily exact and exacting.

This couplet, line 7 and 8, is what we could call the hinge of the poem. Line 7 is the

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apotheosis of the cluster of details delivered in the first half of the poem. Notice how the rainbow is

actually physically in action, ploughing up the earth. The fact that it is a double rainbow (a result of

double-vision from too much drink?) reflects the two states: time past and time present.

With “In the same place, I think of it now,” [l.8], we return to the present. An opposition is

marked between “I think of it now, ” and “I remember it” [l.2]. There is an additional (and slightly

more concrete) temporal element with “now”, which anchors the line in the present. However, if we

look closely at “I remember it”, something else comes to light. This line is in the simple present –

though “remember” suggests the past – and it is possible to give this line a generic value. In this case

there is no particular instance or occasion of the action ‘remember’, there is no link between the

predicate and a particular situation. In fact, what is actually being said is that every time “I”, the poet-

narrator, remembers, he remembers it as “a mile of revelation”. There is some ambiguity here: is the

poet narrator remembering just now the experiences he is relating to us (and which he remembers as a

mile of revelation); or is it every time he remembers this experience, he remembers it as “a mile of

revelation”? Line eight would seem to favour the second interpretation, “now” stabilising the situation

in the present and marking an opposition with the second line. In addition to this “In the same place”

suggests a return to a specific place, this sparking off a certain memory.

Past, Present & Future

After this ‘hinge’ we enter the second half of the poem. We leave behind us the specific

detail of the opening few lines and find ourselves moving swiftly on towards the close of the poem.

This half of the poem continues to be a meditation on time but, as we shall see, moves on from the

past and present, and points to the future: a future which seems not only to encompass the death of the

poet-narrator but also his continuation, the emblem of which is his child.

Let us consider the metaphor in line 9: “the yellow milk”. This most probably refers to the

“monochrome” which comes at line 13. However, what does this trope involve? The colour yellow

seems to refer directly to the horizon, to the setting sun and how the light and colour paint the

landscape. To understand the use of “milk” we need to take a closer look at its semantic content.

‘Milk’ is the fluid secreted by female mammals for the nourishment of their young. It also has a very

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particular consistency, as does vodka. What we appear to have here is a reference to the consistency of

the atmosphere and the way the sun, as it sets, pours its light, its “yellow milk” over the landscape; and

also a reference to the poet-narrator’s son. The “milk” [l.9] and “son” [l.12] represent youth and the

eternal (re-)beginning, the continuation that I mentioned earlier. On the other hand, vodka – a drink

completely at the other end of the scale to milk – is more linked to adulthood and reminiscences of the

past.

The “yellow milk” relates to “that horizon” which is “overlaid by this one” [l.10]. The

‘horizon’ is the line at which the earth and sky appear to meet, and it is also the limit of mental

perception, experience, etc. ‘Horizon’, taken in its first sense, relates to the way one horizon is

replaced by another (you can never reach an horizon, horizons cannot be fixed). This is intertwined

with the second half of the definition, ie. the horizon of mental perception and experience is the poet-

narrator’s death, and his experiences will be replaced by another set, the next generation’s, his son’s.

This may also relate back to the platonic theory of Ideas. As the poet-narrator finds himself nearly

attaining the ideal then all of a sudden that ideal finds itself moving away, or rather an obstacle to

overcome appears in its place.

We must also make a special note of the use of “this” and “that” in lines 9 and 10:

[...] that horizonis overlaid by this one

‘That’ indicates differentiation. It locates another element, relative to both utterer and co-utterer, that

is either pointed at by the utterer or previously mentioned. In this particular case, both could be

considered applicable. The poet narrator is pointing at a horizon relative to himself and his reader.

Also, the horizon has in a way been previously mentioned, for “that horizon” is a memory, it is “[a]

fragment of time in the pure state”.

On the other hand, ‘this’ indicates a linguistic operation of strict identification. It is related

to the utterer himself and not the co-utterer. The “horizon” of line 10 is metaphorically the poet-

narrator’s son who will overlay him in time just like the horizons overlay each other. This horizon is

“rapidly closing down” [l.11], like the curtains of a theatre closing down at the end of a show. They

“rapidly” close down as time seems to quicken the more we age. In line 12 the poet-narrator

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specifically relates the horizons of line 10 to his “own son ”, the “own” underlining what “this” [l.10]

implies, that the “son” is related to the utterer only and not the co-utterer.

Monochromatic Time

The “monochrome” at the end of line 13 implies two things. In one sense ‘monochrome’

suggests how the landscape is but one colour, yellow, as it is flooded by the setting sun. In the second

case a ‘monochrome’ is a photograph or a picture done in one colour or tones of one colour. This

suggests that the poet-narrator is trying to fix in time this landscape (hence the precise detail, the

specific location). Of course, this attempt is in vain because time does not stand still, it is continually

overlaying itself – this underlined perfectly by the way the poet-narrator’s son will overlay him [l.14].

In addition, we must note the lovely word “zigzagging” at the beginning of line 13. The

poet-narrator’s son is “zigzagging through the monochrome”, suggesting that passage through time is

not linear but is punctuated by memories, by certain experiences. Thus, we have come full circle, back

to the beginning of the poem: “A fragment of time in the pure state…” – this is one of those memories,

one of those experiences.

Conclusion

As we have seen, the passing of time is the dominant theme of this poem as introduced by

the title itself. Therefore, to conclude, we should briefly mention the tense employed by the poet-

narrator in this poem. The central tense is the simple present. However, the use of the simple present is

intricate in this poem as it relates to something in the past (a specific memory) as it is remembered

now, in the present. The simple present in English anyway indicates that the meaning content

corresponding to the predicate is validated (ie. considered as true) when applied to the grammatical

subject of the utterance. The utterer merely validates the relation between the grammatical

subject and the predicate. He presents what he is saying as true in itself, independent of any point of

view. However, to the extent that the relation has already been constructed (choice of starting terms,

passive or active orientation, word orders) we must be careful of the term ‘independent’ (here the poet-

narrator as we have already noted is not just informing us that he “remembers it”). What is interesting

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here, though, is that the use of the simple present underlines the intensity of detail: it was like that,

what I am saying is true, every detail, I recall it perfectly, the memory is that intense.

If I were to categorise this poem into some sort of literary stock theme, a topos, I would say

that it belongs to that which deals with the passing of time. This is, of course, one of the classic topoi

along with love, loss and separation.

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Text Analysis N°4: ‘After Conference’ by Stephen Romer

After Conference

We had learned to avoideye contact with beggarsand walked with purposebut the pious mouthingsof our impeccable uneasewhere we hobnobbedon the High Commissioner’s lawnstuck in our gulleton that traffic islandwhere the maimedare dumped by van.The pressure buildingour pockets burningwe were bankruptin that pausewhen the traffic of Indiarefused us passage.

Introduction

The first thing that strikes you about the poem ‘After Conference’ is its interesting

typography. The poem is made up of one block, one long stanza containing seventeen relatively short

lines and only two sentences.

Secondly, we notice the distinct lack of punctuation. There is no hard punctuation

whatsoever (eg. commas), and the only soft punctuation are the two full stops that make up the

sentences. The effect this lack of punctuation has on the reader is one of ambiguity. As a reader we

must ask ourselves whether or not the end of each line (normally a pause) carries on its meaning to the

next line? Is it a new sentence attached to the previous one? This ambiguity helps create a certain

tension. As the reader works his way through the poem he finds himself accumulating more and more

information without being offered a pause, a chance for his imagination to rest.

Rhyme and reason

After the first full stop [l.11] the following two lines are full rhymes. In fact, these are the

only two full rhymes in the whole poem and should start alarm bells ringing. These full rhymes are a

way of increasing the tension, the “pressure” that has been “building”, this shift is a way of telling us

that we are nearing the threshold, nearing the point where the tension is going to burst. When finally

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we arrive at the word « bankrupt » [l.14], two main things seem obvious. Firstly, the line falls short by

one syllable with regards to the preceding two. We are so taken up with the rhythm and the rhyme that

we expect line 14 to contain five syllables, but in fact it only contains four. Secondly, with the third ‘b’

at the beginning of “bankrupt” (after “building” and “burning”) we expect the paronomase to follow

suit and for there to be another ‘-ing’ feminine rhyme line ending. Instead we are faced with an abrupt

masculine ending in the form of an occlusive ‘t’. As well as suddenly releasing the pressure that has

been building up, the reader is forced into coming to a physical halt. This in fact prepares us for line

15, “in that pause”, by physically making us pause.

Phallocentricity

In addition to the single block made up of short lines, this minimal punctuation makes for

what some feminist criticism may call a phallocentric poem – the poem is actually seen to be a male

orgasm. Though one should avoid a psychoanalytical study of this poem, it is an interesting point to

make as this poem seemingly upholds it: a series of short lines with the “building of pressure”, leading

to a final release. The pressure is released at the word “bankrupt”, when all is spent, and there then

follows the “pause”, the orgasmic aftermath.

Polysyllabicity

There is a shift between polysyllabic words (“impeccable” [l.10], “Commissioner” [l.7]),

and monosyllabic ones (“maimed” [l.10], “dumped” [l.11]), with a concentration of duosyllabic

words. These duosyllabic words, or two-time words, keep up the quick pace of the rhythm; polysllabic

words slow us down, make us take our time. However, the monosyllabic words are abrupt and violent.

These sets of words reflect contrasting realities. It is the influences that these surface structures have

on the reader’s apprehension of the different facets of the text that are most important. The manner of

the expression, as much as the content expressed, allows the reader to construct an image that is

ultimately vital.

The polysyllabic words “impeccable” and “Commissioner” both have Latin origins,

whereas ‘dump’ has its roots in Norse and ‘maim’ has unknown origins. These two monosyllabic

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terms belong more to spoken English than the polysyllabic ones. “[M]aimed” is an adjective meaning

crippled, disabled or mutilated. It fits in well with the adjective “dumped”, signifying to put down

firmly, to deposit rubbish, to abandon or desert. ‘Dump’ is also a noun meaning a place for depositing

rubbish. It is euphonically an unpleasant word and is used well by the poet-narrator who seems

somewhat shocked in front of what appears to be harsh indifference to human suffering. So these two

monosyllabic words are used to relate a very strong, unpleasant image of disabled people being

deposited like rubbish in the middle of a main road.

Something which is “impeccable” is faultless and exemplary. A “Commissioner”, or in

this case a “High Commissioner”, is a representative of the supreme authority in a district. These two

definitions are a far cry from the misery and harshness of the two monosyllabic words we discussed

above. On the contrary, these polysyllabic terms underline the grandiloquence of the first half of the

poem. So we can say here that the surface structures of these four words tie in well with their semantic

contents.

After the conference

The title of a poem is a key that opens the door onto the rest of the text. With the title

‘After Conference’, two central grammatical elements should be noted. Firstly, there is no article

(neither definite nor indefinite); secondly, we are dealing with a singular noun. When these two factors

are combined we know that we are dealing with the notion, or rather the constructed notional domain

(ie. the underlying predicative relation). “Ø After Conference”, refers to ‘that which is After

Conference’ rather than ‘that which is not After Conference’, and what interests us here is the

qualitative value of the noun without any specification of quantity. In fact, if we look at the poem as a

whole we can be more precise and say that although the poet-narrator is referring to one specific

occurrence, a specific “after conference” that he attended, the construction used here reaches beyond

that particular occurrence to the very concept that is “after conference”.

So what does this concept of “after conference” actually involve? There appears to be a

certain amount of ambiguity here (due to the lack of article, or surface determiner). If the title had

been ‘The After Conference’ or ‘An After Conference’, we would know that it would be referring to

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the festivities that often follow a conference, the “hobnobbing” [l.6]. However, if the title had been

‘After The Conference’ or ‘After A Conference’ then there would be an obvious shift in meaning. It

would no longer be referring to the festivities after the conference, but what the poet-narrator saw

following and regardless of the conference. That is, even though the conference took place, the

beggars were still begging and the maimed were still being dumped. The lack of surface determiner

leaves the title open to both of these interpretations, and we can actually see that the first half of the

poem is clearly linked to the first interpretation and the second half to the second.

The interaction between the title and the main body of poem does not stop there. A

‘conference’ is supposedly a discussion or a consultation, ie. it refers to some sort of oral discourse.

However, what seems to reign here is a certain ominous silence. This silence marks an almost

oxymoronic contrast with the title: the traffic seems to make no noise, and even the “mouthings”

(which can mean a silent moving of the lips) get “stuck in our gullet”. No matter the discussions that

take place nothing ever seems to change because nothing is ever actually said, no valid action is ever

decided upon.

Me, myself and I?

All throughout the poem the poet-narrator uses the adjective ‘our’, and pronouns ‘we’

and ‘us’.

WE: it is most often used by and with reference to more than one person, and with one or moreassociated persons. It can also be used to refer to people in general (cf. the pronoun ‘one’).‘We’ can also be used as a form of ‘you’ when implying condescension.

OUR: this either means belonging to us, or belonging to all people.

US: this is the objective case of ‘we’.

It is, of course, possible that the poet-narrator is not alone in experiencing these various

scenes. However, we could also conclude from the definition of these pronouns and adjective, as well

as the context of the poem, that the narration here is intersubjective, ie. the poet-narrator is relying on

some sort of cooperation. It appears we are dealing with a communicative act calling upon shared

values. When we read through the poem for the first time a whole set of images are sparked off. These

images find their confirmation when, in the penultimate line of the poem, we come across the proper

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noun “India”. We immediately think of the grandeur of an empire, the British Empire, placing its foot

on the poverty stricken land of India. We have pictures of this forced juxtaposition, this collision

between wealth and poverty – or what the colonialists saw as poverty, viewing as they did a nation

without understanding it. It is these images, these shared values that we are all taught in school that the

poem is calling upon.

As the poem goes on we find that the intersubjective relationship that the poet-narrator

has established through the pronouns he uses evolves. The more we read on the more the communion

between poet-narrator and reader becomes solid. “[U]s”, the objective case of ‘we’ comes in at the

very last line, and this seems to mark the total assimilation between poet-narrator and reader. Beyond

this, we could also draw two further conclusions: firstly, ‘we’ shifts from the communion between

poet-narrator and reader, to include all people in general, or rather all those citizens of (former)

colonial powers; secondly, ‘we’ appears as a condescending ‘you’, not condescending with regards to

the reader, but with regards to the poet-narrator – an auto-critique – he was present at the conference

and participated in the festivities of the after conference party but in the end managed to change

nothing.

No man is an island

The poem seems to be divided into two: the first half relating to the festivities of the after

conference party, the second relating to a certain lack of result following the discussions. Line 9 (“on

that traffic island”) seems to be the crux of the poem. Prior to this line, the main idea that the poet-

narrator seems to be conveying is that of the hobnobbing on the “High Commissioner’s lawn”. After

line 9 the central image is that of the maimed being dumped. The way these two images are set side by

side serves to reflect the indifference to human suffering that is a certain way of life in India.

We must note that in line 9 the use of “traffic island”, or more specifically “island”, is far

from innocent. An island is, of course, a piece of land that is detached or isolated and is often

surrounded by water. The question we can ask ourselves is what are we detached from? We are in fact

detached from two things. Firstly, the luxury of the events on the High Commissioner’s lawn are long

gone; secondly, we are far from what “we had learned to avoid” [l.1]. On this island – surrounded not

34

by water but by the “traffic of India” – all that is real, all that is true are the disabled people and the

beggars. The hypocrisy of ‘liberal conscience’ has fallen by the wayside and although we have been

told not to give money to the beggars we know that we will eventually give in to their stare.

The use of “that” in line 9 merits a closer look. ‘That’ indicates a differentiation

operation, ie. it indicates something that is both relative to both the utterer (the poet-narrator) and the

co-utterer (the reader). It always relates to the location of another element either pointed at by the

utterer or previously mentioned. In that context we can say that the poet-narrator is pointing to the

traffic island in question. However, what is vital here is that he is actually locating the traffic island

relative to both himself and the reader, underlining the function of ‘we’. ‘That’ is also often

judgemental, and we can see whether this judgement is positive or negative from the context. Here we

can safely say that it is negative.

Guilt

We can note that the first line “We had learned to avoid” is in the past perfect (had -en).

The use of had -en relates to an event located as completed relative to a locating situation which is

itself located in the past. Since this is an auxiliary form the utterer chooses to present an event with

respect to a particular locating viewpoint independent of the real chronology of the extra-linguistic

events (in poetry sequentiality – the sequence of events – is rarely the same as the chronology). If the

utterer chooses to highlight the relationship between the event and the locating viewpoint, it is

precisely to break the chronological order and to take stock of preceding events. This is exactly what

we have here, a sort of commentary with a flashback effect: the locating situation is the “and walked

with purpose” [l.3], which is itself situated in the past; the stock of preceding events is made of “We

had learned to avoid” [l.1], “the pious mouthings” [l.4], and the hobnobbing on the “High

Commissioner’s lawn” [l.7].

The aura of guilt in this poem sets in at line 3: « and walked with purpose ». Of course,

‘to walk with purpose’ is a set phrase, meaning to walk resolutely or with determination, to know

where you are going or what you are doing. However, seeing that we have the past perfect form in the

first line we know that the poet-narrator’s attempt to walk with purpose will fail and that he won’t be

35

able to avoid the beggars’ eye contact. Therefore, this idea of walking with purpose is warily ironic

more than anything else. The poet-narrator knows deep down that he is going to give in to this feeling

of guilt. This feeling does not stop at line 3, but runs all throughout the next few lines:

[...] the pious mouthingsof our impeccable uneasewhere we hobnobbedon the High Commissioner’s lawnstuck in our gullet

Though “mouthings” reflect the silent lip movements quasi-oxymoronic to ‘conference’,

they also reflect the idea of solemn utterances with affectation. This seems to help underline the

hypocrisy of the scene, and its adjective “pious” again points in this direction. “Pious” obviously

describes someone or something that is devout or religious, but interestingly it also describes someone

who is hypocritically virtuous, someone who is sanctimonious. The poet-narrator knows that these

celebrations and activities are hypocritical because they achieve nothing. The definite article before

“pious mouthings” marks a pinpointing operation. Pinpointing specifies and often marks a contrast

with respect to other elements – here as we have already pointed out, the contrast is between “the

pious mouthings” and the poverty that carries on regardless.

The combination between “impeccable” and “unease” in line 5 is a clever and interesting

one. Rarely would one describe unease or discomfort as being impeccable or exemplary (unless you

are a masochist). Obviously, the uneasiness is the guilt factor that has now firmly settled in. However,

why is it “impeccable”? This could be that the poet-narrator is British. The uneasiness is impeccable

because it is a discomfort that is hidden beneath a brave face, the stiff upper-lip. The fact that “we”

once colonised the country means that we can view all this hardship with a distant objective eye.

However, this will all disappear when face to face with the beggars. This “impeccable unease “ is

almost a premonition of the state of bankruptcy the poet-narrator will find himself in later.

The idiomatic expression of line 8 “stuck in our gullet”, has a very precise role. The word

“gullet” is very guttural and harsh, and it relates to the food passage, the oesophagus. The expression

as a whole means that something is against ones’s principles, distasteful. The use of this idiomatic

expression comes after such terms as “High Commissioner”, “impeccable”, “unease” and moves

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towards a definite lowering of tone, or rather a lowering of diction. This plays the part of bringing us

back down to earth after the high flying atmosphere of the after conference party. In fact, after line 8

we can notice a shift in diction, away from polysyllabic words and more towards clichés and idiom.

Situation

We have already seen how ‘that’ points to something outside the sphere of the poet narrator

but relative to both himself and the reader: one need only compare “on that traffic island” to ‘on this

traffic island’. However, the way the poem is constructed shows us that the poet-narrator did actually

find himself on the traffic island. Though the use of ‘that’ helps distance him in time, he is no longer

on the traffic island in question, it is as if the poet-narrator is distanced in body as well, as if he has

managed to spiritually lift out of his body and is looking down on himself. In addition to the ambiguity

created by the lack of punctuation, this helps keep up a certain swirling feeling, a certain feeling that

everything is going on regardless of us, regardless of all the conferences we may hold and attend.

In line 10, “where the maimed”, we have situational reference: the noun “maimed” is

located relative to the situation of utterance, and the pinpointed element, pinpointed by the definite

article, is identified by the utterer and the person he is speaking to. Here “maimed” relates back to

“beggars” (primary operation) and is relative to the dumping on the traffic island. However, lines 11

and 12 really need to be considered together. We have already said that “maimed” and “dumped” (note

its almost onomatopoeic quality) are both harsh words, and that this experience seems to be related to

us by a British person shocked in front of what seems to be cruel indifference to human suffering: the

maimed are abandoned on the traffic island, left isolated, left to be forgotten. The poet-narrator

experiences this as a sort of depositing of rubbish, like a rubbish dump – in India the maimed are

dumped like rubbish in Britain is dumped. What seems to be even more astonishing is that this isolated

place is in fact the middle of a main road where everyone can see.

There are two things of note in the construction of both of these lines. First of all the

copula at the beginning of line 11 is in the simple present form (compare “where the maimed / are

dumped by van” to ‘where the maimed / were dumped by van’). This underlines the fact that the

maimed are still being dumped, nothing has changed – they were being dumped before the poet-

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narrator’s intervention, during his intervention and shall continued to be dumped well after. We almost

have a general truth.

Secondly, we should note the absence of surface determiner before “van”. This, as for the

title, sends us directly to the notion of the van, we are plunged directly into the concept. What is

interesting is the way the maimed are dumped by van load and also the anonymity of the van. It is the

actual van that does the dumping, not individual people.

Climax

Line 13 and 14 relate to the way the pressure and tension have been building up from the

start. The pressure that is “building” here is, of course, the guilt factor, and the result is that the

pockets are “burning” – we have come along way from what “we had learned to avoid” in line 1 and

now it is inevitable that “we” are going to give in to the stare of the beggars, the money in “our”

pockets is itching to be donated.

Once all the money has been donated to ease our guilt we are “bankrupt” [l.14]. If we

take the word on a superficial level it obviously means that we have emptied “our pockets”, we have

donated all the money that we had. However, this word can also be used to describe someone who is

morally exhausted, and this applies itself well to the situation in hand. In the end the poet-narrator’s

guilt exhausted him, that is why he gave in to the beggars. Note that we are bankrupted “in that pause”

[l.15]. We have already seen the qualities of ‘that’ and it has here the same role as in line 9. However,

“pause” can be understood here in two ways. Firstly, a pause is an interval in action and the fact that

the poet-narrator is made bankrupt during this interval seems to relate back to the swirling effect I

mentioned earlier – the idea that everything is going on regardless of the presence of the poet-narrator.

Secondly, a pause is also a silence, and this again fits in with the swirling effect where everything else

is shut off, even the noise of the traffic cannot penetrate it. However, it also ties in with the silence that

seems to dominate the poem and mark a contrast with the title.

The definite article in line 16, “when the traffic of India”, points to a subset that is the

traffic that belongs to India rather than all the traffic in the different countries of the world. What is

interesting though is the double-edged use of “traffic”. If we take ‘traffic’ to be vehicles moving on a

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public highway then what refuses the passage are the vehicles going to and fro along the road, not

allowing anyone to cross it. If, however, we take it to be transportation of goods or people then we are

dealing with something different. In this case what holds the poet-narrator up is the actual

transportation of the maimed, the dumping of the maimed – it is this which is refusing the passage.

The main verb of this sentence finally comes in the last line: “refused us passage” [l.17].

Here the verb is in the preterit, is a simple form. The aspect of the simple form is aoristic, ie. the

specification of the action or event does not depend on any particular point of view. ‘-ED’ indicates

that the action or event which is defined by itself cannot under any circumstances take place at TØ, the

time of utterance (ie. between TØ and the moment of the event there is no disconnection). Here we

have a narrative context where the use of the preterit places us on a plane different from the immediate

past. Moreover, the lack of point of view has a way of including the reader in the “we” (the poet-

narrator does not give his point of view), and of distancing the poet-narrator from the events, trying to

make the experience seem objective.

Finally, let us look at “refused” and “passage”. ‘Refused’ comes from the verb ‘to refuse’,

but it is amusing to note that ‘refuse’ is also a noun indicating things that are rejected as worthless, just

like the maimed. ‘Passage’ must not be taken just to mean the crossing of a road. It also relates here to

a rite of passage, ie. an event marking a stage of a person’s advance through life, in this case the

bankruptcy. Often poems work in one of two ways. Firstly, one group of poems tends to take us full

circle, we are clearly led round a track to find ourselves back at the starting blocks. The second group,

however, moves on, leads us forward onto something else and this is exactly what this poem is doing,

underlined by the rite of passage. Once the money given, then and only then would the traffic of India

let us pass.

Conclusion

A poet’s style responds to his place in the history of literature, in history in general, in the

geographical location, the economical environment, etc. The style here is very direct, reflecting a

British person’s experience of Indian indifference with regards to human suffering. The world that the

poet-narrator finds himself in is constructed for us by him. He mentions the name of the country,

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India, but also the maimed and the beggars, the High Commissioner, and the traffic. Note also the

allusion or the intertextuality of the last two lines with regards to E.M. Forster’s novel A Passage to

India. This also draws on the reader’s preconstructed image of India. This is another reason why there

is a constant use of the definite article because we are drawing on some anterior knowledge that the

reader already has. What we are dealing with here is recognised information. We are dealing with the

thematic rather than the rhematic. The usual logical path to follow is from the rhematic to the thematic,

but the rubbing out of this process means that the reader is involved right from the start, he finds

himself in the middle of the action. This is underlined by the use of “we” which draws on the doxa, ie.

the common language, the common opinion between utterer and co-utterer, and also stresses the

feeling of shared guilt.

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