At Mornington - Nature is presented as a cleansing process, a way to find truth and wisdom - Repetition of waves and water is very important, symbolizing time and the flow of memories. They link past and present. Waves are always continuous and coming in life. Waves, tides, floods, water. - Comfortable with the approaching of death. - Information from another, ‘they told me that when I was taken’, passive voice - Breaking from constraint of father and almost drowns - ‘rolled’, in the first and last stanza: ‘ I was caught by a wave and rolled’ ‘and rolled in one grinding race.’
- Passive voice, loss of control, vulnerable. However in contrast the second use of rolled is more excepted she has come to terms with life and the inevitable- age death - First young and innocent - Second age and knowledge - Pumpkin symbolizes fecundity, fertility/growth, maturity - Two images of the pumpkin. One is hollowed (mocking?). the other is more ‘real’ and humble. Perhaps a celebration to be part of life. - ‘I would walk on water’, invincible, sums up this sense of being indestructible - contrasts to the poem as she has excepted death by the end - innocence and experience - ‘the next wave, the next wave’, repetition, overwhelming. Like the flood of memories and the experiences of life. - ‘Flood’, memories, fleeting - beauty-autumn, metaphor- reminder of death - ‘Fine pumpkin grown on a trellis’, almost defying nature as the child did - ‘Hollowed pumpkin’- death. The child looks at death. A child mocking it, not understanding it - connection, ‘ripeness is plainly all’ from father and child part two - Enjambment creates conversation/plausibility, childhood -graveyard-dream - The water of life – time - She thinks of ‘death no more’ because she has come to realise that she is not i nevitable and death will come regardless of her thoughts or worries. Knowledge and experience. Death is just another wave to balance out - Significance of past memories. She has captivated a pivotal moment in her life - Child believes that it can defy nature by walking on water. Determination. - Can certainly be read through religion - Both personal interpretation, romantic and societies interpretation, modern - Encapsulates the human experience, pain, dreams, desire etc. At Mornington’ - Water is the unifying motif. Through nature the persona can be granted spiritual significance. Approaching not only death but also the day of judgement. In one sense the poem is about the hope of being saved, not to enter hell. God, her saviour. At Mornington’ - would focus on how the persona shifts between the past and the present and dreams and reality throughout the poem in order to come to fully appreciate the present and comes to terms with her future and the inevitability of death
At Mornington This poem was inspired by a visit to a very dear friend, Thomas Riddell. The poet went to his garden first, then to the Mornington Cemetary where his parents are buried. The poem begins with the childhood memory in which the poet recalls her first visit to the sea as a child. Believing she could walk on water, she jumped in and had to be rescued by her father. After saving her he was ‘half comforting, half angry’. Just as she thought she could defy gravity and walk on water, so the pumpkins in her friends’ garden ‘in airy defiance of nature’ symbolised for her the way in which she has been nourished by the fruits of the Earth and is moving through life to ‘the fastness of light’ and the ‘ultimate death’. She is reminded of death as ‘two friends of middle age’. She and Thomas Riddell, stand by his parents grave ‘among avenues of the dead’. She is aware that these have ‘come to that time of life’ when their bones begin to age and form their body into the final shape it will assume in death just as the ‘drying face of land rose out of earths seamless waters’. The poet recalls the peace and serenity she enjoyed with her long-time friend in a dream set in the Brisbane Botanical Gardens where they share a pitcher of cool, refreshing water. So their visit to the cemetery, the security she experienced in her fathers arms (when confronted for the first time by a Halloween pumpkin) and the serenity shared in the Botanic Gardens – all these will comfort and shield her at the time of her death, when she is ‘seized at last’ and borne away on the face of the waters forever.
Father And Child - The owl is a symbol of wisdom, an omen of death and a symbol of the feminine - Nature acts as a reminder of our mortality, frailty and limitations - The purpose of the inertextuality in this poem: the integration of quotes and ideas from King Lear is to give it a modernist aspect and establish the depth of emotion between father and child. - The wounded barn owl confirms Harwood’s ability to paint grotesque pictures in words ‘Father and Child’– A feminist reading would foreground the patriarchal symbolism through references to ‘Old King’; the death of the owl and its links to the feminine and the defeminisation of the daughter, who, li ke Lear’s daughters, has attempted to rob her father. The reversal of their positions. The lack of a mother figure. ‘Father And Child’ –The child assuming the role of God, master of life and death. Allusion to the old testament of Samson ‘robbed of power/by sleep’. The word ‘wept’ has strong connotations. Continuing biblical symbolism in the ‘early sun’ and ‘times long promised land’. The child can even be compared to the prodigal, who after abandoning his father returns for comfort.
Father and Child
TONE, DICTION AND POINT OF VIEW: The tone, or voice of Nightfall is not dissimilar to that of its companion poem Barn Owl. Both are, first person narratives but here we sense that one, much closer to the poet herself perhaps. The diction of this poem is even loftier and more formal than that of the previous poem. The subject matter is wei ghty; the impending death of a parent, and the diction is correspondingly serious. The sustained allusion to King Lear is an effective one. The notion of the aged father being an old king is a persuasive one that lends him considerable dignity, a sense of decayed greatness and faltering authority. IMAGERY: The extended metaphor of life as a journey is the predominant image in this poem. Images of Genesis, of the father as God, are called up. Another consistent image is that of the father as an old king, Since this is a poem about loss, grief and sadness, tears are also important. STRUCTURE: The poem has a nature, conversational feel, due to its given structure. CONTRAST: Nightfall is a poem about maturity, while Barn Owl is a poem about immaturity. In Barn Owl we witness a young child coming to knowledge in a terrible way through death, while in Nightfall we see a middle age person come to the knowledge in a natural way, through thinking of the death of her father. All death is change, and both poems examine the changing states of an individual at i mportant times in her life.
Title:
The Violets
Subject Matter:
The subject is a past childhood memory linked to a present adult reflection through the motif of a violet. The poem is set in Harwood’s childhood home, and as a result it is most likely predominantly autobiographical.
Analysis:
Key Quotes
Techniques and Impact on Reader
“Frail melancholy flowers among/Ashes and loam.”
Transience of childhood, innocence and life. Ash as a symbol of death and fragility, loam as a juxtaposing symbol of life and growth.
“Ambiguous light. Ambiguous sky/towards nightfall waking”
Transience, movement between adulthood (present) and childhood (past). Epistrophe to highlight this.
Enjambment of stanza to show the movement between the two. “Where’s morning gone?”
Rhetorical question, direct speech, questioning the passage of time.
“the thing I could not grasp or name”
Monosyllabic to show the simplicity of childhood and thus ignorance, also the inpermeability of life.
“Years cannot move/nor death’s disorientating scale/distort those lamplit presences”
The powers of memory in salvation from the transience – are our memories all that truly matter? Use of light as a motif for growth and enlightenment.
Themes:Harwood’s message: philosophy, moral, premise, motif, argument or insightWhat does Harwood teach us?
Existential questioning of life, childhood and memory. It shows the passage from innocence to enlightenment through the sensory imagery of the violets and the motif of light to show enlightenment and growth of the persona. The importance of memories is highlighted in t he poem due to their retained power of rejuvenation and reflection.
Distinctive Qualities / Textual Integrity of Poem:What aspect/s leave a lasting impression on the responder?What is the most notable aspect of this poem?How is this poem reflective of Harwood’s poetry in general?
The poem uses frequent enjambment in order to continue the train -ofthought style of the piece, which waxes lyrical in a slow pace, showing the growth and movement of the persona’s journey through the indentation. This enjambment also allows Harwood’s existential questioning to work as the whole piece flows without interruption, allowing the reader to follow this and thus transfer the philosophical questioning to their own lives. Fleeting moments of rhyme interrupt this in order to “jolt” the reader from one state to another, intentionally grating in contrast to the smoothness of the rest of the piece.A key feature of Harwood’s poetry is her focus on the philosophical and rejuvenating powers of nature in a Romantic style. As a post-modern author, this makes her work unique and adds to its textual integrity.
Critics’
Commentary:What have others said about this poem: style and content?
“The enemy is, of course, time”, “Violets… link past and present” (Hoddinott, 1991)
This Summary Sheet for At Mornington by Gwen Harwood provides a base for your own notes. Title:
At Mornington
Subject Matter:
This piece is a philosophical and academic reflection on the nature of being, life and death.
Analysis:
Key Quotes
Techniques and Impact on Reader
“Rolled/like a doll among rattling shells”
Loss of power, overcome by the superiority of nature. Onomatopoeia creates auditory imagery synecdoche of the sea.
“As a child I could walk on water-/ the next wave, the next wave-“
Superhuman capabilities of innocence, biblical allusion. Repetition highlight the naivety of belief, aposiopesis to show the interrupted and ultimately futile nature of this enterprise.
“On what flood are they borne/these memories of early childhood/iridescent, fugitive”
Continues motif of water, juxtaposition of splendour and hidden, secretive nature of memories.
“With their cadence of trees/marble and granite parting/the quick of autumn grasses”
The break in the natural world by something unnatural is shown as bad through the link to death. Life and death as one long continuum (“cadence”). The grasses refers to the time in life which the persona is experiencing, where she can see what has been and what is yet to come and reflect upon the two.
“in airy defiance of nature/a parable of myself”
Refers to opening in which she though she could cheat nature.
“And stayed for a whole day/talking, and drinking the water”
The indentation refers to the fact that this is a dream and thus not necessarily part of real life, yet the replenishing power of water (a metaphor for the memories of childhood?) remains.
“we have one day, only one/but more than enough to refresh us”
Inclusive pronouns indicates a strong bond and the repetition of “one” highlights the importance of this to the persona. The transience of time is shown through the “only”.
“the peace of this day will shine/like light on the face of the waters/that bear me away for ever.”
The future tense shows the cleansing nature of death, in that it returns one to a state of innocence (see: Father and Child). The Romantic power of water is not diminished even here as it is linked to such a return. The acceptance of death is show through the tense shift from past to future to present through the piece and in this final stanza.
Themes: Harwood’s message: philosophy, moral, premise, motif, argument or insight What does Harwood teach us?
The role of middle age as a place for reflection and contemplation of both the childhood that was and the death that is to come. The transience of life (as with the pitcher of water) and the importance of embracing nature (“fine pumpkins growing on a trellis”) in order to accept the “waters that bear me away for ever”.
Distinctive Qualities / Textual Integrity of Poem: What aspect/s leave a lasting impression on the responder? What is the most notable aspect of this poem?
There is no rhyme scheme in this piece, which shows the train-of-thought nature of the piece as a reflective journey for the persona. The use of an indented dream passage keeps the reader aware of the constructed nature of the piece and the fallibility of the persona, which is distinctly postmodern, despite the Romantic tone which pervades this, as all Harwood’s writing. The motif of the water is indicative of this, as well as the symbol of the pumpkins as rejuvenated
How is this poem reflective of Harwood’s poetry in general?
Critics’
Commentary: What have others said about this poem: style and content?
“Her poetry repeatedly asserts the value of friendship and durable human relationships as defences against… the destructive nature of time” (Huddinott and Kratzmann, 2003)
