The Villain - W.H. Davies
While joy gave clouds the light of stars,
That beamed where’er they looked;
And calves and lambs had tottering knees,
Excited, while they sucked;
While every bird enjoyed his song,
Without one thought of harm or wrong--
I turned my head and saw the wind,
Not far from where I stood,
Dragging the corn by her golden hair,
Into a dark and lonely wood.
“The Villain” by W.H. Davies is noteworthy for being a light, happy poem that ends in a very dark place. This change is made even more stark by the word choices in both the light and dark portions and, furthermore, is foreshadowed by the meter and rhyme patterns.
“Joy”, “excited”, and “enjoyed” are all the obvious words that make up the world of light in this poem, but this is not all that makes it happy. The imagery of “the light of stars” calls to mind soft, glowing things, and the “calves and lambs” with “tottering knees” brings images of birth and childish innocence. Even when the poem changes tone, the “golden hair” still makes one think of beautiful things.
By contrast, “dark” and “lonely” are the obvious world that make up the world of dark. “Wind”, though, also makes one think of something cold and fleeting, and “dragging” is a very suspicious and forceful-sounding word. Even the birds’ lack of wrong, harmful thoughts carries an ounce of foreboding as these words are introduced in the world of light.
Even ignoring all of this, the change can still be seen. The poem starts with a pretty standard meter--eight syllables, then six, then eight again, then six again--with no rhyme. Then, the next two lines have eight syllables and both rhyme at the end. The poem then goes back to eight, then six, then eight, then six, with the six-syllable lines rhyming. The shift is not easily noticeable at first, but reading it aloud is a little jarring. In this way, it foreshadows the change from light to dark. The sudden plot twist can still be seen, but the build-up can be clearly heard.
You did a great job of explicating certain words in order to show how they mark the transition from light to dark. It is great how you really broke down the poem to investigate the meter changes throughout the poem. It would have been nice if you teased out your analysis a little more and had more of a conclusion instead of ending so abruptly. Overall it is an interesting piece.
ReplyDeleteYou did a good analysis of the wording of the poem and broke down the organization well. I think a brief analysis of the emotional components of the poem would be really beneficial in connecting to the purpose behind the wording choices and meter. I liked how you made the transition between good and bad/ dark and light. Good job!
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting and well-written post. I love the way you analyze specific words and talk about the images that they evoke. I also really like the way that you look at the meter of the poem and what implications this has. One thing that I would have been interested to hear you talk about would be the image in the last two lines and the relationship of this to the rest of the poem. This poem is nevertheless really interesting and very very well-written. Good job!!
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