Prayer
Before Birth
"The
writer today should be not so much the mouthpiece of a community as
its conscience, its critical faculty, its generous instinct"
Louis MacNiece.
Louis
MacNiece (1907-1963)
Male
Irish poet
Friend
of W.H. Auden
Worked
for BBC for 20 years, published Dark
Tower,
The
speaker/persona is an unborn baby, calling out from its mother's
womb. Don't forget, this monologue
is a prayer,
a plea (let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me,
otherwise kill me) and so addressed to God (or, to the mother). As
with "Tyger" we have to question what kind of divine figure
would create such a world!
8
stanzas of unequal length (echoes chaotic state of the world?)
Anapaest
metre (two short syllables and then one long one) creates a rolling
effect, useful in poems with long line.
Starting
with reference to child-like fears (bloodsucking bats, club-footed
ghouls) then poem moves through scenes of torture, enticing scenes of
pastoral beauty, the way his soul will be manipulated and betrayed by
his own words and thoughts and so the world itself, the way he will
be an actor on a stage with both real humans and personified nature,
and ultimately his fear of industrialisation (cog in a machine) and
becoming cannon fodder in another war (dragoon me into a lethal
automaton).
The
poem then builds to a crescendo, as the last two lines are offset -
and terrible in their message: (let them not make me a stone and let
them not spill me, otherwise kill me)
religion
fear
of industrialisation (cog in a machine) and becoming cannon fodder in
another war (dragoon me into a lethal automaton). This poem was
written during WW2, however, the message transcends the war to become
timeless, universal.
"I
am not born yet" is repeated at the start of every stanza -
giving a hopeless, tortured feel to the voice. As with the meter, it
creates a rolling, wave-like effect. Incessant.
Pronouns.
Just count all the "me," "my" and "I's"!
Also, "Oh hear me / O fill me" as well as "console
me/provide me / forgive me/ rehearse me".
bloodsucking
bat, sky to sing, murder by means... all keys to a strong internal
logic.
Assonance
tall
walls, bat or the rat, wise lies - not only gives force to words and
to word groupings, but also creates internal rhyme. This speaker,
though an unborn child, can tightly control his voice and his ideas.
The compact logic of the word choice chillingly suggests that the
speaker's logical approach to the outside world is equally well
measured.
walls
wall / racks rack/ words will speak the child / thoughts will think
him
Verbs
that echo their nouns suggest that things will do what they are
programmed to be... following this logic, the child will have to
become what the world programmes him to be (a stone, a cog, a
dragoon). Note the use of imperative: in the parts I must play, the
cues I must take. Equally, then, once born he will have no choice but
to become what was fore planned.
Trees
talk to me / Skies sing to me / Birds and a white light... to guide
me.
The
natural world entices him but, be aware, the "white waves call
me to folly and the desert calls me to doom" and "mountains
frown at me" and so, even the natural world, has become corrupt
and deadly.
Metaphors.
These
emphasize the lack of control the persona will have in his future
life: cog in a machine / to "blow me like thistledown hither and
thither"/ like "water held in hands" that "would
spill me". He so fears being a "stone," a "lethal
automat" that he would rather be killed before birth.
Websites
http://litxpert.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/analysis-prayer-before-birth-louis-mcneice-2/
a great essay
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/louis-macneice
great biography
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