A Poem by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) A Study Guide | |||||||||||||||
Study Guide Written by Michael J. Cummings...© 2009 Type of Work and Year of Publication ......."T. S. Eliot's "Sweeney Among the Nightingales" is a modernist lyric poem that first appeared in a 1919 Eliot collection entitled Poems. The collection was published in England by Hogarth Press, operated by writers Leonard and Virginia Woolf. As a modernist work, the poem presents its characters as mundane and vulgar rather than as romantic or heroic, like the characters in many poems of the nineteenth century. Its attitude toward twentieth-century man is pessimistic rather than optimistic, cynical rather than idealistic. Like many other modernist poems, its language is difficult and richly allusive. .......The poem is set in a dining room of a restaurant or a brothel in an unidentified locale—perhaps Montevideo or another city along the southern coast of Uruguay, as suggested by lines 5 and 6: The circles of the stormy moon / Slide westward toward the River Plate. River Plate is the English name for Río de la Plata (River of Silver), between Uruguay and Argentina. The westward movement of the moon indicates that the observer is in Uruguay, since that country is northeast of the river. Additional hints at the location include the following: Spanish cape (line 11): This item of apparel suggests Spanish influence. Uruguay is a Spanish-speaking country, many of whose citizens are descendants of immigrants from Spain.Unlocking the Poem's Meaning The Epigraph .......Interpreting
“Sweeney Among the Nightingales" requires an understanding of the epigraph
(quotation after the title) from Agamemnon, a tragedy by the Athenian
playwright Aeschylus (525-456 BC). T. S. Eliot placed the epigraph in its
original Greek wording:
Sweeney's Link to Agamemnon .......Let
us now turn to Sweeney and his link to Agamemnon.
The Meaning and Theme .......The poem uses the brutish Sweeney to convey the idea that modern man is little more than a crude version of Agamemnon—just as corrupt, just as reprehensible, and equally deserving of an ignominious fate. That Eliot updated Agamemnon as an apparently rough-hewn, uncultured boor may derive from his modernist view that everyday life is not a journey through the airy climes of romance and heroism. In fact, "Sweeney Among the Nightingales" may have been a parody of a specific poem that depicted life that way: "Bianca Among the Nightingales," by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Here is the third stanza of that poem: We paled with love, we shook with love,Rhyme Scheme and Meter .......The
rhyme scheme of "Sweeney Among the Nightingales" is abcb—that
is, the second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme.
.....1.................2....................3...............4The poem also uses trochaic tetrameter having a final catalectic foot. In trochaic tetrameter, a line contains four feet (four pairs of syllables), with the stress falling on the second syllable of each pair. In trochaic tetrameter with a catalectic foot, the last foot is missing a syllable. Here is an example: .......1..................2....................3....................4In addition, the poem contains irregular feet, as in the following tetrameter line beginning with a dactyl and continuing with trochees and a catalexis: .................1..................2...................3..............4Point of View .......The speaker, or narrator, presents the poem in third-person point of view. He is objective—merely reporting what he sees—except in the seventh stanza. Its first two lines say, "She and the lady in the cape / Are suspect, thought to be in league." Here, the speaker seems to know that someone in the room, probably Sweeney, thinks that the two women are conspiring. .......The first nine stanzas of the poem are in present tense. The last stanza is in past tense. .......The unflattering depiction of Rachel in the sixth stanza (as well depictions of Jews in other poems, such as "Gerontion" and "Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar") has led some critics to accuse T. S. Eliot of anti-Semitism. One such critic is Anthony Julius, author of T. S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism, and Literary Form. The second edition of this book is now available. Click here. .......Following are examples of figures of speech in the poem: Apeneck Sweeney (line 1): Metaphor comparing Sweeney to an ape.
Study Questions and Writing Topics
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