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Summary Stephen Spender - "V" - Analysis
This is a summary and analysis of the poem "V" by Stephen Spender.
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“Acts passed beyond the boundary of mere wishing” is a poem byStephen Spender. It is part of his collection of poems known as
“Twenty Poems”. An early typescript of this poem was sent by
Spender from Hamburg to his friend Gabriel Carrit. The piece exhibits
Spender’s fascination with the conflict between the isolated
consciousness and the external social realm, and in this case is made
more pointed by describing the difficulties of emotional expression
where love is not reciprocated. It is based on Spender’s experiences
with a fellow undergraduate at Oxford; “Marston” is the vigorous,
sporting idol and Spender the admirer, the classic love-struck
aesthete.
The Marston poems make up the bulk of Stephen Spender’s first
significant volume of poetry - Twenty Poems; published calendrically
when he was twenty years old. This poem is a depiction of the
speaker’s intense feelings towards an essentially oblivious Marston
juxtaposed with the minimal expression of this intensity in physical
action.
STANZA 1
The speaker has expended great conscious effort trying to do things
to show his love - he has committed acts “beyond the boundary of
mere wishing”. The object of his love has failed to see all his
intentional showcases of love - hidden looks, limited words spoken.
The poet compares his showcases of love to clumsy troopers
(soldiers); hereby showing that he wasn’t completely in control of
them. {this reflects his repressed desire}
His lover, however, noticed his act of waiting for the tram. He
describes his lover as being surprised and saying “waiting was very
kind.”
This was “surprising” for the poet too. The poet’s every move had
been “missionary” which is to say following the norm - trying hard to
, keep his emotions in check and not betray his true feelings. All his
emotional, earnest appeals undheard.
He had not thought that his lover would notice an unintentional
showcase of love, for he never noticed anything.
STANZA 2
His unintentional showcase of love - which was given the label of “very
kind” by his lover - was simply an overflow of his emotions, something
which he had not considered. The poet uses an extended metaphor
by comparing his showcases of love to troopers. He says that this
unintentional showcase was a “deserter from [his] force”.
The mere act of touching hands becomes the formal and emotional
climax of the piece: the intense emotional life finds its physical
expression in a miniscule gesture and finds its metaphorical
correlative in the imagery of modern industry and automation. When
they touched hands - from this trivial yet powerful exchange of caring,
he felt the apparent limitless possibilities of human relationships.
{reflects the inner turmoil of the speaker, the besotted and
unfulfilled lover}.
Here, the “Audenesque” dam, and factory provide a motif which
is both a projection of the individual’s emotional state onto the modem
environment and
an internalisation of the modem environment for the purposes of
self-definition. {“tricklings through a dam” has a double effect of
increasing the sense of feelings repressed}
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