The Defiant Nature Of Thistle
Like tall nettles, thistles, takes ideas about life from nature.
The defiant character of the plant is emphasized in the very first word ("Against") of this poem. They not only resist all animal ("rubber tongues of cows") and human ("hoeing hands of men") attempts to destroy them but even attack the natural world, indicated by the words "spike the summer air". Further, they make it difficult for themselves to reproduce because their seed-pods open only under 'pressure'.
Every plant, without exception, is similarly defiant, according to the second stanza. Moreover, it is determined to revenge itself upon whatever destroyed the parent plant. The violence of its determination is expressed in the term "resurrection". This paradox, that it brings …show more content…
He does this explicitly in the words "Icelandic" and "Vikings" but also indirectly through reference to the origins of the word "thistle" (which, with the word "Viking", derives from Old Norse or Icelandic, the language of Norway and its colonies down to the 14th century). He even suggests thistles are a means of revenge used by the Vikings against those who took their lives so many centuries ago. The long-dead bodies of Vikings have resisted assimilation and complete disintegration in foreign soul and they still exist as a "stain", or have merely "decayed". The thistles "thrust up" from their remains. They are also linked to the pale-skinned Vikings by their ghostly paleness and their ugly appearance is like the ugly speech sounds (made in the throat or by the back of the tongue and the palate) used by the Vikings. Their murderous character is conveyed in a metaphor which again links them to battle, as "plume of blood" suggests the red flower which grows on the seed-pod looks like the feathers on a medieval soldier's …show more content…
This richness is heightened by the occasional use of metaphor, simile and personification (rubber tongues, plume of blood, sons, etc.).
The poem consists of four triplets of free verse. Assonance is used extensively to link elements and unify the poem (e.g. rubber/summer/under, in the first stanza, or stain/decayed, in the third). Alliteration and consonance are occasionally used to echo the sense of the words (hoeing hands - the repetition of the -h- sound suggests effort, while "gutturals of dialect" creates an ugly cluttered effect).
Some variation in line lengths, such as in the short second line of the first stanza and the first like of the second, is effective in suggesting the abrupt and violent nature of thistles. The poem slows and becomes jerky, and simpler, in the last stanza, as if with exhaustion, and so conveys a sense that the thistles are dying. Half of the last stanza refers to the "sons" and gives a clear sense if the cycle having begun again, and will continue
The defiant character of the plant is emphasized in the very first word ("Against") of this poem. They not only resist all animal ("rubber tongues of cows") and human ("hoeing hands of men") attempts to destroy them but even attack the natural world, indicated by the words "spike the summer air". Further, they make it difficult for themselves to reproduce because their seed-pods open only under 'pressure'.
Every plant, without exception, is similarly defiant, according to the second stanza. Moreover, it is determined to revenge itself upon whatever destroyed the parent plant. The violence of its determination is expressed in the term "resurrection". This paradox, that it brings …show more content…
He does this explicitly in the words "Icelandic" and "Vikings" but also indirectly through reference to the origins of the word "thistle" (which, with the word "Viking", derives from Old Norse or Icelandic, the language of Norway and its colonies down to the 14th century). He even suggests thistles are a means of revenge used by the Vikings against those who took their lives so many centuries ago. The long-dead bodies of Vikings have resisted assimilation and complete disintegration in foreign soul and they still exist as a "stain", or have merely "decayed". The thistles "thrust up" from their remains. They are also linked to the pale-skinned Vikings by their ghostly paleness and their ugly appearance is like the ugly speech sounds (made in the throat or by the back of the tongue and the palate) used by the Vikings. Their murderous character is conveyed in a metaphor which again links them to battle, as "plume of blood" suggests the red flower which grows on the seed-pod looks like the feathers on a medieval soldier's …show more content…
This richness is heightened by the occasional use of metaphor, simile and personification (rubber tongues, plume of blood, sons, etc.).
The poem consists of four triplets of free verse. Assonance is used extensively to link elements and unify the poem (e.g. rubber/summer/under, in the first stanza, or stain/decayed, in the third). Alliteration and consonance are occasionally used to echo the sense of the words (hoeing hands - the repetition of the -h- sound suggests effort, while "gutturals of dialect" creates an ugly cluttered effect).
Some variation in line lengths, such as in the short second line of the first stanza and the first like of the second, is effective in suggesting the abrupt and violent nature of thistles. The poem slows and becomes jerky, and simpler, in the last stanza, as if with exhaustion, and so conveys a sense that the thistles are dying. Half of the last stanza refers to the "sons" and gives a clear sense if the cycle having begun again, and will continue