snake poem

8/3/2019 Snake Poem

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/snake-poem 1/23

D.H. Lawrence(1885-1930)

NAKULNAKUL

PRANAV PRANAV

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) ,English novelist, storywriter,critic, poet and painter, one of

the greatest figures in 20th-century English literature."Snake" and "How Beastly theBourgeoisie is" are probablyhis most anthologized poems.

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


Born on September 11, 1885, in Eastwood,Nottinghamshire, central England.The fourth child of a struggling coal miner, a heavydrinker. Mother: a former schoolteacher, greatly superior in education to her husband. Lawrence's childhood wasdominated by poverty and friction between his parents.Educated at Nottingham High School, to which he hadwon a scholarship.Worked as a clerk in a surgical appliance factory andthen for four years as a pupil-teacher.

After studies at Nottingham University, Lawrencematriculated at 22 and briefly pursued a teaching career.Lawrence's mother died in 1910; he helped her die bygiving her an overdose of sleeping medicine.

David Herbert Lawrence

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


P lease note thatEastwood was widely

open to the neighbouringcountryside as shown bythis photograph.

Childhood

As a child, he hated physicalgames like football or cricketand preferred the quietcompany of little girls. Indeed,he suffered bad moments at

Beauvale School...

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


...where he was found girlishby his schoolmates.

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


Lawrence also received a good religious educationwhich gave him a thorough knowledge of the Bible.Congregationalism was the religion of his family, or rather of his mother.At the age of 12 he won ascholarship to Nottingham High School ; and this meant:- long days from 7am to 7pm,- financial difficulties for

Mrs Lawrence (but her ambition for her son was suchthat she was prepared to make great sacrifices)- rather good results at school, but nothing exceptional. In thesummer 1901, Bert met J essie Chambers , the daughter of a nearby farmer...

Achievement

Romance: Jessie Chambers

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


In Sept. 1906 D.H. Lawrence was 21:

M rs F rieda Weekley

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


8/3/2019 Snake Poem


µ S nake µ

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


A snake came to my water-troughOn a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,

To drink there.In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark

carob-treeI came down the steps with my pitcherAnd must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at

the trough before me.

A snake: asp viper~ a poisonous snakecarob-tree: M editerranean region

anthropomorphous: snake-human being

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


Asp Viper

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


Carob TreeThe raw material s for ourproducts come from the Sicilian

Carob Tree, majesticevergreens diffused in Sicilymore than 1000 years ago. Butthe carob fruit has an evenolder story, as we find it in theBible (St. John·s Bread), and itsseed, called also ¶carat·, wasused as a weight unit for goldmeasuring.

I taly is the second country,after Spain, for Carobproduction, and the RagusaArea, where LBG Sicilia islocated, contributes to 70% ofthe whole national production.

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


H e reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the

gloomAnd trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down,over the edge of the stone trough

And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small

clearness,H e sipped with his straight mouth,Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long

body, silently.

´reachedµ: snake-handAlliteration: ´sµ-the hissing sound of the snake

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


Someone was before me at my water-trough,And I, like a second comer, waiting.

H e lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and

mused a moment,And stooped and drank a little more,Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning

bowels of the earthOn the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.

Compare to domesticated farm animals (cattle)Authoritative lookM t Etna: an active volcano in Sicily

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


M t. Etna

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


The voice of my education said to meH e must be killed,

For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, thegold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a manYou would take a stick and break him now, and finish himoff.

Black snake: western whip snakeEducation: to destroy the destroyerSocial convention: ´manµ

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


But must I confess how I liked him,H ow glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink

at my water-troughAnd depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him?Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him?Was it humility, to feel so honoured?I felt so honoured.

Pleased: guestInteraction with readers: considering the poet·sthoughts

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


And yet those voices:If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid,But even so, honoured still more

That he should seek my hospitalityFrom out the dark door of the secret earth.

Fear: Christian education (Garden of Eden);too much reason, intellect butignore instinct and passion

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


H e drank enoughAnd lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, soblack,Seeming to lick his lips,And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,And slowly turned his head,And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round

And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

Compare to God

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,

And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, andentered farther,A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his

withdrawing into that horrid black hole,Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing

himself after,Overcame me now his back was turned.

Christian·s idea: devil in hell

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


I looked round, I put down my pitcher,I picked up a clumsy logAnd threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,But suddenly that part of him that was left behind

convulsed in undignified haste,Writhed like lightning, and was goneInto the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-

front,At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with

fascination.

8/3/2019 Snake Poem


And immediately I regretted it.

I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!I despised myself and the voices of my accursed humaneducation.

And I thought of the albatross,And I wished he would come back, my snake.

snake poem

Documents