"The Owl" by Edward Thomas and etc.: Has the Owl Performed Consistent Symbolism?
THE OWL
—Edward Thomas
Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;
Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof
Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest
Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.
Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,
Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.
All of the night was quite barred out except
An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry
Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,
No merry note, nor cause of merriment,
But one telling me plain what I escaped
And others could not, that night, as in I went.
And salted was my food, and my repose,
Salted and sobered, too, by the bird’s voice
Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.
The Owl’s Cry
Almost
in every country the Owl’s cry bears some special significance. Just as a
cuckoo’s note creates a sense of pleasure in our mind as a cuckoo visits us
during spring time; so an owl’s cry creates in our mind a sense of impending calamity
and suffering. The Owl is a nocturnal bird of prey struggling hard for its
existence. This suffering gives its cry a special melancholy tone. Nightingale,
Cuckoo, Blackbird and Robin are all merry-birds, but the Owl is a gloomy bird.
First
take a note on the Owls: The three extant families in the group: Strigidae (typical owls), Tytonidae (barn
owls and grass owls) and Phodilidae (bay owls). Although owls hear some
likeness to hawks and eagles once placed with them in the same order, they are
not closely related. Unlike other birds of prey, owls have virtually noiseless
flight, the butterfly-like flapping of wings being mulled by a velvet-like
surface on the night feathers. Owls are protectively coloured, generally
brownish. Many Species show two phases of coloration, one in which the brown
tends toward red, the other in which it tends toward grey. The females usually
are larger than the males. Owls rest in
buildings, holes in trees, or nests abandoned by other birds. Some nest on the
aground or in holes in the ground.”-Encyclopedia Britannica, VII, P. 645
The Medieval Logical Owl
While
discussing about the Owl, we can well remember The Owl and the Nightingale, a late 12th or early 13th century
English poem, is some 2000 lines long. The poem is written as a debate , a popular
device in both Latin and French poetry, between the two birds, and the poet
ranges over a number of topics including witchcraft, the church, and marriage,
giving expression to a wisdom based on experience rather than on schooling, it
is difficult to say whether the birds have any consistent symbolism. The
gravity of the owl contrasts with the gaiety of the nightingale and suggestions
as to the meaning of their respective notes have included theology and art,
monasticism and life in the World, winter and summer, and Anglo-Saxon poetry
and French poetry. The poem is attributed to Nicholas de Guildford.
The Representative Poem
Now
the poem in focus, The Owl is Edward
Thomas’s one of the representative poems and of course, one of his best. All
the traits of Thomas as a poet can be found in this poem. The synthetic beauty
of the poem is simply unique. The Owl is a poem consisting of sixteen lines,
divided into four stanzas of four lines each. In the whole poem the word ‘Owl’
occurs only once in the eighth line. But from the ‘very first line it is felt
that something is going to happen, the soldier is going to tell something very important.
And when the readers reach the eighth line they realize that it was ‘the owl’s ‘most
melancholic cry’ to which their attention ‘was being drawn by the poet. Through
the third and fourth stanzas the poet gradually paints the complete picture,
i.e., the reactions of the owl’s cry on him and no less on his readers. Therefore,
although the word ‘Owl’ occurs only once in the whole poem, yet that one word
is the key-word. It is like the Shakespearean heaviness:
"BOLINGBROKE Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,
The time of night when Troy was set on fire,
The time when screech-owls cry, and ban-dogs howl,
And spirits walk, and ghosts break up their graves;
That time best fits the work we have in hand."
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
English poet and playwright.
Henry VI, Part 2, Act 1, Scene 4
Roaming through the Hill for Hours
The poet was roaming through the hill for hours together. Here is a sharp focus on
the undeniable necessity of three fundamental things – food, fire and rest for
a healthy and comfortable life. The poem gives two contrasting pictures:
fulfillment and deprivation. The
poet came downhill hungry and cold. He was tired too, yet his spirit was high.
The speaker was hungry but not starved
when he was coming down the hill. Though
he was trembling by dint of cold, he was warm enough inside to protect him
against the chilling north wind. Nothing other than rest under a roof was the
‘sweetest thing’ to him in such hard times.
"Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;
Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof
Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest
Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof."
Immediate Comfort
He took shelter at the inn. He
got immediate comfort- food, fire and rest- in a room with fireplace to warm up
him, food to satisfy his hunger and a bed to lie down. There he had food, warmth of fireplace and
rest which he was then in badly need of. He was too tired to indulge in all the
merry-making of the night like
singing, dancing, feasting and drinking. He wanted only rest, and that he got. He wanted to have complete rest, so he
abstained from all night-time enjoyments:
"Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,
Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I."
Owls Melancholy Cry
But
he was very much disturbed by an Owls melancholy cry. Calm and quiet night is contrasted to the
screaming voice of an owl penetrated the silence of the night and disturbed the
speaker’s mental state:
"All of the night was quite barred out except
An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry"
The plaintive
cry of the owl reminded him of the inexplicable suffering which he himself had
undergone when he was on the hills reveals the speaker’s conscience and
humanity.
The Realization
The poet realized that he was fortunate enough for getting a shelter
on such a wintry night:
"Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,
No merry note, nor cause of merriment,
But one telling me plain what I escaped
And others could not, that night, as in I went."
The poet got his shelter, food and rest, on such a
night, but there were many, soldiers and poor included, who had to court
exposure and uncertainty on such a night:
"And salted was my food, and my repose,
Salted and sobered, too, by the bird’s voice
Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice."
A Critique & Conclusion
Whether
in prose-writing or verse-making main subjects of interest for Thomas is
word-picture of countryside of England and Wales. In this poem the very first
word ‘downhill’ takes the reader to the countryside almost instantly. Then the
way he starts to narrate his tale makes it a personal poem. The way men suffer
in this world, through the machinations of fellow men as well as through the
process of nature are the other noteworthy phenomenon.
As soon
as the word Owl is mentioned, we get three characteristics of Thomas in a
single stroke-uncertainty—melancholy and love of birds. The owl’s cry is symbolic of the voice of his
conscience. The moment he was going to feed himself in the inn, his conscience
woke up and he fell in mind of the suffering soldiers at the front and the
starved poor lying under the open sky. The structure of the poem is old
—fashioned as the poet’s most poems are in matters of form. His sympathy for suffering humanity in
general, which extends even up to the foe.
This is no case of petty right or wrong. His simple straight style of drawing
word-pictures and tenthly. We must not fail to note brevity of the poet — he
has used minimum words to convey maximum information and feeling.
References
1. Encyclopedia Britannica. (1998, December 1).
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nice analysis
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