Edward Thomas Quotations

Edward Thomas Quotations –
The power of language
“Silence/Stained with all that hour’s songs.” Synaesthesia of sound being described in a visual term (MARCH)
Conversational – “Now I know that Spring” (MARCH)/“But these things also are Spring’s” (BUT THESE THINGS ALSO)
Language and words prove that we love the Earth, “As the earth which you prove/ That we love.” (WORDS)
The problems with language
Names are confusing and pointless. They “half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is.” (OLD MAN)
To someone that knows the name of something (herb), it is meaningful, “In the name there’s nothing to one that knows not Lads-Love, or Old Man.” (OLD MAN)
Words have their own ability to choose who they want to have relationships with – Problematic idea, “Choose me/You English words?” (WORDS)
Unable to express his love for the addressee – his language is literal and has no figurative meaning or imagery, “Loves this my clay”/”Its dying day.” (NO ONE SO MUCH AS YOU)
Memory
Jealousy of his daughter’s ability to remember her childhood from smelling plant/his incapability to, “I sniff the spray and think of nothing” / “She will remember, with that bitter scent.” (OLD MAN)
Loss of memory and dreaming capability, “And have forgotten since their beauty passed.” (TEARS)
Very aware that death is inevitable and he is overly eager for death rather than life. Remembers that he will die as this is what he longs most for, “Remembering again that I shall die.” (RAIN)
Struggles with his memory-frustrated that he can’t remember things, “And silences like memory’s sand.” (THE SUN USE TO SHINE)
He has no memory of previous months and seasons to make him feel better/they have no importance to him as he is drifting in age and will die, “And August gone, again gone by, not memorable.” (GONE, GONE AGAIN)
Joy
Other people’s joy – His daughter’s memory of her childhood, “She will remember, with that bitter scent.” (OLD MAN)
Lack of joy – his discontent and lack of peace with his own existence. He can’t find any meaning to his life, “I cannot bite the day to the core.”/ “Or much I be content with discontent?” (THE GLORY)
Exclusion of joy from partnerships-Isolation, “The lovers disappeared into the wood.” (AS THE TEAMS HEAD BRASS)
Melancholy
Sombre/grotesque/filled with death, “Long-dead that is greyer now.” (BUT THESE THINGS ALSO)
Inability to form any tears having been upset and hurt for a long time – unable to convey emotions, “It seems I have no tears left. They should have fallen.” (TEARS)
Positive embrace of death, “Strange solitude was there and silence.” (TEARS)
Contrasting fear of being alone but not wanting company either: an odd sense of pleasure/pleasantness in what he feels - “I feared the solitude far more I feared all company” (MELANCHOLY)
Wouldn’t mind dying or losing his head both literally and figuratively, “If I should lose my head, why, so, I should want nothing more.” (AS THE TEAMS HEAD-BRASS)
Influence of nature
Bring memories for some and highlight loss of for others, “I, too, often shrivel the grey shreds.” (OLD MAN)
Catalyse a strange sense of embracing death in an extremely positive manner, “April morning: Stirring and sweet and warm.” (TEARS)
Make him aware of his discontent and unhappiness with his life, “Must I be content with discontent/as larks and swallows are perhaps with wings?” (THE GLORY)
Causes his reflection on life and death, making him realise how he’d rather die than be alive, “Has not dissolved except the love of death.” (RAIN)
Nature is war. Hence the fall of society/destruction is due to both weather and war, “The blizzard felled the elm.” (AS THE TEAMS HEAD-BRASS)
Reasons to fight in the war
Patriotism/for the love of your country, “Fifes were playing ‘The British Grenadiers’” (TEARS) / His father’s want for him to be patriotic - “Out of the other an England beautiful” (THIS IS NO CASE OF PETTY RIGHTR OR WRONG)
He longs for death and being involved in the war will almost guarantee death, “Like me who have no love.” (RAIN) / Wouldn’t mind dying or losing his head both literally and figuratively, “If I should lose my head, why, so, I should want nothing more.” (AS THE TEAMS HEAD-BRASS)
Reasons not to fight in the war
Death, destruction, young age “Young English countrymen, Fair-haired and ruddy.” (TEARS)
He hates patriotism more than he hates the Kaiser, “Beside my love for one fat patriot/ My hatred of the Kaiser is love true.” (THIS IS NO CASE OF PETTY RIGHT OR WRONG)
People over analyse wars and will claim it to be something is wasn’t/give it meaning – he sees it as a massacre and it less fruitless, “That politicians or philosophers can judge.” (THIS IS NO CASE OF PETTY RIGHT OR WRONG)
Cynical – The only reason for war is to turn young men into dirt – meaningless and pointless, “And when the war began to turn young men to dung” (GONE, GONE AGAIN)
Love for others
Unable to be expressed, “I have no tears left. They should have fallen” (TEARS)
For once in his life he thinks of others and self-sacrifices himself in order for the people he loves to be safe and not in conditions he faces, “I pray that none whom once I loved is dying tonight.” (RAIN)
Love towards death – Death is the only inevitable and reliable thing in his life, “If love it be towards what is perfect and cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.” (RAIN)
Limits to love for others
His arrogance towards others – he’s an elite who can hear Aspens when others can’t hear or understand them, and hence don’t read or understand his poetry, “But need not listen, more than to my rhymes.” (ASPENS)
Doesn’t want to be in proximity/hear the voice of a human being – not even one he loves, “Too sharp, too rude, had been the wisest or the dearest human voice.” (MELANCHOLY)
Incapability to love or show his emotions. This is a love poem yet is incredibly plodding and pedestrian and unloving, “I but respond to you/ and do not love.” (NO ONE SO MUCH AS YOU)
Sleep
Night, abandonment, silence when everyone is asleep. Aspens are still awake and tentative “A silent smithy, a silent inn” contrasts with the celebration of ordinary human noises, “The clink, the hum, the roar, the random singing.” (ASPENS)
Sleep and death in literature always being overlapped/paired: are inevitable, shutting down, unknown and create a different state of consciousness. Sleep= A rehearsal for death/Death= Long and permanent sleep, “I have come to the borders of sleep.” (LIGHTS OUT)
Extended metaphor of sleep being a forest, and him coming to the edge of it. He feels himself falling asleep but equally dying – Everything is ending and he loses his way and himself: inevitability, “Here love ends”/”Ambition ends”/”Here ends in sleep that is sweeter.” (LIGHTS OUT)