Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Poplar Field is often termed as William Cowper’s best-known poem. It was published in January 1785 in The Gentleman’s Magazine. William Cowper also published his famous work The Task a Poem in Six Books and he again published the poem with some changes along with The Task. The poem is considered an autobiographical account by William Cowper. In 1784, William Cower was escorting his friend Lady Austen to the poplar grove site of which he was fond, to find the trees cut down. He was very sad about this. Lady Austen insisted that he must express his anguish in a poem and thus he wrote The Poplar Field. This is how it can be said as a part of The Task. The poem is based on the themes of Humanity vs Nature, suggesting the destructive effects of humanity on the serene beautiful nature. It also encapsulates the idea of time, change, and mortality while expressing thoughts on aging, loss, and grief.
Structure of The Poplar Field:
The Poplar Field is a short twenty-line poem composed in five quatrains (stanzas with four lines each). Each of the five quatrains contains two rhymed couplets. The rhyming scheme of the poem is simple AABB CCAA DDEE FFGG HHII. The poem is narrated by an unidentified speaker who can assumed to be William Cowper himself. He wrote the poem in anapestic tetrameter, that is, each line contains four anapests or four feet with an unstressed-unstressed-stressed syllable pattern. In some lines, anapests are replaced by iambs (feet with an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern).
The Poplar Field is a fine example of Transitionary poetry. William Cowper lived and wrote in a time of intense literary transition. He was influenced by the Augustan age and wrote in the pattern of Neoclassicist poets such as Alexander Pope but his poems also suggested a forward move towards Romanticism. Unlike Pope, who often wrote in iambs William Cowler wrote The Poplar Field in Anapestic Feet. Cowper's poems about the natural world, especially the English countryside, marked a distinct shift in 18th-century poetry. His eccentric blend of religion, politics, struggles with mental illness, and delight in nature strongly influenced the Romantic poets who followed him, especially Wordsworth and Coleridge. Cowper’s anapaestic meter contributes much to the poem’s lyrical quality, so making its rhythm expressive of the joyful song that matches the attractive natural scenes.
Cowper used Alliteration, Metaphor, Personification, Symbolism, Caesura, Consonance, Asonance, and Enjambment in the poem.
Summary of The Poplar Field:
Stanza 1 Lines 1-4
“The poplars are felled, farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade:
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.”
The poet begins the poem by explaining the setting of the place where he is without mentioning the location or time of his presence. This suggests that the setting is more important for the poem. The poem is about a thing, a place of great emotional value for him.
The narrator says that his favorite poplar trees have been cut down. And bids goodbye to the shade that they offered, and to the quiet music the row of trees used to provide. He says that the sound of wind blowing through their leaves is gone, and their image is no longer reflected by the surface of the Ouse River.
The poet used the past participle “are felled” which shows that the poplar trees have been cut down by human beings and they did not fall naturally. Those poplar trees had vital roles to play in Nature and the life of the poet. Cowper used Alliteration in the first couple ( felled, farewell; cool colonnade). The repeated /f/ sound between "fell'd" and "farewell" heightens the tragedy of the line and links the trees' destruction to the speaker's mournful goodbye. In addition, the sound of ‘w’ in ‘whispering’ and ‘wind’, the sound of ‘l’ in felled and farewell (Consonance), and the sound of ‘o’ in Ouse and bosom (Assonance) offers a sense of sonic echo. The poet personified Ouse who doesn’t reflect the image of Poplar trees on his breast anymore. The diction offers a sense of struggle or war. We speak of soldiers “felled” in battle, like the titular poplar trees. Caesura has been used in the very first line while the poet used enjambment in the first couplet.
Stanza 2 Lines 5-8
“Twelve years have elapsed since I first took a view
Of my favorite field, and the bank where they grew,
And now in the grass behold they are laid,
And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade.”
The narrator says that it has been twelve years since he last saw his favorite field of trees and the riverbank where they used to stand. Now he laments how they've all been laid down on the grass, and how he’s sitting on a ‘felled’ tree that once offered him shade. His favorite tree is now his “seat.” This is a reference to the fact that the trees are horizontal on the ground, they have been cut down and, at this point anyway, abandoned. The way the narrator uses a fallen tree as a seat suggests a rather utilitarian attitude toward the field. This poses a question on humanity's relationship with the natural world in the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution in England in the 18th century.
Alliteration has been used in ‘favourite field’ and the poet used enjambment in the first couplet of the second quatrain.
Stanza 3 Lines 9-12
“The blackbird has fled to another retreat
Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat;
And the scene where his melody charmed me before
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.”
The narrator continues to lament at the felling of the trees and says that the blackbird has gone off to some other place where different trees shelter him from the hot sun, and this field, where the narrator used to love listening to the blackbird's beautiful music, is no longer filled with the sweet sounds of his songs.
The blackbird Symbolizes the large, less obvious effects the destruction of the poplar field has had on the natural world. The poplars weren't just trees; the field's beauty didn't come from them alone. Rather, they formed the foundation of a rich, thriving ecosystem filled with other living things, like the blackbird. Those creatures, in turn, contributed to the overall beauty of the poplar field the speaker misses so dearly. It is not only a single blackbird. This one blackbird represents all the animals who had to find new "retreat[s]" as a result of humanity's destruction of the poplar field. The blackbird calls to mind all creatures, in the poplar field of the poem and far beyond, who are displaced by humankind's destruction of nature. There is no forest to protect the animals from the sun, or from greater dangers. Everyone, including the speaker, is newly exposed. The blackbird is seeking out a new sanctuary where he can sing his “ditty.” It no longer echoes around the “scene” that the narrator remembers.
Stanza 4 Lines 13-16
“My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,
With a turf on my breast and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.”
The narrator further laments his loss and says that his youthful days are quickly passing him and soon he will be like the trees, dead and buried in the ground, with a patch of grass and a gravestone to mark his resting place. He says that he will die before another group of poplars grows to replace the one that's been cut down.
The narrator directly references the passage of time and how it has brought so much change to his own life, and to the life of his environment. He knows that becoming part of the past is his own fate as well. “Ere long,” or before long, he too will be lost. When this happens, and he is dead, he will be covered in “turf” or earth, and have a “stone” at his head. He is describing his own grave, where he will rest in the future. The speaker knows that before this field of poplars can ever grow back, he will be long dead. He will not live to see it rejuvenated.
Stanza 5 Lines 17-20
“Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;
Short-lived as we are, our enjoyments, I see,
Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we.”
The narrator says that as he sees this field of cut-down trees, it makes him think about how the joys of life come to an end. Though life is wonderful, its pleasures, he now understands, have an even shorter lifespan than human beings themselves.
In this stanza, the narrator takes a larger, overarching view of what has happened to his world. The shock of seeing the field in this state has triggered him to think more deeply about life. It has “engage[d] him” more than anything else. It has also inspired him to think about the way that the “pleasures of man” so easily “perish.”
In the whole poem, the narrator uses personification of loss and represents loss through the degradation of his much-loved landscape. In the second line of the stanza, the poet uses Alliteration again with repetition of the sound of ‘m’ in ‘muse’ and ‘man’ and the sound ‘p’ in ‘perishing pleasures’. It offers a sense of chiastic alliteration (m/p; p/m).
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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