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Dame Edith Sitwell was a towering figure in 20th-century English literature. A celebrated poet, critic, and biographer, she is remembered for her bold experimentation with language and her unwavering commitment to artistic innovation.
Edith Sitwell Poetry. Edith Sitwell was a British poet who is also remembered as a critic. She often wrote poetry to music and was praised for her high craftsmanship. Sitwell won the Benson Medal and published collections including Mother and Other Poems, Street Songs, The Shadow of Cain, and more.
Edith Sitwell needs to be remembered not only as the bright young parodist of Façade, but as the angry chronicler of social injustice, as a poet who has found forms adequate to the atomic age and its horrors, and as a foremost poet of love. Her work displays enormous range of subject and of form.
Jul 17, 2024 · The following poems comprise "Fifteen Bucolic Poems" by Dame Edith Sitwell, from her third collection, The Wooden Pegasus (1920).
- Summary
- Theme and Structure
- Poetic/ Literary Devices
- Detailed Analysis
- Historical Background
- About Edith Sitwell
‘Still Falls the Rain’ is a meditation on the suffering of people in England during World War II. From there it turns out a number of events in the seven stanzas. It is a reference to suffering throughout the history of the world. The thirty-four lines of the poem are divided into seven stanzas, perhaps to symbolize the seven days of the week and t...
The central theme of the poem revolves around the bombing of London during War World II. It narrates the week-long suffering of people. The poet presents the theme from the perspectiveof a Christian, highlighting reconciling with God. The structure or line divisions used in the poem create units of meaning. The poem’s thirty-five lines are divided ...
Allusion
‘Still Falls the Rain’ stands as an example of Sitwell’s religious conviction, for a number of allusions are deliberately used. The phrases “Potter’s Field” in line 8 and “Field of Blood” in line 11, allude to the piece of land obtained with the thirty silver of Judas Iscariot. The Cain-Abel incident is used to define the impact of jealousy. Again, in line 15, she refers to a parable about the Dives and Lazarus, asking formercy on, not just the victims but for those who cause it also.
Anaphora
The poem’s title ‘Still Falls the Rain’is repeatedly used five times in the poem, especially in the beginning to impart the emotions of the reader on the cruelty of the Bomb shed. Similarly, the other expression “the Starved Man”, repeated in lines 14 and 19, indicates the existence of the Messiah, the Savior. It emphasizes the fact that wars only bring about pain and sins, but amending with God could help resolve history.
Symbolism
The title of the poem itself is a symbolic representation of the War between Germany and London. Not to be misguided, the poet herself clarifies her view in the extended title as ‘Still Falls the Rain … (The Raids, 1940, Night and Dawn)’. Like the rain that falls without minding about the Day or Night, The German troops attacked London Day and Night. In line 3, Sitwell refers to the rain as follows: “Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails”. It can be a symbolicreference to the nails us...
Stanza One
The first stanza of ‘Still Falls the Rain’ illustrates how the bombs shed on London like falling rain. The comparison is made through the phrases ‘Dark as the world of man’, ‘black as our loss’, ‘Blind as …..Upon the Cross’ represents the gloomy atmospherecreated during the time of Blitz as well as the time Christ was crucified. The adjectives ‘Dark’, ‘Black’ represent the pain and suffering of the people.
Stanza Two and Three
The ‘Still Falls the Rain’is repeated in the second and third stanzas too, symbolically referring to the bombs. Here, the poet compares the falling rain to the heartbeat which pulsates as the sound of hammer-beat increases. ‘Potter’s Field’ alludes to the land bought by Judas Iscariot where he killed himself out of guilt. It states that pain is a common thing to both the sufferer and the suffering. Hammer-beat also symbolically refers to Judas Iscariot’s thumping heart at the potter’s Field,...
Stanza Four
In the fourth stanza of ‘Still Falls the Rain’, the rain is falling at the feet of the ‘Starved Man’ symbolically referring to Christ upon the cross. Her use of ‘Christ that each day, each night, nails there has mercy on us’ is an outcome of her catholic belief of praying in front of the idol of wounded Christ on the cross. The plea for mercy on both the “Dives” and “Lazarus” refers to the parable about a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus. Though the war is sinful, it is a complicated one t...
The Raids 1940 mentioned in the title refers to the nighttime bombing raids against London and other British cities by Nazi Germany during World War II between September 1940 and May 1941. The raids followed the failure of the German Luftwaffe to defeat Britain’s Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain (July–September 1940). The war between the Br...
Edith Sitwell, born on September 7, 1887, emerged as a poet during World War II. Her poems chiefly dealt with the emotional depth and profundity of human concerns. Her collections of verseinclude The Wooden Pegasus (B. Blackwell, 1920), Five Variations on a Theme (Duckworth, 1933), and Green Song and Other Poems (Macmillan & Co., 1944). She died in...
- Female
- March 18, 1991
- Poetry Analyst
Dame Edith Sitwell has infused into her poetry. From the light court verse of Skelton and the nursery rhythms of Blake to the conceits of Donne and the couplets of Pope (these poets in par ticular have influenced her), Edith Sitwell, steeped in poetic tradition, has utilized the greater part of her classical and English 139
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Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell DBE (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess.
