Away, Melancholy By Stevie Smith Flashcards
Lexical fields
Natural imagery/ elemental
Religious imagery
Message of the poem
The speaker demands melancholy to leave her alone - she speaks of the experience and strength of her sadness
Compares it to elemental/natural imagery and religion to question why this constant sadness exists in a world that was created to be perfect
Away, melancholy,
Away with it, let it go.
Repetition of refrain (anaphora): sense of urgency for the melancholy to leave her and mirrors the constant appearance of it in her life - intensifies the hold it has over her.
Imperative/personification: emphasises strength of the sadness/ power over her as she’s addressing it directly (urgency)
Are not the trees green,
The earth as green?
Does not the wind blow,
Fire leap and the rivers flow? Away melancholy.
Elemental imagery - power of nature and the universe, how does something as inexplicable as melancholy exist in a world full of perfection like nature, shows how the world moves on and exists despite her sadness - she wants the melancholy to leave her so she can join the harmony of nature (melancholy contrasts the freedom nature provides abd creates a stronger sense of urgency)
Rhetorical question: asking why melancholy is always present and demomstrates her confusion/frustration
The ant is busy
He carrieth his meat,
All things hurry
To be eaten or eat.
Away, melancholy.
Mundane behaviour and activities in nature: represents the ever present melancholy in her day to day life (universal experience) and shows there is no real source of melancholy in daily life (the random nature of it)
Repetition of refrain at the end of the stanza: sticks with the reader, emphasises and intensifies her anger and urgency
Man, too, hurries
Eats, couples, buries,
He is an animal also
With a hey ho melancholy, Away with it, let it go.
Listing of mundane activities: shows the world goes on despite her sadness and confusion and mirrors the presence in her life
‘He is an animal also’ wild comparison - almost asking why she must suffer with it and not everyone else
Capitalisation of Away: intensifies her command
Man of all creatures
Is superlative
(Away Melancholy)
He of all creatures alone
Raiseth a stone
(Away melancholy)
Into the stone, the god
Pours what he knows of good calling, good, God.
Away melancholy, let it go
Religious/biblical references: god created everything and is superior (makes melancholy irrelevant), she asks how sadness can exist in a perfect world God created with goodness
The brackets around refrain: shows her urgency and how she’s always/constantly trying to make it go away (struggle)
Religious references could also be a teaching or a lesson on melancholy
Speak not to me of tears,
Tyranny, pox, wars,
Saying, Can God
Stone of man’s thought, be good?
Disastrous language: how can so many bad things exist in a world that is supposed to be perfect - emphasises the impact of melancholy by comparing it to huge things such as war
Rhetorical questions is asking the world
Say rather it is enough
That the stuffed
Stone of man’s good, growing, By man’s called God.
Away, melancholy, let it go.
Further emphasising point of all the awful things that exist in God’s perfect world
Imperatives - giving orders to the melancholy to leave her to be
Man aspires
To good,
To love
Sighs;
Beaten, corrupted, dying
In his own blood lying
Yet heaves up an eye above
Cries, Love, love.
It is his virtue needs explaining, Not his failing.
Humans want to do good but it always harmed and stopped by the evil of the universe, such as melancholy. Says we are left on our own when we look for guidance through faith. Questioning the goodness and power of God - shows the impact melancholy has on her faith
Away, melancholy,
Away with it, let it go.
Circular ending : emphasises the never ending sadness in her life
