Basking Shark Flashcards
what is the poem about?
This poem compares the evolutionary paths of basking sharks and humans. Still, MacCaig’s surprise encounter with a creature of that size would be unnerving, particularly as it was close enough to touch the oars of his small boat
This encounter sparked in him a reflection on the comparative paths of evolution differing species took. Basking sharks on the one hand, relatively unchanged for millions of years, and humans on the other, vastly changed since the days when marine life first crawled ashore and adapted to a life on land.
Form and structure
This poem is set out in five stanzas, each of three lines, and each line being end-rhymed with the others in the stanza. The meter of the poem is also fairly regular - the first two lines of each stanza have five stressed syllables, while the final one has four.
- The effect of the final shorter stressed line is to create a sense of fitting closure to the stanza.
- This tight regularity of form is quite unusual in MacCaig’s poetry. He is often quite free in stanza length, line length, and meter, and rhyming may or may not be present.
In this poem the tightness of structure serves to encapsulate the uniqueness of the experience.
- The regularity of rhythm and rhyme matches the rhythmic quality of the rise and fall of the sea itself, and likewise the steady pulling of the oars.
The subject of the poem is never mentioned in the body of the poem itself. We can only infer from the title what the poet’s small boat collided with that day.
To stub an oar on a rock…To have it rise.
The poem begins with an unusual sentence structure - two infinitive clauses. The effect is to create a tension and suspense until the meaning is completed by the poet saying this is a thing that happened once “(too often) to him.”
‘slounge’
The use of rock suggests the hardness and immovability of the object met. The neologism (new word) slounge seems to be an amalgamation of ‘slouch’ and ‘lounge’, and conveys the slow, lazy, ponderous movement of the surfacing creature it describes.
“(too often)”
The alarm caused in the poet is neatly shown with the humorous parenthetical aside (too often) implying this is not an encounter he wishes to repeat. The slow, steady rhythm of these three lines is perfectly suited to the gradual surfacing movement of the huge shark.
“But too often” and “I count as gain.”
“But too often”not in the opening line of stanza two. It seems to contradict what he has just said.
He implies that, on reflection, while this was a frightening experience, it was one he found ultimately worthwhile and enriching. We can also see this in the expression. “I count as gain.” He concentrates on the specific reasons he feels the encounter was beneficial in the remainder of the poem.
” met “
to describe this event, he conveys almost a sense of reciprocity and fraternity between humans and animals. It is typical of MacCaig never to assume human superiority in describing encounters with the world of nature.
“a sea tin-tacked with rain”
The alliterative metaphor a sea tin-tacked with rain captures with exact observation the nature of the rain - hard, relatively sparse droplets patterning the smooth surface with neat round imprints.
The alliteration of the hard consonant ‘t’ helps to replicate the metallic sound of the rain hitting the boat.
“roomsized monster”
“monster and matchbox”
Alliteration and metaphor continue in rich vein in the final line with roomsized monster and matchbox brain.
The contrast and incongruity of the size of the shark’s enormous body compared with its tiny brain is elegantly portrayed here. The linking alliterative consonant ‘m’ serves to further emphasise the comparison.
“roomsized monster”
There is clever use of long and short vowels in this final line too - the long vowels in roomsized monster appropriately extend and elongate the expression to reinforce the size of the shark in contrast to the short, clipped vowels of matchbox brain.
“He displaced more than water”
Metaphor.
This stanza marks a switch from observational to reflective mode. The short opening sentence He displaced more than water introduces the idea of the poet being metaphorically displaced.
“He shoggled me/Centuries back”
“He shoggled me/Centuries back in time.”
This creature, a throwback to prehistoric times, creates in the imagination of the poet a glimpse of the early evolutionary stage of the emergence of land creatures from our common ancestors, marine life.
“shoggled” and “decadent townee”
Immediately his tone becomes self-deprecatory with the use of the colloquial verb shoggled to describe how he is shifted. The tone continues as he describes himself as a decadent townee.
“decadent”
word choice
The use of “decadent” in this context suggests that, in his decision to remove himself from the natural world to an urban setting, he has lost a sense of purpose in his life and become too immersed in the pursuit of hedonistic pleasures.
“shook on a wrong branch”
The next line, which depicts how the speaker was shook on a wrong branch of the family tree conveys how he is both literally and metaphorically shaken by this experience.
He is reminded that this shark too is part of our own family tree and is inextricably linked to us in much the same way as any other ancestor.
