Form of the Poem ‘London Snow’ by Robert Bridges
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There is no denying the fact that Robert Bridges was a classicist. He discarded modern-day trends and modernization in poetry in favour of a more easy to get to, with good grace understood, technique that is perceptible in the exquisite poem, London Snow. to the sight of a protracted fall of snow unremittingly floating town to cloak the City and The poem addresses four of the five human senses – vision, hearing, taste and touch, and employs a restrained use of metaphor. The reader is introduced muffle the usual noises. The ear unusually ‘listens’ to stillness – an oxymoron. Schoolboys put out their tongues to catch snowflakes, metaphorically described as manna (.ie. food from Heaven), and make snowballs, freezing their tongues and hands. The snow lying on the ground is “white-mossed wonder”
• The poem is accessible as a lone stanza of thirty-seven lines. The effect that this form produces is one of a self-contained endless chain of events, ongoing by snowfall that persists all the way through the hours of darkness.
• There are three end stops in the poem – at lines 9, 24 and 30 (plus the final stop at line 37). The stops indicate a brief pause in the narrative.
• By encamping across the points where some poets might have chosen to create stanza breaks, Bridges has created a flow through the poem, mirroring the unremitting, lengthy, snowstorm.
• The length of the lines ranges from eleven syllables to seventeen syllables and the metre is irregular, creating a poem with a rhythm that resembles the rhythm of speech.
Poetic imagery in London Snow by Robert Bridges is used to defamiliarize the familiar or to familiarize the reader with unusual phenomena. In London Snow, Bridges both defamiliarizes London streets (“the city brown” has become white) with an acute observation of the action and transformational effect of snowfall. He familiarizes the reader with the phenomenon of snow, which is infrequent enough in the South of England to cause a frisson of wonder and excitement (“The eye marveled- marveled at the dazzling whiteness”).
to the sight of a protracted fall of snow unremittingly floating town to cloak the City and The poem addresses four of the five human senses – vision, hearing, taste and touch, and employs a restrained use of metaphor. The reader is introduced muffle the usual noises. The ear unusually ‘listens’ to stillness – an oxymoron. Schoolboys put out their tongues to catch snowflakes, metaphorically described as manna (.ie. food from Heaven), and make snowballs, freezing their tongues and hands. The snow lying on the ground is “white-mossed wonder”
Alliteration in London Snow by Robert Bridges
There is a great deal of alliteration in London Snow. Alliteration is the repeated use of a letter or a syllable, usually, not always, at the start of a word. For example, the sibilant consonant s, this slows the pace – asleep, snow, stealthily, settling, silently sifting. Sibilance in poetry is a stylistic device in which consonants, used in quick succession, draw emphasis on words.
A Stylistic Device in ‘London Snow’
• Most adverbs end with the letters ly.
• Adverbs tell us more about the action described in a verb.
• Bridges has used adverbs of manner extensively in ‘London Snow’. They tell us how an action was performed – in this case the manner in which the snow arrived. See lines 1-9 and pick out the adverbs.
Use of the -ing Verb Form in ‘London Snow’
• A verb ending in ing is a present participle when used with a verb of movement. It describes to us how an action was performed. For example, in line 1 the snow came flying. (Came is the past tense of the verb to come and flying is the present participle of the verb to fly).
• Bridges has used the present participle extensively, as a poetic device of repetition, in lines 1-9 to describe how the snow came. e.g. settling, hushing, deadening.
Suffice it to say that ‘The British Poet Laureate’ is an honorary role, nowadays awarded by the reigning monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister after appropriate consultation. There are no specific responsibilities but there is an expectation that an incumbent poet laureate will write poems to mark significant national occasions. If you enjoyed reading London Snow and would like to read more poems by Robert Bridges, a former Poet Laureate, I recommend this collection of his works. Indeed, the originality of the laureateship date back to 1616, when a pension was provided to Ben Johnson by the reigning monarch, King James I. Each poet laureate is awarded a modest annual honorarium. The tradition of also providing a barrel of sherry continues to the present day.
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Source by Kh. Atiar Rahman