The Last Word

Mathew ArnoldLecture 18

About the poem

• The poem is about the power play of words and unending argument or argument for the sake of argument; everybody wants the last word.

• Poet attacks the two groups engaged in debate as if in a battle to achieve victory over the other but in the long debate the actual point is lost.

• The message that he gives is that truth is important than language game, and real winner is one who’s humble.

• Tone is not serious; written in four stanzas with same rhyme scheme aabb, ccdd, eeff, gghh.

Stanza 1

Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said! Vain thy onset! all stands fast. Thou thyself must break at last.

Creep: lowly image of retreat, of submissionNarrow bed: narrow ideasVain: proud, sure that only you are right & others

wrongAll stands fast: you stick to your words/arguments

Stanza 2

Let the long contention cease! Geese are swans, and swans are geese. Let them have it how they will! Thou art tired: best be still.

2nd line: though they have their differences, they are all the same; no one superior or inferior as they claim.

Tells the audience to stay indifferent and let them fight it out as want.

Stanza 3

They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee? Better men fared thus before thee; Fired their ringing shot and passed, Hotly charged - and sank at last.

2nd line: suggesting that it has gone on for centuries.Better men fared thus: others better than present time

intellectuals have sunk and disappeared from history completely.

Fired their ringing shot: their bold, proud words.

Stanza 4

Charge once more, then, and be dumb! Let the victors, when they come, When the forts of folly fall, Find thy body by the wall!

Metaphor of fighting armies and battle siege to describe the ironical end to the verbal battle between the groups.

Forts of folly: false ideas,

Analysis

• There is no winner in an argument as in a battle .• The two fighting armies compared to warring

intellectuals, each holding their ground till final victory.

• Image of fighting armies in ‘Dover Beach’ also; he had called them ‘ignorant armies’.

• Only truth and humility is high value and ‘high seriousness,’

Growing Old

Mathew Arnold

What is it to grow old?Is it to lose the glory of the form,The lustre of the eye?Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?Yes, but not for this alone.

Growing old is more than just losing physical beauty.

Is it to feel our strength -Not our bloom only, but our strength -decay?Is it to feel each limbGrow stiffer, every function less exact,Each nerve more weakly strung?

Old age affects our mental and physical strength also.

Yes, this, and more! but not,Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dreamed 'twould be!'Tis not to have our lifeMellowed and softened as with sunset-glow,A golden day's decline!

Growing old is much more than those changes in body - it changes how we feel also .

Old age compared with setting sun, while youth with full day sun.

'Tis not to see the worldAs from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,And heart profoundly stirred;And weep, and feel the fulness of the past,The years that are no more!

In old age the hope & determination of the youth is gone, only regrets are left.

It is to spend long daysAnd not once feel that we were ever young.It is to add, immuredIn the hot prison of the present, monthTo month with weary pain.

The present is compare to a prison.

It is to suffer this,And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel:Deep in our hidden heartFesters the dull remembrance of a change,But no emotion -none.

In old age, feelings and emotions become dull.Festers the dull remembrance: memories simmer

faintly

It is -last stage of all -When we are frozen up within, and quiteThe phantom of ourselves,To hear the world applaud the hollow ghostWhich blamed the living man.

The world applauds the old as the wise and the just and blames the young.

Hollow ghost: old man living man: young

Analysis

• Poem explains how it is like when we are old, physically, mentally and emotionally.

• Simple language is used.• Poet does not glorify old age as age of wisdom and

prophecy.• He describes it as the time of misery and pain, and

not just the loss of physical beauty but also of all feeling and emotion.