|
READ THIS
The poet describes a herd of zebra which he sees on the grasslands at dawn. He is enraptured by their
stark beauty as they roam the land freely, and then as a stallion romps with a filly.
NOTE ON THE POET
Roy Campbell was born in Durban in 1901 and was at one stage considered to be one of South Africa's
best poets. His popularity, however, has waned in recent years so that today his poetry is hardly ever
read.
Educated at Durban High School, he spent much of his youth in the great outdoors -- something that is
reflected in many of his poems like "The Zebras". As soon as the Great War was over, however,
he moved to England where he attended Oxford University.
He married Mary Garman, a marriage which did not carry his parents' consent and therefore meant that,
for a time at least, Campbell was struck off from his inheritance. He had two daughters by this marriage.
In 1925, he returned to South Africa and founded a literary magazine called Voorslag which was
meant to promote cultural development amongst the Afrikaners whom the poet regarded as backward and
uncouth.
Very soon disillusionment set in, however, and he returned to England. His disillusionment continued even
there as he fell foul of his own fellow poets -- and even of his wife whom he found was not averse to
lesbian affairs.
During the early 1930s he settled in the Provence region of France -- the scene for one of his greatest
poems, "Horses on the Camargue". During this time he was slowly drawn to Catholicism and
drunkenness.
In the mid-1930s, due to a loss in a civil lawsuit, the Campbell family fled to Spain where the poet became
an avid supporter of the fascist dictator, General Franco. It was this support which saw the poet's
reputation slump amongst his literary colleagues.
When World War II broke out, the poet moved back to England and enlisted for military duty. It was
during those years that he became close friends with the Welsh poet and fellow drunkard, Dylan Thomas.
After the war, the poet returned to the Iberian Peninsula but this time settled in Portugal. He died in a car
accident over the Easter weekend of 1957.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
|
TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
GENERAL QUESTIONS:
Comment on the poet's musical imagery within this poem. (10)
[Need help?]
The Octave contains two distinct references to musical instruments. In the first, the sunlight is said to be
"zithering their flanks with fire", while the second states that the electric tremors with which the
zebras are barred are like "wind along the gold strings of a lyre".
The zither and the lyre are both ancient instruments which infuse a magical, elemental property to the
scene.
We are taken back into the mists of time -- these mists possibly being synonymous with the "snorting
rosy plumes" from the animals' snorting nostrils -- to the era of the gods and their magical melodies
which charmed the mind.
Using musical references, therefore, allows the poet to bridge the charm of the setting into the magical
charm of an ancient time and place.
|
How many words can you find that are related to breathing? Is there any significance in the poet's use
of these words? (6)
[Need help?]
The following underlined words refer in one way or another to breathing or breath:
- "breathe of fallen showers"
- "Like wind along the gold strings of a lyre"
- "Into the flushed air snorting rosy plumes"
- "That smoulder round their feet in drifting fumes"
There has to be some significance when the poet uses the reference so often. Is it that breath is
synonymous with life -- in this case, the breath of the zebras forms the life of the plains?
The poet also notes the misty breath of the zebras which condenses in the chill air of the dawn and unites
it with an image of smoke drifting up from the burning feet of the animals where the scarlet flowers glow
like fire.
|
The poet uses the image of freedom but also of captivity to depict the zebras.
- What words does he use to indicate this? (4)
[Need help?]
The poem is set in the tranquil plains where the animals wander freely. And yet there are images of
captivity.
The zebras are said to be "harnessed with level rays in golden reins". The zebras
then "draw" the dawn across the plains.
|
- What is the poet's purpose in doing this? (4)
[Need help?]
This is not a captivity imposed by man but rather a pastoral captivity imposed by nature itself. The zebras
are part of a royal retinue whose task it is to pull the dawn across the plains.
They do so effortlessly, however, without even feeling the harness or the reins. Indeed, their yoke is
gentle, their burden is light.
The poet is portraying the zebras, therefore, as part of a pastoral pageant in which each and every
creature plays a role. It is an easy captivity, one in which the zebras do not feel any yoke.
|
The poet refers continually to colour throughout this sonnet.
- Identify the words which refer to colour. (6)
[Need help?]
Look at the following words:
- "zithering their flanks with fire";
- "gold strings of a lyre";
Can you see any more?
|
- What is the poet's purpose in doing so? (6)
[Need help?]
The poet wishes to splash his poem with colour. It is dawn. The rising sun is reddish orange. Its light
touches everything, splashing its orangeness on the plains.
At the same time, there are scarlet flowers at the zebras' hoofs and the colour of the flowers reflects on
the misty breath of the zebras in the chill morning.
Red is also the colour of passion. Is the poet therefore attempting to paint his poem in the passionate
redness of the dawn, depicting the passion of the universe?
Is it a means to lead up to the passion depicted in the sestet, the passion of the stallion for the filly?
|
There are several references in this sonnet to latent power or submerged energy which is just waiting to
be released.
- What words refer to this latent power or submerged energy? (4)
[Need help?]
- "Barred with electric tremors through the grass";
- "Engine of beauty volted with delight".
|
- What is this latent power or energy? Does it actually become released within the context of this
poem? (6)
[Need help?]
The octave contains a reference to this latent energy -- "electric tremors" -- but at this stage it
is just a hint of the power latent in the herd of male zebras.
It is in the sestet, however, that this energy is revealed fully -- "Engine of beauty volted with
delight" -- but here we are confronted with the sexual energy of the stallion, the dominant animal of
the herd who displays this energy "to roll his mare among the trampled lilies".
|
|
