Wednesday 25 April 2018

summary of John Masefield's "Cargoes"



Background
John Masefield was born in Ledbury, England. After attending King’s School in Warwick, he went to sea at age fifteen on a large sailing ship, then worked for a time in New York City before returning to England in 1897. His experiences aboard the ship provided him the raw material that made him famous as a sea poet. In 1902, he published a collection of sea poems entitled Salt-Water Ballads, in which “Cargoes” appeared.

Summary
"Cargoes" is a short lyric poem consisting of three five-line stanzas, each of which describes a different kind of ship. The first two lines of each stanza describe the ship moving through water; the last three lines list the different cargoes the ships are carrying.

Stanza one's ship is a quinquireme, a large vessel which people like the ancient Phoenicians employed to trade across the Mediterranean Sea. These ships were propelled both by the wind and by men rowing. The prefix "quin" may refer to the five banks of oarsmen arranged vertically on each side of the ship. More probably, because five banks of oars would get hopelessly entangled, it refers to the five oarsmen manning the three oars in each vertical row. Masefield's ship departs from "distant Ophir," a region in either Arabia or Africa at the southern end of the Red Sea, and is being rowed to northern end of that sea. (Masefield must have intended the term "Palestine" to apply to the land at farthest reach of the present Gulf of Aqaba.) The ship's goal is a happy one, for Palestine is a safe "haven," and its skies are "sunny." This boat carries a cargo of animals, birds, exotic woods, and wine.

Masefield found many of his details in the Old Testament. Nineveh, an important Assyrian city, is often mentioned there, and many of the details of this stanza come from 1. Kings 10: ivory, apes, peacocks, and cedars. That chapter also mentions drinking vessels, though not the wine in them, and almug trees, which may be the same as sandalwood.

In Stanza two, the poem moves ahead about two thousand years to the sixteenth or seventeenth century and changes its focus to the West Indies. A galleon was a large sailing ship often used in trade between Spain and Latin America, a part of the world Masefield himself knew well from his days as a sailor. This "stately" (splendid, dignified, majestic) ship begins its journey at the Isthmus of Panama and progresses with a vessel's normal up-and-down motion ("dipping") through the verdant and beautiful islands of the Caribbean. Its cargo contains precious (emeralds and diamonds) and semi-precious stones, spices, and gold coins (a "moidore" is a Portuguese coin; the word means literally "coin of gold").

In Stanza three, the British ship is not so pretty as the previous two (it is "dirty") nor so big. A coaster is a small ship designed chiefly to carry goods along a coastline, not on the high seas. This coaster is propelled by a steam-engine (it has a smoke-stack), and it moves through the English Channel with a force and motion that resembles an animal's butting with its head. Part of its cargo are things to burn: wood for fireplaces and coal mined near Newcastle-upon-Tyne on the eastern coast of Britain. The rest is metal that has been processed or manufactured, perhaps in the British Midlands not far from Newcastle: metal rails with which to build railroad tracks, lead ingots or "pigs," items of hardware made of iron, and "cheap tin trays."

Theme
What ships carry reflects the culture, government, lifestyle, and technology of civilizations over the centuries. For example, in ancient biblical times (stanza 1), oar-propelled ships (quinquiremes) transported ivory, sandalwood, and cedarwood to construct, outfit, and maintain the palace and other buildings of King Solomon. They also carried exotic animals and wine to entertain him and his court. After Columbus discovered the New World, three- or four-masted sailing vessels (galleons) from Spain and other countries carried from the Americas the prizes of exploration and exploitation, as well as the spoils of war against native peoples or enemy ships. Their cargoes of gems, spices, and gold coins enriched the lives of the royalty and the nobility. Early in the twentieth century, commercial steamships traveling along coastlines hauled coal and wood to heat the homes of the masses or to fire the furnaces of factories manufacturing the tools and other products of a technically advanced civilization. They also carried materials to construct railroads for the transport of goods on land. Commoners as well as kings and counts shared in the benefits of ship cargoes.

Type of work and Structure

"Cargoes" is a lyric poem with three stanzas, each with five lines. The stanzas are alike in structure. For example, the first line of each stanza identifies a type of ship at sea, and the second line—beginning with an action verb ending in -ing—identifies a locale. The third line, a prepositional phrase, begins to list items in the cargo; the fourth and fifth lines complete the list. The second and fifth lines of each stanza end in masculine rhyme. In each stanza, the first line has twelve syllables and the second line has eleven syllables. Notice also that the first line of each stanza omits the definite article a before the first word. None of the stanzas has a complete sentence. The stanzas are in chronological order.

Ben Jonson’s Criticism


Introduction
Ben Jonson is a poet and dramatist than a critic.  There is plenty of criticism in his poems, plays, prefaces and in his dedications.  “Timber” or “Discoveries” is one of his famous critical work.  In all his criticism, he wanted writers to write well not by chance but knowingly.  All Ben Jonson’s plays are modeled on the Latin drama.  In his criticism, he follows Aristotle and Horace.  “Discoveries” is a collection of notes that he made from time to time.

His Classicism
Jonson did not like the classic for their own sake but he wanted to raise the English standards on par with the Greek and Latin.  English literature, according to Ben Jonson, had passion, imagination and expression in excess.  Even Shakespeare had everything in excess.  Jonson found well-tried law in “Poetics”.  In his notes, he talks about the need of unity of action and unity of time.  A story is an imitation of one action.  A plot must have a beginning, a middle and an end.  Action in a comedy or tragedy should be fit; it should give rise to the conclusion of the play.  Jonson says that a play can exceed the 24 hours time because life has so many digressions, so art can also have digressions.  Every part of a play should be one and whole.

The Qualifications of a Poet
Jonson, like Sidney, calls a poet a ‘maker’ or ‘feigner’.  Like Sidney, he calls poetry as the queen of arts.  There are five requirements for a good poet: what he should be by nature, by exercise, by imitation, by study and by art.  Poetry is largely an outcome of training and practice.  A poet or the maker should have good natural wit.  To perfect a poem a pet should imitate nature.  He can also imitate what others have said.  Jonson also asks the poets to study.  He believes in Bacon’s statement – ‘reading maketh a full man’.  He follows Aristotle and Horace and says that art can lead a poet to perfection.

His Observation on Style
Ben Jonson is against the Elizabethan use of extravagant expression.  He has no use for words for their own sake.  Words mean thoughts.  Words are like the relation between body and soul.  Words are lifeless without soul.  It should be used aptly.  To use words one should require three necessities – to the read the best authors, observe the best speakers and exercise of his own.  He  repeats his remarks on imitation, when he talks about reading the best author.  He thinks that our mind and memory are sharpened when we read other writers.  The same will happen when a writer listens to a good speech.  A writer should not be content with the first word and with the first arrangement of words.  He should revise them repeatedly and arrive at the best.  A writer should write for the learned people.  He can use ancient words, which are majestic.

Estimates on Bacon and Shakespeare
In his critical works, Ben Jonson talks about Montaigne, Spenser, Marlowe, Sidney, Donne, Bacon and Shakespeare.  Bacon passes the test fully.  According to Jonson, Bacon spoke neatly, more weightily and suffered less emptiness and idleness.  His own writings resembled Bacon’s.  bacon, according to Jonson, would say twenty things in ten words.  Shakespeare is an honest and open natured poet.  He has brave notions and gentle expressions.  He has powerful wit.  He frames his own rules with his wit and he succeeds.  He has more virtues than vices.  He is someone to be praised than to be pardoned.

His Liberal Concept of Rules
Jonson also talks about the rules given by the ancients.  He wants a writer to read and learn as much as possible.  He never advises them to rest in the soul authority of what they read.  If a writer finds some truth and fitness that the ancients haven’t found he can say it in his own way.  A writer can consider the classics as their guides and not as commanders.

Conclusion/The Value of His Criticism

Jonson saw some danger in the English literature.  Shakespeare and Bacon had their own lights to guide them but not other writers.  Jonson in his criticism, address to the other English writers.  He is not against new paths, provided they conform to nature and reason.  He also advises critics.  he asks critics to look at the intricacies of poetic art.  To judge a poet one must be a best poet.  To sum up Ben Jonson’s criticism we can use the word ‘the curb’ – the necessity of submission to a code of conduct both on the part of the writer and the critic.

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