Friday, November 29, 2013
"Still Falls the Rain" - even though it finally stopped falling here!
I was reading this poem while listening to the raindrops pounding hard on my roof. I was thinking, would it ever stop? It rained for like two days straight and honestly it put me in a pretty grumpy mood. I thought it was very appropriate time to read this poem, but actually it just made my mood even more depressed. "Still falls the rain- Dark as the world of men, black as our loss-" In these first lines, it is evident that the author, Edith Sitwell was trying to convey a dark mood. While reading, I felt it was the word choices that Sitwell used that made this poem sound so sad, but then I realized that maybe this poem wasn't all so negative. I tried to reason with myself and make the line "Still the rain falls" more positive. Maybe it is a good thing that the rain is still falling, because rain water is good for life right? But, I just could not shake my bad mood, and that was for a reason. Sitwell is describing the horrors of war in this poem, and by the repeated line.. "Still falls the rain", she is making her point that the war and the bad things that come with it are still happening. One thing I liked about this poem though was the fact that she didn't try to hid religion. I feel like with many of the poems we read before it was evident that they were referring to the bible, but they did it in ways where it wasn't directly stated. Here, although she mentions the "Potter's Field" most of her religious references very stated blatantly. She used word such as "cross," "tomb," and "the brow of Cain." All of these religious references made me think that maybe Sitwell thought that all the terrors of the war could be stopped if there was a larger religious presence in the world. I can't say I disagree with her. Anything to make the rain stop falling!
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After doing some research, I discovered that this poem was considered a war poem written during WWII, something about the London blitz - which was when the Germans bombed the UK for many days causing lots of destruction and damage. Like you said, right off the bat we know that Stillwell is setting up the poem in a somber/dark mood. Stillwell is comparing the rain to the bombs being dropped from the sky. One instance where I saw this comparison was when she refers to how the rain affects all, the rich and the poor, much like the bombs dropped by the Germans on all the cities during the war. The religious references also add to the gloomy mood of the poem because she references Cain, the cross and as well as references to hell. This could imply that war is bad, maybe sinful?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Alexandria. I feel like Stillwell used all these religious references to imply that war is sinful. To me is sounded like she was saying that despite all of the things that we know about Jesus, religion and God, bombs are still being dropped and war is still going on. In other words I feel like she's kind of saying that as humans we should know better than to treat each other this badly. The lines where she says "In the Field of Blood where the small hopes breed and the human brain/Nurtures its greed" I feel like Stillwell is trying to say that in going to war with one another we've lost our faith (9-10). By fighting over money and land we are fueling the deadly sin of greed. In war, humans ignore all of the things that they learned from and lived by in the Bible.
ReplyDeleteYou're definitely right, this is not a happy poem. And she does blatantly use a lot of religious references. It sounds as if she is comparing war to the actual act of Jesus being hung on the cross again. This made me wonder, because Jesus was hung on the cross to save us from our sins....I think I came to the conclusion that she was saying that war is not the answer. Jesus is the only one who can save people from sins. She wants to reiterate that he died on the cross, a selfless act, and that alone is the only thing that can save people. I may be wrong, but that was my conclusion!
ReplyDeleteThis is indeed a grim poem. It describes the horrors of war, not as graphically as "Dulce et Decorum Est" but just as effectively. I personally think that the line "Still falls the Rain" is a metaphor for the Germans dropping bombs over Britain during the The Blitz. It was started in 1940, just as the end of the first stanza says, "the nineteen hundred and forty nails", so that is why I believe this poem is talking about The Blitz. I do enjoy the poem, as I enjoy poems that truly describe the horrors and atrocities of war, not glamorizing or romanticizing it. Sitwell does a good job of weaving religion and war together to make an effective argument against war using religion as a basis for his argument.
ReplyDeleteI actually didn't find this poem particularly sad. It's kind of gruesome and bloody, with all the vivid descriptions of Jesus on the cross, and bloody hearts and stuff, but it ends on a hopeful note: "Still do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee." It's saying that, no matter what happens, God will continue to care about us, and Jesus will continue to die for our sins, even if we're doing immoral things like bombing the hell out of cities full of innocent civilians, which both sides did in WW2. It's very traditionally pious, which means a message of healing and forgiveness. I found the other poem for tomorrow much more depressing, as I comment in my post.
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