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Quick facts about Poet• Norman MacCaig was born in Scotland, Edinburgh on 14th
of November 1910.• He normally wrote about people he knew and experiences
he had encountered in his life.• He served a term in prison for refusing to fight during
WWII.• He was a 20th century writer.• His works inspired writers like Ted Hughes and Louis
MacNeice.• He was awarded the queens gold medal for poetry in 1985.• He died on January 23, 1996.
Denotative Meaning
• The poem is a pastoral (praising country life) and nature poem.
• The poem talks about the persona describing his farm and the activities done by the animals as well as himself.
• The poem has a lot of imagery.
Structure• The poem is structured in four stanzas with
four lines
• AABB rhyme scheme showing a sense of order and a calm atmosphere.
Themes
• Identity
• Time
• Self-discovery
• Insignificance of one human life over the course of time
• Appreciation of Nature
Stanza 4 (Conclusion)• The last stanza contains the entire meaning of the
poem. In this stanza we realize how the persona has is just a “self” in a “pile of selves”, or in other words, he is just one person in a line of generations. He is in the “center” (Present) of these generations which are “threaded on time”(Past). This implies that as time proceeds, another generation will
come(Future).
Cont.
• He is simply a part of this thread, and therefore is of no particular significance. He is “afraid where a thought might take him”, because if he thinks, he will remember that he is only a phase in this sequence passing by , and that generations after him will follow, making him just a memory.
Literary Devices(Examples)
• There is simile and oxymoron in line 1 “straw like tamed lightening” to create detailed images.
• Repetition in “self under self a pile of selves”
• Alliteration in stanza 1 with words such as like, lie and lightning.
• There is a lot of sibilants and other soothing sounds included like “as glass.”
Relation to other Poems
• There is a relation to Pied Beauty in terms of the way various aspects of nature are described.
• We can also relate the animals to Hunting Snake where the snake is presented with form and beauty.
Summary
• The poem talks about the poets thoughts in his depth mind as he lies in the grass and voices out different aspects of his mind. He talks about the farm in the past, future and present and how people come and pass by for more to come.
Online Sources
• http://igcseblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/03/summer-farm-by-norman-maccaig/
• http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/first-second-linked-with-last-stanza-poem-summer-63113
• http://matthewspoetryanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/05/summer-farm-norman-maccaig.html