A Requiem Flashcards
by Herman Melville — tap or click to flip
Flashcard Review
Flashcards: A Requiem
What is the subtitle of Melville's poem 'A Requiem'?
The subtitle is 'For Soldiers Lost in Ocean Transports,' indicating the poem memorializes soldiers who drowned during maritime troop movements.
What two contrasting scenes does 'A Requiem' juxtapose?
The poem contrasts the joyful renewal of nature after a storm with the permanent loss of soldiers who perished at sea and can never share in that renewal.
What happens in the land-based scene that opens the poem?
After woodland storms, an atoning dawn arrives and robins resume their orchard sports, meadow-larks carol in the sky, and tiny insects dance in the air.
What happens in the ocean scene that follows the land imagery?
After ocean gales, morning breaks with fish swimming up from the deep, shining creatures frolicking on waves, and dolphins playing where the soldiers' ship was lost.
What is the fate of the soldiers described in the poem?
The soldiers are washed down a pale stream to a reef of bones, never again visited by light, never seeing land or a pilot, permanently separated from the living world.
What is the final image of 'A Requiem'?
A lone bird circling a lone spar (a piece of ship's mast) surrounded by mid-sea surges, which the dead soldiers can no longer see or heed.
How does the poem's structure mirror its thematic movement?
It moves from land to sea, from communal joy to solitary grief, and from living creatures celebrating renewal to dead soldiers permanently excluded from that celebration.
Who are the central subjects of the poem?
Union soldiers who died when their transport ship sank during the Civil War. They are never named individually, representing the anonymous collective loss of war.
What role do the robins and meadow-larks play in the poem?
They represent nature's ability to recover and rejoice after destruction, serving as a foil to the soldiers who cannot similarly return to life.
What do the dolphins represent in the poem?
The dolphins play exactly where the soldiers' bark was lost, symbolizing nature's indifference as life continues joyfully in the very place of human tragedy.
What is the significance of the 'lone bird' at the poem's end?
The lone bird circling the lone spar is the only witness to the site of the sinking, a solitary mourner in a natural world that has otherwise moved on.
What is the central theme of 'A Requiem'?
Nature's indifferent renewal versus permanent human loss. Nature recovers from storms, but the drowned soldiers are excluded forever from the cycle of restoration.
How does 'A Requiem' address the theme of anonymity in war?
The soldiers have no names, no individual stories. They are a collective absence, emphasizing how war erases personal identity and reduces individuals to anonymous casualties.
What does the poem suggest about the relationship between death at sea and memorialization?
Death at sea leaves no grave to visit and no marker to remember. The soldiers are borne to a reef of bones, making their loss invisible and their memory harder to preserve.
How does the poem explore the theme of exclusion from joy?
The repeated word 'Save' (meaning 'except') emphasizes that all creatures share in morning's joy except the drowned soldiers, who are permanently torn from joyance.
What extended metaphor structures the entire poem?
An extended analogy comparing the renewal of nature after a land storm to the renewal of sea life after ocean gales, with the critical exception of the drowned soldiers.
What effect does the word 'Save' create through repetition in the poem?
The anaphora of 'Save' (used twice) creates a sharp pivot, turning the poem from celebration to elegy by singling out the dead as the sole exception to nature's joy.
What is the effect of Melville's use of enjambment in 'A Requiem'?
The flowing, run-on lines mimic the motion of water and waves, reinforcing the ocean setting while also suggesting the relentless continuity of nature that the dead cannot share.
How does Melville use personification in the poem?
The dawn is described as 'atoning' (as if seeking forgiveness for the storm), and morning is called 'hoyden' (boisterous, playful), giving nature human emotional qualities.
What does 'bark' mean in the context of this poem?
A bark (or barque) is a type of sailing vessel. Here it refers to the transport ship that carried the soldiers before it was lost at sea.
What does 'hoyden' mean in the phrase 'hoyden morning'?
Hoyden means boisterous, high-spirited, or playfully rowdy. Melville uses it to characterize the morning as exuberantly lively, contrasting with the solemnity of the soldiers' fate.
What does 'joyance' mean in 'forever from joyance torn'?
Joyance is an archaic or poetic word meaning joy, delight, or gladness. Its formal tone elevates the soldiers' exclusion from happiness into something solemn and ceremonial.
What does the word 'spar' refer to in the poem's final line?
A spar is a pole used in ship rigging, such as a mast or boom. The 'lone spar' is the last visible remnant of the sunken transport ship.
What is the significance of the line 'Whose bark was lost where now the dolphins play'?
This line captures the poem's core irony: the exact site of human tragedy has become a playground for dolphins, showing nature's complete indifference to human suffering.
What does the phrase 'the reef of bones' convey?
It is a grim metaphor for the ocean floor where drowned sailors accumulate over time, suggesting the sea has claimed so many lives that their remains form a geological feature.
What is the emotional effect of 'Nor sight of long-sought land and pilot more'?
It evokes the soldiers' unfulfilled longing: they were seeking land and safe harbor but will never arrive. The word 'long-sought' intensifies the tragedy of their incomplete journey.