3. Born January 1, 1819
Liverpool
Death November 13 , 1861
(age 42)
Florence
Occupation Poet
Genre Poetry
Language English
Alma meter Balliol College, Oxford
4. EARLY LIFE
• Born Jan. 1, 1819, Liverpool—died Nov. 13, 1861, Florence
• His father was James Butler Clough, a cotton merchant of Welsh descent
• His mother Anne Perfect, from Pontefract in Yorkshire.
• 1822 family moved to America and his childhood was spent mainly in Charleston,
South Carolina
• 1828 his brother and he returned to England to complete his education
• Oxford, in 1837, was in the full swirl of the High Church movement led by John
Henry Newman. Clough was for a time influenced by this movement, but eventually
rejected it. He surprised everyone by graduating from Oxford with only Second
Class Honours, but won a fellowship with a tutorship at Oriel College.
5. • Received a tutorship at Oriel college
• He quit in 1848 and travelled to Paris
• Witnessed the French revolution which inspired his long poem; The Bothie of
taberna-Vuolich
• In 1853, He married Miss Shore Smith and pursued a steady official career,
diversified only by an appointment in 1856 as secretary to a commission sent to
study foreign military education.
• He devoted enormous energy to work as an unpaid secretarial assistant to his wife's
cousin Florence Nightingale.
• He wrote virtually no poetry for six years.
6. • Clough and his wife had three children: Arthur, Florence, and Blanche Athena.
• The youngest child, Blanche Athena Clough (1861–1960), devoted her life
to Newnham College, Cambridge
• where her aunt (his sister Anne) was principal.
• In 1860, with failing health, he travelled around the world
• In April 1861 he travelled extensively in which he wrote his last long poem Mari
Mango
• He died in Florence on November 13 1961
7. WRITING STYLE
His long poems have a certain narrative and psychological penetration, and some of his
lyrics have a strength of melody to match their depth of thought.
He has been regarded as one of the most forward-looking English poets of the 19th century,
in part due to a sexual frankness that shocked his contemporaries.
He often went against the popular religious and social ideals of his day, and his verse is said
to have the melancholy and the perplexity of an age of transition,
although Through a Glass Darkly suggests that he did not lack certain religious beliefs of
his own, and in particular a belief in the afterlife where the struggle for virtue will be
rewarded.
8. • His work is interesting to students of meter, owing to the experiments which he
made, in the Bothie and elsewhere, with English hexameters and other types of
verse formed upon classical models.
• poet whose work reflects the perplexity and religious doubt of mid-19th
century England.
• He was a friend of Matthew Arnold and the subject of Arnold’s commemorative elegy
“Thyrsis.”
9. MAJOR WORK
• Across the Sea Along the Shore.
• Ah! Yet Consider it Again!
• All Is Well.
• Amours de Voyage, Canto I.
• Amours de Voyage, Canto II.
• Amours de Voyage, Canto III.
• Amours de Voyage, Canto IV.
• Amours de Voyage, Canto V.
10. WHERE LIES THE LAND?
Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.
On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face,
Link'd arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace;
Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as we go.
On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave,
How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave!
The dripping sailor on the reeling mast
Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past.
Where lies the land to which the ship would go? Far,
far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.
11. GENERAL RESPONSE
• This poem, ‘Where lies the land?’ portrays a strong theme of ‘life’ and the journey
one takes through it.
• Although talking about and describing mere travels by sea,
• The poem seems to capture a much deeper meaning – one of life’s joys and troubles.
• It’s slightly comical how he has made something so deep and complex, so light
hearted, relaxed and somewhat easy.
12. SUMMARY OF POEM
• The first stanza, has an overall feeling of uncertainty. The first line of the poem, ‘where
lies the land to which the ship would go?’ gives the reader the impression that they are
sailing into the unknown - it being a question, contributing to readers ambivelance even
more so.
• The next two lines, ‘Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she
travels from? Away…’ suggests that one is unaware of what lies ahead, with no insight
as to what may happen or take place (in both the poem and life) – but are going along
with it anyway. The word ‘seamen’ referring to the more experienced sailors on board, is
perhaps implying some guidance is, and always will be at hand throughout the ‘journey.’
• ‘Far, far behind, is all that they can say’ implies that even these supposedly
knowledgeable seamen with years on board, don’t have a clear answer as to where they
are headed and remain vauge so as to allow the passengers to discover life on their own.
13. • The third stanza shows the struggles one can be faced with in life, by the boat itself
hitting hard times – managing its way through storms.
• The first two lines, ‘On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave, How proud a thing
to fight with the wind and wave’ seems to be speaking about the challenges which are
thrown at us in life. ‘Stormy nights’ referring to troubled times,’a proud thing to fight..’
referring to us beings. It seems to send out a message of hope, a message of not giving
up.
• ‘The dripping sailor on the reeling mast, Exults to bear and scorns to wish it past’ give us
the impression that although controlling this ship, struggling to keep it from losing to
the storm, the sailor is proud to be the one doing so.
• This meaning that even though life is difficult, we should be proud to call it ours, we
should be proud to be in control – even if sometimes we feel as if we’re not. ‘Exults to
bear and scorns to wish it past’ means that the sailor, although doing something both
pysically and mentally taxing, wouldn’t wish the storm away – for the exhiliration, thrill
and challenge of it. The message here, is that we should try to enjoy whatever is thrown
at us in life, regardless how hard the task is.
14. • This effect this has, is one of slight confusion. The reason being that the poing of
repeating the first stanza is at first unclear to the reader. Infact, this is a very good
(and effective!) ending to the poem – simply because it’s true.
• All through the journey of life, there are questions as to why things happen the way
they do.
• Nobody has the answers – there are only people who are ahead of us on this voyage
who can offer their advice and wisdom to us embarking upon it, and even they still
don’t have the answers. This closing stanza portrays that very well.
• He described the excitement of uncertainty on sunny days and stormy nights abroad
a ship, and in this poem Arthur’s message is to live your life and happy with it
