Moon on the Tides, Character and Voice

1. Poetry Across Time: Character and voice
The River God
Of the River Mimram in Hertfordshire
I may be smelly and I may be old,
Rough in my pebbles, reedy in my pools,
But where my fish float by I bless their swimming
And I like the people to bath in me, especially women.
But I can drown the fools
Who bathe too close to the weir, contrary to rules.
And they take a long time drowning
As I throw them up now and then in the spirit of clowning.
Hi yih, yippity-yap, merrily I flow,
O I may be an old foul river but I have plenty of go.
Once there was a lady who was too bold
She bathed in me by the tall black cliff where the water runs cold,
So I brought her down here
To be my beautiful dear.
Oh will she stay with me will she stay
This beautiful lady, or will she go away?
She lies in my beautiful deep river bed with many a weed
To hold her, and many a waving reed.
Oh who would guess what a beautiful white face lies there
Waiting for me to smoothe and wash away the fear
She looks at me with. Hi yih, do not let her
Go. There is no one on earth who does not forget her
Now. They say I am a foolish old river
But they do not know of my wide original bed
Where they lady waits, with her golden sleepy head.
If she wishes to go I will not forgive her.
Key
Language: connotation, imagery, metaphor, simile
Structure and form: stanzas, type, patterns, contrast, juxtaposition
Poetic methods: alliteration, caesura, assonance, rhythm, rhyme
Character and voice: who is speaking and to whom? Tone of voice
Links: comparisons to other speakers, methods and themes
Interpretations of the poem:
• An extended metaphor describing the experience of being a river in the first person as a way of exploring
issues of depression and loneliness.
• A general commentary on how we hurt the ones that we love.
Benevolence to the rest of
the natural world – sign of
man and nature being at
odds.
Importance of location in many of the C&V
poems.
Title is evocative of a pre-Christian Britain
steeped in pagan mythology and superstition.
Pun on the phrase
‘rough and ready’?
Four adjectives with
unattractive connotations –
juxtaposition with ‘beautiful’
subject matter.
Voice – vindictive,
takes pleasure in
the killing
(sadism).
Eccentric and
whimsical yet
disruptive and
spiteful.
Allusion to the underworld and Hades.
Repeated
‘beautiful’
suggests lack
of eloquence –
and simple
world view.
Repetition gives a
sense of desperate,
unhinged lonely voice.
Deliberate
phonic echo
of ‘raving’.
Use of question
= self-doubt and
uncertainty.
Enjambment =
inability to
separate
internal
conflict &
rivers flow
Structure: single
stanza = river
shape and stream
of consciousness.
Keyword: Extended metaphor. The feelings and thoughts of the river are all congruent with
Smiths’ depression and insecurity as well as her fear of mortality.
Structure cyclical –
returns to the start
like the water
cycle.