Fern Hill (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Dylan Thomas
- First Published: 1945
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Children, Nature, Rural or country life, Farms, farmers, or farming, Sea or seafaring life, Trees, Time, Naivete, Animals
The Poem
The speaking voice belongs to a male adult recalling his childhood and its inevitable end. “Fern Hill” re-creates and communicates the experience of a child who (for the first part of the poem) has not yet grown into historical awareness and who consequently lives in an eternal present in the Garden of Eden (“it was Adam and maiden” and “the sun grew round that very day,” lines 30 and 32).
The boy’s life is composed of repetitions of the cycles of nature, so to him there seems to be no passage of time; from his adult vantage point, however, he...
[The entire page is 1370 words long]
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