Discussion Topic
Literary devices in D. H. Lawrence's poem "Bat"
Summary:
D. H. Lawrence's poem "Bat" employs various literary devices, including imagery, simile, and metaphor. Imagery is used to vividly describe the bats and the sunset. Similes compare the bats' flight to "a glove of blood," and metaphors describe the bats as "ghosts" to convey their eerie presence. These devices enhance the poem's atmospheric and emotional impact.
What literary devices are used in D. H. Lawrence's poem “Bat”?
In his poem “Bat,” D. H. Lawrence uses a variety of literary devices. Prominent devices include alliteration, consonance, assonance, simile, metaphor, and personification. The speaker comments on their realization that they are seeing bats in the Florence night sky.
Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds, while in consonance, such sounds are repeated within the word. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds. Lawrence often combines all three devices within one line or a few sequential lines. For example, lines 4–8 include alliteration using fl and gl along with assonance in the long o and closely related oo and short u sounds: “flower,” “Florence,” “flush,” and “gloom” and “glowing.” Related assonance also appears in the ou of of “Brown” and “surrounding.” Assonance occurs combined with consonance in “arches” and “Arno.”
Alliteration is even more pronounced, with several variants of initial s sounds in...
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line 11. This line includes more assonance of longo and oo:
Swallows with spools of dark thread sewing the shadows together.
Line 11 also uses a metaphor, a direct comparison of unlike things for effect. The swallows’ motions are compared to sewing with thread. This line also uses personification, the attribution of human qualities to animals, objects, or abstract concepts.
Lines 22–23 use a simile, a comparison of unlike things for effect using “like” or “as.” The speaker compares the birds (as they still believe they are seeing) to a thrown glove:
And serrated wings against the sky,
Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light.
Further down in the poem, after the speaker realizes they are actually seeing bats, they use another simile, twice comparing the hanging bats to rags:
Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag…
Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags.
What metaphors does D. H. Lawrence use in the poem "Bat"?
In “Bat,” D. H. Lawrence observes how the waning daylight brings to view a swarm of swallows; to his horror, these birds turn out to be bats! Throughout the poem, he employs various literary devices to convey his dismay. Specifically, his use of metaphors conveys his changing emotions toward and increasing disgust at this shocking revelation.
Initially, he sits on a terrace to enjoy the sunset:
When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing
Brown hills surrounding...
The city of Florence is a “tired flower.” This metaphor suggests that this lovely art-filled city and its inhabitants are weary at the end of the day and anticipate impending nightfall with a bit of melancholy. The flower is in “gloom,” not in bloom. Nonetheless, the atmosphere is a bit magical, with “glowing” features and “green light” shining under local bridges’ arches.
Lawrence uses a sewing metaphor to describe what he first thinks are swallows,
with spools of dark thread sewing the shadows together.
This metaphor makes the birds seem harmless and almost domestic, with words like “spools,” “thread,” and “sewing.” The fact that the thread is “dark” and stitching together “shadows,” however, foreshadows a more sinister discovery.
Lawrence soon reveals his doubts with “Swallows?” He describes the birds’ movement as
an elastic shudder in flight
and serrated wings against the sky
Both “elastic shudder” and “serrated wings” are domestic yet disturbing metaphors. The birds may glide with a supple quality like elastic (continuing the sewing motif), but also quiver or convulse as a group. Their wings appear like jagged knives; instead of slicing bread, their wings cut the sky and are weapons.
When Lawrence realizes that the swallows indeed are bats, he compares the switch to “Changing guard.” This metaphor transforms harmless, ornamental palace guards (swallows) into aggressive soldiers (bats).
Lawrence uses two more metaphors to describe the bats:
Black piper on an infinitesimal pipe.
and
Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive;
Here, the bats are black, or evil, pipers that screech endlessly. These animals are eerie, sickly “lumps” invading Florence with their vindictive cries.