In the poem " Seascape: In Memoriam, M.A.S.," Stephen Spender conveys characteristic aspects of the sea. The poet emphasizes the power and deceptive nature of the sea over mankind.
The author uses several literary devices to capture the beauty of the ocean. The poem has 26 lines divided into 4 irregular stanzas. Lies, land, wire-- these three words bind the rhyme scheme. The most lyrical of all instruments, the harp simile, representing the soothing ocean, spans the entire poem. The alliteration of “wanders on water, walking” contributes to the soft, flowing sound effect, consonant with the poem’s tone of mourning and sadness
The final sentences of the poem employ heroic and allusive vocabulary choices to announce the deaths of the “zig-zag butterflies." It begins with this enjambed sentence:
Until they fall into reflected skies.
They drown. Fishermen understand
Such wings sunk in ritual sacrifice...
The poem revolves around the notion of sound as a means...
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of conveying the different faces of the sea. Described as happy, the ocean lies soothingly smooth, reflecting the bright sun on a lazy afternoon. However, in contrast with the deceptive harp simile, the use of the mirror as ametaphor for the ocean illustrates its pretentious effort to be something it is not. The ocean has the potential for power and requires only the slightest change to create a force capable of "ritual sacrifice."
Describing the shores with celebratory heaps of roses, horses, and spires--the contrast of the shore controlled by man and the ocean with nothing to restrict it establishes the potential for risk. The harsh but beautiful example of the zip-zag butterflies, who spiral as they fly through the sky and dip to close to the sea drowning without emotion, supports the theme of the subtle danger of the water.
The final stanza recalls legends of the city of Atlantis swallowed by the ocean and other seaman who have lost their lives consumed by a watery grave. The bodies of the sailors with their coins for the ferryman shine lie below the harp, silently sighing wishing to be played.
How can one interpret the poem "Seascape" by Stephen Spender?
This poem is about the "ritual sacrifice" of death as part of the natural order of living, particularly as seen against the backdrop of the ocean, which although beautiful on the surface, camouflages dangerous forces which have cost humans their lives for centuries. Toward the poem's end, Spender refers to "voyagers. . .set forth from some island/And them the seas engulfed." The heat of the afternoon, the ocean, the march toward death of all living things. . .all these things are unmoving, unchangeable, and Spender establishes their permanence even as he creates imagery of movement in the ocean, the air, and in life.
In some ways, this poem could be considered similar to Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". Frost used the imagery of a forest, "lovely, dark and deep" as a metaphor for death, luring the rider of the horse, who nonetheless presses on because he has "miles to go", in other words, many things to accomplish, before he can sleep. The permanence of the still, beautiful forest, upon closer inspection, camouflages dangers awaiting the rider, who for now will continue moving, but ultimately will return to the woods when his life is over. Similarly, Spender's ocean imagery focuses on something that is externally gorgeous, internally dangerous, and will ultimately triumph over all human life.