CRITICAL APPRECIATION AND LINE BY LINE ANALYSIS OF APOLOGIA BY Oscar Wilde

About the Poet

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on 16^th October 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. He was born to Lady Jane Wilde and William Wilde, an Anglo- Irish couple. He was a poet and a playwright. Wilde got baptised in an Anglical church. He is known for his poems and epigrams. Wilde could fluently speak German and French. He studied in Trinity College, Dublin and then in Oxford. Wilde was an excellent student.

After university, he lectured on “English Renaissance in Art” and interior decoration as well. his most famous creation is the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” published in 1891 in a book form. Oscar Wilde was deeply influenced by Catholicism.

Wilde had also worked as a journalist and had a theatrical career as well. He got married to Constance Lloyd in 1884.

He was an important part of the Aesthetic movement and the Decadent movement. Some of his most significant creations are “A House of Pomegranates” (1891), “Poems” (1881), “Ravenna” (1878), “The Sphinx” (1894), “A Woman of No Importance” (1893), “Intentions” (1891), “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” (1898), “An Ideal Husband” (1895), “De Profundis” (1897), “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1895), “The Happy Prince and other stories” (1888) and a lot more.

Wilde passed away at the age of 46 in Paris on November 30, 1900.

About the Poem

“Apologia” literally means to pen down points in order to defend a particular belief or notion. The same had happened in this poem as well. the poet believes that in order to unite with someone he loves, it is worth it to give up his own pleasure. In the first few lines, the poet rhetorically throws two questions to his lover. But, by the end of the poem, the poet concludes that he is ready to give up everything and that it is worth it. He has also spoken about how similar incidents can be presented differently to different people, and how people experience similar situations in separate ways. The last stanza is filled with passion, where the poet expresses how he is willing to give up all and also is happy about it as long as he is with the person he loves. The poet had been willing to give up more of himself.

Structure of the Poem:

Apologia

“Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,
Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,
And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain
Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?

Is it thy will That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot
Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell
The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?

Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,
And sell ambition at the common mart,
And let dull failure be my vestiture,
And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.

Perchance it may be better so I have not made my heart a heart of stone,
Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,
Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.

Many a man hath done so; sought to fence
In straitened bonds the soul that should be free,
Trodden the dusty road of common sense,
While all the forest sang of liberty,

Not marking how the spotted hawk in flight
Passed on wide pinion through the lofty air,
To where the steep untrodden mountain height
Caught the last tresses of the Sun God's hair.

Or how the little flower he trod upon,
The daisy, that white-feathered shield of gold,
Followed with wistful eyes the wandering sun
Content if once its leaves were aureoled.

But surely it is something to have been
The best belovèd for a little while,
To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seen
His purple wings flit once across thy smile.

Ay! though the gorgèd asp of passion feed
On my boy's heart, yet have I burst the bars,
Stood face to face with Beauty, known indeed
The Love which moves the Sun and all the stars!”

“Apologia” is a poem with nine stanzas. It is divided into tercets (set of three lines) and quatrains (set of four lines). The 2^nd and 4^th stanzas have tercets, and all the other stanzas have quatrains. The rhyming scheme of the quatrains is ABAB and that of the tercets is ABA. The quatrains are penned down in iambic pentameter. As the literal meaning of the title of the poem suggests, the poet is trying to defend a particular notion.

Line by line analysis of the Poem

Stanza 1:

“Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,
Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,
And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain
Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?”

The poet begins the poem by asking a question. The first four lines constitute that question. He has addressed this question to his lover and asked if he should give up all his wealth and pleasure and happiness, and get tangled in the web of pain. The poet wonders if it would be pleasurable for the lover to see him spend some wasted days in a web filled with pain. In these few lines, it can be concluded that although the speaker loves the listener, the relationship between them is complicated and he had to ask her if the lover actually wanted him to give up his happiness.

Stanza 2:

“Is it thy will That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot
Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell
The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?”

The three-lined tsecond stanza is another question addressed to the lover (listener). The poet asks the lover if it would be their wish to see his ‘soul’s house’ turn into a ‘tortured spot’. In that spot would be the flame that can never be quenched. This stanza simply means if the lover wants the poet to suffer from inside. The sixth and seventh line shows that there is more to love. There is a sense of strong devotion here.

Stanza 3:

“Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,
And sell ambition at the common mart,
And let dull failure be my vestiture,
And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.”

The poet is still holding on to the passion, that he had in the first two stanzas. The poet got no clear answer from the lover about their will, for the first two questions. So, he makes it clear that whatever the lover would want, the poet will ‘endure’. The next line explains how the poet is already ready to give up his goals and ambition and other needs of an ordinary man. The speaker is prepared to accept failure as his ‘vestiture’. He is ready to spend his days in grief, only if the lover stays with him. This stanza shows that the poet is willing to sacrifice not only clothes and materialistic things but also his own life goals and ambitions for the person that he loves.

Stanza 4:

“Perchance it may be better so I have not made my heart a heart of stone,
Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,
Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.”

The poet is saying that he is glad that he does not have a heart made of stone and that he has not starved his youth of the good things. He has not walked a path where beauty and love are unidentified. This stanza shows how he is trying to defend his act of sacrifice.

Stanza 5:

“Many a man hath done so; sought to fence
In straitened bonds the soul that should be free,
Trodden the dusty road of common sense,
While all the forest sang of liberty,”

The fifth stanza gives us a hint of how the poet wants to live his life. The speaker has acknowledged that there are people who live their lives different way by living a life based on common sense. He too could have led such a life and ignored liberty. He could have guarded himself with all the difficult bonds that should have been free in nature. That being said, it was also clear from the stanza, that the poet is justifying his act of giving up for the lover.

Stanza 6:

“Not marking how the spotted hawk in flight
Passed on wide pinion through the lofty air,
To where the steep untrodden mountain height
Caught the last tresses of the Sun God's hair.”

The speaker says that an individual who is not living their life to the fullest, would not think of looking up into the sky and notice the “spotted hawk in flight”. Those people also would not be able to notice the “wide pinion” or the part of a bird’s wings when it is flying around. According to him, there might be many people who would not have time to enjoy such little yet significant things to see in life. Many would not know the feeling on standing on the peak of a mountain and experience the final tresses of sunshine. In this stanza, the poet argues that he has been living his life on a higher plane compared to others.

Stanza 7:

“Or how the little flower he trod upon,
The daisy, that white-feathered shield of gold,
Followed with wistful eyes the wandering sun
Content if once its leaves were aureoled.”

The seventh stanza of the poem is a continuation of the sixth one. The subject matter of both the stanzas is pretty the same. Both of these stanzas talk about all the events that I might have missed upon while not living life to the fullest. A man who lacks passion in life would not probably notice the daisy that he had stepped upon. The beautiful little flower would have no significance to him. Probably, even the sun would look down upon him with eyes filled with regret.

Stanza 8:

“But surely it is something to have been
The best belovèd for a little while,
To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seen
His purple wings flit once across thy smile.”

In this stanza, the speaker comes to realise that it is absolutely worth it to sacrifice so much if the lover stays more a little while and walks hand in hand with him. He would give up all to see a glance of a smile on the lover’s (listener) face.

Stanza 9:

“Ay! though the gorgèd asp of passion feed
On my boy's heart, yet have I burst the bars,
Stood face to face with Beauty, known indeed
The Love which moves the Sun and all the stars!”

The final stanza is filled with passion. The poet has compared his passion and love to a snakebite. But there is a difference here, unlike actual venom, this has taken over him slowly and steadily. In the twelfth line, he said that the fangs were sunk straight in his heart. In the last two lines, Wilde has accepted all the pain and suffering for the sake of the love of his life. This gives a more spiritual view of the whole poem and places the poet beyond the mundane physical world.

Figures of Speech Used in the Poem:

1. Rhetorical question:

This is a figure of speech where the purpose of a question is much more than just getting an answer. Such a question usually gives rise to a particular thought or doubt in the reader’s mind.

The first and second stanzas of the poem could be an example of rhetorical question.

2. Consonance:

Consonance is a figure of speech in which similar consonants are used in neighbouring words with different vowel sounds.
“Is it thy will that I should wax and wane”
“Many a man hath done so; sought to the fence”

3.Alliteration:

This is a figure of speech where closely associated words or corresponding words begin with the same alphabet in a sentence.
“Is it thy will that I should wax and wane”

4. Anaphora:

It is a figure of speech, where various sentences or verses begin with the same word.
“And sell ambition at the common mart,
And let dull failure be my vestiture,
And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.”
“Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,
Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.”

5. Metaphor:

In this figure of speech, a comparison is made without the usage of any comparing words.
“Ay! though the gorgèd asp of passion feed”

The poet has compared his passion and love for the listener to snakebite.

Important Word Meanings:

Wax and wane: Undergoing alternate increases and decreases.
Barter: Exchanging good without the usage of money.
Thy: Your (archaic form)
Vestiture: Clothing (archaic form)
Perchance: Perhaps.
Boyhood: Youth.
Straitened: Difficult.
Trodden: Crushed.
Pinion: Restraint.
Wistful: Feeling of regret.
Flit: Flash/ Fly.
Asp: Viper.

The theme of the Poem:

The central theme behind the poem “Apologia” is to keep a point in order to defend a way of thought or a belief. Just like the literal meaning, the poet strongly defends his notion and meaning of true love, where he believes that it is absolutely fine and in fact worth it, to give up on all happiness just to be with someone one loves. He believes that being with the loved ones, provides with more satisfaction and long-lasting happiness, even when compared to wealth and other materialistic things. There is a hint of hopeless romance in the poem, where the poet defends love to be the most important emotion. This sacrifice, according to Wilde, is poignant in nature. Wilde has also said that he lives his life to the fullest, and if one does not do it, they are missing on great things in this world.

Tags: OSCAR WILDE, POEM ANALYSIS