0
Guest Posted 21 years ago

Human Condtion By Thom Gunn

0 Hi 02br
02br
00I was wondering if you guys can help with analyzing this poem. 02br
00I need help finding the literary devices theme and the speaker. 02br
02br
00Thanks alot in advance! 02br
02br
00Here is the Poem: HUMAN CONDITION 02br
02br
00 Now it is fog. I walk 02br
00 Contained within my coat; 02br
00 No castle more cut off 02br
00 By reason of its moat: 02br
00 Only the sentry's cough, 02br
00 The mercenaries' talk. 02br
02br
00 The street lamps, visible, 02br
00 Drop no light on the ground, 02br
00 But press beams painfully 02br
00 In a yard of fog around. 02br
00 I am condemned to be 02br
00 An individual. 02br
02br
00 In the established border 02br
00 There balances a mere 02br
00 Pinpoint of consciousness. 02br
00 I stay, or start from, here: 02br
00 No fog makes more or less 02br
00 The neighboring disorder. 02br
02br
00 Particular, I must 02br
00 Find out the limitation 02br
00 Of mind and universe. 02br
00 To pick thought and sensation 02br
00 And turn to my own use 02br
00 Disordered hate or lust. 02br
02br
00 I seek, to break, my span. 02br
00 I am my one touchstone. 02br
00 This is a test more hard 02br
00 Than any ever known. 02br
00 And thus I keep my guard 02br
00 On that which makes me man. 02br
02br
00 Much is unknowable. 02br
00 No problem shall be faced 02br
00 Until the problem is; 02br
00 I, born to fog, to waste, 02br
00 Walk through hypothesis, 02br
00 An individual. 0-
  

Top answer

by Thom Gunn

  • by Thom Gunn
Free · every Monday

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.

3 Answers
0
I took away from this poem about a man who has isolated himself and is fearful now of breaking free. there is also chaos inside himself and fear. At the end of the poem he is supposing and full of conjecture about leaving behind his individuality. What do you think?
0
This seems to be a condemnation of individuality. The general consensus seems to be that individuality is something good and something that one needs to achieve. But here the poet seems to condemn it as like being alone in a fog ("I am condemned to be an individual." "I, born to fog, to waste...an individual." - he literally spits out the word "individual," like it's the word "leper").

Related Questions