Jump to content

Those Winter Sundays

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lollo.125!! (talk | contribs) at 19:31, 27 November 2018 (changed a sentence.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden
File:3-23-12 RobertHayden.jpg
3-23-12 RobertHayden
Written1962
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Subject(s)Family and Personal Relationships
Genre(s)Poetry
FormThree stanzas

Those Winter Sundays is a poem written in 1962 by American author Robert Hayden (1913 - 1980), while he was teaching as an English professor at Fisk University. The poem is one of Hayden's most recognised works, together with another poem entitled The Middle Passage.[1] The first, original version of the poem, which was slightly different from the actual one, was published in Hayden’s A Ballad of Remembrance (1962). The common version is part of the book called Collected Poems by Robert Hayden, edited by Frederick Glaysher.

The poem is about a son that expresses remembrance of his father, realizing that despite their distance there was love between the two. The author's words suggest that the son feels sorrowful and recognises that he never returned his father's love. In 1997, the poem was ranked in a Columbia University Press survey as the 266th most anthologized poem in English.[2]

Background

Those Winter Sundays is about Robert Hayden's boyhood. He was born in an African-American family and given to the neighbours at the age two because his mother could not take care of him anymore after she and Hayden's father separated.[3][4] Robert's foster parents fought verbally and physically, and due to this fact he didn't appreciate his foster parents' love as he should. Through maturity he regretfully learned that he neither knew nor appreciated the sacrifices every parent makes out of parental love. [5]

Themes

The main focus of this poem is the love of parents for their children, but this kind of love can be easily misunderstood by those latter, as it isn't about being kind and saying lovely words but instead are all the sacrifices that parents do for love, providing their sons the necessary for leaving, keeping the house warm and whatever they are able to supply. It often happens that this can pass unnoticed to the children because they give everything for granted, but they will figure that out once they will be grown up. The poem reflects how Hayden's perspective of his father's love has changed, and his understanding of it has actually gotten deeper as the years go by, while feeling a sense of regret for not having ever thanked him for he has done. [6]

Title

The author wants the title to imply a sense of old age and exhausted behaviour. He is reminding us about those cold and dark Sundays during his youth. The poem is featured by a presence of alliteration and a narrative of many similar Sundays that seemed an enormous obstacle. Even if this poem is characterised by a mundane and unhappy moment of the author's life, he remembers these memories because of their unique coldness and silence.

Symbols

Statue of the Good Shepherd[1]

One of the main symbols which the poem is concerned with is the symbol of temperature.

  • Imageries such as "blueblack cold" make the reader aware of the cold temperature. However, soon in the poem, it becomes warm and words such as "fires blaze" enhance this image.[7]
  • The difference in temperature outside and inside the house reflects the author’s relationship with Hayden's father. This relationship is cold as he does not see his father as a warm and cheerful man. The image of cold also evokes solitude and emotional human distance.

The sentence "No one ever thanked him", summarises the main idea of the poem itself: the way the father works to keep the family safe and warm without any expecting appreciation for it.[8]

Another symbol found in the poem is the symbol of the "good shoes". As the titles reminds the readers, it is a Sunday, a religious day. This shows how the father cares about his appearance like he cares about protecting his family. The author tells the readers that his father had "driven out the cold", an image which evokes a shepherd's behaviour with his herd. This can be linked to the idea of the Good Shepherd, thus creating a biblical reference.

Structure

Those Winter Sundays contains 14 lines in 3 stanza. This makes it look like a typical Sonnet even though it isn't, it neither has a rhyme nor a regular iambic pentameter. The first line does not have a metrical pattern. In comparison the second line is in a metrical pattern. Both lines are 10 syllables long. The third line is nuch shorter, and it does not have a rhyme.[9]

There are two internal rhymes, "splintering, breaking" in line 5 and "banked, thanked" in line 6. There are regular alliterations on alternating lines, specifically: lines 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 14[10]. For example, "Weekday weather" in line 4 and "When the rooms were warm" in line 7. There is a repetition in line 13 "What did I know". The poem uses short words containing hard consonants (clothes, blueblack, cold, cracked, ached, weekday, banked, thanked, wake, breaking, call, chronic, speaking) to emphasize the hardness of life. For example, "Blueblack cold" in line 2 and "Cracked hands that ached" in line 3.[11] In these examples, the repetition of the ck sound is a hard consonance. All the mentioned soundplays are a big poetic device and in the lines 2-5 the author uses cacophony.[12]

Style

Those Winter Sundays is a poem of discovery and definition. For example, it discovered the synchronicity of sound between certain words that remind the theme of reconciliation while reading it. Listening to the repetitive sound of the letter "K" in words like blueblack, cracked, ached, weekday, banked, thanked, wake, breaking, call, and chronic, the reader can draw a melodic map of how to read the entire poem, connecting the fire, the season, the fire, and the son.[13] In the poem there is a first person speaker which is emphasised by the use of the pronoun "I" in the second and third stanzas, that highlights the emotions the author feels towards his father. Hayden, using a synesthesia, allows the reader to picture the speaker’s house into a cold environment making use of the word "blueblack," which allude to the image of a frozen corpse.[14]

Throughout the poem there are numerous poetic techniques:

  • such as consonance, that Hayden uses to keep coherence in the structure and increase the power of the language, as it appears in the first stanza of the poem with the repetition of the letter “c”, in the words “clothes”, “cold” and “cracked”.
  • There is also the use of alliteration, which can be found, for example, in the first stanza’s words “weekday weather.”
  • Hayden also uses a metaphor, using the image of his father building the fire, that suggests the speaker finally discovered his father’s love which he thought it never existed before.[15]
  • The speaker ends the poem with a rhetorical question by which he realizes his father's love towards him. This question changes the tone of the poem from nostalgic to regretful.[16]
"What did I know, what did I know
 of love’s austere and lonely offices?"

Popular Culture

  • The poem was the subject of Season 1 Episode 3 of Poetry in America with Elisa New (2018– ), produced by Verse Video Education and first aired on 1st April, 2018. The programme featured the then Vice President of the United States Joe Biden, Elizabeth Alexander (poet), Angela Duckworth, and working fathers and sons.[17] [18] This shows the international recognition of the work, and how it has the power to make readers travel to different eras in time, such as when industries were the main economic forces in 1960s America.[19]
  • In 2009, Hayden's poem was included in the Poetry Foundation's DC Poetry Tour, a multimedia tour of Washington DC through the eyes of leading poets.[20]
  • The poem can be compared to the Song Color Him Father, both are about a relationship between father and son. Furthermore, the song also mentions the hard working father at the beginning what is similar to the poem.[21]
  • Furthermore, the poem Those Winter Sundays is mentioned as a poem which can easily be understood for the reason that it can be compared to one's own life.[22][23]

Bibliography

  1. Laurence Goldstein, Robert Chrisman: Robert Hayden: Essays on the Poetry published by University of Michigan Press, United States (2001). JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.17204. ISBN 978-0-472-12040-6.
  2. Robert Hayden: Collected Poems of Robert Hayden published by Liveright Publishing Corporation, edited by Frederick Glaysher (2013). http://books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-87140-679-8/. ISBN 978-0-87140-679-8.
  3. Gallagher, Ann M.: Hayden's 'Those Winter Sundays.'(Robert Hayden), Published by Taylor &​ Francis Ltd., The Explicator, v51, no.n4, 1993 Summer, p245(3). https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/58455012?q&versionId=71463131. ISSN 0014-4940
  4. Cengage Learning Gale : A Study Guide for Robert E. Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" published by Gale, Study Guides, 2017. https://books.google.it/books/about/A_Study_Guide_for_Robert_E_Hayden_s_Thos.html?id=J3s_swEACAAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y. ISBN 9781375394772

References

  1. ^ Biography.com Editors. "Robert Hayden Biography". The Biography.com website. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved 28 September 2018. {{cite web}}: |last1= has generic name (help)
  2. ^ Kale, Tessa (1 June 2002). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry in Anthologies (12th ed.). Columbia University Press; 12th Revised edition edition (14 June 2002). ISBN 9780231124485.
  3. ^ Biespiel, David (27 September 2018). "Robert Haden: Those Winter Sundays Hayden grew up in a ghetto in Detroit". Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  4. ^ Hayden, Robert. "Robert Hayden life and career". Robert Hayden - Poet | Academy of American Poets. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  5. ^ Landau, Daniel. "Daniel Landau: Robert Hayden's Those Winter Sundays: A Child's Memory". Modern American Poetry. Modern American Poetry. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  6. ^ Landau, Daniel. "Daniel Landau: Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays": A Child's Memory". Modern American Poetry. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  7. ^ MWESTWOOD - Certified Educator. "How does imagery, metaphors and/or similes contribute to the meaning of "Those Winter Sundays"?". eNotes. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  8. ^ Connie, Smith (15 September 2017). "Analysis of Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden". Poem Analysis. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
  9. ^ Shmoop Editorial Team. "Those Winter Sundays Form and Meter". Shmoop. Shmoop University. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  10. ^ Anon. "Those Winter Sundays: a Study Guide". Cummings Study Guides. Cummings. Retrieved 8 October 2018.
  11. ^ Doyle, Andrew. "Those Winter Sundays". Prezi. Andrew Doyle. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  12. ^ Brinkman, Bartholomew. "Those Winter Sundays". Modern American Poetry. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  13. ^ Hayden, Robert (2018-11-14). "Robert Hayden: "Those Winter Sundays"". Poetry Foundation. DAVID BIESPIEL. Retrieved 14 November 2018.
  14. ^ Cummings, Micheal. "Those Winter Sundays: a Study Guide". Retrieved 2018-09-28.
  15. ^ Hayden Robert. "Those Winter Sundays | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2018-10-05. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  16. ^ Essays, UK (November 2013). "Those Winter Sundays Analysis". Nottingham, UK: UKEssays.com. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  17. ^ "Those Winter Sundays". Poetry in America. Poetry in America and Verse Video Education, 2018. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  18. ^ Simon, Clea (2018-06-29). "Poetry with personages". The Harvard Gazette. Harvard University, 2018. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  19. ^ Alpiner, Micheal. "How Does PBS Connect Poetic Inspiration With Experiential Travel?". Forbes. Forbes. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  20. ^ Editorial. "Washington, DC, Poetry Tour". The Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 16 October 2018.
  21. ^ Loritts, Hellinger, Camaron, Deanna. "Color Him Father". Those Winter Sundays. weebly. Retrieved 7 November 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  22. ^ Lucas, David. "Poetry for People Who Hate Poetry – Column 3". The Observer. Retrieved 2018-11-07.
  23. ^ "Opinion | Representation Is More Than Skin Color". Retrieved 2018-11-07.

External links

Category: American poetry Category: 20th-century poems

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Those_Winter_Sundays&oldid=870913578"