Analysis of Piano and Bavarian Gentians by D.H Lawrence

PIANO

Lawrence then goes on to outline, that although he has achieved much of what he wanted to achieve as a man, in breaking out from his father's and his mother's bindings, in doing so he has lost something. Something ephemeral, priceless and dear. Most of us feel this. It is a necessary part of true maturity. Yet it hurts all the same.

Lawrence appears to accept that he is looking through rose-tinted spectacles, by his use of the word "glamour" for childish days. Glamour is accepted to be a sort of gloss - something which wears off and does not last. So here he shows that he is being realistic. This avoids sentimentality. Only at the end of the poem does he allow us to guess that, perhaps at some low point of depression or failure or guilt in his life - he may have felt such sorrow as to actually weep tears. Many people have things they wish they had done differently with their parents when growing up. It is only when we are adults ourselves that we realise how hard things may have been for them. He has prepared us for this sorrow by carefully setting the scene.

The question is how to speak of human emotion without slipping into sentimentality ourselves. Learning from Lawrence, we see that sentiment must never be gratuitous. It must be truly felt, simply expressed and speak directly. We can set the scene and evoke atmospheres by careful choice of word and rhythm, but if we indulge in passionate self-pity, sickly supplication and florid description we miss our target as our readers will be switched off.

If Lawrence's poem works, it may be because he speaks directly to our hearts about
a truth which we recognize.

The continuing conflict of the speaker's emotions is described as he enjoys his memories, yet he despises his continuing nostalgia. The author uses diction and tone in this poem to reveal the speaker's struggle as his feelings mix between his desire to be a man and his desire to return to his childhood, and rhyme and structure to keep the reader in tune with the flow of the poem. Lawrence names the poem "Piano" and thus one is poised to assume the piano is the key element of this poem; however, this is an example of a poet's encouraging the reader to search for a deeper meaning.

BAVARIAN

Lawrence's 'Bavarian Gentians' hypnotizes the reader with its rolling, flowing sounds, its gently rising and falling cadences, its almost soporific repetitions... as the soft and sweeping syllables wrap themselves around you, you become entranced, slipping into the world of "Pluto's dark-blue daze", falling under the spell of the gently spoken words...  thomas.  [Commentary]  This poem, written close to Lawrence's death, is much more meaningful if you know what a Bavarian Gentian looks like. It's a blue tubular flower and was one of the symbols that Lawrence claimed as his  own, along with the phoenix, dark sun, and rainbow symbols.  Here he relates the flower with the Persephone myth. Persephone, a daughter of Zeus and Demeter, was abducted by Pluto, King of Hades. For six months of the year she must reign as Queen alongside Pluto but is allowed to return to the surface for the other six. Persephone carries the flower torch-like into the underground to light her way to Pluto's chambers. Or rather it is Pluto's "blue-smoking darkness" which overtakes the light of day, her consciousness. "Black lamps from the halls of Dis." It is Death which has come, and the flower acts as guide into the "sightless realm." But like the phoenix, Persephone will once again be resurrected for she is a symbol of springtime rebirth. And although Lawrence's body is dead, his consciousness arises again each time we read his words.