The express poem

Stephen Spender’s The Express glorifies the express train. The train here is a symbol of the modern industrial civilization. The glorious running of the train to its destination is vividly pictured by the poet. The movement of the train is like the majestic movements of a queen. The express speeding through the open country is then compared to an elegant ship on ocean.

1. - Stephen Spender EXPRESS THE S. Mohan Raj M.A., M.Phil, B.Ed., Assistant Professor, Indo -American College, Cheyyar . Available @ : 9751660760 E-mail: [email protected]

2. Stephen Spender was born on February 28, 1909, in London. He attended Oxford University and fought in the Spanish Civil War. In the 1920s and 1930s he associated with other poets and socialists, such as W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Louis MacNeice, and C. Day Lewis, and his early poetry was often inspired by social protest. During World War II, Spender worked for the London fire service. He co-founded Horizon magazine with Cyril Connolly and served as its editor (1939- 1941). He was editor of Encounter magazine from 1953 to 1966. Spender's books of poetry include Twenty Poems (1930), Vienna (1934), The Still Centre (1939), Poems of Dedication (1946), and The Generous Days (1971). Spender was professor of English at University College, London, from 1970 to 1977, and gave frequent lecture tours in the United States. He was knighted in 1983. Spender died on July 16, 1995. Sir  Stephen  Harold  Spender (1909-1995), poet, critic, translator, travel writer, and English man of letters, first came to prominence as a poet of social protest in the 1930s.

3. The Express After the first powerful plain manifesto The black statement of pistons, without more fuss But gliding like a queen, she leaves the station. Without bowing and with restrained unconcern She passes the houses which humbly crowd outside, The gasworks and at last the heavy page Of death, printed by gravestones in the cemetery. Beyond the town there lies the open country Where, gathering speed, she acquires mystery, The luminous self-possession of ships on ocean. It is now she begins to sing-at first quite low Then loud, and at last with a jazzy madness- The song of her whistle screaming at curves, Of deafening tunnels, brakes, innumerable bolts. And always light, aerial, underneath, Goes the elate metre of her wheels. Steaming through metal landscape on her lines She plunges new eras of wild happiness Where speed throws up strange shapes, broad curves And parallels clean like the steel of guns. At last, further than Edinburgh or Rome, Beyond the crest of the world, she reaches night Where only a low streamline brightness Of phosphorus on the tossing hills is white. Ah, like a comet through flame, she moves entranced Wrapt in her music no bird song, no, nor bough Breaking with honey buds. shall ever equal. - Stephen Spender

4. Poetry Review The train begins to sing when it reaches the open country. It’s low , but then becomes louder. Stephen Spender’s The Express glorifies the express train. The glorious running of the train to its destination is vividly pictured by the poet. The whistle that announces the departure of the train is described as a manifesto . Finally it acquires the madness of jazz music . She is also compared to a comet blazing through the sky. The express speeding through the open country is then compared to an elegant ship on ocean . The train here is a symbol of the modern industrial civilization . The movement of the train is like the majestic movements of a queen .

5. Poetry Review… Romantic poets often leave the city and find solace in the lap of nature. But Spender’s poem makes the express train a true romantic subject. He is trying to say that the beauty of the world of machines excels the beauty of nature. The rhythmic movement of the poem indicates the majestic journey of the train. The glorification of the train reaches its summit when the poet says that no natural sound, not even the song of a bird can equal the music of the train. Thus the poem offers a sharp contrast to the traditional nature poems.

6. Spender uses shades of meter to draw attention sections of his poem, for instance after "she" blows "her whistle screaming at the curves" and continues to gain momentum and speed. The Express by Stephen Spender is a semi-meter free verse poem of 27 lines with a presence of iambs in lines that can be scanned according to pentameter. Examples of places where the traces of iambic pentameter appear are: She pass' -es the hous' -es which humb' -ly crowd outside‘ 5 Where speed' throws up' strange shapes’, broad curves' 9 Spender points to the vitality of the express locomotive by juxtaposing the "mystery" of its "gathering speed" in the "open country" with the still death of the "cemetery." Analysis of the poem Then he dramatizes the distance the express travels by defining the brightness of the light at the far reaches of the world by the word "night": brightness so far removed that it's part of night. The underlying metaphor personifies the express locomotive and compares "her" to a queen: "But gliding like a queen', she leaves the station." The theme is the might and prowess of the locomotive express train . The theme is illustrated in the closing lines, 25, 26 and 27: “Ah, like a comet through flame, she moves entranced, Wrapt in her music no bird song, no, nor bough Breaking with honey buds, shall ever equal.” Spender uses personification through the repetition of "she" and "her.“ Spender employs metaphor , in comparison of the "landscape" to the railway tracks; compare the express's whistle to a song. "she begins to sing" Spender employs two similes . The first compares the parallel train ties to bullet trajectories : "And parallels clean like trajectories from guns." The second compares the express to a comet : "Ah, like a comet through flame, she moves entranced ”

7. With the steaming Express train the poet drives home the message that the new age Romanticism will not wither away. The new age Romanticism The Express by the Auden Generation poet, Stephen Spender is a modern Romantic Poem glorifying the Express train in motion, which can be regarded as a symbol of industrial revolution . The poem is an answer to the degenerating world of the 20th century, with hardly anything to speak or think of romantically . A true Romantic is likely to find new “wild happiness” from amidst the machines, gas works and pistons. It’s a personal meditative poem starting from the plain of reality and ascending to the realms of metaphysical. The poem is literally ‘ a living poem in motion’ with its alliteration, blank verse and concrete images covering power and glory, death, metaphysical transcend. The first stanza, Spender personifies an Express train and compares it to a queen. The whistle it blows and the sound of brakes and countless bolts all perform together to create a harmonious melody which is so distinct and unique to this magnificent creation.

8. Just like a declaration of an arriving queen, the Express makes its assertions in the form of its loud whistle and puffs of black smoke venting out its chimney. Then, with an aristocratic majesty of queen, it slowly makes it move, in an imperious and stately motion. The houses surrounding the railway tracks seem to be making way for the Express’ passage just like people do before a queen is to proceed. They stand humbly and the queen crosses, without even noticing their great reverence. The poem is a beautiful piece of imagination in which the poet has not only skillfully captured the structure, motion and sound of an Express train but has artistically converted into a spirited, majestic and strange creature possessing the grandeur of a queen.

9. Eventually, the poet feels that the Express, in its intoxication and speed, moves much ahead the limits of horizon and reaches the last threshold of the world. She rises to the space or stars and becomes a part of this universe, where there’s no brightness but faint light of stars and planets both near and far off. The theme of the poem is to celebrate the might and prowess of the Express which transgressing the limits of a physical world reaches to the heart of the dead and elevates to purity of heaven. There is no phenomenon real or imaginable that this mysterious creature has left untouched. With its extraordinary power, beauty and song it even bewilders Nature and the poet believes that Nature has nothing more beautiful to challenge the beauty of an Express train.

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