Stanza one : The poem begins with an unusual sentence ...



BASKING SHARK- BACKGROUND AND SUMMARYNorman MacCaig divided his time mainly between Edinburgh, where he lived and worked, and the north-west Highlands, where he had relations and friends.He loved the north-west, particularly the area called Assynt, and would visit it whenever he could during his working life, then for longer spells after retirement. This poem depicts the startling encounter he had during one of these visits, while out on a small boat in the Minch (the sea area between the Hebrides and mainland Scotland) near Lochinver.Basking sharks are one of the largest species of the shark family, in fact they are the second largest species of any fish, reaching sizes in excess of ten metres and weighing several tonnes.They are still found, though reduced in number, in the seas off that part of Scotland. They are harmless filter feeders, having no true teeth, and as such pose no real danger to humans. Still, a surprise close encounter with a creature of that size would be unnerving, particularly if close enough to touch the oars of a small boat, as happened to MacCaig.This encounter sparked in him a reflection on the comparative paths of evolution such differing species took: basking sharks on the one hand, relatively unchanged for millions of years, and humans on the other, vastly changed since the days when marine life first crawled ashore and adapted to a life on land.This train of thought leads to a disturbing question: who is the monster? Is it the shark, literally monstrous in size and aspect to the human; or is it the poet himself, representative of the human race and all the dark, monstrous deeds of which our race is capable?The thought remains with the poet, unresolved, as the shark swims off.Form and structureThis poem is set out in five stanzas, each of three lines, and each line being end-rhymed with the others in the stanza. The meter of the poem is also fairly regular: the first two lines of each stanza have five stressed syllables, while the final one has four.The effect of the final shorter stressed line is to create a sense of fitting closure to the stanza.This tight regularity of form is quite unusual in MacCaig’s poetry. He is often quite free in stanza length, line length, and meter, and rhyming may or may not be present; he will vary his style according to the internal requirements of a particular poem.In this poem the tightness of structure serves to encapsulate the uniqueness of the experience, and the regularity of rhythm and rhyme matches the rhythmic quality of the rise and the fall of the sea itself, and likewise the steady pulling of the oars .The subject of the poem is never mentioned in the body of the poem itself, instead we infer from the title what the poet's small boat collided with that day.Stanza one : The poem begins with an unusual sentence structure: two infinitive clauses,?To stub an oar on a rock…To have it rise.?The effect is to create a tension and suspense until the meaning is completed by the poet saying this is a thing that happened?once (too often)?to him.The opening tension increases with the mention that there is a rock where none should be,?followed by the startling assertion that this ‘rock’ rises?with a slounge out of the sea.The use of?“rock”?suggests the hardness and immovability of the object met. The neologism (new word)?“slounge”?seems to be an amalgamation of ‘slouch’ and ‘lounge’, and conveys the slow, lazy, ponderous movement of the surfacing creature it describes.The alarm caused in the poet is neatly shown with the humorous parenthetical aside?(too often)?implying this is not an encounter he wishes to repeat. The slow, steady rhythm of these three lines is perfectly suited to the gradual surfacing movement of the huge shark.Stanza two:The?“once (too often)”?of the opening stanza is both echoed and refuted with?“But not too often”?in the opening line of stanza two, which seems to contradict what he has just said.In doing so he seems to imply that, on reflection, while this was indeed a frightening experience, it was nonetheless one he found ultimately worthwhile and enriching. We can also see this in the expression?I count as gain.?He concentrates on the specific reasons he feels the encounter was beneficial in the remainder of the poem.In choosing the word?“met”?to describe this event, he conveys almost a sense of reciprocity and fraternity between humans and animals. It is typical of MacCaig never to assume human superiority in describing encounters with the world of nature.The alliterative metaphor?a “sea tin-tacked with rain”?captures with MacCaig’s usual gift of exact observation, the nature of the rain - hard, relatively sparse droplets patterning the smooth surface with neat round imprints. The alliteration of the hard consonant ‘t’ helps to replicate the metallic sound of the rain hitting the boat.Alliteration and metaphor continue in rich vein in the final line with “roomsized monster?and?matchbox brain.”?The contrast and incongruity of the size of the shark’s enormous body compared with its tiny brain is elegantly portrayed here. The linking alliterative consonant ‘m’ serves to further emphasise the comparison.There is clever use of long and short vowels in this final line too: the long vowels in?roomsized monster?appropriately extend and elongate the expression to reinforce the size of the shark in contrast to the short, clipped vowels of?matchbox brain.Stanza three: This stanza marks a switch from observational to reflective mode. The short opening sentence?He displaced more than water?introduces the idea of the poet being metaphorically displaced?“He shoggled me/Centuries back?in time.”This creature, a throwback to prehistoric times, creates in the imagination of the poet a glimpse of the early evolutionary stage of the emergence of land creatures from our common ancestors, marine life.Immediately his tone becomes self-deprecatory with the use of the colloquial verb?shoggled?to describe how he is shifted; then he describes himself as a?decadent townee.The use of?“decadent”?in this context suggests that, in his decision to remove himself from the natural world to an urban setting, he has lost a sense of purpose in his life and become too immersed in the pursuit of hedonistic pleasures.The next line, which depicts how the speaker was?“shook on a wrong branch of the family tree”?conveys how he is both literally and metaphorically shaken by this experience. He is reminded that this shark too is part of our own family tree and is inextricably linked to us in much the same way as any other ancestor.The expression?“wrong branch”?is slightly ambiguous and could be interpreted in two ways. Firstly because of our inherent sense of intellectual superiority over this creature we are unwilling to recognise we are in any way related. Secondly, it is in fact humans who have gone?wrong?in their evolutionary path - it is humankind, not the shark who is the aberration, the?monster.Stanza four: An analogy is made at the opening of this stanza between stirring up dirt in a spring and the water then being all the clearer, and the present situation the speaker finds himself in. The onomatopoeic?“swish”?of the water also alludes to the idea of displacement in the previous stanza. While initially the dirt would muddy the water and make it dark, opaque, and impossible to see through, eventually once settled it would be clearer.Effectively, this image prepares us for the conclusion of the poem as the speaker is about to reveal what is now clear to him following this encounter. The?dirt?in this case is the murky thought of how humans evolved into what they now are.The idea of?dirt?in our origins continues with the choice of the word “slime”?- the primeval slime from which we and all other living organisms were created, linking the evolution of humanity once more with that of the shark.In his mind's eye MacCaig has a surreal image of himself crawling out of this slime and returning to the initial, fundamental beginnings of human existence. The word?emerging?in the final line of this stanza reinforces this new, almost epiphanic sense of clarity associated with coming out of the dark into light, while the word?everything?again reinforces our similarity with every other species at the start of this process.Stanza five: This stanza opens with the question the poem has been leading to: “So who's the monster?”?By this stage it seems clear to the poet his initial, dismissive response to the shark as a brainless, inferior creature has been reversed.This magnificent, awesome creature is monstrous simply because of its relative size, but in the metaphorical sense it is clear the speaker now considers humanity to be the true monster.The first line glides effortlessly into the second with a skilful piece of enjambment as we are told how he grew?pale/For twenty seconds?as the huge fish itself glides away. The sheer size of the creature is conveyed by a number of techniques.There is the mention of twenty seconds being the time the shark takes to pass him by, and the repetition of?sail after sail, referring to its fin and tail above the water. The metaphor comparing fin and tail to sails gives us the impression of vast surface areas and the shape is also nicely evoked.There is a sequence of long vowels in?sail,?tall,?slid away?and finally?tail?- all of these effectively combine to suggest the gradual exit of this vast animal.The speaker's view of the creature has also been?displaced?at the end of the poem. No longer is it the clumsy, bulky creature of the opening lines but something graceful and elegant. This reinforces the change in the speaker - just as he now has a different view of himself, so too his opinion about the shark has been altered.The unanswered question at the end of this poem is typical of what is often described as MacCaig's metaphysical approach. His hair-raisingly close encounter with this monster of the deep has raised profound philosophical questions about our ethics and our place in the natural world. MacCaig avoids the temptation to conclude this meditation with an easy or glib answer, instead inviting his reader to draw their own conclusions.ThemesThe central theme that emerges during this poem deals with our accepted ideas about the process of evolution and our own place in it.The encounter with this enormous, almost primeval beast at the opening of the poem acts as a catalyst to consider the relationship between this creature and humans, and the comparative paths such differing species took.On one hand, basking sharks, have remained relatively unchanged for millions of years, while on the other, humans have vastly changed since the days when marine life first crawled ashore and adapted to a life on land.Through the reflection of the speaker, we are reminded that we have much more in common with the shark than we may initially believe, and by rewinding time back to the origins of evolution itself he creates a direct link between it and us. In doing so, he forces us to revise our understanding of exactly what we mean when we use the term monster, suggesting it is humanity and not creatures like the shark that are capable of true monstrosity. ................
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