"Janet Waking" Compared to "Spring and Fall to a Young Child"
The subjects of death and loss of innocence are not unique ideas to poetry, but rather commonplace. Therefore, one is not entirely surprised to discover that both the poem "Janet Waking," by John Crowe Ransom, and "Spring and Fall to a Young Child," by Gerard Manley Hopkins, approach the idea of a child's lost innocence through his/her perception of death. Each poem's uniqueness does not lie in its content, but rather in its varying perspectives with which each author chooses to describe the child's loss of innocence. The discussion of death binds these two poems together, while Hopkins and Ransom's utilization of diction, punctuation, imagery, and structure creates a distinct tone for each poem. Analyzing and closely observing the tools which each author implements within the poem provides the reader with a deeper understanding of the poem. Through identification and an understanding of such tools, the reader is able to successfully compare each author's different approach to the same idea.
The action of the poem "Janet Waking" is quite similar to that of "Spring and Fall to a Young Child", both relating a child's first experience and recognition of death. The speaker of the first poem, Janet's father, takes great care in describing Janet's agonizing loss of her pet rooster, and her innocence. Following the poem from the title through the conclusion reveals an originally simple structure, which in turn grows on itself, branching into the final work. Take for example the title of the poem, "Janet Waking". Even to the untrained eye the verb waking can be related simply to Janet's actual arousal from sleep.
Ransom begins to show his cleverness by using the phrase "deeply morning"(2) to describe the time at which Janet arose. The phrase, quite easily overlooked, serves to add additional meaning to the previous content of the poem. A second meaning for the word waking, in the title of poem, forms through the speaker's use of a pun. "Deeply morning" is almost identical with the phrase "deeply mourning", which is what would be practiced at a wake. The second meaning of the title is thus introduced, later being supported by other words with secondary meanings such as "cried"(9), "kneeling"(21), and "weeping"(24). Ransom even chooses to create his own adjective to aid in expressing the title's double meaning: "It was a transMORGrifying bee"(13). Before the final meaning of the word wake is introduced, Ransom decides to utilize foreshadowing. As Janet rises she gives one kiss to her mother but "only a small one gave she to her daddy"(6). Here the reader sees the child, Janet, has already lost a small part of her innocence, this is shown through her reluctance to kiss her father.
The reader becomes aware of the title's third and final meaning in lines 13-23. Lines 13-20 serve to intensify the action of the poem, and build tenseness before Janet's final realization. Ransom chooses to do two unique things within these 7 lines. First he omits the punctuation at the end of the fourth stanza. By doing so he increases the pace of the poem and also continues his previous thought process. Secondly, he breaks his rhyme scheme of ABBA by creating a seven line stanza, ABBACCA. His purpose here is simply to increase the poem's quickened pace and intensity. Within this stanza an extraordinary bee is described as producing a "purply knot"(17) which did "swell with the venom and communicate / Its rigor!"(18-19). Such vivid imagery serves to strengthen the poems tone for the climax, where Janet falls to her knees weeping over loss of Chucky and her recognition of death (21). The brief, but powerful line "But Chucky did not,"(20) is the turning point of the poem. Here the reader sees the third meaning of the word waking, and that is her "waking" from innocence and her identification of death.
The reader also sees the theme of lost innocence in the poem "Spring and Fall To a Young Child". The author, Gerard Hopkins, chooses a third person view, similar to that seen in "Janet Waking", except the speaker's actual identity is never revealed. Instead of revealing death's presence through the loss of a loved one (pet), Hopkins opts for the metaphorical approach relating life to the seasons. The work's title, very similarly to the previous poem, also has both a primary and secondary meaning. It is through a systematic line by line analysis that these poems' differences become apparent.
The speaker introduces the reader to Margaret in line one of the poem, asking her why she is grieving? Already the reader sees a discrepancy between the poems, the first begins with Janet in a state of innocence that is later lost, while the second begins with Margaret already grieving over a loss she has yet to fully realize. Hopkins, like Ransom, creates his own word in the second line, "unleaving". This word was created to enhance the meaning of the following simile, "Leaves, like the things of man"(3). In this way the speaker compares the lives of man with the coming and going of leaves on a tree, when the old leaves die and fall off new ones again replace them. The reader is now able to recognize the secondary meaning of the poem's title. Not only does it describe the literal seasons, but also the "seasons" of man. Therefore, spring represents man's youth, and autumn his age. The "Ah!" in line four indicates the speaker's turn of attention from Margaret to his inner thoughts. From this point the forward the speaker explains what is truly disturbing Margaret. He states "as the heart grow older? you will weep and know why."(5,9), meaning her innocence will fade like the leaves gradually falling from the trees. The speaker expresses this finished thought in the final two lines: "It is the blight man was born for, / It is you Margaret you mourn for."(14,15). Thus he explaining to the reader man is born to die, and soon Margaret will realize it is her own death for which she mourns. Hopkins's use of a metaphor to describe Margaret's awakening to death is unique and not found in "Janet Waking".
The actual form of Hopkins's poem greatly differs from that of Ransom's. Heavy use of words such as "worlds"(8), "wanwood"(8), "will"(9), "know"(9), and even "no"(12) all cause the reader to draw out each word in a woeful fashion. This emphasizes the mournful tone throughout the poem. In the poem by Ransom such utilization of alliteration is not seen, and neither is Hopkins's choice of scheme. The poem has a scheme of AABBCCDDDEEFFGG, quite different from the stanza and scheme used by Ransom. Hopkins's creates this form to stress the cycle of life yet again. Here he displays a gradual build to the middle three lines, similar to maturation, after which the poem again trails off. It is quite apparent when viewing the form of each poem there are many differences.
The poems "Janet Waking" and "Spring and Fall to a Young Child" both illustrate the loss of innocence in a young child. The subject matter is not disputed as being the same, however the tools each author utilizes to create the tone of each poem are quite different. Ransom chooses implement puns and a certain amount of humor (Janet realizes the finality of death through the loss of her chicken!?!), while Hopkins's leans toward the use of alliteration and rhyming couplets. Although each poem is unique, the final results are testaments to the beauty of poetry.