Interpretation of Shadow, Silence and the Sea by A. C. Swinburne

From what we know about Swinburne's creativity, his poetry is a colourful mixture of philosophical statements, artistically painted images and ubiquitous alliteration. His principal theme in lyric is nature, which is used both as a material for the whole poem and as a detail to introduce other themes and images.

Analyzing Shadow, Silence and the Sea, we first see the description of landscape. Swinburne is known to have been fascinated with landscapes, especially water scenes. The poet himself confesses of "a pure delight in the sense of the sea" (letter to Edwin Harrison on February 5, 1890).

The fact, that the poem was written nearly a quarter of a century later after the actual voyage to Loch Torridon, suggests that the impression was still vivid in Swinburne's mind and seemed to correspond to his way of thinking.

In addition, his choice of theme makes him a follower of the Romantic tradition. Image of sea and the peculiar devotion to night were crucial to the Romantic poets.

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As a person associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, Swinburne would highly value their creativity.

The major artistic device used in the poem is alliteration. Swinburne builds it by repeating the sounds s and sh inside words which create an image of a spectacular yet peaceful starry night. It seems strange, as these sounds are usually associated with the ideas of doubt and questioning. However, Swinburne's love for the paradox may make this choice appropriate. On the other hand, it helps us to a fuller understanding of the poem, making the sea peaceful and dangerous at once.

In another sea poem, A Swimmer's Dream, Swinburne compares swimming and enjoying the sea to sleeping and, ultimately, to dying: To sleep, to swim, and to dream, for ever, echoing Hamlet's musings of dreams in the "sleep of death". Shadow, Silence and the Sea is all about life, but it will be helpful to heed the faint echo of death in its margin.

Another alliterating sound is w, which is realized in the pairs of world-waters, without we and watched and waited. It may also imply the general vastness of the picture and its being hardly understandable to a human.

Throughout the poem, many lines start with all, which combines all the elements of the picture into a never-ceasing unity. It is further underlined by the explicit parallelism and balance of the lines. Introducing the lyrical heroes as we also lends to this impression. It is a universal we, which may include the reader as well, and in the same time it makes the space of the poem closed and very private, so that here again comes a contrast of peaceful seclusion and extensive generality. The presence of juxtaposition in the poem is made obvious by repeated oxymorons (soundless music; shadow...with sense of light; the brief night long; silence... with sense of song; unheard, but... like sound; sea... as darkness and... as light). Read about written after swimming from Sestos to Abydos analysis

As for its composition, the poem may be divided into smaller parts which show the gradual development of the emotion. The first quatrain is a description of nature sunk in dream, sleep and silence. It is so full of slumber, that the lyrical heroes are not even mentioned here. Music is already present, but it has no voice as yet. The next four lines develop this notion of a sound, a movement, a life present, but not realized. The sense of life is hidden in the landscape.

In the next two lines a sense of a stranger's presence is enhanced - something living which is here beside the lyrical heroes and without their knowledge. This strange being is designated as stars and mountains, i. e. the whole living nature which is virtually everywhere, taking the lyrical heroes into itself, occupying the entire space and time in the poem. The last word starts with th, a sound which builds a harmonious bridge to the next lines, which are full of explicit liveliness.

The second part of the poem shows us the gradual awakening of life. In these six lines we get an alliterating pair of divine and dear. Of all plosives, d is traditionally opposed to s. It brings in an idea of action and of change. Other repeated sounds are th and t in through-thrilled-touch-throbbed, which builds an image of something living and moving.

The dominating image here is the sea, which moves and produces sounds. It embodies the very pulse of life. Before it, we had mostly state verbs like be, watch and see, or no verbs at all, but now two verbs of sound appear, and this sound is dynamic and repetitive. The change from slumber to activeness also influences the syntactical structure of the verses. Earlier, the subject of every sentence was easy to notice, as it stood in the beginning of the line. However, the two last lines of the poem are in fact an anxious enumeration of attributes. Their succeeding one another at a rapid pace also helps to create the feeling of movement. It may seem strange, but the active sea does not disturb the silent night. On the contrary, the sea is shown as a part of it.

On the whole, in Shadow, Silence and the Sea Swinburne uses visual an acoustic images to paint a marvelously done nightly landscape. He also infuses it with philosophical notions, which include hints on pantheism and show the nature as being universal and combining in itself incompatible notions.