I Hear an Army - James Joyce

Message: the internal mental struggle after a heartbreak. The speaker is dreaming and the army represents a nightmarish onslaught of negative and painful emotions.

The real meaning the poem is not revealed until the end.

Context: Joyce was an Irish poet,1882-1941. Published in 1907, a time of considerable uncertainty - divided between catholic nationalists and pro-Britain Protestants. Joyce viewed the book of poems as a representation of himself.

Re-writing of a poem by W. B. Yeats, who was also Irish, and a role model and source of inspiration of Joyce’s. Poem was a way to honor Yeats’s work with a response. Yeats’s poem = more mournful and not as powerful.

Themes:

  1. The Supernatural: although the army are described using very tangible imagery, the landscapes they haunt and the sense of supernatural around them hints to the reader that they are not in fact real and just a figment of the speakers imagination, haunting and attacking him. The ‘green hair’ of the horses and ‘black armor’ of the charioteers provide supernatural images.

Form, Meter and Rhyme Scheme:

  • three quatrains

  • Mixture of trochees and iambs

  • Generally iambic meter, but not perfect

  • ABAC rhyme scheme

  • Steady rhyme adds to poems feeing of relentless momentum

  • Rigid stanza structure evokes images of rigid army structure

  • Iambs convert forward motion, subtly evoke the advance of an army charging

  • An ebbing and flowing layout on the page, shows the series of attacks? Or mirrors the sea?

  • Ends on two rhetorical questions

Language:

  • plenty of aural imagery right from the beginning hear/thunder/fluttering/cry/whirling laughter - creates a vivid sonic landscape and forces them to become fully immersed in the din of this army - appeals to all our senses.

  • Also a lot of tactile and sensory imagery used charging/ plunging/ foam/ cleave/ shaking

  • Speaker uses language or imagery that makes the soldiers seem inhumane or even supernatural: ‘black armor’

  • Lack of detail in the first stanza builds tension and expectancy from the reader

  • Use of arrogance, laughter and ‘shaking in triumph’ shows that they have already won whatever battle they intended to fight, the speaker and reader have no choice but ot watch

  • Loads of images of darkness, adds air of mystery, superstition and supernatural: black armor/ cry unto the night / gloom of dreams

  • ‘Clanging, clanging’ onamatapeic Epizeuxis, completely overwhelming cacophony

  • ‘I moan in sleep’ hints at the true message of the poem, but the readers are still mostly in the dark over what is truly happening

  • ‘Whirling laughter’ demonstrates the emotional battle within, evoking ideas of insanity and mental instability

  • ‘The heart as upon an anvil’ another hint, image of smashing metal, the heart has been smashed with an emotional hammer

  • ‘Green hair’ - shows that we are in a dream scape, this is not real

  • Sea, shouting, shore - repetitions of sounds, sounds like the waves crashing on the shore

  • Heart/have - aspirant alliteration shows the breathy and anxious tone of the speaker

  • ‘My love, my love, my love’ the Epizeuxis shows the lamentation of lost love, this adds to the speakers pain ,showing their loss and longing. The soft tone shows how beaten the speaker is by heartbreak

The Poem:

I hear an army charging upon the land,

And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:

Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,

Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, thecharioteers.

They cry unto the night their battle-name:

I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.

They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,

Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.

They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair:

They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.

My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?

My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?