Like an Old Proud King in a Parable A. J.M. Smith, Summary for BA Students.

 

Like an Old Proud King in a Parable

A. J.M. Smith

The Poem Like an Old Proud King in a Parable was written by the Canadian Poet, A.J.M Smith. This poem appeared in McGill Fortnightly Review in the year 1926. In this poem Smith narrates the story of an Old King who abandons his Kingdom to become a poet. This poem depicts the poetic career of Smith. Smith breaks some of the old poetic conventions and brings novelty into the society.


A king is bored to forego the pleasure of the Kingdom. He renounces his kingdom, and leave his flattering courtiers and adoring wife. The king readily sacrifices the existing kingly life and moves to a lonely land, “a meadow in the Northern Stone”. Northern Stone is in the northern parts of Canada, a land of mountain, snow and forest filled with nature. The King rejoices to live his life along the meadow. In the meadow he feels like an uncontrollable swan, “the heart that controlled liked swan”. The King desires to give up his worldly life and aspires for an isolated life along the Northern Stone.

In the second stanza “O who is that bitter king? It is not I", the poet employs a device to depersonalize the poem. The bitter King tosses away the worldly life and seek the Goddess of Pride (Intellectual). He realizes that intellectual beauty is more vital than worldly pleasures. So, the King decides to sing songs for the barren rocks.

The poem ends in a typical ironic self-mockery, as the speaker of the poem prays to be able to learn a proud isolated art inspite of its rare possibility of achievement.  

Comments

  1. LET ME WANT TO COMPARE THIS POEM WITH TENNYSONS ULYSSES. In the poem of A J Smith , the king desired to give up his throne in order to to become poet.But in Ulysses the king got much tired of ruling the uncivilized and felt boring , in result, he wanted to handover his power to his son Telemachus in order to travel the places which are yet to be visited.

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  3. Prince Siddhartha was bored with the Princely pleasures .. was shocked to learn of old age, disease and death .. walked out of his marriage, kingdom, became monk ... in quest of illumination ... attained nirvana at Bodh gaya, Bihar, India .. the men of pleasures, leaving their pride of role/place seems to be an archetypal theme ... again, Siddhartha in Herman Hesse's novel, painter Strickland in Maugham's Moon and six pence .. well, the list is endless .... on the other hand, we have the material thrist/quest of the ambitious poor ..

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