poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

Does anyone agree with me that this is a poem about the pointlessness of nostalgia? ‘Nostalgia’ comes from the Greek ‘nostos’, meaning ‘a return home’ and in Indo-European roots ‘algia’, meaning ‘pain’.
Most readings I have come across assume that Lawrence indulges his remembrance of things past because it is such a pleasant experience, but that seems to me a very sentimental interpretation.
The memory returns “In spite of myself” and the “mastery of song” is “insidious”. It also “betrays” him by encouraging an emotional rather than thoughtful response (“the HEART of me”). “Cosy” is usually pejorative and “glamour” suggests something superficial. In the end he “weeps LIKE A CHILD”. This is not to dismiss the effect that hearing the piano in the present has on him. I suppose it supports Noel Coward’s comment, “Extraordinary how potent cheap music is”.
The lack of sentimentality is precisely what makes the poem effective for me.

Isn't Lawrence just being typically early 20th century macho in feeling he ought to resist sensations that open up his emotions and his childhood love of his mother?

And in a house in England in the winter without central heating , a cosy parlour is a very nice place to be!

Analysis of “Piano”



The speaker in “Piano” by D. H. Lawrence is proud to be a full grown man, yet he loves remembering his happy childhood; his nostalgic attitude causes him to feel guilty as if he had betrayed his present state of being. Through effective imagery, Lawrence is able (to describe an image) to help the reader understand the speaker’s nostalgic attitude. The diction and tone used in this poem reveal the speaker’s struggle as his feelings mix between his desire to be a man and his desire to return to his childhood. The syntax and structure of the poem keep the reader in tune with the flow of the poem. In this poem a man struggles to remain a man while fighting off his memories of the past, which he feels would be uncharacteristic of his present maturity.

The imagery in this poem helps to describe a picture in the reader’s mind so that the reader can sympathize with the speaker during his journeys into the past. In the first stanza, in the first line, the first image is of a woman. In the fourth line the reader learns that this woman is the speaker’s mother. The third line shows an image of a “child sitting under the piano . . . pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles.” This image gives the reader an image, perhaps of a parlor room, of a child about three or four years of age enjoying the music produced by his mother.

Lawrence is so emotionally charged with the memories of his childhood that it becomes negative to the extent that he starts remembering what he doesnt want to remember. Whether it be negative, or hurtful, he produces a dramatic piece that reverberates between past and present.

This is a boring poem! Just the typical idea of Carpe Diem!

it really a fantastic peom every thing let us to feel good about our childhood and it really influnce my feeling and let me to cry like the poet becauce i really miss my childhood