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- His poetry, in particular, stands out for its musicality and its ability to evoke a sense of wonder and mystery in the everyday world. This enduring appeal, along with his masterful craftsmanship, ensures that de la Mare's work continues to resonate with readers of all ages.
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As a poet de la Mare is often compared with Thomas Hardy and William Blake for their respective themes of mortality and visionary illumination. His greatest concern was the creation of a dreamlike tone implying a tangible but nonspecific transcendent reality.
His poetry, in particular, stands out for its musicality and its ability to evoke a sense of wonder and mystery in the everyday world. This enduring appeal, along with his masterful craftsmanship, ensures that de la Mare's work continues to resonate with readers of all ages.
Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) was the prolific author of many volumes of poetry, short stories and novels, including one of the most enduringly popular poems in the English language, ‘The Listeners’. Born in Charlton, Kent, he was educated at St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir School in London.
De la Mare’s poetry does not really “fit” into any of the received categories, although it has been confidently pigeonholed by a good many critics since the slaughter of the Georgian tradition was accomplished, almost overnight, by T. S. Eliot.
- Summary
- Themes
- Structure and Form
- Literary Devices
- Analysis of The listeners
- Similar Poetry
‘The Listeners’ by Walter de la Maredescribes the actions of a Traveller who knocks on at the door of a seemingly deserted home at night. The poem begins with the speakerdesigning the Traveller and his horse. They are at the door of a house on which the Traveller is knocking. He is expecting to be greeted by someone, but no one answers his calls. T...
There are several interesting themes in ‘The Listeners’. These include the unknown and the supernatural, as well as isolation and solitude. This mysterious poem touches on all these themes while more broadly speaking, on the strangeness of the world and humankind’s inability to fully understand it. The poem itself is unknowable, keeping the reader ...
‘The Listeners’ by Walter de la Mare is a thirty six line poem that is contained within one block of text. The piece follows a consistent pattern of rhyme in the scheme of abcbdefe, and so on, changing end sounds as the poet saw fit. De la Mare chose to create rhyming pairs that are separated by un-rhyming lines. This allows the poem to maintain a ...
Throughout ‘The Listeners,‘ Walter de la Mare uses several different literary devices. These include but are not limited to enjambment, anaphora, and imagery. The latter is one of the most important devices that’s used in the poem. It can be seen throughout as the poet describes the landscape and the traveler’s experience. Enjambment is seen throug...
Lines 1-8
In the first stanza of this piece, the speaker, who does not play a physical role in this narrative, reports the speech of a “Traveller.” Rather than acting as a character in this story, the speaker is a third-person, semi-omniscient narrator. He is able to look down on the action and report it back to the reader. The Traveler is knocking on a door at night. Space is said to be lit by “moonli[ght]” and filled with silence. These few describing phrases paint an immediate picture of the scene....
Lines 9-16
In the second set of lines, the speaker describes how there is no one there to greet the Traveller. He waits, but no one “descend[s].” In a line that proves that the abode is somewhere in the woods, the speaker states that, The window that the traveler would expect the resident of the home to appear in, remains empty. There is still no sign that anyone is present inside the building or willing to let him in. A reader is also given the additional detail of the Traveller’s eyes being “grey.” Th...
Lines 17-24
At approximately the halfway point of this piece, the speaker returns to the image of the “phantoms” that he sees as being the only inhabitants of the house. They move through the “empty hall” and take to the stairs as any normal resident would. These ghostly images do not make an impact on their world. They are unable to respond to the “Traveller’s call,” although they can hear it. The air around them is “stirred and shaken” by the sounds he makes. The narrative returns to the heart of the t...
In the same vein as ‘The Listeners’ are other poems such as ‘Astrophobos’ by H.P. Lovecraft, ‘The Black Heralds‘ by César Vallejo ‘The Vampire’ by Conrad Aiken, and ‘The Witch’ by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge. Each of these poems deals with the unknown and the supernatural in a different way. They all raise questions for the reader that go unanswered b...
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- October 9, 1995
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De la Mare's cyclical imagery of buds, brooks, and human dreams evokes a sense of cyclical renewal and the transience of life. Compared to his other works, this poem exhibits a broader scope and a more philosophical tone.
Walter John de la Mare OM CH (/ ˈdɛləˌmɛər /; [1] 25 April 1873 – 22 June 1956) was an English poet, short story writer and novelist. He is probably best remembered for his works for children, for his poem "The Listeners", [2] and for his psychological horror short fiction, including "Seaton's Aunt" and "All Hallows".
