The Listeners Summary Analysis
“The Listeners” appeared in a collection of poems called The Listeners and other poems was published in 1912. An unearthly atmosphere hangs over in the poem where a mysterious world gives nothing but the vague hints and din suggestions. This article describes Walter de la Mare’s art of supernaturalism through the details summary analysis questions answers of the poem The Listeners.
The Listeners Summary:
It is a single-stanza poem of thirty-six lines, rhyming ‘abcd’. The title of the poem focuses not on the poem’s human traveler but on the phantom listeners who await him. The poem is written in the third person, to allow the reader to observe objectively, the travel first and the listener then and to remain behind with the listeners when he hastily departs at the poem’s end.
On a moonlit night, a traveler came on horseback to a solitary house in a forest. Getting down he knocked at the door and asked if anybody was within. At the disturbance, a bird flew out of the turret into the sky above. But no one came down to meet him at the door. None leaned over the sill to enquire.
The house remained as dark and quite as before. The traveler struck upon the door a second time with no result. He felt that a crowd of spirits dwelling in the lonely house stood listening to his voice on the dark stair case, dimly lit up by the soft light of the moon. The traveler felt their presence and heard a voice in their silence. This made him knock harder and shout louder for a third time.
Addressing the spirits, he left a message – that he had come and kept his word. Then he mounted his horse and rode away. The sound of the horse’s hoofs and the clanging of his stirrups gradually faded away. The horse and the forest were plunged into dead silence again.
Theme of the poem The Listeners:
The spirits of the dead always long for coming back to the places where they dwelt before their death. On a moonlit evening the traveler came on horseback to a haunted house in the midst of the forest. In spite of his untiring efforts to elicit an answer to his repeated calls from the inmates of the house, he failed to do so. He felt the strange presence of the spirits in the house.
There is a great barrier between the world of the living and the world of the dead. It is an utter impossibility to break the barrier. Both the worlds are conscious of their presence, yet no communication is possible between the worlds.
The poem amply illustrates De la Mare’s characteristic treatment of supernaturalism. As a poet of the supernatural, he emerges as a worthy disciple of Coleridge. Like Coleridge, he presents the supernatural as a psychic phenomenon. The Listeners, like Coleridge’s Christabel, has none of the crude elements of the usual supernatural machinery like grim-looking ghosts and goblins. In the poem, the supernatural is subtle and psychological and invested with an air of suggestion and indefiniteness.
Title of the poem The Listeners:
Listeners are those hear attentively. On a moonlit evening, the traveler came on horseback to a haunted house in the midst of the forest. In spite of his knocking on the door thrice, he did not elicit any response from the inhabitants of the house. He only felt the strange presence of a great multitude of spirits. He even heard a voice in their silence. They listened to each other but did not manage to communicate, with each other.
There is an unfathomable gulf of difference that cannot be crossed between the world of the living and the world of the dead. On both sides of the barrier, there were listeners. Hence the title is apt and indicative of the horror, mystery and supernaturalism in the poem.
The Listeners poem Questions Answers:
1. What are the kinds of sound mentioned in the poem The Listeners?
Ans: The traveler came on horseback to a haunted house in the forest. Before his entry into the place, a profound silence prevailed there. But the silence was disturbed by his knocking on the door thrice to elicit an answer from the inmates of the house. He shouted, “Is there anybody there?”
His horse’s champing the grass on the ground, the bird’s flying out of the turret of the house, the clanging sound produced by the traveler’s placing his feet upon the stirrups and the clattering sound produced by the hoofs of the horse against the ground paved with stones. These are the sounds mentioned in the poem The Listeners.
2. What are the supernatural elements described in the poem The Listeners?
Ans: This poem abounds with supernatural elements. As a poet of the supernatural, Walter de La Mare’s emerges as a worthy disciple of Coleridge. Like Coleridge, he avoids crude methods of treating the supernatural and presents it as a psychic phenomenon. The opening of the poem, illustrates De la Mare’s art. The locality chosen for the scene of the poem is a desolate one.
The horse at the door of which the traveler knocks has long been deserted; So creepers have grown on the window-sill and night-birds have built their nests in it. An unnatural silence prevails all around. The desolate forest is bathed in the dim moonlight which proverbially associated with supernaturalism. Thus, the desolation of the locality, the silence of the night, and the play of light and shade in the forest – all these create an unearthly atmosphere which fills our mind with a feeling of supernaturalism.
3. Can the poem The Listeners be called a ghost poem?
Ans: This poem can be called a ghost poem because a crowd of ghostly figures feature in it. We find the traveler from the world of the living and the ghosts from the world of the dead. The presence of the unearthly creatures help in creating an uncanny atmosphere in the poem. In response to the traveler’s call, they remained silent. It was if their silence were answer.
4. What is the allegorical significance of the poem The Listeners?
Ans: Everyone always feel an inherent urge to return to the past, physically or mentally, to once more enjoy the warmth of its touch and to revive the weal and woe of the old. But it is no use trying to call back to life what is dead and gone for ever. The world of the incorporeal creatures, too feel an intense urge to communicate with the world of living.
In this poem, the traveler stands for anybody who extends his journey into the past and the future. He came to the house to keep his appointment fixed in the distant past. The deserted house stands for a relic of the past and the ghosts belong to the world of the dead. The traveler and the ghosts failed to communicate with each other.
This shows that communication between them is impossible. The house stands for the world of mystery which is beyond our perception. It also for our psychological journey into the past enveloped in mystery. Its door is closed. The closing of the door suggests that the mystery cannot be unfolded.
5. “Is there anybody there” – What does the line imply?
Ans: The traveler came on horseback to a haunted house in the midst of the forest. He alighted from the horse and knocked on the door, asking if there was anybody in the house. The poem opens with the question. Such opening is dramatic and abrupt. It takes the reader by surprise and evokes a feeling of thrill or horror and mystery. In this way, the poem becomes charged with expectation and suspense. The line occurs twice in the poem. But the answer is not directly given. The answer is given with the silence of the listeners. The indirect answer carries the suggestion of mysterious and supernatural overtones.
6. Why is the the travel not named in the poem?
Ans: Walter de la Mare in his poem does not say who the traveler was or from where he came to the deserted house nor does he tell us anything about his errands. These are matters left wholly to our surmise. We are only told that the traveler had grey eyes. It appears that the world of reality is represented by the traveler on horseback. He serves as a link between between the two worlds – the world of reality and the supernatural world.
Everything is intentionally left vague to create an air of mystery and wonder about him. Perhaps the traveler represents the human spirit who seeks from age to age, to free itself from the intolerable bondage of his own civilization. He is not a particular man.
7. How is the house described in the poem The Listeners?
Ans: The house where the traveler went to keep his word was lonely and desolate. It was inhabited by a crowd of ghosts. The house was old-fashioned and had a tower. It was two-storeyed house. It stood in the heart of the forest. It was a very old and ruined one, thickly overgrown with the clustering leaves of wild climbing plants. The branches of its trees touched its outer walls. The window frames on the upstair of it were overgrown with leaves of the plants.
8. Why did the traveler stood perplexed and still?
Ans: Coming to the ruined and deserted house, the traveler asked if there was anybody there. To his utter surprise, he failed to elicit any answer from the inhabitants of the house. The traveler stood at the door outside the house silent and motionless as he was puzzled at no one’s response to his call. Apparently, he expected response to his calls. He must have come to keep an appointment.
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