Casabianca (poem)

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See Casabianca (disambiguation) for other meanings

Casabianca is a poem by British poet Felicia Dorothea Hemans, first published in the Monthly Magazine for August 1826.

The poem opens:

The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.

It is written in ballad meter, rhyming abab.

Contents

[edit] History

The poem commemorates an actual incident that occurred in 1798 during the Battle of the Nile aboard the French ship L'Orient. The young son Giocante (his age is variously given as ten, twelve and thirteen) of commander Louis de Casabianca remained at his post and perished when the flames caused the magazine to explode.

[edit] Narrative

In Hemans' and other tellings of the story, young Casabianca refuses to desert his post without orders from his father. (It is sometimes said, rather improbably, that he heroically set fire to the magazine to prevent the ship's capture by the British.) It's said that he was seen by English sailors on ships attacking from both sides but how any other details of the incident are known beyond the bare fact of the boy's death, is not clear. Hemans, not purporting to offer a history, but rather a poem inspired by the bare facts, writes:

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though childlike form.
The flames rolled on—he would not go
Without his Father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

Hemans has him repeatedly, and heart-rendingly, calling to his father for instructions: "'Say, Father, say/If yet my task is done;'" "'Speak, father!' once again he cried/'If I may yet be gone!;'" and "shouted but once more aloud/ 'My father! must I stay?'" Alas, there is, of course, no response.

She concludes by commending the performances of both ship and boy:

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part—
But the noblest thing which perished there
Was that young faithful heart.

[edit] Cultural impact

This poem was a staple of elementary school readers in the United States over a period of about a century spanning, roughly, the 1850s through the 1950s. So often memorized and recited as to lose any shred of meaning or emotion, it is today remembered mostly as a tag line and as a topic of parodies.

McGuffey's New Fourth Eclectic Reader (1866) takes this poem as the topic of Lesson LV. After urging the reader to "Utter distinctly each consonant: terrible, thunders, brave, distant, progress, trust, mangled, burning, bright," it introduces and presents the poem, following it with a set of thought-provoking questions: "What is this story about? Who was Casabianca? By whose side did he stand in the midst of battle? What happened to his father? What took fire? What did the sailors begin to do? What did the little boy do? Why did he stand there amid so much danger? What became of him?"

Samuel Butler, in The Way of All Flesh, drew an unorthodox moral from the poem:

Then he thought of Casabianca. He had been examined in that poem by his father not long before. 'When only would he leave his position? To whom did he call? Did he get an answer? Why? How many times did he call upon his father? What happened to him? What was the noblest life that perished there? Do you think so? Why do you think so?' And all the rest of it. Of course he thought Casabianca's was the noblest life that perished there; there could be no two opinions about that; it never occurred to him that the moral of the poem was that young people cannot begin too soon to exercise discretion in the obedience they pay to their papa and mamma.

A poem by Elizabeth Bishop, called Casabianca (Elizabeth Bishop Version), refers to elements of Hemans's original work as an allegory for love.

[edit] Parody

Generations of disrespectful schoolchildren, perhaps in accord with Butler's way of thinking, created parodies. One, recalled by Martin Gardner, editor of Best Remembered Poems went:

The boy stood on the burning deck,
The flames 'round him did roar;
He found a bar of Ivory Soap
And washed himself ashore.

Michael R. Turner, editor of Victorian Parlour Poetry, contributed:

The boy stood in the waiting room,
Whence all but he had fled;
His waistcoat was unbuttoned,
His mouth was gorged with bread...

While a version found in "Oh, How Silly!" (ed. William Cole):

The boy stood on the burning deck
Eating peanuts by the peck;
His father called, he would not go
Because he loved those peanuts so.

Spike Milligan also parodied the opening of the poem:[1]

The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled —
Twit.

Another goes:

The boy stood on the burning deck
His face was all a-quiver
He gave a cough, his leg fell off
And floated down the river.

Yet another:

The boy stood on the burning deck
Eating a tuppeney Walls
A bit fell down his trouser leg
And paralysed his balls.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Simply Spike - Michael Palin remembers Spike Milligan. The Guardian. Retrieved on 2008-02-23.

[edit] External links

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