What Were They like

1
What Were They like?

• Denise Levertov

2
Denise Levertov (1923-97)

• Born in England but moved to US 1947
• Strongly opposed to USAs involvement in Vietnam
• Became political (feminist and anti war) in the
  60s and 70s

3
What Were They Like?

• Did the people of Viet Nam
• use lanterns of stone?
• Did they hold ceremonies?
• to reverence the opening of buds?
• Were they inclined to quiet laughter?
• Did they use bone and ivory,
• jade and silver, for ornament?
• Had they an epic poem?
• Did they distinguish between speech and singing

4
Uses Vietnamese spelling. Shows respect
Past tense used. This way of life is now extinct.
Questions Used to show two speakers
Shows respect for nature and simplicity of life.
Also idea of spring and children

• Did the people of Viet Nam
• use lanterns of stone?
• Did they hold ceremonies?
• to reverence the opening of buds?
• Were they inclined to quiet laughter?
• Did they use bone and ivory,
• jade and silver, for ornament?
• Had they an epic poem?
• Did they distinguish between speech and singing

Modest and gentle
No longer use precious materials?
Implies no more great literature
Tonal language sounds like song
5

• Sir, their light hearts turned to stone.
• It is not remembered whether in gardens
• stone lanterns illumined pleasant ways.
• Perhaps they gathered once to delight in blossom,
• but after the children were killed
• there were no more buds)

6
Their hearts have been hardened by whats
happened
Sounds like a military investigation. Numbers
corresponds to the questions
Feels impersonal and unemotional

• Sir, their light hearts turned to stone.
• It is not remembered whether in gardens
• stone lanterns illumined pleasant ways.
• Perhaps they gathered once to delight in blossom,
• but after the children were killed
• there were no more buds)

A brutal and bleak way of tracking time
Answers are cautious and vague
This metaphor implies that nothing further can
grow (in terms of vegetation and population)
Because of the war
7

• Sir, laughter is bitter to the burned mouth.
• A dream ago, perhaps. Ornament is for joy.
• All the bones were charred.
• 5. It is not remembered. Remember,
• most were peasants their life
• was in rice and bamboo.
• When peaceful clouds were reflected in the
  paddies
• and the water buffalo stepped surely along
  terraces

8
Harsh alliteration reinforces the horror of the
napalm bombing, which burnt all in its path
A poetic but vague way of measuring time

• Sir, laughter is bitter to the burned mouth.
• A dream ago, perhaps. Ornament is for joy.
• All the bones were charred.
• 5. It is not remembered. Remember,
• most were peasants their life
• was in rice and bamboo.
• When peaceful clouds were reflected in the
  paddies
• and the water buffalo stepped surely along
  terraces,

The meaning of bone, from ornamental to
burnt bodies
They lived simple, peaceful lives Making the war
seem more barbaric
9

• maybe fathers told their sons old tales.
• When bombs smashed those mirrors
• There was no time to scream.
• There is an echo yet
• of their speech which was like a song.
• It was reported that their singing resembled
• the flight of moths in moonlight.
• Who can say? It is silent now.

10
The shocking violence of these 2 lines shatters
the piece of the previous 6 lines about the
life before the war
i.e. The paddy fields. The water Looks like
mirrors

• maybe fathers told their sons old tales.
• When bombs smashed those mirrors
• There was no time to scream.
• There is an echo yet
• of their speech which was like a song.
• It was reported that their singing resembled
• the flight of moths in moonlight.
• Who can say? It is silent now.

Suggests the soft, Gentle beauty of their language
The culture seems lost forever
conclude with a question they havent
answered anything
Sounds like a second hand account