Crusoe in England

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1971

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“Crusoe in England” is a 12-stanza free-verse poem. Since Bishop inhabits the voice of Robinson Crusoe, a known literary figure, this work can be read as a persona poem. Persona poems assume the voice of someone else and can therefore also be called dramatic monologues. “Crusoe in England” does not conform to any traditional poetic forms, but Bishop maintains rough iambic meter throughout the work. Iambs are metrical rhythmic feet of two syllables where the first foot is unstressed and the second is stressed. The first two lines of “Crusoe in England,” for instance, are stressed as follows: “A new volcano has erupted / the papers say, and last week I was reading” (Lines 1-2). Other than the unstressed endings on both lines and the spondaic substitution, where both “week” and “I” are stressed in a single foot, these lines conform to iambic meter. The first line is in iambic trimeter because it has three feet, and the second line is in iambic pentameter.

Iambic pentameter is one of the most common meters in English literature, and it is associated with many older poetic forms such as the Shakespearean sonnet and blank verse. Bishop invokes this tradition half seriously. Her use of iambic pentameter in “Crusoe in England” often incorporates casual and simple language that undoes much of the meter’s serious reputation. For example, the line “And then one day they came and took us off” (Line 153), is rendered in perfect iambic pentameter. Bishop’s use of monosyllabic words heightens the effect of the stressed syllables and makes the rhythm feel exaggerated and silly, like in a children’s song. In this case, Bishop uses the meter to suggest the inconsequence of Crusoe’s rescue.

Enjambment

Enjambment, or non-grammatical use of line breaks to create an effect of ambiguity, is one of Bishop’s primary tools in creating Crusoe’s sense of disorientation. When Crusoe describes how the “folds of lava” (Line 40) would “prove” (Line 41), the sense of the word “prove” is unclear and brings to mind proving something in the oven as the lava cools and blooms into as a repetition of the image in the first stanza. It is only clear that Crusoe means the word in the logical sense in the next line, where the lava turns into “more turtles” (Line 42). This enjambment heightens the illusory nature of the transformation.

Bishop uses a similar technique when Crusoe dreams of other islands. Line 138 ends with Crusoe stating that he “had to live,” suggesting his resolve in the face of adversity. However, the line that follows, “on each and every one” (Lines 139), jumps from the infinitude of Crusoe’s life to the infinitude of his expanding dream.

Repetition

“Crusoe in England” makes use of a number of different kinds of repetition. The most obvious repetitions in the poem are examples of epizeuxis, or repeated phrases in immediate succession. Epizeuxis aims to emphasize the repeated phrase, such as when Crusoe shouts “Home-made, home-made!” (Line 85), or when he focuses on his change of scale after climbing the volcano on his island: “I had / become a giant; / and if I had become a giant” (Lines 19-21).

Bishop also uses repetition to enhance the poem’s setting and the island’s constant activity. The “hissing” (Line 37) sound of the lava (or turtles) as it flows into the ocean is repeated throughout the poem as background noise (Lines 41, 109). The particular “hissing” sound also calls to mind a threatened or violent animal, reinforcing the island’s inhospitality. Bishop’s repetition of the word “one” works in a similar fashion. “[O]ne” (Lines 15, 67, 68, 69, 71, 76, 77, 117, 125, 139, 151, 153, 155) appears 15 times in the poem to reinforce Crusoe’s isolation and the sheer singularity experienced on the island. The island has “one kind of everything” (Line 68), and Bishop’s constant reminders of that fact help to establish the poem’s themes of continual solitude.