High Flight

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1942

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

In “High Flight,” John Gillespie Magee Jr. employs a variant sonnet form, which combines elements of the English sonnet with the Italian sonnet. The first eight lines, or octave, follow an ABAB CDCD rhyme scheme, which is a variation on the traditional English sonnet. The second stanza’s rhyme scheme echoes the traditional Italian sonnet and uses the EFEGFG rhyme scheme.

Magee also uses the more traditional structure of the Italian sonnet. The octave presents a situation or concern—in this case, the physical ascent into the sky by the Spitfire’s pilot. The next six lines, the sestet, shifts the tone and comments on the octave’s condition. The stanza break heightens this commentary as the sestet deals with the overwhelming feeling of awe the pilot experiences after reaching the “sanctity of space” (Line 13). The use of the more formal traditional form of the sonnet aligns “High Flight” with Romantic nature poetry despite the modernity of the aircraft which serves at its subject.

The Alliteration of “S”

Part of the appeal of flight is in a plane’s seemingly graceful path across the sky. Its smoothness seems graceful and sleek, like a bird. This is played up by Magee in his use of the alliteration of nearby words beginning with “s.” The poem starts with this sound, as the pilot “slip[s] the surly bonds of Earth” (Line 1) and escapes “on laughter-silvered wings; / Sunward” (Lines 2-3). Further, the plane “soar[s] and sw[ings] / [h]igh” (Lines 5-6). The alliteration helps to heighten the motion of flight.

Later, the “s” alliteration also emphasizes the illumination of the sun and the quiet that occurs during high flight. The clouds are “sun-split” (Line 4) as the pilot navigates the “sunlit silence” (Line 6). This light guides the pilot to their discovery of “the sanctity of space” (Line 13), in which God resides. The careful use of the repetitive “s” sound suggests the flight leads not into the sky, but into the nimbus of heaven, where human endeavor and spiritual epiphany blend seamlessly.

Conflation of Pilot and Plane

In describing “High Flight,” Magee’s first-person speaker is sharing an experience that few will ever have: A solo excursion to 33,000 feet in a small plane. Magee deliberately conflates the plane’s activity with the actions of the pilot so that they become one and the same. The plane has not just taken off to ascend, the pilot themself has “slipped the surly bonds of Earth” (Line 1). They have, at one with the plane, “danced on the skies” (Line 2) and “chased the shouting wind along” (Line 7). This helps to convey not only the speaker’s physical experience—their joyful ascent into the sky as if a bird—but also stresses the emotional aspects of the process. This conflation, in turn, enhances the supernatural event of being able to “[tread]” (Line 12) the “untrespassed sanctity of space” (Line 13) and “touc[h] the face of God” (Line 14).