PIANO

David Herbert Lawrence, England (1885-1930)

Background:

1. D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) was born on 11 September 1885 in Eastwood, a coal-mining village in Nottingham-shire England.
2. He was the fourth child of a struggling coal miner who was a heavy drinker.
3. His mother was a former schoolteacher, greatly superior in education to her husband.
4. Lawrence's childhood was dominated by poverty and friction between his parents.
5. He was educated at Nottingham High School, to which he had won a scholarship. He briefly became a teacher.
6. Despite his hard background he grew up to become a writer that wrote about the relationships between men and women and between human beings and the natural world.
7. He became one of the greatest figures in 20th-century English literature.
8. In 1912 he met Frieda von Richthofen, a professor’s wife and fell in love and eloped [ran away] with her.
9. As a result, he led a nomadic (mobile) or wandering existence.
10. D. H Lawrence became a novelist, story-writer, critic, poet and painter.
11. D. H Lawrence died from Tuberculosis on March 2, 1930.
12. D. H Lawrence was close to his mother as he grew up.
13. When she was ill in 1910, he assisted her death by giving her sleeping medicine.
14. He wrote several poems about his close relationship mother. ‘Piano’ is one such poem.

Summary:

• In the first stanza the speaker places himself in a romantic situation. A woman is performing and singing for him. The speaker creates an interesting atmosphere by using the word ‘softly’ and setting the action at dusk.
• The woman’s singing opens up the speaker’s memory. He then sees himself as a child playing with his mother’s feet as she sings for him at a piano. He remembers the great noise made by the strings of the piano.
• Thus, a conflict is suggested. The woman in the present is set against the woman from his past, his mother. His mother smiles warmly at him as he sings.
• Lawrence has established a conflict between a lover and his mother.
• In the second stanza, the speaker admits he tries to stay focused on the present. But the emotional power of the song drags him back to his past. The song’s intensity has a secret influence on him. He ignores the singer and travels back to his childhood.
• In his heart he longs for the secure and cosy Sunday evenings of his childhood with his mother singing to him.
• He fondly remembers the wintry scene outside as the family group sang hymns (anthems/music) to the tune of the piano.
• In the third stanza, the speaker shows the battle between the powerful singing in the present and the irresistible (impossible to resist; overpowering) draw of his memories. He is aware of the woman reaching the climax of her song. She plays the black piano with powerful feeling.
• The memory of the past is more glamorous than the present. As a man he should pay attention to the powerful singing of the woman who sings so passionately. But memory conquers his manhood. He remembers his mother’s singing with floods of tears. He becomes his childlike self again.

This poem Piano is about a fully-grown adult recalling about the past. In this poem 'piano' serves as a metaphor of nostalgia. The poet may be trying to say that the function of music is to release us from the tyranny (dictatorship) of conscious thought. Every man whether he is old or young wants to listen to music which reminds him of his happy memories of the past and makes him free from the trouble of the present. Lawrence shows that memory has a more powerful grip on him than the scene that he is part of as the woman sings to him. He gives into to the temptation to travel back in time to relive the secure feelings he had with his mother. As he remembers, he misses his childhood feelings so much that he forgets he is a man and weeps like a child. The poem is a conflict between present experience and memory. Memory wins. Childhood has more glamour than a woman singing passionately to him in the present. The theme of memory could be expressed here as a conflict between the present and the past. The past wins.

In the evening there are two persons sitting in the room: a man and a woman. The woman is a pianist and singer. The man is the poet himself. The woman is playing on the piano and singing at the same time. Her song takes the poet back to his early childhood. He supposes that he is a very small baby sitting under the piano. The poem starts with the man hearing the soft singing of a woman which takes him on a mental journey down memory lane and he sees visions of his childhood flashing in front of him. The memory he focuses on is that of a small child who is sitting beneath a grand piano as his mother plays it, taking his mother’s elegant (graceful) feet into his small hands and listening to the loud chords of music.

His mother is singing and he is pressing her feet. But she does not feel disturbed by her son’s behaviour. She smiles at him and goes on playing. The poet knows that it is his romantic past. He wants to live in the present facing the reality. But the woman is very clever at singing. Her song is so sweet and her playing is so skilful. The poet wants to control himself, but he cannot. This time he goes back to his boyhood. He supposes that he is in his warm and comfortable room. It is very cold outside. It is Sunday evening (holy day). All his family members are there. They are singing hymns. The piano is guiding them. The man is reluctant to remember those days and is affected by them, but the song which the woman is singing seems to have a slow subtle (able to make fine distinctions) impact on him and despite his hesitance he gives in to his emotions and yearns for the days of childhood: the cold Sunday evenings in winter when it used to now outside and they, mother and son used to sit in the warm comfortable indoors and sing melodious hymns with the help of the piano.

Now the song has done its task, that is, to take the poet back to the happy past. The man who was listening to the lady singing, now thinks that it would be useless for her to continue on as he is already so affected by his memories that he is just physically present, his mind elsewhere. He does not like to listen to the music. He wants to become lost in his happy memory. He likes to forget the present completely. Therefore, he feels that the woman’s song is the shout. Her music is no longer sweet. It is useless for her to play the piano with deep feelings. He is very happy with his childhood memories. Now he does not like to become a man.  Without any thought of his adulthood, he bursts into tears remembering the blissful ignorance and innocence of his infant years. He starts weeping, thus bridging the gap between his past and his present. He throws his manhood and begins to cry like a child.

Interpretation:

The poet may be trying to show the importance of past events. He also shows the power of songs and music. They make people touchy and attract even birds and animals. When the poet remembers his past, he forgets his romantic present. As a result, he weeps like a child.

Critical Thinking:

This poem is nostalgic. It is very interested and beautiful. The poet presents the universal nature of human beings beautifully and realistically. However, some ideas of the poet are questionable. Does the poet really remember his past when he is sitting with his beloved? Doesn't he get affected when a beautiful beloved is wooing? Does he really weep like a child?

Assimilation:

The melody of the song and music touch every human being and it makes them emotional and sentimental. This poem took me back to my childhood. When I was a small child, my grandmother chanted hymns. She carried me on her laps turn by turn lovingly. Now, she is no more in this world. Today also when I hear those hymns, I go back to my childhood and tears come out from my eyes and I became very sad.

Bibliography

Lawrence, D. H. (2013). Piano. In M. Nissani, & S. Lohani, Flax Golden Tales: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Learning English (p. 252). Kathmandu, Nepal: Ekta Books.

Lawrence, D. H. (2014, 02 22). Retrieved from Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44580/piano