Tell me what you guys think, just an essay on Edwin Muir's poem "The Horses". My English teacher gave me a B for this essay which I thought was pretty good to be honest, tell me what you think and have a read!

1. By Max Emerson
English essay on The Horses
Explore how Edwin Muir comments on the theme of war in the poem
“The Horses”
In Edwin Muir’s poem “The Horses”, the theme of war is commented on in a
very indirect way. He never actually states that there is a war going on, he
simply tells the reader about the implications that it has. He also manages to
relate the war to his childhood and the industrial revolution; through the
emotions experienced in both.
His use of religious imagery in his poem is very effective because it subverts
the Christian idea of creation from Genesis when God created the world in 6
days and nights. The war is a destructive mechanism, but in this poem Muir
refers to the use of nuclear war, which is exceptionally destructive, more so
than ordinary war. The first example of this is shown by Muir writing about
“The seven days war that put the world to sleep”. This euphemism for nuclear
war and mass destruction because of the extent of destruction caused, across
the “world” and not just in a few countries who are disputing. Next, in this
subversion of creation with the destruction of humanity is an image often
associated with war, since the Second World War. “On the second day/ The
radios failed” radios signal communication and were used by flight pilots in the
second world war to tell HQ how their missions were going; the failing of this
major part of communication in the 1950s implies to the reader that humans
created communication and are now destroying it. Muir carries on with this
idea of destructing the world until the sixth day is reached. “Thereafter/
Nothing.” This short, stunted sentence implies what the world will be like after
the nuclear war, nothingness; it also links to the bible because God rested on
the seventh day and this shows that Muir is clearly thinking about this in
relation to war.
In this poem, there is a lack of rhyme. The implications of this can be linked to
nuclear war and the desolation caused by such a devastating worldwide battle.
Muir uses repetition of onomatopoeia’s to suggest the movement of the
horses throughout the poem and throughout the warfare. Horses are a sign of
God’s forgiveness; and Muir uses them and the sounds and actions associated
with them to suggest that man should go back from industrialisation. Muir
grew up in a Presbyterian religion, which held Calvinistic ideas; these meant
that a strict innocence was proposed, an avoidance of pleasure and closeness
to the soil. All of these are shown in this poem by the constant relation to the
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2. By Max Emerson
natural world and imagery of animals. However, the most obvious portrayal of
this view is when Muir uses a simile to personify the tractors, “The tractors lie
about our fields; at evening/ They look like dank sea-monsters couched and
waiting”. This suggests that the tractors are dormant and waiting to come out
in to the open and to be used again. The vicious tone with which Muir writes
this almost suggests a forceful nature in to the life he would like back, his
childhood life; like the Garden of Eden (“as if they had come from their own
Eden”), where the reliance upon rural farming is key and everything is
somewhat idyllic.
Muir links the war to God’s wrath by suggesting the idea to the reader that
God expresses his anger through the pathetic fallacy of “hollow thunder”.
Traditionally, this is God’s way of speaking with humans and can be related to
various stories in the bible, such as God sending the 40 day storm upon man
for being bad. In this instance, Muir subverts God’s power by imagining the
destruction that a nuclear war would bring, he clearly fears for the worst as the
last couplet says “But that servitude still can pierce our hearts./ Our life is
changed; their coming our beginning”. This has connotations of war having
worldwide destruction as he would have seen in the second world war; with
the dropping of the nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Muir further
applies his experiences of nuclear war to his poems, with the last line implying
that the older humanity will be wiped out by their own creations and a new
human race, stronger and somehow better will be created.
In conclusion, this poem looks at nuclear war from a futuristic perspective,
with some influence from the past. Muir applies his own knowledge on nuclear
war as he would have experienced it and decides what could happen in the
future in terms of the evolution of man; he tells the reader of the possibilities
of a new “beginning” in which man would be stripped back to basics and back
to Calvinistic ideals. He uses old style language such as “Twelvemonth” and
“covenant” to show his longing for the past and his opposition to nuclear war.
The free-verse structure he uses has the effect on the reader of showing the
freedom of life that the old-time ideals had and this lack of structure also
shows the reader the extent to which nuclear war can destroy the world;
which is potentially the most important message Muir portrays in this poem.
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