An Analysis of Patrick Kavanagh

The poet's unconventional sonnet possesses a new and more organic form of syntax, which emulates the continual flow of the canal waters. "Canal Bank Walk" has the same rime scheme as an Elizabethan sonnet, but it contains a Petrachan octet and sestet. By initially giving the reader a sonnet with a seemingly sense of form accentuates the theme of past adulthood sin. Customarily sonnets are composed in iambic pentameter, but the lines h

From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven. (9-14)

Finally, the imagery has a powerful affect, allowing the reader to come along on the poet's journey to find himself spiritually renewed by the bounty of Mother Nature. Continually all through the poem, the enchanted ambiance of the canal's fertile lands is painted with the light brush strokes of luscious language. The banks of the canal are not desolate nor are they wildly overgrown; rather, they are "Leafy-with-love banks" where "green waters" (1) bring everlasting life. The breeze in the first line of the second quatrain of the octet almost seems to wisp against the reader's neck, "adding a third" being, perhaps the Holy Ghost. As the sonneteer beseeches "O unworn world enrapture me in a web" (9), the reader is actually so entranced by the realm of the canal, that he can feel nature's embrace. One can imagine the gentle breezes and green leaves that seem to envelope one's mind, body, and spirit. The "eternal voices by a beech" create a choir of angelic tones that cleanse and feed not only the poet but also the reader's senses. The continuous imagery of green and blue add to the Edenic scene by the canal's baptismal waters. The persona's plea for "a new dress woven/ From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven" (13-14) is his ultimate recognition of his own renaissance. On his grand spiritual quest the poet finally discovers the purity and divinity for which he once longed. Through descriptive images the poet has placed himself at the mercy of the Lord and nature, where he can now value sweet existence from the guiltless perspective of a child.

Feed the gaping need of my senses, give me ad lib

Some topics in this essay:
Bank Walk, Elizabethan Petrachan, Holy Ghost, Furthermore Kavanagh's, Patrick Kavanagh, Nature Continually, God Kavanagh's, green blue, blue arguments proven, Canal Bank, green blue arguments, canal bank walk, baptismal waters, arguments proven, blue arguments, world enrapture, unworn world enrapture, waters canal, unworn world, canal bank, bank walk, leafy-with-love banks, eternal voices beech,