Miniver Cheevy (paraphrase + explication)

“Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn” (Miniver Cheevy, born into hatred). This first line already sets the tone for the poem being that scorn implies disparagement, loathing, and melancholy. “Grew lean while he assailed the seasons”(He got thin as the years went by). The unsatisfied feeling that Miniver has for his life is not short lived. It is a constant problem implied by seasons being plural. “He wept that he was ever born, And he had reasons” (He wished he had never been born, and rightfully so). showing regret for the lifestyle that he was born into.

The second stanza shows how Miniver feels that if he were born earlier that he could have had a chance at glory. “Miniver loved the days of old, When swords we

In the third and fifth stanza, Miniver is daydreaming about how life was for those heroes years ago.” Miniver sighed for what was not, And dreamed, and rested from his labors”(Miniver relaxed as he day dreamed about what could have been) “He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot, And Priam’s Neighbors.”(He dreamed of times of great knights) “Miniver loved the Medici, Albeit he had never seen one.”(Miniver envied rotalty, even thogh he had never known what it was like). “He would have sinned incessantly could he have been one”(He would have done anything to be famous). These all being different parts of how in the mind of Miniver, times back then where glorious and how he could have been something of important back then.

The last stanza is Miniver realizing his fate. “Miniver Cheevy, born to late, Scrateched his head and kept on thinking”(Miniver Cheevy was born after his time and he could not stop thinking about that.) The narrator states that Miniver was born in a time where he could not achieve the goals that he so longed for because of the current condition of his community. “Miniver coughed and called it fate, And kept on drinking” Here he realizes that he is doomed to a life of dissatisfaction, and his only refuge is his bottle.

The seventh stanza is about Miniver’s ambivalence towards money. “Miniver scorned the gold he saught, But sore annoyed was he without it, Miniver thought, and thought, and thought

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