September 1, 1939

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1939

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“September 1, 1939” is written in free verse, though it still retains the formal visual format popular at the time. It’s told through 99 concise lines divided into nine equal stanzas of 11 lines each. This makes it look like it follows a more rigid pattern than it really does, and creates a visual effect of bridging the old and the new—much like the speaker’s experience of the colliding old and new worlds. Additionally, each stanza ends on a period and uses enjambment to create one complete, run-on sentence for a total of nine sentences across the entire poem. This creates the sense that the poem is a spiraling internal monologue, with each stanza break representing a breath between ideas.

There is no consistent rhyme scheme, but the poem uses occasional end rhymes and internal rhymes to enhance its overall rhythm; for instance, the end rhymes in, “Uncertain and afraid / […] / Of a low dishonest decade” (Lines 3-5) and the near rhymes in, “And darkened lands of the earth / […] / The unmentionable odour of death” (Lines 8-10), both in the first stanza. Another example of true rhyme occurs in the second stanza: “What all schoolchildren learn, / […] / Do evil in return” (Lines 20, 22). However, these don’t follow a formal pattern but instead are incorporated where they naturally support the narrative. The poem follows a loose iambic rhythm, favoring an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Yet this choice is not rigid, and often the poem breaks this metrical form to accommodate the speaker’s chain of thought. The result is an impression of order punctuated by impending disorder, similar to the political landscape in which the poet is writing.

Assonance, Consonance, and Alliteration

Although the poem doesn’t have a formal rhyme scheme, it uses repeated sounds and occasionally repeated words to create a similar feeling of rhythm. This gives the poem a musicality and overall unity despite its unconstrained structure. In the first stanza, examples of this include the alliteration (the repetition of initial consonant sounds ) of “dishonest decade” (Line 5) and the closing consonance (the repetition of consonant sounds) in “anger and fear” (Line 6) and “earth” and “death” (Lines 10, 12). The second stanza uses the repeated word “What” throughout to connect the ideas together:

Find what occurred at Linz,

What huge imago made

…………………………

What all schoolchildren learn (Lines 16-20).

This later line uses repeated soft L sounds that are also seen in the capitalized “Luther” and “Linz” (Lines 14, 16). In the third stanza, three consecutive lines begin with A sounds: “All,” “About,” “And” (Lines 24, 25, 26). It also uses repeated sounds in “Democracy” and “dictators do” (Lines 25, 26).

Other examples of strong auditory repetition include the interwoven R sounds in these lines:

In an euphoric dream;

Out of the mirror they stare,

Imperialism’s face (Lines 42-44).

Repeating words are seen as well in, “The lights must never go out, / The music must always play” (Lines 47-48) and the near-matched words in, “Lest we should see where we are, / Lost in a haunted wood” (Lines 52-53). The sixth stanza favors M and N sounds throughout, giving an overall impression of softness. It also uses alliterative phrases like “bred in the bone” (Line 62) and “[c]raves what it cannot have” (Line 64). The following stanza closes on a succession of anaphoric lines:

Who can release them now,

Who can reach the deaf,

Who can speak for the dumb? (Lines 75-77).

This succession helps build momentum as the poem climbs toward its finish. The two closing stanzas use an enjambed alliteration in “die defenseless” (Lines 88-89), with the same sound recurring in “Yet, dotted everywhere,” “Of Eros and of dust,” and “Negation and despair” (Lines 91, 96, 98). The final stanza also makes use of F sounds in “[f]lash” and “affirming flame” (Lines 93, 99), each meant to convey a feeling of hope.

Perspective

The poem is told through first-person perspective, with focus given to the speaker at the beginning and again at the end. The first word of the poem is the pronoun “I” (Line 1), yet this word in this context doesn’t appear again until the eighth, penultimate stanza, when the speaker says, “All I have is a voice” (Line 78). In between, the poem broadens to emulate something closer to an omniscient point of view. Contrary to the expectations of a first-person narrative, the poem has insight into the mechanics of the world and the inner minds of the bar patrons, who repeat promises to themselves: “I will be true to the wife, / I'll concentrate more on my work,” (Lines 71-72). This creates a unique, out-of-body narrative experience within the setting of the poem.

The effect of this narrative choice is to create a speaker that is human and intimate, as well as a symbol of the larger society as a whole. The speaker brings their own beliefs into their internal monologue, yet they also convey a way of seeing the wider place each person has in this world. This suggests that the individual is synonymous with the whole, echoing the core message of the poem.