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Song of a Citizen Summary & Study Guide Description
Song of a Citizen Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections:
This detailed literature summary also contains Further Reading on Song of a Citizen by Czesław Miłosz.
Song of a Citizen Poem Summary
Preview of Song of a Citizen Summary:
Lines 1-4
The first three and a half lines of "Song of a Citizen" form one sentence, with the subject ("I, poor man") placed at the beginning of line three. The poet likens himself to a stone in the depths of the sea that has witnessed a cataclysmic disaster. In the disaster, the seas have dried up and a million white fish, deprived of the element that gives them life, leap in agony. Lines three and four continue the metaphor, applying it to the realm of human history. The poet sees many nations deprived of their freedom. The description of them as "white-bellied" links them to the earlier image of the white fish. Using another image drawn from marine life, the poet sees a crab eating at the flesh of the nations. The image suggests rot and decay in a world in which one living thing feeds on another (crabs eat dead...
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This section contains 1,121 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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