ANALYSIS

‘Asleep In the Valley’ by Arthur Rimbaud

Asleep in the Valley

Arthur Rimbaud

About the Poet: Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (20th October 1854- 10th November 1891) was a French poet who started writing poetry very early in his life and stopped almost completely by the age of 21. He was born in Charleville, Ardennes to Frederick Rimbaud, a good-natured infantry captain, and Marie-Catherine Vitalie Cuif, who pushed her children to scholastic and moralistic excellence. He was the second of five children. His parents were separated after seven years of marriage. Even during their marriage, Rimbaud Sr. was absent for most of the time, especially on military postings. As a result of this separation, the children barely had a relationship with their father.

Arthur Rimbaud was an excellent student and excelled in literature. He was well versed in Latin and Greek. He showed merit as a poet as early as fifteen years of age. And he was encouraged greatly by his tutor, Georges Izambard.

The Parisian literary circle considered Rimbaud a sort of an ‘enfant terrible’. His decadent lifestyle and Libertine views didn’t sit well with many. Even with harsh criticism, Rimbaud was well known for his literary outputs. The famous writer, Victor Hugo, called him ‘an infant Shakespeare’, such was his skill in poetry. Libertine at heart, he was part of the Decadent movement. He was also known to have influenced Surrealism.

He was an avid traveller. He is known to have toured three continents. He had given up writing and his decadent lifestyle by the time he was twenty-one and he settled down in Aden, Yemen as an employee of the Bardey agency. Later on, he ended up running the firm’s agency which was situated in Ethiopia. Shortly after, he gave up that job to become a part of the coffee trade.

He died of bone cancer, at the age of 37 in Marseille, France.

His poetry is said to have influenced many 20th century writers, artists and musicians like Allen Ginsberg, Vladimir Nabokov, Jack Kerouac, Bob Dylan, Pablo Picasso and much more.

About Asleep in the Valley:

The poem is about the death of a young soldier, whose body lies among the ferns and flowers in a valley. This poem is most probably written in the October of 1870 but was published in the collection called, Anthologie Lemerre in 1888. It is known to have been written in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). Since there’s no evidence to suggest any battle to have been fought in Charleville, it is probable that this poem may have been inspired by the war but is not an actual account of a real incident. The original was written in French, named ‘Le Dormeur du Val’. This English version was translated by Paul Schmidt.  

The Setting of Asleep in the Valley:

The poem is set in a war ravaged valley. The overall mood of the poem is melancholic. However, the melancholy is undercut by an appreciation of life and acceptance of death. The melancholic yet peaceful mood is brought by Rimbaud’s attention to life, which is portrayed in the form of nature and the slow, gentle pace of the poem. But in the last line, the mood changes to one of shock, because that is where the speaker tells us that the soldier is actually dead and not asleep as previously described.

Stanza-wise Summary of Asleep in the Valley:

Stanza 1

A small green valley where a slow stream flows

And leaves long strands of silver on the bright

Grass; from the mountaintop stream the Sun’s

Rays; they fill the hollow full of light.

The poem begins with the description of a valley. The valley in question is green with fresh grass, upon which strands of silver light are reflected from the stream which passes through the meadow. The sun, which peeks from behind the mountain that borders the valley, fills it completely with warm sunlight.

Stanza 2

A soldier, very young, lies open-mouthed,

A pillow made of fern beneath his head,

Asleep; stretched in the heavy undergrowth,

Pale in his warm, green, sun-soaked bed.

This stanza focuses on a young soldier lying, seemingly asleep, on a bed of ferns. The next two lines describe the bed of the valley, which is green and warm due to the constant, and abundant, sunlight. The soldier seems pale the light from the sun has bathed him so.

Stanza 3

His feet among the flowers, he sleeps. His smile

Is like an infant’s – gentle, without guile.

Ah, Nature, keep him warm; he may catch cold.

This stanza moves the line of vision to the soldier’s feet. They are surrounded by flowers. The speaker then shifts his attention to the soldier’s face, where he describes the soldier’s smile, which is reminiscent of an infant’s smile- innocent and gentle. At this, the poet persona addresses Mother Nature with an imploring voice to keep him warm in his sleep so that he doesn’t catch a cold.

Stanza 4

The humming insects don’t disturb his rest;

He sleeps in sunlight, one hand on his breast;

At peace. In his side there are two red holes.

In the last stanza, the poet reveals what he was hiding in the previous stanzas.

The stanza begins with the speaker noticing that the soldier’s sleep is so deep that it is not disturbed by the constant hum of the insects around him. He says that the young soldier continues to sleep, in peace, despite the insects, with a hand on his breast, as if remembering his country even in his sleep. The focus then shifts to his side, where there are two ‘red holes’- presumably bullet holes which caused his death. The poet finally admits in the last line that the soldier is dead.

Critical Analysis of Asleep in the Valley:

The poem begins almost lazily, with attention to details like the slow pace of the stream, the reflection it makes on the grass, and the ample sunlight. Like the slow stream that passes through the valley, the poem advances to the second stanza. The second stanza brings our eyes to a young soldier who seems to be asleep among the ferns and flowers of the valley. The soldier lies with his mouth slightly opened, as if in deep sleep. The poet compares this to the smile of an infant, which is symbolic of tenderness and innocence. This is perhaps out of ordinary to describe a soldier innocent and gentle like an infant. In this, we see the genius of Rimbaud, who uses unexpected analogies to present harsh reality. One can assume that what he meant by this, was to tell us that soldiers are not the root cause of suffering, that they are not inherently violent individuals; they are merely instruments of war, plied to the ways of the masters of the world. So, in a way, they are innocent of the crimes they commit during a war. Thus, here we already see the beginnings of the Surrealist tradition, where strange juxtapositions are used to present reality.

In the line, ‘Ah, Nature, keep him warm; he may catch cold’, the tenderness the poet feels for the dead soldier is obvious. He implores Nature to keep his body from growing cold. Cold here is symbolic of death. The poet knows the soldier is already dead but he wants his readers to wait till the last line of the poem to figure this important detail out. And that is why he uses the phrase ‘catch a cold’ for its colloquial meaning, alluding to contracting the common respiratory infection. The poem is written like a telescope which focuses on different parts of the valley and zooms in on the details. First, the poet focuses on a panoramic view of the valley, from which he moves to the mountains and then the body of the soldier in the meadow. He zooms in on the soldier’s feet and then his face, specifically his smile. Rimbaud waits until the last line of the poem to reveal that the soldier is dead. His delay in portraying the death of the solider is perhaps to heighten the effect and to shock the readers into seeing the negative impacts of war.

Stanza-wise Annotations of Asleep in the Valley:

Stanza 1

‘And leaves long strands of silver on the bright/Grass’- the sunlight falling on the stream causes it to leave its silver reflections on the green grass.

‘from the mountaintop stream the Sun’s/Rays’- Here, ‘stream’ is sued to describe the similarity between the lucidity of the light falling on the valley with the lucidity of water.

Stanza 2

‘heavy undergrowth’- vegetation. Here, it means the thick bed of grass growing in the valley.

‘sun-soaked bed’- again, the water analogy is used here. The light is compared to water that has soaked the bed of grass, that is filled and warmed the grass.

Stanza 3

‘guile’ : deception; trickery

Stanza 4

‘two red holes’: two bullet holes from which the soldier bled out, leading to his death.

Poetic Devices in Asleep in the Valley:

Stanza 1:

‘A small green valley where a slow stream flows/ And leaves long strands of silver’- This poem is rhythmical and full of alliteration. This is the first instance of Alliteration used in the poem. Alliteration is the occurrence of same sounds or same letters adjacently or in close quarters.

Stanza 2:

‘sun-soaked bed’- this is another instance of Alliteration

Stanza 3:

‘Ah, Nature, keep him warm; he may catch cold’- this is an instance of an Apostrophe.  An apostrophe is a figure of speech used to address an inanimate object or an abstract quality. This is also an act of Personification. Nature is personified as a human being who is to assume the role of a caretaker for the sleeping soldier.

Stanza 4

‘In his side there are two red holes’- this line is an example of Metonymy. Metonymy is a figure of speech by which the name or meaning of a thing or concept is substituted by its attributes. Instead of writing ‘two bullet holes’, Rimbaud writes ‘two red holes’. Bullets puncture the body and cause bleeding which turns the holes red. Thus, he substitutes the word bullet by red, which represents the quality of the bullet.

Rhyme Scheme

The poem is a sonnet. The octave is divided into two quatrains and the sestet into two tercets. The quatrains follow the abcb rhyme scheme, and the tercets, aab.

Central Idea of Asleep in the Valley:

The central idea of the poem is the death of a young soldier as a result of the war. The body of the soldier is lying in a valley that is bursting with life. This accounts for the fact that even amidst death, life surrounds us. However, this can also mean that although life is beautiful and all around us, death is inevitable and sudden. Thus, the aim of life should be to embrace it. This poem also resounds his Libertine views as he did not believe in living cooped up in narrow ideologies and beliefs. 

Themes of Asleep in the Valley:

Sleep as Death:  Death and sleep are used interchangeably in the poem. Death in this poem is represented as sleep; a sleep that is peaceful and never ending. Also, a sleep which is safe from all further harm. Just as Rimbaud believed in embracing life, he believed in accepting death. For him, death is sad, poignant even, but ultimately, death is a saviour. It ends all suffering and finally brings us the peace we long for.

The futility of War:

In spite of the beautiful imagery of the poem, it is a poem about war and its futility. The protagonist of the poem is a young soldier who is shot to death, probably by soldiers against whom he was fighting. The ‘humming insects’ is representative of the flies and insects that hover around corpses in the battlefield. Undercutting the image of a beautiful valley, we can see the destruction wrought by war.  The poem is a gentle irony against the sacrifice of thousands of soldiers for the sake of war. In this poem, there is no glory in war. However, there is glory in life. And that is why war is futile and mindless.

The beauty of Life:

Amidst the wrecks of war, the poet manages to appreciate life in the form of sunlight, water, flowers, insects, and the grass on which the soldier is lying. Everything in the poem seems to be alive. He even turns the death of the soldier into a peaceful sleep to present life as the ultimate beauty.

The Tone of Asleep in the Valley:

The tone of the poem is slow and poignant, but hopeful. The poet knows the tragedy well but he feels in his heart that although the death of the soldier is devastating, he will finally attain a peace that is lasting and free from all pain and dangers of war.

Conclusion:

The poem is a war poem, with a different perspective. It focuses more on life than death. And it tells us to look for the blessings of life even in the midst of the darkness of war and death. As an extension of the message, it tells us of the futility of war. It also tells us that death is not an enemy. On the contrary, it is a peaceful end.