H ORSES Edwin Muir

L/O To learn about the poem “Horses” by Edwin Muir

W HAT DOES THE POET MEAN WITH THE ABOVE QUOTATION ? Edwin Muir "I was born before the Industrial Revolution, and am now about two hundred years old. But I have skipped a hundred and fifty of them. I was really born in 1737, and till I was fourteen no time-accidents happened to me. Then in 1751 I set out from Orkney for Glasgow. When I arrived I found that it was not 1751, but 1901, and that a hundred and fifty years had been burned up in my two day's journey. But I myself was still in 1751, and remained there for a long time. All my life since I have been trying to overhaul that invisible leeway. No wonder I am obsessed with Time." (Extract from Diary )

H ORSES What connotations do these animals have for you? What words spring to mind as you look at these images? Be as specific as possible and try not to talk in general terms Once you have done this repeat it but imagine you are 5 years old. Does that change your perspective?

T HE H ORSES - E DWIN M UIR [ ]

Edwin Muir was born on the remote Orkney Islands to the north of Scotland in His father was a tenant farmer but he lost his land when Muir was fourteen. Muir then moved with his family to Glasgow in 1901, where he remained for 18 years. The family lived in a poor part of the city. During the early 1920s Muir travelled in Europe. Muir wrote poetry and plays and earned his living as an editor, translator and literary critic. T HE H ORSES - E DWIN M UIR [ ] B ACKGROUND INFORMATION

The poem ‘The Horses’ describes a future way of life that will be like the simple farming life of the past. This way of life will be like how it used to be in the Garden of Eden. There will be no industry or technology. Man will once again be close to nature and animals. The roots of this poem lie in Muir’s experience of life. His life as a boy on a remote island was sheltered compared to the disorder and uproar of life in Glasgow. In Glasgow first his father, then his two brothers, and then his mother died in the space of a few years. Thus he began to imagine and long for a more innocent way of life, close to the earth like in his childhood.

The horror of twentieth century world wars also influenced the poem. Muir thought a future war might wipe out the world as we know it. The central idea in the poem is that people ought to live a life of hard work close to the earth. The ideas in the poem are somewhat like the strict ideas of Calvin. Calvinism is a religion that proposes a life of strict innocence based on hard work, closeness to the soil and avoidance of pleasure. Calvin’s ideas were central to the Presbytarian religion that Muir grew up in.

In this religion only a small portion of people would get in to heaven after God angrily destroys the world. Muir seems to think the good people are those who live close to the earth. Muir creates a speaker or narrator from the future who describes recent history. The descriptions of events at sea suggest he is on an island, similar to where Muir grew up. The poem is futuristic. The speaker is like a survivor describing the new, recovered earth after a Third World War.

It is a dream-like poem that contains farming imagery straight from the poet’s childhood on the farm in the Orkney Islands. The poem refers to mysterious horses that come to help humans rebuild their life. These horses represent a new world. At the end of the bible, in the Book of Revelations, four horses were a signal for the end of the world. In this poem, Muir imagines one world has ended and a new one has begun. The horses that ended the world in the bible, return to help build the new world, a world close to nature.

D EVELOPMENT : Using the summary and notes given, annotate the poem “Horses” Only use what you think is relevant Use bullet points Try to link quotes and sections together Include your own ideas as well.

P LENARY : How does this poem link to the others that you have studied so far?