longing for the past

These four pieces all take the emotion of nostalgia and describe/distinguish it in different ways. “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas depicts a fantasy within the poem that conveys this emotion of nostalgia. “Bored” by Margaret Atwood and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke also present the idea of longing for the past by describing a relationship with a male figure (both assumed to be fathers). “The Video” by Fleur Adcock is a short but to the point poem of a young girl yearning back for the way her life once was and wanting her mother’s full attention. Moreover, all four works have the same theme of longing or desiring for the past.
“Fern Hill” seems to describe an imaginative, fantasy of a child. However, a sense of nostalgia seems to bear along with it. The reader can even see this in the first line, it being passed tense. The speaker says, “Now as I was young…” The speaker goes on to almost draw a picture of this fantasy yet free life when younger. The speaker also says, “And as I was green and carefree…” The speaker seems to maybe be missing childhood innocence and freedom. As the poem continues, it changes tone when the speaker “wakes up.” Time, it seems, has lead to this nostalgia of the speaker’s childhood. The speaker says, “Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means/Time held me green and dying.” This poem conveys the message that time, or getting older, has made the speakers life probably not as easy, for he truly misses his childhood.
“Bored” by Margaret Atwood is also a poem that seems to express longing. This poem is quite unique for using the word “bored.” Throughout the entire poem, the word “bored” seems to have a negative connotation. However, the speaker then says, “Why do I remember it as sunnier all the time then?” This can not help but make the reader think that the speaker does not mean bored in such a bad way. Moreover, this poem does show the idea of nostalgia. Not only in the speaker missing the “sunnier” time, but the speaker “knows too much.” The speaker is also yearning for a more innocent time, when he/she did not know what he/she knows now.
“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke is a poem that seems to desire the past, but also creates a message that the speaker misses his father dearly. The father figure in this poem does in fact seem to be a drunk. He has whiskey in his breath, and his “mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself.” However, the reader must think back to the title. A waltz gives no negative connotation to this dance that this son and father are having. In fact, a waltz is seen as a relaxed but cheerful dance. This is where the reader can draw the conclusion that even if the father is a drunk, this is the way that his son and the father might show their love for each other – dancing. To the son, it might not necessarily matter that he is drunk, as long as they are together. The speaker is yearning for their dance together in the present.
“The Video” by Fleur Adcock also carries this common theme of wanting for the past. This video that was made seems to be about this girl Ceri’s little sister being born. However, after Ceri’s sister Laura is born, and “Mum had gone back to being thin” she “was twice as busy.” Ceri goes and plays this video over and over again, to the point where she watches it in reverse, implying she wishes that Laura was never born. The poem says, “She watched Laura come out, and then/in reverse, made her go back in.” Ceri is longing for her full mother’s attention again, and seems to have a problem dealing with not being the only child anymore (assuming Laura is her only sibling).