Nostalgia & The Past

The desire for the past or past experiences is an innate quality of the human condition. Often times, individuals look to the past for inspiration, encouragement, or just to dwell upon past relationships and experiences. The four works “Fern Hill”, “The Video”, “My Papa’s Waltz”, and “Bored” each present a different nostalgic memory through the speaker of the poem. These poems are in many ways alike because each of the speakers uniquely conveys a similar yearning for the past and childhood experiences.
One of the greatest elements of the nostalgic imagination is the ability humans have to fantasize about past experiences. In Dylan Thomas’ “Fern Hill”, the speaker is looking back upon the glory of his childhood days when he was “young and easy under the apple boughs”. Lines such as four and five, “Time let me hail and climb, golden in the heydays” suggest that the speaker is fantasizing about the days when he could be carefree without responsibility, one of the greatest aspects of childhood. The speaker fantasizes about the days when he was the “prince of the apple towns…green and carefree, famous among the barns”. These lines present the idea that perhaps the speaker misses the days when he was his only authority, and has the freedom to “play and be golden”. Ultimately, it appears that the speaker in Thomas’ “Fern Hill” is getting older and recognizing how greatly he prizes the freedom and independence her experienced throughout his childhood on the farm.
“The Video”, a poem by Fleur Adcock features a similar theme, as Ceri recalls the experience of the birth of her younger sister, Laura. Although the poem is a nostalgic piece, it is unique because unlike the others it is narrated from an outside perspective. In the first stanza, the speaker describes the environment at the moment of Laura’s birth. “They all gathered around Mum’s bed…Dad said – he was trying to focus the camcorder on Mum’s legs and the baby’s head”. In the following stanza, the speaker provides examples that display Ceri’s acknowledgement of passing time, “Mum had gone back to being thin, and was twice as busy”. The observation suggests that perhaps Ceri was resentful of the attention her mother gave to the new baby. Additionally, the father tells Ceri to “move over a bit” in the first stanza, which is symbolic of Ceri’s resentful feelings. From an objective standpoint, the speaker observes Ceri watching “Laura come out, and then, in reverse, she made her go back in”. These lines, ten and eleven provide evidence that Ceri is ultimately looking nostalgically upon the days when she was an only child and did not have to compete with a sibling for attention.
Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” is also a nostalgic poem, although like “Video”, the tone is somewhat more serious. In this piece, the reader gets the impression that the speaker experienced a troubled childhood with regard to his relationship with his father. The rhyme scheme and form of this poem are unique because they represent the meaning of “Waltz” in the title of the poem. The arbitrary line breaks and every other line rhyme scheme make the form somewhat unconventional, yet the poem continues to flow, almost like a dancing Waltz. The speaker communicates the complexity of his relationship with this father when he recalls, “You beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt”.
Margaret Atwood’s “Bored” relates to the common theme among these poems, because it also nostalgically examines the speaker’s past. In this piece the speaker recalls her boredom with the everyday tasks she worked on with her father. While she remembers being bored and uninterested “holding the log while he sawed it” or “doing things over and over, carrying the wood, drying the dishes”, at the end of the poem the speaker questions whether “boredom is happier”. Even though she was uninterested in her work, the speaker notes that it was “sunnier all the time then”. For this reason, the reader can assume that perhaps the speaker has experienced a harsher, or more boring environment and now appreciates the tasks she once found uninteresting and monotonous.
Memories and nostalgia are a common theme among literature because the past plays a very important role in people’s reactions and decisions later in life. Each of the poems presented a different attitude toward the past. “Fern Hill” emphasized fond memories of a carefree childhood while “The Video” and “My Papa’s Waltz” had more sincere undertones. “Bored” was a contemplative piece that suggests that perhaps people don’t recognize the value of certain experiences until they are no longer presented. Thus, the speakers in each piece portray different nostalgic attitudes toward the past and its influence.