Innocence
Innocence - fact Summary
Rooted in Rural Upbringing
"Innocence" expresses Kavanagh's return to and defense of his rural origins. The speaker recalls being mocked for loving a small, hedged farm and denying that love, only to come back, reconciled and enclosed by the same whitethorn hedges. The poem reflects Kavanagh’s lifelong theme of the Irish countryside as formative and limiting simultaneously, tying personal identity and mortality to the lived landscape of his upbringing.
Read Complete AnalysesThey laughed at one I loved- The triangular hill that hung Under the Big Forth. They said That I was bounded by the whitethorn hedges Of the little farm and did not know the world. But I knew that love's doorway to life Is the same doorway everywhere. Ashamed of what I loved I flung her from me and called her a ditch Although she was smiling at me with violets. But now I am back in her briary arms The dew of an Indian Summer lies On bleached potato-stalks What age am I? I do not know what age I am, I am no mortal age; I know nothing of women, Nothing of cities, I cannot die Unless I walk outside these whitethorn hedges.
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