review of poem stammer
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Answer:
The poem is a philosophical analysis of stammering which is a difficulty in speaking experienced by certain people for a prolonged period of time. The poet begins by saying that stammer is not a handicap. He says that it is a way of speaking. He explains that stammer is the silence between the word and its meaning. This is a philosophical statement not to be taken literally. When a person stammers he/she is unable to complete his/her statement due to physiological reasons. It is not due to the lack of langauge competence on the part of the speaker. The poet is talking about the arbitrary relationship between the word and its meaning. Almost all people find it difficult to use the right words to convey the intended meaning. In a way all people stammer even though it is not physically manifested. Similarly people also find it difficult to do what they say. The poet calls this lameness. Thus the poet is trying to say that lack of language competency and integrity are even bigger problems compared to physical or physiological problems like lameness or stammering.
The poet begins the third stanza by raising another philosophical question. The question is whether language came first or stammer? Language might have come first, but people may have stammered before they learned to speak properly. The next question is whether stammer is a dialect or a language. This question is rhetorical.
The poet makes a statement that each time we stammer, we are making a sacrifice to the gods of meaning. Each time we find it difficult to articulate something we realise how small we are compared to language. When a group of people stammer it becomes normal speech. It means that what is normal and abnormal is decided by social consensus. What more people believe is accepted as the truth. The poet is criticising the society for trying to enforce its views on people who are different from the majority. The majority may not always be true. The poet says that we are living in a society which has accepted certain false beliefs as true. This is true as the society we are living in accepts discrimination on various grounds as normal.
In the final stanza, the poet says that God must have stammered when he created man. This might be a reference to the shortcomings of man. However the poet says that as a result of God’s stammer people’s words have different meanings. The poet may be hinting that God is the source of the multiplicity of meanings that words afford. This multiplicity and confusion is present in the use of language at all levels from day to day conversations to poetry.
Answer:
The poem is a philosophical analysis of stammering which is a difficulty in speaking experienced by certain people for a prolonged period of time. The poet begins by saying that stammer is not a handicap. He says that it is a way of speaking. He explains that stammer is the silence between the word and its meaning.