summary of the poem the solitude of alexander selkirk
Answers
William Cowper’s poem ‘The Solitude of
Alexander Selkirk’ is a well-known poem. It is based on a real life story, of a
privateer by the same name. Alexander was part of a ship’s crew whose duty was
to fend off the Spaniards. Thus the crew and the ship spent considerable time
at sea. Being a strong headed person, Alexander refused to obey his captain’s
orders and continue sailing because he was sure that the ship was not in a
condition to make it through the journey. As a result of their difference in
opinion, Alexander found himself marooned on an uninhabited island while the
ship left, without him. The poem examines his psychological state on being
alone, while still hoping to be rescued.
The very first line of the poem, ‘I am monarch
of all I survey’ shows just how lonely he is on the island. He is the master not
of any humans, but of ‘the fowl and the brute’. He is aware of the fact that he
might never be rescued and might die without having the opportunity to ‘hear
the sweet music of speech’. He yearns for ‘Society, Friendship, and Love’,
which to him are God’s divine gifts to mankind. He begins to cherish the normal
things that people otherwise take for granted. In order to get back to the
inhabited world, he is even willing to give up his human form and become a
dove.
The poet shows how his mind works. Selkirk goes
from being happy in a moment, when he imagines himself to be in his ‘own native
land’ to coming back to reality and ‘despair’ and finally accepting his fate in
the end. It is a realistic poem that examines the situation from the
perspectives of a human’s hopes, despair and eventually reconciliation. Alexander
spent four years on the island before he was finally rescued. He did not give
up and that helped him survive the difficult times. Selkirk’s story inspired
many other literary works, notably Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’. (And yes,
the ship that he had abandoned did indeed sink killing many of the crew.)