though the poem is about the traveller, it is titled ' The Listeners'. Why?
Answers
Walter de La Mare immediately calls attention to the “phantom listeners” described in the poem by using the title “The Listeners” instead of “The Traveller.” We first meet the traveler on dark lonely night as he approaches a dwelling that has turrets and ivy covered window ledges. “Is there anybody there? Said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlight door.” Walter de La Mare immediately has the reader thinking about who might answer. The reader knows who the traveller is but who is he calling to?
After the traveller makes a second attempt to get an answer, the poet explains that there is silence still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
He is speaking of the spirits of those who lived in the dwelling and the traveller as the only one left alive. The troubled traveller calls into the house one more time before he quickly leaves telling the listeners that he kept his promise to return. Silence once again surrounds the phantoms. The author wants the reader to question who the listeners might be, this is the mystery of the poem.
Answer:
because in that poem there are ghosts listening
from inside while the traveller is comming outside he is banging the door and howling and they might be ghosts and they are listning the travellers howling and banging the door that is why it is titled the listners