Hi, students, I am Ratnali Sharma, and we are going to start with one incredible poem today that is The Snake, okay, and the writer of this poem is D.H. Lawrence, alright. Now let us know a little about the poem. The Snake is one of Lawrence’s most famous poems. In this poem Lawrence tells of a confrontation with a snake he had at his water trough. This poem is actually based on an incident that occurred to him and obviously reflects his feelings and emotions. Lawrence was honoured by the snake’s presence but was also afraid. Throughout the poem, Lawrence illustrates his point about the strife and the clash of the opposites.

Education and social conventions make Lawrence think that the poisonous snake must be killed and that a brave man should undertake the task. For a brief moment, Lawrence lacked the faith of his own intuition and missed his chance with one of the lords of life. The poem is written in free verse and is an excellent representative of modernist literature.

Now let us have a little look at the background of the poet, that is David Herbert Richards Lawrence and he lived between 1885 and 1930. He was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist and literary critic. His collected work represents the dehumanizing effect of modernity and industrialization. The poem Snake was composed in 1923 and forms part of Reptiles section of Lawrence’s poetic collection called ‘Birds, Beasts and Flowers’.

Now let us start with the poem. The first part:

A snake came to my water trough

On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,

To drink there.

Now see, in the first line there is this word ‘trough’ what does it mean, a long narrow open container for animals to eat or drink out of. So over here the snake had come to the poet’s water trough on a hot, hot day. And the writer, ‘I’ over here is the writer in his pyjamas, ‘pyjamas’ a loose jacket and pants worn in bed, okay. So on one hot morning or afternoon, this particular day when the writer poet came to the water trough, he saw a snake.

Now this poem begins with D.H. Lawrence narrating an encounter he had with a snake. It was a hot day when the poet in his pyjamas was going to fill his pitcher with water as the heat was unbearable. He noticed that a snake was ahead of him and it had come to drink water from the trough.

Alright, now:

In the deep strange-scented shade of the great dark carab tree

I came down the steps with my pitcher

And must wait, must stand and wait, for there was at the trough before me.

Over here, the word, ‘scented’ means having a strong pleasant smell. And ‘carab tree’ a red flowered evergreen common to Mediterranean area, okay, and a ‘pitcher’ is a large jug in which you fill water.

The poet came towards the water trough near the carab tree which had a strange scent. He had to stand and wait at his own water trough because the snake was already there before him.

With this we are done with our first module, thank you.