His father told him not to leave the ship till he returned. Out of his sheer obedience to his father, the boy remained at his position even after the ship caught fire and burnt him.
This poem centers on the idea of obedience and common sense. The boy named Casabianca was true to his father or his nation but he was not realistic. He cried aloud several times to hear back from his father. Even after not getting any message from him, the boy remained at his post.
He might have thought that he was still alive. If the boy had common sense or a little bit realistic about the events happening around him, he would have saved his life.
However, for not being realistic, he had to lose the precious thing, life. This poem is written in quatrain form. There are a total of ten quatrains or stanzas having four lines each. The lines rhyme alternatively with the rhyme scheme ABAB. It continues throughout the poem. This closed rhyming pattern makes the idea of a particular stanza complete. Regarding the meter, it is composed of iambic tetrameter and trimeter alternatively.
The first and third lines of each stanza are in iambic tetrameter and the rest of the lines are in iambic trimeter. This scheme is also called the ballad meter. Casabianca was all alone there, unconscious of his approaching death. This poem is an allusion to an incident that occurred during the Battle of the Nile on 1 August Hemans alludes to the son of the admiral of the Orient ship.
In this poetic device, apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction. It can be found in the following examples:. Hemans paints the plot where the character was stuck.
He was standing on the deck of the ship that already caught fire. Everyone escaped except the boy. What was he doing there all by himself? Hemans provides the answer in the following stanzas, not here. It is just the beginning where the poet talks about only the main character and makes readers familiar with the impending danger.
Casabianca could see that the ship was on fire. Those who had already died during the Battle of the Nile, their bodies were also on fire. In such a situation, anyone would have fled the scene for the sake of rescuing their lives. But, the boy did not. During the battle, he remained at his post after the ship had taken fire. All the arms and ammunition exploded when the flames reached the magazine. In the second stanza, Hemans talks about the gallantry of the boy.
He stood there like a marble statue of some heroic figure. In the blazing flames, he looked beautiful and his face was brightened. His fearlessness in the face of the storm made the narrator remark so. Furthermore, she describes him as a creature or man of heroic blood. It is a reference to his noble pedigree. In the end, she remarks that these attributes aptly apply to a man of war, hardened with age.
In the third stanza, Hemans talks about why the boy remained at his post. For this reason, he did not leave the ship with others. The flames kept rolling down the lower portion of the deck. He could see that. But, he was unafraid. He did not know that his father had died already and his lifeless body was lying somehow down there, in the unknown depths of the sea.
The narrator sadly remarks that none could hear his voice anymore, including that innocent child. As the fire progressed further to his post, Casabianca became a little bit nervous. He called aloud for his father and asked whether his task was done yet. He could sense it.
But his sheer obedience to his father made him stand there without being threatened. But if you want to take part in the Poetry By Heart competition or use the Teaching Zone resources, you'll need to register. This is because we need to know who you are and how we can talk to you, and where to send your competition resource pack if you are eligible to take part in the competition.
Registration takes a minute or two. We only collect the information we need to run the competition and we will not give it to anyone else without your express permission. Yet beautiful and bright he stood, As born to rule the storm; A creature of heroic blood, A proud, though childlike form. They wrapped the ship in splendour wild, They caught the flag on high, And streamed above the gallant child, Like banners in the sky.
There came a burst of thunder sound — The boy — oh! Ask of the winds that far around With fragments strewed the sea! With mast, and helm , and pennon fair, That well had borne their part, But the noblest thing which perished there, Was that young faithful heart. Casabianca is the name of a young boy sailor. This poem is based on a true story from Casabianca will not leave his burning ship in the middle of a sea battle until his father, the commander of the ship, tells him he can.
Bishop reminds us of another reason for "Casabianca's" popularity: it was ideal recitation material. As all performance poets know, you can get away with a bit of dead wood if you deliver it with style. But modern readers shouldn't forget that Hemans sourced her tale in a historical event.
Whether or not the young Giocante Casabianca actually sacrificed himself as the poem claims there seems to be no evidence , it's certain that both the boy and his father, Commodore Casabianca, were killed on the French flagship, l'Orient. The ship had caught fire, and, when the flames reached the powder kegs, it exploded. Hemans did not, then, write a jingoistic set of verses about British heroism during the Napoleonic wars, but chose to describe a French tragedy, in a poem running counter to nationalist stereotype, and appealing to universal human emotions.
Its heart is in the right place, if, not always, its technique. And perhaps that's why few parodists get beyond the first verse. The comedy would become too dark, too callous, and simply not funny any more. So, is "Casabianca" still worth reading? Is it good verse but bad poetry, or not even good verse? Over to you. This article is more than 10 years old. Carol Rumens. Remembered mostly through parodies, does this portrayal of maritime tragedy still warrant serious attention in its own right?
Topics Poetry Carol Rumens's poem of the week features.
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