Ruins of a Great House

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1953

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Cycles of History and the Passage of Time

“Ruins of a Great House” places great emphasis on history and the passage of time. The speaker witnesses to the progression of time as he walks the estate's grounds, noting the rot, decay, erosion, and overgrowth of nature. The soil seems to be swallowing up the artifacts left behind (“Axle and coach wheel silted under the muck,” Line 5). Even though the great house represents a specific time in history, the poem is less about one singular historical period and more about the progression to the present moment. The epigraph highlights this theme of cyclical history, as Thomas Browne’s work ponders the practices and lifestyles of pre-colonized Anglo-Saxons following the unearthing of Anglo-Saxon pottery in the 1600s. The speaker observes the crumbling estate's beauty as “deciduous” (Line 14), emphasizing both its the cyclical nature of its beauty and its impermanence. Like the cycle of seasons, history is a cycle that repeats itself: Rome colonized England, England colonized the Caribbean. In the same vein, the Roman Empire fell, and so did the British. It is beautiful because it lives only for a short time and then disappears. In this way, all empires are deciduous; they all eventually fall like leaves in autumn.

The speaker utilizes the vast history of the world to make sense of the reality he faces. Being acutely aware of historical events, the speaker can look back into England's history of colonization by the Romans and come to terms with the violent actions of England’s colonization of others. The passage of time plays a huge role in the speaker's changing feelings about the estate's owner at the poem's end. Radically, he comes to view the historical owner of the mansion as a friend, a considerable departure from the feelings of fury and rage he felt as he walked through the estate. This transformation is another product of the passage of time. Like the river that “flows, obliterating hurt” (Line 22), time can wash away the pain of the past. As nature takes back the plantation, time takes back those who built it, leaving behind the rot of their bad deeds and evil acts (“The rot remains with us, the men are gone,” Line 38). The Caribbean, the great European empires, and the people of both sides have undergone swift and grueling changes. Time is the antagonist of the great estate; by eroding it away, time heals the hurt that it caused.

English Literature

The canon of English Literature plays a vital role in the speaker's change in attitude toward the imagined owner of the crumbling estate. Because the speaker has such a deep love and appreciation for English literature, he cannot help but use it as a lens to understand his reality. In the first stanza, he uses William Blake's poem “Night” to help him sort through his emotions about the decaying mansion (“Farewell, green fields / Farewell, ye happy groves,” Lines 11-12). In the second stanza, he envisions the great walls of the manor as structures that uphold great nations or economic powers like Greece or the American South. But he does not just refer to the American South; he specifies "Faulkner's South in stone” (Line 13). This reference to Faulkner contextualizes the South through literature, specifically Faulkner’s Southern Gothic style that depicted the historical American South as grotesque, malformed, and amoral.

The last two stanzas of the poem are primarily concerned with the theme of English literature, heavily referencing the work of John Donne. It is “the ashen prose of Donne” (Line 41) that brings the speaker to tears, as if this writer’s words help the speaker process his feelings about the ruins. Donne’s words about his feelings of alienation after a bout of sickness are therapeutic to the speaker as he attempts to work through his own feelings about the estate and colonization as a whole. The speaker resists emotions of rage, hatred, and isolation. Instead, he uses the words of his oppressors to understand his own oppression better. He turns to literature as a way to cope and to find not only his humanity, but that of his enemy.

Colonization

Colonization is the primary driver of the poem. Without colonization, there would be no great house in ruins, no history of oppression and slavery in the Caribbean, and no identity crisis for the poem's speaker. But without colonization, the speaker may not have access to or an intimate connection with English literature. And, taking it a step further, England and its literature would not be the same without colonization. This is the dilemma the speaker must reckon with. Using the quote from Thomas Browne in the epigraph immediately sets up this dilemma, reminding the reader that the Romans once colonized the Anglo-Saxons in England (see Browne’s work in Further Literary Sources).

The estate is almost a crime scene, scattered with the “disjecta membra” (Line 1), or scattered remains, of colonization. The cherubs, the ironwork, the coach wheel, and the spade are artifacts not unlike those described by Browne in his Urn Burial. But the limes are the most pungent remnant, literally and figuratively, as those simple fruits were the cause of so much wealth, opulence, oppression, and suffering.