‘A Way of Looking’ is a short but moving poem by Elizabeth Jennings that attempts to uncover the ways in which the human mind perceives the world around it. One filled with quaint visual imagery and figurative language that accentuates the somewhat surreal movement of thought and reflection that goes on behind our eyes.
Ultimately, the poem seeks to reveal how we latch on to a variety of associations when we look at something, whether conscious of it or not. It is a portrait of the human imagination in all its incessant and ceaseless motion.
Summary
‘A Way of Looking’ by Elizabeth Jennings is a contemplative poem that illustrates how our minds do not objectively observe but rather perceive.
‘A Way of Looking’ begins with the speaker pondering the nature of perception. In the first stanza, they describe looking at a scene and their thought process. “We would retrace our thoughts to find / The thought of which this landscape is the image,” the speaker asserts. That landscape mentioned is given more detail in the preceding lines as composed of a “tree and waterfall.” But the physical scene in front of the speaker is not their focus; instead, they hone in on how the image of this place formed in mind becomes dominant over reality. As if “their first roots and source [were] within the mind.”
The second stanza suddenly changes the scene: “But something plays a trick upon the scene: / A different kind of light, a strange colour.” This unexpected alteration forces the speaker’s mind to adjust to this new feature of the landscape. They describe it as being disjointed with the image they’ve already created in their imagination, necessitating new “thought and reflection.” In other words, the speaker is reprocessing this new view in their mind to better “fit the image” they had before it.
Literary Devices
‘A Way of Looking’ uses a number of different literary devices that include but are not limited to:
- Visual imagery: “The thought of which this landscape is the image” (3); “A different kind of light, a stranger colour / Flows down on the appropriated view” (8-9).
- Simile: “It is as if the tree and waterfall / Had their first roots and source within the mind” (5-6).
- Metaphor: “But something plays a trick upon the scene” (7); “Nothing within the mind fits” (10); “To fit the image and to make it true” (12).
Detailed Analysis
Stanza One
It is the association after all
We seek, we would retrace our thoughts to find
The thought of which this landscape is the image,
Then pay the thought and not the landscape homage.
It is as if the tree and waterfall
Had their first roots and source within the mind.
The first stanza of ‘A Way of Looking’ introduces the idea central to the poem: when we look at something, our mind often fixates on the subjective and not the objective. We seldom perceive something without creating some kind of “association” (1), and it is this that the speaker affirms we look for in any scene.
Take, for instance, the landscape that they are staring at. The speaker describes the way one might “retrace [their] thoughts to find / The thought of which this landscape is the image” (3-4). This is occurring in retrospect, but the recollection of this landscape is not the focus.
Instead, they recognize that they’ll concentrate on the perceptions and associations that the landscape inspired instead of the landscape itself. Jennings uses a powerful example of imagery and simile to drive home this notion that in perceiving something, our minds recreate it: “It is as if the tree and waterfall / Had their first roots and source within the mind” (5-6).
Stanza Two
But something plays a trick upon the scene:
(…)
To fit the image and to make it true.
Stanza two of ‘A Way of Looking’ introduces a change in the scenery the speaker observes, describing it as a “trick upon the scene” (7). This transformation is owed to “a different kind of light, a strange colour” (8) that “flows down on the appropriated view” (9). The speaker’s diction emphasizes the way their mind has commandeered the scene within their imagination and away from objective reality.
The result is an acute sense of the discordance between their perception of the scene and what is actually there. “Nothing within the mind fits. This is new” (10), they ominously and curiously declare. The poem ends with a resolute illustration of the mind reprocessing the landscape: “Thought and reflection must begin again / To fit the image and to make it true” (11). Truth is obviously subjective here, and what the speaker means is “true” to their own perceptions.
FAQs
The poem’s theme centers on the speaker’s visualization of how the human mind works. Essentially, we perceive things not just as they objectively appear but rather with associations and alterations made in our imagination. The point of the poem is to highlight this often unnoticeable quality of our perception.
It is unclear specifically why Jennings wrote the poem, yet it is perhaps not unlikely that they experienced something similar to their speaker. After all, poets often live in the realm of retrospection and recreate entire scenes from the imagination.
The light that appears in the poem changes the scene sufficiently enough that the speaker’s prior perception of it is marred. In a way, it literally forces them to view the scene in a new light.
The “association” that is mentioned at the beginning of the poem might refer to the kind of associations the mind makes when looking at something. When the speaker looks at the landscape before them, they don’t just see a tree and a waterfall but whatever other connections or thoughts that spring forward, by will or involuntarily. These associations create differences in what the speaker perceives versus what is being observed.
Similar Poems
- ‘A Requiem’ – this poem recounts the emotional experience of attending a funeral ceremony.
- ‘Fountain’ – this poem revels in the poet’s observations of a fountain.
- ‘Reminiscence’ – this poem also deals with memory and retrospect, but this time, it is directed at childhood.
