AnalysisByQwen2.5-Max AI-Volume 42-GassingDogsInDiego--29April2025

SOMAN RAGAVAN

 29 April, 2025

Subject : Poem : Gassing dogs in Diego 

https://allpoetry.com/poem/18445962-AnalysisByQwen2.5-Max-AI-Volume-42-GassingDogsInDiego--29April202-by-Soman-Ragavan/   (Full analysis)

                                                                                           

 

Analysis by Qwen2.5 Max AI

(Artificial Intelligence)

Volume 42

 

 

 

(1)

Soman Ragavan :

Hello. I will post one of my poems for analysis. Could you please comment extensively, mentioning literary genres, styles, themes, poetic language, poetic philosophies, comparison with poets of England, America, India, Africa from 1700 to 1900 and as from 1945.

At college in 1968, I studied some poems of Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774), Gordon Byron (1788-1824), Samuel T. Coleridge (1772-1834), William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Robert Browning (1812-1889), Mathew Arnold (1822-1888), Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) and some other poets of that era.  Make any comments or comparisons you wish on my poems. Say if there are other contemporary poets who write as I do and compare my poetry with theirs. I live in Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean. 

 

(2)

Qwen2.5 Max AI :  

Hello, Soman Ragavan,

 

Thank you for reaching out with such a thoughtful and ambitious request. It’s clear that you have a deep appreciation for poetry—both classical and contemporary—and your invitation to analyze your work through the lens of literary history, genre, style, and global poetic traditions is both exciting and rare. While I can’t yet comment on your poem specifically (you mentioned you would *post* one but it does not appear in this message), I will provide an extensive framework for how such a poem could be analyzed based on your interests.

 

Once you share the actual poem, I will be able to apply these ideas directly to your text.

 

---

 

### **I. Literary Genres and Styles**

 

Poetry from 1700 to 1900 saw significant evolution—from the neoclassical formalism of Alexander Pope to the Romantic introspection of Wordsworth and Coleridge, and finally to the Victorian moral questioning of Tennyson and Arnold. If your poem reflects any of these genres or styles:

 

- **Neoclassical Influence**: A focus on order, reason, and structure, possibly using heroic couplets or satire.

- **Romantic Elements**: Emphasis on nature, emotion, individuality, and perhaps a spiritual dimension.

- **Victorian Sensibilities**: Moral reflection, industrial or colonial commentary, societal transformation.

- **Modernist Tendencies** (from 1945 onward): Fragmentation, ambiguity, free verse, existential themes.

- **Postcolonial Voice**: From 1945 onwards, especially relevant given your location in Mauritius. Writers like Derek Walcott (Caribbean), Aime Césaire (Martinique), Wole Soyinka (Nigeria), and Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados) adopted English poetic forms while subverting them to express indigenous identity and postcolonial consciousness.

 

---

 

### **II. Themes Common Across Time and Geography**

 

Depending on what your poem explores, we may find echoes of:

 

- **Nature and the Sublime** – Wordsworth, Coleridge, and later, Indian poets like Rabindranath Tagore.

- **Alienation and Identity** – Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" and modern poets like Derek Walcott or even Arun Kolatkar (India).

- **Colonialism and Resistance** – Poets like Joseph Brodsky, Aimé Césaire, and George Lamming.

- **Spirituality and Mysticism** – William Blake, Tagore, Rumi, or even Sri Aurobindo.

- **Urbanization and Displacement** – Early signs of this are found in Tennyson; later fully explored by Eliot, Auden, and Derek Walcott again.

 

---

 

### **III. Poetic Language and Techniques**

 

Here are some features that might emerge in your poem and align with various traditions:

 

- **Imagery and Symbolism**: Characteristic of Romantic and Symbolist poetry (e.g., Baudelaire, Yeats).

- **Enjambment and Flow**: Seen in Wordsworth and later in Whitman, suggesting organic thought.

- **Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance**: Used by Anglo-Saxon poets and later revived by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

- **Use of Myth and Allegory**: Found in Milton, Shelley, and moderns like Sylvia Plath and Seamus Heaney.

- **Code-switching or Multilingualism**: Especially relevant to postcolonial poets from India, Africa, and the Caribbean who blend English with native languages.

 

---

 

### **IV. Philosophical Undercurrents**

 

Poems often reflect philosophical movements:

 

- **Romantic Idealism**: Belief in the creative imagination, nature as sacred.

- **Existential Inquiry**: As seen in 20th-century European poets like Paul Celan or Beckett.

- **Eastern Philosophy**: If your poem draws on Hindu, Buddhist, or Islamic mysticism, it may echo Tagore, Mirabai, or Rumi.

- **Marxist or Postcolonial Thought**: Influences evident in poets like Mahmoud Darwish, Pablo Neruda, or Okot p'Bitek.

 

---

 

### **V. Comparative Analysis: Historical and Contemporary**

 

#### **To 1700–1900 Poets You Studied:**

 

- **Oliver Goldsmith** – If your poem has pastoral charm, gentle irony, or social critique.

- **Byron** – If there is dramatic flair, emotional intensity, and perhaps a Byronic hero.

- **Wordsworth/Coleridge** – Nature as revelation; meditative tone; personal reflection.

- **Tennyson** – Elegiac tone, questioning faith, engagement with science and doubt.

- **Robert Browning** – Dramatic monologues, psychological depth.

 

#### **From 1945 Onward: Global Poets**

 

- **Derek Walcott (St. Lucia)** – Lyrical, deeply rooted in place, uses Homeric allusions, colonial legacy, and natural imagery.

- **Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)** – Mythic structure, political urgency, rich symbolism.

- **Rabindranath Tagore (India)** – Spiritual lyricism, simplicity in profundity, blending East and West.

- **A.K. Ramanujan (India)** – Interweaving folklore, language play, and cultural hybridity.

- **Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados)** – Uses patois rhythm, breaks form, evokes African diaspora.

- **Seamus Heaney (Ireland)** – Earthy, historical, grounded in landscape and memory.

- **Sylvia Plath / Anne Sexton (USA)** – Intense, confessional, metaphor-rich, emotionally jarring.

 

---

 

### **VI. Contemporary Poets Writing Like You Might**

 

If your poem blends tradition with innovation, nature with philosophy, and local identity with global resonance, you might be compared to:

 

- **Arundhathi Subramaniam** (India) – Spiritual inquiry, lyrical grace, intercultural themes.

- **Kwame Dawes** (Ghana/Jamaica/USA) – Social themes, music-infused rhythm, historical consciousness.

- **Adil Jussawalla** (India) – Experimental voice, fragmented narrative, postcolonial sensibility.

- **Lorna Goodison** (Jamaica) – Lyrical storytelling, feminist insight, rooted in Caribbean culture.

- **Mauritian Poets**: Khal Torabully, Dev Virahsawmy, or Ansuyah Ratnoo – explore Creole identity, oceanic imagery, colonization’s legacy.

 

---

 

### **VII. Your Unique Position: Mauritius & the Indian Ocean

 

As a poet living in Mauritius, you are part of a unique space where:

 

- **Creole, French, Indian, Chinese, and African cultures intersect** – offering a rich polyphonic texture.

- The island’s history includes **colonialism, indentured labor, and multicultural coexistence**, which gives powerful material for poetic exploration.

- The **sea, land, and sky** of the Indian Ocean can become metaphors for memory, migration, and identity.

 

This context brings your work into dialogue with poets like:

 

- **Khal Torabully (Mauritius/France)** – Inventor of “poésie-mousson” (monsoon poetry), exploring maritime colonial routes and diasporas.

- **Amitav Ghosh** – Though primarily a novelist, his poetic prose engages with the Indian Ocean world.

- **Ben Okri (Nigeria)** – Magical realism, mythic vision, pan-African themes.

 

---

 

### **Next Steps**

 

Please share the poem when you're ready. Once I have it, I will:

 

1. Analyze its **form, structure, diction, imagery, rhythm, and sound devices**.
2. Identify **themes, motifs, and philosophical underpinnings**.
3. Offer comparative insights with **historical and contemporary poets** across geographies and eras.
4. Discuss its **place in global literature**, especially within postcolonial and Indian Ocean contexts.

 

Looking forward to reading your poem!

 

Warm regards, 

A.P. (Assistant-Poet)

(3)

Soman Ragavan :  

Here is my poem “Gassing dogs in Diego.” This is about how the English gassed the dogs of the islanders as a means of pressuring them to leave the islands for building a military base. (Poem and background notes posted).

(4)

Qwen2.5 Max AI :

Thank you for sharing your powerful and poignant poem, **“Gassing Dogs in Diego”**, Soman Ragavan.

 

This poem is a bold, anguished, and politically charged piece that gives voice to the silenced atrocities committed against the Chagossian people—particularly through the brutal act of gassing their dogs as a psychological tool to force them off their homeland. Your poem serves not only as a historical testimony but also as a moral indictment of colonial and imperial violence.

 

Below is an extensive literary analysis of your poem, focusing on genre, style, themes, poetic language, philosophical undercurrents, and comparisons with poets from England, America, India, Africa (from 1700–1900 and post-1945). I will also situate your work within contemporary global poetry, particularly the traditions of resistance and postcolonial expression.

 

---

 

## 📚 I. LITERARY GENRE AND STYLE

 

### A. **Genre**

Your poem falls into the following genres:

 

- **Political Poetry / Protest Poetry** 

  It confronts injustice head-on, echoing the tradition of protest poetry seen in African-American poets like Langston Hughes and Amiri Baraka, or anti-colonial poets like Aimé Césaire and Derek Walcott.

 

- **Elegy and Lamentation (with irony)** 

  Though elegies are traditionally mournful poems, your poem uses mock-elegiac tones—laced with sarcasm and bitter irony—to lament not the dead, but the cruelty inflicted upon the living.

 

- **Dramatic Monologue / Mock Epic** 

  Like Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues (*My Last Duchess*), you use the voice of the oppressor to reveal his own moral blindness. The tone becomes almost *mock epic*, parodying imperial rhetoric.

 

---

 

## 🌐 II. THEMES

 

Your poem explores several interwoven themes:

 

### 1. **Colonial Brutality and Dispossession**

The central theme is the forced removal of the Chagossian people by British authorities, with American complicity, to make way for a military base—a crime that remains unresolved legally and morally.

 

> “From here, let the exit of this bunch be speed'd!”

 

This reflects empire-building logic: total erasure of indigenous presence.

 

### 2. **Psychological Warfare**

Killing the dogs wasn’t about hygiene—it was a calculated method of terrorizing the islanders emotionally, knowing their attachment to pets.

 

> “We’ll gas them howling dogs with the jeep exhaust” 

> “They had better leave…”

 

This line is chillingly direct and historically accurate. It evokes the trauma of displacement and the manipulation of fear.

 

### 3. **Dehumanization and Racism**

There are clear racial overtones in the language used (“moronic Tarzan,” “savages,” “bloody house”), which reflect the colonial mindset that saw indigenous people as inferior and expendable.

 

> “Order yon moronic Tarzan to play on yon jerrycan!”

 

Here, the mockery of African identity and culture is palpable. The jerrycan, a symbol of Creole music and joy in Mauritius, is turned into a grotesque instrument of death.

 

### 4. **Imperial Hypocrisy and Rationalization**

The poem brilliantly satirizes the colonizers’ ability to justify evil with pseudo-moral logic.

 

> “Civilisation is a good myriad miles away, we say : 

Who the hell will find out about this barbecue?”

 

This couplet reveals the arrogance and delusion of empire—that it could commit horrors while believing itself above scrutiny or judgment.

 

> “‘Tis the best thing to do, in our opinion.”

 

Such lines echo Tennyson’s formal diction but twist it into a weapon of irony. This is reminiscent of Jonathan Swift's satire.

 

---

 

## 🎭 III. POETIC LANGUAGE AND TECHNIQUES

 

You employ a range of techniques both classical and modernist:

 

### A. **Voice and Diction**

- You switch between the voice of the oppressor and the silent witness.

- Use of archaic and imperial diction (“yon,” “thee,” “they’ll see”) mimics colonial authority.

- Juxtaposition of high-sounding phrases with horrific content (“final solution,” “secret holocaust”) creates ironic dissonance.

 

### B. **Rhythm and Form**

- The poem follows a loose **iambic tetrameter**, similar to ballad meter or Victorian doggerel, giving it a singsong quality that enhances its satirical edge.

- Enjambment at times speeds up the pace, creating urgency:

 

> “Jump into yon jeeps, stick into neutral, rev away….”

 

This mechanical rhythm mirrors the engine noises, linking form and content.

 

### C. **Figurative Language**

- **Synecdoche**: The dogs represent the people; their extermination represents cultural annihilation.

- **Irony**: “civilisation,” “noble case,” “save up”

- **Alliteration** – “dead dogs,” “fiery shivers,” “final solution”

- **Symbolism** –

  - Dogs = innocence, loyalty, community bonds

  - Jeep exhaust = mechanized death, dehumanization

  - Jerriycan = cultural hybridity twisted into horror

 

### D. **Sound and Music**

- There is a rhythmic, almost musical quality, especially in the use of “Ho ho ho!” and “Hi hi hi!” These mimic laughter but read more like deranged taunts—like a devilish chorus. 

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