The prodigal's moment of truth occurs when he becomes aware of the 'bats' uncertain staggering flight' (line 25), giving him some 'shuddering insights' (line 26). He recognises at last his terrible isolation. The bats terrify him because their blind flight resembles his own stumbles through life and his uncertain future. But the decision 'to go home' is not an easy or inevitable one: it takes him a 'long time' to make it. The implication is that the idea of 'home' is not without problems for the prodigal. Home may be seen as a last resort rather than the first place of refuge, recalling Bishop’s own experience. As she says at the end of 'Questions of Travel': 'should Ihave stayed at home / wherever that may be?' Her own troubled experiences of home and our awareness of Bishop's struggles with alcoholism, make The Prodigal' one of Bishop's most revealing poems. Prodigal' is structured as two sonnets of a rather loose nature. They each have the ‘The requisite fourteen lines, and the first one maintains the conventional octave– sestet division, but the rhyming schemes are eccentric, if not absent altogether. The rhythm is a mixture of iambic pentameter and four-stress lines. It has been pointed out that the last word, 'home', does not have a true rhyme and this has the effect of isolating the word (and the idea) within the poem. The brown enormous odour he lived by was too with its breathing and thick hair, for him to judge. the sty was plastered halfway up with glass-smooth dung (he hid the pints behind a two-by-four), But evenings the first star came to warn. safe and companionable as in the Ark. he felt the bats' uncertain staggering flight, his shuddering insights, beyond his control, touching him. But it took him a long time finally to make his mind up to go home.
The prodigal's moment of truth occurs when he becomes aware of the 'bats' uncertain staggering flight' (line 25), giving him some 'shuddering insights' (line 26). He recognises at last his terrible isolation. The bats terrify him because their blind flight resembles his own stumbles through life and his uncertain future. But the decision 'to go home' is not an easy or inevitable one: it takes him a 'long time' to make it. The implication is that the idea of 'home' is not without problems for the prodigal. Home may be seen as a last resort rather than the first place of refuge, recalling Bishop’s own experience. As she says at the end of 'Questions of Travel': 'should Ihave stayed at home / wherever that may be?' Her own troubled experiences of home and our awareness of Bishop's struggles with alcoholism, make The Prodigal' one of Bishop's most revealing poems. The brown enormous odour he lived by was too with its breathing and thick hair, for him to judge. the sty was plastered halfway up with glass-smooth dung (he hid the pints behind a two-by-four), But evenings the first star came to warn. safe and companionable as in the Ark. he felt the bats' uncertain staggering flight, his shuddering insights, beyond his control, touching him. But it took him a long time finally to make his mind up to go home. ‘The Prodigal' is structured as two sonnets of a rather loose nature. They each have the requisite fourteen lines, and the first one maintains the conventional octave– sestet division, but the rhyming schemes are eccentric, if not absent altogether. The rhythm is a mixture of iambic pentameter and four-stress lines. It has been pointed out that the last word, 'home', does not have a true rhyme and this has the effect of isolating the word (and the idea) within the poem.
bishop_poetry_notes_2016.docx