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On Finding a
Small Fly Crushed
in a Book
Charles Tennyson Turner
‘lea v e n o
lus t r e on
ou r p ag e
o f d e a t h’
On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book
Charles Tennyson Turner

Some hand, that never meant to do thee hurt,

Has crush'd thee here between these pages pent;
But thou hast left thine own fair monument,
Thy wings gleam out and tell me what thou wert:
Oh! that the memories, which survive us here,
Where half as lovely as these wings of thine!
Pure relics of a blameless life, that shine
Now thou art gone. Our doom is ever near:
The peril is beside us day by day;
The book will close upon us, it may be,
Just as we lift ourselves to soar away
Upon the summer-airs. But, unlike thee,
The closing book may stop our vital breath,
Yet leave no lustre on our page of death.
VOCABULARY
Pent - shut in; confined
Monument - a statue or other structure placed over
a grave in memory of the dead
Gleam - shine brightly, especially with reflected
light
Wert - were
Relics - remains
Peril - serious and immediate danger
Vital - absolutely necessary; essential
Hast - have
Soar - fly or rise high in the air
Lustre - a gentle sheen or soft glow

STORY/SUMMARY
Some person that never meant to do you
harm, has crushed you with their hands here
between these pages as they closed the
book; but you have left your own fair
monument - your wings gleam out and tell me
what you were: oh! I wish that the memories,
which survive us here on this earth after we
die, were half as lovely as these wings of
yours! Pure remains of a blameless life, that
shine now you are gone. Our doom is always
near: the threat of death is beside us day by
day; the book will close upon us one day too,
it may be, just as we lift ourselves to soar
away upon the summer-airs. But, unlike you,
the closing book may stop our vital breath,
yet leave no lustre on our page of death.
SPEAKER/VOICE
The speaker discovers a fly
that has been accidentally
crushed inside a book,
looking at the translucent
remains that its wings leave
on the pages considers him
to reflect on the fragility of
life, and his own mortality
and legacy. The poem
begins with an almost
remorseful tone, the
phrase "never meant to do
thee hurt," implies that the
fly’s death was an accident.
This tone is maintained with
the phrase "crush'd thee
here between these pages
pent," which refers to the
harmful act. The term ‘pent’
implies imprisonment - it
refers to the fact that the
pages are not blank, but
rather are filled with history.
LANGUAGE
Metaphor - The speaker describes the body of a fly that was crushed between
book pages as a "fair monument" to its life. In other words, its flawlessly
preserved "gleam[ing[" wings serve as a memorial to its life and as its own
tombstone - the fly’s body is almost like an art piece, or a memento mori which
serves as a reminder of our own death (see context for more info).
Apostrophe - The speaker addresses the fly as though it was present using the
second person pronoun ‘thee’, despite the fact that we know that it is dead.
The fly is unable to comprehend what is being said, and even if it could, it would
be unable to answer. "Some hand" has harmed "thee," he says to the fly. He
thinks the person who killed the fly in the book didn't mean to, but it still this
random event happened. Even though the fly died in a horrible and unimpressive
manner, its body served as a memorial to its own life - and, by extension, the
speaker immortalises the fly’s life through writing his poem.
Analogy - The speaker compares the legacy that each human on earth leaves
behind to the physical matter that the fly has left behind in the final two
sentences of the poem. We won't leave the "lustre" of our existence on "our page
of death," he declares. This is an analogy to the previous line's description of the
shine on the fly's wings, which symbolises the beauty of its life. The speaker
claims that it is a sign of the fly's existence that humans will never have.
Visual imagery - “Thy wings gleam out and tell me what thou wert:” - the
glistening wings on the pages of the book are shocking and beautiful to the
speaker, he sees them as ‘relics’ of the fly and a testament to its existence.
Simile - “The book will close upon us, it may be, / Just as we lift ourselves to
soar away /Upon the summer-airs” - the sublime ending to the poem concludes
that the world itself is like a book which surrounds our lives - one day that book
will close on us, our own consciousness of the world will go dark, and the only
thing that remains will be the physical, spiritual and psychological impact that we
have left on the world.
STRUCTURE / FORM
Sonnet: The fourteen-line poem has a rhyme
pattern of ABABCDDCEFEFGG, mixing together
elements of Petrarchan and Shakespearean
sonnets. The two rhyming couplets - “Where half
as lovely as these wings of thine! / Pure relics of a
blameless life, that shine” and “The closing book
may stop our vital breath, / Yet leave no lustre on
our page of death.” - are therefore emphasised.
Elegy: the poem is in the form of an elegiac
sonnet - it serves as a tribute to the memory of a
dead person, but in this case offering an
idiosyncratic inversion of the typical elegy, as the
subject of the poem is a fly - a seemingly
unimportant and irrelevant entity. Yet, the fly’s
death, although the speaker didn’t know the fly
personally and wouldn’t have formed an
attachment to it had it been alive,
Metre: This poem uses an iambic pentameter -
five feet of unstressed-stressed syllables per line.
This is a common metre used in sonnets, and it
imitates the rhythms of natural speech.
Exclamatory Sentences: “Oh! that the
memories, which survive us here, / Where half as
lovely as these wings of thine!” Only lines five
and six have exclamation points. They are
employed to emphasise the connection between
what passes away with the deceased and what is
left behind to continue living. In this instance,
memories are all that is left, although in a
metaphysical sense.
Caesurae: "Now thou art gone. Our doom is ever
near." - When a poet inserts a pause in the middle
of a line, this is known as caesura. Turner uses
this style to not only cause a dramatic effect, but
also build up tension through the use of short
sentences, to create the sense of an abrupt
realisation that the speaker’s own mortality is
close at hand, and he will follow the same fate as
the fly.
CONTEXT
Born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, in 1808, he led a quiet life as the vicar of a church
in the community of Grasby. He was Alfred Lord Tennyson's older brother, who
was a well-known poet (a sonnetteer, who specialised in writing sonnets) at the
time. In order to carry out the final intentions of a relative and so receive money
from his bequest, he changed his name to Turner. He passed away in 1879, after
writing over 300 sonnets during his career.

Memento mori - this latin

phrase means
‘Remember you must die’;
it is the term given to
works of art which
traditionally draw attention
to the themes of death
and mortality - either
paintings, poems or any
other art form which
incorporates symbolism
surrounding death.
Though memento mori
works seem a little
frightening or intimidating,
their ultimate purpose is to
make us fully appreciate
life and show gratitude for
existence by reminding us
that nothing is permanent.
Some memento mori,
such as this poem, also
intentionally encourage us
to focus on building a
legacy, that will leave a
remaining impact after our
death. Vanitas Still Life from 1603
by Jacques de Gheyn II
TASK 1
Read Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘Break, Break, Break’, an elegy written over
the traumatic and untimely death of his friend, Arthur Hallam, then
compare and contrast it with ‘On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book.

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!

O, well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

ATTITUDES
Death is inevitable: Turner’s poem primarily and almost expressly focuses on
the metaphor between the fly’s death and that of humans. He says, “The closing
book may stop our vital breath/Yet leave no lustre on our page of death,’
signifying that eventually,we will all die. Though this is a frightening prospect, it
can also encourage us to make more of our lives and appreciate them more too.

Death is untimely: Turner writes, “The peril is beside us day by day/The book
will close upon us, it may be/Just as we lift ourselves to soar away,” to allude to
the untimeliness of death as the peril (which in this case is death) is next to us
day by day – no one really knows when we’ll die, and so the frighting and chaotic
relationship that we have with death can be at times a terrifying notion. The idea
of the book closing also alludes to the concept of consciousness - as far as we
know, we are only conscious of existence in the time between when we’re born
and when we die.

THEMES
Life TASK
Pick tw
Death make a
o of th
ese the
mind m mes,
four se ap and
Compassion from th
parate
q u otations
add
e story
it. Mak that re
Legacy e shor
t notes of
late to
analys
is, exp
laining
Gratitude why ea
ch one how an
d
theme. relates
What, i to your
Chaos is the a n your o
uthor ’s pinion,
or stat final m
ement essage
Mortality theme a b o u t each
that yo
u chos
e?
Grief
Loss
 S
EXERCISE
.
io n o f th e sonnet form
it
h s o n n e ts and the trad w r it e th is poem as a
1. Researc s o n T u r n er choose to
nn y
Why did Te
fy
sonnet? o d o f th e p oem? Justi
o om
y o u r o p in ion, is the m your selected mood fr
2. What, in d r a w in g pointers to
rb y
your answe .
n y s o n T u r ner ’s poem
Ten

ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. “Turner is able to convey his message through heavy
reliance on metaphors.” To what extent do you agree with
this statement?
2. Discuss the theme of life and death as brought out in, “On
Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book,” by Charles
Tennyson Turner.

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