CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF “ANXIETY” BY

A. K. RAMANUJAN
PRESENTED BY: SABA JAVAID
INSTRUCTER: MA’AM FASIHA BATOOL
M.A.ENGLISH 4TH SEMESTER (EVENING)
ROLL NO#15160

Post Colonial Literature

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE POEM
“ANXIETY”
BY A.K.RAMANUJAN
Key Facts about the poet:
 Attipate Krishnaswami Ramanujan.
 Born:March 16, 1929, Mysore, India.
 Died:July 13, 1993, Chicago, Illinois, United States.
 Notable works:The Striders; Second Sight.
 Education: Doctorate in English Literature
INTRODUCTION TO THE POET
 Poet and scholar of Indian literature who wrote in both English and Kannada.
 BA and MA degrees in English language and literature from the University of Mysore.
 At the age of thirty, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship at Indiana University
 In 1962, he joined the University of Chicago.
 He taught across several departments, as well as set up the University of Chicago’s South
Asian Studies program.
 Ramanujan also taught at Harvard University, University of Wisconsin, and University
of California-Berkeley.
 Ramanujan was fluent in many languages, including English, Kannada and Tamil.
ABOUT “ANXIETY”
BY A.K RAMANUJAN.
 Published in his First Volume of Poetry “The Striders”1966.
 Philosophical Poem
 Written in Free verse
 Figures of Speech used in this Poem(Simile and Metaphor).
 Complex to define Anxiety.
 Deals with the human mental scale of stress.
 Poem tries to explore the features of anxiety and its shape.
TEXT OF THE POEM
Stanza # 1

Not branchless as the fear tree,

It has naked roots and secret twigs
Not geometric as the parabolas
Of hope, it has loose ends
With a knot at the top
That’s me.
Stanza # 2
Not wakeful in its white snake
Glassy ways like the eloping gaiety of waters,
it drowses, viscous and fibered as pitch.
Flames have only lungs. Water is all eyes.
The earth has bone for muscle.
And the air is a flock of invisible pigeons.
But anxiety
Can find no metaphor to end it.
THEMES
 Modernity brings agitation
 Loss of peaceful state of mind
 Unexpressed desires causes uneasiness
LITERARY DEVICES
Simile:
“Not branchless as the fear tree”
“Not geometric as the parabolas/Of hope”
Metaphor:
“it has loose ends
With a knot at the top
That’s me”.
“Water is all eyes”
Imagery:
“White-snake”
Symbolism:
“knot”
“pigeons”