Casabianca (poem)

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Casabianca is an early 19th century poem written by British poet Felicia Hemans . The first line of the poem is better known than the poem title:

The boy stood on the burning deck

The poem describes the death of the French captain Louis de Casabianca and his 12-year-old son in the sea ​​battle at Abukir , in which the British fleet, under the command of Horatio Nelson, inflicted a devastating defeat on the French. While Louis de Casabianca was succumbing to his gunshot wounds, Heman's Ballad recounts that his son remained at his post to do his service true to his father's instructions. He had instructions not to leave this until his father told him otherwise.

The poem has long been part of the regular school curriculum in both the United States and Great Britain for a period extending roughly from 1850 to 1950. It starts with the stanzas

The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.
The flames rolled on — he would not go
Without his father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

In her ballad, Hemans has the boy, who has historically only been certain that he actually served on the French flagship L'Orient and was killed in the sea battle, call out heartbreakingly for his father several times: “ Say, Father, say / If yet my task is done; "; " Speak, father!" once again he cried / 'If I may yet be gone! " and" shouted but once more aloud /' My father! must I stay? “However, the father dying below deck did not hear him calling. Hemans ends the poem with the stanza describing the explosion of L'Orient:

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part—
But the noblest thing which perished there
What that young faithful heart.

An American school book from 1866 is devoted to this poem in detail, encourages young readers to emphasize each consonant clearly when reading aloud and asks them to think about the following questions after reading: What is this poem about? Who was Casabianca? Which side was he on in the battle? What happened to his father? What was on fire? .....

The seriousness with which the poem - which is now perceived by some as sentimental - was treated in school reading books tempted generations of schoolchildren to disrespectful parodies.

The boy stood on the burning deck,
The flames' round him did roar;
He found a bar of Ivory Soap
And washed himself ashore.

is one of the parodies narrated by Martin Gardner.

More serious than these parodies is a variant of this ballad written by Elizabeth Bishop . She reworked Heman's original poem into an allegory about love.

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