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BA English Literature
[3rd Year, 5th Semester]
American Literature – II
Unit 1: Poetry
1.2.
“Chicago”
by Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg was an American poet born in Galesburg,
Illinois to Swedish immigrant parents in 1878. His poetry has a prevalent view
of middle-class life and society, for which could be considered as the bard
(unfortunately, there is no such thing) of working-class people. The collection
of Chicago Poems was published in 1916 after he moved to Chicago in 1912. He
worked as a journalist reporting to newspapers like the Chicago Day Book and
the Chicago Daily News as well as the International Socialist Review. He had
served as a secretary to Emil Seidel, Milwaukee’s Socialist mayor from 1910 to
1912. Having received three Pulitzer Prize – Two for poetry, and One for his
publication of Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (1939), he still remains one of
the greatest poets. He died in 1967.
Sandburg reported on topics that were relevant to the working
class of Chicago, including factory conditions, labor rights, race relations,
and social justice.
About Poem:
Carl Sandburg's poem
''Chicago'' is one of the author's best-known works, and a widely-known example
of American Modernist literature. The poem was written in 1914, and first
published in the March 1914 edition of the magazine Poetry, along with a group of
other poems by Sandburg known as the ''Chicago Poems.'' Included in countless
anthologies, this poem made famous the description of Chicago as "City of
the Big Shoulders," celebrating its role at the time as the industrial
capital of the United States. In 1914 Harriet Monroe of Poetry magazine
published six of his radical, muscular poems in the March issue of her
forward-looking journal and awarded him the first Levinson Prize for his poem
Chicago.
In 1916, Sandburg
republished ''Chicago'' in a book of poems titled Chicago Poems.
Setting of Chicago-
The poem is set in the
streets of early 20th century Chicago and describes extensively the lifestyle
of the people who live here. They range from menial labourers to powerful men
to petty criminals in the windy and pompous city of Chicago. The poet
personifies the city in a lot of ways, and by the end of it, it seems less like
a city and more like a merry man, toiling around the place. The city is
described physically as an infrastructural place as well as an actual person in
that era.
Poem:
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the
Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your
painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have
seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women
and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my
city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be
alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a
tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage
pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his
ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked,
sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
Summary:
The first five lines of the poem is an address to the city.
He calls it with names which describe various jobs and the industry it is
popular for Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with railroads,
Nation’s freight handler. Further, the poem also personifies the city to a
young man who is nonchalant, husky, brawling with big shoulders. The stanza gives the overall appeal of the
city to be a burly and somewhat hard nature man.
Lines 6 to 9 describe what people say about Chicago, and he
sounds to be in agreement with them. ‘They’ refers to people who criticized
Chicago for its negative sides. Using ‘You’, ‘I’, and ‘they’ make this sound
like a dramatic monologue. The people who the poet address as ‘they’ call the
city ‘wicked’ for the painted women (prostitutes) lure the innocent boys to go
with them, and the poet agrees, for he has seen it himself. Then they call it
crooked, for in the city the roughs are allowed to go freely with guns and to
kill people, and the poet agrees too. They also call the city as brutal, for it
has made women and children starve for food, and the poet replies in agreement,
for he has seen it in the face of women and children.
The lines 19-22 further explain Chicago as a man in action.
In spite of all the handworks, smoke, and dust, it has learned to laugh. It
doesn’t think much about the burden but laughs like a young man who laughs
without giving much importance to the burden the destiny has thrust upon him.
The city laughs like an ignorant fighter who has never lost a battle, boosting
his power. The phrases ‘under his wrist is the pulse’ and ‘under his ribs, the
heart of the people’ give a more human approach to the city.
Altogether the line portrays Chicago as an optimistic young
man who has learned to be happy in all situations. ‘Stormy, husky, brawling
laughter’ presents the city as a person with coarse nature. The phrases’ Hog
Butcher’, ‘Tool Maker’, ‘Stacker of Wheat’, ‘Player with Railroads’, and
‘Freight Handler’ have refrained, to sum up, that the embraces its identity –
true appearance and nature of a working-class man.
Conclusion:
The poem “Chicago” is a
‘tribute’ to the city of the same name that describes it as being made of the
people who work hard all day and literally “make it”. The poet calls Chicago a
brave and proud city despite all its shortcomings. He lays down the moral of
living in how one should not let the dark backdrop affect our attitude to our
present lives.
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