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"Casabianca" is a poem by the English poet Felicia Dorothea Hemans, first published in The Monthly Magazine , Vol 2, August 1826. [1]
The poem starts:
It is written in ballad meter with the rhyme scheme ABAB. It is about the true story of a boy who was obedient enough to wait for his father's orders, not knowing that his father is no longer alive. It is perhaps not widely realised that the boy in the poem is French and not English; his nationality is not mentioned.
The poem commemorates an actual incident that occurred in 1798 during the Battle of the Nile between British and French fleets on 1 August aboard the French flagship L'Orient. Giocante, the young son (his age is variously given as ten, [2] twelve [3] and thirteen [4] [5] ) of the ship's commander Luc-Julien-Joseph Casabianca remained at his post and perished when at 22:00 the fire reached the magazine and the Orient was destroyed by a massive explosion which damaged nearby ships. [6]
In Hemans' and other tellings of the story, young Casabianca refuses to desert his post without orders from his father. (It is sometimes said, rather improbably, that he heroically set fire to the magazine to prevent the ship's capture by the British.) It is said that he was seen by British sailors on ships attacking from both sides but how any other details of the incident are known beyond the bare fact of the boy's death, is not clear. Hemans, not purporting to offer a history, but rather a poem inspired by the facts, writes:
Hemans has him repeatedly, and heart-rendingly, calling to his father for instructions: "'say, Father, say/If yet my task is done?'" "'Speak, Father!' once again he cried/'If I may yet be gone! And'" at which point his voice is drowned out by "booming shots" until he "shouted but once more aloud/'My Father! must I stay?'" Alas, there is, of course, no response.
She concludes by commending the performances of both ship and boy:
This poem was a staple of elementary school readers in the United Kingdom and the United States over a period of about a century spanning roughly the 1850s through the 1950s. It is today remembered mostly as a tag line and as a topic of parodies. [7] Perhaps to justify its embedding in English-speaking culture, modern editors [8] [9] often claim French poets also celebrated the event – notably André Chénier and Écouchard Lebrun – apparently without noticing that the former was executed four years before the Battle of the Nile, so could not have written about these events. These claims for literary pedigree appear spurious.
The poem is referenced in Jack and Jill by Louisa May Alcott. A mother and children are discussing the actions of her son Jack, whom Jill responded that he was like Casabianca, "...a fine example of entire obedience. He obeyed orders, and that is what we all must do, without always seeing why, or daring to use our own judgement." [10]
The story is referenced in Bram Stoker's Dracula . In chapter VII, in a newspaper account of a storm, the dead pilot of the ship Demeter is compared to "the young Casabianca". [11]
The first line of the poem serves as the title and the inspiration for the short story "The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck" by C. S. Forester. In this version the hero, Ed Jones, remains at his station aboard the fictitious USS Boon during the Battle of Midway. A fire started in the bilge beneath his station in the engine room, but Jones remained at his station slowly roasting while the battle rages. At the conclusion of the battle he is relieved by a damage control party. Burned, he nonetheless survives the war. [12]
In the book Swallowdale by Arthur Ransome, the Great Aunt is outmanoeuvered when she tasks Nancy and Peggy Blackett with learning the poem, without realising they already know it. [13]
Generations of schoolchildren created parodies based on the poem. One, recalled by Martin Gardner, editor of Best Remembered Poems, went:
Spike Milligan also parodied the opening of the poem: [14]
Eric Morecambe created another parody:
American modernist Elizabeth Bishop created a poem based on this poem called "Casabianca" too:
The Battle of the Nile was a major naval battle fought between Britain's Royal Navy and the French Republic Navy at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast off the Nile Delta of Egypt between 1–3 August 1798. The battle was the climax of a naval campaign that had raged across the Mediterranean during the previous three months, as a large French convoy sailed from Toulon to Alexandria carrying an expeditionary force under General Napoleon Bonaparte. The British fleet was led in the battle by Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson; they decisively defeated the French under Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers, destroying the best of the French navy, which was weakened for the rest of the Napoleonic Wars.
Brunhild, also known as Brunhilda or Brynhild, is a female character from Germanic heroic legend. She may have her origins in the Visigothic princess and queen Brunhilda of Austrasia.
The White Ship was a vessel transporting many nobles, including the heir to the English throne, that sank in the English Channel near the Normandy coast off Barfleur during a trip from France to England on 25 November 1120. Only one of approximately 300 people aboard, a butcher from Rouen, survived.
Conrad III, called the Younger or the Boy, but usually known by the diminutive Conradin, was the last direct heir of the House of Hohenstaufen. He was Duke of Swabia (1254–1268) and nominal King of Jerusalem (1254–1268) and Sicily (1254–1258). After his attempt to reclaim the Kingdom of Sicily for the Hohenstaufen dynasty failed, he was captured and beheaded.
Felicia Dorothea Hemans was an English poet. Regarded as the leading female poet of her day, Hemans was immensely popular during her lifetime in both England and the United States, and was second only to Lord Byron in terms of sales.
Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist. He is best known for writing and illustrating the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. The entire series remains in print, and Swallows and Amazons is the basis for a tourist industry around Windermere and Coniston Water, the two lakes Ransome adapted as his fictional North Country lake.
The Swallows and Amazons series is a series of twelve children's adventure novels by English author Arthur Ransome. Set in the interwar period, the novels involve group adventures by children, mainly in the school holidays and mainly in England. They revolve around outdoor activities, especially sailing. Literary critic Peter Hunt believes it "changed British literature, affected a whole generation's view of holidays, helped to create the national image of the English Lake District and added Arthur Ransome's name to the select list of classic British children's authors." The series remains popular and inspires visits to the Lake District and Norfolk Broads, where many of the books are set.
Bernard Keith Waldrop was an American poet, translator, publisher, and academic. He won the National Book Award for Poetry for his 2009 collection Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy.
Luc-Julien-Joseph Casabianca was an officer of the French Navy in the 18th century. He was killed at the Battle of the Nile.
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"The Charge of the Light Brigade" is an 1854 narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson about the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. He wrote the original version on 2 December 1854, and it was published on 9 December 1854 in The Examiner. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom at the time. The poem was subsequently revised and expanded for inclusion in Maud and Other Poems (1855).
Orient was a powerful Océan-class 118-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, famous for her role as flagship of the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile in August 1798, and for her spectacular destruction that day when her magazine exploded. The event was commemorated by numerous poems and paintings. Before its destruction, the Orient was the largest war ship in the world.
Henry Singleton was an English painter and miniaturist.
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Gilbert Stuart Newton was a British artist.
Henry Corbould (1787–1844) was an English artist.
John Masey Wright (1777–1866) was an English watercolour-painter. He was the son of an organ-builder and was apprenticed to the same business, but, as it proved distasteful to him, he was allowed to follow his natural inclination for art. As a boy he was given the opportunity of watching Thomas Stothard when at work in his studio, but otherwise he was self-taught. About 1810 Wright became associated with Henry Aston Barker, for whose panorama in the Strand he did much excellent work, including the battles of Coruña, Vittoria, and Waterloo.
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