This poem may be autobiographical. Stevenson was sickly growing up (probably tuberculosis), thus "when I am stronger" may refer to his hope of recovery. Further, his illness isolated him, so the loneliness expressed in the poem would fit well with his own childhood.
For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door, And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
Stevenson's poem also makes reference to the divide that exists between children and adults. This is seen when the speaker says that his father is a banker and rejects following in his footsteps into a similar career. Instead the child wishes to go gallivanting around the streets as the lamplighter does. The speaker in the poem makes his desire for adventure clear and seeks an escape from the normality of his life.
The lamplighter is reimagined by Stevenson into a wondrous and almost magical figure as seen through the speaker's description. While the job of lighting lamps would be seen as banal by people at the time, it is instead seen as extraordinary by the speaker. The child sees the presence of lights at nighttime to be special and wishes to follow the Lamplighter into the same profession.
Childhood is also represented as a time where choice does not really exist. The speaker believes that he is not able to choose what he wants to do because of his age. The poem explores choice and goes on to state that a person gains the ability to choose as they grow older and stronger which furthers the theme of maturation.
There may also be some nostalgia reflected in the poem. In 1881, Stevenson published the essay, "A Plea For Gas Lamps," in "Virginibus Puerisque, and Other Papers." In this essay, he sentimentally upholds gas lamps against electric lights, describing electric light as "that ugly blinding glare" and "a lamp for a nightmare." In the same essay, he describes the lamplighter as one punching holes in the night and as one worthy of being immortalized in a Greek myth, but one whose task has been overtaken by automatic electric ignition of the gas lights. Because Penny Whistles was published four years later, The Lamplighter may represent a similar theme.
An electric light, lamp, or light bulb is an electrical component that produces light. It is the most common form of artificial lighting. Lamps usually have a base made of ceramic, metal, glass, or plastic which secures the lamp in the socket of a light fixture, which is often called a "lamp" as well. The electrical connection to the socket may be made with a screw-thread base, two metal pins, two metal caps or a bayonet mount.
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child's Garden of Verses.
William Ernest Henley was an English poet, writer, critic and editor. Though he wrote several books of poetry, Henley is remembered most often for his 1875 poem "Invictus". A fixture in London literary circles, the one-legged Henley was an inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's character Long John Silver, while his young daughter Margaret Henley inspired J. M. Barrie's choice of the name Wendy for the heroine of his play Peter Pan (1904).
A lantern is a source of lighting, often portable. It typically features a protective enclosure for the light source – historically usually a candle, a wick in oil, or a thermoluminescent mesh, and often a battery-powered light in modern times – to make it easier to carry and hang up, and make it more reliable outdoors or in drafty interiors. Lanterns may also be used for signaling, as torches, or as general light-sources outdoors.
A street light, light pole, lamp pole, lamppost, streetlamp, light standard, or lamp standard is a raised source of light on the edge of a road or path. Similar lights may be found on a railway platform. When urban electric power distribution became ubiquitous in developed countries in the 20th century, lights for urban streets followed, or sometimes led.
Gas lighting is the production of artificial light from combustion of a fuel gas such as methane, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, coal gas or natural gas. The light is produced either directly by the flame, generally by using special mixes of illuminating gas to increase brightness, or indirectly with other components such as the gas mantle or the limelight, with the gas primarily functioning to heat the mantle or the lime to incandescence.
"This Be The Verse" is a lyric poem in three stanzas with an alternating rhyme scheme, by the English poet Philip Larkin (1922–1985). It was written around April 1971, was first published in the August 1971 issue of New Humanist, and appeared in the 1974 collection High Windows.
The history of street lighting in the United States is closely linked to the urbanization of America. Artificial illumination has stimulated commercial activity at night, and has been tied to the country's economic development, including major innovations in transportation, particularly the growth in automobile use. In the two and a half centuries before LED lighting emerged as the new "gold standard", cities and towns across America relied on oil, coal gas, carbon arc, incandescent, and high-intensity gas discharge lamps for street lighting.
A Child's Garden of Verses is an 1885 volume of 64 poems for children by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It has been reprinted many times, often in illustrated versions, and is considered to be one of the most influential children's works of the 19th century. The poems, which have been widely imitated, are written from the point of view of a child. Stevenson dedicated the collection to his childhood nurse, Alison Cunningham.
"The Road Not Taken" is a narrative poem by Robert Frost, first published in the August 1915 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, and later published as the first poem in the 1916 poetry collection, Mountain Interval. Its central theme is the divergence of paths, both literally and figuratively, although its interpretation is noted for being complex and potentially divergent.
The History of Lighthouses refers to the development of the use of towers, buildings, or other types of structures as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
A lamplighter or gaslighter is a person employed to light and maintain street lights. These included candles, oil lamps, and gas lighting.
Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing Company was an electric lighting company in Rahway, New Jersey that operated from December 1884 through 1886.
David Daiches was a Scottish literary historian and literary critic, scholar and writer. He wrote extensively on English literature, Scottish literature and Scottish culture.
The law of the handicap of a head start, first-mover disadvantage, or dialectics of lead, is a theory that suggests that an initial head start in a given area may result in a handicap in the long term. The term was coined in 1937 by Jan Romein, a Dutch journalist and historian, in his essay "The Dialectics of Progress", part of the series "The unfinished past". The mirror image of the law – an initial arrears in a given area may stimulate a development leading to a long-term advantage – is known as the law of the stimulative arrears. This concept contrasts with the notion of a first-mover advantage in competitive market economics.
The Bartlett street lamp was an economical type of lighting first patented and manufactured by J. W. Bartlett at 569 Broadway in Manhattan in New York City, in 1872. Bartlett claimed his street lamps cost less than a quarter of the $25 The New York Times had reported a competitor claimed they cost. The Times responded that the New York City Parks Department said that they actually paid more than that for each lamp, including the post and frame, that they used in parks, streets, and elsewhere. The city of Troy, New York used the lamps beginning in 1872 to replace older models when they wore out.
Jim Ferris is a professor for the Disabilities Studies Program at the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio. He is also the author of several books and journals on poetry and disability.
A lamplighter was an employee of a town who lit street lights.
"Those Winter Sundays" is a poem written in 1962 by American Robert Hayden (1913–1980), while he was teaching as an English professor at Fisk University. The poem is one of Hayden's most recognized works, together with "Middle Passage".
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