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.
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.
For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door, And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more
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.
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of 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.
An arc lamp or arc light is a lamp that produces light by an electric arc.
William Ernest Henley was a British poet, writer, critic and editor in late Victorian England. 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 also the 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 street light, light pole, lamppost, street lamp, 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 production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, such as hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, coal gas or natural gas.
"This Be The Verse" is a lyric poem in three verses of long measure with an alternating rhyme scheme, by the English poet Philip Larkin (1922–1985). It was written around April 1971, first published in the August 1971 issue of New Humanist, and appeared in the 1974 collection High Windows.
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 history of lighthouses refers to the development of the use of towers, buildings, or other types of structure, as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
A safety lamp is any of several types of lamp that provides illumination in coal mines and is designed to operate in air that may contain coal dust or gases, both of which are potentially flammable or explosive. Until the development of effective electric lamps in the early 1900s, miners used flame lamps to provide illumination. Open flame lamps could ignite flammable gases which collected in mines, causing explosions; safety lamps were developed to enclose the flame and prevent it from igniting the surrounding atmosphere. Flame safety lamps have been replaced in mining with sealed explosion-proof electric lights.
A lamplighter is a person employed to light and maintain candle or, later, gas street lights. Very few exist today as most gas street lighting has long been replaced by electric lamps. Their services were no longer required in 1899, when electrical systems were installed in the US.
David Daiches was a Scottish literary historian and literary critic, scholar and writer. He wrote extensively on English literature, Scottish literature and Scottish culture.
Field Work (1979) is the fifth poetry collection by Seamus Heaney, who received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.
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.
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.
Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil is a literary work by W.E.B. Du Bois. Published in 1920, the text incorporates autobiographical information as well as essays, spirituals, and poems that were all written by Du Bois himself.
"The Little Red Cap" is a poem by Carol Ann Duffy published by Picador as a part of her 1999 collection of poetry titled The World's Wife. The book consists of poems that are based on old stories and tales in which she reshapes in terms of modern day culture. Duffy is known for her trait to take previous stories, tales, etc. and change them into her own "What you can do as a poet is take on a story and make it new" she once said to Barry Wood in an interview. Duffy's Little Red Cap is great model of her style of poetry in the collection. The World's Wife was created based on stories of heroes that were an inspiration to her. Duffy also believed that these tales and stories did not interpret the truth. Duffy's belief in feminist literary criticism is apparent as she believed that in order to find the truth, the female character was to be dominant. Most of Duffy's poetry has feminist interest. She found that the original Little Red Cap fairy tale was an example of feminism in both fairy tales and English literature. She then found a personal connection within the original story line to help form a dominant female character in her writing.
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 recognised works, together with another poem entitled "Middle Passage".
Heriot Row is a highly prestigious street in central Edinburgh, virtually unchanged since its original construction in 1802. From its inception to the present day in remained a top address in the city and has housed the rich and famous of the city's elite for 200 years
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