The Truisms by Louis MacNeice
"The Truisms" by Louis MacNeice is a poignant poem that explores universal themes of life, faith, and the cyclical nature of human experience. Structured in three stanzas of five lines each, the poem begins with a young man receiving a "box of truisms" from his deceased father, which he perceives as lifeless advice shaped like a coffin. This imagery sets the stage for the young man's journey as he leaves home, seeking meaning through various life experiences, including love and disappointment. His experiences lead to a crisis of faith, where he grapples with disbelief and a sense of loss.
As the young man navigates his struggles, he ultimately finds himself returning to a place reminiscent of his childhood. The conclusion of the poem reveals a transformation, as the truisms reemerge in a familiar manner, suggesting the enduring wisdom of his father's guidance. Additionally, a tree growing from his father's grave symbolizes the continued presence of his father and the idea that life and wisdom persist beyond physical absence. The "box" serves as a multifaceted metaphor, representing both an inheritance of ideas and the inevitable reality of mortality. Through this narrative, MacNeice invites readers to reflect on the complexities of growing up, the shifting significance of parental lessons, and the hope that can arise from confronting one’s past.
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The Truisms by Louis MacNeice
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1960 (collected in British Poetry Since 1945, 1970)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
This is a late poem that shows some of MacNeice’s efforts to turn toward the more universal topics of religion and death. It is a three-stanza poem with five lines in each stanza. The lines are all approximately four-beat lines and are rhymed loosely.
The poem is a parable, telling the story of the departure and return of an unnamed youth. It opens with the young man receiving, as a gift from his father, a “box of truisms,” that is, “words to live by,” the kind of advice fathers have always given their sons. The box is shaped like a coffin, so the young man considers the words dead and of no use to him. He leaves the box on the mantelpiece. The young man suspects that the truisms are children’s toys that he has outgrown. What is more, his father has died and is also in a box, “skulking.”
In stanza 2 the young man leaves home, leaving the gift box behind. He travels into the world of experience where he “met love, met war,/ Sordor, disappointment, defeat, betrayal.” All of this leads to “disbeliefs.” Apparently the man loses his faith in his youthful ideals. It is through “disbeliefs” that he “arrived at a house” that “he could not remember seeing before.” The strange negative in that line indicates that the negative experiences have led him back to his childhood.
Stanza 3 reveals what he finds there. When he walks inside, he discovers that through his disbelief he has arrived “where he had come from,” his childhood world. Curiously enough, something there tells him how to behave. He has perhaps relearned something of his youthful instructions. Two events confirm this fact: The truisms come out of the box and perch familiarly on his shoulder, and a tall tree has sprouted from his father’s grave, revealing that his father is still a source of life.
The box is the central conceit of the poem and is a source of an amazing diversity in unity. The box is a gift box, an heirloom passing from father to son, and a coffin. It holds dead ideas and is identical to the father who is in a box in the ground. Like Pandora’s box, all the son’s troubles “come out,” leaving only hope. It is the disbeliefs of line 9 that cause the wandering son to return to where the box, with its immense treasures, lies.
Bibliography
Brown, Terence. Louis MacNeice: Skeptical Vision. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1975.
Brown, Terence, and Alec Reid, eds. Time Was Away: The World of Louis MacNeice. Dublin: Dolmen Press, 1974.
Devine, Kathleen, and Alan J. Peacock, eds. Louis MacNeice and His Influence. Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, England: C. Smythe, 1998.
Kiberd, Declan. Irish Classics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.
McDonald, Peter. “Louis MacNeice: Irony and Responsibility.” In The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary Irish Poetry, edited by Matthew Campbell. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
McDonald, Peter. Louis MacNeice: The Poet in His Contexts. Oxford English Monographs. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1991.
McKinnon, William T. Apollo’s Blended Dream: A Study of the Poetry of Louis MacNeice. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971.
Marsack, Robyn. The Cave of Making: The Poetry of Louis MacNeice. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Moore, Donald B. The Poetry of Louis MacNeice. Leicester, England: Leicester University Press, 1972.
Smith, Stan. Irish Poetry and the Construction of Modern Identity: Ireland Between Fantasy and History. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2005.