Song VII Analysis

Symbols, Imagery, Wordplay

Form and Meter

Tagore's "Song VII" can be defined as a lyric poem, written in free verse. Now, what's that mean to you? Read on:This poem is a lyric because, like many lyric poems, it is written from a first-pers...

Speaker

The speaker of this poem really, truly, badly wants to connect with God. The divine is very important to this guy. What's more, we can assume that this speaker was at some point a pretty vain poet....

Setting

"Song VII" evokes a number of settings. When the speaker describes his poem in terms of a woman who is taking off her fancy clothes, we can imagine some private space like a bedroom or dressing roo...

Sound Check

This is a poem about the awesomeness of simple poetry, so is it any wonder that the language and the diction of the poem are pretty simple? "Song VII" doesn't sound like "Poetry" with a capital "P"...

What's Up With the Title?

"Song VII" isn't the most exciting title around, but it's important for a number of reasons. First, the word "song" is in the title. This clues us into the fact that this poem is somewhere between...

Calling Card

Notice how Tagore uses a lot of "thee" and "thy" in "Song VII"? Well, that's a signature of his poetry. Tagore, who translated a lot of his own poetry from Bengali to English, often uses this forma...

Tough-o-Meter

While the language of this poem may be pretty simple, its use of poetic devices like metaphor and personification can be somewhat complicated. As long as you remember the simple equation "poetry =...

Trivia

Rabindranath Tagore met Albert Einstein in Berlin in 1930. How would you like to have been a fly on the wall for that meeting? (Source.) Did you know that W.B. Yeats, the famous Irish poet, was a b...

Steaminess Rating

Even though Tagore's "Song VII" is depicted as a woman who is stripping, the poem isn't racy at all. Sure, the metaphor of a woman taking off her "adornments" and "dress" and "decoration" may raise...