English: Poetry Commentary Haven’t I Danced the Big Dance? By Jack Mapanje :: English Literature

English Poetry Commentary Havent I Danced the Big Dance? By Jack MapanjeThe poem Havent I trip the light fantasticd the big dance? by Jack Mapanje concernsthe traditional rain dance of a proud tribesman. The modernrepresentation of his dance that he sees now provokes this nostalgicand emotional response.The verbaliser, a formal tribal rain dancer, is thinking back to the timewhen he used to dance this traditional dance, and looking at the newgeneration, dancing only for install, with sadness. The poem is dividedinto three stanzas, the two origin ones being dedicated to the past,when he was a dancer, and the last one to the present. The firststanza talks about the track he used to dance this traditional raindance, in a circle around the drums, with amulets, anklets and snakes.The second stanza is pressure on the energy he put into this dance,on how good he was. The third stanza brings us to the present time,now that his daughters are doing the dance, more as an lot fortourists than as a real tradition, and the speaker is not able to showthem the real meaning of the dance.This rain dance is part of the speakers traditions, and he seems tobe very attached to it. He remembers the way they danced it in thearena to the sound of the big drums. They used to wear special clothesand use item accessories, Skins wriggled with amuletsRattled with ankletsto make the dance seem real and magical, at the same time. It had areal value for the speaker. However, this dance, in which he had putso much energy into when he was younger, How I quaked the earthHow my skin trembledHow my neck peakedhad not kept the same value. He talks about the way the newgeneration, his daughters generation, dances the dance now, andemphasised the lack of authenticity it has. He says they just wearbabble-idea-men-masks, to make it look like a traditional rain danceto tourists, while it is not really. He compares the mystic drums heused to dance to, with the slack drums his daughters dance to n ow.Finally, he lets us understand he would like to show the newgeneration how the big dance is supposed to be danced, what itsoriginal value. However, this helplessness is not the only emotion felt in this poem.At the beginning, the speaker reminisces on the old days, his glorydays, both with happiness and excitement and with sadness and regret.As he describes the different characteristics of the dance and the way