New Year Resolution by Elizabeth Sewell

 New Year Resolution

By Elizabeth Sewell

• Critical analysis of the poem 
• Main idea
• How will Elizabeth Sewell welcome the new year?
• Literary qualities of the poem
• Moral of the poem

As the title of the poem makes it absolutely clear, it is related to the New Year and the stocktaking that human beings have at the expiry of the last year and the advent of a new year. We mean to say that at the arrival of a new year, all the human beings make a neutral assessment of their achievements and failures during the bygone year. Thus they chalk out for themselves a new and better line of action to be followed in the coming year. While so doing their intention is to avoid the follies which they had committed in the days of past.

In the poem under discussion, the poetess is also facing the same dilemma of making new and better resolution regarding her future in the light of her past experiences. She doesn't want to welcome the new year in a traditional manner. As the poem reveals, her life in the past has not been a pleasant phenomenon and this thing becomes clear to us when we have a look at her future revolution. She herself says that,in future, she will drain long draughts of quiet as a purgation and This statement is enough to show that, in the past year, she has behaved rather sentimentally and idiotically and, as a result, has faced the bitter consequences of her irrational behavior.

Her fervant desire to live in the "bony arms of reality" in future further shows that she is extremely crestfallen on account of following idiotic sentimentalism in the by gone days of her life. But one thing must be mentioned here that although she is sad at her past losses, she has the zeal to improve herself in the days yet to come. It further shows that she has down-to-earth approach to life. She can correct herself in the light of her past foibles. And This is the very lesson she wants us to learn and practice.

This poem is a literary criticism on those who spend their life without any aim. She wants us to erect aim and codes of life. The language of the poem is really very simple yet impressive. The medical term purgation is also used to purge the inner self from the germs of aimlessness and non seriousness. The poem has a realistic subject matter and the reality is personified as solace providing companion.

Critically speakin, this poem is a reassuring one and teaches man to improve his behavior in future instead of mopping over the losses and failures in the past.