"The Full Moon": a Literary Analysis

The moon, something we see in the sky every day and every night if the moon could talk it would tell tales older than humanity itself. Since the dawn of man, the moon has always been a mystery to all. The beauty captivates us with her light that shines brightly through the night sky, and her different phases of beauty. Robert Hayden’s Full Moon is an interesting piece of literature, not just the poem itself, but the stanza, rhyme scheme, and its mode. Hayden’s rhyme scheme is interesting because there isn’t one. The poem is a free verse meaning the poem has non-metrical and non-rhyming stanzas that tightly follows a natural rhythm often found in speaking. In most free verses there are lines that do naturally rhyme but poets don’t adhere to a metrical plan in their poem, much like in these 3 lines from Hayden’s poem. “The emphatic moon ascends--the brilliant challenger of rocket experts,the white hope of communications men. ” (4-6)The stanzas are composed of three lines, with different lengths and no meter. Structuring is a key part of writing poetry, without structure in a poem it’s just a small passage.

Full Moon is an interesting poem as it has no structure. Hayden’s grammatical arrangement of his stanzas abides by the standards for English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling while writing. His use of capitalization is in a way different than what you would normally read. Hayden’s use of capitalization is used in both an obligatory and unpredicting way. He capitalizes the first word that of the sentences and nouns, which is mandatory to the Standards of English. When writing the rule of thumb is to never start a sentence off with conjunctions like ‘And’ and ‘But’ however, throughout history, many authors and play-rights have broken this rule. Mostly due to it feeling natural, almost like in a conversation. “And burned in the garden of Gethsemane” (13)“And spread its radiance on the exile's path” (16)Hayden also capitalizes names of fictional and nonfiction characters like Mother Goose and The Glorious One, Jesus. He also calls Jesus His holiness but, only capitalizes his to imply possession. “And spread its radiance on the exile's pathof Him who was The Glorious One,its light made holy by His holiness. ” (16-18)The organization of the poem seems to be planned out as each stanza has 3 lines that consist of fifteen to twenty words. Hayden’s seven stanzas and twenty-one lines are short, compact, and has enough content to fit on a page without taking up too much space. The form of the poem is a narrative. Hayden’s narrative is that as time moved on and humanity evolved, we have become less curious about the moon unlike those who came before us. Now that we have evolved into waring countries he states,“Already a mooted goal and tomorrow perhapsan arms base, a livid sector,the full moon dominates the dark. ”(19-21)And maybe someday, the moon will be a militarized base of operations space will be the next frontier of combat, turning it into an “arms base”.

The main idea of Full Moon is that it constantly changes overtime for humanity, everyone that has seen the moon has thought about it after seeing it. “No longer the throne of a goddess to whom we prey,” (1) Many people on Earth would often dream about the moon after gazing, they saw the moon as a goddess in their dreams. Farmers believed that the moonlight told them when to harvest and plant crops. This line sets the attitude of the poem, making it a solemn and serene poem. Hayden narrates the moon’s existence, as he re-accounts significant moments throughout history. From the crucifixion of Christ himself to the NASA moon landing in the 1960s, the main idea that Hayden uses for this poem is that the moon is as old as time itself. The moon was once viewed as a goddess watching over the night sky captivating the minds of many men, giving hope to the hopeless, and a destination for humanity to further explore. “The emphatic moon ascends--the brilliant challenger of rocket experts,the white hope of communications men. And spread its radiance on the exile's pathof Him who was The Glorious One,its light made holy by His holiness. ” (1,4-6,16-18)

There are allusions to other poetic works, historical figures and religious figures in his poem. In the second and third lines he alludes to the Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes about the moon, much like “I See the Moon”, “Man on the Moon”, and “The Cow Jumped Over the Moon”. Other allusions include historical figures like the NASA Apollo team for the first moon landing, not only the NASA Apollo team but us. Everyday we are involved into history, whether it makes a global impact or a local impact. Life is something that is recorded so that in the future our offspring can learn of the one’s who came before them. We leave behind little glimpses of today, so that we can teach the future. “Some I love who are deadwere watchers of the moon and knew its lore;planted seeds, trimmed their hair,Pierced their ears for gold hoop earringsas it waxed or waned. It shines tonight upon their graves. ” (7-12) The other historical and religious figure he alludes to is Yeshua aka Jesus. The tone of the poem is informal, this style of poem has neutral diction and simple vocabulary. “Full Moon” is a informal poem because of Hayden’s use of language, and his free verse flow. Its unlike other poems in the formal category. Hayden doesn’t follow the rules regarding rhyme stanzas used in formal poems.

The theme of the poem is that the moon has been in the background of human history and how much the meaning of it has changed for human kind over time. The moon was often seen as a myth, which is why in line 1 Hayden wrote, “No longer throne of a goddess to whom we pray. ” (1) and over time long after we’re gone the moon will always be there in the night sky. I believe that the overall meaning of the poem is, the presence of something that significant will be in the sky from now until the end of time. I had many interpretations for this poem but this analysis was the one I sought to be the best.