The Frog and The Nightingale by Vikram Seth

About Poem

The Poem 'The Frog and the Nightingale' is one of the most celebrated poems in the history of Indian English poetry, composed by Vikram Seth, published in 1994 and published by Evergreen publications. It is a fable that narrates a story of a frog and nightingale. The nightingale becomes a victim of the frog's conspiracy and comes to an end to her life. Like most of the other fables, it also has a moral message which is a familiar story of our society. In this poem, the poet has tried to define the role of critics and charged them that in the name of criticism victimising to an artist is not viable. The poem has caricatured the characters like frog and nightingale, keeping in mind such people in society. The poem makes the people beware not to come easily to somebody's favour or first don't believe somebody blindly that may take you to nowhere but for cheating.

Paraphrasing

The poem begins with a storytelling manner, introducing us to a frog which makes noise all day-night long every day in the name of the singing songs without any purpose and any engagement to the neighbours. The frog under a sumac tree from evening to morning goes on with the unrhythmic pattern. The way frog sings, produces blaring sound that turned everyone mad to him. In the second stanza, the poet says that despite everyone's dissatisfaction or physically assault could not prevent him. Instead of look into in its singing stuff, the frog goes on as if it has a firm determination for unstoppable pace. On the meantime, a Nightingale perched on the very Sumac tree and overshadowed the frog with her melodious tone. Now the frog remained silent as it could not find a way out to diminish the publicity of the nightingale. Everyone begins looking forward to the nightingale for her melody. They have become great admirers to the nightingale and obsessed for her unmatchable sound. In the third stanza, everyone goes on applauding, appreciating and clapping as she ends her performance, she has become a celebrity in the Bingle Bog. This unprecedented record of appreciation has inspired the nightingale to sing more till morning without taking rest. Now, the fourth stanza of the poem, the story took a turn, and perhaps this turn will decide the destiny of both. When the nightingale starts with the beginning rituals, the frog interrupts her and tries to establish its authority over the sumac tree. He also tries to impress her by his false appreciation of baritone and tries to show its influence by pointing out about his rule over the Bingle Bog for a long time. The nightingale comes under its trap and accepts the frog as her great critic and teacher. Now the frog started manipulating his cunning mind to squeeze the last drop of profit out of her singing passion. He engraved the opportunity to earn by exploiting her in the name of false training. The nightingale, blind of her quality works for the wicked frog and compares him to Mozart, thinking, it will yield improvement to him.

One day, it was raining and the nightingale despite her inability to sing forced to do so. Though the nightingale was not able to sing, the frog compelled her to sing by persuading for vocal training, the consequences followed by lowering her voice, quivering and shivering. Keeping the agony of her restlessness and sleeplessness and looking at the Bingle Bog full of spectators, she cleared her throat and served the purpose of frog and the audiences without thinking a moment for herself. Day by day, the intensity of her sound fails to catch the pace, and the frog started to scold her. Now, the obsessed frog for the income out of her singing left him almost mad. He reinforced by persuading to perform with her best 'something sharper snappier'. Many performances beyond her capacity have exhausted her entirely to the last attempt. The inevitable hour is waiting for her, scolding her bitterly, she tried her life to sing but failed to produce something due to bursting of a vein and thus ended her life. Through the last stanza, the frog speaks the truth to himself that he tried his best to make her understand, but it was her fault. She could not recognise her voice and believe in me blindly that lead to her this tragedy.

Conclusion

Thus the story shaped in poetry form has a great artistic value. The smoothness and sliding tone, one to other lines, presents the unique poetic approach that we find rare or perhaps no one from the galaxy of contemporary Indian English Literature. Though the poem is a little bit longer due to fable, the poet has left no space to deviate from it. From the beginning to the last line of the poem has maintained the uniformity of the reader's engagement.