Basking Shark
Norman MacCaig
Context
Norman MacCaig divided his time mainly between Edinburgh,
where he lived and worked, and the north-west Highlands, where
he had relations and friends.
This poem depicts the startling encounter he had with a basking
shark during one of these visits, while out on a small boat in the
Minch (the sea area between the Hebrides and mainland Scotland)
near Lochinver.
Basking sharks are one of the largest species of the shark family, in fact
they are the second largest species of any fish, reaching sizes in excess of
ten metres and weighing several tonnes.
They are still found, though reduced in number, in the seas off that part of
Scotland. They are harmless filter feeders, having no true teeth, and as
such pose no real danger to humans. Still, a surprise close encounter with a
creature of that size would be unnerving! Particularly if close enough to
touch the oars of a small boat, as happened to MacCaig.
This encounter sparked in him a reflection on the comparative paths
of evolution such differing species took: basking sharks on the one
hand, relatively unchanged for millions of years, and humans on the
other, vastly changed since the days when marine life first crawled
ashore and adapted to a life on land.
This train of thought leads to a disturbing question: who is the
monster? Is it the shark, literally monstrous in size and aspect to the
human; or is it the poet himself, representative of the human race and
all the dark, monstrous deeds of which our race is capable?
The thought remains with the poet, unresolved, as the shark swims
off.
Form and Structure
• This poem is set out in five stanzas, each of three lines, and each line being
end-rhymed with the others in the stanza.
The meter of the poem is also fairly regular: the first two lines of each stanza
have five stressed syllables, while the final one has four. The effect of the final
shorter stressed line is to create a sense of fitting closure to the stanza.
• This tight regularity of form is quite unusual in MacCaig’s poetry. He is often
quite free in stanza length, line length, and meter, and rhyming may or may not
be present; he will vary his style according to the requirements of a particular
poem. In this poem the tightness of structure serves to capture the
uniqueness of the experience, and the regularity of rhythm and rhyme
matches the rhythmic quality of the rise and the fall of the sea itself, and
likewise the steady pulling of the oars.
• The subject of the poem is never mentioned in the body of the poem itself,
instead we infer from the title what the poet's small boat collided with that
day.
Themes
• Evolution
• The hedonism/monstrous nature of humanity
• Admiration of nature
• The central theme that emerges during this poem deals with our accepted ideas
about the process of evolution and our own place in it.
• The encounter with this enormous, almost primeval, beast at the opening of the
poem acts as a catalyst to consider the relationship between the shark and human
beings.
• Through the reflection of the speaker, we are reminded that we have much more in
common with the shark than we may initially believe, and by rewinding time back to
the origins of evolution itself he creates a direct link between it and us.
• In doing so, he forces us to think about what we understand when we think of the
term ‘monster’, suggesting that it is humanity and not creatures like the shark that
are capable of true monstrosity.
Stanza 1
Unusual sentence structure: two infinitive
clauses (‘To…To…’) creates tension and
suspense as the reader does not know
what is happening to the speaker
The word ‘rock’
suggests hardness
and immovability
of the object.
Tension built further –
what is this if not a rock?
To stub an oar on a rock where none should be,
To have it rise with a slounge out of the sea
Is a thing that happened once (too often) to me.
Neologism (new word) of ‘slounge’ seems to be
an amalgamation of ‘slouch’ and ‘lounge’ and
coneys slow, lazy, ponderous movement of
creature
Word choice and structure add to apprehensive tone
Humorous parenthetical
aside ‘(too often)’ implies
that this is not an encounter
he wishes to repeat
Slow, steady rhythm of these lines suits gradual surfacing of
huge shark
Stanza 2
The ‘once (too often)’ in opening stanza is both echoed and
refuted with ‘But not too often’ in this opening line, which
seems to contradict what he has just said. Implies that, while
he found it frightening, he also found it a worthwhile and
enriching experience.
The word ‘met’ suggests a
sense of reciprocity and
fraternity between
humans and animals (not
assuming human
superiority over animals)
Again concentrating on
reasons that he feels the
encounter to be
beneficial, and does so
for remainder of the
poem
But not too often - though enough. I count as gain
That once I met, on a sea tin-tacked with rain,
That roomsized monster with a matchbox brain.
Alliterative metaphor ‘sea tin-tacked with rain’
captures nature of raid – hard, sparse droplets
patterning smooth surface with neat round
imprints, literally like metal tacks on paper
Alliteration of ‘t’ replicates
metallic sound of rain hitting
the boat
“That roomsized monster with a matchbox brain.”
Contrast – ‘roomsized monster’ and ‘matchbox brain’
Contrasts size of shark’s body with tiny brain
The linking alliterative consonant ‘m’ serves to further emphasise
the comparison
Clever use of long and short vowels in this final line:
the long vowels in ‘roomsized monster’ appropriately extend the
expression to suit the body, as the short, clipped vowels of
‘matchbox brain’ suit the tiny brain
Stanza 3
Switch from observation to reflection.
Short opening sentence introduces idea
of poet being metaphorically displaced.
The shark takes the poet ‘centuries
back’ in time metaphorically. This
creature, a throwback to prehistoric
times, creates in the imagination of
the poet a glimpse of the early
evolutionary stage of the
emergence of land creatures from
our common ancestors, marine life.
The word ‘shook’ conveys how he
is both literally and
metaphorically shaken by this
experience.
The colloquial verb
‘shoggled’ creates
self-deprecatory
tone when
describing how he is
taken back
He displaced more than water. He shoggled me
Centuries back - this decadent townee
Shook on a wrong branch of his family tree.
Describes himself as ‘decadent townee’.
‘Decadent’ in this context suggests that,
in his (humanity’s) decision to remove
himself from the natural world to an
urban setting, he has lost a sense of
purpose in his life and become too
immersed in the pursuit of hedonistic
pleasures.
“Shook on a wrong branch of his family tree.”
MacCaig is emotionally shaken by this experience because he is
reminded that this shark too is part of our own family tree and is
inextricably linked to us in the same way as any other ancestor.
The expression ‘wrong branch’ is slightly ambiguous and could be
interpreted in two ways:
1. Because of our inherent sense of intellectual superiority over
this creature we are unwilling to recognise that we are in any
way related.
2. It is in fact humans who have gone ‘wrong’ in their evolutionary
path – it is humankind, not the shark who is the aberration, the
‘monster’.
Stanza 4
An analogy between water becoming
clearer and the situation becoming
clearer for the speaker about the ideas
he is reflecting on.
This image effectively
prepares us for the
conclusion of the poem
as the speaker is about
to reveal what is now
clear to him following
this encounter
Onomatopoeic ‘swish’ also alludes to
idea of displacement in previous stanza.
While initially dirt would muddy the
water and make it dark, opaque, and
impossible to see through, eventually
once settled it would be clearer
Swish up the dirt and, when it settles, a spring
Is all the clearer. I saw me, in one fling,
Emerging from the slime of everything.
The ‘dirt’ in this case is the murky
thought of how humans evolved
into what they now are
This idea of ‘dirt’ in our origins continue
in word choice of ‘slime’ which suggests
the primeval slime from which we were
all created, linking the evolution of
humanity again with the shark
In his mind’s eye MacCaig has a
surreal image of himself crawling
out of this slime and returning to
the initial, fundamental beginnings
of human existence. The word
‘emerging’ in the final line of this
stanza reinforces this new, almost
sense of epiphany and clarity
associated with coming out of the
dark into light, while the word
‘everything’ again reinforces out
similarity with every other species at
the start of this process.
Opens with the question poem has been leading up to.
Now clear that poet his reverse initial thought of shark
as brainless, inferior creature. This magnificent,
awesome creature is monstrous simply because of its
size, but in the metaphorical sense it is clear the speaker
now considers humanity to be the true monster.
Stanza 5
First line glides effortlessly
into second with
enjambment. This thought
has left speaker reflecting and
concerned.
So who's the monster? The thought made me grow pale
For twenty seconds while, sail after sail,
The tall fin slid away and then the tail.
There is a sequence of long
Sheer size of the creature is conveyed by number
of techniques: mention of ‘twenty seconds’ it
takes for shark to pass and repetition of ‘sail
after sail’, referring to comparison of fin and tail
above water.
Metaphor of ‘sail’ gives us the
impression of vast surface areas
to highlight size of shark and also
evokes shape of fin and tail.
vowels in ‘sail’, ‘tall’, ‘slid
away’, and finally ‘tail’ – all
of these effectively combine
to suggest the gradual exit
of this vast animal. This also
helps to show the speaker’s
change in perception of
animal as a bulky ‘rock’ to a
graceful, elegant creature.
The change in the speaker’s view of the shark is mirrored in the
change in the speaker - just as he now has a different view of
himself, so too his opinion about the shark has been altered.
The unanswered question at the end of this poem is typical of what
is often described as MacCaig's metaphysical approach.
His hair-raisingly close encounter with this monster of the deep has
raised profound philosophical questions about our ethics and our
place in the natural world. MacCaig avoids the temptation to
conclude this meditation with an easy or glib answer, instead
inviting his reader to draw their own conclusions.
An overview of the stanzas
• Stanza One – MacCaig describes the chance meeting with the shark and
makes it clear it has happened before.
• Stanza Two – the meetings have had an effect on him and he thinks back
to one particular meeting.
• Stanza Three – he begins to question his position in the evolutionary
process.
• Stanza Four – explains how indistinct humans were from other species at
the beginning of the evolutionary process.
• Stanza Five – his opinion of the shark changes and the poet reveals that he
is not so sure of his own superiority over the rest of nature.
Reflective nature of the poem
• In the interview ‘A Metaphorical Way of Seeing Things’,
MacCaig maintained that poetry is a ‘psychological Optrex, it
clears your eyes and you see things’.
• Like many of MacCaig’s poems, ‘Basking Shark’ moves from
description to reflection. This experience leads the poet to
reflect on his own and humanity’s relationship with the
natural world and to ponder ‘Who’s the monster?’.