Category: Video Lectures

First of all the poem starts in a rather frustrating manner. There is an encounter with a large lifeless pig laying on top of a barrow. First contact with the pig causes the person to “Thump it without feeling remorse.” The thumping however did no good as “It was like a sack of wheat.” After some physical abuse the pig turns out to be not like a pig at all. The pig felt too dead to be mad at as it was like “A poundage of lard and pork.” The blame for where the pig lay was formally upon the pig but it “Did not seem able to accuse.” Through all the frustrating events, and attempts to accuse the pig, sympathy for the pig starts to appear. In reality everything dies, and therefore the pig was “Too dead to pity.”