Analysis Of On Meeting A Pedant By Nissim Ezekiel

Nissim Ezekiel’s poetry reveals him as a sensual and sensitive individual drawing our attention to the poet’s constant struggle to understand fully the workings of the sensual desires and to grope fully with the power of them. He is a sensualist frankly and minutely recording the wonders of the senses. In poem after poem Ezekiel sings the glory of the senses and unhesitatingly confesses his recognition of the pressures of the senses. In “On Meeting a Pedant” the poet wishes to ‘Send out songs’ and advises his heart to ‘rest or ride / Superbly with the senses.’ The poet wishes to be spared of words ‘as cold as print’ and says, ‘Give me touch of men and give me smell of / Fornication, pregnancy and spices.’ In another poem titled ‘Conclusion’ he says, ‘The true business of living is seeing, touching, kissing, / The epic of walking in the street and loving on the bed.’
For Ezekiel life with its manifold blessings is a gift to man. He almost religiously preaches the religion of unadulterated epicureanism and, if read exclusively, his poems of sensual nature give us an impression of unbridled hedonism. He candidly confesses his faith in the ‘comeliness of God’ and in the ‘shapeliness of man’. In the poem ‘Conclusion’ cited above the poet says,
‘That women, trees, tables, waves and birds,
Buildings, stones, steamrollers,
Cats and clocks
Are to be enjoyed.’
Faith in Joie de vivre or the simple primeval things of existence and ability to accept them without any friction or