On Finding a Small Fly Summary & Analysis
by Charles Tennyson Turner

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The Full Text of “On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book”

1Some hand, that never meant to do thee hurt,

2Has crushed thee here between these pages pent;

3But thou hast left thine own fair monument,

4Thy wings gleam out and tell me what thou wert:

5Oh! that the memories, which survive us here,

6Were half as lovely as these wings of thine!

7Pure relics of a blameless life, that shine

8Now thou art gone. Our doom is ever near:

9The peril is beside us day by day;

10The book will close upon us, it may be,

11Just as we lift ourselves to soar away

12Upon the summer-airs. But, unlike thee,

13The closing book may stop our vital breath,

14Yet leave no lustre on our page of death.

  • “On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book” Introduction

    • "On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book" is Victorian poet Charles Tennyson Turner's meditation on mortality and memory. Discovering a fly pressed in a book, the poem's speaker reflects that death is both inevitable and unpredictable, coming for human beings and flies alike. It's a shame, the speaker concludes, that so few people leave so beautiful a mark on the world: the fly's iridescent wings are a lovelier "monument" than most of the "memories" people leave behind them. This poem first appeared in Turner's 1873 collection Sonnets, Lyrics, and Translations.

  • “On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book” Summary

    • Someone who didn't mean you any harm, little bug, has squashed you in this book, leaving you trapped eternally between these pages. But you've made your own beautiful memorial: your shining wings speak of the bug you once were. Oh, if only the memories we human beings leave behind were even close to as beautiful as your pressed wings! Those wings gleam like a saint's sacred relics, showing that you were innocent of any wrongdoing, still shining now that you're dead. Everyone is always close to death; it's near us all the time. It's possible that the metaphorical book of life will slam shut on us at just the moment when we think we're about to fly off into the lovely summery air. But we're not like you, little bug: when death's book closes on us, it might well kill us without our leaving anything beautiful behind.

  • “On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book” Themes

    • Theme Death and Legacy

      Death and Legacy

      Death, this poem reflects, comes to everyone—and there’s no telling when or where. When the poem’s speaker opens a book and finds a fly pressed flat inside, they observe that all human lives are just as fragile as this poor little bug’s: no one can predict when the metaphorical book of life will slam shut on them and they’ll meet their own "doom." With that in mind, it would be wise for people to reflect on what kind of legacy they’ll leave behind them. Since death is inevitable and can come at any moment, this poem suggests, people should think hard about whether their lives will leave a beautiful mark on the world.

      The fly the speaker finds crushed in a book reminds them that death comes to every living thing—and that it often comes without warning. Addressing the fly, the speaker observes that it died completely by accident, squashed by a person “that never meant to do thee hurt.” Just so, the speaker reflects, does death arbitrarily come to human beings: though people might feel as if they’re more important than flies and more in control of what happens to them, that’s only an illusion. The “book” of life could “close upon us” at any moment, for no reason at all.

      In fact, not only are people just as subject to sudden death as bugs, they might have less to show for their lives than this fly does! The fly’s wings, the speaker approvingly notes, “gleam out” even after its death, a shining “monument” to its innocent, “blameless” little life. People, on the other hand, often die and “leave no lustre on our page of death”: in other words, they die without leaving a single good “memor[y]” or worthy deed behind them. (Perhaps, the poem implies, they even leave a nasty blot instead.)

      In this tale of a squashed fly, then, there’s an implied lesson: people should remember their own mortality, stay humble, and think about whether they’ll leave anything good and beautiful behind them when they go.

  • Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book”

    • Lines 1-4

      Some hand, that never meant to do thee hurt,
      Has crushed thee here between these pages pent;
      But thou hast left thine own fair monument,
      Thy wings gleam out and tell me what thou wert:

      The speaker begins this sonnet with a tender address to a fly squashed between the pages of a book. In bothering to speak to a dead bug so respectfully, this speaker comes across as very thoughtful and gentle. They observe that whatever "hand" crushed the fly here, it "never meant to do thee hurt": this fly's death was a mistake, not malice. (Of course, if the book belongs to the speaker, perhaps the speaker is exonerating their own "hand" here.)

      Take a look at the way the speaker structures these lines:

      Some hand, || that never meant to do thee hurt,
      Has crushed thee here between these pages pent;

      The highlighted caesura in the first line interrupts the action before it even begins: the speaker has to make it clear to everyone involved that what happened here was not malicious before even saying what actually, well, happened.

      Accidents, the poem thus hastens to assure the reader, sometimes happen; flies are squashed through no fault of their own, and by people who never meant to do any harm. This is just life's way. But there's some consolation in this fly's death, too. Take a look at the speaker's metaphor here:

      But thou hast left thine own fair monument,
      Thy wings
      gleam out and tell me what thou wert:

      The fly's pressed wings, in other words, are perfectly preserved on the page—and thus form the fly's own "fair monument," its beautiful tomb.

      Readers who, like the speaker, have found a fly pressed in a book, will be able to imagine this moment clearly. Flies' wings do often look fresh, lively, "gleam[ing]," and rather beautiful flat on a page, even when that fly has been gone for a long time. And they do speak of what the fly was: its fly-ness is plain to see in those preserved wings.

      But the speaker's comparison of these wings to a "monument" suggests that there might be more to see in these wings than just a pretty, poignant reminder of a little life. As this poem goes on, the speaker will treat this fly and its wings as a metaphor for people and what they leave behind them when they die.

      These opening lines follow an ABBA rhyme scheme (line 1 rhymes with line 4, while line 2 rhymes with line 3). This is the standard pattern for the first quatrain of a Petrarchan sonnet (though the poet won't stick to this form exactly throughout.) They're also written using iambic pentameter, a meter with five iambs (poetic units that follow an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern) in a row:

      Some hand, | that ne- | ver meant | to do | thee hurt,

      It's possible to read that opening foot as a spondee (two stressed beats in a row, "Some hand"), but, for the most part, the meter is steady.

    • Lines 5-8

      Oh! that the memories, which survive us here,
      Were half as lovely as these wings of thine!
      Pure relics of a blameless life, that shine
      Now thou art gone.

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    • Lines 8-12

      Our doom is ever near:
      The peril is beside us day by day;
      The book will close upon us, it may be,
      Just as we lift ourselves to soar away
      Upon the summer-airs.

    • Lines 12-14

      But, unlike thee,
      The closing book may stop our vital breath,
      Yet leave no lustre on our page of death.

  • “On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book” Symbols

    • Symbol The Fly

      The Fly

      Here as in many poems, the fly symbolizes mortality and the fragility of life.

      Crushed in a book, the poem's fly reminds the speaker that death is always a lot nearer than people like to think. Think of the idiom "to drop like flies": flies' short, easily-squished lives remind the speaker that people never know when or where death will strike them down. (And though this connotation isn't right there on the surface of this poem, flies also suggest death because they lay their eggs on corpses.)

      In some sense, though, this fly has it easy: it led a "blameless" life and leaves an imprint of its beautiful wings behind in death. People, the speaker reflects, should be so lucky: not every fleeting human life leaves such lovely memories behind it.

  • “On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

    • Metaphor

      The poem's metaphors give concrete form to the speaker's thoughts on death and memory.

      When a little fly gets smashed between the pages of a book, the speaker sees its body as a "fair" (or beautiful) "monument" to its life. In other words, its "gleam[ing]" wings, perfectly preserved, become its own tombstone, a reminder of its life.

      More than that, though, the speaker sees these wings as "pure relics of a blameless life," remnants that speak of the fly's innocence. The word "relics" here might even suggest there's something holy about the fly: it's a word also used to describe the venerated remains of saints.

      People, the speaker suggests, might well take a lesson from this fly, seeing themselves in the same position. Though we might often forget this, the "book will close upon us," the speaker says—a metaphor in which the literal book in which the fly got pressed becomes the metaphorical Book of Life itself, bringing an end to a life's story as it closes.

      And people aren't unlike flies in other ways, either. Just as the fly got smashed in an unsuspecting moment, the "book" might slam shut on a person just as they're about to "soar away," the speaker says. This metaphor might suggest the illusion of freedom that persuades people their lives are totally in their own control—that they can just fly off about their business without worrying about death. But it might also darkly hint at a vision of a person blithely believing that their soul will fly away to heaven, warning that less-than-"blameless" behavior might get in the way of that final flight.

    • Simile

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    • Repetition

    • Caesura

    • Enjambment

    • Alliteration

    • Assonance

    • Apostrophe

  • “On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book” Vocabulary

    Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

    • Thee, Thou, Thine, Thy
    • Pent
    • Hast
    • Fair
    • Monument
    • What thou wert
    • Relics
    • Peril
    • Vital
    • Lustre
    Thee, Thou, Thine, Thy
    • All of these words are old-fashioned ways of saying "you" (thee and thou) or "yours" (thine and thy).

  • Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book”

    • Form

      "On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book" is a sonnet—but a rather peculiar one. Turner, who often wrote in the sonnet form, has played around with his rhyme scheme here, creating a hybrid of an Italian sonnet and an English sonnet:

      • An Italian sonnet (like this one) always starts with an eight-line passage (or octave) rhymed ABBA ABBA and ends with a six-line sestet of varied C, D, and E rhymes.
      • An English sonnet (like this one), meanwhile, uses three stanzas of alternating rhymes (ABAB CDCD EFEF), and a closing couplet (GG).

      This sonnet starts by using the Italian ABBA shape in its first quatrain, then introduces an unusual second quatrain rhymed CDDC, then switches to traditional English sonnet rhymes for its final quatrain (EFEF) and closing couplet (GG).

      But besides that innovative rhyme pattern, this poem sticks to sonnet tradition: it's 14 lines long in total and written in iambic pentameter (that is, lines of five iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm: "The per- | il is | beside | us day | by day").

      Perhaps this poem's hybrid form reflects one of its themes. Death, the speaker might subtly be warning readers, comes to everyone alike, and pays no attention to human ideas of order: be you English or Italian, the book of life will smash you flat, too!

      Perhaps, though, this experimentation is just Turner's way of flexing his poetic muscles, pushing the boundaries of his favorite form.

    • Meter

      Like most sonnets, "On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book" is written in iambic pentameter. That means it's built from lines of five iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm. Here's how that sounds in line 4:

      Thy wings | gleam out | and tell | me what | thou wert:

      The poem sticks pretty steadily to this pulsing meter. But sometimes (as in a lot of sonnets), the speaker breaks from this rhythm for effect. For example, look what happens in line 5:

      Oh! that | the mem- | ories, which | survive | us here,

      The first foot here isn't an iamb, but its opposite: a trochee, a foot with a DUM-da rhythm. That means a strong, right-up-front stress gives extra punch to the speaker's wistful "Oh!"

    • Rhyme Scheme

      This sonnet uses a variation on a traditional rhyme scheme. Most English (or Shakespearean) sonnets start with three quatrains of alternating rhymes, then close with a final rhymed couplet. (See this famous sonnet for an example of how that sounds.) This one does something a little different:

      ABBA CDDC EFEF GG

      This reads like a hybrid of an English sonnet and an Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnet, whose first two quatrains always rhyme ABBA ABBA. Turner, an experienced sonneteer, seems to be experimenting here, playing with the possibilities of this old form.

  • “On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book” Speaker

    • The poem's speaker is a thoughtful, reflective person. Finding a tiny fly pressed between the pages of a book, this speaker is led to think about the way that every living creature will be smashed flat by death one time or another—and to observe that most of us can only dream of leaving so beautiful an impression as this little bug has. At once sensitive to natural beauty and gently resigned about human failings, this speaker might easily be imagined as Charles Tennyson Turner himself, who, in his work as a priest, saw plenty of death and plenty of folly.

  • “On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book” Setting

    • There's no clear setting in this poem; all readers know is that the speaker is sitting down with a book and finds a fly pressed between its pages. In a sense, though, the poem's setting could be imagined as the whole world: death, as the speaker points out, is a universal fate.

      While the poem is never explicit about its setting, its distinctly Victorian tone—lofty, moral, mournful—might lead readers to picture Charles Tennyson Turner's own place and time: 19th-century England. Plenty of 19th-century poetry reflected on mortality; more than a few poems did so through the image of a fly!

  • Literary and Historical Context of “On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book”

      Literary Context

      The English poet Charles Tennyson Turner (1808-1879) was a member of an illustrious literary family. Two of his many siblings were poets, too; most notably, his younger brother Alfred, Lord Tennyson was one of the best-known and best-beloved poets of the Victorian age. (Turner and Alfred Tennyson don't share a surname because Turner adopted an uncle's name when that uncle left him his estate.)

      These siblings weren't rivals, but close companions and enthusiasts for each other's work. Turner's first publication was a collaborative book with Alfred, the 1829 book Poems by Two Brothers. Turner also developed a poetic career of his own. While he primarily worked as a priest, he also became a distinguished sonneteer; this poem comes from his 1873 collection Sonnets, Lyrics, and Translations, one of several books (mostly of sonnets) that he published.

      While sonnets are a perpetually popular flavor of poem, Turner's allegiance to them marks him as a pretty traditional poet (even though he liked to play with the sonnet form—witness this very poem's peculiar rhyme scheme). While much Victorian-era poetry was rather nostalgic, it could also be innovative; Victorian writers like Gerard Manley Hopkins and Robert Browning, for instance, were experimenting with form in unprecedented ways. Turner, meanwhile, stuck to the classics.

      While Turner never became as widely known a poet as his younger brother, his gentle, reflective sonnets made an impression on writers as distinguished as the great Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (who provided notes for one edition of Turner's work).

      Historical Context

      Turner lived in a time of drama and turmoil. During his lifetime, proverbially, the "sun never set on the British Empire": Britain had colonial holdings across the world, and was the major world power. At the same time, the new wealth (and new difficulties) of the Industrial Revolution were changing the face of Britain, as what was once a primarily rural nation quickly became primarily urban. Staggering poverty and staggering luxury coexisted in the newly crowded cities.

      Perhaps in response to all this uproar, Victorian English social mores, especially among the upper classes, were marked by a strong sense of propriety and conformity. The Victorians considered themselves models for the world, and their strict social, moral, and sexual codes meant that people today sometimes use the word "Victorian" to mean "prudish." This poem's gently sorrowful reflections on death and memory are a pretty nonconfrontational example of Victorian morality in art! (Of course, what people say and what they do is quite different: it would be a big mistake to imagine that Victorians were all buttoned-up prudes. Victorian England was also full of revolutionary ferment and sexual liberation.)

      This poem's interest in death might also reflect a very Victorian preoccupation with mourning, which became almost a national hobby after Queen Victoria's beloved husband Albert died. Victoria mourned lavishly and publicly until the day she died, and her citizens followed suit. Victorian mourning was a ritualized affair, with strict rules about clothing and conduct. This poem's reflections on what kind of "monument" we leave behind us when we die fit right into a culture obsessed with grief.

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