Poetry · Chapter
Down Among the Dead Men explained
The narrator, buried in a grave, overhears the poet Bashford attempting to exhume his remains.
What happens
The narrator, buried in a grave, overhears the poet Bashford attempting to exhume his remains. Bashford laments his lost fame and the oblivion that has swallowed his reputation, while the narrator rebukes him. The poem ends with Bashford revealing he is not trying to remove the remains but to join them in the grave.
Themes in this chapter
Mortality and Regret
The poem explores the narrator's death and the poet Bashford's regret over his lost fame and the oblivion of his legacy.
Art and Criticism
Bashford's lament about his literary fame and the public's forgetfulness reflects on the fleeting nature of artistic recognition.
Characters to notice
Key passages
“Good Heaven! with what a hunger wild Oblivion swallows fame!”
Heaven, how fiercely oblivion consumes fame!
Bashford expresses his despair over how quickly his reputation has been forgotten.
“I come not here to hale you out— I'm trying to get in.”
I am not here to pull you out—I am trying to get in.
Bashford reveals his true intention is to join the narrator in death, not to disturb him.