NPPF: Notes C.1-4 - C.42

[Terrance]

> > pg 73
> > "a bird knocking itself out": Kinbote assumes the bird has not died, although
> this is not stated explicitly in the poem.
> > "We can visualize John Shade in his early boyhood": Kinbote assumes that
> Shade is a boy when the event with the bird takes place, although -- again --
> this is not explicit.
> 
> Kinbote's surmises above are contradictory.  First he says "knocked out."  But
> then he envisions a young Shade experiencing his first "eschatalogical shock,"
> which to my mind would mean a first awareness of death.   It is interesting
> that Kinbote would assume the time frame of the slain waxwing to be Shade's
> childhood, and there is some (but inconclusive) evidence for this take since
> the poem -all Cantos together- have a roughly chronological development.  I
> think a good question to tru to answer is WHEN was Shade "the shadow of the
> waxwing slain?"


I don't see the contradiction. 

I read the poem as a Romantic poem. So the poet starts off talking about
his childhood.
In my opinion, one of those Norton Anthologies of Romantic Poetry is the
best source for this poem. 

 His first eschatological shock comes when,  as a boy,  nature and man's
creation out of nature,  collide. 

There was a time when meadow grove and stream