Enterprise

ENTERPRISE
CRITICAL APPRECIATION
The poet presents a spiritual pilgrimage where the pilgrims face disappointments and disillusionment. We find in the poem a group of people who undertake a noble mission but end in failure at every step instead of attaining the expected bliss. The pilgrimage turns out to be a tiresome trek by the time they reach the target. When they set out they find that the goal is attractive, but the process of reaching it empties the achievement of its glamour and glory. They are city dwellers and the journey they undertake is to some romantic, primitive hinterland. They start with hope, courage and determination, with their mind full of noble ideas and ideals. This stage of the journey symbolizes the stage of innocence that man enjoys in his youth, when he is unaware of the frustrations and failure which life brings at every age.   The travellers on this journey begin in a real physical terrain, a desert, and argue about how to cross the challenging landscape. They proceed on their expedition and the sun shines on them, but they render themselves immune to the rays of the sun. They take note of whatever they see in the behavior of serpents and goats. The first casualty takes place when a prominent member of the group, who writes the most stylish prose, quits the team after a friction over how to cross a desert patch and goes his own way. We find that the innocence of the pilgrims is lost when they face dangers and difficulties.
  The pilgrims are able to put up very well with dangers and difficulties for sometimes and continue to journey in hope. They pass through three cities where a sage had taught, but do not care to find out what he had taught,. But soon there are distractions and diversions. The difficulties and dangers posed by man’s physical environment are not as damaging as those that result from his own insufficiency. The shadow of discord fell on their enterprise, and it continued to grow. Bickering over petty matters,...