Fame and Friendship

                                   

                                     Fame and Friendship

            

             ‘Fame and Friendship’ by Henry Austen Dobson divided into two stanza, is a poem which talks about importance of Friendship over Fame and how Friendship came be more reliable even after  death, whereas Fame is something which only stays with period of time.

             

                                    “Fame is food that dead men eat,

                                      I have  no stomach for such meat”

        

         In first stanza, the poet compares  Fame with friendship. Fame as the food for dead men because one day fame will die with the person. It is extremely personal as a concept as no one around  when you are very famous, fame makes people extremely alone  and they  find nobody around  to celebrate  the achievements. Along with fame loneliness comes which is very difficult to get over it.

         

                               “But Friendship is a nobler thing’,

                                 Of Friendship it is good to sing”

       

             In the second stanza, poet start by saying that  Friendship as compared to Fame is a nobler thing because after physical death , one can live in the memories of his friend. Friends would always remember the best part of each other and make a funeral of every fault that he made.

      

          In comparison Friendship can be far more fruitful as against Fame in more ways than one and this is what the poet wants to  believe and chose Friendship over Fame.  If we critically analyzed the  poem , we can came to the conclusion that poet prefers Friendship over Fame and its immortality. The advantages of Friendship has been stressed in English Literature from Becon and it is true in modern time also.