Madeira Commentary

“Madeira” by Ogden Nash

This poem is another piece of work written by Ogden Nash. The title of the poem indicates the setting. The author focuses on disclosing two particular areas of production, ‘wineries’ and ‘embroidery’. The main tool Nash uses to reveal his idea is imagery. This is so because when seeing the word ‘wineries’ in reader’s eyes it is associated with the grand grape fields spreading out on a great distances and seeming endless in a way. The ‘embroidery’, in comparison, is a local art which the author relates to in the poem, which is practiced in Madeira, however is not originally from there. When we try to compare winery and embroidery the first similarity we find in both is great amount of work done, since we are able to create a valuable object from a scratch. However, straight in the beginning of the poem Nash emphasizes that embroidery is ‘extremely expensive’ whereas winery provides you with ‘free sample sippings of the grape’ [onomatopoeia]. This type of comparison reinforces the significance of both in Madeira and makes the reader wonder what the author is trying to point out. The author reinforces the fact that ‘embroidery’ was much more valued in Madeira than wines and the evidence to it is Madeira being the ‘home’ of wineries.

The choice of the objects the author chooses in poem for a discussion is precise. Nash implies that there is a ‘relation’ between winery and embroidery because it is very well known that the effort put into both is vaguely great. The ‘doilies’ is something the author chooses to refer to the taste of wine, as tender and original, which ‘inflates