Did Celia Thaxter Predict the Titanic Sinking?
Years before the sinking of the “unsinkable” RMS Titanic, island poet Celia Thaxter wrote “A Tryst.” Published in her 1896 collection, the poem tells a hauntingly similar tale of a ship fated to collide with an iceberg. Thaxter writes of “Brave men, sweet women, little children bright” who do not suspect the looming tragedy on a cloudless night. The poem is far from a precise portending. In the Titanic disaster, 1522 passengers were killed on April 14, 1912, but others survived. Celia imagined, not the world’s largest passenger ship, but a traditional sailing vessel. Her tragedy occurs midway through the journey, not near the very end as with Titanic, and in her version all aboard are lost. Some Titanic passengers survived. The most intriguing connection, is not simply with the tragedy, but with the modern blockbuster film version by James Cameron. Celia’s poem too is a story about star-crossed lovers. In “Poet on Demand,” Celia scholar Jane Vallier writes: “The image of the ship and i
Related Questions
- Would a tragedy such as the sinking of the Titanic, as by an iceberg,and first class passengers having the right to too few lifeboats ,thus many in second and steerage would die because of their lower status,ever happen again?
- Why didnt the people on titanic just climb onto the iceberg they hit to avoid drowning?
- Did Celia Thaxter Predict the Titanic Sinking?
