33 by MacGillivray (Scottish Highers English): Revision Notes
Full analysis
Form and structure
MacGillivray writes '33' as a Petrarchan sonnet (also called an Italian sonnet), a 14-line poem split into two sections. The first eight lines form the octave, and the final six lines create the sestet. The octave follows the rhyme scheme ABBAABBA, whilst the sestet uses CCDCDC.
In traditional Petrarchan sonnets, the octave establishes a problem, question, or situation. Between the octave and sestet, a volta (turn) occurs, marking a shift in tone, perspective, or direction of thought. The sestet then offers resolution, reflection, or response to what the octave has presented.
MacGillivray departs from strict iambic pentameter, using a more flexible metrical pattern. Lines vary between 9 and 13 syllables with irregular stress patterns. This irregular rhythm mirrors the unpredictable, surreal quality of Mary's dream, refusing the neat control that traditional metre might impose.
The choice of a Petrarchan sonnet itself carries meaning. This form was Mary Queen of Scots' preferred poetic structure, so MacGillivray acknowledges both Mary's voice and her classical European education. The sonnet form connects Mary to a tradition of elevated, formal expression whilst containing deeply personal emotion.
Speaker and perspective
The poem uses first-person perspective, giving readers direct entry into Mary's consciousness. "I dreamed" opens the poem, immediately positioning us inside Mary's subjective experience. This intimacy allows the reader to witness not just the dream's imagery but Mary's emotional and psychological responses to her approaching death. Fear, acceptance, and transformation become accessible through this close perspective.
Line 1: 'I dreamed of a sawdust chandelier'
The opening phrase "I dreamed" signals that what follows exists in the realm of dream vision, a literary tradition where dreams reveal deeper truths about reality, fate, or the soul's condition.
The image of a sawdust chandelier creates immediate contradiction. A chandelier typically represents wealth, status, and grandeur – an ornamental fixture found in palaces or stately homes. Sawdust, however, is a waste product created when wood is cut or destroyed. It has no substance, no permanence, no value. The contrast between the object's grand associations and its fragile, worthless material reflects Mary's trajectory from power to downfall.
Sawdust as the chandelier's substance suggests that Mary's wealth and status, when measured against mortality and eternity, amount to nothing. The image forces a confrontation with power's fundamental emptiness. What seemed solid and significant during life reveals itself as insubstantial when death approaches.
The remnants of lost power and failed ambitions gather in this single surreal object.
Lines 2-3: 'whose crystals were drops of driftwood dredged / from all the world's shipwrecks: god's figurehead'
The chandelier's crystals are constructed from driftwood recovered from shipwrecks across the world. This imagery evokes collective loss and historical suffering. Something broken and destroyed has been repurposed into an object that might be considered beautiful or meaningful, though its origins remain tragic.
The reference to crystals also connects to poems attributed to Mary herself. 'The Diamond Speaks' ends with Mary identifying herself as "the diamond, the greatest jewel, the mighty stone". Here, those precious crystals are revealed to be merely driftwood – another indication of how Mary's sense of her own importance dissolves when confronted with mortality.
The alliteration in "drops of driftwood dredged" creates a lulling, almost hypnotic sound that suits the dreamlike atmosphere. Yet the content of the line unsettles this calm. Shipwrecks suggest danger, disaster, and death. The combination of soothing sound and threatening imagery gives the dream a nightmarish undertone.
A figurehead is a carved wooden decoration mounted at the front of a ship. In some maritime cultures, figureheads served as protective talismans, believed to guard against harsh seas, storms, or evil spirits. Line 3 identifies the sawdust chandelier as "god's figurehead", suggesting divine oversight or destiny. God guides Mary's journey to death, but the figurehead itself is made of wreckage and waste.
Line 4: 'and it swung, as I dreamt, ever closer to my fear'
The chandelier swings like a pendulum, an object that marks time. "Ever closer" establishes inevitability – something approaching that cannot be stopped or avoided. Mary's "fear" remains unnamed, but the context allows us to identify it as her death.
The line reveals that whilst the figurehead guides Mary towards the afterlife, her journey is marked by trepidation rather than peaceful acceptance. Divine guidance does not eliminate fear; it merely accompanies Mary as she moves towards what terrifies her.
The movement described emphasises that what approaches is not simply death as an event, but the necessity of confronting fear itself. Mary already knows death is inevitable, but its psychological weight – the fear it generates – becomes the real burden pressing upon her. The poem suggests that anticipation and awareness of death carry as much emotional force as death itself. Fear becomes the central experience, not just death's approach.
Lines 5-6: 'softly releasing sweet incense into the clear, / black night air, as that great barge carries the dead'
The words "softly", "sweet", and "clear" temporarily ease the mounting tension. These gentle descriptors create a calmer atmosphere, though one that does not entirely dispel the sense of foreboding.
Incense appears frequently in religious rituals and ceremonies. It functions as an offering to the divine or as a means of purifying sacred space. The incense released by the chandelier suggests a funeral rite, symbolising prayers offered for Mary or the commemoration of her life. As a Catholic, Mary believed in the afterlife, divine judgement, and the power of prayers for the dead. The incense connects her death to these religious convictions.
"Black night air" disrupts the preceding calm. Darkness often represents hidden aspects of existence, the subconscious, or unknown futures. The void-like quality of "black night air" reintroduces unease, as does the appearance of a boat that carries the dead.
In various cultures – including Norse and Ancient Egyptian traditions – ship burials symbolised the journey to the afterlife. The sea functioned as a boundary between worlds or a path to rebirth. The great barge that carries the dead alludes directly to Mary's fate whilst also invoking broader themes of royal mortality.
Mary might see herself as part of an eternal procession in which monarchs are defined by succession and death. Kings and queens exist within a lineage that stretches backward and forward through time, yet this lineage is built entirely upon loss. Power passes from one ruler to another only through death. The barge, reminiscent of funeral processions and mythic crossings, reinforces that royalty exists in a cycle where death creates legacy.
Lines 7-8: 'but instead of my death, it passaged my dread / and the water it ploughed comprised of one tear'
Mary's dream does not depict her actual death. Instead, the barge travels through her dread. The word "passaged" transforms fear into something that can be traversed, suggesting a journey with a beginning and end. This implies movement from fear towards resignation or acceptance.
The distinction matters. The journey through fear can be represented and experienced in imagination or dream, whereas death itself remains unknowable and inaccessible to depiction. The poem acknowledges that whilst dread can be confronted and endured, the moment of death resists articulation and remains beyond the scope of human experience.
"Ploughed" indicates powerful, forceful motion. The need for such force suggests the immensity of "one tear" – a tear that represents Mary's entire emotional state or accumulated moments of despair. A single tear becomes vast enough to form an ocean that requires ploughing, transforming a small, intimate expression of grief into something of epic scale.
Line 9: 'Great smouldering barque, your figurehead sings'
At the volta between octave and sestet, Mary shifts from passive observer to active speaker. She addresses the ship directly. This confrontation of her fate suggests internal transition. By acknowledging death, Mary moves closer to accepting it rather than merely fearing it.
"Great" functions as either praise, reverence, or a simple acknowledgement of the ship's magnitude – whether physical size or spiritual significance. Smouldering describes a slow burn that produces smoke without flame. It presents no immediate danger yet implies something lingering that remains perilous or powerful. The word connects to the incense mentioned in line 5, suggesting that the ship itself burns slowly as it carries the dead.
A barque is a sailing vessel with three or more masts. In Ancient Egypt, solar barques or funeral barques carried pharaohs to the afterlife, making this ship choice particularly resonant with the poem's Book of the Dead connection.
The personification of the figurehead singing heightens the presence of divine guidance. The figurehead takes on voice and agency, actively leading rather than passively decorating the vessel.
Lines 10-11: 'into the dark, the death song of queens, of kings, / over sea birds that circle like faint rings of smoke'
A death song is a song that commemorates the dead or one sung in anticipation of death. "Of queens, of kings" indicates that the song honours not just Mary but all her royal predecessors. In the afterlife, Mary will be judged or vindicated by the same divine authority that legitimised her earthly reign. Her fate connects to a long line of monarchs who faced the same final reckoning.
The circling sea birds invite multiple interpretations:
- They may symbolise Mary's anticipation as she waits for death to arrive
- As detached observers, they could represent the constant surveillance Mary experienced during her years of captivity before execution
- Within the poem's spiritual framework, the birds might function as divine messengers, connecting Mary to realities beyond her political struggles
The simile "like faint rings of smoke" suggests dissolution and impermanence. Smoke dissipates, leaving nothing behind. This imagery symbolises the gradual fading of Mary's legacy and the extinguishing of her influence and reign.
Lines 12-13: 'your floating lamp burns, as a lighthouse brings / death to itself: you are moth and flame both'
The image of a floating lamp recalls water lanterns released in some cultures to honour and remember the dead. These lanterns bridge the worlds of the living and the deceased, with water marking the boundary between realms.
The lighthouse metaphor introduces profound complexity. A lighthouse simultaneously warns of danger and marks dangerous shores. It guides sailors to safety but also identifies locations where ships might wreck. Mary's fate carries this same duality – it is both foreseen and inevitable, both guided and destructive.
The statement "you are moth and flame both" captures the paradox of the lighthouse's nature. Moths are fatally attracted to flames they cannot resist. By being both moth and flame, the lighthouse embodies an inescapable pull towards destruction. Mary's death functions similarly – she moves towards it with a mixture of compulsion and acceptance, guided yet also destroyed by the same force.
The floating lamp represents spiritual guidance within Mary's unavoidable journey towards death. It cannot prevent her fate but illuminates the path she must take.
Line 14: 'so lamp lights my dread of shade, performs two killings'
"My dread of shade" refers to Mary's fear of death, with "shade" suggesting darkness, shadows, and the realm of the dead. The lamp's light – divine guidance – exposes this fear whilst simultaneously extinguishing it. Illumination and destruction occur together.
The phrase "performs two killings" operates on multiple levels. Bringing light into darkness can be both revealing and destructive. Light metaphorically "kills" ignorance by exposing truth, but it also "kills" the peace or security that ignorance provided. Fear exists in darkness; when light reveals what we fear, it destroys our previous state of not-knowing whilst also destroying the fear itself through exposure.
The act of confronting death – making it visible and known – ends both the state of dread and the state of living in uncertainty. The two killings might be: the death of fear through confrontation, and the death of Mary herself. Or they might represent the death of ignorance and the death of false security. The ambiguity allows multiple readings to coexist.
Key Points to Remember:
- MacGillivray uses the Petrarchan sonnet form to honour Mary Queen of Scots' preferred poetic style whilst exploring her confrontation with mortality
- The poem presents death not as an event but as something approached through fear, with the psychological burden of anticipation becoming as important as death itself
- Surreal imagery (sawdust chandelier, driftwood crystals, ships made of wreckage) suggests that power and status become meaningless when measured against mortality and eternity
- The volta marks Mary's shift from passive observer to active speaker, suggesting movement towards acceptance through the act of directly addressing her fate
- Light and darkness imagery explores how confronting truth (divine guidance, awareness of death) can be simultaneously illuminating and destructive, revealing reality whilst destroying previous comfort or ignorance