On Anthony Hecht's "More Light! More Light!"

The poem "More Light! More Light!" by Anthony Hecht is a commentary on and condemnation of killing and dehumanization. By comparing two separate executions, Hecht seeks both to highlight the importance of the human soul, and the atrocity of its destruction.​​

The first three stanzas of Anthony Hecht's "More Light! More Light!" deal with the execution of an unnamed man in sixteenth century London. He is burned at the stake, a typical punishment for heretics. Though his crime is not revealed, the man insists upon his innocence. His executioners attempt to show him mercy by throwing a sack of gunpowder on the fire, and when it fails to ignite they pray for his immortal soul. The importance of the first execution is in the fact that the dying man is allowed, in the words of the poem, "his pitiful dignity". The execution is done by the process of law, his executioners pray for his soul, and they attempt to show him mercy. Even in death he is not dehumanized, and his humanity had value.

In the last five stanzas of Hecht's poem, the reader moves to a German wood outside of Buchenwald. We know this by the fact that we are told we are in a German wood, the characters are Jews, a Pole, and a German soldier, and we are outside of Weimar. Weimar was the last train stop before Buchenwald, and the home of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, whose last words provide the title for the poem. In this wood the two Jews and the Pole are ordered to dig a hole. The Jews are then ordered to lie in the hole and be buried by the Pole. It is in this instance when the reader may witness the heroism of the Pole's action in the simple words, "But he did refuse". He does not bury the Jews.

The Pole refuses to do this despite the lack of "light from the shrine at Weimar" or "light from heaven". This suggests that in this moment the Pole did not feel strengthened by either the divine love of God, or the humanistic strength that is stressed in Goethe's Weimar Classicism, "light from the shrine at Weimar". The values of this new humanism stress the value of the human person and their inherent virtue. This is clearly present in the Pole, even if he does not feel it. It is what allows him to refuse the soldier’s order to bury the Jews.

The soldier then orders the Pole and the Jews to change places. The Jews, already dead inside from witnessing "Much casual death" begin to bury the Pole alive. When almost finished they are ordered to stop and switch places once again. The Pole's near death experience and his witness to his fellow prisoners and fellow man's callousness destroys his inner light. He buries the Jews. The soldier, constantly referred to only by his actions, then shoots him in the belly. The Pole is made to suffer a long and painful death just like the Jews he buried. One can make note at this point of how all the men in this scene have been destroyed. The Jews were already dead inside from the casual death they had witnessed; the Pole, who had been strong, was destroyed in body and soul by the soldier who played with his life, emotions, and who finally shot him; and the soldier was dead from the beginning, that is why he was referred to in the passive voice.

The last stanza of the poem serves the purpose of propelling the story of a single event onto the worldwide platform. The last two lines talk about the ghosts of the Holocaust settling upon the eyes of Pole. This, taken in light of the rest of the poem, becomes a statement of horror at the deaths of thousands, horror at the destruction of men's bodies and souls, and warning that we cannot let this happen again. Humanity is worth too much.

Works Cited:

Casey, Ellen Miller. "Hecht's "More Light! More Light!"." The Explicator 54.2

(1996): 113. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 8 Dec 2015

"HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE." HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE.

History World, n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2016.

"HISTORY OF LITERATURE." HISTORY OF LITERATURE. History World, n.d.

Web. 25 Jan. 2016.

Richter, Simon. "Weimar Classicism". The Literary Encyclopedia. First

published 18 September 2004

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