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Discuss the two techniques that the poet has used to evoke a sense of the supernatural in the poem "The Listeners."

"The Listeners" by Walter De la Mare is a poem which does a superb job of evoking an atmosphere of brooding melancholy and diffuse fear. The supernatural is more a matter of a sense of the uncanny than of an overt portrait of anything lacking a naturalistic explanation.


The first way that De la Mare evokes this uncanny atmosphere is by deliberate vagueness and omission of details. The Traveller of the poem does not have...

"The Listeners" by Walter De la Mare is a poem which does a superb job of evoking an atmosphere of brooding melancholy and diffuse fear. The supernatural is more a matter of a sense of the uncanny than of an overt portrait of anything lacking a naturalistic explanation.


The first way that De la Mare evokes this uncanny atmosphere is by deliberate vagueness and omission of details. The Traveller of the poem does not have a name. We know of his feelings but not any practical details about what he is trying to do, who he is, what events of the past led up to his journey, or why he decided to travel at night rather than at a more sensible time with better light. 


Next, the setting evokes mystery and strangeness. It is night time, and the world is in shadows. The house is lonely and isolated in a dark wood and only illuminated by "faint moonbeams". The world is described as eerily silent except for the noises made by the Traveller. All these sensual details evoke an otherworldly atmosphere. 

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