Poetry

William Wordsworth growing up spending most of this time alone and almost always around nature, typically writes of how we are affecting nature. However, in the poem Composed upon Westminster Bridge we see a different side of Wordsworth were he describes a city so still and peaceful the beauty is hard to pass unnoticed. Throughout Composed upon Westminster Bridge Wordsworth uses imagery, figures of speech and tone. In this poem we see a new side to Wordsworth’s writing, Wordsworth uses imagery as a way to make us see and feel what he is as he looks over Westminster Bridge.

He uses visual imagery to make us picture the beauty he is it witnessing. “All bright and glittering in the smokeless air”, he sees that even the things we never thought to have beauty can prove to be some of the most beautiful things. “Never did a sun more beautiful steep”, nature has a way of taking the most simple things and making them look of something of great beauty. In line eleven Wordsworth uses the sense of inter emotions. Saying “Ne’re saw I, never felt a calm so deep”, what he saw that morning made him feel so at ease.

It is as though he is surprised at how the simplest things from nature can sway our emotions. Wordsworth uses personification in several places in the poem, in reference to the city, sun, river, and houses. He creates the impression that nature is a living being with a soul. In line twelve, “the river glideth at his own sweet will”, is saying nature has a way of taking its own path and journey when it’s not corrupted by humans. The beauty of such simple things can be seen better when all is still.

With the tranquility we can view nature’s natural beauty, like said in line thirteen, “Dear God! The very houses seem asleep”. Nature has a way of dressing the city with beauty that we cannot always imagine, “this city now doth, like a garment”, Wordsworth is using a simile to compare the morning beauty to clothing. The manner in which Composed upon Westminster Bridge is written shows a few different tones. Such as, in the first three lines he is showing admiration for the beautiful sight he sees. It’s as though he’s praising the simplicity of the beauty.

Also shown in line nine, “never did the sun more beautifully steep”, is a tone of praise and awe at just how beautiful a sight it was. The last four lines Wordsworth writes give the tone of peace. How the city was so calm that for those moments it was peaceful. The way Wordsworth uses imagery, figures of speech and tone in the writing of Composed upon Westminster Bridge is how he can get other to feel as if they were there that morning to see and feel what he did. This poem shows that there is beauty in everything, but that to sometimes see this beauty we must look harder to find it.

Many times, the changes and transformations in the main character are shown as being caused partly by the world around him, sometimes making the main character even a victim of society.

Something causes the character to become morally prepared or emotionally wrecked and cut off, usually due to something that has happened in his life. These protagonists watch the world around them and feel disconnected from it, and act out with “taboo” themes, like violence or incest or taking drugs or anything that sort of pushes the line because the world they live in has disturbed their minds in some way.

Finding life empty and without value, the main character does things to numb the pain, like drinking too hard, or having a lot of meaningless and casual sex, or anything else that both cuts off his emotions and also test him feel pleasure and distraction for a minute. This is called escapism, as in indulging in meaningless distractions to forget about the root problems in someone’s life. But the main character often actually has a conscience, or at least a deeper sense of self, and that part of him is in conflict with the way he is behaving outwardly, so this is where the pain and despair comes from and which we see in transgressing fiction, whether it is in novels or in poems.

The themes of transgressing fiction are all over Bukowski’s work. His writings mostly cover the second half of the twentieth entry, and he drew on Los Angles as a source of inspiration. Since he spent most of his life in Los Angles, he identified with the city darkness and grittiness. A lot of the transgressing fiction qualities in Bukowski’s poems are in his escapism from reality. He writes about drinking and women and gambling, and he lived his life chasing women, drinking and gambling. Through this behavior, the characters escaped from their problems. And through writing about it in poetry, Bouzoukis expressed his temptation to escape from his problems by briefly having those indulgences. Bouzoukis grew up during the Great Depression.

California was expensive, and his father was unemployed. So there was a lot of frustration and insecurity at home, and his father was physically, verbally and emotionally abusive to Bukowski’s mother. His father was also emotionally and physically abusive towards Bouzoukis, something that his mother did not stop. This made Bukowski’s an introverted, insecure, and socially anxious teenager. 2 He had no confidence because he was being traumatized at home and felt that he wasn’t good enough compared to everyone else at school. During this painful period of his youth, Bukowski started is lifelong habit of excessive drinking. His drinking only got worse as life went on. He started his writing career after World War II began and never made enough money off of his writing, so he had to do Jobs on the side all the time. Hard Jobs, like working in a factory. He could not make a lot of money off of his poems because not enough people were buying his poetry. He was failing to break in and make it big and found it hard to believe in himself and in the world.

He became very cynical and depressed about what the publishers were looking for (they only wanted to cater to a market”) and did not believe that anyone had a fair chance. As if things weren’t bad enough, considering that he had no money, no close relationship with his family, and on top of that no success in getting his writing published, during this time Bouzoukis also almost died from a stomach ulcer.  He was desperate for companionship and someone to show him the love he never had growing up, and so married another poet without thinking it through first, and divorced her two years later. For a long time after that he was not able to seriously form an honest and healthy relationship, o he was always lonely and always having affairs with women to briefly fulfill his needs. He continued this behavior even after he began to enjoy some success in the sass’s. He only married again a decade later, and he eventually died of cancer. 5 All in all, Bouzoukis led a pretty troubled, difficult and sometimes lonely life, and had a lot of issues going on with him that he expressed in his poetry.

Poetry was an outlet for his creative talent as well as his pain. Through poetry, he expressed his disillusionment with the world, his sense of loneliness and not being able to conform r be understood, and his need to escape from the feelings inside him, in a realistic way. By realistic I mean he wants to show the truth without sugarcoating anything. In his poems, he shows his true self struggling to become free of the cage that his fake self traps it in. A good example how Bouzoukis expresses his inner self through realist, transgressing poetry is one of his last poems, published only about two years before he died: “Bluebird.

“Bluebird” is a great poem because it is very sobering and a little depressing, but captures the main struggle that Bouzoukis seems to have aced for most of his life: confronting his inner self, being brave enough to accept himself for who he is instead of escaping from it with alcohol, women, gambling, and other distractions. The bluebird is his inner, true self that is trying to set itself free. He describes it as: “there’s a bluebird in my heart that / wants to get out. But the narrator (who is really the poet describing himself) says he is going to keep the bluebird hidden, and he’ll hide it by distracting himself from it with alcohol and everything else. This is proven in the lines: “there’s a bluebird in my heart that ants to get out but I purr whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whore’s and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he’s in there.” He is burying the inner voice, the secret alternative personality or true personality within him, with alcohol, cigarettes, and women.

He is afraid to let his true self show, because he’s built everything in his life on lies and putting on a brave front that isn’t who he really is. What is the bluebird then? It’s all the toxicity of his trauma – the depression and failure and sadness – but also the person he can be if he really accepts all those problems instead of running away from them. But he is afraid to accept that side of himself. Bukowski has built up all these fears and barriers after a lifetime of running away from his problems.

Now Bouzoukis has too much to lose to try and face these fears and problems, because his career and his fame and his success depend on squashing his pain and depression, or in other words, the bluebird. To illustrate this problem, he asks: “l say, stay down, do you want to mess me up? You want to screw up the works? You want to blow my book sales in Europe? ” This verse clearly shows how much his fears and denials of his inner voice, the bluebird, is tied to his desire to save the life he has worked so hard to build without ever really acknowledging his past, his hurt, and who he truly is.

It’s worth noticing that he uses the word “tough” 1 to describe how strong he is against the bluebird. This means he views it as a threat, even though it is not. He is not in total and complete denial of his inner self, however. Just selectively in denial. He calls himself “clever” 1 and says: “l only let him out at night sometimes” of the bluebird. In the darkness and loneliness of the night, when nobody is there to see and he can be his true self in private.

This fear of showing the “real you” to someone would likely have been an important concern for someone who realized that his poetry wasn’t selling easily when he first started out, likely because publishing is after all a business and publishers want poems that are in keeping with the trends in style, language and themes that would appeal to their customers. We all have to remember that life is a business and you can’t always afford to be your real self. That is why the narrator ells the bluebird that by letting it out, he might ruin his career. Why?

Because the narrator – in other words, Bukowski – made a lot of money by partially figuring out what poetry editors wanted to read and selling it to them. This all leads to the fear of not expressing who you really are, and conforming to society. The narrator is being the person that other people subconsciously want him to be, and he knows that. His struggle is that he sees no value in this fake persona apart from societal acceptance. When he does eventually let the bluebird out, he does not ever truly accept it in public – only in private. There is also a sense of loneliness. He is isolated from society because he thinks nobody would understand and accept the bluebird. And since the bluebird is his true inner self, he cannot share that with the world because it seems so foreign and strange to them. He has nobody to talk about this with. The imagery is really powerful because of the way the images are arranged one after another and also because the language of the poem is so direct, simple, and straightforward. He Juxtaposes the image of the bluebird trying to break free with al the signs of vice around it -whiskey, cigarettes, etc. This helps the reader subconsciously make an immediate comparison between the innocent, natural bluebird, which is clean and untouched, with all the things that can drown that clean, natural inner self, like alcohol. Through the images, the simple language, and the discussion of his inner self versus the mask he puts on for the world, the narrator is an effective transplant of Bouzoukis himself, who had a lot of unresolved problems concerning his family. His self-exploration in “Bluebird” is a transgressing poem since it deals with his inner ormolu as he breaks out of a social norm – the norm of pretending to be someone hoys are not.

Analyse of “The Darkling Thrush” Thomas Hardy presents a theme of hope in his poem The Darkling Thrush. In the poem winter season has brought about death and despair. A tired old man leans over a coppice gate in a desolate area, to see the ghosts of the past and little hope for the future. Hardy uses imagery to evoke ideas and images in the readers mind. “The land’s sharp features seemed to me. The Century’s corpse outleant, His crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind its death-lament. ” In describing the landscape he refers to the landscape as an intimate object as if it were human.

He compares the landscape to a dead body laying all around him and the clouds becoming the coffins top, and the wind his death lament. The man also describes the landscape to have as much life and spirit as he does. Hardy choose his words carefully using negative words such as gray, desolate, broken and haunted. This negatively leads us to believe that this is how Harper feelings are; alone and frightened out in the cold. While still using a negative tone Harper tries to turn the poem to a somewhat positive tone. He continues to use wording such as frail, aged, gaunt and small but adds in wording like full-hearted and joy illimited.

The change of wording suggests a shift in the tone of the poem. A songbird has entered, spreading warmth and hope into the earlier desolate and dead landscape. The theme of hope is introduced with the appearance of a songbird in stanza three. The bird is meant to resemble hope and that things are not quite over yet even though it may seem so. In the winter months death is brought forth yet in the coming of spring restores that life once again. The poem suggests that if one doesn’t give into the negative a positive can and may come forth; whether one is aware of this or not.

In the poem’s last stanza the man reveals his thoughts as if his thoughts as if he has see a glimpse of hope as the life songbird colours the air with its song. “So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew, And I was unaware. ” The stanza suggests that there may be hope after all. Is it the spring coming once more? Or is it just the ghost messing with him? Hardy’s poem as well as its overall theme is a reflection of the time period he lived in.

The poem takes place on New Year’s Eve, the last day of the 19th century. The queen is barely breathing her last few breaths and the Victorian Era is coming to an end. Waiting just around the corner is a new era, a new king, and a new Period completely different from the Victorian Era. The theme of hope is presented in a fashion that even though something may seem dark and shadowy that one needs to have a little faith in such matters. Things in the world and life are going to be unclear because nothing is ever sure. Hardy wants readers to have reliance in the world and the transformation of the times. Stanzas . The gate which the speaker is leaning on represent the threshold of the new century. The spectral quality of frost suggests the ageing and the ghostly quality of the landscape. The scene has the mere trace of life, in which natural and human presences are ghostly. The figure of the “weakening eye” symbolizes the ending of the day along with the ending of the century. The “tangled bine-stems” represent a harp which all the strings have been broken emphasizing the “winter’s dregs”. The stanza ends with the speakers awareness that he is alone, the people who usually occupy the land have returned to their home. . This stanza also marks the end of a century. The landscape’s features become like an immense body layed out. The first sentence shows the speaker’s mind enclosing the huge space of land and sky into the frightening display of the Century’s corpse in its coffin. The sky is the lid. The second sentence emphasizes that the ending of the century is not just closing to the speaker, but an end which seems to separate it from any relation to the future. Every spirit of vegetal and human life is under the pall of this death. 3.

The darkling thrush, in all its homeliness and diminutiveness, is the corporeal voice of the real world. The bird’s song is spontaneous and unpremeditated. It “fling[s]” its “soul” into the “gloom” in contrary of the speaker’s previous flinging of his spiritless soul upon the landscape. The bird’s joyful act appears to the speaker as a choice, and not for mere survival in the “growing gloom”, but for the enthusiastic and full-hearted participation. 4. The speaker has not been convinced or transported out of the “growing gloom”, but his response to the birds song is to think.

Although the “blessed Hope” is a knowledge only the bird has and of which the speaker is yet unaware, the speaker accepts the birds song as a sign that there is hope for the future. Analysis of “The Darkling Thrush”, by Thomas Hardy As the title has already mentioned, this assignment will be an analysis on a poem by Thomas Hardy. The poem is called “The Darkling Thrush”, also known by another title, “By the Century’s deathbed”. My analysis will include elements such as the poems’ setting, structure, imagery, diction, rhyme scheme and theme. I will go into one element at the time, and them give examples from one stanza only in that element.

I will not come back to the same elements in the other stanzas, even though they are there. Therefore, this will not be a complete analysis of every element in each of the stanzas. I’d rather prefer to give a thorough description of what the different elements are and then give a few examples of each of them. In then end I will try to come up with a conclusion. The poem takes place on New Years Eve, the last day of the 19th century. It’s also the end of the Victorian Age. Winter is bringing death and desolation with it. A tired old man leans over a coppice gate in a desolate area, seeing ghosts of the past and little hope in the future.

This poem has 4 stanzas, each with 8 lines. This is what we call an octave. The lines changes between having 4 and 3 stressed syllables in them, which is called tetrameter (4) and trimeter (3). Since the lines also follow a form of having one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable etc, we also call it iambic. As an example I use the poems 1st stanza. Line number 1, 3, 5 and 7 each have 4 stressed syllables, therefore called iambic tetrameter ( / – / – / – / – ). Line number 2, 4, 6, and 8 each have 3 stressed syllables, therefore called iambic trimeter ( / – / – / – )

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky5 And all mankind that haunted nigh7 Had sought their household fires. 8 Through the use of personification, symbols, metaphors, alliteration (this last element may also refer to the poems structure) and a selected sort of words, he produces images in the readers mind, when all he really does is just speak from his inner state of mind, as modernists are soon to do. To show the use of imagery in this poem, I’ve taken its 2nd stanza as an example. Here he uses personification on the landscape, thereby referring to an inanimate object as if it were human.

He compares the landscape to a dead body lying all around him, and the clouds becoming the coffins top, and the wind his death lament. The poet also makes use of alliteration in this poem. An example from this stanza is corpse, crypt, cloudy, canopy etc, where you easily notice the same sounds repeated several times. This has mostly a decorative effect, but it also makes you focus on these words, thereby revealing parts of the poem’s nature and temperament. The land’s sharp features seemed to be1 The Century’s corpse outleant, 2 The ancient pulse of germ and birth5

The choice of words in this poem has been carefully selected, leaving little to coincidence. If you look carefully, you notice him using lots of negatively loaded words such as grey, desolate, broken, haunted etc. He himself is all alone out in the cold with all his negatively loaded words. But this changes further on in the poem. In stanza number 3 you will notice a change in the poets use of diction. In stead of keeping mainly to negatively loaded words, he suddenly makes use of positively loaded words too. Words like frail, aged, gaunt and small still remains, but you also get words like evensong, full-hearted and joy illimited.

This change in diction shows the reader that something new has occurred in the poem. A song-bird has entered, spreading warmth and hope into an earlier desolate and dead landscape. Another thing to bear in mind (in a more of a general matter concerning his poems) as you read Hardy’s poems, is that he chooses to avoid following a “jewelled line”. He doesn’t care for writing just pretty poetry. He breaks with conventions concerning the normal use of language. An aged thrush frail, gaunt and small5 Had chosen thus to fling his soul7 As you read it through, you easily find its rhyme scheme to be regular.

There is only one irregularity in it, and this always means that it’s put there on purpose, and that it has a special meaning. He operates with end-rhyme, but both in masculine and feminine endings. The major theme is introduced in the poems 3rd stanza, in the appearance of a song-bird. It is probably supposed to resemble “hope”, and that things are not quite over yet although it may seem so. Like winter always brings death along with it, the coming of autumn restores some of it to life once more. Although things may look pretty negative right now, don’t give in to it, life will return sometime, even though you are not aware of it yourself.

This theme can be seen as a kind of reflection on the time Thomas Hardy lived. It was the end of an era, and end of a Period and almost the end of a Queen. And when a new Period is called for, it’s often a reaction to the old one. Now was the time for a reaction. Things looked dark and not so promising. People didn’t know what hope there lay in the future, but as this poem says, there may be hope coming although you don’t know of its coming. In the poems last stanza, the man revealing his thoughts to us sees a glimpse of hope, as the song-bird colours the air with its singing. There may be hope after all.

Is it the spring coming once more? Or are his “Demi-Gods” just playing with him? So little cause for carolings 1 Was written on terrestial things3 That I could think there trembled through5 Some blessed Hope whereof he knew7 If you’ve followed me through these 5 pages, you will probably not only feel that your understanding of the poem is enhanced, but also your understanding of poems in general. I’ve tried to guide you through some of the main elements of poetry, giving a brief explanation as to what they are and how to find them. Because I’ve chosen to spend so much time on this, I didn’t use them all in each and every stanza.

But now that you have it in front of you, why not try to look for signs of the different elements in the other stanzas? If I were to give my own opinion of this poem, then I think I like the other title of the poem better. It is more fitting, considering the context around the writer at the time. You are in the last day of the 19th century, the queen is breathing her last few breaths, and so is the Victorian era. Awaiting just around the corner is a completely new era, a new king, and an entirely new Period entirely different from the Victorian.

Larkin is an established poet and was cherished by people all around the world. He won the respect of many readers, critics and non-critics. He was gifted in his writing and through this gift he bought us the poems we have today.

Larkin therefore can be said to be a memorable poet and this will now be investigated. How is he memorable? And what makes him memorable?

To start the investigation off I am going to look at the mood poems were written in by Larkin. Each poem is set in its own mood and the mood can help the reader to understand the poem. “Dockery and Son” is the first poem. It is about Larkin going to a funeral and remembering one of his university colleagues called Dockery. Larkin has found out that his son now attends the university and this leads on to the general image of the poem.

“…In ’43, when I was twenty-one.

If he was younger, did he get this son

At nineteen, twenty? Was he that withdrawn…”

(Larkin page 152 Dockery and Son)

This quote shows the awe that Larkin shows at this point in time. The poem was written in a sad mood as it is a remembrance poem. He then continues the poem in much the same way showing his point of view and talking about a popular concept for him, life.

“Life is first boredom, then fear.

Whether or not we use it, it goes…..”

(Larkin page 153 Dockery and Son)

Life is a matter that Larkin talks about a lot of the time. Whether in high spirits or in low. Therefore the next poem I will look at is “High Windows”. This is yet another example of Larkin’s preoccupation with the disappointing nature of experience, which I have illustrated for Dockery and Son. High Windows is the culmination of Larkin’s disappointment. He says that as age comes along, fantasies from the younger years of a person’s life, seem to disappear as well.

“I know this paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives-

Bonds and gestures pushed to one side

Like an outdated combine harvester,”

(Larkin page 165 High Windows)

In this poem, Larkin is emphasising to what extent he feels cheated by his experience of life. However, although Larkin is dissatisfied with what his generation has been allowed, he looks at how life treated those who were old when he was young. As Larkin looks at the freedom given to the generation which has succeeded his own in the poem “High Windows”, he is confronted with an optimistic image of endlessness. This is yet another one of his popular subjects and does also occur quite frequently in his poems.

It can be seen from the above examples and quotes, that Larkin writes poems that have certain moods and thoughts behind them. This is an important factor for a poet and this helped Larkin to be remembered in the way that he is today.

Another matter that could help to see why Larkin is such a memorable poet is whether or not he is arrogant in his poems. Some say that he is and others disagree. Hence I will investigate another few poems to see if he is or is not.

The poem I am going to look at to start this part off is “The View”. This is a poem looking on life from the elderly person’s point of view. Larkin says in this poem that life doesn’t turn out to be what you expected when you were younger. It changes and becomes drear:

“What’s left is drear.

Unchilded and unwifed, I’m

Able to view that clear:

So final. And so near.”

(Larkin page 195 The View)

He does not appear to be arrogant in this poem. He seems very modest, as can be seen from the quote, and he also is being realistic. This brings about the idea that Larkin is not arrogant.

To end this part of the investigation off, I shall look at another poem called “Wild Oats”. This is about two young women walking into Larkin’s workplace and he looking at them in amazement. One in a beautiful “English rose” , the other a “friend in specs”. Larkin finds that he can talk to and go out with the one with specs.

“But it was the friend I took out,

And in seven years after that

Wrote over four hundred letters

Gave a ten-guinea ring….”

(Larkin page 143 Wild Oats)

He does everything with her but still has a “crush” on the “English Rose”. This leads the girlfriend of his to then say to him:

“That I was too selfish, withdrawn,

And easily bored to love.”

In all I can say that Larkin is not an arrogant poet from the poem that I have read. I can say that sometimes, when he doesn’t understand something, he might knock it down a little but does actually respect it.

Finally I will look at if Larkin keeps his life hidden. In his poems he talks a lot about life events and things that are not fiction. He therefore brings his life into the poems that he writes but does not base the whole poem upon these happenings.

From the quotes listed above, it is possible to say that life is an important factor in his poetry and it is because of the realism that is involved in his poems, that he is such a memorable poet.

Larkin writes from different perspectives and he does so well. He will write a poem to reflect a mood or an experience that might occur in life. To write a poem on this is what forms the base of a real ingenious poet and Larkin is this in my opinion. Therefore I join in saying that Larkin is made a memorable poet and am happy to agree with that statement overall.

In this essay, I shall analyse the work of Louis MacNeice, entitled, ‘The sunlight on the garden. ‘ It is a modern verse that offers a self-reflexive commentary on life and its key elements. In similarity to the traditional epic verse, the poem is an expression of the speaker’s particular personalities and motives. I intend to explore these two subjects in greater detail in my essay. According to the Oxford English dictionary, a poetic analysis is the process, or ‘detailed examination of studying a poem… o determine its nature, structure, or essential features. ‘

This is a common practice used by both reader and critic in the reading of prose and poetry and I will adopt this technique in my essay. MacNeice’s poem from the thirties transcribes the period of great hardship in the Western World, as well as the speaker’s self-hardship of love and death. The Wall Street Crash in 1929 started a worldwide economic depression that lasted for much of the decade and industries such as steel, ship-building and coal mining suffered.

Moreover, unemployment in Britain soared which left a hollowed and pessimistic outlook on life. This had a strong impact upon poetry of the time, this particular poem illuminating the confusions and irresolvable issues of the common man. There are many social and political events that influenced MacNeice’s work, the First World War being the most significant. Though the event took place decades before the poet’s publication, there are strong elements of futility, death and decay in his language.

The line, ‘we are dying, Egypt, dying’ in particular, is reflective of the dreary society that both the poet and the people lived through. The poet’s reference to the Shakespearian tragedy suggests that the speaker or even MacNeice himself suffered from heartache or loss. The line, ‘hardened heart’ expands this idea, revealing a meta-level of vulnerability and self-consciousness of both the poem and its writer. Moreover, MacNeice’s use of the pronoun ‘we’ rather than, ‘I’ highlights that this is a communal suffering, a contrast to the typical self-infliction of epic poems.

There is great discussion as to the traditions of the poem, MacNeice’s experiments with classic meter and rhyme making the poem difficult to follow. The partial-serpentine rhymes, ‘minute within it’ for example, are demonstrative of his varying rhyme scheme and poetic technique. However there are evident poetic qualities which suggest that he is writing in the style of lyric-epic poets. Firstly, the poem’s occasion is focused on the past rather than the present-self. The line, ‘but glad to have sat… ith you’ emphasises the speaker’s preoccupation with past events and his constant struggle with time and death.

Furthermore, the narration of events (combined with the speaker’s emotional and reflective self-expression), creates an identity of the lyric self that is not found in the traditional epic. The speaker’s constant preoccupation of the self and of death is a strong characteristic of elegiac poetry. Moreover, instead of using the typical third person perspective found in Greek epic poetry, MacNeice uses, ‘we’ and ‘you’, typical of the lyric-epics of the time.

Perhaps the poet, like other modernist writers, aspired to move away from the traditional epic layout and create a more modernised work as this was a fashionable movement in the early twentieth century. The poet Wordsworth, for example, experimented with new styles and verse forms to re-invent and modernise the lyric. Having identified the poetic form and tradition, I am now going to analyse the language in MacNeice’s work. The use of imagery in all forms of poetry is a common technique used to draw the reader into poetic experiences, primarily through the senses.

This is a characteristic in, ‘The Sunlight on the garden’, where the work’s title immediately evokes a simple image of beauty, nature and hope. The first line however, immediately transposes one’s expectations as MacNeice’s speaker descends into a metaphysical state of suffering, ‘sunlight… hardens and grows cold. ‘ Moreover, the imagery of Egypt ‘dying’ also reveals the somewhat macabre state of his vision; absent in love, emotion and feeling, ‘hardened in heart.

MacNeice’s vivid poetic imagery such as the line, ‘nets of gold’, arouses our senses and evokes the speaker’s pure and simple vision. Furthermore, the imagery of, ‘birds’ and ‘flying’ appeal to not only our sense of sight but also to the speaker’s hope for freedom. However, on a meta-level, again our understanding is transposed as the imagery of ‘Cage’ and ‘net’ enforces not freedom but a sensation of being trapped and confined in one’s self. In addition to imagery, another dominant characteristic of MacNeice’s poem is rhyme.

The rhyming scheme follows the same pattern (ABCBBA) in each stanza. The partial-serpentine rhyme of the poem acts as an enjambment, the syllabic meter from the previous line being carried to the next. This is again similar to the continuity of time and death that the poet discusses. The enjambment of the first line in the poem follows a rhyming word which then follows another rhyming word (‘garden hardens… cold’). In doing so, the unavoidable continuity of time and fate is highlighted.

Moreover, the confusion of poetic forms and rhyme scheme add to the futility and the speaker’s lack of power or control. The use of alliteration ‘cannot cage’ emphasises the futility of one’s attempts to stop time. Again the speaker’s self-consciousness is exposed by the poet as he ultimately fails in this, the line, ‘we cannot beg’ emphasising his vulnerability of self. The disjointed and reckless rhyme scheme, as well as the varied pentameter, trochaic and heptameter, sound more fluid when spoken orally to an audience.

MacNeice continues this old tradition of verbal poetry and in doing so, the beauty of the poem overcomes the confusion of the poetic form, acting as a work of art for both the eyes and ears. Now that I have analysed rhyme and rhythm, I am going to look at the purpose of the poem and the issues the poet raises. One of the fundamentals purposes of the poem that presents itself is that the speaker has a constant preoccupation with love and regret. The line, ‘our freedom… advances towards its end’ is suggestive of a strong nostalgia and pessimism in the speaker.

This is a self-consciousness that he readily admits to his audience, perhaps something that he could not have done through another medium. There is also a strong debate upon reading the poem that he could be talking to his lover. The sentiments in the last stanza, ‘glad to have sat… with you’ and, ‘hardened in heart’ imply that the poem’s purpose is a written expression of his feelings towards her, a romantic perspective on the traditional lyric-epic. However, the most prominent purpose for MacNeice’s work is that the poem is the speaker’s farewell to his loved ones.

The line, ‘we shall have no time for dances’ coupled with the endless discussion of time and indeed death, infers that life, indeed his life is running out and no matter how many a ‘net of gold’ he uses, one cannot prevent it. Having analysed the purpose of the poem, I am now going to identify the implication of the poem on primarily the reader and the effects on society itself. At first glance, there is little political reference in the poem, something that one would not have expected, particularly at a time of economic turmoil and war. However there is a strong implication on our philosophical understanding of love, life and fate.

The phrase ‘we cannot cage the minute’, for example, highlights the delicacy and futility of time that not even the speaker can stop or control. This in turn, highlights the vulnerability and weakness of man who has no control over fate, despite ‘the nets of gold’. This weakness of man represents a nation under threat with the foreboding threat of another war, and the future economic difficulties in the thirties. There might also be a political implication in the line, ‘We cannot beg for pardon’, relating in my mind to the horrors and mistakes made in the first word war.

In conclusion, the poem, ‘The sunlight on the garden’ written by Louis MacNeice, is a typical lyric-epic poem focused around love, loss and time. There are many other themes (the speaker’s gender for example) and aspects the poem’s structure that I could have looked at in greater detail, rather than focusing solely on imagery and rhyme. The poem educates us about the importance of time and the growing shift occurring in epic poetry, a movement which MacNeice evidently took part in and which in turn affected the evolution of poetry in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Leonardo Rubio English 12 Period 6 1/2/11 Sweeney Among the Nightingales This essay is written as a reader response to the poem written by T. S. Eliot, Sweeney Among the Nightingales. Unlike many other poems of his time, T. S. Eliot’s intention was to portray man as vulgar or mundane and having a pessimistic or cynical attitude. T. S. Eliot may have had a different view of life and people than other poets. He may not have viewed man as heroic or romantic, but more crude and reprehensible. It is difficult to say exactly what T. S.

Eliot was trying to convey or express through his poetry, because he wrote many inferences, which left a lot of his writing open to interpretation. He may have written much of his work as an outlet to his political or social views. The narrator presents this poem in third person. He sounds objective in reporting what he sees, but the language is somewhat difficult. This poem needs to be read several times and requires a lot of thought and some imagination. After reading this poem many times, it gets more understandable, but some parts remain difficult to understand.

Some of the difficulty in understanding the poem may come from the referencing of other literary characters. Some of the other characters mentioned are from other great literary works, but are not familiar. This made it necessary to look up these characters and learn what the comparison is. The writer does a good job in showing or describing the character, but does not do a good job in describing the setting. The writer brings the character to life, by comparing him to animals like an ape, zebra, and a giraffe. He is also compared him to another literary character.

From what is written, it sounds like the setting can be either a restaurant or a brothel. It makes more sense if it were a brothel, because one of the females goes to sit on Sweeney’s lap as he is sitting at a table, but she falls to the floor. You are left to assume she might have fallen because she was drunk. It also makes the reader think that the character, Sweeney is distrustful of the females involved. Therefore, it makes more sense to assume that it was set in a brothel or a place similar to it. In my opinion, the narrator or writer of this poem made it difficult to understand.

I consider myself simple and describe things in simpler terms. My view is also more optimistic and I like to consider myself more romantic than this writer. It would be difficult to write a poem about prostitution or something similar. It would seem easier to write about love, life and family. I also find it difficult to make so many comparisons, especially to other characters who I do not know. It would be difficult to step into this narrator’s situation and give the poem the meaning and emphasis he is trying to convey.

He may have had a difficult past or some kind of difficult situation in his life, which would cause him to write in this dark or negative manner. Because I am only 17 years of age and have not had many bad experiences, my writings would probably be more positive. I have not needed to overcome great challenges or difficult struggles in my life, therefore I would not have grim or dark things to write about. The poem, Sweeney among the Nightingales, by T. S. Eliot can be viewed as a social commentary. T. S. Eliot’s writings are considered dark and somewhat negative, but they are his opinions.

T. S. Eliot describes the character in the poem, but he may be using this to describe men in general. This poem compares the character to animals, which makes him appear crude and indecent. It also portrays him as distrusting, which makes him appear paranoid. This may have been the way to do social commentaries without being very offensive to anyone in particular. This also may have been the proper forum to do social commentaries in this time period. This poem has several characters that are important to the story or meaning. The first and most important character is Sweeney.

He appears to be the main character. He is compared to animals by the writer. The comparison to animals can make the character appear more barbaric or vulgar. This can also make him look somewhat of a bad person. The writer appears to make Sweeney look vulgar when he places him in what appears to be a brothel. Sweeney is also made to look as if he is paranoid. Sometimes paranoia or guilt is caused by past traumas. Sweeney’s character or personality is made to look distrustful, bad and vulgar. This could have been how the writer envisioned men in general. There are two females also in the poem.

The two females appear to be in a brothel, so they may be thought of as prostitutes or whores. The reason one may think that they are prostitutes is because one of the females tries to sit on Sweeney’s lap right in the beginning. She also fell and Sweeney did not help her. It also appears that they did not know each other. The two females are made to look as if they are plotting against Sweeny. This makes the two females appear as if they cannot be trusted. There are other characters in this poem. They appear to have more of a silent role. The poem talks about other figures, but does not name them.

It is somewhat difficult to understand if some of the other figures are other men or if they are referring to Sweeney. There is for sure a waiter in the poem. He appears to be an innocent bystander. He is just mentioned when he brings out food to the table. He does not appear to be important or necessary to the meaning of the poem. This poem leaves out important details that the reader must just infer or assume. The first important detail is the setting. The setting is either a restaurant or a brothel because there is a waiter. We can assume it is a brothel because one of the females goes to sit on Sweeney’s lap.

He does not trust the two females and ends up leaving the place. Another detail mentioned in the poem is when the nightingales are singing near. This is in reference to another literary work that mentions nightingales singing. This means when there are others talking about illicit things that are going on or the telling of promiscuous behavior. It is also assumed that T. S. Eliot is anti-semitic, because of how he portrays Rachel Nee Rabinovich as somewhat vulgar and unflattering. She is referred to having “murderous paws”. She is also one of the two females that appear to be plotting against Sweeney.

Some writers may use ways of writing where they leave it open to the readers interpretation. They leave it up to the reader to assume what is being said. This can be a very effective way to write, because their poem can have several meanings. Most people have different opinions and not everyone thinks alike. The poem can have different meanings to different people. The writer can also put out his opinions or social commentaries, but in a less offensive manner, because it is left open to interpretation. My experience or background with poems is not very extensive.

I have little experience in reading poems and much less experience in writing them. The ones I have read are not like this one. The poems I have had experience with are more modern or what could be considered as romantic. My minimal background in poetry influenced me to think this poem is a bit weird or unconventional. It was very difficult to understand because of the vocabulary and distinct phrases. It also referenced other literary work that I was not very familiar with. The use of inferences also made it difficult, because certain things were left open to interpretation.

The poems I have dealt with were not as complex. I prefer or am more accustomed to poems that rhyme or simple poems like roses are red, violets are blue, I’m going crazy and it’s all because of you. I also like poems that are more clear or understandable. Poems should flow and be easy to read and understand, if not then I lose interest. Sweeney Among the Nightingales, was difficult to understand and did not flow easily. It takes some imagination and love of poetry to enjoy this type of poem. After reading Sweeney Among the Nightingales, by T. S. Eliot, I found it somewhat difficult to understand.

It may be a great literary piece of work and be written by a great writer, but I was not very impressed. It was necessary to read it several times to grasp some understanding. It was also necessary to look up the meaning of several words. This poem also made many comparisons, which were difficult to understand. There were also many inferences that left room for assumptions. This is difficult for someone of my age, who does not have much experience or world knowledge. This poem appears to have been written as a social commentary of its era. There is a possibility that T. S.

Eliot may have had bad experiences in his life, and was using his writing as a way to bring out his point of view. This too is also an inference, because that information is not known. One would think positive or romantic things are written about happiness and love and negative or dark things are written about negative experiences or traumas. Michael Cummings, (2009). “Sweeney among the Nightingales”. Cummings study guide website, retrieved from: http://www. cummingsstudyguides. net/Guides6/Sweeney. html Poetry Foundation website, (2011). “Sweeney among the Nightingales”. http://www. poetryfoundation. org/poem/236780

A. E. Housman’s “To ,” also known as Lyric XIX in A Shropshire Lad, holds as its main theme the premature death of a young athlete as told from the point of view of a friend serving as pall bearer. The poem reveals the concept that those dying at the peak of their glory or youth are really quite lucky. The first few readings of “To an Athlete Dying Young” provides the reader with an understanding of Housman’s view of death. Additional readings reveal Housman’s attempt to convey the classical idea that youth, beauty, and glory can be preserved only in death.

A line-by-line analysis helps to determine the purpose of the poem. The first stanza of the poem tells of the athlete’s triumph and his glory filled parade through the town in which the crowd loves and cheers for him. As Bobby Joe Leggett defines at this point, the athlete is “carried of the shoulders of his friends after a winning race” (54). In Housman’s words: The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high. (Housman 967).

Stanza two describes a much more somber procession. The athlete is being carried to his grave. In Leggett’s opinion, “The parallels between this procession and the former triumph are carefully drawn” (54). The reader should see that Housman makes another reference to “shoulders” as an allusion to connect the first … … middle of paper … … oem because the athlete lived a short choppy life, yet, be it for only a moment, he lived elaborately.

Works Cited

1. Bache, William. “Housman’s To an Athlete Dying Young. ” The Explicator, 1951. 185)
2. Henry, Nat. “Housman’s To an Athlete Dying Young. ” The Explicator, 1954. (188-189)
3. Housman, A. E.. “To an Athlete Dying Young. ” The Bedford Introduction To Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford Books Of St. Martin’s Press, 1993. (967)
4. Leggett, Bobby Joe. Land of Lost Content. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1970. Leggett, Bobby Joe. The Poetic Art of A. E. Housman. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978.
5. Ricks, Christopher ed.. A. E. Housman. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1968. John S. Ward