In William Meredith’s Sonnet “The Illiterate” the poet evokes numerous feelings of ambiguity and uncertainty in his poem. In doing so, Meredith not only helps the reader capture the sense of emotion that the character was feeling when he received the letter, but encompasses his personal viewpoint of life as well. Similar to the Meredith, the character in the poem was inexperienced in romantic love, and was basically at a loss for words when he received a letter from a loved one. The character then faces a dilemma: not only was it the first letter that he ever received, but he was illiterate and couldn’t understand the content in the letter. The poem relates to Meredith’s life because he was gay, which was disapproved during his time period …show more content…
While many sonnets may include robust and difficult diction in them, Meredith chose to use basic words. Meredith chose this strategy in his poem because he wanted to help the reader clearly understand the mindset of the character. Meredith may have also chosen to use basic words because character in the poem was illiterate, and this use of basic words would accentuate the character’s simplicity. Perhaps Meredith was also trying to show a connection between literacy and the thinking process. Meredith may have been implying that literacy leads to a more complex mindset. Additionally, when someone is very emotional and uncertain, they are often at a loss for words and tend to use basic diction to get their ideas across. Meredith’s use of basic words helps encompass this idea, while also allowing the reader to notice irregularities in the sonnet. In addition to Meredith’s use of basic words, he also evokes ambiguity in the poem by having “almost no description, no sense-details” in many of his lines (298). He does this by using statements such as “and you might think,” and “what would you call” (Lines 3 and 13). While these statements show the ambiguous nature of the poem, it also allows the reader to see the illiterate side of the writer as …show more content…
In the poem, the character would often use words that had double meanings. In lines 6 and 7 of the poem, it stated that the character was “afraid of what it means and ashamed because he has no other means”. I believe that Meredith chooses words with double meanings to emphasize how the character has approaches to the letter. While the words sound the same, they each carry a different avenue of approach. Similarly, the character in the book is torn between what emotion he has toward the contents in the letter he received. Since the character is illiterate, he has no ability to determine his true feelings for the loved one. Additionally, this use of repetitive words in the poem also shows the lack of diction by the character. When words are repeated, it typically tells someone that they are either confused or have a weak vocabulary. Since it is implied that the man had a small lexicon because of his illiteracy, the poem reveals his ideas in a simplistic and repetitive wording
The informal language and intimacy of the poem are two techniques the poet uses to convey his message to his audience. He speaks openly and simply, as if he is talking to a close friend. The language is full of slang, two-word sentences, and rambling thoughts; all of which are aspects of conversations between two people who know each other well. The fact that none of the lines ryhme adds to the idea of an ordinary conversation, because most people do not speak in verse. The tone of the poem is rambling and gives the impression that the speaker is thinking and jumping from one thought to the next very quickly.
In the poem, the author uses structure of the sonnet as well as patterns and rhyme to join the external form of the Petrarchan sonnet with the theme and tone. Brook's poem does not exactly follow the pattern we are used to which makes the reader follow every line closely for examination. Using a structured rhyme pattern to describe such a serious tone gives the sonnet a punchy feeling, simulating violence or pinch of strings in violin. Words like string, sing, hate, late, note, wrote, space, grace and many others all rhyme only using the last syllable, making them masculine. Also it draws attention to the ends of the lines which (the first four) she all ends with words related to music, furthering the theme of the poem. She also uses Petrarchan sonnet scheme to give the poem a lyrical quality emphasizing one of the themes of musical instruments in it. Finally, the poem is full of symbolism and imagery creating a strong connection between the way it is written and the message it carries.
"Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal [but] which the reader recognizes as his own." (Salvatore Quasimodo). There is something about the human spirit that causes us to rejoice in shared experience. We can connect on a deep level with our fellow man when we believe that somehow someone else understands us as they relate their own joys and hardships; and perhaps nowhere better is this relationship expressed than in that of the poet and his reader. For the current assignment I had the privilege (and challenge) of writing an imitation of William Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 87". This poem touched a place in my heart because I have actually given this sonnet to someone before as it then communicated my thoughts and feelings far better than I could. For this reason, Sonnet 87 was an easy choice for this project, although not quite so easy an undertaking as I endeavored to match Shakespeare’s structure and bring out his themes through similar word choice.
Nearly four centuries after the invention of the sonnet, Oscar Fay Adams was born. He stepped into his career at the brink of the American civil war, a time when typically cold Victorian era romances were set in stark contrast to the passions of Warhawks. It was in this era when Adams wrote his sonnet: “Indifference”, which explores the emotional turmoil and bitterness a man endures as he struggles to move on from a failed relationship . Adams utilizes the speaker's story in order to dramatize the plight of an individual trying and failing to reconcile holding on to the joy that passionate love brings with the intense pain it bestows in conjunction with this joy . Adams employs various poetic devices in order to present a new view of indifference,
The language makes up the overall mood of the poem. At first the poem seems positive and happy, but looking into the language the reader sees that there is a overpowering sense of negativity behind the imagery
The poem told the story of a man who is inhibited by language, and has never quite had the ability to articulate his thoughts and feeling through words. It is said that his family members have tried
Shakespeare’s Sonnet #23 is addressed to the lovely young man, called WH. The speaker is trying to convey his complex feeling towards his lover. He is tongue-tied in the young man’s company and he is trying to explain this awkwardness and express his complex emotions in this sonnet. It is, the speaker says, due to the hugeness of his love, that makes it too heavy to carry. For the author this sonnet is a silent representation of his inner voice. To show the complexity of the situation, he compares poet’s role as a lover to an actor’s timidity onstage. He asks WH to read these silent lines and explains that love will give him the insight to read between lines. The sonnet consists of 14 lines, which are splitted into octave and a sestet, and has typical for Shakespeare’s sonnets rhyme scheme: a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g. He uses first two quatrains to establish a problem and then resolves it in a third quatrain, summarizing solution in the following couplet.
...e speaker admits she is worried and confused when she says, “The sonnet is the story of a woman’s struggle to make choices regarding love.” (14) Her mind is disturbed from the trials of love.
The use of diction throughout the poem aids the author in displaying the idea that
The author of the poem relies a multiple combination of uses of figurative language including using alliteration, assonance, and usage of parallel structure. Alliteration was presented multiple times through the poem, with the usage of musical rhythm and the flow of the overall writing. The usage of alliteration made every stanza stand out to create a flow with reading the poem. The first type of alliteration that is present in the poem is the repeated sounds in the beginning
While the original poet of the poem, Li Po, writes it with proper poetic form, Pound uses a different tactic to align with the context of the poem. Written in free verse, the poem feels more genuine as if it is a real letter written by the wife to her husband. Consistent patterns of meter, rhyme, and other musical patterns are not applied by Pound into the poem. The flow of the poem follows the rhythm of a natural speech. The lack of prescribed meter allows Pound to bring out the rawness of the emotions of the wife, drawing the reader directly into her loneliness without having to overcome the barrier of an overly structured presentation. In the midst of longer sentences, the two short ones with one-syllable words draw significant attention to the emotional impact that the nature has on the speaker. When writing about the changing season, the falling leaves and the paired butterflies, the speaker remarks, “They hurt me. I grow older” (Pound). These short sentences capture the attention of the reader as the poem reaches its climax in which the wife acknowledges her deep sorrow for the long absence of her husband. By not following the rigid form of poetry, Pound allows the reader to feel the sorrowful emotions of the wife.
Examples of assonance in the poem are, “In a kingdom by the sea,” (line 2) “By the name of Annabel Lee,” (line 4) and “Than to love and be loved by me” (line 6). All of these lines end in the long e rhyme and consequently, highlight the constantly repeated words, Annabel Lee. The author did this to portray that everything the speaker thought of was about his gorgeous wife, Annabel Lee, and even when he was not thinking of her directly, she was still in his mind which is shown through the ending words in the lines that share the same vowel sound that Lee has. Repetition was mainly used on the word, Annabel Lee. That name was in fact said seven whole times throughout the poem, once in each stanza, and twice in the last one!
The speaker uses metaphors to describe his mistress’ eyes to being like the sun; her lips being red as coral; cheeks like roses; breast white as snow; and her voices sounding like music. In the first few lines of the sonnet, the speaker view and tells of his mistress as being ugly, as if he was not attracted to her. He give...
...that this sonnet arouses the curiosity of oneself. Always be aware of things around you, because if you don’t you will get caught in them. And never let the toils of age get the best of you, live your life to the best of your abilities and while doing it, have fun with it too. Imagery is all throughout this sonnet and a big majority of his sonnets too. Meaning he likes to convey images to you in your mind sometimes, so basically he wants you to think of what he is trying to say to you but in your head. So, don’t things hurt you and think very positive all the time and never thing’s get the best of you and never ever think negative. Thinking negative will get you nowhere in life, it will just simply just make things worse for you. He also has a very strange diction in this sonnet, basically meaning word choice.
The similar rhyme schemes of the two sonnets allow for clear organization of the speaker’s ideas and support these ideas through comparison and connection. Both poems use or essentially use a Shakespearean rhyme scheme to provide rhythm for their sonnets, while adding extra emphasis to the topics presented throughout them. Owen uses the rhyme scheme in a way to stress his description of the enraged scene of the battlefield, and to further the dehumanization of the soldiers at war. The simile used to compare the soldiers to “cattle”, is connected to the fast “rattle” of the rifles, furthering the image of the inhumane way the soldiers we killed (1,3). Owen alters the Shakespearean rhyme scheme in the eleventh line making a switch to create two lines in a row that rhyme, rather than alternating. This allows for a smooth transition in his description of the ritual that marks a soldier’s death. To draw attention to the tears “in their eyes”, which could be in the eyes of the dead soldier or of their brothers at war, they are connected to the “glimmer of good-byes”, to represent the quick mourning for the soldiers (10-11). The connection here is furthered with the use of enjambment at the end of the tenth line; with no grammatical separation, the thought smoothly transitions from one line to the other. On the other hand, Keats uses the exact Shakespearean rhyme