DH Laurence Poems
‘Look We Have Come Through! The title of this section suggests a note of hope and faith in human resilience. How far is this reflected in the poems?’
The poems in this section are about the hardships of life and the problems that people have to face, yet there is an undertone of hope in them too, the problems may not be solved, but the poems show that there is a sense of faith in human resilience.
‘On the Balcony’ is about the relationship between a man and a woman and how they are what are important in an unpredictable inanimate world.
The first line is almost an oxymoron in itself describing the ‘sombre mountains’ next to ‘a faint lost ribbon of rainbow.’ The atmosphere through out the whole poem is sombre like the mountains, yet through it all lies the rainbow, which in biblical terms refers to the rainbow in Noah’s Arc which was a symbol of hope, showing that there is also hope for the couple in the poem.
Lawrence describes the relationship between the world and the couple as ‘us and it.’ This shows a strong sense of unity between the two, it’s as though nothing can get between them. The only other people around are the labourers who are like ‘dark stumps’ standing in the ‘green wheat.’ They are presented as heavy, steady unimportant parts of the landscape and are a contrast to the intimate relationship that the couple have. They are standing on a balcony and the man can ‘distinguish the scent’ of the woman’s hair. The balcony is a symbol of the solidity of their relationship, and the fact that he can smell her hair shows that they are standing very close together, this shows the bond that they have.
The atmosphere around the couple is unpredictable, as a ‘pale-gree...
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...nd feelings lye. The mother and father showed this as they were the only ones at the graveside of their child, whereas everyone else was superficially following a procession for the sake of curiosity, and for something to do. Lawrence seems to be criticising society in all the poems for the views that they possess, as in each poem it is the voice of society that dictates and disrupts people’s lives. It’s as though people cannot be free to do as they please, they have to follow a set of unwritten rules in order to be accepted. Lawrence finds this annoying, and has written the poems in this section to show that there is hope and faith in human resilience, that people can get through the difficulties in life if they just believe in their own views and be strong, that way they will come through the bad times, hence the title of the section, ‘Look We Have Come Through!’¡
and that we should help those less fortunate than ourselves. In this I essay I have shown how successful the poet was in making me share this view by using his thoughtful and intense language, word-choice and imagery techniques.
poem compares the fear of the sea to everyday hardships of every human being. The key to this
The diction of this poem influences the imagery with the tone of the words . They are used to convey the message of how it feels to not feel the spark of love
The first stanza describes the depth of despair that the speaker is feeling, without further explanation on its causes. The short length of the lines add a sense of incompleteness and hesitance the speaker feels towards his/ her emotions. This is successful in sparking the interest of the readers, as it makes the readers wonder about the events that lead to these emotions. The second and third stanza describe the agony the speaker is in, and the long lines work to add a sense of longing and the outpouring emotion the speaker is struggling with. The last stanza, again structured with short lines, finally reveals the speaker 's innermost desire to "make love" to the person the speaker is in love
During the process of growing up, we are taught to believe that life is relatively colorful and rich; however, if this view is right, how can we explain why literature illustrates the negative and painful feeling of life? Thus, sorrow is inescapable; as it increase one cannot hide it. From the moment we are born into the world, people suffer from different kinds of sorrow. Even though we believe there are so many happy things around us, these things are heartbreaking. The poems “Tips from My Father” by Carol Ann Davis, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith, and “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop convey the sorrow about growing up, about sorrowful pretending, and even about life itself.
We’ve all wondered and wracked our brains over the questions and nature of humankind, to which we have no true and final answers: how every moment lived and this moment you live right now, will simply be a memory, the daunting inevitability of death, life’s transience, the irreversibility of time, the loss of innocence with ages…it is in the human condition to question such things; and this mutual similarity in wonder, to me, is beautiful. I intertwine these universal topics into my poetry, particularly Father & Child and the Violets, to transcend time and provide meaning to a range of different contexts, whilst reflecting my own context and values.
The poems that were written above were especially good, because they all thought life lessons of what you should do and what not to do. The tone of “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” showed the author’s feeling toward death is a very strong dislike, because death is taking over his dad. The theme of “Paid in Full” showed that doing unlawful things to get money is extremely wrong. Instead he went to go look for a job, which was the right path to earn his respectfully earned money. The personification in “Carry me through” showed how life is like unstable person and you never know what life can bring you. Whenever people read poetry it takes into another planet.
Ramazani, Jahan, Richard Ellmann, and Robert O 'Clair. The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003. Print.
My first and immediate explanation for the poem was an address from one lover to a loved one, where distance became a factor in their relationship. The lover has it far worse than the desired partner and the solitude builds nothing but longing for this person at a time when his love is the greatest. He says " What have I to say to you when we shall meet?... I am alone" with my head knocked against the sky”. He further asks, “How can I tell if I shall ever love you again as I do now?” There is uncertainty because he is wondering over the next encounter with his loved one. He says, “I lie here thinking of you” and is compelling when he wants the loved one to see him in the 5th stanza and what love is doing to his state of mind. He is hopeless and expresses it by asking questions he is unsure of, conveying his troubled state. Williams enforces imagery along with sound effects to demonstrate the despair of the man in a realm that is almost dreamlike with purple skies,spoiled colors, and birds. Stating he is alone and that his head collides with the sky may underline the man’s confusion. He also uses imagery in the “stain of love as it eats into the leaves”, and saffron horned branches, vivid and easy-to-imagine images that captivate the reader. The line stating “a smooth purple sky” and this stain which is “spoiling the colours of the whole world” easily formulate a very distinct picture. Through consonance words like “eats” and “smears with saffron” become fiercer in the eyes of this lover as they cancel out a “smooth sky”.
The poem's diction immerses the reader into the speaker's fantasy-like realm of love shared with his bride. He begins the poem with the first two lines, "It was many and many a year ago, / In a kingdom by the sea," much like the "once upon a time, in a faraway land" of fairytales. The couple lived with no other thought than to love one another and "loved with a love that was more than love" (9).
The first half of the poems’ images are of life, coming of age, and death.
To me the poem seems like a lament for the poverty of these people and
Poetry can serve as cautionary tales, a declaration of love and many other types of expression. Poems can discuss several themes from love and life to death and religion; however two poems with the same themes can have two different messages. Thomas Grey’s “Elegy Written in a Church Courtyard” and “Beowulf” author unknown, express themes such as death and the value of life; however their use of figurative language and choice of form convey two different messages. Figurative language can deepen the meaning of a message, while form can give the reader a hint about the poem’s theme.
The phrasing of this poem can be analyzed on many levels. Holistically, the poem moves the father through three types of emotions. More specifically, the first lines of the poem depict the father s deep sadness toward the death of his son. The line Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy creates a mental picture in my mind (Line 1). I see the father standing over the coffin in his blackest of outfits with sunglasses shading his eyes from the sun because even the sun is too bright for his day of mourning. The most beautiful scarlet rose from his garden is gripped tightly in his right hand as tears cascade down his face and strike the earth with a splash that echoes like a scream in a cave, piercing the ears of those gathered there to mourn the death of his son.
The tone in the first 11 stanzas of the poem seems very resigned; the speaker has accepted that the world is moving on without them. They says things like “I don’t reproach the spring for starting up again” and “I don’t resent the view for its vista of a sun-dazzled bay”. By using words like “resent” and “reproach”, the author indirectly implies that the speaker has a reason to dislike beautiful things. The grief that has affected the speaker so much hasn’t affected life itself and they has come to accept that. The author chooses to use phrases like ‘it doesn’t pain me to see” and “I respect their right” which show how the speaker has completely detached themself from the word around them. While everything outside is starting to come back to life, the speaker is anything but lively. “I expect nothing from the depths near the woods.” They don’t expect anything from the world and want the world to do the same thing in return. This detachment proves that the speaker feels resigned about themself and the world around