Figurative Language In Oliver Wendell Holmes The Chambered Nautilus

Of all the poems in the catalog given to us in class, “The Chambered Nautilus” by Oliver Wendell Holmes was by far one of my favorites and definitely appealed to my emotion the most. The amount of figurative language used certainly added to the poem and enabled me to imagine a mental image of the scenes depicted through Holmes’ stanzas. Visual imagery is known to add depth to a piece of writing and appeal to human senses to further deepen the reader’s understanding of the work, hence the work leaving its reader purer and richer. In his last stanza, Oliver Wendell Holmes writes, “Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, / As the swift seasons roll! / Leave thy low-vaulted past! / Let each new temple, nobler than the last, / Shut thee from

Although he may have accusations of being an inferior writer levied against him, Longfellow never published anything nearly as embarrassing as Moore to ruin his reputation. His fourth stanza of “A Psalm of Life” reads, “Art is long, and Time is fleeting, / And our hearts, though stout and brave, / Still, like muffled drums, are beating / Funeral marches to the grave.” It is hinting around the fact that life is short and although people and loved ones die, our hearts are still beating and we still have our life to fulfill. One example of wasted time is spending it trying to say Longfellow’s methods undermine the rest of his work. The only thing I see when reading this poem and the others provided by him is the amount of depth behind the words. Depth is not something you get from a mediocre author. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a master of his craft and deserves the praise he has received thus far for his

While heaven may be the goal at the end of life, you are sent to Earth to live productive and unselfish lives. He believes life is temporal and just because it will eventually come to an end does not mean that it should be taken lightly or only fill it with the negatives things since it is so short. As for “The Chambered Nautilus” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, his general theme is that you have to be able to close off your past but also not be so eager to look into the future and instead focus on what is currently going on in the