Williams use of imagery is also very strong in his poems "This is Just to Say" and "To Waken an Old Lady.” These poems are often used in comparison to each other in how they each use different types of diction to portray specific images for the readers. For example, in "This is Just to Say", Williams uses imagery to initiate the audience's use of their own imagination. Williams writes, "The plums that were in the icebox" (lines 2-4), the reader is able to picture the plums in the freezer, but is able to use their imagination to make them appealing to their own desires and palate. Similarly, he wrote in "To Waken an Old Lady" (p.505, 506), using the image of "a flight of small cheeping birds skimming bare trees" (lines 2-5) to portray birds …show more content…
He did not want to be labeled by critics and even fellow poets as less than a real American writer because he was the son of immigrants. He rejected the biased notion that as a “foreigner” he could not write “good” English. This led Williams to believe that he had to write better than anyone else, including his colleagues, and he did so with the everyday American language. It is implied that Williams found his own way of writing when he developed a new approach to poetry. This was his use of the everyday language, simple words, and simple meanings of his everyday life. This style of writing was so different from either that of the European classics or the more modern styles developed by poets such as Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. It appears as though his primary contribution to America apart from his care as a doctor, was his change in literature. William Carlos Williams aimed to release poetry from the shackles of the expected and traditional language. This allowed Williams to express his own perspective of the world through anything that influenced him and to free himself and his personal identity from the history of being a
Paul Laurence Dunbar is one of the most influential African American poets to gain a nationwide reputation. Dunbar the son of two former slaves; was born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio. His work is truly one of a kind, known for its rich, colorful language, encompassed by the use of dialect, a conversational tune, and a brilliant rhetorical structure. The style of Dunbar’s poetry includes two distinct voices; the standard English of the classical poet and the evocative dialect of the turn of the century black community in America. His works include a large body of dialect poems, standard English poems, essays, novels, and short stories. The hardships encountered by members of is race along with the efforts of African Americans to achieve equality in America were often the focus of his writings. http://www.dunbarsite.org/
Stanton, Stephen. "Introduction." Tennessee Williams: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey : Prentice-Hall, 1977. 1-16.
Everett, Nicholas From The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamiltong. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.
The world is filled with many different types of societies and cultures. This is due to the fact that many people share dissimilar beliefs and ideas, as well as diverse ways of life. People lived under different circumstances and stipulations, therefore forming cultures and societies with ideas they formulated, themselves. These two factors, society and culture, are what motivate people to execute the things that they do. Many times, however, society and culture can cause downgrading effects to an assemblage if ever it is corrupt or prejudiced. Society and culture not only influences the emotions individuals have toward things like age differences, religion, power, and equality but also the actions they perform as a result.
The poem tells of a young black with a writing assignment in which he must simple write a page on whatever he wants. Hughes uses the narrator in this poem to give some insight on the obstacles that he believed stood in his path while he was trying to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. The speaker tells the audience that he is in college and that “I am the only colored student in my class” (Hughes line 10). During that time period, it was very rare for anyone of color to participate in higher education. The speaker tells us he is from the Harlem area, and he identifies with the people of Harlem just as Harlem identifies with him. Hughes understood the feelings and everyday lives of the people of Harlem, New York, and gave his fictional speaker those same understandings. The writer tells his audience of his feelings towards the white American population when he says, “I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like / the same things other folks like who are other races” (lines 25-26). Hughes’s used his speaker to explain how black and whites both want to be writers, but blacks are put at a disadvantage due to the social differences of the two. Langston Hughes wanted his readers to understand the cultural differences of people of color and people on non-color. Jeannine Johnson asserts that “for Hughes, poetry is to some degree about self-expression and self-exploration, especially when the "self" is understood to mark the identity of an individual who is always affected by and affecting a larger culture.” One of the most noted portions of this poem is when the speaker tells his instructor, “You are white / yet a part of me, as I am a part of you / That’s American” (lines 31-33). These lines tell the reader that although whites and blacks have their differences, that regardless of race they are both American. Hughes uses
The poem “The Old Maid”, by Sara Teasdale, takes place on a sidewalk on Broadway. The speaker in the poem is a woman walking with who you can infer to be her fiancée and she is describing a brief encounter she had with another woman in the car driving by her. The speaker describes the woman as “The woman I might grow to be,” She then notices how her hair color “…was as mine” and how “Her eyes were strangely like my eyes”. However, despite all these similarities the woman’s hair compared to the speaker’s was “…dull and drew no light”. Her eyes also did not shine like the speaker’s. The speaker assumed that the reason for the woman’s frail appearance was because she had never had the opportunity to know what it was like to be in love. In the last stanza, the speaker no longer looks upon the old maid but to her lover and knows that even though they may look similar she will never be like her.
Ellmann, Richard and Robert O’Clair. Modern Poems. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1989.
In the early 20th century, many writers such as T.S. Eliot (Thomas Stearns Eliot) and Langston Hughes wrote what scholars of today consider, modern poetry. Writers in that time period had their own ideas of what modern poetry should be and many of them claimed that they wrote modern work. According to T.S. Eliot’s essay, “From Tradition”, modern poetry must consist of a “tradition[al] matter of much wider significance . . . if [one] want[s] it [he] must obtain it by great labour . . . no poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists’ (550). In another term, tradition only comes within the artist or the art itself; therefore, it should be universally monumental to the past. And, Langston Hughes argues that African-Americans should embrace and appreciate their own artistic virtues; he wishes to break away from the Euro-centric tradition and in hopes of creating a new blueprint for the African-American-Negro.
Imagery is a key part of any poem or literary piece and creates an illustration in the mind of the reader by using descriptive and vivid language. Olds creates a vibrant mental picture of the couple’s surroundings, “the red tiles glinting like bent plates of blood/ the
...with the poem. When reading through his work, it is evident that all his work is derived from his experience in America throughout his life.
“Nothing whips my blood like verse.” These are the famous words of the great poet, William Carlos Williams. Williams was born on September 17, 1883 in Rutherford, New Jersey. He spent most of his life in Rutherford, so today he is a local hero. Williams’ mother was Puerto Rican and almost had pure Spanish blood. His father was American. As a child, Williams’ dad was a salesman and was often away from home. Thus, they didn’t see each other very much. When Williams was four, he attended school in Switzerland and France for three years. Then his family moved back to Rutherford. Williams started writing poetry at Horace Mann High School, in New York City. His parents loved literature and the visual arts, so Williams had a large vocabulary and a gift for writing poetry. Even though Williams’ parents were all for literature, they wanted him to become a doctor. So in high school, Williams decided he would go to medical school but continue to write poetry. Williams soon was accepted into the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and went off to college.
William was very talented as a child. He loved to draw and write but did not like school. His type of writing was romantic tailored after writers at the time such as Thomson, Swinburn, Burns, and Houseman (Padgett Web). Not only did he not like school, he also did...
Another rhetorical strategy incorporated in the poem is imagery. There are many types of images that are in this poem. For example, the story that the young girl shares with the boy about drowning the cat is full of images for the reader to see:
William Wordsworth is a British poet who is associated with the Romantic movement of the early 19th century. Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England. Wordsworth’s mother died when he was seven years old, and he was an orphan at 13. This experience shapes much of his later work. Despite Wordsworth’s losses, he did well at Hawkshead Grammar School, where he firmly established his love of poetry. After Hawkshead, Wordsworth studied at St. John’s College in Cambridge and before his final semester, he set out on a walking tour of Europe, an experience that influenced both his poetry.
Walt Whitman was a great American because he was a patriot who was a voice for new American ideals and spoke for the people by defying aristocratic influence on the common mans life. Whitman’s story is a true American story. He rose from humble means, both financially and intellectually, and much to his own credit and determination became one of the America’s greatest literary achievers. He became America’s Poet long after his death through great study of his work by later generations who realized just how distinguishingly accurate his account of American life was. His first volume of poetry “Leaves of Grass” was heavily criticized for its vulgar and suggestive content along with forging a new style of writing, called Free Verse, that ignored traditional rules of poetry. Yet, he went on to produce 7 different revisions of the book to include some of the most patriotic poetry in American history. He was a poet making a plea to Americans to take decisive action in creating awareness of self and country. Whitman was opinionated about current issues like Slavery, and rights for women. Whitman and America blossomed simultaneously. Whitman’s growth as an emerging poet parallels America’s turbulent evolution, through civil war and the formative years of the country. Whitman paints a portrait of America with brutal honesty and his voice is so fresh and new, it cannot be ignored. (Zwonitzer, Wignot. Walt Whitman: Poet of Eternity)