George Hebert’s The Altar is a poem written in a form of poetry known as concrete poetry or pattern/shape poetry. As such, the formation of the typography informs the conceit of the poem, and vise-versa, the conceit further builds or improves upon the image that the typography creates. The Altar, for example, is in the shape of an altar. The image of the words adds value to the impact of the poetry. Measuring poetic impact, however, is not as simple as creating a poem that is in the shape/image of whatever that poem is describing or addressing. While the shape of The Altar is crucial to the metaphysical conceit of the poem, Herbert’s use of meter and rhythm, rhyme, capitalization and wordplay, are of equal value to imparting the specific message of each poem. The following is an analysis of the visual elements and the poetic elements and their importance in garnering greater understanding of the metaphysical conceit of The Altar.
The Altar is a prayer set within a metaphysical poem. The speaker of the poem offers himself to the Lord, presumably at an altar, as signified by the title and shape of the poem. The first couplet of the poem states, “A broken ALTAR, Lord thy servant rears / Made of a heart, and cemented with tears” (1-2). The poem states that the altar is broken, however, because this poem is metaphysical it is safe to assume that the speaker’s heart is broken too. The altar is not literally made of the speaker’s heart but the two objects are symbolically interchangeable. Stating the altar is “made of heart” and “cemented with tears” is textual evidence that verifies the brokenness of the speaker’s heart in comparison to the altar, and therefore reveals the metaphysical conceit at work within the poem.
Now that a met...
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...lights the importance of being broken and the role it plays in leading the speaker back to the Lord.
The visual elements of the poem continuously reinforce the metaphysical conceit as the reader of the poem reads. How does Hebert utilize conventional poetic devices to reinforce the metaphysical conceit? Meter and rhythm are the first and foremost examples. The reason for this, without leaving the visual aspect completely, is that to create an image of an altar the poet must use different meters. To obtain the image of the altar Hebert utilizes the iamb but he does so with multiple different couplets: one couplet pentameter, one couplet tetrameter, three couplets dimeter, returning to a couplet of tetrameter, and last, pentameter. As one can see, quite literally, the use of descending and then ascending meter lengths helps to achieve the visual image of the altar.
In the poem, “The Was of Things,” (P 14) by Willie Perdomo, the poem is a free verse, no rhyme scheme, has 10 lines, and one stanza. The poem includes different techniques such as symbolism, personification, imagery, alliteration and so forth to illustrate different themes in the poem. The speaker uses enjambment in the poem to make readers think of what comes next. The beginning word of the poem is capitalized, the speaker trying to emphasize the first word in the poem or just followed a pattern. The purpose of the poem is to identify one theme in the poem, hence, what can be a theme captured in the poem “The Was of Things?” In this essay, I discuss the theme speculation and use structure, word usage, imagery, alliteration and symbolism to demonstrate the speculation throughout.
..., but still pleads for God to "take me in" (ll. 41), and promises to "pay...in happiness" for mercy. Once again, the speaker demonstrates the same desires for physical treasures that he expresses in the first stanza as he asks God to "give mine eye / A peephole there to see bright glory's chases" (ll. 39-40). Even in the God's kingdom, the speaker reveals his humanity as he focuses on ornamentation which starkly contrasts with God's divinity as He has the ability to show love even for sinners.
Grendel’s emergence is sudden and immediately the reader is presented with the image of a ‘fiend out of hell’ who has been provoked by the construction of Heorot. Indeed, the poet notes that the monster had long ‘nursed a hard grievance’, forced to listen to the clatter and din emitting from the mead hall. Heorot itself is given a sense of foreboding, in spite of being ‘meant to be a wonder of the world forever’, the poet admits that it was simply ‘awaiting a barbarous burning’ (Heaney 69, 82). Is the poet subtly suggesting that the construction of Heorot is not a symbol of marvel but rather a re...
The poem Fire and Ice is nine line long and is an example of a briefly ironic literary style of Frosts work. Fire and Ice ranges between two meter lengths. The poem uses interwoven rhymes founded on “ire,” “ice,” and “ate.” Although the meter is irregular it does keep up an iambic foot throughout the poem. The first line of the poem is a tetrameter followed by a dimeter which is followed by five line of tetrameter, ending with two lines of dimeter. The division of the line lengths is to render natural interruptions in the poem causing the reader to stop and reread what they have just read in order to comprehend the meaning of the lines containing the dimeter. For example when the reader reads “ Some say in ice” they go back to the first line of the poem to reread the topic of what some are saying about the end of the world. The rhyme scheme of “Fire and Ice” is ABAABCBCB style. The words “fire” and “ice” are being rhymed with themselves. By using this scheme it means that the poem falls soundly and flows. By using the rhyme scheme Frosts creates a connection between the words. For example “fire” and “desire,” which make it clear that the words are related on a deeper level. As well the rhyming of “fire” and “ice” with themselves made it work to cre...
Hester Prynne lived in a society of the Puritans. Puritans stuck to their beliefs and heavily enforced them. She was forced to follow these laws, and couldn’t break free. Hester became the biggest symbol of sin once she had committed the most impure action of all, adultery. She had become a figure of evil and was shamed upon for the rest of her life. Yet, in all of the shame she lived through, she was able to become a stronger woman. The “A”, the symbol of sin began to mean much more to her than just a sin. It cleared up her imagery, gave her the ability to see things others couldn’t. Doing what was seen as the most evil possible sin, she couldn’t possibly do anything worse.
In Emily Dickinson’s poem “It Was Not Death”, Dickinson is stuck in a mental state of hopelessness and despair which she cannot define nor understand. As Dickinson does not know the cause of her anguish, she begins the poem by referring to her condition with an unidentified “it”, and throughout the poem she is trying to make sense of this “it”. The poem is written in ballad meter as it consists of four line stanzas that contain alternate lines of iambic tetrameter followed by iambic trimeter.
Theo and the young Narrator similarly discover the revelatory capacity of art through a single pivotal painting and author respectively, both which become significant motifs in either text. Tartt utilizes an existent painting ‘The Goldfinch’ as a fixed point of reference, which, for both Theo and the reader provides a sense of reality and constancy ‘rais[ing him] above the surface’ of an otherwise tumultuous childhood. Whereas Proust uses a fictional author, ‘Bergotte’, to communicate the universality of art, and invite the reader, through the vivid immediacy with which the Narrator’s early reading experiences are described, to participate in his epiphanic discovery that art can translate ‘imperceptible truths which would never have [otherwise] been revealed to us’ (97). Artistic imagery becomes a motif in Proust’s descriptions of scenes of domesticity and nature. In a scene recounting Francoise ‘masterful’ preparation of a family meal the Narrator describes asparagus in the technical language of painting as ‘finely stippled’ provoking an association between his observations of asparagus and the creation of a painting. By forming this improbable link he elevates unremarkable asparagus to the ‘precious’ status of art in the eyes of the reader. Proust’s presentation of his Narrator’s ‘fascination’ and pleasure at their ‘rainbow-loveliness’, forces the reader to consider asparagus with unfamiliar and attentive appreciation, conveying the idea that art can uncover the overlooked beauty of the mundane. Though Theo reveals a far more cynical view of ordinary life as a ‘sinkhole of hospital beds, coffins and broken hearts’ Tartt conveys the similar belief in art’s capacity to create a ‘rainbow-edge’ of beauty between our perceptions and the harshness of reality. In the most
...ttachment or emotion. Again, Heaney repeats the use of a discourse marker, to highlight how vividly he remembers the terrible time “Next morning, I went up into the room”. In contrast to the rest of the poem, Heaney finally writes more personally, beginning with the personal pronoun “I”. He describes his memory with an atmosphere that is soft and peaceful “Snowdrops and Candles soothed the bedside” as opposed to the harsh and angry adjectives previously used such as “stanched” and “crying”. With this, Heaney is becoming more and more intimate with his time alone with his brother’s body, and can finally get peace of mind about the death, but still finding the inevitable sadness one feels with the loss of a loved one “A four foot box, a foot for every year”, indirectly telling the reader how young his brother was, and describing that how unfortunate the death was.
“My pleasant things in ashes lie, And them behold no more shall I,” (108), shows the pain I felt in dealing with the loss that I suffered. I lost all of my money, my TV, and my stereo. I knew I would never get the opportunity to recover my lost items. “And to my God my heart did cry” (107), compares with the emptiness I felt when my family arrived home and saw the back door kicked in. At that point I didn’t want to continue into the house to find what had been taken from me.
..., the content and form has self-deconstructed, resulting in a meaningless reduction/manifestation of repetition. The primary focus of the poem on the death and memory of a man has been sacrificed, leaving only the skeletal membrane of any sort of focus in the poem. The “Dirge” which initially was meant to reflect on the life of the individual has been completely abstracted. The “Dirge” the reader is left with at the end of the poem is one meant for anyone and no one. Just as the internal contradictions in Kenneth Fearing’s poem have eliminated the substantial significance of each isolated concern, the reader is left without not only a resolution, but any particular tangible meaning at all. The form and content of this poem have quite effectively established a powerful modernist statement, ironically contingent on the absence and not the presence of meaning in life.
...vocal statement about the ?organic? possibilities of poetry than optimistic readers might have expected. ?Mayflies? forces us to complicate Randall Jarrell?s neat formulation. Here Wilbur has not just seen and shown ?the bright underside of? a ?dark thing.? In a poem where the speaker stands in darkness looking at what ?animate[s] a ragged patch of glow? (l.4), we are left finally in a kind of grayness. We look from darkness into light and entertain an enchanting faith that we belong over there, in the immortal dance, but we aren?t there now. We are in the machine-shop of poetry. Its own fiat will not let us out completely.
The average reader cannot help but be affected by Dickinson’s style. The capitalized words draw the reader’s attention. They highlight important key words of the poem. The dashes set apart specific words and phrases, forcing the reader to slow down while reading. The dashes compel the reader to contemplate and ponder over the lines. Thus, whether or not Dickinson had a conscious purpose in her unconventional capitalization and punctuation, they have an undeniable effect on the rhythm of the poem and the perception of the reader.
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is an elaborate and mysterious montage of lines from other works, fleeting observations, conversations, scenery, and even languages. Though this approach seems to render the poem needlessly oblique, this style allows the poem to achieve multi-layered significance impossible in a more straightforward poetic style. Eliot’s use of fragmentation in The Waste Land operates on three levels: first, to parallel the broken society and relationships the poem portrays; second, to deconstruct the reader’s familiar context, creating an individualized sense of disconnection; and third, to challenge the reader to seek meaning in mere fragments, in this enigmatic poem as well as in a fractious world.
This piece of the poem is full of the images of nature. The image of sun and the moon can be find throughout the whole work, but in this part it probably poses as a symbol of rationality and intellect. Its function differs from the function of the moon and its light shines its rays of light on things to make them clearer, more comprehensible and earthly. T...
Through alliteration and imagery, Coleridge turns the words of the poem into a system of symbols that become unfixed to the reader. Coleridge uses alliteration throughout the poem, in which the reader “hovers” between imagination and reality. As the reader moves through the poem, they feel as if they are traveling along a river, “five miles meandering with a mazy motion” (25). The words become a symbol of a slow moving river and as the reader travels along the river, they are also traveling through each stanza. This creates a scene that the viewer can turn words into symbols while in reality they are just reading text. Coleridge is also able to illustrate a suspension of the mind through imagery; done so by producing images that are unfixed to the r...