Alfred Noyes,the British poet renowned on account his ballad “The Highwayman,” was declared to be “one of the most prolific, most popular, and most traditional of British poets.”1 He wrote mostly in ballad form of the country of Wales; some of his works were set to music by Sir Edward Elgar. Furthermore, despite having failing eyesight as a senior, he persisted in writing almost until his death.
Noyes was born on September 16, 1880 in Wolverhampton, England, to Alfred and Amelia Adam Rawley Noyes. He composed his first poetry at the relatively young age of nine, and had produced his initial epic, an allegory consisting of over one thousand lines, by the time he was fourteen. Alfred Noyes was, in following years, educated and trained in England, at Exeter College, Oxford. However, he refrained from the completion of his degree, and concentrated instead on the publication of his first volume of poems, titled The Loom of Years (1902).
In 1907 he wed an American, Garnett Daniels, daughter of Colonel G. Byron Daniels, and subsequently spent a vast majority of his time in the Unites States. Moreover, with the publication of more volumes of poetry, the artist was “hailed as England's leading poet,”2 and had successfully written an astounding two-dozen poetical novels within the first two decades of his career. Garnett Daniels eventually passed away in the year 1926, and Noyes then converted to Catholicism and married his second-wife, Mary Angela Mayne Weld-Blundell.
Throughout the course of the following years, the couple relocated to Lisle Combe, St. Laurence, located in the Isle of Wight, where Mr. Noyes proceeded to pursue his literary activities. During World War II they dwelt alternately in Canada and the United S...
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...are said to reunite anew on winter nights.
“The Highwayman” is a ballad,and relates to other works in its genre in the sense that its verses contain refrains. These refrains are characteristically short, consisting of merely two to four words. In addition, in the second half and the second stanza of the poem, there are seven lines, while the remainder of the stanzas, in both halves of the poem, contain six lines. The purpose of a remaining line is that a specific phrase (“in the moonlight”) is repeated, and foreshadows that a climactic event will occur late at night.5 Each individual line of the poem is penned in hexameter, meaning that there six poetic feet included in each line. Also the poetical meter of “The Highwayman” is a mixture of the patterns Anapestic metre ( marked as unstressed-unstressed-stressed) and Iambic Pentameter ( unstressed-stressed).
First of alll, the poem is divided into nine stanzas, where each one has four lines. In addition to that, one can spot a few enjambements for instance (l.9-10). This stylistic device has the function to support the flow of the poem. Furthermore, it is crucial to take a look at the choice of words, when analysing the language.
The readers are apt to feel confused in the contrasting ways the woman in this poem has been depicted. The lady described in the poem leads to contrasting lives during the day and night. She is a normal girl in her Cadillac in the day while in her pink Mustang she is a prostitute driving on highways in the night. In the poem the imagery of body recurs frequently as “moving in the dust” and “every time she is touched”. The reference to woman’s body could possibly be the metaphor for the derogatory ways women’s labor, especially the physical labor is represented. The contrast between day and night possibly highlights the two contrasting ways the women are represented in society.
When he returned from the army he got enrolled at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He received M.A. degree and began to work on his Ph.D. at the same time he started teaching at University of Minnesota and later at MacAlester College. He received Ph.D. from University of Washington for study on Charles Dickens and he did public readings. He taught at Hunter College in New York City from 1966 to 1980. He also worked as translator. He completed some of his poems as he was teaching in the college he states that he didn’t feel any conflict between the duties of teaching and the labors of writing books which are non-academic.
He was also seen publicly intoxicated multiple times after that. After being fired he went on to publish more works. Later on, in 1847, his wife, Virginia, died. Shortly after he went to providence, Rhode Island, to win over Sarah Helen Whitman, who was a poet. They had a very brief engagement.
Robert Burns, a poet and lyricist in the Romantic Age, was born in Alloway, Scotland on 25 January, 1759. “The son of a hard-working and intelligent farmer, Burns was the oldest of seven children, all of whom had to help in the work on the farm” (The Columbia Encyclopedia). His first poem was written when he was fifteen; which was written for Jean Armour, whom he would later marry. “Burns fathered fourteen children with Jean Armour. They settled in Ellisland on a leased farm, forty-five miles from Mauchline, where Burns began his duties as a tax inspector, which was his profession until the end of his days” (Encyclopedia of World Biography).
This poem is divided into six stanzas with four lines each. The poem opens with “When the black snake flashed on the morning road” (1-2). The narrator uses “when” to signify the beginning of the story and introduces the snake as the main character. Labeling the snake as “black” gives it a dark and sinister appeal. The word “flashed” is used to demonstrate how fast the snake moved, and how quickly this event occurred. “Morning” is applied to the time of day that this event occurred. The narrator sees the snake quickly flash across the road. This sets up the scene in our minds. The “truck could not swerve” (3) implies that this was an accidental death. The poet uses “truck” to suggest a big vehicle that is unable to make quick moves or sudden stops. The narrator sees the snake flash across the road, into the path of a big truck that is unable to stop or swerve. “Death, that is how it happens” (4). The word “death” is italicized, emphasizing its importance. The p...
Dickinson sets the slow pace and intimate feel of her poem almost immediately encouraging closeness between death, the narrator and the reader. In the first stanza, Dickinson gave death a human embodiment as carriage driver and a gentle quality to his character. Together the narrator and death begin a journey alone within the carriage. The second stanza is where Dickinson begins to cultivate the slow feel of this poem by stating, “We slowly drove—He knew no haste” (Dickinson line 5) and when coupled with the following lines “And I had put away/My labor and my leisure too” (Dickinson lines 6-7) the poem begins to take on its true meaning, this poem is the description of the narrators funeral procession.
Alfred Noyes uses repetition and diction to create suspense in the poem “The Highwayman”. The author uses various examples of repetition and diction. In the story Noyes states, “And the highwayman came riding/Riding-riding-/ The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door”. This conveys a feeling of fear using repetition. The reader does not know what is going to happen next. In part two, paragraph one, when the redcoat troops seize the landlord’s home, Noyes uses repetition again stating, “A red-coat troop came marching/ Marching-/marching-marching-/ King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door”. This conveys that the red-coat troops are attacking the landlord’s home. This leaves the reader wondering what the troop is going to
Noyes started writing poetry in the early 1900's, his most popular yet is "The Highwayman", a touching story of love, tragedy and jealousy in which two lovers are parted by death. It is a beautiful romantic poem, where the words flow like silk and from the first line you are entranced. He is one of the few contemporary poets who have been fortunate enough to write a kind of poetry that is not only saleable but popular with many classes of people. "The Highwayman" is indeed stereotypical in its representation of a fairytale romance which comes to life in the dark of night. Noyes creates an exciting secret love affair between a traditionally unlikely couple.
Robert Frost's “Birches” is written in blank verse and in mostly consistent iambic pentameter. The dependable rhythm of this poem can be likened to the reliability and purity of a child. This poem is not broken into stanzas, rather it is compact with his message and vivid images. This may be due to the fact that—in addition to Frost's desire for this poem to be read conversationally—the compact nature of this poem is attempting to explain the speaker's thoughts and observations in as little space as possible. “The Road Not Taken” is a poetic quintain consisting of four stanzas with five lines in each stanza. Each quintain's rhyme is a dependable ABAAB scheme. The rhyme scheme is comparable to the petrarchan sonnet and the rhyming couplets appear to provoke a sense of focused reflection. The rhythm of this poem is slightly more challenging. It is written in an iambic tetrame...
The Taxi, by Amy Lowell, is an Imagist poem that relies heavily on imagery, rather than abstract ideas, to reveal meaning to the reader. The author uses free verse to allow the images and lines to speak for themselves and stand alone as individual lines. By doing so, each line offers its own tone and meaning, which then adds to the overall feel of the poem. Lowell wrote this poem to a love interest, clearly stating the meaning of the poem. She speaks as if the reader is the one being called after. The reader is entranced in her short poem filled with imagery to set the mood; the dire, last goodbye that seemed to separate the two forever. The poet's love for this person was also shown in her other works, and has made it very clear that there was a connection (Highleyman). This connection reveals the theme to be that she is lost without love. Before breaking the poem down into fragments for a line-by-line analysis, it can first be analyzed as a whole.
The two roads presented in this poem represent difficult decisions we are faced with in life. He uses the relationship between the paths and real life decisions throughout the whole poem. This is an example of extended metaphor, which is used to help the readers understand the analogy between the two. The man in the poem said: “long I stood” (3), which lets us know the decision was not made instantly. It was hard for the man to make a final judgment.
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.
The construction of the poem is in regular four-line stanzas, of which the first two stanzas provide the exposition, setting the scene; the next three stanzas encompass the major action; and the final two stanzas present the poet's reflection on the meaning of her experience.
Longman. The Longman Anthology of British Literature, vol. B. Damrosch, D. (ed.). NY, LA: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 2000.