A.E. Housman’s “Terence, this is stupid stuff” is a poem that starts out as a friend of Terence talking to him, but it then shifts to Terence talking to his friends. Then shifts from a humorous tone to a more serious tone. It also shifts in setting, time, place, and idea. This poem demonstrates figurative language which is language employing figures of speech; language that cannot be taken literally or only literally. This poem also has several different poetic devices, which is a device that contributes to content and poetic structure that does not involve meaning in term of language. This poem in certain lines is very hard to follow without knowing the background.
The first verse of this poem Terence friend is speaking to him about how sad all his poems are; all of them are about death. His friend is telling him he needs to lighten up and get drunk. His friend says, “It gives a chap the belly-ache. . .To hear such tunes as killed the cow”. Terence’s friend is referring to Terence’s poetry. He is also referring to his poetry that it killed the cow because it was so sad. These are both an example of a hyperbole (overstatement) that is a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used in the service of truth. All the verses in this poem have a rhythm, which is any wavelike recurrence of motion or sound. The rhythm is eight beats per line.
The second verse in the poem Terence is talking to his friends about getting drunk and having a good time. He also say...
The informal language and intimacy of the poem are two techniques the poet uses to convey his message to his audience. He speaks openly and simply, as if he is talking to a close friend. The language is full of slang, two-word sentences, and rambling thoughts; all of which are aspects of conversations between two people who know each other well. The fact that none of the lines ryhme adds to the idea of an ordinary conversation, because most people do not speak in verse. The tone of the poem is rambling and gives the impression that the speaker is thinking and jumping from one thought to the next very quickly.
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.
In the first stanza, we do notice the total chaos in this experience. Although the first phrase might imply a peaceful event, the subject matter is about something quite chaotic in nature – the dead other. This image ruins the idea of a peaceful morning, strolling on the beach while looking for rocks. The death of an animal is, in fact, natural. However, it’s rotting and its “scent of savage/valediction,” (line 2-3) both accentuate how chaotic its death is to the peacefulness of this experience.
This means that the poem contains unstressed followed by stressed syllables. In addition, each line contains three-stressed syllable, which makes it trimeter. For instance, “The whiskey on your breath” (1) can be used to identify the stressed syllables in that line. The syllable for “whisk”, “on” and “breath” are the three stressed syllable within that line of the poem. The use of an iambic trimeter allows the poem to become the waltz itself as it matches the three beats of the waltz. While this meter is used throughout the poem, there are certain lines that contain disruptions to the meter of this poem. For example, “slide from the kitchen shelf”(6) which is a trochaic. A trochee is a meter pattern that involves a stressed syllable flowed by an unstressed syllable. In this case, “slide” is a stressed syllable, while “from” is unstressed. These disruptions in meter mirror the father’s “missing steps” in line 11. This dance between the father and son is not smooth, but rather rough and clumsy due to the father’s drunkenness. Similarly, the first stanza also includes a simile, “But I hung on like death” (3), which portrays a sense of seriousness in tone of the speaker. In other words, there is a sense of play but also a sense of danger that characterizes the
The constant rhythm throughout the poem gives it a light beat, like a waltz; the reader feels like s/he is dancing. The rhyme pattern of...
This poem is written in eleven quatrains. All of these quatrains follow an abcb rhyme scheme. An example of this from lines 1-4 are “toune” being a, “wine” being b, “salior” being c, and “mine” being b. This means that the poem was written in closed form. It also follows a meter with four beats in the a and c lines and three beats in the b lines. An example of the four beats from line 5 is “Up and spak an eldern I Knicht”. The example of three beats from line 6 is “Sat at the kings richt kne”.
The beginning of the poem starts with a humorous tone. Kinnell begins his poem with a simile “snore like a bullhorn”, an “Irishman”, or playing “loud music” to express the idea of something that is really loud and noisy, but still cannot wake the son up as opposed to the child’s ability to wake up to “heavy breathing” and a “come-cry” (line1-7). The tone that the...
The ironic use of rhyme and meter, or the lack thereof, is one of the devices Larkin uses to emphasize his need to break out of industrial society. The typical rhyme scheme is not followed, but instead an ironic rhyme scheme is used in the sonnet in the form of abab cdcd efg efg. Larkin writes this poem as a sonnet but at the same time diverges from what a typical sonnet is supposed to be. He is commenting on society’s inclination to form restrictions on those within it. By writing out of the accepted form of a sonnet, his writing becomes more natural because of a lack of constraints due to following certain rules and fitting a certain form. He breaks free and writes as he pleases and does not conform to society. Just as with the rhyme, ...
On the surface the poem seems to be a meditation on past events and actions, a contemplative reflection about what has gone on before. Research into the poem informs us that the poem is written with a sense of irony
The number of beats and stresses in each line during the poem are scattered, but this serves a purpose by letting ideas flow from one to another. Each idea is connected by using the word “ring” or “ringing.” The overall message of the poem is the constant “ringing” Turner remembers from war experiences affects his everyday life. Turners tone of voice in the beginning of the poem differs from the tone of the voice in end of the poem. In the first couple of lines Turner introduces what the ringing is and why it is constantly in his head. Then towards the end of the poem, Turner uses more vivid language to describe certain images and events he went through to get the constant ringing playing in his mind. For example, in the beginning, words like; “this ringing,” “bullet borne,” and “static,” are used to describe what the ringing represents, and what it can be compared to. Then in the end language like, “muzzle-flash,” and “gravestones,” describe images he remembers from war. The change in the language creates different atmospheres. In the beginning the reader just feels they are reading descriptive language, but the language in the end makes the reader feel they are there in the setting of the poem. This specific structure is important for ideas to flow
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.
First of all, the poem is very exquisite and dramatic. It appeared imaginable as like I see the blood on the deck, a man crying. Also, from first to last part, speaker’s voice had changed; he hold his captain’s head with deep grief, and eventually he walked weekly through on the deck. The situation of the poem is that a ship is reached to the port. And the people on the ship were exulting
Trodden with the cattle’s feet” which would be one of the worst things to happen in the world to anything and yet this Clod of Clay manages to find the best out of his life under cow’s feet. Considering this the first stanza sort of gives you a summary of what is going to be told about the Clod of Clay. Just explaining what William Blake said in the first stanza is that love doesn’...
This refrain enforces his disgust at the type of money hungry people that the Irish have become. In the third and fourth stanza, however, Yeats completely changes the tone of his poetry. He praises the romantics of Irish history, such as Rob...
Stanza three explains what life was like at the farm he lived on, as the previous stanzas have. Line twenty describes the landscape and how beautiful it is. It describes it as Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air,” (20). Lines twenty one through twenty three use more imagery to describe the landscape. They use words such as “lovely and watery” (21) to show how pleasant it was to gaze upon the land. The word “And” is also repeated in the beginning of each of these lines which creates suspense. They also show repetition by repeating words such as “green” and it brings up the starry night again. Line twenty four talks about owls and how they are starting to come out. The day is starting to end and there is still beauty in everything. Now night has begun and all the things that made the day happy and carefree are starting to disappear. Lines twenty five through twenty seven use imagery to show that the moon is appearing and the horses and everything else is disappearing into the night. This begins to show that the youth the speaker is experiencing is starting to