The poem “anyone lived in a pretty how town” by E.E. Cummings talks about the cycle of life and the importance of structure, symbolism, and language of the poem. For instance, the poem has nine stanzas, which has a rhyming pattern of AABC. The rhythm of the poem is significant for it supports one of themes, the cycle of life. Cumming uses season to explain the poem's progress. “spring summer autumn winter” (3) and “sun moon stars rain” (8) symbolizes time passing, which represents life passing. In the poem, as the seasons and skies rotate, life continues along with them. In addition, the uses of the words “snow” (22), “buried” (27), “was by was” (28), and “day by day” (29) leading to death. Towards the end of the poem, the depression of death was mention, but Cumming was just stating the n...
The timeline carries on chronologically, the intense imagery exaggerated to allow the poem to mimic childlike mannerisms. This, subjectively, lets the reader experience the adventure through the young speaker’s eyes. The personification of “sunset”, (5) “shutters”, (8) “shadows”, (19) and “lamplights” (10) makes the world appear alive and allows nothing to be a passing detail, very akin to a child’s imagination. The sunset, alive as it may seem, ordinarily depicts a euphemism for death, similar to the image of the “shutters closing like the eyelids”
Overall, dwell on this process of changing throughout the poem, it can be understood that the poet is demonstrating a particular attitude towards life. Everyone declines and dies eventually, but it would be better to embrace an optimistic, opened mind than a pessimistic, giving-up attitude; face the approach of death unflinchingly, calmly.
We all have some experience telling something that is untruthful or just an outright lie. You go looking for a way out of a tense situation when you need it most? Are you afraid of what happens when you are under stress, do you tend to be "creative" with the truth? In the story “The Secret Society of Starving” by author Mim Udovitch, girls that are suffering from eating disorders talk about the secret world of the online pro-anorexia (“pro-ana”) community. It is only there that they can truly express themselves and even motivate other anorexic people. Similarly, in the essay “Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town?”, Individuals struggle to put their true words down on paper, knowing that if they do the secrets they share could result in them being ostracized from the only community they know, . In both “The Secret Society of Starving” and “Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town?” The writers explore the different lifestyles of two communities and how they both seem to encourage individuals to hide the truth from the rest of the world, their lies compounding and culminating in their further removal from the community and their loved ones
For each seasonal section, there is a progression from beginning to end within the season. Each season is compiled in a progressive nature with poetry describing the beginning of a season coming before poetry for the end of the season. This is clear for spring, which starts with, “fallen snow [that] lingers on” and concludes with a poet lamenting that “spring should take its leave” (McCullough 14, 39). The imagery progresses from the end of winter, with snow still lingering around to when the signs of spring are disappearing. Although each poem alone does not show much in terms of the time of the year, when put into the context of other poems a timeline emerges from one season to the next. Each poem is linked to another poem when it comes to the entire anthology. By having each poem put into the context of another, a sense of organization emerges within each section. Every poem contributes to the meaning of a group of poems. The images used are meant to evoke a specific point in each season from the snow to the blossoms to the falling of the blossoms. Since each poem stands alone and has no true plot they lack the significance than if they were put into th...
E. Cummings creates a critical and intolerant tone. He uses his work to criticize “most people” and how they blindly follow others. Cummings intolerance arises from others critical opinion of not normal people, whom the townspeople of the writing do not acknowledge. The uniqueness of both the main characters in the writing and Cummings is shown by the distinctiveness, inconsistency, and incorrectness of the writing. This tone directly relates to the theme and how anyone and noone are compassionate, caring people who actually recognize the value of life ,but are surrounded by townspeople who just stumble through life without a care or emotion. Cummings uses the seasons, bells, his unique composition and the repetition of “Women and men” and “anyone” to create and emphasize the unfortunate cycle of life. The use of the seasons in lines three,eleven, and thirty-four emphasise the passing of time and the unchanging ways of the townspeople. “Women and men”, in lines five and thirty-three,are used to remind us of Cummings definition of “most people” and how people tend to blend in and follow. The bells in lines two and twenty-four are used to indicate a change in the character 's, the first bell is before love and the second bell is rang before death.These significant life transitions show how love and death are final. life The character “anyone” introduces a person, unlike any others in the town, between him and his
The poem, “Field of Autumn”, by Laurie Lee exposes the languorous passage of time along with the unavoidability of closure, more precisely; death, by describing a shift of seasons. In six stanzas, with four sentences each, the author also contrasts two different branches of time; past and future. Death and slowness are the main motifs of this literary work, and are efficiently portrayed through the overall assonance of the letter “o”, which helps the reader understand the tranquility of the poem by creating an equally calmed atmosphere. This poem is to be analyzed by stanzas, one per paragraph, with the exception of the third and fourth stanzas, which will be analyzed as one for a better understanding of Lee’s poem.
E. E. Cummings ' "anyone lived in a pretty how town" is often interpreted as a love poem (Macksoud 72), but it can be analyzed more deeply to reflect societal themes. Cummings ' use of grammar and punctuation is unconventional and at the same time organized in a way that draws the reader to certain conclusions about the way the citizens of the "how town" live. None of the protagonists are given a name, and yet knowing their titles—"anyone," "women and men," "children," "someone," "everyone," and "noone"—and analyzing the contrast between the individual and the group is essential to understanding the message the poem conveys (Kidder 143).
More than death itself, Harwood’s poetry shows how many people fail to accept death. Their belief in immortality and fear of the end is also potrayed in Nightfall. Although when the subject of the poem is death, the words describe life, as if reluctant to face up to reality. The images are of suburbs, lights, birds and trees. Even with so many experiences, many of us will forever be ignorant seems to be the truth ringing perpetually though Harwood’s verses.
The essence of this poem is the author’s mastery of sound and rhythm and his excellent use of figurative language. Richard Wilbur purposely chose words that have few a syllables and require little to no change in mouth size and tongue movements to appease to the reader when read aloud. There is an ABAB rhythm scheme
During the process of growing up, we are taught to believe that life is relatively colorful and rich; however, if this view is right, how can we explain why literature illustrates the negative and painful feeling of life? Thus, sorrow is inescapable; as it increase one cannot hide it. From the moment we are born into the world, people suffer from different kinds of sorrow. Even though we believe there are so many happy things around us, these things are heartbreaking. The poems “Tips from My Father” by Carol Ann Davis, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith, and “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop convey the sorrow about growing up, about sorrowful pretending, and even about life itself.
A gradual dream-like state is suggested to the poem’s audience by cummings’s “far and wee” refrain, which is given increasing white space and therefore longer pauses, until each word of the refrain supports its own line. Initially the refrain complements the speaker’s excited springtime revelry; in fact, line five flows nicely...
The solitude of a rainy nighttime walk invokes thoughts of sadness and isolation, in Robert Frost’s poem “Acquainted with the Night.” A short narrative poem has the speaker describing a lonely walk during the nighttime hours in a city setting. The poem is very dark in many aspects, the mood, the night, and the visual and audible observations of the walker. There are thoughts and feelings of loneliness and despair, when reading this poem. The impression of the poem is one of a lost soul who has had a possible tragic event in his life or is living unsatisfactory life. The walk in the night and its surroundings are reflections on his solitary soul.
On the exterior, the literal meaning of this poem centers on the cycles of nature. The poem opens with the lines “Apparently with no surprise / To any happy Flower / The Frost beheads it at its play” describing a flower who is sadly cut down by cold wintery frost (1-3). She shows the repetitive and constant interaction between God and nature by saying “the sun proceeds unmoved / To measure off another day / For an approving God” (6-8). This shows how the big picture aspects of life are not affected by the impact of death. Like clockwork, the cycles of nature continue on and on. To show the interactions of nature, Dickinson chooses to have alliteration between the main actors in her poem, the Flower and Frost. In a most literal sense, Dickinson appears to state that death is just but another part in the experiences of nature, uncontrolled by man, only by God. The final lines of the po...
A recurring theme in Emily Dickinson’s poetry was death. Many years of Emily Dickinson’s adult years consisted of man...
When it comes to writing, Frost desires two important elements in poetry: easy to recognize images and describing words that rhyme. This combination of sense and sound exist in Frost’s poem “Ghost House” from the collection, A Boy’s Will. Here, the first two lines of the poem meet Frost’s two requirements easily, “I dwell in a lonely house I know That vanished many a summer ago” (Frost 15). Generally speaking, most people can recall a vision of an abandoned home, maybe even an older home that sits empty for a while after a grandparent dies. The smell of the old wood floors, the sight of the overgrown yard or the creaking sounds of the front door, easily come to mind with the two word prompt of “lonely house” (Frost 15), in “Ghost House.”