The Psychology of Robert Frost’s Nature Poetry Robert Frost’s nature poetry occupies a significant place in the poetic arts; however, it is likely Frost’s use of nature is the most misunderstood aspect of his poetry. While nature is always present in Frost’s writing, it is primarily used in a “pastoral sense” (Lynen 1). This makes sense as Frost did consider himself to be a shepherd. Frost uses nature as an image that he wants us to see or a metaphor that he wants us to relate to on a psychological level. To say that Frost is a nature poet is inaccurate.
The author delays the meaning so long by putting in the description of time and place to create a feeling of distance to the destination. And "thee, thou, thy"--these are all poetic ways of saying "you" in the singular form. In a sense, focusing on a single distinctive "you" with no possibility of it being the plural "you." So, maybe it is more than just poetic diction, but the emphasis of solitude. Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean side?
As Robert DiYanni says in his book, “with much of Wordsworth’s poetry, this lyric reflects his deep love of nature, his vision of a unified world, and his celebration of the power of memory and imagination.” In “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” William Wordsworth uses various natural phenomena, such as clouds, daffodils and waves, as devices to characterize his speaker’s different stages of emotion and feeling. The first few lines of the poem showed us the speaker’s initial emotion. His mind is directionless, but also alienated and isolated in the universe. “I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o’er vales and hills,” the speaker is described as a “cloud,” lonely, aimless, and cruising quickly and lightly through “vales” and “hills.” A vision of the daffodils moved him to a state of being connected to something, as the poet wrote, “When all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils.” The concord and harmony of the “dancing daffodils” replaced his feeling of loneliness; he is no longer a “lonely cloud.” As the twinkling stars in the milky way, and the sparkling dancing waves appeared in the second stanz... ... middle of paper ... ... Lonely as a Cloud” is a masterpiece of work from William Wordsworth. He implicated nature with human actions and feelings, bringing the daffodils, the waves and other aspects of nature to life.
The first allegory is the allegory of the songbird and hope. The songbird and hope are similar, and the speaker continues to use it throughout the poem. S/he also uses the analogy of the bird, which carries itself throughout the whole of this poem. The second allegory Dickinson uses is the allegory between the human struggles and the struggles of the speaker in the poem. S/he also uses visual imagery by constructng an image of the actions the bird does.
Portrayal of Suffering in Plath's Ariel, Stings, Lady Lazarus, Wintering, and Fever 103° Sylvia Plath's poems evoke the worst of subjective fallacies. Probably some of our charged reactions are symptomatic of the times and the culture; but more of them seem to stem from the always-too-easy identification between troubled poet and what might be the tone of imagery and rhythm of the poem considered. Because Plath worked so intensively in archetypal imagery (water, air, fire as bases for image patterns, for example), many of her poems could be read as either "dark" wasteland kinds of expressions, or as the reverse, as death-by-water, salvation poems--destruction implied, but also survived, phoenix-like. "Ariel," the title poem of the collection that made Plath known to the reading world so soon after her 1962 suicide, is a similarly ambiguous poem, rich in its image patterns of movement-stasis, light-dark, earth-fire. The progression in the poem is from the simply stated "Stasis in darkness," a negative condition as Plath indicates in the very similarly imaged poem "Years," to the ecstatic transformation-through-motion of the closing.
The poet creates structure in the poem by forming two sentences in each of the first two stanzas, and only one sentence in each of the last two stanzas. This formation combined with the strict use of declarative sentences, and an absence of transition w... ... middle of paper ... ...crypt the cloudy canopy’ creates a strict, harsh sound, adding to the bitter despondency of the poem. The specific use of wording throughout this poem works to create the gloomy atmosphere present within the poem. Thomas Hardy presented a negative tone throughout the poem, while still keeping with the more uplifting theme of hope. With the thorough use of metaphors, similes, terminology, structure, and rhyme scheme, “The Darkling Thrush” works well to produce its desired intention.
Frost uses metaphor in a way that gives meaning to simple actions, perhaps exploring his own insecurities before nature by setting the poem amongst a tempest of “dark” sentiments. Like a metaphor for the workings of the human mind, the pull between the “promises” the traveller should keep and the lure of death remains palpably relevant to modern life. The multitudes of readings opened up through the ambiguity of metaphor allows for a setting of pronounced liminality; between life and death, “night and day, storm and heath, nature and culture, individual and group, freedom and responsibility,” Frost challenges his readers to delve deep into the subtlety of tone and come to a very personal conclusion.
“A poem should not mean, but be” (MacLeish 558 l.23-24). MacLeish also placed importance on imagery; “A poem should be wordless, as the flight of birds” (MacLeish 558 l.7-8). Principally, literary devices gives poems a more effective meaning. The poems that were analyzed displayed great amounts of imagery which helped to form common paradoxes that readers may face in their everyday lives, thus giving the cluster of poems relativity to its readers.
The repetition of these sounds emphasize the words that contribute to the mood of the poem. Nevermore is a negative word meaning never again. The raven only said this word. Poe emphasizes nevermore because it helps accentuate the depressed and despaired mood of the poem.
This is realized when the Mariner states, “The ice was here, the ice was there,/ The ice was all around:/ It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,/ Like noises in a swound!” (59-62). This presents nature in dark scene-it shows its danger, but also its power. This technique is furthered in the verse that reads, “Instead of the cross, the Albatross/ About my neck was hung,”(141-142). This is especially bleak as one imagines a dead, bleeding bird draped over someone’s neck. However, despite the gloominess, the words offer a dramatic version of nature that teaches readers a lesson about what could happen if innocence is tampered with.