Stephen Crane’s use of caesuras and endstops in his poem “I Stood Upon A High Place” create an extended meaning past simple punctuation. A caesura is a small pause or break in a line of a poem using a comma. An endstop is a full pause using a period. Crane uses these poetic devices in “I Stood Upon A High Place” to place emphasis on particular words and to transition to a new tone.
In “I Stood Upon A High Place” by Stephen Crane, a caesura is used in line 2. “And saw, below, many devils.” The caesura is used to emphasize the word “below.” By placing emphasis on “below,” the speaker conveys to the reader that the “devils” are metaphorically below him, in that he thinks they are inferior to him. The speaker feels that he is superior to the devils
...he imagery of the more intensely-felt passages in the middle of the poem. Perhaps the poet is like someone at their journey's end, `all passion spent', recollecting in tranquillity some intimations of mortality?
Poems are unique in that there are no set rules for how they are formatted (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012). Poems may rhyme, or not. They can be presented in a narrative or lyrical format. The use of proper punctuation can be omitted such as periods, commas, or question marks (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012). The use of punctuation or lack there of, brings into play the use of enjambment, which is another term for what is commonly known in poetry as run-on lines (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012). If a poem is considered more proper and the author wants the reader to clearly understand how a line in the poem is read, the use of punctuation such as commas and periods are used to stress this point. This style is commonly known as end-stopped lines. (Kirszner
For example, Wright 's “Lying in a Hammock” ends with the sudden realization of “I have wasted my life.” (13). This endstop in the poem is hugely out of place since the rest of the poem consisted of a positive tone. Wright added all the imagery in the beginning to emphasize the final line even more. Geoffrey H. Hartman plainly discusses the effect of why Wright added the endpoint at the end of the poem in “From Beyond the Middle Style” in Peter Stit and Frank Granziano’s James Wright: The Heart of the Light; he states “The last line is a challenge, not a moralism. It is meant to be one impression among others: we have images and we have thoughts; here is a thought.”(141). The last line was just a “thought” and allows readers access to Wright’s mind. Wright was just relaxing on a hammock and could not even last the whole day without a negative thought popping into his mind. A lot of people with a mental illness, like depression or anxiety, can relate to this idea, and Wright used the endpoint effectively to show how quick a person’s day can just turn around. The enjambment used in Wright 's “Fear Is What Quickens Me” shows the poet slowly deteriorating into this wild animal. In the second stanza Wright states, “ I can hear rabbits and mourning doves whispering together / In the dark grass, there / Under the trees.” (12-14). This particular enjambment carries on
This poem is structured within eight stanzas, the first seven stanzas contain four lines within each stanza, however,the last stanza contains fifteen lines, with major emphasis on, “I rise”. The last fifteen lines may have been used to conclude the poem at the end, for one last time show the audience her head held up high. During the poem, the tone throughout is positive and negative, although you may hear the strength and passion in her voice about overcoming these problems, she still presents anger. This allows the reader to experience in sections how Angelou really felt.
To that end, the overall structure of the poem has relied heavily on both enjambment and juxtaposition to establish and maintain the contrast. At first read, the impact of enjambment is easily lost, but upon closer inspection, the significant created through each interruption becomes evident. Notably, every usage of enjambment, which occurs at the end of nearly every line, emphasizes an idea, whether it be the person at fault for “your / mistakes” (1-2) or the truth that “the world / doesn’t need” (2-3) a poet’s misery. Another instance of enjambment serves to transition the poem’s focus from the first poet to the thrush, emphasizing how, even as the poet “[drips] with despair all afternoon,” the thrush, “still, / on a green branch… [sings] / of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything” (14-18). In this case, the effect created by the enjambment of “still” emphasizes the juxtaposition of the two scenes. The desired effect, of course, is to depict the songbird as the better of the two, and, to that end, the structure fulfills its purpose
Conclusively, Edgar Allan Poe’s distinctive writing style comes from his use of punctuation, sentence structure, word choice, tone, figurative language. Commas, dashes, semicolons, and exclamation marks appear frequently in his writing. Simultaneously, they affect the organization and length of his sentences. Word choice sets the tone. Literary devices imbue it with life. On comparing “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”, this is observed.
From the combination of enjambed and end-stopped lines, the reader almost physically feels the emphasis on certain lines, but also feels confusion where a line does not end. Although the poem lacks a rhyme scheme, lines like “…not long after the disaster / as our train was passing Astor” and “…my eyes and ears…I couldn't think or hear,” display internal rhyme. The tone of the narrator changes multiple times throughout the poem. It begins with a seemingly sad train ride, but quickly escalates when “a girl came flying down the aisle.” During the grand entrance, imagery helps show the importance of the girl and how her visit took place in a short period of time. After the girl’s entrance, the narrator describes the girl as a “spector,” or ghost-like figure in a calm, but confused tone. The turning point of the poem occurs when the girl “stopped for me [the narrator]” and then “we [the girl and the narrator] dove under the river.” The narrator speaks in a fast, hectic tone because the girl “squeez[ed] till the birds began to stir” and causes her to not “think or hear / or breathe or see.” Then, the tone dramatically changes, and becomes calm when the narrator says, “so silently I thanked her,” showing the moment of
Maya Angelou’s poem is structured in a quatrain format. The first few paragraphs are set out in such a way that it explains to us why she is rising; the poem compromises of a stanza of four lines, each of the same length.
Organization is a key element in Frazier's and Oliver's work, as it works directly to set the tone, as well as acting as a symbol of nature. Charles Frazier writes in long, descriptive sentences and paragraphs. These, along with the carefully chosen words in the smooth sentences, create a relaxing, peaceful tone and feel to the story. This tone reflects on the symbolic part of structure; that nature works in smooth, careful ways; everything is planned. On the other hand, Oliver writes in broken, choppy sentences, often breaking in the middle and resuming the next line down. This makes for a mysterious, erratic tone towards nature, as well as the blue heron. The blue heron, in this poem, acts rigidly and harshly in movement (as reflected by the short, fragmented sentences), while in Cold Mountain, the heron is smooth and graceful. Punctuation also adds to tone with respect to the blue heron. In Cold Mountain, the paragraphs often end in ways such as "after a deep reflection..." and "coming up short...." These rounds out the passages, allowing them to come to a gradual close instead of short, abrupt finishes to the sentences. This affects the tone of the passage as well as relates to the author's attitude towards the heron. In this passage, the heron moves slowly and steadily, with no abrupt motions, leading to a smooth and constant tone. However, the poem ends all sentences with a...
One particularly useful cross-disciplinary element employed in concrete poetry is the use of space. The poetry of Emmett Williams, Seiichi Nikuni, and Ilse and Pierre Garnier in particular, make use of spatial relationships in their poetry. The use of space can be employed in place of traditional grammar and syntax to convey meaning in concrete poetry, particularly when the spatial position of one element is taken into consideration with other elements of the poem. Another element that may arise from these spatial relationships is a temporal aspect that all poetry employs, but which becomes uniquely meaningful in the context of the concrete poetry of the twentieth century. Without these relationships concrete poems may appear as crude distortions of words on a page, with no significant sense or meaning to communicate. Therefore, the temporal/spatial relationships between poetic elements become necessary tools which the reader needs in order to fully understand the linguistically driven meaning behind many concrete poems.
... is shown moreover through these pauses. We also see that he places question marks at the end of sentences, which is another way he is showing us the uncertainty in the voice of society. Through his punctuation and word placement, we clearly see the voice of society in his poem, but in a way that tells us not to conform to it.
Although, ‘rimes embrassées’ is traditionally used for the first eight lines in sonnets, Rimbaud has opted for ‘rimes croisées’ in stanza one, demonstrating his lack of conformity. Moreover, the stanzas could be interpreted as a representation of Venus’ body. As we descend, her body becomes anatomically smaller just as when we descend the stanzas, they too decrease in length. Rimbaud focuses on the backside of Venus which was unconventional as past portrayals tended to focus on her front. Finally his persistent use of semi-colons and caesuras, most noticeably in stanza two, enables him to keep the fluidity of the poem and link it together, demonstrating a more modernist and new style of
Stephen Crane did an excellent job in expressing how appreciative a person can be in his poem "Untitled. " This is quite odd that a person would title a work of art "Untitled", however, I am sure that Crane did have a reason for doing so. I believe that it is simply because the theme of this poem can be applied to any situation in life ,and he is leaving the reader in charge of what he would like to relate the poem to. The line "but I like it because it is bitter, and because it is my heart," expresses to me the theme of the poem.
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.
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...