Comparing "The Sick Rose" by William Blake and "Fog" by Carl Sandburg
In this assignment I will gracefully compare and contrast two short poems. In my selection for the poems, I kept in mind that the two poems needed to have something in common metaphorically or thematically. After many hours of browsing I came upon two poems that contained an ultimately strange connection metaphorically and in content.
Interestingly, the two also had numerous differences. The first poem I encountered was "The Sick Rose" written by William Blake in 1794. Soon after, I read "Fog" (1916) by Carl Sandburg and I began to notice an exciting connection filled with various exceptions of chief differences. Although the poems were written more than a century apart from each other, after rereading them numerous times, they left me with an unimaginable amount of thinking and writing ground.
Comparison
The two poems "The Sick Rose" and "Fog" are very much alike in the sense that they both use the introduction of weather and animals to shape the poem and give the reader a sense of displeasure. In "The Sick Rose" the poet introduces a worm and storm and in "Fog" the poet uses the fog and a cat. The subject matter is perhaps similar in these two poems with the fact that both poems embody foul weather that prevent life from flowing in its normal path. To be more specific, a storm destroys plants, animals, and life in general, while a fog blocks out the sun and its energy to spring life.
In "Fog" the poet, Carl Sandburg, uses the weather condition of a fog as the main subject matter for his poem. The entire poem is literally focused on the fog above the city and harbor. Using a metaphor, Sandburg makes the fog come to life as if it actually had its own eyes to be able to overlook the city. The fog takes the shape of a cat as it "sits looking over harbor and city" (570). Like a cat, the fog sits on silent haunches. Personally, Sandburg’s words created a mental picture of a black/grayish, dirty, street cat wandering silently in the alleys of an industrious city observing the streets on top of a half-century old brick building. This engaging metaphor is what makes the fog come to life and also creates its consciousness of the harbor and city that it overlooks. Although the metaphor is being used to show a similarity in the two poems, it will be most significant later on...
... middle of paper ...
...escribe how peaceful and silent the fog is and how it just comes and goes in silence leaving no trace behind. Sandburg’s approach produces imagery of calmness, silence, and perhaps unimportance. This is strongly reflected with the last line "and then moves on." (570) In contrast, Blake’s tone and attitude is intense and violent, almost provocative at times. It utterly creates weight and importance on the sick rose. One example is how he starts out using an exclamation in his first line as he speaks to the rose in anguish. In conclusion, "Fog" because of its use of metaphor and calm tone tends to focus more on developing a strong, temperate image, (more on description), while "The Sick Rose" uses fierce, moving words to create strong feelings as it concludes with death, grief, and great emotional sorrow.
The Sick Rose
William Blake
O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
(1794)
Fog
Carl Sandburg
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
(1916)
If there were no fog, it is likely that Ed would have successfully shot the deer. One can argue that Ed missing the shot is a result of his lack of seriousness towards hunting or the fact that he isn't well prepared or experienced in this field, but then the idea of including the fog would have no importance. In this case the fog becomes the only means of salvation of Ed's manly pride, of proving that he could also be a hunter as Lewis is. The fog also happens to be a means of protection by chance. It is luck that Ed wakes up and there is fog that urges him to hunt.
“He uses similes such as the breeze that ‘blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale frogs’ and that also made a shadow on the ‘wine-colored rug’ as ‘wind does on the sea’.”
Both poems are set in the past, and both fathers are manual labourers, which the poets admired as a child. Both poems indicate intense change in their fathers lives, that affected the poet in a drastic way. Role reversal between father and son is evident, and a change of emotion is present. These are some of the re-occurring themes in both poems. Both poems in effect deal with the loss of a loved one; whether it be physically or mentally.
One similarity is that there is a similarity in allusion. Heaven in “Mr. Rager” is known to be this glorious place to journey to. Scott states in his lyrics, “I’m on my way to heaven (wherever you are, now).” (Cudi line 6). Heaven is hard to find, it is this glorious place in the book “The Bible”. Just about the same in the poem “Dreams” except the man is dreaming about heaven, “‘Twere folly still to hope for higher heaven.”(Poe line 12). Heaven is always going to be the highest place to look up too, especially in the sky. Both poem and song lyrics have a big similarity in allusion. There is no winner on which is better but both have spoken what heaven is
Imagine you were the rose trying to grow in concrete; would you have made it out or die trying or maybe you just gave up. So think about it, what would you have really done? The poem “The Rose that Grew from Concrete” is about a rose that grew in concrete a metaphor that shows that you have to get past your problems to succeed. And the poem “Mother to Son” is about a mother explaining how hard life is a metaphor. Both poems share the theme of You have to rise above the obstacles, but the way the authors developed the theme was similar and different.
The poem opens upon comparisons, with lines 3 through 8 reading, “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets/ of their branches. The maples/ were colored like apples,/part orange and red, part green./ The elms, already transparent trees,/ seemed swaying vases full of sky.” The narrator’s surroundings in this poem illustrate him; and the similes suggest that he is not himself, and instead he acts like others. Just as the maples are colored like apples, he
As the journey to the destination begun the atmosphere is horrid as they passed cheap motels half deserted streets and sawdust motels it all set a very bleak tone of lifelessness, to support this claim, “like a patient etherized upon a table.” (Eliot 368) although they also encountered a yellow fog most likely caused by industrialism it took a form of animal imagery finding comfort in its surroundings to support this claim, “The yellow fog that rubs t back upon the window-panes, the yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening.” (Eliot
1. Chapter 3, page 5, #3: “A little fog hung over the river so that as I neared it I felt myself becoming isolated from everything except the river and the few trees beside it. The wind was blowing more steadily here, and I was beginning to feel cold.”
The writings of both poets can be described as both simple and complex at the same time, just like the world they’re writing about. While on a purely literal level you may be reading about loss, family, traveling, or nature, all of the poems have a deeper meaning about these topics that the poet leaves the reader to discover.
Robert Frost and Edgar Allen Poe two amazing poets, who created many well written poems, for instance “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening”, by Robert Frost and “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe. These two poems have many differences and similarities between them. A big difference between Frost and Poe is there back ground but this is also a similarity, how they took their real life situations and turned them into poetry. Then, their life situations made their tone in “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “The Raven” completely different. But in these two poems there is a meaning behind them and the meanings are similar. Finally, a difference and similarity
To start, we can look at the title of the poem, “A Rainy Morning”, it is never mentioned in the poem that it is a rainy morning. The poem only mentions that it is morning and that the woman in the wheelchair’s face is wet. I feel that the title is there for imagery purposes. It sets the image and the tone for the poem. The word “Rainy” makes me think gloomy, slippery, wet, and cold. While the word “Morning” makes me think of hope, early, and optimism. Now this is just my opinion, I feel that the title is saying that even though there is rain, something that can come on unexpectedly, the day is still early and anything can happen.
Death is important to both poems because it expresses each character’s reaction and the importance of accepting death. If you don’t you’ll be grieving and angry for a long time. Both poems tie in with each other due to this, but are different because the characters reacted differently.
...ast each other well. Both poems use imagery, repetition, alliteration and rhyming and both have many biblical references and rhetorical questions. Although each poem is different in its structure, theme and the way it is written.
The consistent pattern of metrical stresses in this stanza, along with the orderly rhyme scheme, and standard verse structure, reflect the mood of serenity, of humankind in harmony with Nature. It is a fine, hot day, `clear as fire', when the speaker comes to drink at the creek. Birdsong punctuates the still air, like the tinkling of broken glass. However, the term `frail' also suggests vulnerability in the presence of danger, and there are other intimations in this stanza of the drama that is about to unfold. Slithery sibilants, as in the words `glass', `grass' and `moss', hint at the existence of a Serpent in the Garden of Eden. As in a Greek tragedy, the intensity of expression in the poem invokes a proleptic tenseness, as yet unexplained.
The obvious comparison between the three poems is the theme of death. Both poets, in these works and many others, display a fascination with the death of themselves as well as the death of peers, and loved ones. Both Frost and Dickinson experienced a great deal of death throughout each of their lives. Frost’s greatest loss was the death of his son, which is greatly depicted in his poem “Home Burial.” Dickinson suffered the loss of many friends and family. She spent a lot of her time in her room looking out upon the headstones of these people.