James Dickey vs. Tennyson James Dickey's "On the Hill Below the Lighthouse" best reminds me of the Lord Alfred Tennyson. Upon first reading Dickey's poem, a deep yearning and sentimental emotion is achieved. There is a great sense of not regret but of something that the narrator longs for. This can be seen in the last stanza of the poem. "Now that I can be sure of my sleep; The moon is held strongly within it. A woman comes true when I think her. Shade swings, and she lies against me. Let us lie in the returning light; Let us lie where your angel is walking, Coming back, coming back, going over." It is not until this last stanza that I completely feel the concept of nostalgia. Here it can be seen that there was once a woman that the narrator had deep feelings for and he recalls how she used to lie next to him in the light of the lighthouse's beam. The last line, "coming back, coming back, going over" is almost like a unifying device for the whole poem. It almost seems that the narrator is recalling the woman that was from his past and replaying the whole scene of when they were together in his head all over again. And it is also this quality of recollection that has reminded so much of Tennyson. In Tennyson's "Tears, Idle Tears," a strong sense of nostalgia is perceived. In the last line of every stanza there are the words, "...the days that are no more." This appears to be the unifying device that connects this poem together. However, in this poem, there seems to be a sense of regret. Unlike Dickey's poem, this poem is much more sad and more depressing. It appears that this poem was the reaction of the death of a loved one. Tennyson explains in his first stanza that as he looks into the autumn fields, he recalls of happy days with a loved one that will no longer happen anymore. "Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more." Both poems do not contain any hope in relationships because there longer are any relationships. In both "On the Hill Below the Lighthouse" and "Tears, Idle tears" there is only the memory of the loved one that is inside the heart.
The title of this piece, “Remembered Morning,” establishes what the speaker describes in the stanzas that follow as memory; this fact implies many themes that accompany works concerning the past: nostalgia, regret, and romanticism, for instance. The title, therefore, provides a lens through which to view the speaker’s observations.
This poem reflects on how when you lose someone you truly care about it affects you mentally. When we lose someone who we're really close to, we tend to hold a grudge and start questioning our love for the world. We lose ourselves when we
as told from the point of view of a friend serving as pall bearer. The poem
Using Yusef Komunyakaa's poem "Facing It" and "Ghost of a Ghost," Brad Leithauser's one can see that there are certain moments in life when an incident is so powerful, emotionally or physically. Some of these moments when we look back tend to be viewed in a black and white perception. In Komunyakaa's poem "Facing It," this sense of nostalgia is shown through traumatizing flashbacks of war when visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial site. In "Ghost of a Ghost," a man is upset that his family has moved on since his death. In these poems, one character wishes they could go back to the days he once knew and the other wants to leave behind any memory of his past experience.
In his early years, Alfred Tennyson was a strong but struggling poet with love and passion for his poetry. He went to college to pursue his poetic career and refine his skills. Education played a big hand in his achievement of success. Richard J. Dunn makes evident that “Tennyson earned his position in literature because of the remarkable range of his talents and his dedication throughout his long career to perfecting his art” (166d). After receiving a prestigious Chancellor’s gold medal award in 1829, Tennyson released a book of his poems in 1830 followed by his second book three year...
The poem is told in the first person point of view. Being told in this point of view creates a narrative and conversational feeling when reading the poem. In addition, The speaker begins the poem with simple sentences; each sentence contains a subject and a predicate, nothing more. In this part of the poem, there is a nostalgic, reminiscent tone. The speaker remembers back to the days when she was in love with her Meema’s blanket. The speaker looks back to a time when she “planned to inherit / the blanket, how [her and her sister] used to wrap ourselves / at play in its folds” (9-11). The beginning part of the poem, the speaker reflects back on her past, which is represented by simple sentences. However, as the poem progress, the sentence structure shifts. The sentences go from simple sentences to more complex sentences. With each memory, the sentences begin to grow longer; through this transition, clauses and prepositional phrases are included which shift the tone of the poem. The poem shifts from a nostalgic tone to a more dream-like tone. In this section of the poem, the speaker moves on from remembering the past to focussing about the future. In this dream-like trance, the speaker believes that while she is “under this quilt / [she’d] dream of [her]self … within the dream of
Nate Marshall’s “palindrome” absolutely neglects the use of chronological and linear time to convey the story of a romance that seemingly continues to haunt the speaker in the present. Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, a Pulitzer Prize Award winning drama, demonstrates the struggle of two low-income African American siblings who rely on a card game, as much as each other to survive. Both works of literature, the poem and the play, assume that the protagonists in each are destined to entrap themselves in a cycle that inevitably repeats or recalls the mistakes of their pasts. In this paper I will explain how the role of nostalgia, amidst other outside factors, develops a conscious naturalism within the characters that influences their desire
The imagery used is not obvious in the first stanza. In the second stanza, the line "so Eden sank to grief" can help the reader visualize a garden filled with many plants that are wilting from the fall.
There is no refuge from memories as it is the guardian for all things. Stories fill every space in your heart an...
Overall I think this poem was sad as it made me feel sorry for the
The concept of loss is a notable theme in poetry, whether its about love, beauty or even
I think that the poem has a specific meaning that symbolizes the life of a girl who compares her life to grass. This
In conclusion, the poem helps you to realize and accept that just like birth is natural, death is a natural process in life. No matter what, death is inevitable. But instead of holding on to the sad memories, you can use the happier memories to cope and deal with the loss of a loved one or family pet. However, you are able to be at peace with the fact that you loved them until the end.
experience he encountered, is all still too vivid and will never leave his mind no matter how hard he tries
As the millennia pass, the one recurring theme in all recorded literature within every culture and creed and can be witnessed in the animal kingdom at times, is the pursuit of love. A search for this unrequited passion taps into some of the most primal of urges and manifests itself biologically into a chemical high in the brain as a reward if it can be found. The lack of this natural intoxication can induce depression, amongst other side effects commonly found in substance abuse. When Lord Tennyson Alfred wrote “Tears, Idle Tears”, he composed a series of metaphors indicative of the aforementioned withdraw symptoms suffered by love. The poem suggests that he found a love that moved on through either death, or by estrangement of another means and the depressing struggle of reminiscing about those days that are no more.