Sir John Betjeman’s poem, Slough, opens with a wonderful, dramatic stanza. There is huge tension between the ideas of cows grazing and the idea of death. Even in the opening line there is conflict ‘friendly bombs’ is a contradiction in terms, as bombs are almost never thought of as friendly, and Betjeman’s use of this defines what a bad place. Another tool Betjeman employs is rhythm; the stanza is at a steady, predefined pace until the last line where the rhythm is broken with the word ‘Death’, which gives a powerful image of Slough.
In the second stanza, Betjeman cleverly compares people’s ‘minds’ and ‘breath’ to tinned products, giving everything a feeling of sanitised dullness, without fresh air. He also uses the form here, listing the everyday tinned items and then adding ‘tinned m...
The climax of the story is when Miles is shot by the Bonewoman. The reader comes to realize that Miles’ choice to live life on the safe side was a mistake:
Every place that is mentioned in the poem is a well-known bloody fight in wars that claimed many lives. The opening stanza of the poem is a command from the grass to soldiers at war in Austerlitz and Waterloo to kill as many people as they can and shovel them under the grass so that it has enough history to pile under itself and wipe out all the marks of combat. Austerlitz is a village where on Dec. 2, 1805; Napoleon escorted an outnumbered French army to vic...
Published in 1944, the poem itself is an elegy, addressing the melancholy and sorrow of wartime death, as indicated by the title ‘Beach Burial’. This title gives clear meaning to the sombre nature of the work, and the enigmatic nature of it holds the attention of the audience. The entirety of the poem is strewn with poetic devices, such as personification of dead sailors as “…they sway and wander in the waters far under”, the words inscribed on their crosses being choked, and the “sob and clubbing of the gunfire” (Slessor). Alliteration is used to great effect in lines such as that describing the soldiers being “bur[ied]…in burrows” and simile in the likening of the epitaph of each seaman to the blue of drowned men’s lips and onomatopoeia is shown in the “purple drips” (Slessor). The predominant mood of the work is ephemeral, with various references to the transient nature of humanity. The ethereal adjectives used to describe and characterise objects within the poem allow a more abstract interpretation of what would normally be concrete in meaning. The rhythm of this piece is markedly similar to the prevalent concept of tidal ebb and flow, with lines falling into an ABCB rhyme scheme and concepts
Published in 1869, A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad stands as one of the most socially acclaimed collections of English poetry from the Victorian age. This period in British history, however, proves, by judiciary focus (the Criminal Law Amendment of 1885), to be conflictive with Housman’s own internal conflicts concerning the homoerotic tendencies which he discovered in his admiration of fellow Oxford student Moses Jackson. Housman, much unlike other English literary figures such as Oscar Wilde and Thomas hardy, was not an artist who found it necessary to directly confront Britain with any political dissention imposed by is works. Instead, "for Housman the discovery of self was so disturbing and disconcerting that poetry came as a way of disclosing it" (Bayley 44). The county of Shropshire is central to much of his poetry, but it is employed merely as "a personification of the writer’s memories, dreams and affections;" meanwhile, Housman’s central character is one "who could at once be himself and not himself" (Scott-Kilvert 26). In what Housman himself regarded to be one of his best poems, "XXVII: Is my team ploughing," the focus is placed upon a conversation between a dead man and one of his friends from his previous life (Housman 18). "XXII: The street sounds to the soldiers’ tread;" meanwhile, expresses an emotional wonder discovered in the eyes of a passing soldier (Housman 15). Both the ambiguous quality of the dead man’s last question (18 ll. 25-26) in poem XXVII and the nature of the chance encounter in XXII stand to exemplify the subtle undercurrent of Housman’s own enigmatic sexuality.
I will discuss the similarities by which these poems explore themes of death and violence through the language, structure and imagery used. In some of the poems I will explore the characters’ motivation for targeting their anger and need to kill towards individuals they know personally whereas others take out their frustration on innocent strangers. On the other hand, the remaining poems I will consider view death in a completely different way by exploring the raw emotions that come with losing a loved one.
Both poems have been written about death dying and the loss of loved ones, in a once thriving Welsh mining community. The first poem by Mike Jenkins is a reflection and remembrance by a Father who tragically and suddenly lost his son in a horrific and unfortunate disaster that happened in Aberfan in 1966, where many young lives were lost.
The poem comprises three stanzas which are patterned in two halves; the rule of three is ingeniously used throughout the poem to create tension and show the progression of the soldiers’ lives. There is a variety of rhyming schemes used – possibly Duffy considered using caesural rhyme, internal rhyme and irregular rhyme to better address the elegiac reality. The rhythm is very powerful and shows Duffy’s technical adroitness. It is slightly disconcerting, and adds to the other worldly ambience of the poem. Duffy uses a powerful comparative in each stanza to exemplify the monstrosity and extent of war, which is much worse than we imagine; it develops throughout each stanza, starting with a syntactical ‘No; worse.’ to ‘worse by far’ and ending on ‘much worse’. Similarly, the verbs used to describe the soldier’s shadow as he falls shows the reader the journey of the shadow, as if it’s the trajectory of soldiers’ lives. At first, the shadow is as an act...
In “The Fatal Sisters” Thomas Gray has created a monologue pregnant with references to history, geography, and mythology. These reappearing references and allusions enrich the text, as they allow a closer look at the political situation surrounding eleventh century Britain. The poems’ sixteen stanzas exhibit an ABAB rhyme scheme, which provides for systematic organization and positive aesthetic effects. Closer examination of the setting, tone, and imagery of the poem permits insight into the text’s content and artistic genius.
‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ and ‘The Preservation of Flowers’: two notable poems, two very different styles of writing. This essay will look at their contrasts and similarities, from relevant formal aspects, to the deeper meanings hidden between the lines. We will examine both writers use of rhyme scheme, sound patterning, word choice, figurative language and punctuation. It will also touch a little on the backgrounds of the writers themselves and their inspirations, with the intention of gaining a greater understanding of both texts.
Owen presents us a sarcastic view towards the idea of being honorable to sacrifice for their country and buttresses it with abundant of horrific images. It is a war sonnet that captures the feelings of survivors to those who lost their lives in war. The use of a sonnet creates a sense of intensity in his poem, briefness and portrays the nature of death on a battlefield. Moreover, Owen uses the rhyme scheme of “ababcdcdeffegg” to show the strong division between the lines. The choice of a sonnet allows Owen to convey his message effectively and remain emotional to keep the readers interested. His tone in the poem is gloomy and proposes the reader to consider the question at the beginning of the poem: “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle” (1). Their deaths are significant to those of cattle and it occurs in masses. This leads the reader to consider t...
W. B. Yeats’s poem ‘An Irish Airman Foresees his Death’ and Shakespeare’s poem ‘Come Away, Come Away, Death’ both deal with the theme of impending death, although by varying causes. While the poems employ similar figurative and sonic elements of language, their tone and style vary. Yeats’s poem is primarily a war poem that serves as an elegy for the Irish pilot Major Robert Gregory who died in WWI. As opposed to this Shakespeare’s poem is a lamenting love song sung by the character of Feste in Twelfth Night. Despite being different in setting, they both express an acceptance of death.
According to Ann Coiro, Penshurst became a fantasy redress of Jonson's own social unease, while Lanyer's description of Cooke-ham is a desolate place, a county- house poem of loss. It is clear from my analysis of these two wonderfully complex and thoroughly entertaining poems that while they contain various similarities they also exhibit a wide range of dissimilarities. I have discussed reasons such as gender and class position that contributed to the poets' conception of the county- house poem. From their original creation in iambic pentameter, to their installation of a woman as a key figure to their very different visions of the estate towards the end. `The description of Cooke- ham' and `To Penshurst' are excellent examples of the country- house poem and continue to be compared and contrasted.
Owen emphasises that the massacres caused by war do lead to crippling physical damage. In ‘DEDE’, he conveys this by the use of simile paired with alliteration “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags”. These two lines, to begin ‘DEDE’ sets the mood of the poem, giving the audience a bitter greeting and asserts their fatigue. The comparison the men to beggars emphasises their ageing prematurely and that they have a lack of control over their life. Owen forcefully highlights how these men are going to war young but dying old due to the ageing of this war
“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is a poem composed by Thomas Gray over a period of ten years. Beginning shortly after the death of his close friend Richard West in 1742, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” was first published in 1751. This poem’s use of dubbal entendre may lead the intended audience away from the overall theme of death, mourning, loss, despair and sadness; however, this poem clearly uses several literary devices to convey the author’s feelings toward the death of his friend Richard West, his beloved mother, aunt and those fallen soldiers of the Civil War. This essay will discuss how Gray uses that symbolism and dubbal entendre throughout the poem to convey the inevitability of death, mourning, conflict within self, finding virtue in one’s life, dealing with one’s misfortunes and giving recognition to those who would otherwise seem insignificant.
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.