The poem, “The Darkling Thrush” was written during the turn of the nineteenth century. The poem overall is about the lack of hope that the speaker has. It is set in winter; the season where many people become depressed because of the lack of color and life during the season. Eventually the speaker finds hope in the song of a Thrush, however, it is not until he is more than half way through the poem that this happens. The poet’s use of figurative language aids him in conveying just how miserable he is. Hardy begins showing off his adornment for figurative language in the second and third lines of the first stanza, writing, “When Frost was spectre-gray, / And Winter’s dregs made desolate” (Hardy). By capitalizing the words “Frost” and “Winter” …show more content…
The speaker of the poem is standing by a pond in the dead of winter staring into the bleakness that has become his relationship. The poet uses imagery and symbolism to convey the precise state of the relationship. By setting the poem in the winter, Hardy is able to convey a feeling of vacancy, which not only describes the landscape, but the feelings within the hearts of the speaker and the woman in the poem; they are both vacant of feeling for each other. Hardy uses the lack of color to his advantage. He only speaks of white and gray, even calling attention to the color of the sun, saying, “And the sun was white” (Hardy, Neutral Tones). Normally one would describe a sun as yellow and happy, bringing life. However, Hardy calls it white, adding it to the coldness of the landscape, a symbol for the coldness of their relationship. He uses the lack of color in the last two lines of the poem to create imagery that truly describes the state of their relationship. He writes, “Your face, and the God curt sun, and a tree, / And a pond edged with grayish leaves” (Hardy, Neutral Tones). By comparing her face to the lack of color in the landscape, he is focusing in on the fact that her face has been left expressionless, much like their relationship, blank. Hardy does not rely completely on imagery and symbolism to paint a picture of the dissolved relationship. He incorporates paradoxes as well. In …show more content…
The poem surrounds the speaker, a man who feels he loves a woman. However, she does not return his love and instead rejects him. Hardy emphasizes these feelings mainly by repetition. In lines one and eight he repeats the phrase, “You did not come” (Hardy, The Broken Appointment). He then does it again in lines nine and sixteen, this time repeating the phrase, “You love not me” (Hardy, The Broken Appointment). While the repetition Hardy uses does make a point and emphasizes the feelings of the speaker, Hardy’s change of meter and cadence allow the repetition to make its full effect. He begins and ends each of the stanzas with short four syllable phrases that are repetitive of each other. On the other hand, all of the other lines in the poem are ten syllables each. By changing the meter and cadence the reader can almost feel the speaker’s heart breaking as it is read. The repetition in the poem reinforces the hurt tone that the poem
The first two lines of the poem set the mood of fear and gloom which is constant throughout the remainder of the poem. The word choice of "black" to describe the speaker's face can convey several messages (502). The most obvious meaning ...
As he slouches in bed, a description of the bare trees and an old woman gathering coal are given to convey to the reader an idea of the times and the author's situation. "All groves are bare," and "unmarried women (are) sorting slate from arthracite." This image operates to tell the reader that it is a time of poverty, or a "yellow-bearded winter of depression." No one in the town has much to live for during this time. "Cold trees" along with deadness, through the image of "graves," help illustrate the author's impression of winter. Wright seems to be hibernating from this hard time of winter, "dreaming of green butterflies searching for diamonds in coal seams." This conveys a more colorful and happy image showing what he wishes was happening; however he knows that diamonds are not in coal seams and is brought back to the reality of winter. He talks of "hills of fresh graves" while dreaming, relating back to the reality of what is "beyond the streaked trees of (his) window," a dreary, povern-strucken, and cold winter.
Dylan Thomas wrote the poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” It is about a son’s plea to his father who is approaching death. Two lines are repeated in the poem and addressed directly to the father. These lines structure the first stanza and collaborate as a couplet in the last. They are repeated a lot but each time, they have different meanings: statements, pleas, commands, or petitions. Repetition and rhyme scheme are parts of prosody in poetry. The rhyme scheme is built on two rhymes and forms of a pattern. The two rhymes are night and day and the pattern is aba, and in the last stanza, abaa. Even though the poem seems to have too much repetition, the fascinating imagery is more important and readers pay more attention to that instead.
As characters in the poem are literally snow bound, they find that the natural occurrence actually serves a relaxing and warming purpose, one that brings together family. This effect is further achieved through the use of meter throughout the work as a whole. In its simplistic yet conversational tone, the author uses meter to depict the result that nature has forced upon these humans, who are but a small sample size that actually is representative of society that that time. Due to nature, the characters can talk, represented by the conversational meter, and thus, they can bond within the family. A larger representation of this more specific example can be applied to a more general perspective of human’s relationship with the natural world. Although “Snowbound” captures what humans do as a result of nature, it can also represent a larger picture, where nature appears at the most opportune times to enhance relationships from human to human. In “snowbound,” this is symbolized by the fire, “Our warm hearth seemed blazing free” (Whittier 135). This image relays a spirited, warm, mood full of security, which is expertly used by the author to show how fire, a natural phenomena, can provide such beneficial effects on humans. This very occurrence exemplifies how such a miniscule aspect of nature can have such a profound effect on a family, leaving the reader wondering what nature and its entirety could accomplish if used as a
The poem Fire and Ice is nine line long and is an example of a briefly ironic literary style of Frosts work. Fire and Ice ranges between two meter lengths. The poem uses interwoven rhymes founded on “ire,” “ice,” and “ate.” Although the meter is irregular it does keep up an iambic foot throughout the poem. The first line of the poem is a tetrameter followed by a dimeter which is followed by five line of tetrameter, ending with two lines of dimeter. The division of the line lengths is to render natural interruptions in the poem causing the reader to stop and reread what they have just read in order to comprehend the meaning of the lines containing the dimeter. For example when the reader reads “ Some say in ice” they go back to the first line of the poem to reread the topic of what some are saying about the end of the world. The rhyme scheme of “Fire and Ice” is ABAABCBCB style. The words “fire” and “ice” are being rhymed with themselves. By using this scheme it means that the poem falls soundly and flows. By using the rhyme scheme Frosts creates a connection between the words. For example “fire” and “desire,” which make it clear that the words are related on a deeper level. As well the rhyming of “fire” and “ice” with themselves made it work to cre...
Giving off the feeling of warmth, the speaker of "Sonnet 18," expresses his love towards her by using imagery that revolves around a "summer's day." The speaker starts off by stating that the "rough winds," will blow away the flowers that sprout in May, which portray a cold picture associated with a chilly sensation. However, as the speaker continues to describe the feeling of love, he states that even if the sun's "too hot", he still loves her. Using the sun's ray to be too hot, shows that even if the feeling is really warm to the point it burns, he will still love her. The transition between cold and warm creates a suttle jesture, allowing the readers to get connect to get a better grasp of the warm feeling. Meanwhile, in "I Am Offering this Poem," the speaker also uses a similar style of imagery. Icy and chill, the speaker introduces the poem with the winter season. Stating, "winter comes to cover you," paints the readers with the images of snow and ice. However, he dusts the cold feeling by saying "warm coat," to show that his feeling can be drawn out of the cold with the feeling of warmth. He declares that his feelings towards her is like a "pot of yellow corn to warm your ...
Frost’s sentence structure is long and complicated. Many meanings of his poems are not revealed to the reader through first glance, but only after close introspection of the poem. The true meanings contained in Frost’s poems, are usually lessons on life. Frost uses symbolism of nature and incorporates that symbolism into everyday life situations. The speaker in the poems vary, in the poem “The Pasture”, Frost seems to be directly involved in the poem, where as in the poem “While in the Rose Pogonias”, he is a detached observer, viewing and talking about the world’s beauty. Subsequently, the author transfers that beauty over to the beauty of experiences that are achieved through everyday life.
Frost uses different stylistic devices throughout this poem. He is very descriptive using things such as imagery and personification to express his intentions in the poem. Frost uses imagery when he describes the setting of the place. He tells his readers the boy is standing outside by describing the visible mountain ranges and sets the time of day by saying that the sun is setting. Frost gives his readers an image of the boy feeling pain by using contradicting words such as "rueful" and "laugh" and by using powerful words such as "outcry". He also describes the blood coming from the boy's hand as life that is spilling. To show how the boy is dying, Frost gives his readers an image of the boy breathing shallowly by saying that he is puffing his lips out with his breath.
A thrush is a songbird, which is usually brown or black, and sings its songs extremely loudly. Hardy describes the thrush in the poem by saying, “in a full-hearted evensong of joy illimited; an aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, in blast-beruffled plume, had chosen thus to fling his soul upon the growing gloom,” (Page 1080.) What I love about the thrush in this poem is the fact that the thrush is still singing loudly in the dead of winter. The thrush was old, as Hardy said, and still sound as loud as it did when it was younger. It can easily be seen that this particular bird doesn’t give up so easy, it doesn’t give in. In a way, this bird is similar to me. Sometimes I have been through hard times, like the bird, and still remained positive and never gave up. I am simply not one to give up, I fight till the very end. Whether it be school, or my own life, I never give up. Like the bird, even though no one may be listening, I still show my pride willingly and stay strong. Clearly, the thrush in Darkling Thrush helped to keep me
In his narrative poem, Frost starts a tense conversation between the man and the wife whose first child had died recently. Not only is there dissonance between the couple,but also a major communication conflict between the husband and the wife. As the poem opens, the wife is standing at the top of a staircase looking at her child’s grave through the window. Her husband is at the bottom of the stairs (“He saw her from the bottom of the stairs” l.1), and he does not understand what she is looking at or why she has suddenly become so distressed. The wife resents her husband’s obliviousness and attempts to leave the house. The husband begs her to stay and talk to him about what she feels. Husband does not understand why the wife is angry with him for manifesting his grief in a different way. Inconsolable, the wife lashes out at him, convinced of his indifference toward their dead child. The husband accepts her anger, but the separation between them remains. The wife leaves the house as husband angrily threatens to drag her back by force.
"We stood by a pond that winter day," (1) This line indicates a still quietness, with lack of the movement of life. There is a vast difference in appearance and movement around a pond in winter and a pond in the midst of summer. This indicates no leaves, and no visible signs of life. The poet is painting a stark and lifeless scene.
... be casting stones, or holding a conversation. The speaker of the poem does not move on from this emotional torment, yet I do feel as if in his quest for closure he does resolve some of the tumultuous feelings he does have in regard to losing his love.
...a silence deep and white” (Line,4) they are talking about how the white snow is beautiful and, how it looks like to me this is a love of nature to some maybe not.Last one is Intuition over fact in this quote “Father,who makes the snow?” (Line,22) says his daughter, “And told of the good All father” (Line,23) and lastly “Who cares for us here below” (Line,24) he is talking about and all father which i believe he is talking about god,and this is a great characteristic for this poem.
Stevens’ message reveals itself as the poem unravels: there is never one true understanding of a reality outside of one’s interpretation. The author suggests that one can’t help but transfer their own beliefs and ideas onto what they see; in this case, the “listener” is projecting an impression of misery onto the scenery that lies before him. For example, the first two stanzas are filled with decorative language that serves to describe the visual image of a winter landscape. Using phrases such as “crusted with snow” (3) instead of “covered” with snow provides an evocative illustration of the snow’s roughness. Other phrases such as “shagged with ice” (5) and “rough in the distant glitter/Of the January sun” (6-7) force the reader to experience the miserable portrayal of winter. These are not the descriptions of an observer who “beholds nothing that is not there” (14-15), but rather the objective, poetic appreciation for the snowy
Frost’s diction could be described as simplistic. Frost does not use large vocabulary words, but rather uses simpler everyday words that most people word use. By using a simpler vocabulary it allows the one to understand the meaning of the poem more clearly. The language used is a testament to Frost’s style of writing that he is known for. The language used is clear in this poem, such as “And both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black. / Oh, I kept the first for another day!” (11-13). This type of diction helps the reader to analyze and interpret the poem more deeply. As the use of everyday language allows the poem to become more relatable and reach a more diverse audience. Diction is an important element of this poem as it adds to the poem’s