Looking back in literature, there are thousands upon thousands of poems written in every time period that have a wide array of subjects. There are poems that can be about love and beauty, such as “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”, and there are poems that are about very serious matters such as “Richard Cory”. The author of the poem, “Richard Cory”, uses diction, figure of speech, and imagery to get an important message across; money cannot buy happiness.
Both poems represent the despairs and failures of the love they hone for their beloved, with brings a touch of sadness to the poems. From this the reader can feel almost sympathetic to the unrequited lovers, and gain an understanding of the perils and repercussions of love.
Contrasts of Speaker’s View in Edgar Allan Poe’s “To Helen” and H.D.’s “Helen”
Helen of Troy, known as the most beautiful woman of ancient Greek culture, is the catalyst for the Trojan War. As such, she is the subject of both Edgar Allen Poe’s “To Helen” and H.D.’s “Helen”; however, their perceptions of Helen are opposites. Many poets and authors have written about Helen in regards to her beauty and her treacherous actions. There is a tremendous contrast between the views of Helen in both poems by Poe and Doolittle.
Sylvia Plath was known as an American Poet, Novelist and Shorty story writer. However, Plath lived a melancholic life. After Plath graduated from Smith College, Plath moved to Cambridge, England on a full scholarship. While Plath was Studying in England, she married Ted Hughes, an English poet. Shortly after, Plath returned to Massachusetts and began her first collection of poems, “Colossus”, which was published first in England and later the United States. Due to depression built up inside, Plath committed suicide leaving her family behind. Sylvia Plath was a gifted and troubled poet, known for the confessional style of her work, which is how “Mirror” came to be. Although this poem may seem like the reader is reading from first person point of view, there is a much deeper meaning behind Plath’s message throughout the poem. Plath uses several elements of terror and darkness to show change to the minds of the readers.
Poems are a way of expressing the feelings and emotions that the writer chooses to describe, usually using symbolic objects and comparing it to another thing using figurative language. There were many poets that came and went throughout history and there are still a lot today, one of which really caught my attention and her name is Maya Angelou. Maya Angelou is a very astounding poet with her 166 poems, but one really stood out to me and that was The Lesson. Maya Angelou had a very difficult life with the many challenges she faced being an African American during the timeframe of her life and she outlined these troubles in most of her writings. With her circumstances she just kept moving forward and giving it her best without giving up; she is a great model for anyone to follow.
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath has become a highly acclaimed poet. Many consider her as a feminist, to have a husband-wife relationship with her father. Sylvia Plath was a depressed and troubled being throughout her lifetime and wrote many poems. Her poems consist of a variety of topics that reflect her depression, bees, her father, and different events in her life. Most of these poems contain a wide range of imagery that is necessary to help portray her message.
Yolanda is a young girl from the Dominican Republic. She is not use to Americas antics of war and bombs. In the short story she accounts her first sight of snow for what she thought were bombs, "I looked out the window warily. All of my life i had heard about the hite crystals that fell out of American skies in the winter"(5). The way the poet decribes how Yolanda saw th ice fall out the sky lets us know that snow is something that is unfamiliar to her. Also the way she describes the new vocabulary, "nuclear bomb, radioactive fallout, bomb shelter" (2). This lets us know that the seeting takes place ina time of nuclear warefare and the country is in a state of emergence.
The Selection Poem
There’s only one chance
So don’t blow it
Only one will win
Thirty-five girls will enter
A competition -
It’s the competition of a lifetime
There’s one fair lady selected:
Lady America - She’s a five, the last one
She and the Prince made a promise
One that can never be broken
Dorothy Parker: The Challenges of Life and Love
When sorting through the Poems of Dorothy Parker you will seldom find a poem tha¬t you could describe as uplifting or cheerful. She speaks with a voice that doesn’t romanticize reality and some may even call her as pessimistic. Though she doesn’t have a buoyant writing style, I can empathize with her views on the challenges of life and love. We have all had experiences where a first bad impression can change how we view an opportunity to do the same thing again.
The purpose of this essay is to analyze and compare and contrast the two paired poems “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning and “My Ex-Husband” by Gabriel Spera to find the similarities presented within the pairs. Despite the monumental time difference between “My Last Duchess” and “My Ex-Husband”, throughout both poems you will see that somebody is wronged by someone they thought was a respectable person and this all comes about by viewing a painting on the wall or picture on a shelf.