In this essay I will discuss the imagery, diction, and tone of "the Cambridge ladies who lived in furnished souls", but first I will start by explaining my view of this poem. While discussing the imagery of this poem I will display my interpretation of the suggesting pictures of sight, and I will present what I interpreted and how I interpreted the imagery. Then I will discuss the writers choice of words, sentence structure, and how I interpreted the meanings of these dictions. Lastly I will dispute the attitude the writer takes towards the reader. The first couple times I read this poem it seemed cluttered and in disarray to me. I found this poem to be a bit burdensome and frustrating because I had trouble interpreting it. After further review and reading this poem a few more times I began to realize there is more to this poem then what I originally perceived there to be. I found this poem to be cunning and very creative. The first line I found to be creative was line 1 when the author writes, "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls", I viewed this to be creative because of the diction he decided to use to portray the ladies image to the reader. The word "Cambridge" gave me a good mental picture of what one of these ladies could possibly be like. When I read the word "Cambridge" I instantly thought of old England when English ladies where very prestige and proper. This word made me think of higher class white ladies, who could have likely came from Affluent backgrounds, and are well educated. I also got the impression that these ladies could be snobbish and forceful ladies. When I read the part that read "who live with furnished souls" I imagined a furnished house. I associated this word with a furnished house because it is a term you hear often with houses. The house would represent the ladies, and everything in the house would represent what is a part of the ladies soul. When I think of Cambridge ladies and think of what could furnish their souls I automatically think of riches, maybe education. I have this idea that the term furnished could mean that their souls where predetermined for them maybe because they where raised into a certain lifestyle, or maybe they could have been brought up in a certain religion and they are already set in their ways before they are old enough to think for themselves and choice their own ways and beliefs.
The readers are apt to feel confused in the contrasting ways the woman in this poem has been depicted. The lady described in the poem leads to contrasting lives during the day and night. She is a normal girl in her Cadillac in the day while in her pink Mustang she is a prostitute driving on highways in the night. In the poem the imagery of body recurs frequently as “moving in the dust” and “every time she is touched”. The reference to woman’s body could possibly be the metaphor for the derogatory ways women’s labor, especially the physical labor is represented. The contrast between day and night possibly highlights the two contrasting ways the women are represented in society.
*Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, copyright 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and fellows of Harvard College.
...The Sidney estate is remarkable in its humbling and simplistic nature. The social classes all live harmoniously because of respect and understanding of what each class brings. The peasants, servants, Jonson himself, Sidney’s, and the King all have differing social statuses. It is the ability to not look down upon one another that makes the social order so remarkable. In a sense it is a paradigm of a typical English society, and conversely a watered down utopia for all who knows Penshurst to be a part of. Jonson’s “To Penshurst” is a staple of country house poetry and reflects the magnificence of the natural beauty of the estate. Furthermore, Penshurst incorporated a heartwarming community that managed to capture Johnson’s attention by providing a humbling and inviting experience to all of those who inhabit the beautiful Sidney estate known as Penshurst.
The speaker begins the poem an ethereal tone masking the violent nature of her subject matter. The poem is set in the Elysian Fields, a paradise where the souls of the heroic and virtuous were sent (cite). Through her use of the words “dreamed”, “sweet women”, “blossoms” and
John Clare’s “An Invite to Eternity” is a poem that at first glance seems happy and inviting but once examined, is actually quite depressing and aloof. Although it appears to be a direct address to an anonymous “maiden,” in reality the poem is much more complex. Clare offers his “sweet maid” a less than appealing future life, presenting her with an “eternity” filled with harsh landscapes and loneliness. Most readers’ first impression when they think of eternity is almost dream-like or heavenly. However, Clare’s vision of eternity is dark and mysterious and uninviting. These different versions of expectations, as well as the use of antique word forms such as “thou” and “wilt”, seems to suggest a conscious misuse of traditional and old-fashioned love poetry and portrays the “maiden” as being nothing more than a figment in Clare’s imagination. Further, this is not the first time Clare has written about such a hellish place. His poem “I am” resembles the “eternity” he is speaking of in “An Invite to Eternity.” “I am” was a reflection of a period in his life where he was isolated in a mental institution. In this context, the strange and ominous world that Clare presents as “eternity” takes on a new meaning as a representation of his social death while in the asylum. Supporting this idea, “An Invite to Eternity”
The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 5th edition. Boston & New York: Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 1999. http://www.martinspress 1564 - 1612 -.
Overall I think this poem was sad as it made me feel sorry for the
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.
A man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge,—what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own! Misshapen from my birth-hour, how could I delude myself with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical deformity in a young girl’s fantasy! … Nay, from the moment when we came down the old church-steps together, a married pair, I might have beheld the bale-...
...seful miscommunication between men and women. Lastly, when looking through the imagined perspective of the thoughtless male tricksters, the reader is shown the heartlessness of men. After this reader’s final consideration, the main theme in each of the presented poems is that both authors saw women as victims of a male dominated society.
With fewer than fifty published poems Elizabeth Bishop is not one of the most prominent poets of our time. She is however well known for her use of imagery and her ability to convey the narrator?s emotions to the reader. In her vividly visual poem 'The Fish', the reader is exposed to a story wherein the use of language not only draws the reader into the story but causes the images to transcend the written work. In the poem, Bishop makes use of numerous literary devices such as similes, adjectives, and descriptive language. All of these devices culminate in the reader experiencing a precise and detailed mental image of the poem's setting and happenings.
Before reading this poem, one might not be too intrigued by its title, but ...
The Spleen by Anne Finch, the Countess of Winchelsea, presents an interesting poetic illustration of depression in the spleen. The spleen for Finch is an enigma, it is mysterious, shape-shifting, and melancholic. Melancholy leads the subject to flashes of a grander, terrifying emotion: the sublime. The subject of Finch’s Pindaric ode experiences the sublime, and yet has the uncanny ability to reflect and reason on the feeling with acuity--even though the subject suffers from depression, which in effect dulls sensory information. The fact that she intensely perceives the sublime suggests a paradox where dulled senses can produce a penetrative emotional episode. To understand the paradox, the theory of the sublime and Finch’s engagement with the sublime in The Spleen must be traced to conceive the state of the dulled mind in the thrall of an infinite, and transcendent wave of emotion. The focus of this essay is that Finch understands that Dullness, as a by-product of depression, enables rational thought during a sublime experience. Furthermore, she thus illustrates her experience through images where she emphasizes her sensory information and her feelings, which were supposedly numbed by depression. Her feelings, indicated in The Spleen, are the crux to how Finch is able to simultaneously feel numb, and process the sublime.
First, she begins the poem with the word “arrive”, in lower case and paragraph indented. The verb’s drop from the title and lack of proper capitalization diminish the self-important visitors. Then, Brooks’ employs sensual imagery that repels the visitors, such as the “stench; the urine, cabbage, and dead beans”.The faint-hearted “Lover’s of the Poor” are alarmed and finally routed by the poverty, as they state “Oh Squalor!”. The women are also put off by the words “Children, children, children—Heavens!” To the stuck-up visitors, there is something extremely repugnant in the prolific reproduction of the poor. Brooks reveals the ladies’ genuine feelings regarding the poor through references to their “love so barbarously fair,” their “loathe-love,” and their desire to refresh with “milky chill.”. Furthermore, alliteration throughout strengthens the underlying-tone of the poem. It is through these devices that one truly observes the true attitudes the two parties have towards
Not only do the words express the speaker's feelings. The structure of the poem has a memorable effect as well. The sentences in the first half of the poem are shorter with a two-line, a four-line, and a six-line sentence. Even in the six-line sentence there are pauses to keep order. However, there are only two sentences in the second half, with one being eight lines. This sentence also has very little structure and runs on. There is no caesura present in the second half, even though there is plenty of it in the