Poetry is defined as a literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm. When most people think about poetry, love poems come to mind. Love is unique to individuals in meaning. Though love does not have a concrete definition, through the works of poets love has substance and meaning that can be identified.
Love promotes a feeling of connection with a certain person as if becoming one. In “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” Anne Bradstreet proclaims her connection to her husband in the first two lines. “If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee;” (Bradstreet). She feels this love deeply and apparently so does her husband as she speaks for him as well. “Bradstreet begins her poem with two bold, independent, declarative statements in order to underscore her confidence in this union of two strong, independent spirits” (Napierkowski). A powerful association in love has a spiritual and religious feel to it. Bradstreet’s Puritan views of marriage is evident in this poem. “And the two shall become one flesh, so then they are no longer two, but one flesh” (The Holy Bible). Christians and Puritans have similar doctrine. In both religions, marriage love is a symbol of the love between Christ and the Church. “The love between husband and wife in the ideal state of marriage may be considered and analogy for the love between Christ and the soul or Christ and his Church” (Stafford). Love in a Christian definition is a symbol of the relationship between God and mankind. “I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold, Or all the riches in the East doth hold. My love is such that rivers cannot quench” (Bradstreet). Bradstreet rei...
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...will not be returning to her. The guilt and sorrow of the statement “in my heart there stirs a quiet pain” invokes the notion that it is not that she regrets love but that love is gone. “The central phrase in this section is “quiet pain,” and almost oxymoron suggesting that the narrator’s grief is muted or accepted. Millay offers a brief glimpse of things to come as well: There will be no intimacy in the future” (Schurer). The mention of two season in the poem are symbols of a life span. “Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,” is an indication that this is near the end of the narrator’s life and she is alone without love. “winter brings stagnation and acceptance of what has been lost. Winter was inevitable, just as the loss of love was inevitable I only know that summer sand in me A little while, that in me sings no more,” is a symbol of youth. Millay conveys that
For each seasonal section, there is a progression from beginning to end within the season. Each season is compiled in a progressive nature with poetry describing the beginning of a season coming before poetry for the end of the season. This is clear for spring, which starts with, “fallen snow [that] lingers on” and concludes with a poet lamenting that “spring should take its leave” (McCullough 14, 39). The imagery progresses from the end of winter, with snow still lingering around to when the signs of spring are disappearing. Although each poem alone does not show much in terms of the time of the year, when put into the context of other poems a timeline emerges from one season to the next. Each poem is linked to another poem when it comes to the entire anthology. By having each poem put into the context of another, a sense of organization emerges within each section. Every poem contributes to the meaning of a group of poems. The images used are meant to evoke a specific point in each season from the snow to the blossoms to the falling of the blossoms. Since each poem stands alone and has no true plot they lack the significance than if they were put into th...
Love is such an abstract concept for the human mind to figure out. Along with the love of a mother for her child, there are many types of sensual love or brotherly love; friendship is frequently described as a type of love, as well. This abstraction can also be distorted and made to fit into categories that would normally be associated with negativity and abuse not "love." Think of why a woman will continually go back to an abusive spouse with the irrational reason that "he loves me." If he loved you, he wouldn't beat you…Would he? In a poem, the confusion seems only to extend, as writers will describe a beautiful event that is tainted by a bad experience or emotion. In this manner, word choice plays a primary role in determining the actual meaning of the poem. Clare Rossini, in her poem entitled "Final Love Note" and Louise Gluck, in her poem "Mock Orange," both use carefully chosen language to portray different aspects of the concept that we, in individual and often irrational ways, use to explain "love." These particular writers use words of love and hate to explain extremely passionate feelings toward their personal relationships-and nature, an elm tree, and a Mock Orange bush, to be exact.
“We pluck and marvel for sheer joy. And the ones still green, sighing, leave upon the boughs…” (14-16). This emphasis on nature reflects the respect and connection to the natural world the culture was trying to convey in their poetry. The colorful and illustrative descriptions of the physical world are indicative of the mindset and focus of these poems. Namely the fact that they were concerned with the world around us and the reality we experience as opposed to that of abstract concept of god or the supernatural as seen in other historical texts. This focus on nature is important because it sets the context in which the major theme of loss and separation originate from. In this poem the poet chooses to emphasize the passing of time in the choice of comparing the two seasons. Spring, in which life begins a new, and fall, in which the leaves begin to fall off and die. The poem reads “And the ones still green, sighing, leave upon the boughs- Those are the ones I hate to lose. For me, it is the autumn hills” (15-18). This juxtaposition of these two
... the end of the poem until “the rose tree’s thread of scent draws thin and snaps upon the air”, terminating life and dictating the start of another season.
Love means not needing constant contact, in person or via text, to feel secure. It means in every way possible and earning reciprocal trust. This aspect of love is illustrated in Janie Crawford’s relationships in Zora Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Many people speculate that Janie’s devotion towards marriage is her ultimate goal, but in the process, she jumps
Poetry is a compact language that expresses complex feelings. To understand the multiple meanings of a poem, readers must examine its words and phrasing from the perspectives of rhythm, sound, images, obvious meaning, and implied meaning. Readers then need to organize responses to the verse into a logical, point-by-point explanation. A good beginning involves asking questions that apply to most poetry.
The majority of the occasions occur in the month of December, which implies it is winter time, at least in most places. The poem depicts a scene that is loaded with darkness that is just intensified by the season, seeing as how the winter season is chilly, and can be somewhat grim and dim. The poem additionally has a component of unhappiness which winter can furthermore
This poem is a clear representation of it's theme, maybe the most clear out of all of the poems. The speaker enters the woods, deeper and deeper they go, away from the people on the outside of the woods. He walks the opposite from others, if taken in a literal sense. “Against the trees I go” (Frost, Line 2) implies that he would rather walk away from others, as walking against the trees, instead of walking with them. Just looking at the poem, you see that the speaker is happy walking into the woods alone, and that this is where they come to be alone, away from others. As the poem goes on, it gets later but the speaker does not feel the pressure to leave. They slowly make their tracks in the snow. Snow is a symbol of isolation as well, for example, when snow is fresh. The snow looks so delicate, not to be touched. But, in this poem, no one had touched the snow. The speaker made his tracks in the snow because he was the only one there to make them. No one has come to this spot, and therefore it is isolated, only for him. As the poem
Yet a term as broad as "poetry" is not so easily quantified as to simply attribute physical characteristics to it and let all writing either fall into or out of that category. Poetry is determined by the effect upon the reader. It is an individual opinion, and thus defined by the collected (individual) reactions.
Love plays a significant role in the life of the average person. There are both positive and negative effects of love. Both the novel Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, and the poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” by Anne Bradstreet have similar ideas and qualities. Although they are different, both pieces of literature tie to the common theme, love. The poems’ explanation of love helps to highlight the growth of Elizabeth’s love throughout the novel.
In the first quatrain of the poem the speaker compares himself to autumn. The speaker says, “That time of year thou mayst in me behold” (1). He is seeing himself as the fall season of the year. A time of the year when nights arrive quicker and the temperature becomes cooler. When relating this season to life, it is when a person is experiencing stages of decline in their life making them closer to death. He creates an image of a tree, with leaves that have been falling with the change of season into winter. “When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang.” (2) When using the image of leaves falling from a tree and leaving it bare,
Despite his position, Wordsworth can hear the “soft island murmur” of the mountain springs. As “five long winters” suggests, Wordsworth is cold and dreary—London, we must remember, is a bitter place. He longs for the islands: the sand, sun, and warm waters that those murmurs suggest. The coldness of winter could be brought about by Rebecca’s distance from her brother; they had been, at the time of the poem’s writing, separate for five long years. But he can hear reconciliation coming just at the edge of hearing: he can spot the horizon of friendship. But no sooner does friendship appear in the poem than it is thwarted by these lines:
According to Webster's Dictionary, poetry is defined as "writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm." While this is the technical definition of poetry many writers attempted to further describe what poetry is. There are many contradicting views and no one can agree what is the essence of poetry. Some poets think that poetry is the expression of emotions and rules do not matter, while other poets suggest the poetry is all about the rules and the rhythm that must be followed. The perfect mix to define poetry is somewhere in between.
These aspects help the speaker escape from reality. The snow symbolizes the purity and peacefulness the speaker feels while stopping in the woods. (4) The darkness can symbolize many different things. Some times darkness would be considered evil or dangerous, but I do not think this is the case in this poem. I believe the darkness symbolizes the undisturbed atmosphere of the woods.
Poets and philosophers for centuries have been trying to answer the question, what is love? Love has an infinite number of definitions, which vary from one person to another. Love cannot be measured by any physical means. One may never know what true love is until love it- self has been experienced. What is love? A four letter word that causes a person to behave in a way that is out of character. What is love? A first kiss, childhood crushes on a teacher or friend’s mom. What is love? A choice that people make by putting their partner’s wishes, desires and needs above everything else. What is love? The act of forgiveness, the infatuation with someone, the communication between two people. What is love? A friendship that turned into a lifelong commitment, that special someone who has vowed to spend the rest of their lives to honor and protect, to love each other “till death do you part.” When in love nothing else in the world matters. According to the online Encarta Dictionary love is the passionate feeling of romantic and sexual desire and longing for somebody. Poets and philosophers may never know what love really is, and we may never truly understand the question what is love.