Andrew Marvell’s “The Garden” is a poem that through logical progression argues its already established point of view. It is a poem of meditation in a particular place, where the place presented influences the course of this meditative state. Even though filled with the imagery of nature the poem takes a rather pessimistic point of view, where it argues that total isolation from society and harmony with nature as the singular best way of living. Thus, the whole of the poem centers on the idea of wholesome nature in a world without the instruction of mankind. In the first three stanzas, the virtues of the garden are provided through comparison with the trial (and supposed pleasures) of the world of men, stanzas five through seven address the pleasures of the body, the mind, and the soul as they are gratified in the garden, stanza eight through nine returns to the gesture to Paradise. As this logical progression of argument moves in the poem, each part returns to the idea of isolation, or rather a solitary state of being of the speaker.
The poem opens up with the argument of the destructive function of civilization on nature, concentrating here specifically on the purpose of human efforts to seek recognition through destruction of nature. The opening lines take the argument of nature against men seamlessly: “How vainly men themselves amaze / To win the palm, the oak, or bays” (1-2). From he very first lines the reader can sense that inutility of labor is denigrated in favor of the leisured enjoyment of nature. In line 4, the speaker establishes the argument of the crown—which symbolizes the human longing for recognition. However, this crown is made out of a cut down branch or shrub and therefore shortening their life as they fad...
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...allowed full autonomy, free from the necessities of sec and procreation. Therefore, the retreat to this state of the garden is a rejection of the entire world and satiety, and what is presented as a validating state of satisfaction of the speaker is doomed to last a short time, as it presumes that in a greater privilege is gained than from “a mortal’s share” (61). In the poem’s closing stanza, with its image of the flower dial, the speaker returns to the earthly reality. “How could such sweet and wholesome hours / Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers!” (71-72), herb and flowers are transient, quickly dying things, unsustainable through seasons. Thus, the image of the floral clock signifies that time is not still, seasons change and the speaker is not in a timelessness of eternity (heaven) yet and therefore his stay in the garden must be similarly short-lived.
Specifically, the grandfather in this poem appears to represent involvement with nature because of his decisions to garden as he “stabs his shears into earth” (line 4). However, he is also representative of urban life too as he “watched the neighborhood” from “a three-story” building (line 10). The author describes the world, which the grandfather has a small “paradise” in, apart from the elements desecrated by humans, which include “a trampled box of Cornflakes,” a “craggy mound of chips,” and “greasy / bags of takeouts” (lines 23, 17, 2, and 14-15). The passive nature of the grandfather’s watching over the neighborhood can be interpreted in a variety of different ways, most of them aligning with the positive versus negative binary created by the authors of these texts. The author wants to show the reader that, through the grandfather’s complexity of character, a man involved in both nature and more human centered ways of life, there is multifaceted relationship that man and nature share. Through the also violent descriptions of the grandfather’s methods of gardening, the connection between destructive human activities and the negative effects on nature is
This explains the historical and mythical setting of his garden in “Vienna of the seventeen-sixties” (line 9), inhabited by “Sphinxes” (line 3), “tritons” (line 6) and “water-nymphs” (line 12). This suggests the idea of escaping to past and fictional glories. Moreover, he references the artistic movement “Rococo” (line 7), and the artists “Canaletto” (line 9) and “Watteau” (line 55). By referring to the garden as a deliberate work of art, Hofmannsthal underscores the ideas of illusion and escapism. When the reader enters Hofmannsthal’s garden, he/she, like the liberal bourgeoisie class, temporary leaves the exigencies of his/her life. However, Hofmannsthal puts forth the idea that this escapism has led to life becoming “drained of vitality”. This can be seen in his use of diction in line
...cultivating the garden lets the group of characters keep away from the unfair world in which pessimism is present, while cause and effect are easily measurable in the garden.
(ll. 19-24) Wordsworth’s famous and simple poem, “I wandered lonely as a cloud,” expresses the Romantic Age’s appreciation for the beauty and truth that can be found in a setting as ordinary as a field of daffodils. With this final stanza, Wordsworth writes of the mind’s ability to carry those memories of nature’s beauty into any setting, whether city or country. His belief in the power of the imagination and the effect it can have on nature, and vice a versa, is evident in most of his work. This small
In the Garden of Love Blake talks about how the green, the place of childhood play has been corrupted by a repressive religious morality. Blake describes the Garden as being ‘filled with graves and tombstones’, this confirms his criticism of restrictive conventional morality. Contrary to the view that pleasure leads to corruption, Blake believed that it was the suppression of desire, not the enactment of it that produced negative effects. Blake hated organised religion, and the Garden of Love explores some of the restrictions he saw and det...
This essay is anchored on the goal of looking closer and scrutinizing the said poem. It is divided into subheadings for the discussion of the analysis of each of the poem’s stanzas.
“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
Jackson, Shirley. "Flower Garden." Introduction to Literature: Reading, Analyzing, and Writing. 2nd ed. Ed. Dorothy U.Seyler and Richard A. Wilan. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice, 1990.
There are two settings for this story. The first and main setting is an eye appealing garden next to Giovanni Guasconti’s room which is located in Padua, Italy. This garden is used in this story as a symbol for the Garden of Eden. The garden is described by Hawthorne in such a way that the reader can almost picture a garden that is alive with vibrant colors and an array of flowering plants and shrubs. There are a variety of types of plants and herbs growing in the garden. Some of the plants are vines, some are growing in decorative urns, and some have grown wild until they were wrapped around statues (2217). The entire garden was “veiled and shrouded in a drapery of hanging foliage” (2217). The plants in the garden “seemed fierce, passionate, and even unnatural” to Giovanni (2225). Some of the plants in the garden “crept serpent-like along
The author starts the poem wielding literal diction by indirectly stating the consequences of war and addressing himself as the grass/nature and his purpose/role in the situation as a reminder to man that
In the first stanza, the poet seems to be offering a conventional romanticized view of Nature:
In Kew Gardens, Virginia Woolf takes advantage of the liminal quality of the short story in order to highlight the suspended world that she creates in the garden. For Woolf, the lyrical short story’s subversion of traditional narrative structure allows her to focus on creating a world rather than a plot. Further, the short story creates a liminal space by the very nature of its form. Caught in a space where it is not considered a poem or a novel, the short story exists as undefined. The liminality of the short story, however, is both liberating and restricting. Woolf explores this feature in order to suggest the unsustainable nature of Kew Gardens. While Woolf utilizes the form of the short story to create a liminal, impressionistic space that eradicates the boundaries between human and nature, she also uses the transitory quality of the short story to suggest that such a space can only exist for a short duration due to the restrictions of the imposing outside world.
The first stanza sets the tone of mockery. The speaker uses metaphors, hyperboles, irony and imagery to seduce his coy mistress. He begins his poem of seduction with an insult: “Had we but world enough, and time, / This coyness, lady, were no crime.” He calls her a criminal for being so reluctant when they are constrained by world and time. To him, it is a misconduct to not jump right into his arms when they have so little time to live. Since this lady does not immediately throw herself upon him, he tries his hand at flattery. “My vegetable love should grow” is a slightly exaggerated image of his love. He uses it to compare how a vegetable, if nourished and cared for, will continue to grow, just like his love for this lady even if it is slowly. He asks her to imagine an incomprehensible amount of time when he says “Two hundred to adore each breast/ But thirty thousand to the rest” The effect of this imagery is to bring her outside of the immediate moment. Many of the hyperboles are so outrageous; the tone of mockery is predominant over the tone of seduction.
Flowers are a sign of celebration, a sign of sympathy, and a sign of beauty. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway which was published in 1925 seven years after the first world war, and her last novel Between the Acts which was published in 1941 in the middle of the second world war, both are full of flowers. The imagery of nature and rustic scenes within the novels help you to better understand the feeling of reflecting on happier times from the past, and hoping for recreation. Although most would think that Woolf’s images would be about looking for a better, brighter, and happier future, they all do not quite relay that message. Many of the images are corrupted and distorted, echoing with remaining fears from the previous war and the approaching fear of war ahead. Nature is beautiful, it is frightening, it is confusing, and it is questionable. All of these feelings and more can be found in the nature imagery that Woolf uses so beautifully throughout her novels Between the Acts and Mrs. Dalloway.
The poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth is about the poet’s mental journey in nature where he remembers the daffodils that give him joy when he is lonely and bored. The poet is overwhelmed by nature’s beauty where he thought of it while lying alone on his couch. The poem shows the relationship between nature and the poet, and how nature’s motion and beauty influences the poet’s feelings and behaviors for the good. Moreover, the process that the speaker goes through is recollected that shows that he isolated from society, and is mentally in nature while he is physically lying on his couch. Therefore, William Wordsworth uses figurative language and syntax and form throughout the poem to express to the readers the peace and beauty of nature, and to symbolize the adventures that occurred in his mental journey.