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Death in literature
Essays on death in literature
Imagery in poem analysis essay
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Humans have these closed-mind thinkings, which limit their ability to surpass their crativity, rejecting the idea that everything can be debatable, such as the idea that something bad can be good or something good can be bad. This concept is clearly ignored and refused in William Brayant’s extravagant poem “Thanatopsis”. Brayant’s unique creativity lead him into writing with just 17 years old, the “meditation on death” or Thanatopsis. Different elements such as imagery, language or structure among others are the key of the poem, the heart of the body, that without them, the poem would only be no more than just madness and
Poetry is a part of literature that writers used to inform, educate, warn, or entertain the society. Although the field has developed over the years, the authenticity of poetry remains in its ability to produce a meaning using metaphors and allusions. In most cases, poems are a puzzle that the reader has to solve by applying rhetoric analysis to extract the meaning. Accordingly, poems are interesting pieces that activate the mind and explore the reader’s critical and analytical skills. In the poem “There are Delicacies,” Earle Birney utilizes a figurative language to express the theme and perfect the poem. Specifically, the poem addresses the frangibility of the human life by equating it to the flimsy of a watch. Precisely, the poet argues that a human life is short, and, therefore, everyone should complete his duties in perfection because once he or she dies, the chance is unavailable forever.
Although death reigns supreme in the universal fears of man, Thanatopsis reassures the reader that death comes naturally to everyone. William Cullen Bryant uses emotion to reinforce this point. For example, it seems as if fear should be instilled by Bryant’s description, stating “When thoughts / Of the last bitter hour come like a blight / Over thy spirit” (8-10), this fear vanishes quickly when Bryant continues “Go forth under the open sky, and list / To Nature’s teaching” (14-15). Although this paralyzing thought of death washes over many, Bryant argues Nature soothes and calms this fear. Despite these emotions of terror and pain,
The poem “Thanatopsis” by William Cullen Bryant reveals a very unusual aspect of nature. While most people think of nature as beauty and full of life, Bryant takes a more interesting approach to nature. He exposes a correlation between nature, life, death, and re-birth. Using nature as a foothold, Bryant exercises methods such as tone, setting, and imagery in a very intriguing way while writing “Thanatopsis.”
Before arguing that this acceptance of death is no less than a willing (rather than a fearful) acceptance of the self-surrender necessary to any visionary experience or altered state, even one as specialized as the successful writing of deep image poetry, it is first necessary both to provide the general outlines of that schema mentioned above, and to establish that Merwin's work, like Blake's, is in fact visionary.
In literature, themes shape and characterize an author’s writing making each work unique as different points of view are expressed within a writing’s words and sentences. This is the case, for example, of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” and Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” Both poems focus on the same theme of death, but while Poe’s poem reflects that death is an atrocious event because of the suffering and struggle that it provokes, Dickinson’s poem reflects that death is humane and that it should not be feared as it is inevitable. The two poems have both similarities and differences, and the themes and characteristics of each poem can be explained by the author’s influences and lives.
Chuck Palahniuk once said, “The first step to eternal life, is you have to die.” In William Cullen Bryant’s poem “Thanatopsis”, he does not mention eternal life or anything religious, but speaks about death. He tells his readers that death is a natural thing and they should not worry about it. William Cullen Bryant, in his poem “Thanatopsis”, portrays a comforting view of death. Throughout the poem, Bryant encourages his readers by explaining that in death they are not alone, that death, like life, is a natural process, and that they will be among some of the finest people who walked the earth.
‘’For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one,’’ ~ Khalil Gibran. The poems “Birdfoot’s Grampa” by Joseph Bruchac and ‘’Traveling Through the Dark’’ by William Stafford, both explore the dilemma of deciding life and death. While these poems both have the same general idea and situation, a closer examination reveals differences in conflict and the writers opinions.
William Cullen Bryant wrote a poem regarding the passing of people from this world into the afterlife which he called “Thanatopsis”. The word Thanatopsis is actually a Greek word meaning ‘meditation on or contemplation of death’. It is the opinion of some readers that this poem expresses a traditional religious view of afterlife in heaven where as others who read it see it as a process that only involves our rejoining with nature. Bryant made references to heaven, nature and spirits which contribute to the discussion on both sides of the argument. Poetry, just like every other form of art, is subject to interpretation. After taking a closer look at Thanatopsis it will be easier to see just why these people cannot seem to agree. Bryant made
Poets such as Bryant have forever been trying to write their thoughts and feelings down on paper. They write their words like a painter lays their brush to a canvas. They express ideas that not only exemplify the beauty of life and nature, but also the darkest side of one’s life; death. This notion of death is what most people see as a sad ending to a life filled with beauty, though William Cullen Bryant does not see death in that way. In his poem “Thanatopsis” he offers an optimistic outlook on death. He views it as nothing more than the moment you become one with nature and venture through its beauty for all eternity. It is truly a work of art. This is shown by the use of his effective writing skills he uses skills such as, alliteration, similes and personification that make the poem come alive, just as a painter strives to make his art come alive. Also, this poem is art due to the deep thinking required to grasp its concept of death, you cannot read it just once you must read in between the lines and analyze what the poet is saying.
of the dead in his poem to be not such a physical thing, but the
The idea that something exists after death is uncertain in this poem, saying this, it is important that the point of view is that of the observer. The ...
As a prelude to an inquiry into thematic elements of the poem, it is first necessary to draw out the importance of Fearing’s use of experimental form. Fearing “adheres” to the conventional use of strophic poetic construction, making use of epigrammatic style, where the seven stanzas separate the lament into isolated combinations and experiments on language and the content suggests each might stand alone as organic entities. Putting these highly-varied units into a single poem reflects on the incoherence of broader theme of death and the response to death, the dirge, as well as the notion that such a broad topic as death contains many sma...
The story written by John Steinbeck called “The Chrysanthemums” could be named “The Story of an Afternoon” because of the time range it took the tragedy to occur is around the time of a few hours. John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums” is similar to Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” in the sense of tragic, irony, happening to women in a small amount of time. In both stories women are bamboozled by men, they become misguided and gain a desire. Aiming to achieve the desire causes them to see a false reality and in ruination.
In the Romantic Era of Poetry many poets focused on the beauty of nature. However, both John Keats and William Blake occasionally strayed away from this topic. They often wrote about, their appreciation for the gothic/supernatural aspects of life and also the belief that in order to gain something you must first lose something. In the poem “Ode on Indolence” by John Keats, he focused on the mystical and supernatural elements of the world. In the poem, “Auguries of Innocence” by William Blake he focused on the belief that, in order to feel one emotion the opposite emotion must be experienced as part of life. The romantic qualities that William Blake and John Keats once expressed, still apply to many beliefs in the world today.
Yet this reversal by death from warm life to deathly coldness detracts nothing from the other feature of the hand, that is, it’s being capable. The hand is still capable of grasping, perhaps even more so than when it was alive. However, there is a critical agreement on the poem’s extraordinary capability of anticipating and manipulating the reader and of preserving the poet’s own life or afterlife through this process. It is interesting that they do not add the capability of the poem and its negativity and make them into negative capability, not to mention relate it to the negative capability advanced by Keats. His choice of the word capable in “This living hand” alone is made familiar by the fame of “negative capability” as Keats’s poetic manifesto. In his letters Keats uses the term mostly in relation to the exposition of his idea of negative capability, and it makes only two more appearances other than in “This living hand” in Keats’s entire poetic work, one in Endymion and the other in Hyperion. The poem is negatively capable, at once in the commonplace sense that its doing is threatening and forcible with the poem’s speaker in his icy tomb. That is, the addressee is bound to exercise Smithian sympathy, which Keats phrases as “negative