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Essay the impact of war on literature and society
War poetry in English literature
Short note on war poetry in English literature
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The poem To Paint a Water Lily creates a setting that is a war like environment that one would normally think as peaceful. The way the speaker describes the pond and all of its inflictions can easily be compared to my thoughts on how some aspects of modern society in America functions.
Our American society is constantly putting out the idea to others that we live perfect, beautiful lives, much like what you would think the life of a water lily. They are beautiful flowers that one would believe to simply live in a quiet and calm pond, coexisting peacefully with the other inhabitants. In this poem the speaker is quick to disillusion the audience of this particular view. The water lily is forced to watch and be in the middle of constant war. In lines like, "Under the trees. There are battle-shouts / And death-cries everywhere hereabouts" (9-10) it shows the true environment of the water lily. I believe the water lily is in constant sorrow and fear of its life. Much like
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what some people feel like living in our modern society where we are living in a time where things like protests and shootings are a natural and common occurrence. America is viewed as a place of paradise to many people, especially to those living in developing countries.
All that is plastered around them is a beautiful and happy America, but in reality, America deals with some gruesome events, much like the events taken place at the pond. There are constant shootings in schools, malls, and public events. Terrible things are happening to good people, whether they want to believe it or not. The same goes for the water lily. For example, it has to constantly deal with the daunting creature that swims beneath the pond. The poem says "Through the spectrum. Think what worse/ Is the ponds bed's matter of course;", this creature is obviously causing the water lily some sort of anxiety. I believe the lily is constantly thinking when is the creature going to make its kill? Could it accidently snap me in half as it tries to kill his prey? Many people in America at the moment are thinking the exact same thing but in this case whether or not they are going to be
shot. Another way I can directly relate this poem to our Modern America is by comparing the creature that is talked about in lines 17 and 18, to certain protestors. The creature "Have evolved no improvements there,/ Jaws for heads, the set stare" (Lines 17 –18) is only concerned with what it wants, which in this case is food. It does not care about anything else. Much like some protestors in our day and age. Most protestors protest in a respectable fashion, but I am talking about the people who protest in violent ways. Either by the destruction of a public building that many people enjoy or work at, or by starting fires in the street that could potentially harm people. These people do not care about the well-being of people. They only care about the one reason that they have become infatuated with enough to destroy something that was not theirs to destroy. I believe in the right to express oneself and protest, but when it comes to the point of harming people or property, these people are acting much like the creature which had yet to evolve into a more compassionate animal. I can easily see that the pond and America are both real places that will not suddenly escape the acts of nature. As I continue to read the poem over again, I realize that maybe Ted Hughes was trying to make a point to people about the importance of not just looking at the surface of something, but to look into what is really happening underneath.
The composer gives the plant human characteristics to make the poem sound more alive and mysterious. By saying “Dipped her toe in weeds and so we caught her”, the word “her” is a reference to mother nature and gives the water lily a beautiful feminine quality. Therefor, the audience is able to feel a sense of calmness and peace. Also feel the interconnectedness with nature, spirituality and fantasy and appreciate it. Moreover, in “Nature’s Beauty” the poet applies personification to represent the earth as a queen wearing a long green robe and the rain is throwing the precious stones on its crown and cloths to make shiny and brighter
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
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
He pulled his dripping trunks from the line where they had hung all through the shower, and wrung them out. Languidly, and with no thought of going in, I watched him, his hard little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled up around his vitals the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the chill of death.” White is finally beginning to see it is no longer himself in his son but his son is growing up and White is only getting older. On the other hand, Thoreau is giving the visual of the pond itself over time and as the seasons change the details and perspectives of the pond are all becoming something else. As the seasons pass the way the pond changes and the view and elements around it
The conceit in line 8, “like an iceberg between the shoulder blades” (line 8), illustrates the briskness death emanates whilst taking the life from the warmth of your body. This ice and fire comparison coaxes the reader to pursue the unwelcoming thought of death as the adverse path to travel by. By no means does Oliver attempt to romanticize the idea of a brief and painless endeavor. Furthermore, the recurrence of cessation illustrated by the “hungry bear in autumn” (2) simile suggests the seasonal regularity death’s toll takes on the living. The presence of frequency characterizes the shift in forbearance to the acceptance of the inevitable. Oliver is caught up in reminiscent thought as she employs worldly imagery to describe life. For example, in lines 15-16 Oliver writes “and I think of each life as a flower, as common / as a field daisy.” This line stands out in the fact that it represents the first occurrence of communal thought. Describing each life as a “flower” in a “field” suggests that life is supposed to be about the people whom you surround yourself with, and less about the solidarity that stems from the notion of darkness. Oliver’s implication of poetry and down-to-earth imagery captures not only the progression of thought, but also her feelings towards the concepts of life and
“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
Although war is often seen as a waste of many lives, poets frequently focus on its effect on individuals. Choose two poems of this kind and show how the poets used individual situations to illustrate the impact of war.
With Sandburg’s descriptive detail orientated word choice “Sandburg exhibits an imagist bent for describing the bare details of a scene, even in those poems whose enthusiastic and garrulous speakers do not retain the detachment and brevity characteristic of undisputed imagist poems”(Van Wienen). In the poem Grass, Sandburg uses imagery to present a strong image of how destructive war is. By listing off “Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo”, Sandburg presents a strong image of how the dead bodies resulted from the actions of war(766). By providing this vivid picture through imagery, it helps readers understand the deeper meaning behind the bodies and the purpose of the grass.
The title of the poem is very significant. The title penetratingly outlines how precious they view the water to be. He does this by titling the poem ''Blessing''. Water is something which most people take for granted, so by making this the title he emphasizes the value they place upon the water. The poet highlights how much value they place upon the water in the fourth stanza when the pipe bursts by using word choice. ''As their blessings sing'' is the quote from the poem and the effect of this is that it gives you a sense of harmony. The words sum up a peaceful ending for the last two stanzas where the mood of the poem changes from desperation to the contrast of greatfulness. The poet has chosen the phrase ''blessings sing'' as when put together it has conitations of bountful amounts of happiness which accuratly shows their joy and relief they would of felt in that moment of time. I think the poet has used this quote to symbolise the end of a struggle which turned into a celebration and the word ''sing'' to create the passion for the villagers in that moment.
The poem by Sara Teasdale was written in 1920 and was about The Great War. The Great War is also known as World War One. The first three stanzas had a soft and peaceful tone about nature. The last three stanzas were darker and warlike. There is definitely a darker tone when you read the last three stanzas. The poem is basically saying that if humans were no longer on Earth nature wouldn’t know or care.
In “The Peace of Wild Things” The poet conveys an interpretation of what he likes to do when he feels his anxiety is about to kick in and finds a way to keep calm with nature. He describes having a fear for the world and what it may become for his children. He says, “When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be.” Perhaps his worries may be war, economics, and family issues but the only thing that seems to keep him in peace is nature. The poet makes it clear how deep this worry in his mind is, since he will wake up at
The theme throughout the poetry collection is the emotion of melancholy and the speaker speaking with a wise and philosophical tone. She has also used the repetition of nature and religion-based implications in her poems. Most of the poem titles is named after a specific plant because it fits in the meaning of her entire poem collection. The title of the poems hold symbolism because of the flower language. You can constantly see the cycle of rebirth through the beautiful description of a nonphysical form of a soul and develop into beautiful flowers in her garden. The vivid imagery of the flowers by describing the color and the personification of these living beings. She is also trying to explore the relationship between humans and their god. The poet is a gardener who tends to the flower and she prefer the flowers in her garden over her god, “knowing nothing of the
Water and sunlight are essential to life, which interlocking with the theme of life. The newly-bloomed white roses are. only still alive because of the water and sunlight they hold. The reader is then taken inside, to a scene of sickness and disease. " Within the boy who sleeps in my care.
In “I wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” William Wordsworth accomplishes his ideal of nature by using personification, alliteration, and simile within his poem to convey to the reader how nature’s beauty uplifts his spirits and takes him away from his boring daily routine. Wordsworth relates himself in solidarity to that of a cloud wandering alone, “I wandered lonely as a cloud” (line 1). Comparing the cloud and himself to that of a lonely human in low spirits of isolation, simultaneously the author compares the daffodils he comes across as he “floats on high o’er vales and hills” (line 2) to that of a crowd of people dancing (lines 3-6 and again in 12). Watching and admiring the dancing daffodils as he floats on by relating them to various beauties of
I can picture him seeing life and feeling it in every flower, ant, and piece of grass that crosses his path. The emotion he feels is strongly suggested in this line "To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." Not only is this showing the kind of fulfillment he receives from nature, but also the power that nature possesses in his mind.... ... middle of paper ... ...