Judith Wright, who was born during the First World War, lived through, and was greatly influenced by, many wars that Australia had involved herself in. During an interview in 1985, Judith Wright recounts how her childhood was overshadowed by images of war, and therefore many of her earliest memories were connected with war and its effects. The constant presence of danger forced Wright to confront her awareness that all life ends in death, which has haunted her poetry throughout her years. The fear of death and loss has been expressed in 'The Company of Lovers', which was published in 1946, after Wright saw the influence of the Second World War on Australia. Judith Wright's success in translating human existence into poetry has resulted in a rich creation of exuberant expression and sincerity. Her poetry has the ability to connect reason and emotion through various poetic techniques in such a way that knowledge and experience are represented in a powerful yet dense fashion.
One would find a great challenge in expressing deep experiences in a poem consisting of simply two octaves. However, through the employment of poetic techniques Judith Wright has captured her knowledge of life and death, and the effects of war, and successfully translated them into her poem ?The Company of Lovers?. This poem reflects an entire generation, worldwide, who went to war, and their lovers and family who were left behind, indicated in the opening line, ?We meet and part now over all the world?. Wright has employed a paradox, ?We meet and part? to encourage an awareness of coinciding union and departure. This paradox serves two functions, to suggest that a brief moment between lovers may soon be disrupted, and to communicate said idea in a condensed...
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...remarkable capacity to go beyond and above what can be grasped by the senses. ?The Company of Lovers?, which literally associates love and death, contains a raw essence that supports attributes of reality which explores the connection between inner existence and actual reality, which is effectively and concisely represented through these use of poetic devices, such as paradox? and personification. Wright?s concern with love and death, a feminist and metaphysical issue, had been constantly in her thoughts. However, later in her life, once she had met her lover and had their daughter, she was able to accept death as not an enemy but as phase in the cyclical nature of life. Through the use and develop of poetic techniques, such as structure, language, imagery and movement, Wright has been able to address her concerns with love and death in a vivid but compacted manner.
Poetry has been used for centuries as a means to explore emotions and complex ideas through language, though individuals express similar ideas in wholly different forms. One such idea that has been explored through poetry in numerous ways is that of war and the associated loss, grief, and suffering. Two noted Australian poets shown to have accomplished this are Kenneth Slessor with his work ‘Beach Burial’ and John Schumann’s ‘I Was Only Nineteen’. Both of these works examine the complexities of conflict, but with somewhat different attitudes.
Presentation of Family Relationships in Carol Anne Duffy's Poem Before You Were Mine and in One Poem by Simon Armitage
The speaker’s rocky encounter with her ex-lover is captured through personification, diction, and tone. Overall, the poem recaps the inner conflicts that the speak endures while speaking to her ex-lover. She ponders through stages of the past and present. Memories of how they were together and the present and how she feels about him. Never once did she broadcast her emotions towards him, demonstrating the strong facade on the outside, but the crumbling structure on the inside.
One topic explored is death, “The women in your family have never lost touch with one another. Death is a path we take to meet on the other side.” (194) Death may be one of, if not the worst tragedies in life, but here the narrator creates a perspective that beautifies the awful tragedy of death. The after life becomes a reunion for those who have passed. It almost conveys dying as a happening to look forward to, to be able to connect with the other women who to have passed away. This uplifting point of view adds hope for even those facing
Throughout the lives of most people on the planet, there comes a time when there may be a loss of love, hope or remembrance in our lives. These troublesome times in our lives can be the hardest things we go through. Without love or hope, what is there to live for? Some see that the loss of hope and love means the end, these people being pessimistic, while others can see that even though they feel at a loss of love and hope that one day again they will feel love and have that sense of hope, these people are optimistic. These feelings that all of us had, have been around since the dawn of many. Throughout the centuries, the expression of these feelings has made their ways into literature, novels, plays, poems, and recently movies. The qualities of love, hope, and remembrance can be seen in Emily Bronte’s and Thomas Hardy’s poems of “Remembrance” “Darkling Thrush” and “Ah, Are you Digging on my Grave?”
In Smith’s fiction, ‘petite mort’ is a more complex motif than the French metaphor for sexual climax. In her stories the trope of love and death does not refer only to the erotic sphere of love. In fact, because of its close relationship to liminality, the traditional topic acquires a more metaphysical twist throughout Smith’s fiction. The coexistence of love and death questions the boundaries between life and death, overcomes the threshold of the physical world to reach beyond this limit, and explores all the possibilities in between. In fact, death often seems to be a paradoxical vehicle through which life and love are manifested and asserted. The notion that death may overcome the borders between life and afterlife suggests a deeper analysis of the concept of liminality.
At a glance, the poem seems simplistic – a detailed observance of nature followed by an invitation to wash a “dear friend’s” hair. Yet this short poem highlights Bishop’s best poetic qualities, including her deliberate choice in diction, and her emotional restraint. Bishop progresses along with the reader to unfold the feelings of both sadness and joy involved in loving a person that will eventually age and pass away. The poem focuses on the intersection of love and death, an intersection that goes beyond gender and sexuality to make a far-reaching statement about the nature of being
Both, the poem “Reluctance” by Robert Frost and “Time Does Not Bring Relief” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, revolved around the theme of lost love. Each poet used a similar array of poetic devices to express this theme. Visual imagery was one of the illustrative poetic devices used in the compositions. Another poetic device incorporated by both poets in order to convey the mood of the poems was personification. And by the same token, metaphors were also used to help express the gist of both poems. Ergo, similar poetic devices were used in both poems to communicate the theme of grieving the loss of a loved one.
‘Poetry can challenge the reader to think about the world in new ways.’ It provokes the readers to consider events, issues and people with revised understanding and perspectives. The poems Dulce Et Decorum Est (Wilfred Owen, 1917) and Suicide in the Trenches (Siegfried Sassoon, 1917), were composed during World War One and represented the poets’ point of views in regards to the glorification of war and encouraged readers to challenge their perspectives and reflect upon the real consequences behind the fabrications of the glory and pride of fighting for one’s nation.
I will discuss the similarities by which these poems explore themes of death and violence through the language, structure and imagery used. In some of the poems I will explore the characters’ motivation for targeting their anger and need to kill towards individuals they know personally whereas others take out their frustration on innocent strangers. On the other hand, the remaining poems I will consider view death in a completely different way by exploring the raw emotions that come with losing a loved one.
Emily Dickinson’s “Death is a supple Suitor,” speaks of Death, as if it is an innocent, gentle caller who seeks to win the attention of his fair lady. Dickinson metaphorically tells a story of Death’s win over the one he is pursuing by contrasting the processes of courting, as a gentleman would do, and dying, as Death would occur. Dickinson incorporates many details, which will be discussed, and presents us with two sides of the running metaphor, which speaks of Death as a suitor, and also as the one who takes away life.
Relationships between two people can have a strong bond and through poetry can have an everlasting life. The relationship can be between a mother and a child, a man and a woman, or of one person reaching out to their love. No matter what kind of relationship there is, the bond between the two people is shown through literary devices to enhance the romantic impression upon the reader. Through Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham,” Ben Jonson’s “To Celia,” and William Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” relationships are viewed as a powerful bond, an everlasting love, and even a romantic hymn.
experiences are reflected in their writing. Both of these writers present the reader with the concept of human mortality in such a way that not only is the fear of death prevalent in their work, but also the love of life.
The poem, “After Great Pain”, by Emily Dickinson, is one that conveys an inner struggle of emotion and the process that a person goes through after experiencing suffering or pain. Through this poem, Dickinson utilizes physical reactions to allude to the emotional pain that can make people feel numb and empty. Included in this poem is an array of literary devices, such as oxymorons, similes, and personification. These devices help show how death and grief can be confronted, whether it be by giving into the pain or by regaining emotional strength, letting go, and moving on with life. As we work on the project, we discuss multiple aspects of the poem and how the structure and diction alludes the meaning of the poem.
‘The Falling Soldier’ is one of many poems by Duffy which deals with the subject of human mortality. Duffy expresses what could have been over a harsh reality; this is characteristic of her as also seen in ‘Last Post’ and ‘Passing Bells’ which both seem to be largely influenced by poet peer Wilfred Owen’s personal experiences of war. In the ‘The Falling Soldier’ Duffy paradoxically captures the essence of Robert Capa’s famous photograph of a man falling after being shot during the Spanish Civil War (1936). She employs the form of an impersonal narrative voice, using second person to question the possibilities, to explore the tragic and cyclical nature of war. The futile reality of war contrasts to her central theme in ‘The Bees’ anthology of bees symbolising the grace left in humanity.