Ella Wheeler Wilcox's Poem 'Solitude'

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The idea of being alone is one the people have been wrestling with from the beginning of time. Being by oneself is often looked to with fear because no one wants to end up alone, but inevitably we all will. The poem “Solitude” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox brings this concept into light. There are many different ups and downs in life which the poem mimics. The poem is able to depict a feeling that most have experienced and everyone will eventually. It takes many different reads to realize what the poem is saying, but essentially it is explaining how in life you are either with others or alone. The voice of the poem could be seen as many different people. An all knowing narrator taking the reader through the motions of life and the highs and lows …show more content…

For the first two lines in each stanza there is a verb then followed by a comma. The comma is needed at the beginning of these lines because it helps to emphasize the verb. Each one of the verbs are actions that are commonly used on a day to day basis. These lines also end with a semicolon. The semicolon makes it so when reading the poem the reader pauses only for a brief amount of time, not as long as it would be if it were a period. The pause has to be shorter for these lines because what the line says is not as essential to the poem as the lines that end with periods. Those lines, lines four and eight in the first stanza, take the concepts that are in the first two lines and bring them together. The first two lines and the fifth and sixth lines in each stanza follow the same pattern. As well as the third and fourth and seventh and eighth in each stanza. These lines also have a rhyming scheme. In line three there is an internal rhyme with the third or fourth word and the last in the line. The rhyme scheme is different in the last stanza. The seventh line does not have an internal line like the others. It also does not have a comma making the line, as well as the one following, seem less important. The other rhyme scheme that the poem has is that sixth line and the eighth line rhyme. The rhyming is so crucial in the poem because it adds a lighter feel to a poem that is actually very somber and

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