Figurative Language In Oliver Wendell Holmes The Chambered Nautilus

Of all the poems in the catalog given to us in class, “The Chambered Nautilus” by Oliver Wendell Holmes was by far one of my favorites and definitely appealed to my emotion the most. The amount of figurative language used certainly added to the poem and enabled me to imagine a mental image of the scenes depicted through Holmes’ stanzas. Visual imagery is known to add depth to a piece of writing and appeal to human senses to further deepen the reader’s understanding of the work, hence the work leaving its reader purer and richer. In his last stanza, Oliver Wendell Holmes writes, “Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, / As the swift seasons roll! / Leave thy low-vaulted past! / Let each new temple, nobler than the last, / Shut thee from

heaven with a dome more vast, / Till thou at length art free, / Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!” The image depicted in his final stanza is of an elegant mansion. He hopes that he might be worthy of even greater feats than the chambered nautilus.
In addition to imagery, Holmes also uses metaphor. He compares the human soul to a chambered nautilus claiming that as it grows, the nautilus makes new, larger chambers in its shell to live in. While doing so, it closes off the old chambers and progressively forms the shape of a spiral. The narrator of the poem portrays the nautilus as a metaphor for the human spirit, stressing that its example provides a religious memo on how people should grow and blossom throughout their lives. When they stop this process it is only because they have reached the end of their life on earth.
I both agree and disagree with this statement for the reasoning that there is absolutely a distinct line drawn between an author such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and an author such as Julia Ann Moore. When comparing their works, Longfellow’s writings blows Moore’s out of the water. When referring to Julia Ann Moore, I agree that her artistry was undermined by the other aspects of her work. While people see her as a sub-par author, she still tried and was able to compose a somewhat decent poem when writing “Little Libbie”. Given the title was not very creative, the poem was quite nice up until stanza seven where she wrote, “While eating dinner, this dear little child / Was choked on a piece of beef. / Doctors came, tried their skill awhile, / But none could give relief.” Her brute honesty completely ruined the poem and any sense of redemption she may have gained from the stanzas before that.
As for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, I wholly disagree with the assertion for the reasoning that he is actually a decent and mostly a widely respected author; especially so in comparison with Julia Ann Moore.

Although he may have accusations of being an inferior writer levied against him, Longfellow never published anything nearly as embarrassing as Moore to ruin his reputation. His fourth stanza of “A Psalm of Life” reads, “Art is long, and Time is fleeting, / And our hearts, though stout and brave, / Still, like muffled drums, are beating / Funeral marches to the grave.” It is hinting around the fact that life is short and although people and loved ones die, our hearts are still beating and we still have our life to fulfill. One example of wasted time is spending it trying to say Longfellow’s methods undermine the rest of his work. The only thing I see when reading this poem and the others provided by him is the amount of depth behind the words. Depth is not something you get from a mediocre author. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a master of his craft and deserves the praise he has received thus far for his

work.
In “A Psalm of Life”, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow writes with the overall theme being something along the lines of living is not the only thing humans are put on Earth for.

While heaven may be the goal at the end of life, you are sent to Earth to live productive and unselfish lives. He believes life is temporal and just because it will eventually come to an end does not mean that it should be taken lightly or only fill it with the negatives things since it is so short. As for “The Chambered Nautilus” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, his general theme is that you have to be able to close off your past but also not be so eager to look into the future and instead focus on what is currently going on in the

present.
Both themes are very similar in the way of how they both recommend the reader to live their life but it is the authors’ views that are comparably different. “A Psalm of Life” advises the reader that life is short so live it to the fullest and do not let the negatives get in the way of your happiness and success. As for “The Chambered Nautilus”, it suggests to the reader to leave the past in the past and move on, but not to be too eager to look in the future for focusing on what is going on in the present is most important. While each of the two authors delivered their messages in the form of a poem, Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life” was comparably easier to read than Holmes’ “The Chambered Nautilus”. Longfellow wrote his in a more clear and precise way versus Holmes’ poem where the reader had to read between the lines and ponder it a little bit more due his extensive use of rhetorical devices such as metaphor and imagery.