Keats and Longfellow Time is endlessly flowing by and its unwanted yet pending arrival of death is noted in the two poems “When I Have Fears,” by John Keats and “Mezzo Cammin,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Keats speaks with no energy; only an elegiac tone of euphoric sounds wondering if his life ends early with his never attained fame. He mentions never finding a “fair creature” (9) of his own, only experiencing unrequited love and feeling a deep loss of youth’s passion. Though melancholy, “Mezzo Cammin,” takes a more conversational tone as Longfellow faces what is commonly known as a midlife crisis. The two poems progressions contrast as Keats blames his sorrow for his lack of expression while Longfellow looks at life’s failures as passions never pursued. In spite of this contrast, both finish with similar references to death. The comparable rhyme and rhythm of both poems shows how both men safely followed a practiced path, never straying for any spontaneous chances. The ending tones evoking death ultimately reveal their indications towards it quickly advancing before accomplish...
The constant process of life and death, driven by an indestructible progression of time, explains the attitude of carpe diem expressed in three poems focused on human love being a fickle matter. Within the poems “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by Robert Herrick, and “Youth’s the Season Made for Joys” by John Gay, the concept of how a shy attitude towards the inevitable end of all life is exposed as an inherently useless view. Nevertheless, though their primary themes and ideas of this constant procession of time are obviously expressed, the manner in which they do this, through figurative language and imagery, is the main point in which each of these three poems can be contrasted and examined
An unknown author once wrote “Never take life too seriously; after all, no one gets out of it alive”. When reading this quote, there can almost be an immediate connection between two very good works of writing: Macbeth’s “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” speech from Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, and the poem “Out, Out --” by Robert Frost. Both allude to the idea that a single life, in its totality, denotes nothing, and eventually, everyone’s candle of life is blown out. However, each poet approaches this idea from opposite perspectives. Frost writes of a young, innocent boy whose life ends suddenly and unexpectedly. His poem is dry and lacks emotion from anyone except the young boy. Whereas the demise of Shakespeare’s character, Macbeth, an evil man, has been anticipated throughout the entire play. Through these writings, we are able gather a little more insight as to how these poets perhaps felt about dying and life itself.
Millay’s poem “Thou famished grave” explores death’s inevitable success and the speaker’s resistance against it to gain victory within loss. The first way Millay achieves this is through the animalization of death. The poem describes death throughout with words such as, “roar” (2) and “jaws” (7), which leads to a portrayal of death as a predatory animal. A further description in the poem of the speaker as “prey” (9), helps to strengthen this portrayal. As a result, this animalistic depiction of predator and prey shows death’s advantage and dominance over life. In addition, it shows that the speaker is like a gazelle being hunted by a lion. They will not stand motionless and be defeated, but will run away to survive death and “aim not to be
Throughout his villanelle, “Saturday at the Border,” Hayden Carruth continuously mentions the “death-knell” (Carruth 3) to reveal his aged narrator’s anticipation of his upcoming death. The poem written in conversation with Carruth’s villanelle, “Monday at the River,” assures the narrator that despite his age, he still possesses the expertise to write a well structured poem. Additionally, the poem offers Carruth’s narrator a different attitude with which to approach his writing, as well as his death, to alleviate his feelings of distress and encourage him to write with confidence.
After a four week survey of a multitude of children’s book authors and illustrators, and learning to analyze their works and the methods used to make them effective literary pieces for children, it is certainly appropriate to apply these new skills to evaluate a single author’s works. Specifically, this paper focuses on the life and works of Ezra Jack Keats, a writer and illustrator of books for children who single handedly expanded the point of view of the genre to include the experiences of multicultural children with his Caldecott Award winning book “Snowy Day.” The creation of Peter as a character is ground breaking in and of itself, but after reading the text the reader is driven to wonder why “Peter” was created. Was he a vehicle for political commentary as some might suggest or was he simply another “childhood” that had; until that time, been ignored? If so, what inspired him to move in this direction?
John Keats’s illness caused him to write about his unfulfillment as a writer. In an analysis of Keats’s works, Cody Brotter states that Keats’s poems are “conscious of itself as the poem[s] of a poet.” The poems are written in the context of Keats tragically short and painful life. In his ...
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...
early poets such as William Shakespeare who portrays loss in many of his tragedies including the loss of sanity in ‘King Lear’ and the loss of his life. of reputation in ‘Othello’, through to Keats’s ‘Odes’ and into the. twentieth and twenty-first century. Loss is an important aspect of life and many modern poets find it to be an interesting theme to deal with. with in their work,. The poems chosen for the anthology show a range of responses to different types of loss, from death to material.
The speaker started the poem by desiring the privilege of death through the use of similes, metaphors, and several other forms of language. As the events progress, the speaker gradually changes their mind because of the many complications that death evokes. The speaker is discontent because of human nature; the searching for something better, although there is none. The use of language throughout this poem emphasized these emotions, and allowed the reader the opportunity to understand what the speaker felt.
This opposition shows Keats highlighting the delicate correspondence between happiness, death and melancholy having humanistic traits. In order to experience true sorrow, one must feel true joy to see the beauty of melancholy. However, Keats’s poem is not all dark imagery, for interwoven into this poem is an emerging possibility of resurrection and the chance at a new life. The speaker in this poem starts by strongly advising against the actions and as the poem continues urges a person to take different actions.
The following two poems “A Psalm of Life” and “ The Tide Rises, the tide Falls” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s, both share a common theme of death. The main philosophical point of the poem “ A Psalm of Life”is to live life to the fullest rather than just allowing life to pass by. The main philosophical point of the poem “ The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” is that people come and go but and that the memories that they have left soon begin to disappear and forgotten over time. Although these two poems share the theme of death they both show a different way they see death and the mood. In the poem “ A Psalm of Life” he doesn’t really think of death instead he lives in the moment and the mood in the poem is encouraging and hopeful. Rather than in the poem “ The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” he is accepting the fact that you cannot fight death that it will happen sooner or later and the mood is more calming.
In his poem “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” (1919), William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) dramatizes the contemplation between life and death during an air battle at war. The poem is about an Irish Airman, who is preparing to go on a flight or is pondering his fate during a flight, and foresees his death during an air battle. The mood of the poem has a very somber tone to it, yet with very little emotion; considering the man is reflecting upon his life and anticipating his own death. This may be an indication that either the man had a fulfilled life, or a life of tedium, without a bright future to look forward to; either way, the fear of death does not seem to be a major concern for the Airman, more of an impending fact.
Henry Ford, the automobile magnate, once stated that the "world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward” (Daily Quotations Network). Man has always struggled with uncontrollable aspects of his environment, but his ability to overcome these seemingly indomitable obstacles has earned recognition from numerous classical writers and poets, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “One of the real American Poets of yesterday” (Montiero, Preface), Longfellow elaborates on man’s perpetual struggle with life and nature in his poetry. In “A Psalm of Life,” “The Village Blacksmith,” and “The Rainy Day,” Longfellow explores many facets of man’s unyielding will.
Perhaps his best display of this is in his strong theme of mortality in “Ode to a Nightingale” where he depicts a soft view of death due to the guaranteed beauty that the bird provides for generations to come. One of the strongest themes of this poem is the mortality of man and the guarantee that all men will pass from this world. Keats fixates on the idea that a member of a species lasts a comparatively fractional amount of time as the species it belongs to. He suggests that long after he is dead and the nightingale in the forest is dead, that the forests will still echo with songs from nightingales, whose species will live on long past his own life. These dismal realities cause Keats to view the world as painful and bleak, where happiness can only be found in temporary doses; as we see when the nightingale’s beautiful songs lift his somber heart.
John Keats was one of the greatest poets of the Romantic Era. He wrote poetry of great sensual beauty and had a unique passion for details. In his lifetime he was not recognized with the senior poets. He didn’t receive the respect he deserved. He didn’t fit into the respected group because of his age, nor in the younger group because he was neither a lord nor in the upper class. He was in the middle class and at that time people were treated differently because of their social status.