Poetry at Its Finest
“Adam’s Curse” by William Butler Yeats is the best poem in the world. Its central theme was about love and heartbreak. The poem began with the narrator referring to a girl that he seemed to be attracted to by saying “we sat together at one summer’s end, / that beautiful mild woman, your close friend” (Yeats 1-2). He loved the girl and thought that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. The poem continued to the rougher parts of relationships and ultimately led him to be heartbroken, “we sat grown quiet at the time of love / we saw the last embers of daylight die” (29-30). The theme presented how love is beautiful, exciting, and can change a person’s life, but it can also be heartbreaking.
One of the main symbols
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The author used literal imagery when he described the burning out of the relationship “we saw the last embers of daylight die” (30), the pain the narrator felt “and in the the trembling blue-green of the sky” (31), and how the relationship had slowly eroded “a moon, worn as if it had been a shell / washed by time’s waters rose and fell” (32-33). In addition, he used several examples of figurative imagery, such as similes, metaphors, and personification. In this poem, similes were used to allow the reader to have a better idea of their relationship and the emotions between the narrator and the woman. Some of the uses of similes included, “better to go down upon your marrow bones / and scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones / like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather” (7-9) and “a moon, worn as if it has been a shell / washed by time’s water as they rose and fell” …show more content…
The best critical theory for this poem was archetypal criticism as the poem was written in 1904, but most of the elements are still relevant in modern society. The most predominant use of consciousness in this poem was love. Love is a basic human emotion; Yeats was able to use this technique to draw on those emotions and create an image that all readers can relate to. This was shown through the lines “there have been lovers who thought love should be / so much compounded of high courtesy” (23-24). In addition, the mention of naturally occurring things such as the moon and the colours of the sunset are things that will forever occur and everyone can imagine. These naturally occurring things can be used to draw certain feelings out of all people as they have seen them in their lifetime. These two examples were used to reemphasize the major themes and symbols of the poem which helped to create a lasting
There are multiple examples of visual imagery in this poem. An example of a simile is “curled like a possum within the hollow trunk”. The effect this has is the way it creates an image for the reader to see how the man is sleeping. An example of personification is, “yet both belonged to the bush, and now are one”. The result this has is how it creates an emotion for the reader to feel
The poem opens upon comparisons, with lines 3 through 8 reading, “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets/ of their branches. The maples/ were colored like apples,/part orange and red, part green./ The elms, already transparent trees,/ seemed swaying vases full of sky.” The narrator’s surroundings in this poem illustrate him; and the similes suggest that he is not himself, and instead he acts like others. Just as the maples are colored like apples, he
He uses personifications specifically in this poem to write about what is going on and to describe things. “It's a hard life where the sun looks”(19)...”And its black strip of highway, big eyed/with rabbits that won’t get across ”(2)...”A pot bangs and water runs in the kitchen” (13) None of these are really human body parts on things such as the sun, a pot, or a highway, but they help describe what something does or what something looks like. In the first instance, the sun cannot actually look at something, but it could mean that the sun is visible to the humans, and if humans are out for a long time in the sun, they can get hot and exhausted. For the second line, the big-eyed highway could mean that the highway has many cars with bright headlights that are dangerous for the rabbits, the immigrants, to get across. For the third and final line, pots are not able to bang things on their own, and it could have possibly been a human who made the pot bang, preparing the meal of beans and brown soup that they survive on. There is also a simile in this poem, “Papa's field that wavered like a mirage” (24). This simile could suggest that the wind is moving the grass or crops on his father’s field and looked like an optical illusion. According to Gale Virtual Reference Library, the literary device, “tone” is used to convey the significant change of the author’s feeling in the poem. In the beginning lines, the tone is happy. The poem talks about nostalgia of when he was little, “They leap barefoot to the store. Sweetness on their tongues, red stain of laughter (5-6). (GVRL) These lines illustrate the nostalgia and happy times of Gary Soto’s life when he was probably a child. However, after line 11, the tone becomes more of a negative one. Soto later talks about Farm Laborers and how the job was not a great one. After line 19, a brighter
In the first paragraph similes and personification are used to show how his mental state is beginning to show change. In a flashback he remembers the first time he thought for himself “The night I kicked the pill bottle in the dark, like kicking a buried mine” (Bradbury 1). In this scene he starts to realize that there is something wrong with his society. How it was no big deal the his wife, Mildred had just tried to kill herself. His views on everything about society changed this night. He realizes that he wan...
Figurative Language in used throughout poems so the reader can develop a further understanding of the text. In “The Journey” the author uses rhythm and metaphors throughout the poem. “...as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of the clouds..”(25-27). The author compares the star burning to finding your voice. Rhythm also develops the theme of the poem because throughout the story rhythm is presented as happy showing growing up and changing for the better is necessary and cheerful. In “The Laughing Heart” the author uses imagery and metaphors to develop the theme throughout the book. “There is a light somewhere. It may not be much light but it beats the darkness”(5-7). Always find the good out of everything, even it
The figurative language that she uses in this poem is assonance and alliteration. In line 10 “shanty-fied shotgun is an example of alliteration (two words with the same constant sound). “ In the first stanza where it talks about her skin tone, “light bright…white” (3-4) is an example of assonance because there’s a rhyme scheme in those
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 ...
There are many different themes that can be used to make a poem both successful and memorable. Such is that of the universal theme of love. This theme can be developed throughout a poem through an authors use of form and content. “She Walks in Beauty,” by George Gordon, Lord Byron, is a poem that contains an intriguing form with captivating content. Lord Byron, a nineteenth-century poet, writes this poem through the use of similes and metaphors to describe a beautiful woman. His patterns and rhyme scheme enthrall the reader into the poem. Another poem with the theme of love is John Keats' “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” meaning “the beautiful lady without mercy.” Keats, another nineteenth-century writer, uses progression and compelling language throughout this poem to engage the reader. While both of these poems revolve around the theme of love, they are incongruous to each other in many ways.
The first literary device that can be found throughout the poem is couplet, which is when two lines in a stanza rhyme successfully. For instance, lines 1-2 state, “At midnight, in the month of June / I stand beneath the mystic moon.” This is evidence that couplet is being used as both June and moon rhyme, which can suggest that these details are important, thus leading the reader to become aware of the speaker’s thoughts and actions. Another example of this device can be found in lines 16-17, “All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies / (Her casement open to the skies).” These lines not only successfully rhyme, but they also describe a woman who
Unrequited love is a common theme in poetry. Nature, death, wars, religions are all significant themes but love is the most important. It gives the reader an insight to the author’s inner feelings. “When You Are Old” by William Butler Yeats is no exception. Yeats reflects upon his unconditional love for a woman who was not ready for a serious relationship.
in the first line of this stanza when she says “ I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide” i believe whats she is trying to explain is that she feels powerful just like the ocean and she can surfaces the earth feeling capable of defeating all her difficulties. Her use of metaphor was expressed very effectively because it allows us to understand her pain and it also allows us to acknowledge why she is writing this poem. She does not want someones words to break us and wants us to understand that we are in charge of our own happiness.
The idea of losing a loved is a powerful emotion and one that virtually every person can relate to. It was with this concept in mind that Edgar Allan Poe crafted his classic narrative poem “The Raven.” For some, poetry acts as a means to express different ideals, either social, intellectual, or philosophical. For Edgar Allan Poe, poetry was at its best when it conveyed beauty through the expression of simple yet powerful emotion. In Poe’s mind, there was no purer manifestation of poetic beauty than the deep emotion felt from the loss of a beloved woman. Is with this in mind the Poe employs setting, tone, and symbolism to relate the powerful emotion of never-ending despair to connect with his audience in the classic poem “The Raven.”
... feared time. At times he seemed as if he was angry at the fact that time went by too quick and not enough time allowed him to spend summer with his beloved. Other times he spent glorifying how beautiful his beloved one was and how the beauty can’t ever be taken away. It makes it difficult for the audience to take his reason serious at times because at one point in the poem he seems to have contradicted himself. I found out that this poem had a portion of metaphors, similes, and imagery and personification throughout the entire poem. He begins the poem with a simile and ends it with a personification on the poem.
In Ode to Psyche, Keats creates a very free and open ode by not sticking to a strict rhyme scheme and instead opting for a simple alternating rhyme scheme or couplets when he wants rhyming, or sometimes opting for no rhyme at all. Keats almost completely neglects internal rhyme,using it only three times, instead focusing on the descriptive language of the poem to deliver it’s message.
Through alliteration and imagery, Coleridge turns the words of the poem into a system of symbols that become unfixed to the reader. Coleridge uses alliteration throughout the poem, in which the reader “hovers” between imagination and reality. As the reader moves through the poem, they feel as if they are traveling along a river, “five miles meandering with a mazy motion” (25). The words become a symbol of a slow moving river and as the reader travels along the river, they are also traveling through each stanza. This creates a scene that the viewer can turn words into symbols while in reality they are just reading text. Coleridge is also able to illustrate a suspension of the mind through imagery; done so by producing images that are unfixed to the r...