“Lies” and “Dover Beach”
The poem “Lies” by Martha Collins who plays so well with the word “lie” in the first six lines of this poem. “Lies” is a great piece that includes a strong mixed languages and imageries.With her choice of language, “Lies” has many of its different meanings that did get me so confusing when I just first read this poem. Collins uses the single word “lie” which seems crucial to the poem’s total effect and theme. This mess of words helps us to point out how much one word (lie) can be manipulated and twisted into so many different meanings in a poem. It implies that there are too many secrets in our life.
In this poem, I can feel its graceful and athletic. All of these phrases that Collins uses make me think of the multiple meanings of lie in each line. In the second line of the poem “ but is is a lie for her to say she laid him…” (Line2-3) shows the question about the confusion behind the affairs. This makes me think if there is so much confusion and questioning, then why people want to have an affair. Furthermore, the question "if we don't know, do we lie if we say?" imposes a moral dilemma on the readers. The different phrases that Collins uses in this poem such as “laying low,” (line 1) “she ought to lie, but is it a lie…,” (line 2) “he wouldn't lie still long enough…,” (line 4) “A good lay is not a song,” (line 5) “a good lie is something else,” (line 6) “she lay down…,” (line 10) and “If we must lie, let's not lie around.” ( line 14) I think all of these phrases are important to the poem because the word “lie” plays a such meaningful role in this poem. No matter what it is meant to mean or what tense it is used in. It is used to explain something that is inferior to something else.
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...e struggles between humans is highlighted in this poem “And we are here as on a darkling plain swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night” (line 35-37). The speaker of this poem tells us that we shouldn't expect life to be full of “ really neither joy, nor love, nor light”(line 33). He wants to shake us awake, and to tell us that, in the world we live in now there is no certainty, no "help for pain" (line 34).
Everyday we face the rough stuff in our life such as pain, fear, suffering, and loss. Arnold uses imagery to describe the flow of the tide and compares it with how sad the life truly is. Arnold sympathies with the loss of hope in reality. In a different sense, the calm, naturalistic description of a beach at night that the appearance contrasts to the reality that is sad, unhopeful, ‘retreating’, and ‘tremulous.’
I think the main idea the narrators is trying to emphasize is the theme of opposition between the chaotic world and the human need for community with a series of opposing images, especially darkness and light. The narrator repeatedly associates light with the desire to clear or give form to the needs and passions, which arise out of inner darkness. He also opposes light as an idea of order to darkness in the world, the chaos that adults endure, but of which they normally cannot speak to children.
While on the surface Collins seems to want Emily Dickinson, with a close reading it becomes clear that he is actually obsessed with his mother. His displacement shows how he at least tries to hide is incestuous desires, while his anal retentiveness shows his wish to be in control. The indications that run throughout the poem reveal Collins’ true feelings, and his inability to hide them.
While the poem's situation is simple, its theme is not. Stafford appears to be intimating that life is precious and fragile; however, nothing so clearly discloses these attributes of life as confrontation with death. Furthermore, the very confrontations that engender appreciation of life's delicacies force action-all to frequently callous action.
The first six lines of the poem highlight the incompetence of love when compared to the basic supplies for life. Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; It is quite obvious that the narrator highlights everything that requires living in line 1 through 6. Line 1 depicts the deficiency of love as a thing that is not able to provide food as compared to “meat” (1): love cannot hydrate a man as signified by “drink” (1): love cannot refresh a man as signified by “slumber” (2): it does not offer shelter as signified by “a roof against the rain” (2): love cannot give a preserving “floating spar” to a man who is in peril (3): nor will love give air to a “thickened lung” (5): love cannot “set the fractured bone” (6). The narrator describes love as a worthless element in the first 6 lines, but line 7 and line 8 express a tremendous level of violence that people are willing to commit because of the lack of love: “ Yet many a man is making friends with death / Even as I speak, for lack of love alone” (7-8). Line 7 and line 8 is an evidence to prove that no matter what the poet says about love, people are willing to die for it because it is important.
...in fact, seem insanely chaotic. Our mindless support of self-centred political systems, of abuse of fellow human beings of different nationalities - it may well have appeared quite insane to him. The poem, therefore, delivers a strong message of warning: we must develop a stronger awareness, a care of what is happening, lest we, the collective we - humanity, the 'Idiot', are left in the ruins of our effort, alone, forever.
The ethical life of the poem, then, depends upon the propositions that evil. . . that is part of this life is too much for the preeminent man. . . . that after all our efforts doom is there for all of us” (48).
Notably, the personification happens to be what “ing” means. Although in the English language “ing” is considered a vowel sound, in this poetic form it falls under the consonance description because of the connotation involved. This is where the twist of emotions with the allusion of being present in the room watching the woman sleeping. Figuratively speaking, allowing this emotional connection and becoming an active part of the beautifully painted picture that the poem portrays, the emotions run free inside. This also emphasizes the emotions involved while dealing with life after such a death is initiated and the present. As far as the poetic critical terms are concerned, the poem could be described as free-verse due to its lack of distinct rhythmic pattern and rhyme scheme. This inconsistency made it sound little off kilter the first read through. However, with emphasis on the intended pauses and a slower reading of the lyrics the emotions of sadness are
The first stanza describes the depth of despair that the speaker is feeling, without further explanation on its causes. The short length of the lines add a sense of incompleteness and hesitance the speaker feels towards his/ her emotions. This is successful in sparking the interest of the readers, as it makes the readers wonder about the events that lead to these emotions. The second and third stanza describe the agony the speaker is in, and the long lines work to add a sense of longing and the outpouring emotion the speaker is struggling with. The last stanza, again structured with short lines, finally reveals the speaker 's innermost desire to "make love" to the person the speaker is in love
The poem comprises three stanzas which are patterned in two halves; the rule of three is ingeniously used throughout the poem to create tension and show the progression of the soldiers’ lives. There is a variety of rhyming schemes used – possibly Duffy considered using caesural rhyme, internal rhyme and irregular rhyme to better address the elegiac reality. The rhythm is very powerful and shows Duffy’s technical adroitness. It is slightly disconcerting, and adds to the other worldly ambience of the poem. Duffy uses a powerful comparative in each stanza to exemplify the monstrosity and extent of war, which is much worse than we imagine; it develops throughout each stanza, starting with a syntactical ‘No; worse.’ to ‘worse by far’ and ending on ‘much worse’. Similarly, the verbs used to describe the soldier’s shadow as he falls shows the reader the journey of the shadow, as if it’s the trajectory of soldiers’ lives. At first, the shadow is as an act...
Matthew Arnold begins his poem by describing a calm, beautiful scene. Dover Beach is lying "fair" in the moonlight. It is high tide and he sees the coast of France and "the cliffs of England... / Gleaming and vast, out in the tranquil bay." All seems lovely and quiet. According to Baum's research on the date and circumstances of the poem, Arnold is probably speaking to his new bride (86) as he says, "Come to the window, sweet is the night-air." But gradually the reader senses a shifting of mood and tone. Now he describes the "line of spray... / Where the sea meets" the land as "moon-blanched." And the tide, tossing pebbles as it comes, is a "grating roar" with a "tremulous cadence slow" that "bring[s] / The eternal note of sadness in." This melancholy mood grows deeper as he thinks of man's long span of history-- "The turbid ebb and flow / of human misery."
...and the way that the opposing sides think of each other is awful. The fact that one side is praying for disaster to come on their enemies isn’t showing God’s love and at the end of the poem it says, “We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love.” It is out of love for their own soldiers but not for the soldiers on the other side. This poem shows the real aspects of people’s feelings about war. Many people don’t want their own side to be crushed, but they don’t care if the other side does get crushed.
Within the poem, particularly the beginning, the woman in the poem uses multiple examples to give a summary or back story of the family’s life. “…These are the poems of a man who would murder his mother to claim the inheritance.” (Bringhurst 5-7), these few lines are so vile because killing one’s own family is one of the most heinous crimes and sins that a person can commit.
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.
In the beginning stanza, it’s all about concealment and deception that is hiding from a treacherous possible outcome. The author writes, “We wear the mask that grins and lies / It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes / This debt we pay to human guile” (Dunbar 1-3). In the first line, it implies a group that is hiding its true feelings from others by saying we. It is the face of deceitful refusal to accept the wrongs as rights to the oppressors around them. The second line it explain...
personal side. Any poem or work of literature can be interpreted different ways by different people but the author’s intention when writing should not be overlooked. These true intentions of who this poem is truly directed at and about lies with one person, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.