Unpredictability Is Inevitable We often find that life is unpredictable and never truly goes as planned. Amongst the chaos, what we are able to rely on in life, as pointed out by Percy Shelley through “Mutability,” is the idea that life is unpredictable. The trait that is consistent in all of us is our ability as humans to adapt and alter ourselves as we reflect our surrounding situations. It is this “defining quality that makes us human,” (Lamana). Shelley is successful in illustrating this point by utilizing several techniques such as comparisons, imagery, and anaphora. Primarily, the reader is able to recognize the poet’s use of comparisons in the first and second stanzas. Humans are compared to clouds and to lyres in order to illustrate …show more content…
He shows us that humans are indeed capable of creating beautiful things and are themselves beautiful. This similarity is based upon the idea that humans are fragile and so are whatever footprints we happen to leave behind, just like the lyres (Mutability An Analysis…). There is a comparison present between the music of the lyres and the words of humans as well. Shelley points out that the “frail frame” would not bring a sound like the last one ever again. As we interpret the situations around us in our lives, we will not produce the same thoughts and feelings as we had done once before. Each situation is unique, which results in an equally unique response. He also reminds us of how quickly our works can be forgotten or our people left behind. It rings a bell of reminder that our mortality is not something to be forgotten and that it is always around the corner. Secondly, Shelley puts to use a significant amount of imagery in his work, especially seen in stanzas one and two. As Shelley paints the picture of the clouds darting across the sky with “speed”, he is simultaneously showing us how humans race through life. People continuously fail to put enough significance on the moment they are currently living and, eventually, those moments will all be gone. He attempts to show us that no matter how much we may shine in our lives, “we are like clouds at night that are overshadowed,” (Mutability An
This essay is anchored on the goal of looking closer and scrutinizing the said poem. It is divided into subheadings for the discussion of the analysis of each of the poem’s stanzas.
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
Shelley uses symbolic meaning to depict the destruction of a statue and the “sands that stretch far away” in relation to the effects of pride, a direct contrast from the words on the pedestal. The images of the deteriorating items gives the readers an understanding of time’s ultimate power beyond both life and pride. However, the cliché use of sands as a means of representing time still explains to readers that the passing of time is prevalent in the poem and related to the destroyed items presents the concept of a useless
The use of diction throughout the poem aids the author in displaying the idea that
The opening paragraph begins with a detailed description of Victor’s attic and workplace. Immediately Mary Shelley uses the technique of pathetic fallacy as she describes the weather as ‘a dreary night of November’ and continues to use this technique throughout, ‘the rain pattered dismally against the panes’. This creates a dark, dreary and negative atmosphere. T...
The speaker uses the literary device of allegory as a large part of his poems message. He uses allegory to compare
All Shelley might be doing both here and in the ‘Mutability’ lines (as also perhaps in ‘Ozymandias’) is describing the imperfection and impermanence of worldly circumstances. Mary Shelley’s purpose in using her husband’s lines might be no more than a device to engender feelings of pathos in the reader’s heart at the series of losses suffered by the protagonist.
...t is arguable that the birds fight is also a metaphor, implying the fight exists not only between birds but also in the father’s mind. Finally, the last part confirms the transformation of the parents, from a life-weary attitude to a “moving on” one by contrasting the gloomy and harmonious letter. In addition, readers should consider this changed attitude as a preference of the poet. Within the poem, we would be able to the repetitions of word with same notion. Take the first part of the poem as example, words like death, illness
Personification is an important theme throughout this poem. In lines 1-2 it says, “The mountain held the town as in a shadow I saw so much before I slept there once:.” Also in lines 3-4 it says, “I noticed that I missed stars in the west, where its black body cut into the sky.” This is an example of personification. In lines 5-6 it says, Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall behind which i was sheltered from a wind.” Most of the examples showing personification in this poem, are displayed in the first couple of lines of the poem.
In the first stanza, Wordsworth lets you know he is seeing the abbey for a second time by using phrases such as "again I hear," "again do I behold," and "again I see. He describes the natural landscape as unchanged and he describes it in descending order of importance beginning with with the 'lofty cliffs'; (Line 5) dominantly overlooking the abbey. After the cliffs comes the river, , then the forests, and hedgerows of the cottages that once surrounded the abbey but have since been abandoned. After the cottages, is the vagrant hermit who sits alone in his cave, perhaps symbolizing the effects being away from the abbey has had on Wordsworth. Wordsworth professes to "sensations sweet / Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart" (lines 28-29) which the memories of nature can inspire when he is lonely, just as the hermit is lonely.
This poem describes a story told you by a passing traveler of a ruined statue of a king, Ozymandias, seemingly in a desolate desert. On the statue in is inscribed, “‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’/Nothing beside remain” (“Ozymandias” 10-12). Upon examination of the surrounding land, we realize that the once vast kingdom around the statue has been taken back by the desert, leaving the ironic message on the statue. This poem shows Shelley’s ideas of how all is temporary, especially mankind and our achievements. Showing romantic values, Shelley believed nature is much greater than man and no matter how big your kingdom, mather nature will always take back what was always
“Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal Wreck,” wrote Percy Bysshe Shelly in his poem, “Ozymandias.” This theme of destruction also forms the basis of Lord Byron’s poem, “Darkness.” Although each poem has a very different narrative, tone and plot, they reflect fears about the legacy of human influence and the destruction of civilization. The common theme of destruction, found in Percy Bysshe Shelly’s poem “Ozymandias” and Lord Byron’s poem, “Darkness” reflects the poets’ shared fears about the future by writing about ideas of civilization, the fall of mankind due to nature and natural instincts, life and death.
Shelley’s stanzas are composed of four interlinking triplets, following the principle of terza rima, and one couplet. The stanzas have ABA BCB CDC DED EE rhyme-scheme. Both poems have alliteration to emphasize the quality of the season: “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” shows the kind nature of Keats’s autumn, while “O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumns being” shows the powerful character of Shelley’s autumn.
Shelley does not wish to allow the reader to forget about the atmosphere of the previous stanzas so he continues to use the images of the “the wave, a leaf, [and] a cloud” (l. 48) that existed with the “wind” to now exist with the speaker. Shelley sees himself as one with the “wind”. He knows he cannot do this because it is impossible for someone to disregard all they have learned and enter a new world of innocence. It is noticeable that stanza four sounds like a confession or prayer of the poet. It seems very impersonal as it does not address God. This version of Shelley understands his “closedness in life” (MacEachen.) and the way...
Figurative language is used by William Wordsworth to show the exchange between man and nature. The poet uses various examples of personification throughout the poem. When the poet says:”I wandered lonely as a cloud” (line 1),”when all at once I saw a crowd” (line 3), and “fluttering and dancing in the breeze” (line 6) shows the exchange between the poet and nature since the poet compares himself to a cloud, and compares the daffodils to humans. Moreover, humans connect with God through nature, so the exchange between the speaker and nature led to the connection with God. The pleasant moment of remembering the daffodils does not happen to the poet all time, but he visualizes them only in his “vacant or pensive mode”(line 20). However, the whole poem is full of metaphors describing the isolation of the speaker from society, and experiences the beauty of nature that comforts him. The meta...