Poetic Analysis "Fern Hill"
Dylan Thomas's poem "Fern Hill" represents the passage of one mans life from boyhood to adulthood and the realization of his mortality. The speaker in this poem uses expressive language and imagery to depict a tale of growing up. The use of colour adds life and character to people and abstract ideas. He looks up to
"Time" (313) as an authority figure who has strict control of his life, and with descriptions of biblical figures we can presume that he is a religious person who believes that God is in control of his destiny. Each of these images contributes to a picture of one man's outlook on life and death.
Colour imagery is used in the beginning of the poem as the speaker describes his happiness as a child. He explains his young days as being as "happy as the grass is green" (313), or in other words, alive and healthy. He then directly refers himself to being "green and carefree" (313). As a young boy he was vibrant and full of life. Being full of life, like "green grass" (313), means that there is a natural course that life has to follow, birth to death. Anything living has a purpose in life and the speaker reflects his young days as a "Huntsman and Herdsman" (313).
The poem takes a dramatic turn when he describes "fire as green as grass" (313). Fire or burning paired with grass means that something destructive has occurred in the speaker's young life that has changed or altered the course of his natural growth. He is an adult when he looks back and says "before the children green" (314). He had gained an understanding that his life is running out and says time held me "green and dying" (313). He is seeing his "green" (314) life turning brown and wilting. He i...
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...ruit. Life changing events would alter a child's perspective of himself.
"Fern Hill" is a poem about the realization of life and mortality that appears after an unexpected experience occurs. The speaker is moved to a greater wisdom about himself and the world around him. He realizes that the immortality he felt as a child was merely a step towards the unyielding movement of life towards death. Through the use of colour, time, and religious language readers develop an understanding for the speaker's emotions, beliefs, and passage through life.
WORKS CITED
Orser, Sandi. ENGL 1155 (01): Introduction to Literature: Gender and Form.
MSVU. January 2005.
Thomas, Dylan. "Fern Hill." The Harbrace Anthology of Literature. Ed. Jon C. Stott,
Raymond E. Jones, and Rick Bower. 3rd ed. Toronto: Nelson-Thomson, 2002.
313-314
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The poem can be very touching to those who understand its true meaning. Dana Gioia was able to take this poem that was about a death of a young boy and turn it into something beautiful allowing him to live forever. This story is not only about the mourning of a lost soul, but about the beauty of life itself. Dana also allowed to reader to understand the compassion she had for the speaker. Without verbally saying it she used symbolic images to interpret the hurt and pain the man experienced from the loss of this unborn child. Instead of the common Sicily tradition for planting a tree for the first born child, the speaker does what he feels will honor his son. The sequoia is planted to compensate for the time he has lost and to outlive the child’s family. T
The conceit in line 8, “like an iceberg between the shoulder blades” (line 8), illustrates the briskness death emanates whilst taking the life from the warmth of your body. This ice and fire comparison coaxes the reader to pursue the unwelcoming thought of death as the adverse path to travel by. By no means does Oliver attempt to romanticize the idea of a brief and painless endeavor. Furthermore, the recurrence of cessation illustrated by the “hungry bear in autumn” (2) simile suggests the seasonal regularity death’s toll takes on the living. The presence of frequency characterizes the shift in forbearance to the acceptance of the inevitable. Oliver is caught up in reminiscent thought as she employs worldly imagery to describe life. For example, in lines 15-16 Oliver writes “and I think of each life as a flower, as common / as a field daisy.” This line stands out in the fact that it represents the first occurrence of communal thought. Describing each life as a “flower” in a “field” suggests that life is supposed to be about the people whom you surround yourself with, and less about the solidarity that stems from the notion of darkness. Oliver’s implication of poetry and down-to-earth imagery captures not only the progression of thought, but also her feelings towards the concepts of life and
Through the use of narrative and metaphor, Terry Tempest Williams beautifully depicts her life story in a poetic memoir. She describes the daily struggles she faced with change in her family, while her mother battled with cancer that eventually led to her death. She also describes the fluctuating lake levels, and how they affected the birds that migrate in the area. Through her experiences with the birds she learns how to cope and accept her mother’s death. Eventually, she moves on with the birds and learns how to love and not be afraid of death.
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...a silence deep and white” (Line,4) they are talking about how the white snow is beautiful and, how it looks like to me this is a love of nature to some maybe not.Last one is Intuition over fact in this quote “Father,who makes the snow?” (Line,22) says his daughter, “And told of the good All father” (Line,23) and lastly “Who cares for us here below” (Line,24) he is talking about and all father which i believe he is talking about god,and this is a great characteristic for this poem.
The slow feeling of the ending life is shown when the poem states, “we paused before…” with other terms like “and immortality” having its own line to emphasize the destination. The writer narrates the cause of death in the six-stanza poem in a journey form that depicts some interesting life experiences that people should have fun of during their lives. It is common that many individuals cannot stop for or wait for death that is if they can “see
The theme is portrayed through very unique imagery with the extremely exhilarating word choice this poet carefully chose to make this whole poem flow like a brook in mid-summer with an unbelievable number of trout in the glistening blue water. When he introduces us to this Clod of Clay that is living a horrible, but in it all he finds a silver lining through it all. This little Clod of Clay lives under cattle’s feet and gets stomped on all the time and although he is getting trampled on ninety percent of his life he finds what the silver lining through it all is. He says, “
...defining words. The symbolism is to show the reader and the audience that life is only for so long. Once that old age is reached your youth is over. Try and accomplish all that you can when you have the time and the energy, because we are all going to be in the same place as all the characters in the churchyard before we know it. Gray uses imagery and symbols very well, and smoothly pulls the attention of his readers in to the poem.
The poem mostly focuses on how Whitman feels toward Lincoln's death and according to Whitman, odd occurrences happening aftermath. It never comes out and says it is Lincoln's death, but it is hypothesized.. The bird in the poem represents death and when it sings, is somewhat singing of what is in the soul and his feelings inside. The flowers represent life and new beginnings, and lastly it also represents love. He picks up the flowers and states they are
I can picture him seeing life and feeling it in every flower, ant, and piece of grass that crosses his path. The emotion he feels is strongly suggested in this line "To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." Not only is this showing the kind of fulfillment he receives from nature, but also the power that nature possesses in his mind.... ... middle of paper ... ...
As the poem progresses, the speaker’s attitude changes in (line 26), where he tells us that his mood is lowered. It is here that the speaker presents himself as “a happy child of earth” in (line 31); as once again Wordsworth... ... middle of paper ... ... / Of the unfinished sheepfold may be seen / Besides the boisterous brook of Greenhead Ghyll,” showing the growth of human beings in relative notion to nature.