"Memory…is the diary that we all carry about with us." - Oscar Wilde. In her poem, "Recuerdo" Edna St. Vincent Millay tells of a night worth remembering, as she gives purpose and significance to the tiny moments. Edna St. Vincent Millay uses repetition, common themes, and imagery to recount an innocent memory through the eyes of a young girl in love.
Edna St. Vincent Millay repeats the first two lines of her poem, “Recuerdo” in an effort to cling to the memory. Millay stresses the emotions felt by repeating, “we were very tired,we were very merry” (1, 7, 13) three times throughout the poem. The way the line is written suggests that they were merry because they were tired as a result of going "back and forth all night on the ferry" (2, 8, 14). This line is also repeated twice more to accent it as the most persistent activity of the night. It seems that throughout the poem, the events become more sporadic, but the author is sure these are the moments worth remembering. By repeating the lines, it is like she is reminding herself of how happy she felt that night as a constant emotion in the whole whirlwind of adventures.
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Edna St Vincent Millay portrays common themes of happiness, romanticism, and compassion through her descriptive diction.
It is easy to understand the theme of happiness when the word "merry" is repeated several time throughout the poem. The lightheartedness of the whole memory is accented as she remembers it being "bare and bright" (3). The author shows romanticism as "we" is casually used all throughout the poem. The relationship of the two people is not explained in depth, but one can assume they are quite close as Millay writes, "we lay on a hill-top underneath the moon," (5) among other examples. The theme of compassion is demonstrated when the author remembers, "and we gave her all our money but our subway fares." The characters are receiving happiness and good company, but realize that all actions have an impact on those around
you. Edna St. Vincent Millay captures the innocent, dreamy, and almost magical quality of the poem through her use of imagery. The most vivid imagery is when the sunrise is described as "a bucketful of gold," as it she sees the sun "dripping" (Millay 12) from the sky. Also, a vibrant image is cast when "the sky went wan, and the wind came cold" (11). All through the poem, the wind is referred to as cold or whistling, but the sun provides that element of warmth which could symbolize the climax or pivotal moment in the love story. After the sun rose the poem was no longer about this relationship between two people, but how they spread their love to the poor beggar. Perhaps like pouring out a bucket of gold on the streets for the less fortunate, the imagery of Edna St. Vincent Millay paints a clear picture. Through repetition, common themes, and imagery, Edna St. Vincent Millay brings a memory to life. The author repeats what she wants to remember and outlines broad themes of happiness, romanticism, and compassion. She creates an image in the minds of the readers through her radiant imagery. Her poem is a great example of how life is made up of memories and though it at times can get chaotic, a good memory can provide a moment of clarity.
Paula Gunn Allen’s poem Recuerdo is a poem of a woman’s memory when she was a little girl. The title Recuerdo is in Spanish meaning “I remember.” While visiting the Mesa Mountain with her mother either for a picnic or to gather up wood, she experienced an uninviting voice in the wind. In her memory, she wasn’t clear of what she heard or what it meant by the sound that she did hear. She couldn’t believe that something was in the wind that just didn’t sit well with her. The voice brought terror and tears to her eyes. Freighting her so bad that she couldn’t ask for her mother’s comfort to explain what she heard. She just stood there and let her mind wonder. What could be the reason for the terror in the wind? But instead of asking questions about her fearful thoughts she just stood there in the cold trying to warm up next to the campfire. “I wanted to cling to my mother so she could comfort me. explain the sound and my fear, but I simply sat, frozen, trying to feel as warm as the campfire (Allen).” She continues the poem with saying that she has never gotten over the memory that stuck with her from the terrified winds that spoke to her on that cold
The speaker begins the poem an ethereal tone masking the violent nature of her subject matter. The poem is set in the Elysian Fields, a paradise where the souls of the heroic and virtuous were sent (cite). Through her use of the words “dreamed”, “sweet women”, “blossoms” and
Although this section is the easiest to read, it sets up the action and requires the most "reading between the lines" to follow along with the quick and meaningful happenings. Millay begins her poem by describing, in first person, the limitations of her world as a child. She links herself to these nature images and wonders about what the world is like beyond the islands and mountains. The initial language and writing style hint at a child-like theme used in this section. This device invites the reader to sit back and enjoy the poem without the pressure to understand complex words and structure.
Dylan Thomas wrote the poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” It is about a son’s plea to his father who is approaching death. Two lines are repeated in the poem and addressed directly to the father. These lines structure the first stanza and collaborate as a couplet in the last. They are repeated a lot but each time, they have different meanings: statements, pleas, commands, or petitions. Repetition and rhyme scheme are parts of prosody in poetry. The rhyme scheme is built on two rhymes and forms of a pattern. The two rhymes are night and day and the pattern is aba, and in the last stanza, abaa. Even though the poem seems to have too much repetition, the fascinating imagery is more important and readers pay more attention to that instead.
The poem states not clearly, but profoundly that all this pair needs is each other, and that this trip or journey to give a little old lady some much needed food and money is more of a joyous occasion simply because of the company of each other. This memory, this recollection, though it includes the mother, is not about her, it is about the pair travelling together and using the time to enjoy the little things in life; a ride on a ferry, time spent laying together on a moonlit hillside, watching the sun rise after a long night of travelling. Whatever it is truly about, the one thing most important to the author is the memory itself.
The lady seems to be poor “suffering along in her broke shows” tells us that she has nothing and is worthless. Emotive language has been used to visually describe how she looks. “with a sack of bones on her back and a song in her brain” this expresses that she in a free, happy minded lady and doesn’t really take note of what she doesn’t have. " to feed the outlaws prowling about the Domain” This tell us that she most likely does this act of kindness very often, not having much at all and simple giving the outlaws something to feed on. “proudly they step up to meet her” Giving this visual effect makes us understand the power this lady has for these feral cats and to also see how much this lady means to this cats. “with love and power” - juxtaposition, again shows us the emotive language between the two this also means that she has a sense of power which she doesn’t have with the outer world. This perception of the lady is very different as to what how we see her. She is to be seen as a person who you wouldn’t want so associate with. Throughout the poem she has been moved from a princess to a queen with the development of metaphors. But to the cats she is the queen and this really depicts the distinctively visual. Douglas Stewart is seeing her as this queen who is celebrated and appreciated by the cats but this is not how she feels with society. With this connection between the cats, it gives us a deeper understanding of how to perceptions of each individual sees the world. Every individual has their own sense of views of the
Writing the poem in ballad form gave a sense of mood to each paragraph. The poem starts out with an eager little girl wanting to march for freedom. The mother explains how treacherous the march could become showing her fear for her daughters life. The mood swings back and forth until finally the mother's fear overcomes the child's desire and the child is sent to church where it will be safe. The tempo seems to pick up in the last couple of paragraphs to emphasize the mothers distraught on hearing the explosion and finding her child's shoe.
The poem uses the word "remember" repeatedly to emphasize the guidance the poet is trying to provide and is used to introduce every new idea presented. Repetition is used to emphasize the impact or their words. She really wants the reader to remember every point she brings out in this poem. The last six lines all start with "Remember" so when shes ending the
The most obvious use of repetition would be the abundant use of Annabel Lee’s name in the poem. The fact that the title of the poem is Annabel Lee, and her name is repeated so often throughout the poem clearly demonstrates just how important and lovely she is to the narrator. The second most prominent use of repetition comes from the lines regarding the “kingdom by the sea” (Poe). Poe constantly reinforces the setting and reminds the reader of its importance in almost every single stanza until near the end of the
In lines one through five of the poem, Lucinda explains the activities she participated in before she had met Davis, her future husband: “I went to the dances at Chandlerville/ And played snap-out at Winchester./ One time we changed partners/ Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,/ And then I found Davis.” (Masters, Edgar Lee. "Lucinda Matlock."). Lucinda’s past life consists of stay out late at the dances and the games in town. This reflects her fun and carefree attitude before marriage, which is one of the many human emotions shown throughout the poem. Her buoyant attitude is not negative nor positive, but instead highlights her youthfulness before marriage. The poem takes an abrupt turn when she meets her future husband David. This abruptness draws light to her sudden change from being single to being married ("Explanation: ‘Lucinda Matlock’”) Her encounter with David displays the human emotion love towards her future significant other. Lucinda Matlock and her husband Davis live a standard, traditional life, which she lives without any complaints: “The life story, particularly in the absence of any apparent conflict, presents Lucinda as a woman who accepted, with pleasure when possible, accepted all aspects of her life as it unfolded” ("Explanation: ‘Lucinda Matlock’”) She naturally lives her life to the fullest and embraces it. Lucinda Matlock’s love for nature is seen in lines eleven through fifteen: “I made the garden, and for holiday/ Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,/ And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,/ And many a flower and medicinal weed--/ Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys” (Masters, Edgar Lee. "Lucinda Matlock."). As she begins to speak about her connection with nature, the poem relates nature to
The theme in both the poem and the passage is to not be selfish. Both contain similar events that follow this theme in a slightly different way.
As she continues through the poem she gives an example of a wealthy family. She says that their wives run around like banshees and their children sing their blues. They have expensive doctors to try to cure their hearts of stones. But no one can make it out here alone. By giving an example of a millionaire she is telling us that money can't buy companionship as well as saying that not even their expensive doctors can give them anything to fill the void of companionship.
Still, the authentic motivation that drives this persona to want to recreate and improve all of the events that seemingly fade away from his memory over the course of the poem is nostalgia and the power that it imposes, in this case by means of regret. The relationship between the speaker and his lover appeared to be afflicted with struggles, as observed from the lines “the weight of her” which he had to deal with, and the previous incident of him “forgetting her phone number” (“palindrome” 8, 9-10). Nevertheless, the affection that the speaker claims to feel for the girl is profound, as she remains in his memory in a foreign fashion, where her name “flips on a page, or in [his] mouth” and the speaker realizes that “[he] never knew words could do that” (“palindrome” 26-27). It seems as though here is an artificial sense of love or attraction that the speaker conjures up as he looks back into the past, which links him to this memory of his first romance. Subsequently, there also appears to be an absence that exists and a void that has been left unfilled, which influences his thoughts and emotions. All in all, the fact that the speaker remains absorbed by the presence of this female in his life perpetuates the notion that nostalgia triggers his emotions’ chronic and cyclical
The great amount of respect and strong feeling of pleasure and wonder a child has for their mother's courage is very obvious throughout Edna St. Vincent Millay's, "The Courage That My Mother Had." (at the same time), the poem brings across feelings of betrayal. Millay's poem, through strong associations with (state where all things are equal) as strong words, such as "rock" and "(very hard rock)," guesses (based on what's known) the general theme of the poem and the amount of (title-related) courage the poem's mother possessed. The (person telling the story) uses (more than two, but not a lot of) different types of figurative language to create thoughts and feelings of love, hate, fear, etc. for the reader. Millay's use of (physical things
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.