Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The role of nature in modern literature
Essay on nature in English literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Theodore Roethke's "Root Cellar"
Theodore Roethke was raised in Michigan, where cities and towns are woven with lakes, streams, and rivers. This atmosphere gave Roethke a “mystical reverence for nature,” (McMichael, 1615) and allowed him to take a grotesque image and transform it into natural magnificence. A great example of this is Roethke’s poem “Root Cellar.” The poem describes a cellar, which most people would consider to be a death-baring, cold place. Instead, Roethke gives the dungeon life and enchantment. The first line gives the reader an idea that the cellar is awake. In the second line, there is a description of the plants left in numerous boxes that search for a bit of light to help them continue their existence. The plants’ roots hanging from the crates that are packed into the small space are portrayed in the third, fourth and fifth lines. The odor of the cellar is acknowledged in the sixth line. The seventh line describes the aging of the roots. The eighth line describes the stems of the plants and gives them more dimensions. The ninth line depicts the floor’s slipperiness. The tenth and eleventh lines describe how everything in the cellar was trying to hold on to their life for as long as possible. Roethke’s ability of creating imagery in this poem lets the reader visualize every aspect of the cellar.
Roethke uses a few different literary modes to help create his imagery. Metaphor and similes are figures of speech in which a word or phrase tha...
The first literary device is a simile and it paints a picture in the readers head.
imagery illustrates the scene and tone of the speaker. The use of personification portrays the
1) This quote is an example of imagery because it uses figurative language to describe what New York is like late at night. As well as it uses words
“Metaphor.” Dictionary of World Literature: Criticism - Forms - Technique. Ed. Joseph T. Shipley. New York: Philosophical Library, 1943. 377-8.
...mple of imagery is when Richard’s friends run up to him with his article in their hands and a baffled look on their faces. This shows that Richard is a very talented writer for his age and that Richard is a very ambitious person because his school never taught him to write the way he does. This also shows that Richard took it upon himself to become a talented author and wants to be a writer when he grows up.
Isaacs, Neil D. “The Autoerotic Metaphor in Joyce, Sterne, Lawrence, Stevens, and Whitman.” Literature and Psychology. 15th ed. 1965. 98-102. Print.
Guetti, James. "Absalom, Absalom!: The Extended Simile."The Limits of Metaphor: A Study of Melville, Conrad, and Faulkner. Ithaca: Cornell, 1967. 69-108.
Roethke’s poem has a regular rhyme scheme that can be expressed as “abab”. The only exception to this scheme would be the first stanza as the words “dizzy” (2) and “easy” (4) are slant rhymes. Only the end syllables of the two words sound the same. As a result, the use of a consistent “abab” rhyme scheme allows the poem to reflect the
In addition, Theodore uses the figures of speech throughout his poem to impact the reader and his message about the life to death. One of the figures speeches he uses is the metaphors. A major metaphor in "The Waking" is of sleeping and waking up. This is a comparison to living and death which is very important in this poem. Another metaphor is where it says a "lowly worm climbs up a winding stair". This journey for the worm talks about the experiences throughout life. The Author also writes "Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?" This is a metaphor to a higher being called "Light" that takes life away, sometimes without understanding. Another metaphor Roethke uses is of the "shaking". By this, he means the struggles that we all experience
In this poem called “Creatures” by the author Billy Collins there is a literary device called a metaphor when the reader is reading this poem. A metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things without using the words like or as. In lines one (1) through...
metaphors alone? The use of metaphors in war and everyday life is common and an
Jimmy S.Baca use of metaphors, similes, imagery, diction, tone and mood are used in a very effective way in his essay Coming into Language. His use of metaphors and similes really give the reader a visual, helping develop imagery. Baca’s use of imagery paints pictures in the reader’s head but also develops a type of emotion by the use of diction. The word choice used provides the reader with an understanding of where the author is coming from leading us into tone and mood. The author’s tone starts off very low but by the end of the essay you will feel very satisfied.
One of the literary techniques most prominently featured throughout the passage would be that of imagery. The author takes great care to interweave sentences comparing the traits
Another rhetorical strategy incorporated in the poem is imagery. There are many types of images that are in this poem. For example, the story that the young girl shares with the boy about drowning the cat is full of images for the reader to see:
A metaphor makes us attend to some likeness, often a novel or surprising likeness, between two or more things (Lycan, 178).