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The importance of poetry
What is the importance of poetry
The importance of poetry
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Poetry often allows readers to identify complex issues through the underlying idea or theme. Robert Hayden, Sylvia Plath, and Shakespeare vividly express their perspectives through the theme of love, providing readers with various outlooks into their individual perceptions of love. For instance, Hayden conveys his conflicting feelings of love towards his foster father. As a young child Hayden perceived his father as cold and grim. However, as an adult he becomes fully aware of the sacrifices his father made for him as a child in the name of love. Similarly, Plath professes her unresolved feelings about her daddy’s domineering love. Frequently, Plath identifies herself as a victim of his venomous affection, one in which she can not escape through …show more content…
life nor death. Alternatively, Shakespeare optimistically explores love in its ideal form. Sonnet 116 praises love based upon the principles of constancy and faith between two lovers. Furthermore, a poem's controlling idea often develops throughout the text and may become characterized by its rhythm, tone, and mood. Individuals in love often describe love as joyful, lively, and blissful.
However, Hayden and Plath evoke dark, somber, and negative images and emotions throughout their text using tone and figurative language. Hayden uses symbolism to illustrate his disharmonious relationship between himself and his father. In “Those Winter Sundays” Hayden’s father warms the house with his “blueback cold … cracked hands” (lines 2 and 3) to create an atmosphere of warmth. The icy temperatures, inside and outside, of Hayden’s home reflect his cutting, frigid feelings towards his father. The neologism, “blueblack”, truly captures the essence of the cold, early Sunday mornings his father suffers at the expense of his son’s well-being. In lines fourteen and fifteen Hayden writes, “What did I know, what did I know/ of love’s austere and lonely offices?”: these lines define his father’s Sunday sacrifices. “The religious connotations of the final word, offices, elevate the father’s devoted service to his family - as depicted throughout the poem - to the level of worship” (Hatcher, para 4). Likewise, Plath uses similes and metaphors to effectively represent the negative relationship between her father and herself. Throughout “Daddy” Plath gradually assumes the role of a Jew through poetic identification and illustrates her father as an extreme Nazi, vampire, and devil. Plath writes, “I begin to talk like a Jew/ I think I may well be a Jew/ … I may be a bit of a Jew” (lines 34-35 and 40) to metaphorically demonstrate her father’s vitriolic will cowering over her innocent being. Correspondingly, Shakespeare uses antithesis in the last two lines of Sonnet 116 to strengthen his individual conviction to the ideal he describes. Shakespeare’s confidence lies in the final couplet: “If this be error and upon me proved,/ I never writ, nor no man ever loved” (lines 13 and 14). More simply, if Shakespeare mistook his interpretation of true love, then he did not write and no other being ever loved
(Kingery, para 7). The dismal, often oppressive, imagery of these three poems, may become slightly overpowered by the calming rhythm, established through alliteration, internal rhyme, and form. “Those Winter Sundays” contains alliteration, as well as some assonance. Hayden’s uses this poetic device to convey the austere and unhappy condition of his father. The repetitive harsh-sounding c/ck-sounds in lines two and three symbolize the “chronic angers” (line 10) of his home. Moreover, “Daddy”contains no definite pattern of rhythm or rhyme due to its free verse form. Although, “Daddy” contains no distinct rhyme scheme, internal and end rhymes remain ever-present in combination with some iambic rhythm. The end rhyme initially begins in the first line with “do,” and continues throughout the last line, which ends in “through.” The nursery rhyme cadence and overwhelming “oo” sound creates “helpless entrapment that conflicts with the assertive and aggressive stance of the speaker” (Sewell, para 4). Contrastly, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 creates a rhythmic, conversational, yet formal piece of poetry. The poem’s meter and iambic pentameter creates a consistent and persuasive argument that challenges the ideologies of love in its true form., as opposed to “ Those Winter Sundays” and “Daddy”.
Love and Hate are powerful emotions that influence and control how we interact with people. To express this influence and control and the emotions associated with love and hate, for instance, joy, admiration, anger, despair, jealousy, and disgust, author's craft their writing with literary elements such as as structure, figurative language, imagery, diction, symbolism, and tone. Poems in which these can be seen present are “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning, and “Sonnet 130” by William Shakespeare. Within “My Papa’s Waltz” a mighty love is seen between the father and son. To express this Roethke uses figurative language, symbolism and diction. Within “My Last Duchess” there is little love, but an ample hate towards the duchess from the Duch. To express this the
His ungratefulness as a child has now emerged on him, leaving the speaker ashamed of taking his father’s hard work for granted. In this poem he writes, “…fearing the chronic angers of that house//Speaking indifferently to him/who had driven out the cold…” (Hayden, 17). When he quotes “fearing chronic angers”, the speaker refers to his view of life as a child, and how he interpreted his father’s agony and self-sacrifice as anger towards him. With an apathetic and cold attitude that accompanied his youth, he did not recognize the love that his father had for him. Hayden also writes, “What did I know, What did I know…” (Hayden 17). Repeating this rhetorical question twice it is obvious that the speaker, now as an adult, feels deep remorse over the way he had treated his father. With a matured mind, Hayden came to the realization that love comes in all shapes and forms, and his father’s love was shown through his selfless
Sylvia Plath’s jarring poem ‘Daddy’, is not only the exploration of her bitter and tumultuous relationship with her father, husband and perhaps the male species in general but is also a strong expression of resentment against the oppression of women by men and the violence and tyranny men can and have been held accountable for. Within the piece, the speaker creates a figurative image of her father by using metaphors to describe her relationship with him: “Not God but a Swastika” , he is a “… brute” , even likening him to leader of the Nazi Party; Adolf Hitler: “A man in black with a Meinkampf look .” Overall, the text is a telling recount of her hatred towards her father and her husband of “Seven years” and the tolling affect it has had on
The poem “Those Winter Sundays” displays a past relationship between a child and his father. Hayden makes use of past tense phrases such as “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking” (6) to show the readers that the child is remembering certain events that took place in the past. Although the child’s father did not openly express his love towards him when he was growing up, the child now feels a great amount of guilt for never thanking his father for all the things he actually did for him and his family. This poem proves that love can come in more than one form, and it is not always a completely obvious act.
Yet the author uses cold imagery when talking about the father; who is the most loving and “warm” character. And warm imagery when writing about the cool and indifferent son. This is shown when Hayden writes, “Sunday too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blue black cold” (2). The father shows his love for his son through rising early to make sure the son wakes to a warm room and polished shoes. Yet he is the one who must brave the “blue black cold,” like the color of flesh that has been frozen. The father’s labors allow the son to wake to a warm house, “When the rooms were warm, he’d call, and slowly I would rise and dress” (Hayden 7-8). The warmth of the child’s morning is in opposition to his cool behavior towards his father. The author 's word choice is opposite to what would be expected in describing the more loving and more indifferent character. Cold words being associated with the father who has a “warm” attitude, and warm words used for the “cold” son. This draws attention to the relationship between the father and son and shines a spotlight on how the father 's love goes unreciprocated. The poem illustrates how parents make sacrifices for their child, yet they often don’t understand the actions of their parents. This misunderstanding is mirrored in the ironic word choice of the
Since she was so young she never got to work out her unsettled feelings with him. Even at age eight, she hid when he was around because she was fearful of him. When she was in his presence his strict and authoritarian figure had left an overpowering barrier between their relationship. Sadly enough by age eight Plath instead of making memories with her dad playing in the yard she resented him and wanted nothing to do with him (Kehoe). These deep-seated feelings played a major role in Plath’s poetry writings.
Plath and Sexton's lifetimes spanned a period of remarkable change in the social role of women in America, and both are obviously feminist poets caught somewhere between the submissive pasts of their mothers and the liberated futures awaiting their daughters. With few established female poets to emulate, Plath and Sexton broke new ground with their intensely personal, confessional poetry. Their anger and frustration with female subjugation, as well as their agonizing personal struggles and triumphs appear undisguised in their works, but the fact that both Sexton and Plath committed suicide inevitably colors what the reader gleans from their poems. However, although their poems, such as Plath's "Daddy" and Sexton's "Little Girl, My String Bean, My Lovely Woman," deal with the authors' private experiences, they retain elements of universality; their language cuts through a layer of individual perspective to reach a current of raw emotion common to all human, but especially female, understanding.
Relationships between two people can have a strong bond and through poetry can have an everlasting life. The relationship can be between a mother and a child, a man and a woman, or of one person reaching out to their love. No matter what kind of relationship there is, the bond between the two people is shown through literary devices to enhance the romantic impression upon the reader. Through Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham,” Ben Jonson’s “To Celia,” and William Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” relationships are viewed as a powerful bond, an everlasting love, and even a romantic hymn.
“Daddy” contains allusions to World War 2 with images of a swastika in the sky (line 46-47) and references to German concentration camps, “A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen” (line 33). She states her father clearly to be a German man with “I thought every German was you” (line 29), “with your Luftwaffe” (line 42), “And your Aryan eye, bright blue” (line 44). Plath alludes to the popular anti-Semitism of her era in Germany depicted in lines 31-40. She then describes herself as a “Jew” to degrade herself against her German father. The diction of her lines “Chuffing me off like a Jew” (line 32) and “I think I may well be a Jew” (line 35) dehumanizes Jews in which she uses to also describe herself. To describe even more hatred towards her father, the multiple usages of the word “black” (lines 2, 51, 55, 65, 76) depicts her father as a dark menacing shadow in her life that has a evil dark “black” heart. She compares him to the man she married when Plath states, “I made a model of you” (line 64). She then describes that husband as a vampire that drank her blood (lines 72-74), because he reminded Plath of her father in the statement “They always knew it was you” (line 79). In Plath’s mind she only married her husband to be reminded of her father but soon realized it was a toxic relationship in line 80 in which she says “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through”.
Imagery in literature provides the writer with an instrument for establishing a viewpoint or perspective. The author can use an unlimited amount of symbols, similes, and metaphors that produce an atmosphere for the reader to visualize the story effectively. In the poem "Daddy," written by Sylvia Plath, the author utilizes numerous clusters of images to represent the fury and wrath of a crazed woman haunted by her father's frightening and domineering disposition. Plath uses this imagery to depict the emotional chaos controlling fathers inflict on their offspring.
In the poem, “Daddy,” Sylvia Plath shows her character to have a love for her father as well as an obvious sense of resentment and anger towards him. She sets the tone through the structure of the poem along with her use of certain diction, imagery, and metaphors/similes. The author, Sylvia Plath, chooses words that demonstrate the characters hatred and bitterness towards the oppression she is living with under the control of her father and later, her husband. Plath’s word choice includes many words that a child might use. There is also an integration of German words which help set the tone as well. She creates imagery through her use of metaphors and similes which allow the reader to connect certain ideas and convey the dark, depressing tone of the poem.
Throughout the poem "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath, the author struggles to escape the memory of her father who died when she was only ten years old. She also expresses anger at her husband, Ted Hughes, who abandoned her for another woman. The confessional poem begins with a series of metaphors about Plath's father which progress from godlike to demonic. Near the end, a new metaphor emerges, when the author realizes that her estranged husband is actually the vampire of her dead father, sent to torture her. This hyperbole is central to the meaning of the poem. Lines 75-76 express a hope that they will stop oppressing her: "Daddy, you can lie back now / There ís a stake in your fat black heart." She concludes that her father can return to the grave, because she has finally rid herself of the strain he had caused her, by killing his vampire form. Despite this seeming closure, however, we will see that the author does not overcome her trauma.
In the poem “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath shows how she gets over the feeling of love and
Sylvia Plath has brought the attention of many Women’s studies supporters while being recognized as a great American poet. Most of her attention has come as a result of her tragic suicide at age thirty, but many of her poems reflect actual events throughout her life, transformed into psychoanalytical readings. One of Plath’s most renowned poems is “Daddy”. In this poem there are ideas about a woman’s relationship with men, a possible insight on aspects of Plath’s life, and possible influences from the theories of Sigmund Freud.
Plaths Poetry can be understood through the psychoanalytic model. The motifs of oral fixation, sadomasochism and the desire to return to primary narcissism are consistent throughout Plaths Poetry. Overall these motifs represent the desire to return to the state of primary narcissism and to be reunited with the incestuous love object.