Analysis Of The Poem Where Did The Handsome Beloved Go

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“Where did the handsome beloved go?” is a poem written in 13th century Persia by Sufi poet Jalal Al-Din Rumi. This 26-line free verse couplet poem follows no rhyming scheme. The tones throughout this poem are somber, loving, yearning, and religious. It follows Rumi in his search for someone he misses greatly. He looks everywhere he knows and ask many people if they’ve seen him. We realize at the end that this beloved of his is Shams Tabriz his spiritual instructor that has died.

Jalal Al-Din Rumi utilizes metaphors to illustrate who Shams Tabriz was and his impact he had on Rumi’s life. We get the high religious status this man had when he is compared to plant that sits in the Islamic version of paradise on earth, the Charbagh. (Line 2) Rumi states that Tabriz is a “tall, shapely cypress tree”. The cypress in the Persian Islamic faith is a
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This poem is a villanelle, a traditional form of repetition. Speaks on “losing” or the loss of something as an “art”. This poem is 19 lines with five stanzas with an ABA rhyming scheme. Then one stanza with four lines of a quatrain. Both poems themes are focus on lost and how people deal with lost. In Bishops poem she explains all the things she’s lost. From door keys, time, watches, and love. When she speaks on the unimportant things like her door keys and watches she the ensures that (9) “none of these will bring disaster”. So for her the material items we lose aren’t so hard to get over. For her because (1-15) “The art of losing isn’t hard to master” she knows she’ll get over it. But where the two poem really compare is the idea of how we all feel when we lose love or love ones. In Rumi’s poem he uses repetition at the end of every line. “Where did he go?” to show to the reader that he hasn’t given up looking for his beloved companion, because the idea of losing that love is to unbearable to truly

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