Holy Sonnets

The title of T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” implies that the ensuing poem will be a cheerful adulation of a woman or the world, and that J. Alfred Prufrock is a character who is enchanted by a romantic force and revels in it by extolling it in verse. However, it soon becomes clear that this is not the case at all. Instead, Prufrock is a disillusioned soul who dwells in self-deprecating introspection and malaise, rooted in the fact that he feels inadequate and viewed only on the…

capabilities without knowing them; kind of like judging a book by its cover. I choose my poem to rhyme because I wanted it flow and be like a rap. The structure is traditional because it rhymes,and it is like a sonnet in that the rhyme schemes are the same but mine is two lines longer than a sonnet. My five literary devices are an onomatopoeia, assonance, rhymes, similes and some imagery. An onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like a sound, and I used the word squall which mean a shriek or a cry…

“The form I most enjoy writing is the sonnet or sonnet-like forms, where you have a - you know, three stanzas or two stanzas that lead into a concluding couplet”- Sherman Alexie. In the sonnet, “The Unnaturalists” written by Albin Soni, the literary elements simile, personification, and metaphor are present and used to suggest that things are never as they seem. Firstly, Soni used the literary element simile to compare buildings to a king’s crown. Soni’s quote “The buildings stand as high as the…

“The Firstborn” is a free verse poem, a name first used to describe the movement in French poetry in the late nineteenth century aiming to free poetry from the strict conventions of rhyme and rhythm. Traditional rhythm is abandoned and is replaced by natural rhythm and cadences of ordinary speech, so the flow of the verse rises and falls at random as do the poet’s thoughts and emotions thus enabling the reader to relate to the topic. There are three stanzas in the poem with a rhyming pattern of…

Sonnet VI Michael Drayton’s sonnet number six describes a setting of the world where many women paint the streets. Drayton in line 1 explains that these women are “paltry, foolish, painted things” describing them as meager or of no importance where as they try to by foolishly painting themselves with make-up like children playing adults for a day. These women surround coaches on the streets soon to be forgotten due to the fact that no poet has ever written about them in a sense that gives a…

Utilization of meter in this manner is common in many poetical works such as Shakespeare 's “Sonnet 18”, Browning 's “My Last Duchess”, and Shelley 's “Ozymandias”. In “Sonnet 18” meter is used to hint at the true nature of the author 's intentions in the beginning and then later to emphasize this nature as it appears more prominently. Additionally, in “My Last Duchess” a similar use…

Two poets, Denise Duhamel and Edna St. Vincent Millay, helped to change the face of poetry for women through their poems. Duhamel, a contemporary poet, recently featured in the book The Best American Poetry 2015 for her poem “Fornicating.” Millay is a traditional poet who was placed in the Anthology An Introduction to Poetry for her poem “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed and Where and Why,” written in 1925. Both poems were written to further the ability of women to have their own sexuality; while…

and part in a the all-but-universal interest of the Elizabethans in classical material, and that he uses this material with characteristic independence and originality” (Johnson 1098). Johnson points out 42 allusions to mythology in the Songs and Sonnets. “Always, Donne uses terms of Greek mythology with the skill or adeptness which is amazing. His use shows both an analysis of the meaning of the myth and a synthetic conclusion as to its significance, in his application of it to the particular…

The title of my poem is, "How Healthily Their Feet Upon the Floor" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. I believe that the significance of this title is about the childhood life. The word "healthily" means to be in good health, and it is referring to the feet on the floor, which I believe are dancing or running; the activities of a child which are forms of exercise. That is seen as good health; however, by only looking at the title a reader would not know that the poet is giving an expiation of childhood…

Gerard Hopkins’s view of the timeless conflict between God and man is uniquely dramatized in his Italian sonnet “God’s Grandeur.” I initially thought the poem merely depicted God as great and man as scum. However, after I analyzed the poem’s overall theme, literary devices, and structure, I soon realized Hopkins instead intends to portray God as not only great but also forgiving and nurturing despite man’s failures. Hopkins immediately asserts his overall theme of God’s sovereignty in the…