Poetic form

you to experience. In “We are Seven” William Wordsworth utilizes this power and has his readers experience more than just a sixty nine line dialogue between a “little cottage girl” (6) and an older gentleman. In sixteen quatrains Wordsworth uses the form of his ballad to express his opinions on topics such as the contrast between maturity and childlike innocence, spirituality, the relationship between life death regarding their connection with joy. Innocence can be seen in many ways. To…

The sonnet “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, by Wifred Owen, is a poem that criticizes the war. An “anthem”, defined as a jolly song of celebration or perhaps glorification. From its definition, readers would first get the impression which the poem might be about something that is related to religious or joyous. However, as the title suggests, the anthem is for “Doomed Youth”, which implies an obvious negative/sorrow meaning. The title basically summarizes what this poem is about; a mixture of thoughts…

The holy sonnet ‘Since she whom I loved’ by John Donne paints God as a domineering and punitive lord who manipulates human life for self-satisfaction. The poem’s rhetorician is conflicted between his physical and spiritual love. Such a struggle creates tension between his sense of loss and hope that the decease of his lover was requisite for God’s plan. Nonetheless, an ambiguity penetrates the poem, suggestive of a subtle yearning. A tension infiltrates the poem whereby the speaker…

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so the saying says. “She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron (George Gordon) is a poem about one woman in particular that the speaker is obviously enamored with. There is no mention of “love” nor “desire” in the poem and it seems that the speaker wants to make that point very clear. It appears more to be an ode to the amazing beauty of a particular woman. However, by the end of the poem it is almost as if the speaker is trying to convince himself that he does not…

Milton was only in adolescence when he wrote "On the Death of a Fair Infant Dying of a Cough" but he still managed to cram all manner of patterns into his poetry. One of these patterns was textual. In poetry, texture is defined as: "The "feel" of a poem that comes from the interweaving of technical elements, syntax, patterns of sound and meaning" ("Glossary" PG). Certainly, Milton is able to do all those things and his skills are exemplified in this particular early work. Milton's "On the…

The word Rede has a much longer history than the Wiccan Rede, which is what usually comes to mind when we hear the word. The Wiccan Rede can be summed up in eight words. “An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will”. But there are many different personal, work, individual, and family Rede that change with time and the course of life. Rede is commonly interchanged in modern day language with the word ethics and is much more complex than just these eight words. The meaning of the ancient word Rede is: advice…

Psalm 2: Bow the Knee and Kiss the Son Have you ever been in a situation that caused you to ask the question, “What is going on here?” Maybe it was a humorous moment of confusion, or maybe it was a serious moment of exasperation. Often in situation where it seems like chaos is in charge, we find ourselves wondering “what is going on?” As we look at Psalm 2, we must remember the role that Psalm 1 and 2 play in the Psalter. Both of these act like two great pillars, introducing and providing the…

Research Questions: How is identity affected by colonization and exile? This is the broadest concern of the proposed paper. How is poetry a vehicle for understanding identity under these conditions? There is a rich tradition of poets-in-exile; I have chosen Mahmoud Darwish as representative and his book Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone? as the particular vehicle under question. How does the identity “Mahmoud Darwish” transform into a metaphor for Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation?…

Range Finding is composed of two stanzas, in which consist of unequal lines. (The first stanza consists of 8 lines, while the second stanza has 6.) This consists of 14 line breaks, individually standing alone and telling a story, yet there is no need to pause as if you were reading an end-stopped sentence. Each line Frost has written is a beautiful enjambment of its own. The overall shape of this poem is perceived from more of a conveying meaning rather than a verbal significance. *This poem can…

Rowell--English Eleven Poetry Questions: TALKING BACK TO A POEM Talking Back to a Poem FROM POETS.ORG It would be convenient if there were a short list of universal questions, ones that could be used anytime with any poem. In the absence of such a list, here are a few general questions that you might ask when approaching a poem for the first time: Who is the speaker? Who or what is the audience? The speaker is most likely the poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson. The audience was intended to be all of the…