Sonnet 19

When Roland Barthes casts his bone into the Rue Servadoni, he is performing the symbolic act of act of letting go. When Boltanski builds shrines to his past self, he too is trying to cast something away from himself, in a process of mourning and of consolidating. Whether we feel the need to dispose of them or hold on to them, there is no denying the ceremony around these objects- the agency they hold and importance they play for us. Our urge to collect, forever juxtaposed with our urge to be…

The ‘Miniver Cheevy’ The narrative poem, Miniver Cheevy, was written by Edwin A. Robinson. It was first published in 1910. The poem tells the tale of a despairing lover who spends his days contemplating how things would have been had he been born earlier. Although the poem affords no exact setting, a reader will get to know that Cheevy lives in the fictional town Tilbury, which is quite similar to Robinson’s hometown in Maine. Robinson has maintained the use of this town in several of his poems…

A lingering sense of hopelessness is embedded within the human condition, manifesting itself in various ways depending on the person. This sense of hopelessness is delved into constantly within literature, although most poignantly though the works of Bobbi Sykes, Edgar Allan Poe, Wilfred Owen, and Seamus Heaney. Both Sykes and Poe utilise the poetic device of symbolism as to generate a persistent feeling of futility throughout their works. Through the emphasis of both the magnificence and…

Repetition, Syntax, Connotation in London by William Blake London appears to be a beautiful, majestic sort of place but according to the speaker described by William Blake, it is actually quite somber and dismal. The speaker seems to be observing many different people throughout the city, they are mostly just an observer who is walking and seeing things occur but maybe they have a certain perception which makes them view the world this way. Blake uses thoughtful repetition, interesting syntax,…

Comparing Poems The things about poems is that most of them have a similarity. I chose two poems to compare and tell you how they are similar. There was one major thing in these poems that were similar. I chose We Wear the Mask. This story has one great meaning and I will tell you about it later on in the essay. The second poem that I chose was Richard Cory. This poem had a similar meaning of it and I will talk about the poem here in a second. These both had a similar meaning to…

The poems “Where the Sidewalk Ends” and “Escaping Reality” were composed four decades apart. They involve a speaker who is anticipating his escape from reality. They also involve a speaker’s search for a resolution through symbolism. In addition, they focus on a single theme which is despite your life responsibilities; you should use your imagination to escape when times get difficult. Furthermore, they feature the thoughts of a speaker who refers to himself in the first person perspective. The…

“The Road Not Taken” was a poem written by Robert Frost in 1916. The poem consists of four stanzas that each contains five lines, and the rhyme scheme is ABAAB. The first three stanzas of the poem talk about the past and the fourth one talks about the future. “The Road No Taken” starts off with the narrator coming up to a fork in the path he is traveling. He looked down both of the paths as far as he could and they seemed to be equal; the first path seemed to be traveled more often, but the…

Edwards Hirsch’s poem “For the Sleepwalkers” focuses on the author’s admiration of sleepwalkers and their ability to trust their bodies in a state of complete unconsciousness; this praise, however, furthermore establishes a metaphor for the lesson Hirsch intends to portray to readers. He insists that we must become vulnerable like sleepwalkers and trust in our own hearts as they trust their bodies out of the control of their consciousnesses. The author also highlights the idea of keeping our…

"Trying to Name What Doesn't Change" by Naomi Shiha Nye, is a poem about what does not change versus what does change. Nye shows perspective from a child and adult point of view about how they view change. "Trying to Name What Doesn't Change" is a poem about time and how it takes time for change to be noticeable. Nye wants the reader to thinks about what changes in their life and what does not change. The imagery in Naomi Shiha Nye's poem "Trying to Name What Doesn't Change" shows that the…

Do you have creativity to write and break the rules just like how E.E. Cummings did? E.E. Cummings was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1894. He was a very talented and unique poet because of his work he was well known. At the beginning of his career, he struggled to find publishers, but he then went on to find inspiration in others work that he even put time into dedicating poems to some of them. How does E.E. Cummings use visual and auditory to create meaning? E.E. Cummings…