... only cares to know that their citizens are conforming and obeying their expectations as another 'unknown citizen' in the crowd. Another form of irony often found in poetry is situational irony, occurring when the final outcome of a poem is incongruous with the reader's expectations. Adrienne Rich uses a variation of situational irony in her beautifully written poem "Aunt Jennifer's ... Tigers". Narrated in the perspective of a niece or nephew, the speaker reflects on their Aunt and her embroidered works of art. The poet skillfully structures the poem in a way where each stanza grad...

• Word Count: 1245
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... can be held and more importantly, thrown. In these last few stanzas of the poem, Shelley still manages to leave the reader with a final reference to morbidity. The speaker's request creates an undeniable image of a human's ashes being scattered in the earth as some final rite of passage. While Shelley's poem contains elements of the personification of various inanimate items, Sylvia Plath's poem "Mirror", is written entirely ... "reaches" is ambiguous, there is a level of personification in this line. It will give the reader a picture of arms from the mirror extending outward toward the...

• Word Count: 1115
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... a choice, there is no going back to choose the "other path." The rhyme scheme helps to give this certain poem a kind of sense that the path he chose, gave him the outcome he was looking for. This poem gives you a really good image of a forest. You can just picture the road forking, and looking down each path, contemplating the one to choose. If you just take this ... poem for what it says, and not look into it. It just seems like a man walking through the woods and coming upon a fork in the road and choosing one of the roads and going on his way wondering what ... rare that you will ge...

• Word Count: 818
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... that she was not in the right mind at this time. "This happened so fast that not only was she terrified but not paying attention to the big picture (rape) but instead feeling his heart beat" (Levine, 254). This was very strange to her that she was not paying attention to anything else. In the third stanza it describes the final feeling that she has when ... this is over. The first line in the third stanza describes the feeling of both Leda and the swan. "Shudder in the loins," "is presumably a shared ... one"(Levine, 255). "The broken wall," "the ... ...

• Word Count: 1080
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... will eventually satisfy his desire to travel both paths. • The speaker then shows regret knowing that the other will never be taken. Stanza 4 • The final stanza highlights the theme of the poem and presents the speaker's happiness in taking the less used road. • The speaker imagines himself in the future, discussing his life. • The speaker will claim that the paths were different from each other. • We are ... , concrete, picturesque, natural and easily understood. • "Yellow wood," "undergrowth," "grassy" and "black" create a picture for the reader. • The universal images al...

• Word Count: 872
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... Park, thus symbolizing yet another blow to the rock industry. The fifth stanza is a throwback to the first two, given that it too has a single idea as opposed to the several that are displayed in the middle paragraphs. As in the others, this represents imagery beautifully. With McLean's eloquent description of the scene, one can picture him standing in the crowd of people angrily clenching his fists in ... spite of The Rolling Stones. I believe that he did this because of the concert's significance, and it was, perhaps, a ... Angels biker gang to be their security. Furthermore, Satan s...

• Word Count: 2255
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

... , "in his . wake,", "dipping and rising," as too suggest the sailing of a ship through the waves. The father is then described as, "Mapping the furrow exactly," as to relate his precision ploughing to the, "exact," navigation of a ship and furthermore the rut of concentration upon his father's careful mind. The poet paints a devoted picture of his father and his work, by mirroring it to equally majestic ... trade of sailing. These images throughout the poem, show the father instinctive skill, ... was meant for was really, to follow. This perhaps foreshadows his never becoming what he hop...

• Word Count: 1170
• Approx Pages: 5

... "Rudy toot Trudy fruity" (5) and it subsequently rhymes with the endings of the first 2 lines. A picture poem is a poem whose lines are arranged into a particular shape to express some meaning. Most picture poems describe the picture in which the poem is formed. A perfect example of a picture poem is Michael McFee's " In Medias Res" on page 907. The poem is arranged in a side ways pyramid type shape ... . The term "foundation" (10) implies the largest piece of the poem, just as in the foundation of a building. The odd part of this poem is that the title means "middle ... of things" and t...

• Word Count: 1272
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... cases of death, hearing is the last sense to be lost. Dickinson emphasizes this last Sense' in her use of many auditory adjectives. These are the sounds that shape the person's discernment of reality. The reader can never see or picture these people at the funeral in the narrator's Brain. Instead, this poem is best understood by the sounds she describes it by. In the first stanza, Dickinson utilizes ... the metaphor of a "Funeral, in my Brain- (Ln. 1) and specifically uses capital letters ... she is still "wrecked, solitary, here."" This use of three descriptive states shows her dislik...

• Word Count: 1027
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... the surroundings to fit his feelings. The subject of the poem is "calmness", "loneliness" and "emotions", and the theme is "a man in the woods", "the handling of emotions, being able to keep calm during them", or "a man experiencing the contemplation of death". The mood of the poem is calm, but at the same time rich. The poet, Robert Frost tries to make us see the picture of a calm winter evening. The imagery shows a vivid picture ... in my mind. There are eight syllables on each line, which gives it a smooth chant. The rhythm scheme of the poem may be shown as: aaba, bbcb ... saying ho...

• Word Count: 640
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... cut more turf in one day than any other man" in a way, a passion for digging, blowing its great-ness out of proportion. He creates the picture as he describes giving his granddad milk while he was working in the field one day, a particular memory that has remained fresh in his mind, recalling how he "straightened up to drink then fell right away nicking ... what his father was, and his fathers father etc. "Between my finger and thumb the squat pen rests" As though to say, the biro pen is his tool, his means of earning a living, and hopefully his son will watch in awe oh his writing, He'...

• Word Count: 1627
• Approx Pages: 7

... by her and considers his love to be as rare as any other. The structure of the sonnet is in the form of a eight-line octet followed by a six-line sestet. In the octet, Shakespeare presents the opposing argument and dabbles with comparing his mistress to the usual objects. In each case, a picture of a perfect woman is presented and then quickly taken away and replaced by ... , leaving us with a woman with dull, dark breasts. Using this technique, we develop quickly a picture of a woman whose physical appearance leaves much to be desired. It seems in the octet as if Shakespeare is undermin...

• Word Count: 1339
• Approx Pages: 5

... , His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable cores on innocent tongues,- (19-24) Owen's language in the forth and final stanzas, paints a picture that is so vivid that enables readers to see this experience in their mind and allows ... them to easily refuse the offer that the poet presents. Owen's realistic descriptions form the foundation of the poem. It is the last few lines of the forth stanza that Owen points out that war is not ... all...

• Word Count: 1643
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... royally apparelled". It is these details that create a clear image describing the Lady of Shalott. The revised version is much more discrete and ambiguous when describing the picture of the Lady. For example, although the Lady of Shalott is still envisioned in white, the words used to describe her association with this color in the revised version are in no way as defined and luxurious as a description ... of pearls would be. Instead, the Lady is more abstractly described as "robed in snowy white ... to make a more concrete statement on the detachment of the artist from society. The fin...

• Word Count: 1016
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... God himself t beside Donne, and without him he was too weak to resist temptation. "symbolises the alienation and repression of his soul. The image of the town also implies that good intentions are insubstantial and that a fierce battle is needed to regain the town. The final image of the poem is again an exaggerated paradox, shocking in its intensity. His soul is portrayed as one trapped ... in an unfavourable marriage contract, knowing it loves another. The image implies that the relationship between God and the believer if that of a marriage, and also that the sinner has an alliance w...

• Word Count: 7662
• Approx Pages: 31
• Grade Level: High School

... shun her. "Barbie Doll" shows how a intelligent, healthy young girl is beat down by the picture society wants her to fit. The stanzas in the poem present the reader with an image of how a young girl is molded into a woman in life. The first stanza tells about the toys the girl gets, such as the stove, irons and lipstick that all young women have and are expected to use ... idealistic view of how a women should look and if they do not fit this description they are criticized. The second stanza adds that she is a perfectly healthy young girl, in the lines "she was healthy, tested intellig...

• Word Count: 649
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... love as one possible theme. Not love as in romance or beauty, but an unmentioned love that can never be spoken in any language; the loves between a father and his son. In the first stanza the reader automatically can paint a picture in his or her own head a possible image Hayden wants to get across. For example, "Sundays too my father got up early and ... can make the house comfortable for everyone else. The narrator says, "I would rise and dress fearing the chronic angers" (9). I believe "father" wants the family to get up early to get chores out of the way early. Father gets up early ...

• Word Count: 510
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... sing in his garden, the presence of nature is immediately apparent by the presence of the birds name in the title. There is, I believe, envy in the words of the speaker in the opening stanza, his claim of "heart aches" and a "drowsy numbness" that holds him contrasts strongly with the lively, vivacious picture of the "light-winged Dryad of the trees" that is the nightingale. I feel that the speaker is implying that ... he is somehow less alive than the bird; he ... hope and all good comes alive in its presence. This ties in with what the speaker says about nature not having "slight or t...

• Word Count: 1439
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... make the tyger? In the final stanza, Blake wonders who, if they had the power, would make such a frightening creature as the tyger? Blake uses repetition diligently to impel the reader to further explore his wonderful work. One of the most vital parts of "The Tyger" is symbolism. The first two lines of the poem are: "Tyger, tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night". In the first ... distant deeps or skies" to signify Heaven and Hell. The fire in the tyger's eyes represents the evil burning within this horrifying creature. "What shoulder and what art" and the twisting of the tyg...

• Word Count: 896
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... attention to shape and architecture and to what is both written and implied. Formal poetry is a special language; it is a discourse of essence. Of the two poems elevated, one is much more deserving of a second reading. In "Warning," Jenny Joseph shares a heartening look at growing old. While society ... Byzantium his soul would exist eternally. Which also expresses a desire to be able to "sing" through his poetry and achieve a kind of immortality. In the final stanza, "once out of nature I shall never take my bodily form from any natural thing," he articulates his desire to become a work...

• Word Count: 542
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... death. However, Keats' association between stages of Autumn and the process of dying does not take away from the "ode" effect of the poem. The three-stanza poem seems to create three distinct stages of Autumn: growth, harvest, and death. The theme going in the first stanza is that Autumn is a season of fulfilling, yet the theme ending the final stanza is that Autumn is a season of dying. However ... 's as a metaphor for the process of death, Keats puts the concept of death in a different, more favorable light. In the first stanza, the "growth" stanza, Keats appeal... 2) To Autumn A Procl...

• Word Count: 529
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... separate and no bond were made then they would never be false. I feel symbolism is the use of phrases and sentences to create a picture and or a vision greater that just the meaning of those words. Throughout the first stanza very little if any symbolism was used. However, unlike the first stanza the second and third contain all symbolism. "You so warm, may once have been warmer ... truly has to offer. Marvell then continues on to symbolize the lack of time using other literary devices like allusions. For example, the allusion of "Time's winged chariot hurrying near" is a symbol of the ...

• Word Count: 891
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... , the contrast between the warm light of the village and the cold blackness of the woods definitely alludes to nature's mystery. The pensive, unhurried mood of the poem is reflected with a calm rich imagery that creates a vivid mental picture. The simple words and rhyme scheme of the poem let it flow easily, which adds to the tranquility of the poem. The first stanza of the poem is rather simple and provides the basis for the imagery. The ... is puzzled by his actions. The line "The darkest evening of the year" tells us that the night is very dark, either emotionally or actually, and I b...

• Word Count: 1053
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... , the contrast between the warm light of the village and the cold blackness of the woods definitely alludes to nature's mystery. The pensive, unhurried mood of the poem is reflected with a calm rich imagery that creates a vivid mental picture. The simple words and rhyme scheme of the poem let it flow easily, which adds to the tranquility of the poem. The first stanza of the poem is rather simple and provides the basis for the imagery. The ... is puzzled by his actions. The line "The darkest evening of the year" tells us that the night is very dark, either emotionally or actually, and I b...

• Word Count: 1000
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... and gayer than either of these where the songs of the birds in Lord Belvedere's tree." Betjeman describes the atmosphere in a very positive manner which fits the ballad form completely as it gives a greater contrast with the tragic events to come. As in most of Betjeman's poetry, he creates a three dimensional picture by describing the sound, smell and feeling of the surroundings. The calm, picturesque scene Betjeman creates in ... these first stanzas is very important in relation to the other sections as well. This method at the beginning of the story prepares the reader or audience fo...

• Word Count: 1386
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School