... to create a sense of joy and hope that soon leads to despair. "When springtime comes, the sun and showers bring out a host of dancing flowers" (1-2) and "The stars begin to twinkle too" (4) paint a picture that all is right in the world. At the end of the poem, his last lines, "However popular such stuff It's never really quite enough" (9-10 ... ) turns this picture upside down. The poem quickly turns to despair. The words "never really" (10) are used to show ... of love and life that no matter what man does, he is doomed to repeat this heartbreak. The final poem by Heine is different f...

• Word Count: 1828
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... of Deaths and Entrances in 1946. This poem is subtler in the theme of life and death than the other two. In "Fern Hill" Thomas explores life and death by recalling actual childhood experiences at his aunt's farmhouse called Fern Hill. He opens the poem like a storyteller and "presents an idyllic picture of childhood on a farm, filled with vivid imagery which presents a child's view ... of the world" (Tremlett 150). As the poem continues, Thomas uses exaggeration to emphasize that it is a child's eyes through which ... were his own memories of his younger years. However Thomas's views o...

• Word Count: 1651
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... of Deaths and Entrances in 1946. This poem is subtler in the theme of life and death than the other two. In "Fern Hill" Thomas explores life and death by recalling actual childhood experiences at his aunt's farmhouse called Fern Hill. He opens the poem like a storyteller and "presents an idyllic picture of childhood on a farm, filled with vivid imagery which presents a child's view ... of the world" (Tremlett 150). As the poem continues, Thomas uses exaggeration to emphasize that it is a child's eyes through which ... were his own memories of his younger years. However Thomas's views o...

• Word Count: 1595
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... 's female speaker. Feminine liberation, a concept which secedes much of Plath's poetry is explored in the final stanzas of 'Lady Lazarus'. In recognition of the injustice of circumstance, Plath places a timely warning on the men who seek to profit from her existence in 'Beware/ Beware, Herr God, Herr Lucifer.' Her use of the familiar contrast of God and Lucifer allows a more significant exploration of ... masculine archetype in Otto Plath. Hughes has used both his own familiar metaphors and images as well as the language of Plath's poetry to explore more abstract concepts of gu...

• Word Count: 2183
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... is supposed to inspire their civilization and justify the war' (Breen 184). The aforementioned lines are also Modernistic in content because of the ambiguity in the final line in the stanza. which proposes several theories that remain unanswered. The reader wonders if Owen is stating that that the soldiers are exposing themselves to a martyred death for God's love, or if the entire concept of Christianity, which preaches God's ... by Owen is his singular way of showing the change in the time. The romanticizing of every topic that was once a style of Keats and his coterie of fellow poet...

• Word Count: 2437
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... the reader the chance to make a personal interpretation, although by the rest of the poem, it is fairly clear that the viewpoint of the speaker is that war involves both a physical and a mental sickness. Likewise, in the narrative description "towards our distant rest", the "rest" could be interpreted either as the final destination of the army, or as death of individual soldiers. Additionally, the words used to describe the setting and the actions of the ... punctuation also has an important role in emphasizing the effects present in the imagery of the poem. Asyndetons in the first sta...

• Word Count: 1419
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... , which differed only slightly to the definitive 1736 edition, features elements which confirmed the status of the piece as one of the greats of the Augustan age. This final version includes a "Dedicatory Letter" to Miss Fermor, which serves the purpose of excusing the previous "imperfect" draft, with which the lady was less than pleased, as well as introducing the theme of the poem: the "little unguarded follies" of the fair sex. Pope tells ... later works and this, too, is reflected in his use of the supernatural machinery. The second, hugely important function of the sylphs in "The Ra...

• Word Count: 2068
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... which Dickinson presents the speaker's tippet allows the reader to receive the mental picture of a "bridal veil" (qtd. in Davis 117), as Anderson interprets it to be. Next, Dickinson paints a picture of a house, but still reminds the reader that it is actually a grave that she is describing. The final image in the poem is that of the horses heads looking toward eternity. Knapp believes that the final image allows the speaker's view to ... broaden from inside of the carriage to the rest of the outside world (94). Thus, the reader is given a broader image than what ... ...

• Word Count: 2040
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... "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

... the images seem to picture Autumn at rest: "sitting careless, .. sound asleep, drows"d, keep, .. steady, .. with patient look"- while the real world events referred to actually involve the harvest, a time of the year when people have to work hard and get the crops in. Keats builds on this contradiction of leisure and effort, the effect of which is to sharpen the realities of rural life and work. STANZA 3 The final ... that Keats is able to repeat and stress certain soft and sometimes extensive sounds over a relatively untypical scheme to highlight certain scenes and to manipulate the se...

• Word Count: 1423
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... 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

... , actual and ideal from the perspective of a narrator wishing to live immortally or die easefully. The way that music functions in the poem defines the way the narration views the answer to such questions; the authoritative force of the poem lies in the indeterminacy of the final line and the previous cycle of repression, transference, and return that the narrator's psychology delineates through music ... of several forms. The music of life, music of death, and the music of immortality are all part of the whole of the play, the ... the bird-song illicits, but is slow to remove the pain, ...

• Word Count: 1517
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... covered in green pus like that of the "green sea" of gas which so easily "choked" and "smothered" the boy and the added pain of being "sick of sin." We need to imagine what it was like as we are reminded by repetition, "...if you could hear- The final and most bitter part of the poem that points a striking picture of the disgusting nature of war would have ... to b the expressions used by the poet, " at every jolt-, " gargling-, " froth ... -corrupted- and " as bitter as the cud- The sudden bump of the wagon in a keyhole. The body will jerk in pain resulting in the boy spewing out bits ...

• Word Count: 1476
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... at all not glorious. This message is echoed throughout the poem from the first stanza to the last line. In the opening stanza you get a very different image of the soldiers from what you might expect from the title. One thinks of soldiers as smart, proud, marching, and fighting, but Owen's picture is based on his personal experience of the battlefield. There is nothing romantic about Owen's soldiers ... tired that they are like old women and beggars floundering through the mud. They are the opposite of Tennyson's 'Noble six hundred?. Owen's picture is not glorious at all and the very fi...

• Word Count: 1507
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... hope of something better. The second poem is a truer and more stark reality. The first poem ends with a didactic statement that "If all do their duty, they need not fear harm." Blake uses this final line as guidance whereas the second poem ends with the "misery" that is the true picture of the young chimney sweeps life. In the second poem Blake points a finger at the adults responsible. These adults ... include both the church and the state. Where the first poem seems to be guidance and expression of hope the second is clearly a condemnation of the tragedy of the polarized classes of th...

• Word Count: 1853
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... character, Eliot refers to every man or any man by using the reference "hollow men." Since the "hollow men" possesses a "headpiece filled with straw" a picture of a scarecrow denied a brain is envisioned. Without intelligence and common sense the "stuffed men" are basically helpless men tied to their posts. Eliot chooses despair as the only alternative possible in such a crooked world. He "saw ... emphasize its unnecessary qualities. Instead of just using adjectives Eliot includes an adjective and its direct opposite to paint a more vivid picture of the colorless and formless setting. In ...

• Word Count: 1435
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... what I am for! But "time's wingëd chariot- paints a different picture. The lonely desolation of the desert, of the grave is all we can look forward to. The notion of worms winning what he has lost clearly dismays my lover. I love the use of the word "quaint- to describe my honour. The final part of the poem celebrates the now and the pleasures available to us. Rather than be prisoners of time ... we should use it to our advantage. I feel ready to "tear- pleasure from life. He has won the argument. I am already in bed with him. Just don ... , power, pleasure and toil - all encapsulated ...

• Word Count: 1553
• Approx Pages: 6
• 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

... disquieting contrasts, creating a poignant but incongruous tribute to a dead, deaf father. The poet's loving memories of his relationship with his father slowly unfolds with each stanza so that we are presented with a complete picture of his father. This contrasts the bitter relationship he has with God and his lack of faith. The poem is one of significant contrasts such as: life and death, past ... and present, youth and old age and noise and silence. The pun in title on the word 'deaf', though truthful, plays on the word 'dead' and introduces the comic irony present through ...

• Word Count: 1321
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... mother's hospitalization, Elizabeth developed a serious case of asthma that plagued her all of her life. On top of this, she suffered from chronic alcoholism and a liking for anti-depressant drugs. The final blow came when Bishop's lover, Maria Carlota Costellat de Macedo Soares, committed suicide in 1967. It is safe to say that Elizabeth experienced enough tragedy to fill volumes of poetry ... . Again, Bishop is presumably the speaker: He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient was-paper, and its pattern of dar...

• Word Count: 1338
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... their daughter's machine off as they want their daughter to die "with Dignity." Religion and the courts play a large part in this state of affairs and between all of this they have to come up with a conclusion. Within the first few lines we are painted a very detailed picture of the young girls dilemma. "Thin as a bird fallen from its nest." This sentence is a simile ... that makes a large impact on you and is very memorable. The subject of the poem is clear right from the start. A young girl is vulnerable, unloved, neglected and is fighting ... or ending life. At the end of the poem, ...

• Word Count: 1276
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... , enduring and constant. Art has the ability to provoke thought and invoke the senses of ones mind and in his poem, Keats has attempted to rouse the feelings of the responder. The line "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter" speaks true to the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words". The figures on the urn, such as the lovers beneath the tree, tell the story more eloquently than words and ... , "forever happy" lifestyle by realising that no one is truly happy no matter how things appear to the outside world. After reading this poem, one must ask- was so much of his ...

• Word Count: 1253
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... come deeper meanings, but once again showing nature as a point of view and making the poems more inviting for people to read. Cummings in many of his poems used uniqueness as an advantage and brings other aspects into the picture. Using nature as a theme helped cummings get the word out to a different audience. Another place cummings liked to bring out personal option was ... through human spirit. The human spirit that was used was from own life experiences or of what was seen in people around ... that none of his poems look that of an educated man. "Ecstasy and anguish, being and beco...

• Word Count: 1545
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• 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