... we make our final decision, which cancels out all that was thought before. This is what Frost manages to do in the arrangement of his stanzas. Imagery is the primary concept of this work thus being the means used by Frost to transmit the poems message. The two roads are each described in such a way that the reader can easy picture the dilemma faced by the traveler. Image is ... so precise that we can picture the first road bending to the right while the other bends in the opposite direction. In the first stanza, (line 1) Frost introduces the elements of his primary metaphor: the divergin...

• Word Count: 1093
• Approx Pages: 4
• 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

... to be a radiant resident (line 4), but all is not as it seems. On the surface, this poem suggest that the palace is a literal place. However, when the text is examined, another meaning is found. Poe is talented at using different styles to present his vision. He paints his literally picture by using settings, symbolism, rhymes, and allegory. He creates an illusions of telling you ... one thing but it's really something else. This poem starts out describing a palace "once a fair and stately palace" (line 3). It is described as having banners floating above it. People coming by would look...

• Word Count: 749
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... 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

... have not seen what I have and so you do not know the truth." The organization of the poem sets up for these final words so that they stick with the reader. His picture of war reflects his bitter attitude. Wilfred Owen's "Arms and the Boy" reflects a different aspect of his resentment for the war. Owen sees the war as something that changes young joyful men into killers. His literal ... and figurative language reveals his ideas. In the first stanza he talks about the ... weapons the boy is given ... ...

• Word Count: 2584
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• 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

... of memories as a stencil of Harwood's own history, what she has become, that has shaped her development throughout life to produce the final product. Although "At the waters edge" is less of a perception of the past, it is more of the utilization of the present that Harwood uses to subjugate her own feeling of worthlessness in her so called "Kingdom of Sorrowing change." These words are ... clearly a self analysis of Harwood's own past, as she enters her twilight years. By recapturing the past, Harwood paints a picture of herself in the present. While both "Alter Ego" and "At the waters...

• Word Count: 904
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... of questions directed at the "Tyger". Throughout the poem, Blake questions the "Tyger" (evil) as to whom, where, and how it was formed. Lastly, Blake finishes by questioning the very existence of the "Tyger." In the poem, Blake paints a picture of a higher power through creating the "Tyger." In the first stanza, the central question of the poem is what & ... quot;immortal" being or force could create such a creature. The "immortal hand or eye" references sight and God's ... evil (the Tyger). In the final stanza, Blake is re-stating the central question while raising the stakes. In the po...

• Word Count: 681
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• 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

... for a season, And then you are worse than the worst." (lines 17-20) Service's use of language helps us picture the Yukon through the eyes of someone who loves the area. The language brings a feeling of authenticity to the poem and helps us understand the thoughts of Service more clearly. The story that the poem tells is of true love for the Yukon. Service begins by telling us that he spent ... by using champagne in the phrase. The whole poem is summed up in the final paragraph. Service compiles all of his feeling towards the Yukon in eight lines. He uses a pun on the word "gold". Both th...

• Word Count: 1127
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• 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

... 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