Analysis Of Hardy 's ' The Best Hope Ever Sown '

Firstly, the speaker’s attitude or the tone demonstrates how a person can be the cause of their own misery. From the very start of the poem the speaker has a depressing tone. Any little event that occurs the speaker reads it as a negative occurrence that adds to his ever growing misery. For Example, when the speaker says “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” The speaker hears a knock on the door and opens it to see that there is no one there. Instead of going back to sleep he demonstrates his negative attitude by

Over the Garden Wall is a children’s cartoon series with a rather dark subject: a visit to the afterlife. The show focuses on two brothers, Wirt and Greg. Unaware of their true plight, Wirt and Greg navigate their way through unfamiliar territory in search of a way home, and meet other unusual characters along the way. The show resembles Dante’s own trip to the afterlife in many ways. Over the Garden Wall alludes to Dante’s Commedia through its settings, the characters, and the aspects that the two versions of the afterlife share, all of which implies that the series is based loosely on Dante’s travels in his Commedia.

    The last three lines of the poem, "And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more, /Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied, / The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor," are the strongest. Yeats is saying that, although they are unhappy with their lives, they have not given up hope. They still feel that they can find perfect happiness. They realize that this happiness cannot be found in the lives they are currently living. Yeats often used the image of the cross or of Christ’s crucifixion to symbolize things such as "discord, incompleteness, opposition, mortality, temporality" (Ellmann and O'Clair, 135). With this line, he is saying that these people have given up hope that they will ever be happy in their hectic, strife-filled, material worlds. They are now turning to God in order to find some sense of peace and fulfillment in their lives. The

This poem talks about nature and death. William Cullen Bryant shares that nature can make death less painful. He says that when we start to think about death, we should go outside, and look around and listen to the natural earth sounds. This is supposed to remind us that when we die, we will mix back into the earth. The poem tells us that when we die, we will not be alone. We will be with every other person that has ever been buried, In the ground, which in this poem is called the “great tomb of man”. It also tells us that even those that are still living will soon die and join in the great tomb of man. This poem is meant to comfort those that are afraid of dying and death in general. At the end of the poem, we are told to think of death as

In the final stanza, he makes the reader sad as he assumes the inevitable will happen and she will die. He expresses this through metaphors such as a “black figure in her white cave”, which is a reference to the bright white hospital rooms and although he is the black figure he thinks she just sees a shadow which could be the grim reaper or even death himself, coming to end her journey. No one wants to deal with the sorrow of losing a loved one for good, as

Thomas realizes it is human nature to take life for granted; until death approaches. Thomas wrote this poem for his father, to tell him that there is so much more for him here, living, to do. The only way to deter death is through fury and frenzy. Death comes too quickly for most people and only with "rage" can death be defied.

In the poem, the contrast of hard negative connotations and soft sensitive words indicates his purpose of writing. Examples of soft words are “gently its touch, rouse, kind old sun, whispering, full-nerved, still warm” Examples of hard words are “snow, clays of a cold star, clay grew tall, fatuous sunbeams, break earth’s sleep at all”. The word clay reminds us that we came from clay and we return to dust. The choice of cold star probably refers to earth before it was inhabited which was also expressed in the bible “thou hast made me of clay and wilt thou bring me unto dust again”. The word fatuous shows the anger and frustration of the writer. Whispering has the feeling of anxiety and dread. The last line is an old existential question of “why are we here?” With the use of sound effects, themes, technique and language, the poem clearly shows the genuine emotions of empathy, waste and the futility of

His previous “cold reprieve” has been warmed by the leaves that “burn red” before dying in nature. The short but beautiful life of the leaf is a metaphor for what life should be - beautiful regardless of the time given. This juxtaposition of life as a “cold reprieve” changing into the image of a leaf burning “red” shows how the voice’s view on life is changing throughout the poem by the echo’s prompting. Realizing that nature is beautiful in death, he now understands that life is a beautiful journey leading up to death that should be cherished in all of its beauty. Dying is a process that can bring “ecstasy” in its wake. Waiting for death is not so bad when a beautiful life surrounded by joyful experiences is so readily available to all that are willing to think positively. Regardless of the beauty that can come with life, it can seem to become a burden that people suffer through until death. The grief that comes with “life’s long disease” will be resolved in death. Death is not an “enemy” to be feared, but a natural part of life that must be accepted. In contrast, the worst enemy of the voice is himself - his own uncertainty and worry have caused all of his pain. All of the rhetorical questions that he asks display the extent of his worry about the unknown future, but his subconscious begins to soothe his worries and comfort him with the

The second stanza is addressed to ‘wise men’ who know they cannot hide from death and it’s inevitability. Poetic techniques used in this stanza are metaphors, rhyme, symbols and repetition. The line “words had forked no lightning” is a metaphor because words cannot actually fork lightning. This line suggests that the men hadn’t made an impact on the world, nor accomplished all they wanted to in life. Rhyming is also a technique used in every line, ‘right’ and ‘night’ are rhyming words used, and ‘they’ in the second line rhymes with ‘day’ in the previous stanza. So ‘night’, ‘light’ and ‘right’ rhyme, and ‘day’ and ‘they’ rhyme, hence the ABA ABA rhyming pattern. The third poetic device used in the second stanza is symbolism of ‘dark’ in the first line, which represents death. Repetition of “do not go gentle into that good night” is repeated every second stanza as the ending line, ‘night’ in the final line also symbolises death.

This is expressed by the multiple examples of old men whom regret certain aspects of their lives and defy death even when they know their time is up. The speaker is urging his father to fight against old age and death. The meaning and subject of the poem influence the tone and mood. The tone is one of frustration and insistence. Thomas is slightly angry and demanding. His words are not a request, they are an order. The mood of the poem is is serious and solemn due to the poem focusing mainly on the issue of death. This mood and tone is created by words such as “burn”(2), “Grieved”(11) and “rage”(3) along with phrases such as “crying how bright”(7), “forked no lightning”(5), “near death”(13) and “fierce tears”(17). The insistent feeling is also created by the repetition of the lines “Do not go gentle into that good night”(1), and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”(3). The figurative language used also affect how the meaning, tone and mood are interpreted.

The Poem begins with a personification of death as "kindly" (3). By doing this, the speaker introduces a portrayal on death that might have conflictions. Most of the times, death has a negative connotation. Whether it is an inevitable or tragic view, it opposes to what is seen in the poem. The speaker accepts death as a friendly invitation when the time is right, rather than something that is bound to happen. The speaker then joins immortality, personified as a passenger in a carriage. Immortality simply cannot be a passenger as it is a non-living thing. The reasoning for this could be that immortality ties together the link between the speaker and death, ultimately introducing the voyage to come. The first stanza sets a precedent of a meter to follow throughout most of the poem. The first line contains eight

‘The Man He Killed’ was written in the nineteenth century during the Boer War that took place in South Africa in 1898. This war was because the British Empire wanted to take control over the land because of its rich gold and diamonds. The poem is written in a conversational tone, with speech marks, making us feel that the soldier is talking directly to us reminiscing about killing a “foe” whilst at war. The speaker in this poem is a man of low class who was unemployed and had already sold all his possessions and consequently had no choice but to join the army; this can be seen when the man states “just as I- was out of work-had sold his traps”. Hardy is showing us that some people join the army just out of desperation not because they believe in the political side of war. These unemployed, low classed people have no other way of earning the money to help them survive so they turn to the only other option the have- joining the army. The speaker is forced to kill another man which he claims was his ‘foe’ and later on realises that he and the man had a lot in common.

Also as a symbol for retribution in the poem is the appearance of Life in Death. In Christianity, in order to experience everlasting life in heaven, humans must succumb to death first. Coleridge uses supernatural events to show real life situations in his poem. The real life situation of life in death in Christianity is symbolized as a

Yet how they creep through my fingers to the deep, While I weep – while I weep! This is an indirection indication to the main character realizing that he cannot hold onto his loved one anymore. As the poem continues the main character gets even more troubled, when he says in line eight “O god! Can I not clasp them with a tighter clasp? O God! Can I not save One from the pitiless wave?” This is almost a cry for help, almost like him saying “God I tried to save my loved one, why did this happen to me? Why are they leaving me? I tried to save them!” And then in the last two lines of the second stanza, the character becomes overwhelmed with the pain and I feel almost whispers, “Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?” Fundamentally, allowing him to come to the conclusion that his loved one is gone, but that what he went through was just a bad dream, like everything else he had endured throughout his life.

Indeed, this sound of sadness is an ancient entity since Sophocles long ago/ Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought/ Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow/ Of human misery. The eternal note of sadness has been important to writers and philosophers throughout time. Arnold believed this same sound existed in all the seas around the world. The waves, sounding of despair, also symbolize the curtailment of religious values. In stanza three the speaker describes the diminishing faith of religion in England: The Sea of Faith/ Was once, too, at the full, and round earths shore/ Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. At one point Englands faith was like a high tide. It was similar to a belt being placed around the world, holding it together. During this time people believed in their religion, thus leading England into a state of order and tranquility. However, now the speaker only feels a troubled sense of blankness: But now I only hear/ Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,/ Retreating, to the breath/ Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear/ And naked shingles of the world. This passage emphasizes a mood of uncertainty and alienation in the world. In stanza four, the speaker ends on a note of melancholy. Love is offered as a possible solace from the sadness of the world, but quickly this idea is abandoned for the world,