Analysis Of The Poem ' Lycidas ' By Paul J. Alpes

People and the landscape are inextricably linked and consequently each play a role in shaping the other. The texts we have studied show the implications for the individuals present based on their treatment of the landscape, highlighting the connection between the two. Both Judith Wright in her poems “Brother and Sisters” and “The Hawthorne Hedge” as well as Michael Wilding in his short story “As Boys to Wanton Flies” showcase the emotional ties between the individuals and the landscape. Both composers, through their chosen text demonstrate how the individuals are connected, influenced and shaped by the landscape showing that they are not merely inhabitants but are a part of their chosen landscape. This has been done to highlight the involvement

The tone of the poem changes as the poem progresses. The poem begins with energetic language like “full of heroic tales” and “by a mere swing to his shoulder”. The composer also uses hyperboles like “My father began as a god” and “lifted me to heaven”. The use of this positive language indicates to the responder that the composer is longing for those days – he is nostalgic. It also highlights the perspective of a typical child. The language used in the middle of the poem is highly critical of his father: “A foolish small old man”. This highlights the perspective of a typical teenager and signifies that they have generally conflicting views. The language used in the last section of the poem is more loving and emotional than the rest: “...revealing virtues such as honesty, generosity, integrity”. This draws attention to a mature adult’s perspective.

In ‘I kneel to pick frail melancholy flowers among ashes and loam’ a tone of loneliness and sadness is established as the persona enters. Harwood describes the violets as ‘frail’ and ‘melancholy’, terms that arn’t usually associated with flowers. This is also explored in the juxtaposition of ‘ashes’ and ‘loam’. Ash is symbolic of death and decay which contradicts the ‘loam’, symbolic of life and birth. The persona’s dark and unpleasant perceptions reveal their uncertainty and state of mind. The present tense indicates the persona’s adulthood and their sense of longing and unsatisfaction conveyed through the nostalgic delivery of

The appreciation of nature is illustrated through imagery ‘and now the country bursts open on the sea-across a calico beach unfurling’. The use of personification in the phrase ‘and the water sways’ is symbolic for life and nature, giving that water has human qualities. In contrast, ‘silver basin’ is a representation of a material creation and blends in with natural world. The poem is dominated by light and pure images of ‘sunlight rotating’ which emphasizes the emotional concept of this journey. The use of first person ‘I see from where I’m bent one of those bright crockery days that belong to so much I remember’ shapes the diverse range of imagery and mood within the poem. The poet appears to be emotional about his past considering his thoughts are stimulated by different landscapes through physical journey.

The poem, “Gospel” by Philip Levine gives a vivid description of what the narrator sees around them. The narrator focuses their description on nature. They make many references to types of plants like lupine and thistles. Throughout the poem, nature can be seen as and abstract creature. Nature is giving and lively. The conflict in the poem is between the speaker and nature. The narrator tries to show how nature can give nice outdoor views and how the earth gives people a place to walk on while people give nothing back to nature. Levine’s speaker uses repetition and comparisons to show how nature is constantly pleading for the narrators attention yet they cannot offer anything to the relationship they have with nature. The poem slowly evolves

This is particularly evident within drifters were a families sense of identity is continuously hampered by their nomadic lifestyle with they must embrace as itinerant workers. Throughout the poem, the blackberry bush is constantly referred to as a symbol of hope that the family would settle into one location “when they came here, she held out her hand bright with berries”. The use of such a symbol brings to light the similarity between the drifter’s erratic life journey and the blackberry bush. As the family move into a town they begin to embrace there environment, only to end the experience as quickly as it began similarly to the blackberry bushes cycle of growth and ‘bright berries’ only to wither and die. This ultimately displays the emotional obstacles within a physical journey that reinforces our inner strength. Furthermore, the negative and positive aspects of the journey of life experienced by the characters are highlighted through the juxtaposing of the girls reaction to the decision to move, “the oldest girl was close to tear/ the youngest girl was beaming”. The positive element of the a family being an individual’s sense of support and identity is vaguely portrayed, however the overwhelming negative sense that such a family provides and undesirable predetermined script of one’s life is emphasised as in this instance it has impeded on the girls growth. This ultimately increases the responder’s awareness of the underlying emotional journey within every physical journey, increasing the inner strength of those that choose to take such

Seamus Heaney and Thomas Hardy both depict images of rural life as difficult and uncomfortable. In their poems ‘At a Potato Digging’ and ‘A Sheep Fair’ they describe different aspects of rural life; these were elements of life that would have been familiar to the poets and ones that they would have experienced. In their poetry Heaney and Hardy

The poem begins with the poet noticing the beauty around her, the fall colors as the sun sets “Their leaves and fruits seemed painted, but was true, / Of green, of red, of yellow, mixed hue;” (5-6). The poet immediately relates the effects of nature’s beauty to her own spiritual beliefs. She wonders that if nature here on Earth is so magnificent, then Heaven must be more wonderful than ever imagined. She then views a stately oak tree and

The woman in the poem feels as if she is being forgotten by her husband and children. As she gets older, she experiences loss of loved ones until she is seemingly alone. Not surprising whatsoever, Gwendolyn Brooks has made yet another relatable poem. Whether they admit it or not, everyone in their lifetime feels as if they are lonely in some hard times. Brooks has the ability to create a character that portrays a complicated feeling incredibly well, which is a quality that every writer would wish to accomplish. Brooks’ talent as a writer is heightened in this poem, mostly because she shows how much she truly can transform her writing into a complex poem for audiences to think about. In doing this, she uses personification to add to the creativity of this poem in the line “the grasses forgetting their blaze and consenting to brown.” This is symbolic for autumn and the aging of a person’s physical features, because just as plants age from spring to fall, people age from a child to grow wrinkly, shriveled and no longer full of youth. Brooks incorporates repetition into this specific poem. For example, in this piece of poetry she repeats “I am a woman,” ”it is summer-gone,” and writes “I am cold in this cold house this house.” All of these uses of repetition emphasize the development from a younger woman to the older-age of womanhood. The manner Gwendolyn Brooks goes about writing this poem hints to the

However, in the woods the tone is calm and images seem to be linked closely to nature. ‘Therefore the winds piping to us in vain, as in revenge have sucked up the sea’. The natural images are used to describe true love. Unlike the fearful Athens, the wood’s is free, but vulnerable to chaos.

Debora B. Schwartz in her article, "Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Comedy" highlights the fact that the major themes which are typically discussed in pastoral poetry include: "love and seduction;… the corruption of the city or court vs. the ‘purity’ of idealized country life…" (par. 2). In the poem, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," the theme of the "'purity' of idealized country life" is explored when the male persona attempts to use words which conjure up images of an paradise which he and his love interest can escape to sexually gratify each other. The male persona entices his love interest to "come live" with him and be his love (l. 1). He desires that he and his lover's "prove" the various "pleasures" that "woods or steepy mountain yields" (ll. 2, 4). This argument is rebuffed by the female persona in the poem, "The Nymph's Reply to Her Husband," when she states the following: "Time drives the flocks from field to fold, /When rivers rage and rocks grow cold" (ll. 5-6). It should be noted that these lines reflect the following lines of Marlowe's poem: "And we will sit upon the rocks, / seeing the shepherds feed their flocks/ by shallow rivers…" (ll. 5-7). The female persona undermines the shepherd's idealization of the countryside and pastoral life since the passage of time, depicted by the seasons, will change the characteristics of these things described so positively by the male persona in Marlowe's poem.

By analysing the structure (shift from external to internal landscape), language (tenses, pronoun), and presentation of the experience of seeing the daffodils, I seek to demonstrate that feelings of the sublime are only evoked when the narrator’s imagination participates in the scene he has internalized in his memory. While the first three stanzas exemplify a merely physical stimulus and response mechanism to nature, the last stanza shows how active poetic imagination enables man to recreate and amplify emotions encountered, thus resulting in feelings of the sublime. Why does the observer not recognise the ‘wealth’ the scene brings in that moment? How does poetic imagination connect the physical eye and the inner eye to allow for sublime, transcendental experience? Hess argues that the poem “depend[s] for [its] power on the narrator’s ability to fix a single, discrete, visually defined moment of experience in his mind, to which he can later return in acts of private memory and imagination” (298). An example of the recapturing of emotions is seen where “gay” (I. 15) is recaptured as “pleasure” (I. 23) at the end. Active imagination, which draws inspiration from memory of the initial encounter, is now a permanent possession that

Pastoral poetry is a lyric poem that idealizes nature while criticizing urban life.These two pastoral poems are example of the contrast between the easygoing countryside and the hustle bustle of a city. In the famous pastoral poetry, “The Passionate Shepherd to his love,” the Shepherd happily describes the beautiful natural image of a perfect life. He wholeheartedly believes that love is always joyful and nothing can ruin the serenity. This poem is criticized for its deluded perspective by the Nymph in a taunting way. She mocks his fantasy life that has everlasting flowers, melodious birds and finest wool gown. The Nymph’s view on her ideal love is infinite, nonmaterialistic and realistic which contradicts the Shepherd’s view on ideal love—youthful, acquisitive, and blinding; these incompatible views tear a relationship into pieces especially when the problem is addressed in a cynical tone.

The speaker furthermore conveys the idea that nature is a grandeur that should be recognized by including the element of imagery. The poet utilizes imagery as a technique to appeal to reader’s sense of sight . It is “the darkest evening of the year” (line 8) and a traveller and his horse stop “between the woods and frozen lake” (line 7). By writing with details such as these, readers are capable of effortlessly envisioning the peaceful scenery that lies before the speaker. The persona then draws on reader’s sense of sound. “The only other sound’s the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake.” The illustration allows readers to not only see,

such as “amazing” and “extraordinary,”Albee highlights the feelings associated with having sexual relations with a goat and Martin’s satisfaction is clearly conveyed to readers. Also, he suggests that being with Sylvia made him feel a new and unique way, which illustrates that it is the missing component to the happiness in his life. Therefore, the goat symbolizes the missing piece in Martin’s life and the inner desires and fantasies in the American Dream. Albee uses the goat as a symbol to express the American Dream from a unique perspective. The American Dream is often thought to be the “white picket fence life,” so when Albee uses the goat to symbolize the American Dream, he generates entertainment and interest in readers because of it’s unusual representation. Also, having the goat represent inner desires and fantasies appeals to the audience through pathos because of the humorous idea. Without the use of a goat as symbolism, Albee’s argument would not be as strong because to readers, his play would only appear to be about having sexual relations with a goat. By using symbols, Albee strengthens his argument because he is able to depict the role of inner desires and fantasies in the American Dream.