Analysis of A.E. Housman’s Terence, this is stupid stuff Essay

A less theoretical definition of poetry is, “putting the best words in the best possible order.” A poet may incorporate the theory as follows. The poet may astutely choose words possibly with a double meaning in order to indirectly convey a message, evoke emotions, or to slander. Then, the poet may unconventionally place such words and phrases perhaps out of expected order for the sake of creating a “word picture,” emphasizing the speaker’s feelings, or offering tangibility to the poem. By implementing this idea onto poetic works, the poet will have auspiciously written a superb poem. This theory may be applied to a few of Catullus’s poems specifically “Carmen 5”, “Carmen 8”, and “Carmen 85.” Catullus’s meticulous choice of words and arrangement highlight the central focus of the poem, obliquely criticize traditional Roman law, manipulate the audience’s attitude, transmit the speaker’s emotions, paint “word pictures,” and offer symbolic meaning consequently producing a successful poem.

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.

Another technique this poem takes use of is alliteration. The alliteration used helps to express the themes importance through repletion of sound devices. A specific example of alliteration

On the other hand, Rubia expresses her perspective of how one should flow with the cycle of life, seen when the speaker “would not wish it” (line 2) any other way then him, an anonymous character, going gently into that good night, completely unlike Thomas. The slight character personality description given in stanza 2 allows the reader to understand this man as one who gently approaches, rather than raging. Instead of fighting for more, he is willing to cherish what he is given, and deal with obstacles humorously. Applying this character description to the remainder of the poem, it can be inferred that the poet is trying to convey her feelings regarding death. It is to be taken as it comes, similarly to how this gentle character goes seemingly without any tantrums or qualms into the phenomena of death. Thereby, Rubia views death as inevitable and something to be gently embraced, similarly to that of the cycle of life, where as Thomas sees it as an obstacle and heinous; it is a Minotaur that must be fought violently against. Rubia is settled with the understanding that life ends, therefore adopting a more mature perspective in comparison to Thomas, who, like an optimistic child wishing for another answer, refuses to accept that life co-exists with death.

In the first part of the poem the writer shows the difficulty he is having with taking a human life. In the second stanza he says “Making night work for us the starlight scope bringing men into killing range. This dark tone helps to emphasize the struggle the author is feeling as a soldier in war. Also he shows his emotions directly. In stanza 3 he says “The river under Vi Bridge takes the heart away”. This quote shows the feeling that the author gets

conveys the majority of the message in the poem, ' does it dry up like

The third stanza is addressed to ‘good men’ who regret their choices in life and think of how much they could have achieved, if they had only had lived longer. Poetic techniques used in this stanza are personification, symbolism, repetition and rhyme. In the second line, we see the use of personification when Thomas writes of how “their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay”, referring to the ‘good men’. This line paints a picture of how the frail

The explication of the beginning of the poem is so bizarre. The first verse of the poem talks about the speaker’s loneliness. The speaker woke up from the sleep and he is trying to tell about his dream to his old friend. However, He addressed the darkness as his old friend and started to describe it which he had done before. Also, He is saying that when he was sleeping a vision left its seeds and it was deeply rooted in his brain. In this poem silence is the taboo, what he wants to speak about he cannot. The speaker is mentioning to all enlightened people in this poem. Its theme is man's inability to communicate with man.

When reviewing the work of Dylan Thomas, one can see that he changes his style of language, such as using metaphors and imagery, to fit each poem accordingly. In the poems, "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night," and "Fern Hill," which are the poems I will be looking at in this presentation, he uses different techniques and language to make each poem more effective to the reader. I have chosen these works because they are his most well known, I shall start off by reading the poem “Do Not Go Gentle…” even if it was written after Fern Hill, as it is the most famous of all his works. "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" is addressed to Thomas' father, giving him advice

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

In his poem, “Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff!” A.E Housman conveys the idea that although both poetry and drinking help you deal with your problems, drinking it a temporary fix whereas poetry leaves you far more prepared for life. A.E Housman uses many literary devices to help his audience understand this theme. One of the best literary devices is an allusion. Housman uses allusion to deliver in his point about the ill doings of alcohol and prove the comfort and preparedness poetry brings. He compares poetry to the tale of King Mithridates and his immunity to poison due to preparation and practice building resistance. In comparing poison to poetry he uses cleverly worded phrases such as “He gathered all the springs to birth / From the many-venomed

Because the poem is long, it won’t be quoted extensively here, but it is attached at the end of the paper for ease of reference. Instead, the paper will analyze the poetic elements in the work, stanza by stanza. First, because the poem is being read on-line, it’s not possible to say for certain that each stanza is a particular number of lines long. Each of several versions looks different on the screen; that is, there is no pattern to the number of lines in each stanza. However, the stanzas are more like paragraphs in a letter than

The poem begins with two lines which are repeated throughout the poem which convey what the narrator is thinking, they represent the voice in

The second stanza of the poem can be interpreted in many ways. The narrator mentions his fear and how at one point he broke down in tears. To me, this could mean that he is so headstrong about his hatred towards his enemy that it scares him. He couldn’t possibly be scared of his enemy because it was never mentioned that his enemy threatened him. The narrator then starts crying because he never expected to grow so quickly and instead of yelling about his anger, he develops these tears. Just as the unwanted emotions surface, the good emotions come up just as quickly. The narrator smiling could mean that he wants to mask everything with a smile to show his enemy that he’s doing fine. It could also mean that he’s enjoying how everything is unfolding.