Analysis of "The Sound of the Sea" by Henry Wadswort Longfellow

Throughout the poem, Olds use consonance sounds, particularly “s” “w” and “z” sounds, to recreate the sounds of the surf, and perhaps even the sound of gasping for air. In this respect, even the very sound of this poem reinforces its central idea of drowning.

The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.  The voice of the sea speaks to the soul.  The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace (Chopin 25).

The sound of the ocean draws Edna to go swimming. As she stands on the beach, “the voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing…inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude” (108). If the sound of the ocean was not sensuous, Edna would not have experienced and awakening. Towards the end of the passage, sound comforts her as she is about to die. “Edna heard her father’s voice and her sister Margaret’s. She heard the barking of a

The little waves, with their soft, white hands, Efface the footprints in the sands” (Longfellow 2). The author found his individual freedom in this poem. From the lessons he learned he understood that he must know the day will be gone and a new one will start. He is free to be and to do as he wishes. Just as if an artist messes up on a painting, they can grab a new canvas and redo it

“Seahorses” is a non-rhyming poem with seven ten-line stanzas, which all prominently exhibit the poem’s four main literary devices: imagery, diction, symbolism and rhythm. Leithauser’s eloquent diction and well-placed line and stanza breaks help to construct a relaxing, peaceful rhythm that creates the elegant feeling of a seahorse slowly swimming through the azure waters of the ocean. To add a layer of vivid images to this already enthralling literary canvas, Leithauser uses descriptive vocabulary, such as sparsity, menagerie and nonsynchronous, to describe the situation and help the poem appeal to each of the reader’s five senses. The most subtle, yet possibly most impactful literary device displayed in the poem is symbolism. Leithauser utilizes symbolism throughout the poem to give the poem greater depth and extract deeper meaning from a topic usually thought of as simple and childish. Appearing predominantly in the final two stanzas, but present throughout the poem, Brad Leithauser uses the idea of the seahorse to represent imagination, and the “release” that it can present from our every-day troubles. This message is embodied by the poem’s final sentence which states, “If there’s to be any egress for you and me from the straitening domain of the plausible, what

Quote Literary Styles/Elements Comments Additional Ideas "The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clearing, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace." (Chapter 6, pg. 17) -Personification of the sea -Touch Imagery -Sound Imagery Chopin is personify the sea into an object that possess immense freedom and full of energy; however, it also possess a great deal of temptation and solitude, almost like a siren’s song of positive, while being rather negative in reality.

I can feel the warm and soft sand on my hands and I could just blow on it to make it fly away. Personification is used to describe the waves using “their hands” to wash away the footprints left behind. Symbolism is what makes up almost the entire poem and it’s one of the things that make it a great poem. The reference to animals and tides at the beginning/end of the poem represent that life will go on for the world even after our death. The tide “efface the footprints in the sands” might mean, “time erases all”, because it is everlasting. Another example could be “the day returns”. Longfellow is showing how it will never stop: it is a cycle. He shows us by using personification giving human traits to things. Life is a cycle that keeps recurring and it won’t stop for one no matter what happens. Life has the power to keep on going without us, as if we were never

The style of syntax she uses when constructing the found poem supports the efficacy to getting her message through to the reader. The structure of her poem leads the reader towards her goal of understanding the process of expanding their mind. The main body of the poem, excluding the first and last stanza, can be dissected into three consecutive distinct parts: commands, observations, and questions the author provides. The poem first introduces observations and follows with the metaphysical question: “And why have not / The currents of the sea worn away its bottom?” (Dillard 7). This first stanza serves as a signpost to how Dillard structured the rest of the poem, and it gives the reader a vignette of what will come after. After that stanza, Dillard provides four commands concerning interacting the sky and the sea. This begins the path she sets out for the reader. After presenting the commands, Dillard moves on to provide descriptions about the skies and seas, including observations such as the “Aurora Borealis” and “the height and velocity of waves.” She finally concludes the path she set for the reader with yet another metaphysical question: “If the water which now lies on the floor / Of the deep sea has to lie there forever, / Why was it made fluid instead of solid?” The final stanza of the poem serves as a reminder of the path the

The poetic devices used in the first six lines are alliteration with the “g”,in “ gleams” and “gone”. The punctuation used in the poem creates the image of the waves breaking and flowing up the beach, and rushing back. The ebb and flow creates a calming and tranquil feel in the first six lines. The full tide is a clam tide as it only breaks on the beach with the tall standing white cliffs of dover in front of you creates the image of a hard to reach place, that is empty and the poets own piece of heaven. The full moon creates a image of a bright night where you can see for miles and that the night is clear and clam “out on a tranquil bay” (as mentioned in line 5) add to the image of a clam night(unisa,

The author uses syntax to create a uniform rhyming scheme. There are eight feet in each line of the poem that are consistent until the end of the poem. Words such as “flow’d” and “scream’d” are used in order to keep balance in the beats; therefore, creating rhythm. The poem is organized into stanzas, each stanza having the first line rhyme with the second and the third line rhyme with the fourth. For example, the first stanza reads: “No stir in the air, no stir in the sea; the ship was still as she could be; her sails from heaven received no motion; her keel was steady in the ocean.” (Lines 1-4) The syntax used by the author helps in the meaning of the poem by setting the tone. By setting the tone of the story, one is able to see the meaning behind

As the diver begins to descend, in the third stanza, the consonance begins to fade as the ocean consumes the diver. The repetition of

In the poem The Seafarer, the speaker gives off a depressing feeling, as he describes the extreme conditions he went through while being exiled. He makes the reader feel sorry for him as he describes “how the sea took me, swept me back and forth in sorrow and fear and pain”(Wiggins, 2-3). He later makes it seem like living all alone at sea isn’t so bad after saying, “And yet my heart wanders away, My soul roams with the sea”(Wiggins, 58-59). With saying this he makes the reader feel as if he is content with where he is at in life, but then stay on his depressing tone and wording afterwards.

One of Longfellow’s famous poems, A Psalm of Life, includes many distinctive literary devices that he consistently used throughout his works. One device, rhythm, is Longfellow’s signature throughout all of these poems. In A Psalm of Life, the rhyme scheme is presented as a simple ABAB. This can be seen in phrases such as, “Tell me not in mournful numbers...for the soul is dead that slumbers.” (“A Psalm of Life”). Rhyming is a prominent literary device throughout his poems as he did write “lyric poems” which focused on emotions and had songlike qualities.

Stevens’ use of the word “maker” underscores the woman’s control over the sounds of the sea. The idea of maker reflects creation of something new out of nothingness; in the context of the poem, the woman does not create something new out of oblivion, rather, her song melds her voice with the tumultuous ocean, with the resultant euphony having more beauty than either of the two sounds alone. Stevens elevates the imagination as it enfolds the uncontrolled sound of the ocean into a beautiful song. Stevens evolves his idea as the speaker notices the effect of the woman’s song, not just on the din of the ocean, but also on the speaker’s view. The speaker notices that the lights of the town “mastered the night.” Stevens suggests that the man-made lights, a product of human imagination, overcome the chaos of the night to the point of dominance, resulting in a subjugation of the natural world, expanding the male view of imagination as a transformative power. Bishop denigrates the ability of the imagination to create, even augment an experience, instead asserts actual experience supersedes imaginative ventures that substitute for experience. Bishop

The sounds the reader can infer in this poem are the absence of sounds in stanza one. There is also the variety of sounds in stanza two such as crashing waves and the fierce bolt of the eagle. The reader can infer these sounds because in line 2 it mentions that the eagle is “close to the sun” or high in the air, along with being “in lonely hands” which produces a sense of being high in the air alone. Bringing either an eerie sensation, or a sensation of loneliness and quiet. The reader can also infer in the second stanza that their is a complete mood change, going from peace and quiet ,to disturbed and uneasy. In line 4 it mentions the ocean being “wrinkled” which one could infer that it is moving, or rippled and waves are crashing down. In