Confessional Poetry Essay

T.S Eliot encapsulates a existential isolation and subsequent attentiveness to the world around him, this is expressed through a discipline of words which creates a door into the mind of an infinitely suffering soul. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Preludes are two of Eliot’s poems that heavily represent his understanding and perspective on the world, though his life may seem to be reflected in these poems, they only capture a single moment in his life. These experiences are formed by the intense feeling of isolation and rejection, Eliot’s movement away from society subsequently shifted his focus into a more attentive and detailed realm. The textual integrity of his poems are found through the personal meaning and words, and though

“It’s okay to look back on the past. Just don’t stare.” Benjamin Dover once said. The quote is significant to the true meaning of the poem. Reflecting on the past may be a good thing, but one shouldn’t emerge themselves too deep. Throughout the poem, Lowell writes with explicit detail. The speaker reflects on their past experiences with someone whilst living in a small town in Maine. The duo would sit on a rock and watch the sea flow onto them at times. At first itIn “Water”, written by the poet Robert Lowell, the theme of reflecting on the past is illustrated through Lowell’s use of imagery.

Poetry can sometimes allow one to explore the unknown. However, in some works of poetry, one can realise that some known ideas or values remain relevant to current society. This is certainly applicable to T.S. Eliot’s poems, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Rhapsody on a Windy Night. Eliot’s manipulation of poetic techniques in both these poems allows the responder to realise that some ideas prevail in both modern and post-modern society. These poems explore the unknown phenomena of the obscurity regarding the purpose and meaning of life. This unknown phenomena causes the persona in both texts to resort to a sense of isolation or alienation. Eliot uses poetic techniques such as metaphors and personification to convey his ideas.

In her poem, “Lady Lazarus,” Sylvia Plath uses dark imagery, disturbing diction, and allusions to shameful historical happenings to create a unique and morbid tone that reflects the necessity of life and death. Although the imagery and diction and allusions are all dark and dreary, it seems that the speaker’s attitude towards death is positive. The speaker longs for death, and despises the fact the she is continually raised up out of it.

Poets have written love poems for centuries with the first said to be around 1000BC. But what is love? It is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘ to have attachment to and affection for’. However, after studying various love poems, I have found that love is portrayed in many different ways. It can be possessive, hateful and pure and the fact that William Shakespeare said ‘The course of true love never did run smooth’ suggests that love is more complicated than a simple dictionary definition.

Elizabeth Bishop hid many aspects of her life, and although she was not openly confessional as Robert Lowell, pieces of her did filter through in her poetry: intentional or otherwise. Even so, Bishop’s work is like twisting the blinds open. You must exert some force, though not too much, to allow the light to come in. There is a delicate balance a reader must find when interpreting Bishop’s poetry between knowing the context of the poem and bringing in personal experience. Moreover, interpreting her work through only raw text rather than the communication between poet and reader will dilute the experience. Using expert tone and imagery, Bishop paints elaborate scenes that create a portal to places one has never been, but feels like they’ve

Moreover, the consistent integration of imagination and historical memory imparts a powerfully suggestive sense of inevitability to Carter's ethics of change. The envisioned changes, even if unrealized, are as much a part of a distinctive historical pattern, as is the past which made the present itself inevitable. And this pervasive sense of inevitability inspires recurrent images and themes of movement.

The priest’s intervention, protection, and instruction help Jackie reject the dark, judgmental theology of Mrs. Ryan as well as the false facade of Nora’s piety and control, bringing him to an understanding of the absolution a proper, heartfelt Confession provides. The priest enters the confessional as “a little light” (179) that will bring Confession out of the dark teachings of Mrs. Ryan. Because Jackie is so concerned with Ryan’s teachings about Hell, he ends up talking to the priest “upside-down” (179), like his view of Confession. Immediately after Jackie falls “flat on [his] back” (179), as if he was cast out of the confessional and into Hell, the priest rushes out “look[ing] something terrible” (180) to accept him back in. When Nora comes along and attacks Jackie, the

Literature, poetry included, gives us the opportunity to understand a person’s experiences, or at least empathize with him or her. Often these experiences are categorized and labeled as themes; such themes include contrasting death to life, age, and regret. “Those Winter Sundays” and “Eating Together” focus on the death of the father of the narrator. Each poem also details briefly how the narrator has chosen to respond to his or her father’s death. One takes a particularly regretful stance on the issue, whereas the other focuses more on appreciating the time shared. This essay will explicate each poem, compare these explications, and compare the writers themselves.

Sylvia Plath is well known for her rather obscure themes in her writing. One theme that appears in almost all of her poems is that of isolation from mankind and the world. In Plath’s case, isolation can also mean isolation from expression, from freedom, or from people. Plath’s poems “Daddy”, “Lady Lazarus”, and “Tulips” all express isolation through separate literary techniques such as metaphor, juxtaposition, and imagery

Sylvia Plath uses a lot of allusions in her poem “Lady Lazarus” to add a deep and ghostly meaning to the words that she uses. These biblical and historical allusions also add an extremely angry tone of voice. Ultimately, these biblical and historical allusions show her message that almost dying is an event she likes to be a part of. For example, Plath uses a historical allusion to the holocaust in the beginning of the poem. The reference to the holocaust and other things create the main tone of death.

If you are reading this anthology, then there must be a part of you that is curious as to what is considered poetry and the reason that it has existed in our human culture for so long. From the beginning of our development as an intellectual species, there has always been ways of storytelling. It is something that is a common thread in all cultures and goes back to the days of early man. Pictures were the first way of telling a story and have been discovered in cave paintings dating back over 30,000 years ago(Wendt). As our development as a species evolved, so too did our means of communication. Language grew and became more complex, eventually becoming an integral part of our culture. The development of an advanced

Lowell opens the poem with a bold tone, explicitly addressing the subject of her work and beginning to characterize and compliment her. In using a second person point of view, Lowell begins to construct an intimate tone on which she will continue to augment as the poem progresses. Though the speaker addresses her subject outright in the poem, Lowell knows that readers of this poem feel as though they are outsiders who, upon seeing the word “you”, imagine a private conversation. In this way, Lowell manipulates her readers to feel as though they are witnessing in a private moment, such as one shared between lovers.

A man got in an argument with someone else and his anger built up. That anger is made him do a terrible thing. Anger or hate can dwell in a person until they do something they will regret, or as a result of that. In the poems “A Poison Tree” by William Blake and “A total stranger one black day” by e. e. cummings both display the idea that anger can be the cause of something a person can regret or the result.

Sylvia Plath’s disturbing, malevolent poem, ‘Lady Lazarus” is one which features a complex character that has began to abhor life. The poem takes the form of a dramatic monologue and describes an, obviously, disturbed woman’s failed suicide attempts and eventual success and resurrection. In addition, the poem focuses on Lady Lazarus’ suffering under female oppression and alienation from the rest of the world. The character is presented to be one that suffers from feelings of oppression, deep depression and mental instability. This aspect of characterisation is significant to the impact of the poem as it contributes to the dark, disturbing atmosphere made apparent in the first tercet and makes the reader feel Lazarus’ genuine heart felt emotion of anguish.