E. E. Cummings was heavily influenced by the transcendentalist movement. Many of his themes stem from his inclination to the philosophy of transcendentalism. The search for self and the individual who looks towards nature for symbolic answers all come from the individualistic belief that transcendentalists celebrate (Hart). In Cummings’ poem “maggie and milly and molly and may,” he elaborates on his theme of self-discovery and portrays himself through the four girls mentioned in the title. After reading through the poem, there are a few things that you can point out right from the start. Like a nursery rhyme, the sounds and rhythms in the poem first attract its audience with its repeated “m” consonants and its dactylic meter (Saunders). The …show more content…
A starfish has five limbs, and in this poem, they are described as “five languid fingers.” These five fingers remind the audience of their own hand. Therefore, Milly is befriending herself and looking at herself from an outside, objective point of view. Indirectly, Cummings is trying to tell the audience that to further achieve self-discovery, you have to look at yourself from someone else’s shoes. How you may see yourself could be extremely different from how others see you, like how, in the next couplet, Molly views a crab as a “horrible thing.” In this fourth couplet, a crab, which is characterized as “a horrible thing,” chases Molly. The crab can be identified as Molly’s fears, following her as it moves in a very unconventional manner. Returning to the indirect presentation of Cummings, the crab also represents the nightmares in his life, or the challenges that he had to face in search of his identity (Hart). He might be instructing his audience that there are things that one dislikes when one looks back and reflects on his or her past, and that these discomforting memories are one’s fears that must be faced to further achieve self-discovery
The poem has no rhyme scheme or particular rhythm; this makes the descriptions stick out more to the reader, while having a varied sound when it is written
This is a very lyrical poem. The speaker's emotions and intentions are made very clear in very inconspicuous ways. The subtle repetition of certain words and images give the poem a very distinct tone. For example, the repetition of the words
Furthermore, Larkin’s poem Mr Bleaney refers to a place that the persona does not wish to be in, yet has ended up having surrendering and suffers the consequences. Mr Bleaney is essentially a poem about a circumstantial situation that is given as a dramatic monologue, and rather like a drama, tells a story that is full of lucid mystery. The first half of the poem is slow and deliberate and helps to create a macabre feel to the poem. A change of pace occurs in the second half of the poem, though is not immediately apparent. It then seems to be despairingly urgent, as Mr Bleaney subtly moves from a recollected past to an observed present, through his mediation with the new tenant. In addition Larkin’s use of listing creates a dull and monotonous feel to the place, giving the reader the feel that no one, unless in a dire situation, would want to suffer living in such an undesirable place. One may argue the most symbolic thing in the room is the “sixty watt bulb”. Light is a commonly used symbol to portray
The poem contains two stanzas with two different settings. One might not know much about the first stanza; however, in the second one the speaker is next to an ocean, perhaps, at a beach. So, while the first stanza symbolizes the mindset of the speaker, the inner dream, the second stanza symbolizes the outer dream which is what we see; life. The poem
The poem also uses end rhyme to add a certain rhythm to the poem as a whole. And the scheme he employs: aabbc, aabd, aabbad. End rhyme, in this poem, serves to effectively pull the reader through to the end of the poem. By pairing it with lines restricted to eight syllables. The narrator creates an almost nursery-rhyme like rhythm. In his third stanza however, his last line, cutting short of eight syllables, stands with an emphatic four syllables. Again, in the last stanza, he utilizes the same technique for the last line of the poem. The narrator’s awareness of rhyme and syllable structure provides the perfect bone structure for his poem’s rhythm.
She also presents a slight rhythm to the reading that allows for smooth reading. In keeping with her open form, there is no set scheme to the rhyme pattern. However, there is a single ending sound constantly repeated without a set pattern throughout the work. She also connects pairs of lines at random just for the sake of making connections to make that particular stanza flow. At the same time, she chose blatantly not to rhyme in certain parts to catch the reader’s attention.
The pattern made by the alliteration and assonance makes the poem so easy to remember and also easy imagine. In this way, it is possible to get the feeling of hearing the blues also which was described by the speaker in the poem. There is also an overall effect of becoming familiar and understanding how the blues echoed through the head of the speaker.
During these days, we often imagine that if we do not fit into the society, we are left out. The lyrics of “Subdivision” by Rush shows if we do not conform to others, we might be cast out(Sub-division). We often think that having an articulate mind with many thoughts is having a high social status. However, there are certain values in our lives and our beliefs which we should appreciate as the man and nature are all connected which now is a belief referred as the “Transcendentalism”. Although Transcendentalism is a broad topic, the motif following the instincts and living under simplicity drew my attention. Transcendentalism was one of the major turning points of American literary revolutions and can play a huge role in the 21st century of
With a few exceptions, the poem primarily follows the form of accentual-syllabic verse. The majority of lines are composed of three syllables, most often two unstressed and one stressed. Using a combination of structural technique and descriptive language, Williams emphasizes the action of visual perception.
In the next stanza, the line "Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay", the poet is now using imagery with the waters, however it can also be a metaphorical representation of life due to
The poem progresses from mourning of the deceased to praising of his achievements and fate to die before his glory withered. Therefore, the tone shifts from somber and quiet to upbeat and positive. Such shift of tone is achieved by Housman’s use of sounds. In first two stanzas, Housman describes the funeral procession as he remembers the time when the young athlete was proudly brought home after he won a race. Then, he solaces the mourners by reminding them it is better that the athlete “slip betimes away from fields where glory does not stay” (lines 9 and 10) because the laurel “withers quicker than the rose” (line 12). The soft “s” sound stands out especially in second and third stanza and it creates a sense of calm and quiet tone and evokes an image of townspeople mourning the death of their “hero”; Consonance of “s” sounds is present in words “shoulder, set, threshold, townsman, stiller, smart, slip, betimes, fields, does, stay, grows, withers, and rose.” In addition to consonance, soft sound alliteration in “road all runners” (line 5) helps to create a quiet tone. As the poem progresses into praising of the young athlete in stanzas four through seven, the consonance of hard “c”, “t”, and “f” sound become prominent. Readers can immediately detect
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
Often at times there are many voices in one poem. These voices represent the different views that come from the same material that are portrayed by the buzz that the bee elicit in the hive. The proposal that Collins is trying to exude is that there is never one way to read a poem. The type of approach will vary with reader and who they are, but by having a radical approach it will help to enhance our understanding of what the poem means. Collins wants the reader to feel free when analyzing a poem: “I want them to waterski across the surface of the poem waving at the author’s name on the shore.” As a teacher you try to pummel depth into your students’ minds and push them into the direction of understanding. The speaker declares that the grapple to illuminating meaning and the amount of time where the reader does not understand adds to the worth of the poem. The parallel to the surface of water, where you have not attained the depth even though you know it’s there is important to how much it takes to find the true meaning of a poem. While reading this poem it have the outlook on how poetry places more of aln emphasis on us to be able to pick apart the undisclosed meaning and essentially to be able to pull apart the poem without a fixed structure. By doing it this way it is able to help the audience to build upon skills to help interpret and understand, which substantially is important throughout any source of literature. We
One of the first things you notice is the usage of an almost perfect rhyme scheme. Dunbar uses this frequently through the entire poem, using the AABB method. I personally think that Dunbar uses this to fit in well with other poems, so peers understand that it is, in fact, a poem.
One of these is the hefty amount of repetition used throughout the poem. In the first, second, third, and fourth stanzas, she repeats the first rhyming word of stanza. The words before these rhyming parts are also parallel to each other. Therefore, she used repetition inside of parallelism. This creates a powerful effect.