Essay on Imagery in Lycidas

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

Robert Frost and William Shakespeare have been celebrated by many people because of their ability to express themselves through the written word. Here we are years after their deaths analyzing these fascinating poems about life and death. It’s clear they had similar thoughts about this subject at the time of these writings, even though their characters could not have been more opposite. For both poets, life is too

Death is something that at some point will come to each of us and has been explored in many forms of literature. “The Raven” and “Incident in a Rose Garden” are two poems that explore common beliefs and misconceptions about death. Though both poems differ in setting, tone, and mood there are surprising similarities in the literary tools they use and in the messages they attempt to convey. The setting and mood establish the tone and feel of a poem. In “The Raven” we are launched into a bleak and dreary winters night where a depressed narrator pines for his dead girlfriend.

This poem talks about nature and death. William Cullen Bryant shares that nature can make death less painful. He says that when we start to think about death, we should go outside, and look around and listen to the natural earth sounds. This is supposed to remind us that when we die, we will mix back into the earth. The poem tells us that when we die, we will not be alone. We will be with every other person that has ever been buried, In the ground, which in this poem is called the “great tomb of man”. It also tells us that even those that are still living will soon die and join in the great tomb of man. This poem is meant to comfort those that are afraid of dying and death in general. At the end of the poem, we are told to think of death as

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

To begin, the speaker of the poem “Thou famished grave” presents a resentful and aggressive attitude towards death. The poem, addressed to a “ famished grave” (1), personifies a grave as a starving beast that can “roar” (2), “gnaw” (3), and has “dismal jaws” (7). This represents death in a negative way because the description of the beast make it seem unpleasant and to be feared. Furthermore, the poem includes words and phrases when addressing the grave that follow the theme of starvation, such as, “famished grave” (1), “Gnaw thine own sides, fast on” (3), and “I cannot starve thee out: I am thy prey” which emphasizes that the beast of death is starving to take someone’s life. This animal-like aggressiveness adds to the already negative image of the beast. This imagery also shows how the speakers thinks of death since it comes from her words which shows that she sees death in a very negative way. Due to this, the speaker is angry and does not want to give death what it wants, which is to take someone’s life. Additionally, although death is something normally feared, the speaker shows that she is not fearful by saying “I have no fear / of thy dark project” (3-4) when speaking to the grave. She expresses that she does not want to die and her “heart is set / On living” (4-5), which explains her resentfulness towards death. She also understands that death is inevitable as she says, “I cannot starve thee out: I am thy prey / And thou shalt have me; but I dare defend / That I can stave thee off” (6-8). This shows that even though she knows that she will one day die, she still doesn’t want to give death what it wants and will fight as long as she can

The speakers in “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” and “A Nocturnal Reverie” present themselves as somewhat

Coupled with the reference to the cineraria leaves, a silvery foliage meant for keeping the ashes of a cremated body, the narrator crafts a gravesite which mimics the ceremonial weight of the death of a human being. By elevating this death to such a level, revealing the desire for the toad to rest in paradise after the “chewed and clipped leg” which ended his life, the narrator illustrates his regret over this accidental and unnecessary death. The use of the leaves which hold ashes add the ceremonial and serious presence of a ritual one would do for a loved one, reserving a space for their remains to rest, displaying the speaker’s somber and serious response to the toad’s death.Furthermore, the narrator takes special note of the appearance of the frog, particularly the “gutters of the banked and staring eyes” and his body “as still as if he would return to stone.” The eyes, often a representation of the soul, remain “banked” and “staring”, void of the emotions characteristic to an animal’s eyes. Often, when a person or animal dies, the eyes are placed closed to represent rest. However, the toad’s

John Milton’s’ poem “When I consider how my light is spent” is a great piece of art that he creates during his blindness. The sarcasm and the word choice in this poem also have a great impact on how he masts feel. Milton also presents us with a key point on how God plays an important part in his point of view and his life. One of the best thing of this poem is the tone and the feelings that where put into it. Looking at John Milton life through one of his best piece of art “When I consider how my light is spent.”

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

Although Milton and Thomas draw very different conclusions about life as a whole, they share a strong sense of regret for lives wasted uselessly. Thomas brings this sentiment to his poem through his descriptions of other men; he uses "Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright/ Their frail deeds might have danced" (7-8); "Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight/ And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way" (10-11); and "Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight/ Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay" (13-14) as examples of who should "rage against the dying of the light." Each group of men is tormented at death by a realization of how

This poem is written in ballad form which is odd because one would think of a ballad and think a love story or an author gushing on about nature not an allegory about personified Death. Dickinson both unites and contrasts love/courtship with death, experimenting with both reader’s expectations and the poetic convention dictating specific poem form. This is why Dickinson is widely hailed because of her unconventional writing methods.

The first line of stanza four “Or rather-- He passed Us—“ (l. 13) demonstrates that the speaker is uncertain about her existence in the world. Now she feels that her life symbolized by the sun is passing by. She becomes chilled by the “dews” (l. 14). Lines three and four in this stanza illustrate the reason for her coldness. The speaker is attired in a light “Gown” (l. 15) and cape or “Tippet” made of “Tulle” (l. 16), which is a kind of thin, transparent, open meterial. When people die,

People would not want to hear that their loved ones merely gave up and died passively. This poem in itself is a celebration of life, the poem is not only about death but it is an affirmation of life. To further emphasise the points being made Dylan Thomas utilises a wide range of literary devices. Parallelism is used from lines seven to fifteen to juxtapose the different attitudes of the so called “genres” of men at their death. This is used to outline that if you continuously lead one set type of lifestyle whether it is as a “wild man”, a “grave man” or a “good man” you will not be satisfied when your time comes to die. The only true way to be satisfied is to live a life of balance; only with a good contrast can you be at peace.

Throughout the poem, W.D. Auden did an exceptional job incorporating the several examples of figures of speech. By including these devices, Auden drew deeper connections to the overall themes of death and love with the readers. For example, “let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead/ scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead” is an illustration of personification (Auden, 5-6). Auden personifies an airplane to mourn over someone and scribble in the sky. Both human like characteristics suggest that the speaker wishes for everyone to know that his loved one has passed, so that everyone can mourn over the deceased, like the speaker. Another example of this is shown through a series of metaphors in lines 9-12 “…my North, my South, my East, my West,/ My working week and my Sunday rest,/ My noon, my