In the Ballad of Reading Gaol is the latest and, according to some critics, the greatest poem of

Style is the special way an author creates his or her work. Gabriela Mistral exploits an informal style in her poem “Ballad”. The poem discusses the poets feelings and is written in first person point of view validating its informality; “My heart’s blood.”-Line17 using ‘my’ and describing her heart confirm this. Diction contributes to style in an extensive way. Repetition is a form of diction that is heavily spread out through the poem. “Saw him pass by.”-Lines 2/6, “He goes loving.../...in bloom”-Lines1-2/11-12, and “He will go.../through eternity.”-Lines 19-20/23-24. The repetition emphasizes the authors style an diction. In this poem diction is displayed through negative connotation. Choosing to describe her emotional state as “,wretched,”-Line 5, instead of sad or unhappy, and by adding a

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.

You really feel a sense of hopelessness then in line eight of stanza two you see your first word that has some kind of hope to it which is the word lightness. Once you go to stanzas three and four you see a shift from once hopelessness to maybe there is hope in the mist of darkness. Also, another thing that the poet does is how in some lines there is an extra spacing between certain words, I think by him doing that he wants the reader to really focus on this words because if you notice the spaces are in between words that are simple and could be overlooked so by putting the extra spaces it will make the reader notice it more. For me the turn(volta) it’s happening in line eight line “As how its lightness after was a gift”, like a said before this line is the start of a different word tone compared to what was said before that line and also what is said after. This line does a good job at showing this next start of life like for example it says in line eleven “ I couldn’t while they watch me set it

Furthermore, we have the use of first person, where the almost universal effect is to have an in-depth look into the character and their immediate response to a problem or dilemma. This poem no different, where in the first stanza we are ushered in with the use of anaphora in lines 2, 3 and 4 with the repetition of the word ‘’and’’. This specific use of anaphora is used to create the mindset and intelligible deduction of the traveller to the events and dilemma prescribed to him. Insofar as his immediate reaction be being presented with a choice. It shows his reaction of regret in that he is ‘’sorry he could not travel both’’ and explains what he wish he could do ‘’be two travellers’’ but also how he initiates his decision making process ‘’looked down one as far as I could’’. Also, the use of first person is used to connect with the reader, enforcing the affore-used notion that the reader substitutes their own personal truth into a positive

In stanza six, we see the end of visiting hour, and the persona’s loss of control as he is overran with emotion. The phrase, “black figure in her white cave” creates an image of an intruder in her sanctuary. The black and white contrast suggests he is a shadow of his former self and also that he is trying to detach himself. The phrase, “clumsily rises” gives connotations of his state as he is physically affected by his feeling of loss. Furthermore, “swimming waves of a bell” is a metaphor which has connotations of water. This is used to illustrate that he is drowning in the realisation that she is dying. Finally, “fruitless fruits” is an oxymoron used to reinforce that there is no hope or going back, for her.

The use of symbolism and imagery is beautifully orchestrated in a magnificent dance of emotion that is resonated throughout the poem. The two main ideas that are keen to resurface are that of personal growth and freedom. Furthermore, at first glimpse this can be seen as a simple poem about a women’s struggle with her counterpart. However, this meaning can be interpreted more profoundly than just the causality of a bad relationship.

This poem begins with the speaker leaving his group of friends (who have been discussing sexual liaisons) for a drunken walk in St. James’s Park, to “cool my head, and fire my heart” (8), whereupon he encounters his lover Corinna being led away by three “knights.” She looks at him disdainfully. His anger towards

Before translations and devices, readers should first acknowledge the structure of the poem. In structure there are 8 different topics: speaker, setting, occasion, tone, rhyme, meter, number of lines and stanzas, and language of the poem. In the “Ballad of

These two seemingly opposite tones and moods existing in one poem simultaneously resemble the ambiguity in the speaker that he reveals when he describes his condition very ambiguously. For instance, in the first line, he portrays himself as a “dead man”(1), but in the line immediately after, the dead man is moaning, which is biologically impossible. The unclear subject raises the issue of who the speaker is, if he should not be able to comment on himself because he is already dead. When the speaker uses the same pronouns, “he” and “him” from both the first person and the third person perspectives to refer to himself, this becomes even more puzzling; the readers are no longer sure of who the speaker is and who the subject of the poem is. One possible cause of these uncertainties is the discrepancy between the speaker’s real self and his public self; one that resembles who he

Both Poems are faced with the problematic situation of inner hassle. Piano’s narrator struggles with his oppression of his emotions in sentimentality. When he is listening to the sounds of the chant from the women singing he says “In

Through highlighting hypocrisy and acknowledging religion, poetry is used as a tool to illuminate and challenge injustices perceived in society. Elizabeth Barrett-Browning's 'Cry of the Children' challenges the information found in the 1842 Royal Commission which illustrated the terrible conditions children had to work in. Furthermore, Oscar Wilde's 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' illuminates his horrific experiences in prison, challenging the effectiveness of punishment. These Victorian composers were able to use society's faith in Christianity to question the immorality of child labour and the death penalty. When there is nothing to lose, Religion is used to increase hope for the ones feeling hopeless, only for the facade to fade when one

significance of this section in the poem is the underlying relationship between what the narrater

The rapist is always the bad guy, right? Initially when analyzing this poem, reading through the several lines describing Lockwood’s assaulter and ex-boyfriend it was my assumption that it was directed towards him. After over a decade of allowing everything to fester the author was ready to get everything out and let the pieces fall where they may. However, under further scrutiny I realized that Lockwood was not villainizing her ex-boyfriend in these depictions but humanizing him. In these passages she describes his job, his hobbies, and his relationship with herself and her family. She portrays her assaulter as flawed but mundane- anybody could have committed the crime he did. In fact, while Lockwood’s story is specific to her own experiences it is one that rings true with many rape survivors. Close to 50% of all rapes taken place in the

One of the ways the poem attacks the justice system is the criminalisation of the characters to the prison guards and the predatory nature Wilde attributes to them, ‘who watch him lest himself should rob/The prison of its prey’. Within the poem this line comes after Wilde has arguably tried to normalise murder, each man kills the thing he loves’. Here Wilde is arguing that all men eventually kill the thing they love but the murder is just another way. By using the inclusive phrase ‘each man’, Wilde suggests a unity between all men and normalises the actions of the man by encouraging the reader to see the condemned man as any other man. Wilde is clearly spelling out a link between the prison guards and the condemned man with the use of ‘prey’. In creating a clear binary opposite of descriptions for the different men allows the roles to be reversed, and Wilde is using imagery to encourage the reader to view the condemned man as a victim. By using ‘watch’ to explain how the prison guards see the man implies active participation and lack of privacy for the condemned man. Arguably here, Wilde is also suggesting that there is hedonistic gratification for the prison guards in watching the men suffer, making the prison guards appear immoral. This idea is furthered with the incremental repetition within that stanza of the phrase’ who watch’. Again this

There were serval themes of unification, liberation, endurance, survial, and integrity. The writer was able to show all these themes by constantly repeating “ I am..” and confirming his identity. Yet in the poem there is a bit of melancholy