The "Echo" in "Penitence" Essay

In “465” Dickinson demonstrates her particular focus on a moment, the moment of the narrator’s death; even more so, Dickinson evokes question in our minds as we wonder how the narrator can deliver this information after dying; Ryan iterates, “We’re being spoken to by a dead person”. As the stanza continues forth, the reader is notified that the room is still, that the room is like a very calm scene. Ryan emphasizes that this information distracts the reader momentarily from the idea that a dead person is communicating, rather our minds focus on this supposed stillness; we ponder if the silence allows us to hear the thoughts. Regardless, for one to make the comparison, they must be detached; no longer worrying about death. They feel the freedom to compare this storm from the perspective of both parties, the people next to the death bead and the person on it. To consider what that moment of stillness is, prior to the death, the instant of dying, and the afterlife and mourning; that instant of dying is stillness, it is before watchers react, before the dead reaches their resting place, it is serenity (Ryan 15).

In the fourth line, Longfellow states that it’s “A voice” from the “silence of the deep”. Here, the reader once

In Graveyard Blues by Natasha Trethewey, the scene of her mother’s funeral is depicted. This was when Trethewey was 17, after her stepfather had killed her mother. Through the use of a controlled structuring of lineation throughout the poem, Trethewey conveys a calm tone. Also, by using word choices and repetition Trethewey is able to depict a state of grief. Finally, through the use of weather, she conveys a feeling of all – encompassing sadness.

The title of the poem, “An Echo Sonnet To an Empty Page, is a symbolic representation of the echo being the force that drives the ‘voice’ of the poem to do activities the poet never dreamed of. The empty page represents the speaker’s life but it would not be empty as it is if he listens to the ‘echo’ telling him to do what his timid self would never do. The overall synopsis of the poem is about these two ‘speakers’ which are the ‘voice’ and the ‘echo’ which sets up the structure. The voice symbolizes the timid man who is afraid to plunge into his own life because he fears the future and consequences of his own morality. On the other hand, the echo symbolizes the poet’s alter ego as it answers the questions the voice asks in a way that drives the voice to take a certain prospect in life. In the first line it quotes, “How from emptiness can I make a start?” The echo answers back, “start’ which shows that the echo’s response is not as harsh because it is the step time of starting a new page in his life. It continues by quoting, “And starting, must I master joy or grief?” Then the echo replies, “grief.” This symbolizes that it is a very sincere answer because it is not blindly trying to trick the poet but exist to give answers to life. When it gets towards the end, the voice asks, “Then are you glad that I must end in sleep?” and the echo replies, “Leap.” This may be cruel by the echo but it shows the reality of life because humans need to realize at one time they are going to

The subject matter of death isn't the theme of this poem. The poem prevails truth being disguised and manipulated over documented history. This not only opens the mind into questioning whether historical events truly happened the way historians say it did, or whether documentation can prove a justification of truth, but it forces the second idea to raise questions whether any of the history being told is true at all. The poem "Richard Bone" carries out this idea strongly. The reason this poem plays an interest in my mind is that it synthesizes to current events happening every day in the real world in a variety of ways. The poem places the tactic of truth versus false and how reality plays with this fundamental game with scenarios of

Imagery was also used in the poem.  I found that the yellow in the first line represented that the future the writer was facing was bright and warm regardless of his choice.  The undergrowth was, as undergrowth in any forest, damp and dank smelling, but not necessarily unpleasant, just something that the writer would have to face.  The image of traveling through a forest also brings to mind thoughts of birds in flight, chirping and singing.  Squirrels dashing through trees, rustling leaves and dropping the occasional acorn or nut also create an image of sight and sound.  The sun reflecting through the trees, casting shadows and creating pockets of warm and cool air and the occasional breeze stirring through the trees are also brought to mind by this poem.  The end of the poem brings to me

The first stanza introduces the speaker’s earliest memory as they are starting the journey of crossing over. Right away the reader is introduced to a fly buzzing around the room, “I heard a Fly buzz- when I died-“(1). The fly represents the soul leaving the body and witnessing the surroundings of the life they are leaving behind. The speaker is aware that the people around have crying and Dickinson illustrating the scene with a metaphor, “Was like the Stillness in the Air- Between the Heaves of Storm-“ (3-4). The speaker realizes that the family members who have come to mourn have not made any sounds during the periods of wailing and quietly sniffling. Dickinson’s comparison to a storm that changes sound constantly it perfectly displays how people mourn. First loudly, then quietly before the wails rise again.

The world has several great poets and many mind-blowing works, each with its own way of portraying its own message and some the same ones. Jane Flanders wrote the poem named “Cloud Painter” she shows the world from an artistic way, using a painter and his canvas to help the reader picture the true meaning behind the words and images created. Robert Frost takes on the same idea but uses a less complex example so that it makes his work easy to understand while not revealing the real meaning of the poem. Frost and Flanders are just two of the many poets that use nature as a way of explaining the very lessons in life. Each poet has a different way of presenting similar images but from a different perspective.

Thus rhyme is not just ornamental in “Echo,” but integral. The skill of Rossetti here is the same as in her half-serious, half-mocking poem “Eve,” even though the two poems are totally different. In “Eve,” she uses very plain rhyming words together with comically intended double rhymes. In “Echo,” her subject might be called fanciful and maybe even morbid, but the easiness of the rhyming words, like the diction of the poem generally, keeps the focus on regret and yearning rather than self-indulgence. As in all rhyming poems, Rossetti’s rhymes emphasize the conclusions of her lines. The rhymes go beyond this effect, however, because of the internal repetition — echoes — of the rhyming words, “Echo” is a poem in which rhyme is inseparable from

n the introduction of the poem the writer mentions that the poem is meant to relate to the speakers experience with encountering nature. With much thought into this idea, could you not say that you could relate this poem to the experience of the way society is changing today. In our lives we get use to certain people that we could never "unnoticed" them, but there are a couple of others that we may not even bother with or notice they are there. In the first stanza they question the appearance of the fellow and in reality that may be them questioning the appearance of some people in their lives.

The second stanza is addressed to ‘wise men’ who know they cannot hide from death and it’s inevitability. Poetic techniques used in this stanza are metaphors, rhyme, symbols and repetition. The line “words had forked no lightning” is a metaphor because words cannot actually fork lightning. This line suggests that the men hadn’t made an impact on the world, nor accomplished all they wanted to in life. Rhyming is also a technique used in every line, ‘right’ and ‘night’ are rhyming words used, and ‘they’ in the second line rhymes with ‘day’ in the previous stanza. So ‘night’, ‘light’ and ‘right’ rhyme, and ‘day’ and ‘they’ rhyme, hence the ABA ABA rhyming pattern. The third poetic device used in the second stanza is symbolism of ‘dark’ in the first line, which represents death. Repetition of “do not go gentle into that good night” is repeated every second stanza as the ending line, ‘night’ in the final line also symbolises death.

While the poem speaks of death, the tone is very subtle and joyful because of the multiple imageries of nature through diction such as “bird,” “garden,” and “water.”

Emily Dickinson’s poem, “465 I Heard a Fly Buzz—when I died—”, uses its form to emphasize the distracting elements in a human’s life. In the case of this poem, the appearance of multiple caesuras throughout the poem asserts the distractions the speaker is experiencing. With the help of the caesuras, the readers get to experience death as real life and not like as it is seen in the movies and this shows that distractions are around us at all time. Along with caesuras, Dickinson structures her poem with four stanzas. Each stanza represents the speaker getting closer and closer to death. the third stanza, however, there is a shift. In addition to caesuras, the shift brings in to play the element of distraction, which is the main theme of the poem.

For many, poetry can act as a gateway to express feelings to those who have passed away. Although it cannot truly bring the dead back to life for a last conversation, it can allow the writer to feel, in their mind, as if they are actually talking to their beloved one that has passed away. Through figurative language, especially imagery, the author of a poem can create a mental picture that allows him or her to become immersed in talking with someone that has passed away. In the poem “The Wind Tapped Like a Tired Man” by Emily Dickinson, we see the speaker trying to find a person, which we can assume to be a greater being, such as the Christian God, and using this poem to have a conversation in her head that could not happen in real life. In

This is expressed by the multiple examples of old men whom regret certain aspects of their lives and defy death even when they know their time is up. The speaker is urging his father to fight against old age and death. The meaning and subject of the poem influence the tone and mood. The tone is one of frustration and insistence. Thomas is slightly angry and demanding. His words are not a request, they are an order. The mood of the poem is is serious and solemn due to the poem focusing mainly on the issue of death. This mood and tone is created by words such as “burn”(2), “Grieved”(11) and “rage”(3) along with phrases such as “crying how bright”(7), “forked no lightning”(5), “near death”(13) and “fierce tears”(17). The insistent feeling is also created by the repetition of the lines “Do not go gentle into that good night”(1), and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”(3). The figurative language used also affect how the meaning, tone and mood are interpreted.