The Juggler Richard Wilbur Summary

In the first stanza Wilbur uses personification, diction and tone to portray the juggler as someone who gives the ball a meaning. In addition, the speaker’s interest in the juggler is revealed. For example, in the passage, it states, “A ball will bounce, but less and less. It’s not / A light-hearted thing, resents its own resilience.” (Lines 1-2) In this quote the speaker uses personification to reveal that the ball is not bouncing in a cheerful and joyous way. Instead the ball “resents its own resilience”. The speaker emphasizes the word “resents”, evoking in the readers a sense of solemnity and seriousness. Furthermore, by describing that the ball bounces, but eventually comes back down the speaker makes a comparison to life and how there will always be highs and lows.

Updike continues his portrayal of the vast splendor of nature through metaphors, similes, and diction pertaining to a large flock of starlings that flew and over and lit on the gold course where the two men in the poem are playing. The approaching flock of birds seem like a “cloud of dots” (Line 16) on the horizon to observers. The author compares The image of the steadily approaching flock of starlings to iron filings (the birds) stuck to a magnet through a piece of paper (the horizon). The men stand in awe of the black, writhing, approaching mass, much like children do when the magnet picks up the filings through the paper. By comparing the approaching birds to the magnet and iron filing scenario in a simile, Updike subtly likens the men reaction to a small child’s reaction when he/she sees the “magic” of the magnet and the iron filings for the first time. The simile purpose is to show how nature can make grown men feel like small, free little kids when experiencing nature at its best. As the observers continue to watch the looming flock of birds, the flock became one huge pulsating mass of birds that seemed as “much as one thing as a rock.” (Line 22) Updike once again eloquently portrays nature as absolutely stunning to show how nature affects man. The birds descended in a huge “evenly tinted” (Line

The poem maintains a specific structure that organizes six lines into each stanza and places major verbs in the beginning of each line, which allows the speaker to describe a different part of the juggler’s performance for each stanza and place emphasis on the actions of the juggler to underscore the amazement the speaker feels. The first stanza describes how gravity usually works, but introduces the juggler’s power to defy this gravity, while the second stanza describes how the juggler moves the balls around in order to show this superhuman power. The poem reaches its climax in the fourth stanza, ending the performance of the juggler, and the last stanza describes how even though the act is over, the juggler has left a sense of awe and inspiration into the speaker. This specific organization helps the speaker transition his feeling of the performance from the beginning to the end, successfully showing the juggler has left him in wonder. Furthermore, in the second stanza, Richard Wilbur places the verbs, “Learning,” “Grazing,” “Cling,” and “Swinging” in the beginning of each line, putting the emphasis on those words and pausing for a moment before going into the important verbs (9,10,11,12). This syntax helps the poet describe what makes the speaker so amazed by the juggler, the specific and graceful movement of the juggler as he throws the balls up and down the air.

In the poem, the speaker uses figurative language to reveal and portray that the objects that the juggler juggles have a sense or life of their own and how their actions make the show even more impressive on the juggler’s end. Whether it’s the ball's’ “own resilience” as it bounces less and less or “wheel on his wheeling hands”, the figurative language describes an inanimate object that is subject to the laws of nature and forces such as gravity which is shown by the line “falling is what it loves.” However, under the hands of the juggler, it’s as if the juggler has changed the ball’s natural tendencies to his own, becoming the ball’s own force that it has to follow. The juggler appears to be as an omnipotent

The article offers a unique view into Hughes’s poetry, revealing another side of Hughes’s expertise as a poet. Although she does spend a great deal of time on the discussion of the importance of Hughes’s diction to the rhythms he wanted to infuse into the aforementioned five pieces, Dickinson does more than the traditional literary analysis in order to explain Hughes’s talents as a writer. With special attention given to the five of his lesser-known works, she gives the reader an opportunity to hear the music within the lines of many pieces.

Dogs have always played an important role in most American families. There has always been a saying “a dog is a man's best friend.” Through the poem you are able to look out into the world through a dog's perspective. In the poem “Golden Retrievals” by Mark Doty, the author uses informal diction, concrete diction, and repeated structure to show the dogs loving view of the world.

Richard Wilbur, a legendary figure and the poet of "The Juggler", withholds great historical background unknown to many individuals. Despite of young age, Wilbur composed numerous short-stories, poems and editorials for college newspaper. In consideration with a majority of the masterpieces, a prominent theme exhibited throughout each is based upon the observations of surroundings and the natural world. Historically, Wilbur's involvement within World War II contributed significant influence in various poems. Similarly, "The Juggler" primarily emphasizes the notion of fluctuations involved within juggling, comparing such to harsh realities of daily routines.

The metaphor shifts from the reader’s eyes looking through a slide, to ears listening pressed up against a beehive. Just as the speaker is asking the reader to hold up a poem to the light, he is also asking them to press their ears against a beehive, and listen to the bee’s making the honey. The speaker wants readers to take something they perceive as white noise, and listen more intently to hear the true intricacies of poetry. Readers fail to realize that poetry can hold the sweetness of honey as well as clear colorful imagines as seen through a slide.

In the beginning stanza, the speaker’s use of personification reveals the tone of a grim and melancholy existence. “A ball will bounce, but less and less. It’s not/ A light-hearted thing, resents its own resilience./ Falling is what it loves” (lines 2-3). The speaker can be compared to the ball which begrudgingly bounces back time after time. This can be viewed as the speaker’s own perception on his stance in life. The speaker’s boredom

Wilbur describes the juggler as happy in the moment through imagery revealing that the speaker may be going through a rough patch in his life. When the juggler is performing it is described as “Landing it ball by ball… Oh, on his toe the table is turning, the broom’s balancing up on his nose, and the plate whirls on the tip of the broom!” as the children applaud and cheer the juggler on until “he bows and says good-bye.”. When the juggler is done putting on such a fantastic show he “is tired now… and though the plate lies flat on the table top, for him we batter our hands who has won for once over the world’s weight.”. The use of imagery about the plate lying flat on the table instead of the plate whirling shows us the juggler is tired but we still clap for him because in that moment of him putting on a show he made people happy and made no mistakes. The juggler “swinging a small heaven above his ears” is happy in the moment. The use of imagery

As the poem progresses, we can see how the juggler manipulates the five red balls he is using to move around his body. Richard Wilbur uses figurative language like personification to show how the balls move by the tricks the juggler does. Wilbur says, “ The balls roll around, wheel on his wheeling hand, learning the ways of lightness, alter to spheres, grazing his finger ends, cling to their course there.” ( lines 8-11). The author explains how the

In Juggler, the first stanza of the poem discusses the concept of how “a ball will bounce but less and less.”(Line 1). The narrator considers this to be sorrowful, saying, “It’s not a light-hearted thing, resents its own resilience.” (Line 2). “Resents its own resilience” - an example of figurative language - successfully characterizes how they primarily find how the ball continues to repeatedly spring back up despite the fact that it would rather settle down as troublesome. The speaker utilizes figurative language, saying in lines 3 and 4, “Falling is what it loves, and the earth falls so in our hearts form brilliance, settles and is forgot.” Here the narrator is drawing a comparison to how humans lose their own fascination with day to day activities as things “settle and forgot.” Finally, at the end of the stanza the speaker introduces the titular juggler. The poem states how life requires a person who practices such an intriguing and eccentric task such as juggling in order to unsettle the status quo, as the poem states in lines 6 and 7, “It takes a sky-blue juggler to shake our gravity up.” The first stanza reveals essentially the speakers feelings towards how he himself is disdainful of how the things that were once captivating and awe-inspiring now bore humans as they slowly begin to adapt to these kinds of functions.

Henry Reeds has divided his poem in five six-lined stanzas. Each stanza has followed a particular pattern of alternating. In the stanzas the poet has used imagery and word play as the major poetic devices. His aim which has been achieved quite sufficiently, is to evoke the suggestions made by the instructor and explain the implications of the

Poetry has a role in society, not only to serve as part of the aesthetics or of the arts. It also gives us a view of what the society is in the context of when it was written and what the author is trying to express through words. The words as a tool in poetry may seem ordinary when used in ordinary circumstance. Yet, these words can hold more emotion and thought, however brief it was presented.

Poetry is often meant to be smooth, flowing, pleasing to the ear and the mind. To achieve this effect, many poets use different poetic techniques to help convey the meanings of their poetry. In the sonnet, 'Yet Do I Marvel' written by Countee Cullen, many different features of poetry is used. In this essay, I will discuss the relationship between the meanings and the theme Cullen tries to convey in his sonnet and the techniques of metaphors, both religious and non-religious, allusions to Greek mythology, different rhyme schemes and repetition that he uses.