Which Way Does The Wind Blow?

Many romantic poetries praised the beauty and the power of the nature, and this can be seen as one of the characteristic of Romanticism. In the poem Ode to the West Wind by Percy Shelley, it talked about wind has the power to change the season from autumn to spring, and it can also bring rain and hail in the sky and waves in the ocean. As he wrote in his poem “Oh wild west wind, thou breath of autumn’s being, thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing…the winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, each like a corpse within its

Unlike other forms of literature, poetry can be so complex that everyone who reads it may see something different. Two poets who are world renowned for their ability to transform reader’s perceptions with the mere use of words, are TS Eliot and Walt Whitman. “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” by TS Eliot, tells the story of a man who is in love and contemplating confessing his emotions, but his debilitating fear of rejection stops him from going through with it. This poem skews the reader’s expectations of a love song and takes a critical perspective of love while showing all the damaging emotions that come with it. “Song of myself”, by Walt Whitman provokes a different emotion, one of joy and self-discovery. This poem focuses more on the soul and how it relates to the body. “Song of myself” and “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” both explore the common theme of how the different perceptions of the soul and body can affect the way the speaker views themselves, others, and the world around them.

(1) “While music is changed to language, with the attendant change in meaning and while the obsession is still with bringing light and thus reason, the narrator is opening up the meaning with reference to “we” and to the emotional conditions of suffering and delight.” 1

A single inanimate object, The Eolian Harp, sends Coleridge flitting in, out, over and through introspection. The trajectory of the poem may be plotted as follows: terrestrial observations, fixation upon single terrestrial item (i.e. the harp), exulting single item into transcendence, an astral purview of the terrestrial via the item, reassessment of mind frame, guilt and denunciation of transcendent thought, and finally, remorse and

Prompt: You will write an essay where you compare and contrast how the poets describe their responses to nature. You will analyze at least one of the following stylistic elements: figurative language, word choice (diction), form and structure. Introduction: Lede: Introduces the topic and engages the reader’s attention.

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 used to express several different mediums through: structure, tone, imagery and rhyme schemes. John Keats’s ode “To Autumn” and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan” or, a Vision in a Dream” will be critically analyzed, compared and contrasted to each throughout this paper to further dissected the meaning of each poem.

However, when the winds return and the fog clears, they blame the Albatross for their misfortune of being stuck in the mist and begin to stand by the bird’s death: “Ah wretch! Said they, the bird to slay that made the breeze to blow! (Coleridge 23). Due to the sailor’s agreeance towards the death of the Albatross, they now share the guilt of the crime. But as they face the hardship of the still waters at sea, some dream of the spirit that tormented them in the “land of mist and snow”. Hoping to escape the misery, the sailors try to pin the fault on the Mariner alone by hanging the Albatross around his neck: “Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross about my neck was hung” (Coleridge 34). Coleridge uses the act of hanging the albatross around the Mariners neck in order to refer to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. By doing so, he is able to illustrate a sense of loss of hope. This is comparable to the loss of hope experienced when Jesus was being nailed to the cross. This allusion further depicts the overall meaning of the poem, being that only people that love God’s creations are able to gain

Joseph McQueen, a professor at Ohio State University, writes of the mixed elements, “Coleridge of the poem spends the first 12 lines savoring the natural pleasures around him…from here, the poem turns toward the supernatural… In this world, all things are animated by spiritual power, by what the poem calls ‘‘the one life within us and abroad’ (26)’” (McQueen 3-4). When the music from the harp begins to play Coleridge’s imagination is propelled forward and the poem is turned into a “Fairy-Land” (Coleridge 440), where he paints a picture of the nature the music makes him see. He then says he doesn’t know how someone couldn’t love the world that is so filled with beauty and wonder; the world that God created and filled with beautiful things.

Poetry, by its formal definition, describes intense literary work that expresses feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm. In poems such as “The Light Comes Brighter”, “Gold Glade”, and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, poets used certain literary devices--such as imagery, personification, symbolism, and rhyme scheme--in order to develop an abstract but simultaneous concrete idea of their internal thoughts and emotions. In “Gold Glade”, Robert Penn Warren portrayed a vivid memory of a young boy’s adventurous spirit. The Gold Glade, originally depicted as a simple artifact within the wilderness, symbolized the dream and passion held dearly by the identifiable character within his boyhood. T.S Eliot 's “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” followed an insecure man as he reflected upon his most extensive regret: having little power and confidence when it came to making decisions and dating. T.S Eliot conspicuously introduced a complex interpretation of a simple concept and sentiment. In Theodore Roethke’s “The Light Comes Brighter”, a familiar sense of clarity showed the upcoming change in seasons. By shifting into a new season as the poem proceeded, Roethke helped convey his thoughts and stance on the influence of nature in human culture. His peculiar word choice brought forth a new and interesting perspective on the effect caused by the environment’s cycle. Through all four poems, the discussion of human emotion tested the apprehension and

Many people in today’s society tend to only listen to the beat of the song rather than the meaning, and vise versa. They either like the lyrics or like the beat and do not fully understand the meaning. For example, Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” is a very catchy song with a good chorus but the meaning is misconstrued. The meaning and the musicality is not intertwined. It is a song about a a disturbed kid going on a killing spree. Unlike Foster the People, people adore Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a nineteenth century poet, not because he had a good rhythm, but because he intertwines musicality and imagery. He merges sight and sound to establish a cinematic orchestra and paints a vivid image full of depth and personality. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow incorporates religion through the influence of nature and the strong presence of musicality in “The Cross of Snow”, “My Lost Youth”, “Autumn” and “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls”.

Analyzing different mediums can enhance an individual’s overall appreciation and understanding of a particular idea or story. While analysis of a painting can reveal the mood of the artwork, an analysis of a poem can reveal the author’s tone. Much more than that, analysis provides an opportunity to explore each work in an attempt to understand human nature through each author’s perspective. While exploring the painting “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” by Pieter Brueghel and the poem “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” by William Carlos Williams, a universal truth presents itself. The thematic idea of others focusing on the details of their own lives while they fail to notice crises in others’ lives becomes apparent in both mediums. This showcases a level of human nature that both Brueghel and Williams attuned themselves to and explored in their work.

With the formation of a “rare device”, symbolizing his masterpiece of poetry, Coleridge acknowledges that poetry forms through the combination of nature and human perception. In the end, Coleridge demands the readers to “beware” (49, p.1634) of the power of the inspired poet, who recreates his own “sunny dome” (47, p.1634) in the protection of a “circle round him thrice” (51, p.1634). The energy from nature is eventually transferred to the poet, the poet to use his imagination to create his own “Paradise” (54, p.1634), which resembles Xanadu of Kubla Khan. Through the metaphors developing in the poem, Coleridge pieces together the process a Romantic poet creates a poem from the inspiration of a nature scene.

Shelley in his poem ‘Ode to the West Wind’ has used similes in his poem. He states that, “the leaves dead are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.” He also states that, “the winged seeds where they lie cold and low each like a corpse within its grave.” As observed from these examples, the poets will use these techniques to assist in easier interpretation of the poem.

The central idea of Walt Whitman’s “A Song of the Rolling Earth” is a concern for words not classically found in books and for things that are said to be “words”. The poem also explains how this is linked with the idea of feminine and fertile earth. The entirety of “A Song of the Rolling Earth” Whitman lays groundwork for his theory of the earth, giving it a more than purely physical life by redefining what words are. The importance of the poem lies, within these two images, the unprintable word and the fertile earth.