Poets through the ages have been esteemed as possessing the ability to perceive the ordinary in extraordinary and innovative ways. Poetry captures the essences of human emotion and experience and imbues them with further significance by the literary techniques that typify poetry as the language of art. In her poetry, Gwen Harwood explores many thematic concerns that resonate with her readers regardless of their contexts. The universality of concepts such as memory, inspiration, childhood education and the cyclical, yet final nature of death are transformed by Harwood’s poetry to create fresh perceptions of the continuity of experience and provide permanence to these transient elements of humanity through language. The poetic techniques employed by Harwood effectively communicate distinctive aspects of her themes while allowing them to remain universal.
In the first two lines of the sonnet Spenser says, “Long-While I sought to what I might compare those powerful eyes, which lighten my dark spirits.” You can tell by the language he uses that Spenser is looking at a beautiful girl that has eyes that can lift a man from even the darkest of spirits to the brightest. In many of Spenser’s sonnets, he expands on one particular feature of a girl he loves and explains how amazing that feature is by using symbolism. In the third and fourth line of the sonnet Spenser says, “yet find I nought on earth which I dare, resemble th’ image of their goodly light.” This tells the reader right away that there is nothing on this earth that can compare to the marvelous sight of these beautiful eyes that this girl obtains. He also states in line four of the sonnet that her eyes give off goodly light, which elaborates on the point that they can brighten up ones soul and
The Lady of Shalott Alfred Lord Tennyson makes the story in “The Lady of Shalott” intriguing through an array of well-crafted and note worthy techniques. The charming and magnificent poem takes the reader through a selection of emotions. In the first of the four part poem, Tennyson uses metonymy and contrast to make the story in the poem captivating, Tennyson also uses foreshadowing to hint at the unavoidable fate of the Lady. In the second part of the stimulating poem, Tennyson uses pun to describe to the reader the dire situation in which the Lady of Shalott has found herself. Later on Tennyson uses catalogue to illustrate the activities in Camelot, in addition, towards the end of the part is where the rising action takes place.
Wheatley used a variety of literary devices in “To His Excellency General Washington”. I found that these literary devices made Wheatley’s poems more interesting to read compared to the Puritan style of writing in Bradstreet’s poems. Wheatley used alliteration in the seventh line of the poem, “See the bright beams of heaven’s revolving light” (411). This simple device helps the reader better visualize what Wheatley was trying to portray. In another line, she alliterated, “Thy every action let the goddess guide” (411).
Maya Angelou’s ‘Still I Rise’: A Study of Persona. – what about the other poetic device (ie, ‘language and form’, or ‘metaphor’? The poem ‘Still I Rise’ by Maya Angelou has an exceptionally strong and bold [no need for both words] impact on anyone who reads it especially women [i.e, this is the reader which the poem primarily appeals to]. Not only it’s highly amusing but the poem contains a very significant message to the reader. [perhaps the message is conveyed through the use of humour?]
He uses words like this to add the effect of it being extremely pretty therefore trying to get his point of view across to the reader. You can see how both Blake and Wordsworth contradict each other from their poems. Blake is extremely negative while Wordsworth is very positive. In Blake’s poem he starts off with positive lines “I wander through each chartered street, near where the chartered
(“Happiness is in the heart not in the circumstances”) Throughout the storyline of the poem, the “Spirit of Beauty”, takes numerous forms and it is “inconstant” but even thou it lands in the same place: the human heart. In the first part of the poem it is observable how the speaker emphasizes the use of similes to point out the qualities of the Power that “floats” and “visits” to create in the readers mind the idea that the beauty of the intellect is as beautiful as the naturalistic imagery created. The items being compared with the qualities of this Power are immaterialistic(“moonbeams”, “summer winds”, “clouds”, “memory” – stanza 1), suggesting it cannot be sensorial perceived but can infiltrate any “human heart and countenance”. A human heart always pumps blood in and then sends it everywhere in the body; it is never constant, but all this inconstancy
Sonnet 130 satirizes the concept of ideal beauty that was a convention of literature and art in general during the Elizabethan era. Influences originating with the poetry of ancient Greece and Rome had established a tradition of this, which continued in Europe's customs of courtly love and in courtly poetry, and the work of poets such as Petrarch. It was customary to praise the beauty of the object of one's affections with comparisons to beautiful things found in nature and heaven, such as stars in the night sky, the golden light of the rising sun, or red roses. [1] The images conjured by Shakespeare were common ones that would have been well-recognized by a reader or listener of this sonnet. Shakespeare satirizes the hyperbole of the allusions used by conventional poets, which even by the Elizabethan era, had become cliché, predictable, and uninspiring.
He almost immediately uses rhetorical questions such as ‘Which one, I can never trace it’ and sibilance such as ‘serene summer happiness’ to captivate the reader and set a vivid scene using a range of multisensory techniques such as sight and especially smell as a ‘sweet reek’ is mentioned putting the reader in suspense as to what it is and using assonance to describe the smell. The setting here is rather pleasant but has an underlying sinister aspect to it as the smell is described as a reek against such a serene summers day that Frayne originally described. We get the impression that the novel is very much set in the 20th century from when the older Stephen mentions getting ‘cheap flights’ and from when he states ‘I pick up the phone to book twice but put it down again’ When Stephen tells his children he is going to London for a few days his language becomes slightly more poetic as he says ‘I’m following the track of a shrub that flowers for a few weeks each summer, and destroys my peace’ Frayn’s words destroys my peaces suggests an underlying darkness of his destination and implies hints of secrecy foreshadowing future events and that secrecy is a common theme that might occur later in Spies. We also find a sense of contrast between German and
The Ode expresses a direct happiness and enthusiasm as Keats praising the urn's sculpture, to understand the origin of his amazement and the beauty in his eyes, an account for his definition to "truth beauty" and how he capture the "truth beauty" should be made. Instead of introducing any information and background of the urn, Keats starts his praise to the urn in the very beginning of the poem. What readers can see is not the realistic status of the material, which is apparently ignored, instead, Keats welcomed his readers to witness he exerting his imagination with the urn. Indulging in his imagination, Keats seems to expand the extent of what the urn was created to express, therefore, neither the urn's real status and content nor its persistent existence will be significant to him, the real beauty of the urn will be always vital and vivid as people imagine over the urn, it is in this sense endow with the character of eternity. Since the eternal beauty is generated not by the presence of art itself, but one's imagination, it may account for why unheard melodies are sweeter than those actually heard.