Comparitive ideas in poetry
"It wasn't so much the theme or idea that interested me as the different ways different poets wrote."
In what different ways did you find that different poets treated the same theme or idea? Refer to a range of poems and poets in your answer.
From the study of various poems by Wilfred Owen, Grace Nichols, W.H. Auden, Gwen Harwood, Bruce Dawe, John Donne and Shakespeare, I found that there was a common theme of death dealt with by each poet. Human reactions to death such as grief, celebration and acceptance were concentrated on by the poets. They also explored the concept of death being a like sleep and also leading to some form of an afterlife or being part of the larger continuum of life. The poets all presented similar ideas effectively through the use of different literary techniques. The pace and structure of the poem as well as use of alliteration, consonance, sibilance, rhyme, metaphor and personification all enabled the poets to treat the theme of death.
In "Stop all the clocks cut off the telephone" W.H. Auden successfully captures grief in a way which is common to all people. Auden establishes his grief for the loss of his lover from a domestic, urban, global and universal level with his word choice, including the 'dog barking' and the 'aeroplanes' to the stars moon and sun showing the intensely personal subject and extent that his world has been affected. Every aspect of the poem is a reflection of his grief from the very structure of the poem which amplifies the subject matter, to the rhyme and rhythm of the poem. He uses a half rhyme that is appropriately discordant and jarring to emphasise the loss, but he also allows rhythm and perfect rhyme to contrast in the fourth stanza, which is the lyric high point of the poem. The contrast between jarring rhyme that encompasses the grief and highly euphonic complete rhyme emphasising the love lost but that is immortalised in the poem. The poem is a poignant evocation of grief as it holds the rhyme and rhythm in a fine balance, not becoming sentimental whilst remaining powerful. Auden uses the "muffled drum" to dictate the pace of the poem as the word endings change to a harder 'd' and pausing gives a sense of finality. The sound scape of the poem echoes the funeral drum beat and the 'n' of 'wrong', 'moaning' and 'noon' allows the sound to linger as the sad drum would in the air. Auden expresses his desire for the world to stop "Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun" but it doesn't, which conveys the bitterness of loss but also sweetness in the euphony of language and imagery as it is clear he was loved. The beauty of the language offers consolation and his memory and love forever lasts in the poem. In much the same way, Harwood suggests that memory is a consolation in the face of death. Harwood like Auden is able to convey effectively not only the grief found in death but also the comfort in memory.
Like Auden, Bruce Dawe also deals with the death of a loved family member, his mother-in-law, Gladys. "Going" shows a contrasting resolution to the death, in a tender, light-hearted poem that celebrates the joy of her life. The common diction, "Mum, you big spender" gives the poem a warm, gentle and affectionate tone that shows the great love he had for this woman. The exclamation in the first line of each stanza makes Dawe's celebration and acceptance of death emphatic. The celebration of Dawe's mother-in-laws life culminates with the metaphor "The laughing reminiscences/ snagged on the pruned roses" ...
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Like Auden, Bruce Dawe also deals with the death of a loved family member, his mother-in-law, Gladys. "Going" shows a contrasting resolution to the death, in a tender, light-hearted poem that celebrates the joy of her life. The common diction, "Mum, you big spender" gives the poem a warm, gentle and affectionate tone that shows the great love he had for this woman. The exclamation in the first line of each stanza makes Dawe's celebration and acceptance of death emphatic. The celebration of Dawe's mother-in-laws life culminates with the metaphor "The laughing reminiscences/ snagged on the pruned roses" in the final stanza of the poem. The light-hearted and celebratory language chosen by Dawe is a direct reflection of the "joy of her going!" The common imagery he chose emphasises the ordinary and 'down to earth' life of Gladys, whilst the alliteration in "bright blowing day" is highly euphonic, confirming the celebration. The personified 'reminiscences' gives life to her once more which is also implied in the "pruned roses". As the roses as cut back, they will one day re-bloom, with the connotation that her memory will last forever. The pace of the poem varies and follows the imagery and tone, whilst the free verse enables an up-beat reading which is in accord with the poem. In the second stanza the pace fastens with shortened words "Zipp!" and exclamations, whereas the "old dress" and "pruned" have a longer sound scape that slows the poem to enable tenderness and contemplation in the moments of heightened emotion. The metaphor in the second stanza of "The heart's roller blind/rattling up" is extremely effective in the poem as it figuratively demonstrates the death of Gladys as being rapid with the short and precise word "Zipp!" The "roller blind" is a common image that emphasises the ordinariness of her life that in passing amongst her family "at a barbeque in the garden" shows that death is an everyday and natural event. This idea is implicit in Grace Nichol's "Tropical Death" through her acceptance of death. Both Dawe and Nichols demonstrate that death is a natural occurrence but also something that can be celebrated through colloquial language and positive, warm, imagery.
In "Tropical Death" Grace Nichols assumes the persona of a "Fat Black Woman" to highlight the customs of her Caribbean culture and especially those of funeral rites. It is evident in "Tropical Death" Nichol's acceptance of death which implies death is a natural occurrence. Her acceptance is shown through the assertive and positive language through the poem shown in the first line "The fat black woman want a brilliant tropical death" which is then reiterated in the final line emphasising the brilliance of death. The Creole diction forces a faster pace and with the positive language a bright and happy image is created in relation to death. The "blue sea dress" and "sun leaf's cool bless" evoke a positive image that contrasts sharply with the western belief of death being "cold" and "forlorn". The abundance of natural imagery "heat/hibiscus" and "her mother's sweetbreast" all collate to imply the completely natural normal occurrence that is death. Her choice of associating herself to her mother and people further back in time is a technique employed by Harwood in "Mother who gave me life". The "fat black woman" is said to be "In the bloom/ of her people's bloodrest" implying that Nichols finds comfort in the idea that an individual continues to exist in some form of an afterlife and that she is connected to thousands of people before her through blood. In "Mother who gave me life" Harwood links backwards in time through "your mother, and hers/ and beyond speech growing stranger" implying a time before the English language and in doing so celebrates women to pre-history. She also makes an evolutionary link between humans and monkeys. This greater evolutionary idea sets humans in place in the continuum of life suggesting that we have a place in the world and in death we become the sustenance for other life. Indeed, this is also evident in Judith Wright's "Woman to Child" as "All time lay rolled in me" the imagery is suggestive of pre-history and the human connection to this time. In my study I found a very common concept of death not only being a natural event but furthermore a bigger part of the continuum of life which was expressed through imagery in Wright and Harwood's poems as well as word choice and tone in Nichols' "Tropical Death".
In John Donne's "Death be not proud, though some have called thee", Donne personifies death as the enemy and a foe to be demolished. In this way he removes the need to fear death furthermore suggesting that death is merely a sleep in transition to the afterlife. Donne labels death as "Mighty and dreadfull" and a "slave to fate", giving death physical qualities throughout the poem which effectively casts death as an enemy through conversational confrontation. It is a highly structured poem, a petrarchan sonnet that traditionally addresses a problem in the first part and in the second part a resolution is found in Donne killing death which works to supply the audience with a comforting view of death. Donne's assonance, consonance and alliteration heightens in the sestet during the powerful emotion "poyson, warre, and sicknesse" where this prevalence contributes to the strength of emotion. There is a heightening intensity of emotion which culminates in the last two lines as Donne destroys death "wee wake eternally" with the idea of and afterlife. The use of shortened sentences and words "much more must flow" and "death be not proud" throughout the poem gives a sense of finality in the same way that the colon used allows reiteration and a forced pause in reading that demonstrates this finality. Like Donne, Owen explores the idea of an afterlife with somewhat less definite conclusion but equally structured poem. Owen offers universal insight into grief and suffering which is emphasised through his lack of resolution "Who knows? Who hopes? Who troubles? Let it pass?" Owen addresses what lays beyond the sleep in which "Death took him" with biblical language suggesting one possibility is that of the conventional sleep "on calm pillows of God's making" or that of a return to "being one with the grey grass". It is clear Owen himself is uncertain of the answer but it does not matter as he has been released into peace which is evident through the last line "we who must wake and waking say alas!" Owen uses short words and disjointed half rhyme to reflect the suffering through war and the comfort and release men find in death. Both Donne and Owen suggest that the conventional religious belief in God and heaven meaning death does not exist with highly structured poems.
In much the same way that Donne overcomes death with the implication that it is merely "One short sleepe", Shakespeare also finds comfort in the suggestion that our lives are "rounded with a sleep" in the poem "Our revels are now ended". The patterns of words in the poem suggest the transience of life with an emphasis on dissolution "ended", "spirits" and "melted". There is a moment of heightened vision in which the cadence becomes increasingly intense. "The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces," and "the great globe itself" displays a greater understanding of the world where life is fleeting which is evident through the imagery that is highly suggestive of a fairytale or dream that will inevitably dissolve. As do many of the other poets, Shakespeare displays an acceptance of death but the gentle cadence at the end of the poem implies a sense of sadness at this idea of conclusion that is apparent in the finality of the first sentence and title of the poem, "Our revels are now ended." More than the word end but also the shortened words emphasise the finality. The pace is very controlled through the poem through colons and punctuation which allows contemplation by the reader but the soft pace along with the cadence reflects the slow and gentle sleep that Shakespeare propositions as death. The poem culminates in the final word "sleep" which is commonly used euphemistically as a gentle and kind view of death as is the case for Shakespeare. Throughout the poem the sibilance through the 's' and 'l' sounds in "shall dissolve" and "like this insubstantial" softens the tone to coincide with the gentle imagery of sleep and dreaming enabling Shakespeare to present a comforting view of death. Death being a sleep is a common idea evident in the poetry of Donne, Shakespeare and Owen. In Wilfred Owen's poem, "Asleep" he uses the title as an obvious indication that he believes death to be a sleep as the poem about death in war. "Futility" similarly expresses this idea emphatically with the soldiers' vain attempts to wake a seemingly sleeping but dead comrade. Just as Shakespeare's "Our revels are now ended", Owen's poems also suggest death as being merely a sleep.
In the poetry of Grace Nichols, Gwen Harwood, Bruce Dawe, W.H. Auden, Wilfred Owen, Shakespeare and John Donne there is a strong common theme of death which all of the poets choose to address in different ways. Various poets demonstrated a similar idea that death whilst being a natural event should be openly grieved but also a joyous occasion in which a life should be celebrated. Another common theme was overcoming death through acceptance, and the comfort of the idea of an afterlife but also death being a sleep. The poets whilst handling alike themes and ideas used varying techniques in order to express such ideas. Through the use of alliteration, consonance, sibilance, rhyme, metaphor and personification as well as altering pace and structure of the poem they were able to effectively convey these ideas.
