Making close references to language, imagery and form, consider the ways Owen presents and uses mockery and detachment in 'Insensibility' and how this poem relates to his methods and concerns in other poems
Making close references to language, imagery and form, consider the ways Owen presents and uses mockery and detachment in 'Insensibility' and how this poem relates to his methods and concerns in other poems Throughout Owen's collection of poetry, on of the running themes that we can pick up on is that of detachment and mockery of the situation, as opposed to being emotionally engaged with the subject and causing the reader to feel any empathy. The poem in the collection which is key to this idea is 'Insensibility', which both uses and explains the detachment which soldiers feel, and therefore makes a strong connection between itself and many more of his poems. The very name of the poem, 'Insensibility', seems to me to be quite detached from feeling in itself. It is quite a formal word, and not one which is used that often, and gives a sense of being quite removed from reality. This immediately gives the reader an idea of what to expect as it seems that the soldiers are even detached from the idea that they are lacking feeling and use such a cold and emotionless word to describe the state which they are in. I also think that the connotations the word carries by being synonymous with the word for lacking sense or intelligence are important, as they also give the idea that these soldiers who have become numb to feeling have also lost the power of intelligent thought and this
Analysis on Michael Longley's Poetry - Its effect on me
. What impact did the poetry of Michael Longley make on you as a reader? In shaping your answer you might consider some of the following: - Your overall sense of the personality or outlook of the poet - The poet's use of language and imagery - Your favourite poem or poems. Michael Longley has definately made a positive inmpact on me. I found his poetry to be very interesting, dealing with several issues and themes such as war and nature. The fact that he dealt with those issues in itself does not make the poetry interesting, it is how he dealt with them. His clear, unbiased way of writing allows us to see the effects events have on its victims. His clever use of striking imagery helps us imagine the scenes depicted in his poetry clearly and concicely. Longley also tends to look at the past to understand current events, something I find really enjoyable as it shows us how little human nature has changed and learnt from past events. Out of all of Longley's poetry my favourite poem is "Ceasefire" for severl reasons. Michael Longley's "poetic voice" out of all the poets I have studied is by far, the most honest and convincing. Longley portrays events in his poetry as they happened, and shows no emotion or bias towards any side. This is most clearly seen in "Last Requests" and "Wreaths". Both Last requests and wreaths deal with war. They portray horrific events that either
The American Civil War is a topic which many poets have addressed in verse. What separates Lowells For The Union Dead from the scores of other Civil War poems is not only the complex interweaving of period and contemporary events in order to make
BASED ON YOUR READING OF THE CRITICAL ANTHOLOGY, ARGUE THE CASE FOR YOUR SELECTION OF POEMS WHICH YOU VIEW AS HAVING VALUE The American Civil War is a topic which many poets have addressed in verse. What separates Lowell's 'For The Union Dead' from the scores of other Civil War poems is not only the complex interweaving of period and contemporary events in order to make a social commentary on change, which give the poem a strong modern-day resonance, but also the precise and polysemic lexis Lowell employs in order to link different timeframes. In 1964, four years after he first read 'For The Union Dead' in public, Lowell stated in a letter: "In my poem For The Union Dead, I lament the loss of the old Abolitionist spirit; the terrible injustice, in the past and present, of the American treatment of the Negro is the greatest urgency to me as a man and a writer.". By describing the "loss" of such a spirit, Lowell also reveals what has replaced it in modern Boston; a vulgar fixation with consumerism. His juxtaposition of the unselfish and heroic sacrifice of Colonel Shaw and his all-black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry against the moral decline of modern Boston, of a rose-tinted past against a dystopian present, is a continual theme in the poem. He describes the bronze monument celebrating their valour as "(sticking) like a fishbone in the city's throat", going on to
Blake's idea of Innocence
Seminar Leader: Ben Hickman Jo Devanny, jd307 (R) 5 November 2008 School of English E325 Romanticism Question 1. 'The Romantic conception of innocence is full of complexities and ironies; the difficulty for the reader is to gauge whether these are conscious or not.' Discuss with reference to Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The subject of innocence and youth is an integral part of Blake's 'Songs of Innocence and Experience,' these poems are generally associated with children and their innocence without experience, as we see in 'The Eccohing Green' in Songs of Innocence as 'The Sun does arise', and the short line length gives the happy imagery of children playing without restrictions in the idyllic setting where nature and happiness are in synchronicity. As the 'sun does descend' in the final stanza and the language changes the mood to 'weary' and 'darkening' with a longer line length, the reader could assume that this is signifying how short lived youth is. Also that Blake is marking the loss of innocence as sport is 'no more seen' and the green no longer 'Ecchoes' the youth of the on looking past generation. When debating whether or not Blake was aware of the ironies in his work it is important to look at his ever-recurring theme of the church and God. In 'The Divine Image' we are told that 'all must love the human form/ In heathen, turk or jew:' Yet
Compare and Contrast James Joyce & Charles Dickens
LO 2.2 Where Two or More Extracts/Poems are Analysed, Critically Compare the Effects of Forms and Literary Language. Charles Dickens Great Expectations and James Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, both wrote their novels using a semi-autobiographical style, the second written in a bildungsroman style. The first mentioned being introduced in the first-person aspect, Pip who is the main protagonist is attempting to identify his parentage and outlines briefly his childhood background from a adult perspective, in contrast James Joyce's novel is written in the omniscient third-person narrator style which is describing Stephen's developmental experiences and eludes to his coisted upbringing, where as Philip Pirrip didn't know his parents. The theme of death is prevalent, suffering, gratitude and social mobility is also apparent throughout the chapter one of Great Expectations, the structure is a coherent narrative, flowing and descriptive, in comparison chapter one of James Joyce's novel contains such themes as social mobility and the development of individual consciousness. The structure and is one of a fragmented stream of consciousness. Both chapters within their novels share a generalised functional statement, one of social mobility and off childhood experiences, Joyce's novel highlights. Joyce's novel introduces "baby tuckoo" or Stephen whom is close to
The Man with Night Sweats
Critical Analysis and Interpretation of "The Man with Night Sweats" by Thom Gunn. Thom Gunn has in an interview described himself as a cold poet and the scene in "The Man with Night Sweats" is cold, physically and also in the situation the persona finds himself in where he learns the cold truth that his body may not be as invincible as he thought it was. The persona is suffering from AIDS and as it can be seen, his body is slowly deteriorating. He "wake[s] up cold" in the middle of the night, unable to contain the pain and restlessness - "Night Sweats" - and begins remembering his past when "[he]...prospered through dreams of heat", implying a past of promiscuity and how now he "Wake[s] to their residue/ Sweat, and a clinging sheet." His body is becoming just a "residue", of what it was before, or what he thought his body used to be. "My flesh was it's own shield/ Where it gashed, it healed." and for this reason, he failed to take care of it because he believed it could take care of itself regardless and so he became too careless with how he treated it. While he was sure his body was invincible, he took the carelessness too far, he "grew as [he] explored/ The body [he] could trust/ All the while [he] adored/ The risk that made robust/ A world of wonders in/ Each challenge to the skin." He was unable to stop and "adored" being promiscuous so much and he thought, since he
The Bay - James K Baxter
Critical analysis and interpretation of "The Bay" by James K Baxter James K Baxter wrote poems that talked about his own countryside and the people who lived there and though "The Bay" has a tone of nostalgia he claims that "what happens [in his writing] is either meaningless to [him] or else it is mythology". "The Bay" does touch on some mythology in the last line of the second stanza when he walks about the "taniwha." and he uses nature and his surroundings to identify with his feelings and describe them. He finds himself "On the road to the bay" recalling moments in his childhood. How they "bathed at times and changed in the bamboos" and how they "raced boats from the banks of the pumice creek/ Or swam in...autumnal shallows." There is a sense of carelessness, care freeness and openness that we all have when we are young. That joy and freedom and excitement that one experiences. The lack of worry and the innocence he had as a child. When it was a "veritable garden where everything comes easy." Looking at it now it has "no meaning...but loss." It doesn't matter anymore because he lost it and he somehow regrets his later and present life as so far it has gotten nowhere - "Now it is rather to stand and say/ How many roads we take that leads to Nowhere." He doesn't seem to be happy with his life so far and could be trying to look for some sort of meaning and remember what it
Commentary on The Lost Heritage by Heather Buck
Commentary on the Lost Heritage The Lost Heritage by Heather Buck expresses the message that in today's lifestyle, we have lost our touch with our past. The main theme of the poem is the fact that the present's children are not informed about their detailed past. We are blind to the importance and significance of our heritage. The opening phrase "Coreopsis, saffron, madder, daily we tread kaleidoscopes of [color], on Persian rugs we set our feet" indicates that we have a colorful and bright heritage but that daily we ignore it and shun ourselves out from that. We "tread" on it as if it meant nothing to us. It is clear that Heather Buck views our heritage as a wondrous object as she describes it as a Persian carpet full of many different bright and colorful aspects. Heather Buck then moves on to say that we are "blind to the woven threads and dyes, the intricate patterns that shape our lives". Through this phrase, Heather Buck expresses that we in the present do not realize the complex nature of our heritage, but despite our ignorance at our heritage, it still continues to affect our lives. The finishing line "while our minds are indelibly printed by one another" indicates that our ideas and values are taken forth from the actions of the people around us and this makes up for our lost heritage in our minds. We gather up new values and ideals from the things that we see and
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner-Issues of Paganism and Christianity
In spite of the fact that the Mariner prays to God, the poem is more Pagan than Christian. Consider Coleridge's presentation of the story of the Ancient Mariner in the light of this comment. In the epigraph to 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', the quote that appears most prominent is 'there are more invisible natures than visible ones among the entities in the universe'. It is clear from this that Coleridge intended to explore both the physical and metaphysical/spiritual worlds within the poem. The 'invisible natures' referred to may be interpreted in many different ways and this will have an impact on whether it can be seen as Pagan or Christian. It may be hinting at a spiritual being, such as God, watching over the universe or perhaps many spiritual beings, as in Paganism, each responsible for their own area of nature. There is also the possibility that it isn't referring to those invisible presences working above nature, but those invisible presences among nature such as ghosts and the ability to carry out witchcraft. Unlike Christianity, a monotheistic religion, in which every follower believes in the same God (albeit sometimes interpreted in different ways in the 21st century) Pagans are free to believe in which Divine being, or beings they wish, making this religion highly personalised. The Mariner refers to 'God himself' in Part the Seventh, suggesting that
Christina Rossettis The Convent Threshold. Write about the ways Rosseti tells the story in the convent threshold
Write about the ways Rosseti tells the story in the convent threshold Christina Rossetti's 'The Convent Threshold', is a dramatic monologue thus letting Rossetti make the narrator seem torn between her earthly love and spiritual fervor as we are able to see her view point exactly. Rossetti's narrator directs her gaze to a chaste heaven, while her still unrepentant lover is preoccupied with his life now on earth. Therefore the reader understands that it is her choice between him and heaven, yet she can not envision the afterlife without him being in it, 'Only my lips still turn to you, My livid lips that cry, Repent!' thus making it a paradox of her rejecting her former life that may be rejected in eternity. The use of assonance within the poem help Rossetti tell the story as the initial lines dramatically link 'love' with 'blood', symbolising the theme of sinful passion which is 'scarlet' and 'soiled', this shows the speakers past has not always been one of pureness and well being through the eyes of the Christian views, this is reinforced with the quote 'My lily feet are soiled with mud' metaphorically meaning she has sinned once was pure as a lily but now is ruined, and is un pure, therefore is repenting to make up for her sins. Her Christian views are emphasized when she says 'with Cherubim and Seraphim' as she believes by repenting her sins she will also be innocent and
