"By a close analysis of at least two poems, examine the way people cope with death and describe the different emotional reaction they experience. Show how the different poets convey these emotions to us."
Poetry Coursework
Angela Harkin
Mr. Rankin
English
6 January 2005
POETRY COURSEWORK
"By a close analysis of at least two poems, examine the way people cope with death and describe the different emotional reaction they experience. Show how the different poets convey these emotions to us."
The two poems I have chosen are 'Stop all the Clocks,' by W.H Auden and 'Evans,' by R.S Thomas. These poems are on the subject of death, about how different people react, how they feel and about how they deal with it when a relative or someone close passes away. The nature of the relationship between the poet and the deceased are different and varies and indeed these two poems convey the different reactions successfully.
Stop all the Clocks is a poem, which was used as funeral blues song. It is often said at funerals because it expresses the emotions, which are involved when someone close dies. Throughout the poem the writer's request are bizarre and impossible to actually take place. The requests is what the person grieving wants to happen, he/she wants all the clocks to stop, for dogs to stop barking... It shows respect for the deceased person. It shows how much the deceased means to the mourner. It is obvious that the person was close to the dead person.
If W. H Auden was writing this poem for an actual person that he knew then perhaps the person who had died was more than just a friend, maybe in love with him? W. H Auden himself was gay. In the poem, he admits that he was in love with the deceased person, "I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong." This line is very touching and it probably expresses the most emotion than the rest.
The tone of the poem does not stay the same throughout the whole poem. It changes in the third ...
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If W. H Auden was writing this poem for an actual person that he knew then perhaps the person who had died was more than just a friend, maybe in love with him? W. H Auden himself was gay. In the poem, he admits that he was in love with the deceased person, "I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong." This line is very touching and it probably expresses the most emotion than the rest.
The tone of the poem does not stay the same throughout the whole poem. It changes in the third verse; it becomes more depressing, and slows down. In the third verse, he is referring to how much the deceased meant to him. From the sounds of it, the deceased was his life, his reason for living.
The poem was said in the film, 'Four Weddings and a Funeral." In the film, the man who says the poem was in love with the man who had died. Perhaps this is how W. H Auden felt the same way. It definitely shows that the person who died was very close to the deceased man. Although in Evans written by R. S Thomas, the poet was not that close to the deceased man.
In the poem Evans, it starts of with the tail end of a question, which straight away gets the reader thinking about whom Evans was and what was the question, which was asked.
The poem has no rhyme scheme; it is 'run-on' sentences. The reason for this is that the poet is writing the poem as if he is remembering all the details. He writes it as if he is answering the question.
The writer explains to us how he felt and what he saw so vividly it is unreal. Throughout the poem our imagination takes his clever choice of words such as his alliteration, 'bleak bed' and his large amount of adjectives, 'gaunt,' and 'stark,' to paint a picture. His words are so fitting that the image which appears in our head is probably the seem as the actual event, it is as if we were there.
Evans obviously lived in a house up in the rural hills, with no civilisation. His lifestyle was very basic. He must have been a lonely man, no company except for a parish priest, which in fact R. S Thomas was. So Evans must have been one of the people that R. S Thomas visited. Evans did not seem to have any luxurious or valuable items but Thomas's description, his life was harsh.
Evans choice of words and adjectives are so negative, no positive at all, that it sets depression within ourselves, and it makes us wonder why anyone would live like this. It is impossible to imagine their lifestyle for people who actually live like that.
The two poems are obviously about death. However, the reaction is different within the poets. W. H Auden was in love with the person who had died, you felt sorry for him and could possibly imagine how he felt because most of us have lost someone we loved. However, with R. S Thomas it is impossible to imagine how he felt, perhaps he felt guilty? We cannot know. None of us has had a 'client' who has died, who lived a lifestyle as he lived. We can imagine his house and how he lived but not how he felt or how he managed to survive a lifestyle like his.
Stop all the clocks had a rhyme scheme making it more upbeat in a way. It had a rhythm, but with Evans, it just flowed on, like thoughts.
Both poems were good. They were very different and only one thing in common and that was the subject of death.
Stop all the Clocks was good because I could imagine what the poet felt, so in a way I could relate to it. However, in Evans, I did not have a clue how the poet must have felt, so it left mystery. It was so descriptive, it was like watching it.
When we first read Evans, I did not like it, I did not understand it, and did not think it was good. I loved Stop all the Clocks, I thought it was amazing and read it so many times I new the first two verses of by heart! However, when I started writing this coursework on the poems, I soon realised that I preferred Evans more. It got me thinking about the poem, and it is a better poem in my opinion.
In Stop all the Clocks, you could not really imagine anything but in Evans, when you read the words, they just get your imagination going.
