Language of poetry Essay Example for Free

Language of poetry Essay When looking at the language used by a poet when creating a poem it is important we do this with a number of things in mind. What kind of image is the poet attempting to create in our thoughts? When was this poem created? How is it structured and punctuated? What context has it been written? and also how does the poet want us to feel when reading the work? No matter how long or short a poem may be the language used when creating it will be vital as to deciding how we respond to the poem. It is not just what the poet is trying to say but how they are attempting to say it that will define how this poem resonates within us. There are many reasons why an author might choose to use some words instead of others. A poet might choose words for the way they sound, compliment other words, shock value, for the tense they are in or even for the perspective they want to use. For the purpose of this essay we will be looking at three American poets with the intent of studying the language used in their works in order to better understand the meanings of these poems and to also figure out why they were written in a certain way. Look more:  first poem for you analysis essay When looking at the language used in each of these poems we will be looking out for many of the things mentioned above to aid the investigation into the language within them. The first poet that we will look at is William Carlos Williams and in particular his poem â€Å"This is Just to Say†. Just like all the poems he has written it is a short piece which is created using simple words and sentences that can be easily understood by the reader. The poem is full of enjambment and this means that we put particular emphasis on the words â€Å"breakfast, â€Å"delicious†, â€Å"so sweet† and â€Å"so cold†. If we didn’t observe the enjambment in this poem it would more than likely be mistaken for a short note for someone’s sister, mother, wife or father. The way that enjambment is used in this poem has a profound effect, it is a poem written in the past tense, and one that relies heavily on the creation of an image in the mind of the reader. This poem successfully creates that image nearly to the point where we can almost see the drops of moisture on the plums as they glisten in the sunlight prior to being devoured by the writer. How the poet uses enjambment enables this strong creation of an image. He uses the words delicious, sweet and cold to great effect and their placing within the poem adds hugely to how they aid this. They are all grouped together in the last section of the poem and this means we are quickly bombarded with a triple whammy of descriptive words in what is a very short poem. It is also important to note how Williams says the plums are â€Å"so† sweet and â€Å"so† cold rather than just sweet and cold. This little word has a huge effect and it compounds in our minds just how sweet and cold they really were and as such, one might even feel a desire to have the plums themselves if reading the poem on an empty stomach. The poem is structured in one long flowing sentence that is broken up into three sections of three lines, this structure makes it easy to digest and understand. The poem â€Å"Woman Poem† by Nikki Giovanni is about a black woman and what her life is like. The woman wants things in life; the men will not let her have what she wants. The author, Nikki Giovanni uses several poetic aspects in the poem. Throughout the poem she uses synecdoche’s to make her point, for example: â€Å"me getting fat as a hog† being used to describe gaining weight. The imagery created by this poem helps to describe the way that men hold her back. It is a completely different poem to the one investigated above but again it relies heavily on imagery along with words with a real sense of shock value to get a message across to the reader. The language of this poem is language of oppression, frustration, anger, devastation and hopelessness and the images it creates are such too. It describes the life of a black woman in the 1960s and when doing so she describes a yearning to be â€Å"free†. Free from the constraints of what she describes as a male dominated society, one where she almost feels as if she has been castrated. She does not mean this literally but the use of the word â€Å"castrated† is symbolic to the genuine feeling of being powerless she feels almost as a dog being castrated would. She is using words as a means of venting and conveying her feelings and it is obvious to see the emotion attached to what she writes. The third stanza reads: â€Å"it’s a sex object if you’re pretty and no love or love and no sex if you’re fat get back fat black woman be a mother grandmother strong thing but not woman gameswoman romantic woman love needer man seeker dick eater sweat getter fuck needing love seeking woman† This stanza is the one within the poem which is the most image provoking. The language used is vulgar and not everyday conversation etiquette. She most likely uses language of this sort on purpose in order to grab the attention of the reader and highlight her plight as a woman who can be regarded by men as merely an object for sex. She repeats this process throughout the poem to great effect using words like â€Å"whore† and â€Å"black dog†. As a whole this poem is difficult to read and find meaning from but when carefully studied it created in the mind an image of hopelessness for women. One of an existence devoid of happiness, an image compounded by the final lines which read: â€Å"face me whose whole life is tied up to unhappiness cause it’s the only for real thing i know† The third poem to be investigated is â€Å"Poppies in July† by Sylvia Plaith. This poem was written in July 1962. At this stage of her life, Plath’s marriage to Ted Hughes was in turmoil, and she was suffering from a severe bout of depression. http://sylviaplathnotes. wordpress. com/poppies-in-july/. With this poem she enables us to have an insight into the turmoil and pain she felt inside. The colour red is prominent and this symbolises anger and rage. The images created in the mind are very dark, vivid and disturbing, imitating what her thoughts were when she created the poem. At the start of this poem we are informed that bright red colour of poppies reminds the poet of the burning fires of hell. The poppies swaying in the breeze remind the poet of flames flickering. She begins to show a desire to self harm, thrusting her hand among the â€Å"flames† to see if it burns but there is something about these flowers that she cannot touch. This is the reader’s first real insight into the pain Plath must have been feeling. Throughout the poem we are reminded of her desire to cause harm to herself. Later in the poem she describes outward appearance of the flowers again, this time with a simile. Now she likens them to the wrinkled, red skin of a bloodied mouth rather than the flames of hell. This violent imagery is another hint towards her desire to self-harm. Continuing the idea that there is something about these flowers she cannot touch, she now states that she is unable to touch their fumes and enquires about their opiates. This represents a longing for heroin or opium which is a drug created from poppies. Complex imagery is used, referring to her mouth as a means of taking the drug. Exclamation marks indicate just how desperate the poet is getting. She needs these drugs and she needs them now! Throughout this poem there is a recurring theme of desperation from the poet, desperation for obliteration through drugs or self harm, it relies on graphic imagery to get the point across and gives us an idea of the darkness encased within the mind of the poet. She closes the poem with the words â€Å"colourless, colourless† which might represent how she feels her life and marriage have become. Through investigation of the above poems we are able to come to numerous conclusions regarding the language used within them. The first poem is nothing more than a short piece but it still manages to create not only a powerful image in the mind but also a longing for the peaches described within! The last two poems investigated however are far more deep and sombre affairs. They offer us a real window into the souls of their creators. The language used in each of these is powerful and it is impossible to read them without being left with a real sense of the turmoil felt by both these women. They both utilise the shock value element of language to make their poems that bit more hard hitting and employ similar punctuation techniques also. Through doing this investigation into language of poetry we can now understand how the language used by the poet is vital when it comes to determining the feelings we are left with having read a poem.

Billy Budd :: essays research papers

Billy Budd by Herman Melville fits into both categories of tragedy, classic and modern. This story fits into both Aristotle’s and Arthur Miller’s concepts of tragedy. Billy Budd is this story’s tragic hero and its his actions that determine how this story fits into both categories.The classic definition of tragedy is Aristotle’s, that the tragic hero must be noble and have a tragic flaw. He must also experience a reversal of fortune and recognize the reason for his downfall. This couldn’t be any more like Billy’s story. Billy played was a respected and loved sailor with an embarrassing stutter, but was accused of conspiring to stage a mutiny. This changes Billy’s life dramatically resulting in him to kill an officer, and sentenced to death. Before he is executed though he blesses the man who sentenced him to death, which tells the reader that he had forgiven him and understands why he must be killed. Aristotle’s definition says a tragedy should have â€Å"incidents arousing pity and fear†. The incident with Claggart must have certainly caused the reader to pity him and to fear how Captain Vere would handle Billy. The modern concept of tragedy is that of Arthur Miller’s, that the audience feels and fears for the characters so much that it is as if they are the characters themselves. The characters finally meet their tragic end, and the audience witnesses and understands their end. This applies to Billy mostly because of his likeability. The readers come to love Billy as his fellows sailors do. He is completely innocent and naive at the same time. The readersees his weakness and comes to feel sorry for Billy the way one might for a child. The reader sympathizes with Billy especially when he is confronted by Claggart and can do nothing, but stutter. The reader is with Billy throughout and witnesses his transformation at the end. In this fashion,

Individual Assignment: Interview Report Essay

Cross-Cultural Realities at Work (individual interview report) In this individual assignment, you are required to interview someone who is different from you (see criteria below) so that you may learn from the interviewee and be able to adequately reflect on the questions for analysis as given below. Please make yourself aware of questions for interview and for analysis before conducting the interview. This interview is designed for students who are learning about diversity. Preparation Find someone who meets all three criteria: at least 7 years older or younger than you are; doing work that you may not imagine yourself doing; and culturally distinctly different from you. Conducting the Interview Your goal is to get the person talking. Listen for what is said, what is implied, and what is not said. Try not to insert your opinions and experience. Use the sample interview questions as below; please feel free to add your own. Start the interview by explaining who you are and why you are interviewing him or her. Thank the person sincerely for giving you his or her time and thoughts. Be sensitive throughout the interview regarding whether the person wants to continue. Sample Interview Questions Start with questions that are easy and comfortable to answer. 1. What kind of work do you do? 2. How long have you been doing it? 3. Can you describe a typical workday? Then move to questions that require more thought and rapport with the interviewer. 1. Why did you end up doing this work? What kind of person often does this sort of work? (And would you consider yourself typical?) 2. What do you like about this work? 3. What is difficult about this work? 4. How do [customers, others in the company, etc.] treat you? What do they  think about the job you do? [Adapt this question to fit your particular interview—try to get at how the person thinks he or she is treated based on his or her work.] 5. How does being a [fill in the blank with a salient cultural category: man, older person, African-American, 20-something, etc.] play into the work you do? 6. Has this work changed the way you think about yourself and about the world? 7. What are some cultural values that are important to you? [It can be family, work, or interpersonal.] Do you think these are similar to or different from mainstream American culture? Please explain your ideas. 8. What do you like best about American culture? What do you like least? [Even if the person is American, he or she will have an opinion about this question that gives you some insight about how he or she views things from his or her perspective.] Thank him or her again. Analysis of Your Interview and Writing Your Report Think about your interview, the person, and his or her work. Please consider these questions as you write your report for this assignment. Make sure to present a well thought response based on your interview and these questions. 1. First, state who the interviewee is and how does he or she meet the three criteria (all three should be met). 2. What aspects of this person’s work determine or indicate his or her status relative to others? 3. What are some of the connections between this person’s work experience and gender, race, age, and/or ethnicity, etc.? 4. What kinds of attitudes, values, and behaviors does this person’s work culture encourage? 5. What attitudes and values held by this person are similar to your own, and which are different? 6. From this interview, what can give us insight into communicating across cultures or across work cultures?

Psychoanalytic Criticism Of Sons And Lovers - 1597 Words

David Herbert Lawrence was born September 11, 1885 in a small coal mining village in Nottingham, England. He was the fourth child of Arthur and Lydia Lawrence. Arthur was a coal miner who worked in the mine from age 10 until he was 66. Lydia the more educated out of the two was born into a lower-middle class family; this changed when her father suffered a financial disaster. She passed down to her sons the profound desire to move out of the working class by expressing her dissatisfaction with her husband’s dead job combined and his drinking habits. Sons and Lovers is an eye opening semibiographical novel written by D.H Lawrence, an English writer from the United Kingdom. The novel was D.H Lawrence’s third book published in 1913 by†¦show more content†¦The story of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex helped Freud to help illustrate his theory to the public. In this story, Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother â€Å"Slay my father and he dies†¦ fear not that marriage with thy mother† (Oedipus Rex, lines 1000 1013). According to Freud, all male children form an attraction for their mother around ages 3-5 during the â€Å"phallic† stage of development,. Eventually they learn to repress their sexual desires for their mother because the fearing of being castrated by their father (threats son’s masculinity). However, if the boy doesn’t repress his feeling for his mother â€Å"the sexual wishes in regard to the mother become more intense†, and the Oedipus complex will be car ried past childhood into adulthood; this makes it very difficult for him to form relationships with other people especially women. In other words, the child will never grow out of this and he will be dysfunctional in adulthood. In 1910, Ernest Jones published â€Å"Hamlet and Oedipus† this was the first time that the Oedipus complex was connected and present in a major theory work. The relationship between Hamlet and Gertrude (Hamlet’s mother) is a bit unusual; Claudius makes the observation that Gertrude â€Å"lives almost by [Hamlet’s] looks†. Like in Hamlet in Son and Lovers, the mother in this case Gertrude Morel (basedShow MoreRelatedSons And Lovers : Psychoanalytic Criticism Essay1613 Words   |  7 PagesSons and Lovers: Psychoanalytic Criticism David Herbert Lawrence was born September 11, 1885 in a small coal mining village in Nottingham, England. He was the fourth child of Arthur and Lydia Lawrence. Arthur was a coal miner who worked in the mine from age ten until he was sixty-six. Lydia the more educated out of the two was born into a lower-middle class family; this changed when her father suffered a financial disaster. 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