Lost. What a standard term. One that is often associated with a child wandering off in a grocery store, or somebody taking the wrong turn and not arriving at the correct destination. But the trouble is that it is hardly ever associated with anything deeper, such as the human soul. Yet the reality is, everybody’s soul is indeed a little bit lost. And if not lost, at least diverted to a path of pure monotony that drives them to forget the importance of the little things in life. An example of this concept is the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker is wandering through life without purpose. He is simply living a life that he no longer feels any form of connection towards. But then he comes across a field of dancing daffodils and his perspective changes entirely to one of pure joy and ease with his life. Through his application of simile, symbolism, and personification, in his work, the speaker makes his poem far more meaningful. The use of these devices helps to shape the poem’s central idea, that is when one stops roaming aimlessly through everyday life and pays attention, they can discover the true beauties that are present in the world and learn to appreciate them a little bit more.
One of the main figurative language elements that the speaker uses within his poem is a simile. The title of the poem itself, as well as the first line are repeating similes. The speaker uses this component in the lines “I wandered
There is also figurative language used in phrases such as “Having come from the clouds” and “tilting road”. This adds to the effect of imagery and emphasis on the journey to the sawmill town. It also helps to make the stanza more interesting to the reader.
In the third stanza, a lot of imagery is used. The significant ones are present in the seventh and eleventh lines. In the first line, the poet writes, "A
We lost the ability to be still, our capacity for idleness. They have lost the ability to be alone, their capacity for solitude. (The end of solitude, pg.4)
On the second stanza, the song goes “It goes running through the soul/Like the stories told of old”. This is an excellent example of a simile. On the fourth stanza the song sings “Mystery/Like this and many others” which is another simile because it uses the word ‘Like’. The final example of a simile is in the third stanza, however this time the song uses the word ‘as’ instead of ‘like’. “Every flower touched his cold hand/As he slowly walked by/Weeping willows would cry for joy” The final example of figurative language in “Southern Nights” is the use of personification in the third stanza. “Weeping willows could cry for joy” is personification because the song is giving willows a human like
The author uses imagery in the poem to enable the reader to see what the speaker sees. For example, in lines 4-11 the speaker describes to us the
Similes are a small part of the poem, but give larger meaning behind each verse in which it was used. In “Facing It”, there are few verses that use simile, but those verses have important meaning. The Vietnam Memorial has 58, 022 names on the black surface, and the speaker says, “I go down the 58, 022 names,/ half-expecting to find/ my own in letters like smoke.” (14-16) Line 16 uses simile to describe the letters as being smoke. The white on black of the memorial gives a fog or smoke-like appearance when quickly scanning over names. All those names were of someone who died, and they become a blur. “My clouded reflection eyes me/ like a bird of prey…” (6-7) is used to describe how the speaker’s reflection is staring back at him. The names are on the wall, and as he stands there, he most likely feels very overwhelmed. His own reflection stares him down. His reflection and expectation of finding his own name among those lost
“Ink smeared like bird prints in snow” is the first simile that appears in the poem and serves multiple purposes. The most obvious one is the creation of imagery, where it compares the black words the persona writes on paper to the bird’s foot prints that are left behind when a bird walks on snow. The imagery alludes that the persona will leave a “footprint” in the form of a note that people can use to trace her path but she will never be there anymore. From line thirty-six to forty, the poet creates another imagery of a sparrow (a tiny and a delicate bird) flying in windy snowing weather. The sparrow is dizzied and sullied by the violent wind; it encounters a lot of difficulties and fear. In this imagery, the persona compares herself with the delicate bird. She compares the challenges that the sparrow goes through to the suffering she encounters relating to her parents.
One of the most frequent figurative language used in this poem is imagery. In fact, imagery is used throughout the whole poem. For example, in the first poem the reader can imagine a man jumping into the river and sinking, since the stanza states, “I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn't, So I jumped in and sank.” There is also imagery in stanza two, when the speaker says, “I came up once and hollered! I came up twice and cried! If that water hadn't a-been so cold I might've sunk and died.” From this quatrain, the reader can imagine a person drowning. They can also infer that the man was shivering, considering the water felt
Throughout the poem, the author creates different tones using different types of figurative language and diction. The poet starts off the poem with the metaphor, “Although she feeds me
The poet orders his listener to behold a “solitary Highland lass” reaping and singing by herself in a field. He says that anyone passing by should either stop here, or “gently pass” so as not to disturb her. As she “cuts and binds the grain” she “sings a melancholy strain,” and the valley overflows with the beautiful, sad sound. The speaker says that the sound is more welcome than any chant of the nightingale to weary travelers in the desert, and that the cuckoo-bird in spring never sang with a voice so thrilling. Impatient, the poet asks, “Will no one tell me what she sings?” He speculates that her song might be about “old, unhappy, far-off things, / And battles long ago,” or that it might be humbler, a simple song about “matter of today.” Whatever she sings about, he says, he listened “motionless and still,” and as he traveled up the
The similes in these lines relate to each line of the poem because the last lines are the speakers waking up from his dream. The speaker begins with his dream just starting, explaining he has been anticipating this moment. The speaker must have a fond interest of Lucia because he seems to care about her through the characteristics he describes her in. The poem begins with the speaker dreaming of being transformed into a vine, as he is growing and free-flowing. The vine is automatically mentioned because the speaker’s love beings to grow for Lucia.
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth, a poem that discloses the relationship between nature and human beings: how nature can affect one’s emotion and behavior with its motion and sound. The words the author adopted in this poem are interconnected and related to each other. They are simple yet profound, letting us understand how much William Wordsworth related his works to nature and the universe. It also explained to us why William Wordsworth is one of the greatest and the most influential English romantic poets in history. As Robert DiYanni says in his book, “with much of Wordsworth’s poetry, this lyric reflects his deep love of nature, his vision of a unified
In the poem “Forgetfulness” by Hart Crane, the speaker uses similes and metaphors to convey ideas about forgetfulness to develop the theme. The speaker uses these literary devices to convey his ideas about the theme: Forgetfulness is being lost, and having no idea where to go. The author uses many similes to get this idea across, such as,
Images in the poem reflect the difficulties of the choice the traveler faces. The difficulty is shown in the passage "long I stood" (3)
The next poetic term is simile. The main point in the poem is again shown as the poet discusses all he has benefited from being English and says: “ dreams happy as her day” on line four of stanza two. When the you read this particular part of the poem you can almost imagine the poet with a look of delight on his face as he thinks back to his homeland. This simile further emphasizes his real joy of being English.