Figurative Language And Symbolism In Sailing The Byzantium

As people near the time of their deaths, they begin to reflect upon the history and events of their own lives. Both John Keats’ “When I have Fears” and Henry Longfellow’s “Mezzo Cammin” reflect upon the speakers’ fears and thoughts of death. However, the conclusions between these two poems end quite differently. Although both reflect upon Death’s grasp, Keats’ displays an appreciation and subtle satisfaction with the wonders of life, while Longfellow morbidly mourns his past inactions and fears what events the future may bring.

Elegies are serious poems of a ruminative nature. First written in the Middle Ages, they offer a view into the medieval psyche, which was largely influenced by Christianity. Some of the Christian attitudes found in the famous elegies “The Wanderer” and “The Seafarer” include the finiteness of earthly goods, the broken nature of the world and humankind, and the goodness of knowing God. Both of these elegies feature eponymous narrators discussing the temporariness of the world. In “The Wanderer,” the wanderer laments the death of his lord, and reflects on how time brings death or destruction to everything. "

While both Keats and Longfellow’s poems, “When I Have Fears” and “Mezzo Cammin,” focus on the unfulfillment of goals in life and the menacing appearance of death, their final assumptions of death are related but different. Both poems share similarity focusing on the poets’ thoughts as they contemplate the inevitability of their deaths and whether their accomplishments have meaning after death, but the poets exhibit a different attiutude towards their subject. Keats fears that he will not be able to fully accomplish his life goals before he dies, but he acknowledges the frivolity of earthly aspirations when faced with death. On the other hand, Longfellow, while also mourning the loss of his chance to accomplish his goals, maintains comfort in the past compared to the uncertain future. Longfellow maintains a grim, pessimistic tone throughout his poem juxtaposes the almost hopeful tone Keats exhibits throughout his poem. Through the use of imagery, literary devices, and diction, Keats and Longfellow convey their overall contrasting attitudes toward death.

In his poetry Yeats combines a commitment to Irish themes with an explanation of his own psyche and an account of his own spiritual quest – Seamus Heaney. In light of your critical study, how does this statement resonant with your own interpretation of Easter 1916 and at least ONE other poem set for study?

The features of an elegy are exercised in the most effective way during the last stanza, even though the loss described in the last stanza is also an anticipated loss. Millay transitions from justifying that perhaps few natural things will notice the anticipated death, to clarifying that the beauty of the essential elements will be lost due to this certain

In poetry, the approach and attitude of the author, help set mood for the reader. In Yeats’ “The Second Coming”, the mood is dark and frightening. “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere, The ceremony of innocence is drowned”. This excerpt suggests a pessimistic tone and creates

While Yeats becomes conscious of the violent truth of nature which results in death, by watching the swans, he is able to comfort himself by admiring how the swans are “unwearied” and “their hearts have not grown old.” When

In these passages, poetry can be directly related to the possibility of death being averted. One by keep the drive awake and not falling asleep at the wheel. The other, had May reached for some of her late husband’s med and not the book by Yeats she may have

Have you ever wondered how people in churchyards feel like? In the poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” by Thomas Gray, the poet speaks about the place they are at, which is the setting; he also discusses how no matter how rich or poor you are, you will all die, unfortunate life of the villagers, and his own epitaph. The poem includes various literary terms that support the different divisions of thought. We complain about little stuff in life that we forget about the significance of cherishing the ones we love.

Yeats has composed an effectively concise poem of only twelve lines in iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is harnessed to replicate human speech patterns; as if the four rhetorical questions are being posed to the reader from the speaker. The romantic and personal content of this poem creates a certain level of intimacy the reader will feel with Yeats. With a simple ABABCDCDEFEF rhyming structure there is a crucial lack of rhyming couplets (often used to accentuate a couple 's closeness). Therefore a distance is already established between the speaker and their subject. Additionally, Yeats creates the emotional response to this poem by exploring historical, personal, political and classical mythological elements. Yet, at the very foreground this is a love poem, and the underlying focus on love makes this poem a typical lyric.

Truly in Matthew 24 we find Jesus, the Lord Himself, revealing what those days will be like. Below I have attempted a line-by-line interpretation of Mr. Yeats vision in “The Second Coming”. Please note - NOT ALL prophesy scriptures have been used, only those I felt would be in relation to this poetry work. Also some prophesies are not in order, but are arranged to follow Mr. Yeats poetry verses.

The sages represent the father-like figure that hold to power to life, which the aging man requests from sages. As Simon O. Lesser, author of “Sailing to Byzantium”-Another Voyage, Another Reading, states, “In this poem, it appears to be widely believed, Yeats triumphantly confronts and liquidates his fears of aging and death…. [H]e discovers that engrossment in poetry is the only, but a sufficient, recompense for the privatizations of old age” (291), which Yeats’ reasoning for writing this poem: to spread the message that anyone can live forever through their art. While the narrator in the poem never officially possess a proper name, the poet Yeats writes this poem to express his lack of fear for death after discovering that his memory continues to live through all his poems. William Butler Yeats knows that he lives forever through all those who continue to read and understand his poems, because his works lives on in others. While Yeats never explicitly states this, the idea that poems keep the poet alive forever derives from philosophical thought and reasoning, similar to the aging man that visits the mosaic painting. Similar to the aging man in the poem, Yeats searches for the sage-like figures that provide the answer to death that

Death is terrifying. This is the argument made by John Keats in his poem “A Draught of Sunshine,” in which he details the inevitable string of emotions which every man must experience on his deathbed. Keats uses a combination of religious allusion, ironic imagery, and an anxious tone to convey this message. Without the speaker’s religious allusions, the reader would have a difficult time recognizing the speaker’s fate in the poem – death.

In the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge uses Figurative language to portray the different moods, tones and scenes that are displayed throughout the story being told. A constant figurative language that is used throughout this poem is the use of repetition and its different forms, such as alliteration and anaphora. Each one of these devices are used to give character to the writing and emphasize a certain point. The use of irony is also being displayed, specifically in part II starting on lines 37, where the mariner explains the amount of water there was, but not one drop to be drank. This also represents a hyperbole because it exemplifies the immense thirst of the mariner and how he can’t have any of the large

The twenty-four old romantic poet John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” written in the spring of 1819 was one of his last of six odes. That he ever wrote for he died of tuberculosis a year later. Although, his time as a poet was short he was an essential part of The Romantic period (1789-1832). His groundbreaking poetry created a paradigm shift in the way poetry was composed and comprehended. Indeed, the Romantic period provided a shift from reason to belief in the senses and intuition. “Keats’s poem is able to address some of the most common assumptions and valorizations in the study of Romantic poetry, such as the opposition between “organic culture” and the alienation of modernity”. (O’Rourke, 53) The irony of Keats’s Urn is he likens