Poetry Analysis: "Apostrophe to the Ocean" Essay

During the Romantic Era, Lord Byron was figuring out how to overcome his hardships and guilt. Byron knew people wouldn't understand his unconventional lifestyle or his depression; so he wrote poetry that would spark people's emotions. Writing became his only hiding place from the outside world. His poetry reflects his hardships,guilt and depression that he tried so hard to escape, but never could. Byron’s childhood, many escapades,and travels would come to influence his poetry. It is beyond question that Byron’s poetry reflected his life and emotions.

In the poem there is also an idea of man verses nature, this relates to the survival of the fittest. John Foulcher shows this through the use of first person point of view. For example in the second stanza “Then above me the sound drops” this again possesses sensory imagery creating a deeper human aura throughout the poem. Foulcher further uses a human aura to build a sense of natural imagery for example in the last stanza : “I pick up these twigs and leave them” adding closure

`In Robert Gray’s poems, he uses language to capture human experiences. In two of his poems; old house and late ferry, gray has effectively captured human experiences by his varies poetic languages and through insight and feeling. Throughout both texts late ferry and old house, gray’s main message in the poems, with his critical analysis, is the destruction of nature by mankind.

Similarly, the water being compared to a wolf causes the reader to believe that the ocean is dangerous, and warns that in response to our careless misuse of nature, there will be consequences. In this poem Wright attempts to portray a variety of messages. Firstly, Wright conveys an element of caution, especially given the nonchalant attitude of the Australian stereotype. We cannot live constantly in an insouciant manner, as it can leave us vulnerable to any harm or serious consequences. Secondly, that destroying nature will not cause us to gain power, as we will always subservient to nature. Nature is the one aspect of life that we must accept as

Albert Einstein spoke of nature and its value when he said, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” As Einstein pointed out, by looking into nature you could discover something new about yourself and the world around you. John Muir and William Wordsworth both discovered joy when they looked deep into nature. This joy gave them a new perspective on nature and life and they each expressed this joy through different works of writing. Both authors have a unique outlook on nature and its impact as well as different thoughts on how to share their relationships; Muir used diction and connotation to show his relationship in his essay “The Calypso Borealis” where Wordsworth used tone and syntax in his poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”.

Frost further points out that the stretch of woods being viewed is very rural. This is made possible by the reference to the location between the woods and frozen lake. In closing the final sentence of the second stanza Frost reiterates the fact that this occurs on “the darkest evening of the year” stating the darkness of the mood.

Walt Whitman loved to experiment with form when it came to poetry. He used his verses to show his complete adoration of all things wild, and our role as beings in this infinitely complex and thought-provoking universe in which we exist. To say he had a bit of a “nature crush” would be an understatement – Whitman goes in to great detail of his love for the wildness and often describes his emotions in a viscerally sexual manner, using poetic devices to underline his immense feelings for environment and hammer in the imagery to readers of how majestic the world appears to him. “Romantic” poets loved the outdoors – if it wasn’t contained in four walls and a roof, they were all about it. They loved to praise the innate details that made our planet so incredible,

The Fish is a narrative monologue composed for 76 free-verse lines. The poem is constructed as one long stanza. The author is the speaker narrating this poem. She narrates a fishing experience. The author is out in a rented boat on a body of water, presumably a lake. She tries to describe the fish to the fullest, which appears to be the purpose of the poem, without saying either the specie or an approximate age. The narration gives the impression that the fish is slightly old. There are a number of reasons as to why that fish got caught by the author, including time of day, the weeds weighing it down, fish’s age, and the fact that it has been previously caught five times.

This contrast serves to communicate the scattered nature of our consciousness with the unity, elegance and fluidity of our subconscious. Furthermore, these drawn out sounds serve to also further the imagery of the tide’s “uninterrupted sweep” which is particularly effective in conveying the image of the wave rushing to envelope the shore, the word “uninterrupted” conveying this sense that the wave of inspiration is all smooth and relentless. This imagery is furthered by the 3 line-long segment, uninterrupted by punctuation. Yet, the central point made in these four lines is when the speaker states that “(he) heard” the waves. The description of the sea gives you a mental image, but Longfellow stresses upon the fact that the speaker only hears the tide, as this can be seen reflected in the title of the poem “The Sound of the Sea”. Hearing is an auditory action that allows one to be aware of the presence of the object through the sound, but not visually or physically grasp it. This suggests that inspiration is similar, in the sense that one can be aware of it but cannot consciously grasp, control or dominate it.

In the second stanza, as the poet invites us to “imagine the drip of it”, I find that the sound of the words here are so cleverly evocative that they even make me thirsty! The sibilance of the “small splash”, and the pleasing clanging of consanants in “echoing”, “tin” and “mug” deliver such a strong image of water that is so needed after the image of the “crack[ed].. pod”… It is significant that the poet describes this sound of water as the “voice of a kindly god” because it emphasises to us that very often the people in such a situation (where water is so scarce), view the advent of such a commodity as a kindly act of god. What else is there to do when you have no possibility to improve your situation? What else is there to believe when you

Nature has always had a role in providing for humanity. However, what does it provide for humanity? The poems that Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh, and William Williams present touches upon the topic of this. To help support their perspective on how nature provides for humanity, and what it provides, the three of them use both imagery and structure to go into detail as to why their perspective is so.

In stanza two ‘The dew of the morning, Sunk chill on my brow’ the dew is the cold wet, the image of rain could be an allegory of tears and signifying his misery. ‘Thy vows are all broken,’ implies his ‘lover’ was or is married or the promises she made to him were shattered, subsequently Byron speaks of feeling ashamed when he hears his/her name, possibly because their relationship was illicit .

This is another poem that links Whitman to the Romantics. The "birth of the poet" genre was of particular importance to Wordsworth, whose massive Prelude details his artistic coming-of-age in detail. Like Wordsworth, Whitman claims to take his inspiration from nature. Where Wordsworth is inspired by a wordless feeling of awe, though, Whitman finds an opportunity to anthropomorphize, and nature gives him very specific answers to his questions about overarching concepts. Nature is a tabula rasa onto which the poet can project himself. He conquers it, inscribes it. While it may become a part of him that is always present, the fact that it does so seems to be by his permission.

The beauty of nature is often overlooked and underappreciated in today’s society. The neglect and lack of respect given to such a beautiful creation by members of society is widely reflected in Romantic poetry. The romantic era began in 1798, where writers such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge expressed their opinions and feelings towards nature. Overall such writers typically express a positive outlook on the natural world around them, however some stray the other way. Specifically Coleridge and Wordsworth began to express the feeling of disconnect towards nature. Both writers began to feel as though they could not understand nature and cannot connect with the beauty it gives off as expressed in poems such as “Dejection”, “London 1802”, and “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”. Not only did some of these writers begin to feel a disconnect but a select few also begin to feel as though people are disrespecting the balance of nature and are trying to disrupt the balance and manipulate it. Writers such as Mary Shelley, author of the novel Frankenstein, expresses the concern of people taking the laws of nature and twisting them. Writers and people living during this time period not only express an appreciation for nature but also the truth about the human relationship with nature. The relationship between humans and nature is on of mistreatment.

The poem, “Apostrophe to the Ocean” written by George Gordon Byron expresses his love for the ocean and nature through numerous different writing styles and techniques. The poem is dedicated to the deep, powerful, and ferocious ocean, the main subject of this poem is humanity and civilization versus nature and the universe. Byron’s view of humans versus nature is revealed through his belief that the power of nature is inseparable and that it is greater than any human or civilization. Bryon depicts his love for the ocean through, literary techniques, his thoughts about industrialization and romantic writing styles.