Richard Wilbur : A Great Poet

Robert Frost and William Shakespeare have been celebrated by many people because of their ability to express themselves through the written word. Here we are years after their deaths analyzing these fascinating poems about life and death. It’s clear they had similar thoughts about this subject at the time of these writings, even though their characters could not have been more opposite. For both poets, life is too

Richard Wilbur, a legendary figure and the poet of "The Juggler", withholds great historical background unknown to many individuals. Despite of young age, Wilbur composed numerous short-stories, poems and editorials for college newspaper. In consideration with a majority of the masterpieces, a prominent theme exhibited throughout each is based upon the observations of surroundings and the natural world. Historically, Wilbur's involvement within World War II contributed significant influence in various poems. Similarly, "The Juggler" primarily emphasizes the notion of fluctuations involved within juggling, comparing such to harsh realities of daily routines.

The idea of death can be, and is an enormously disturbing, unknown issue in which many people can have many different opinions. To some individuals, the process of life can progress painstakingly slow, while for others life moves too fast. In the excerpt We Were the Mulvaneys, by Joyce Carol Oates, a innocent farm boy named Judd Mulvaney has an eye-opening encounter by a brook near his driveway. During this encounter, Judd faces a chain of feelings and emotions that lead to his change of opinion of the issues of life and death, and change as a character. This emblematic imagery of life and death, as well as jumpy, and retrospective tones benefit the development of Judd as an innocent child as he begins to change into a more conscious and aware adult.

The poem “The Death of a Toad” by Richard Wilbur was an interesting form of telling a

Richard Wilbur once stated, “One does not use poetry for its major purposes, as a means to organize oneself and the world, until one’s world somehow gets out of hand” The meaning of the quote is when one cannot express themselves through speaking; one can use poetry as a form of expressing their experiences (poetry foundation). The quote he stated is salient for the reason that majority of his works is reflected by this quote. So, Wilbur must have experience an event during his time in serving in war. The best way for him to express his experience was writing in a metaphor, so the explicitly of the event would not show, however the message would still get across to the reader. Not only making the whole poem into a metaphor, but he also integrated

On order to effectively analyze “The Writer,” one might look to the Advanced Placement format, for instance, to best understand the meaning of Wilbur’s poem.

In literature, themes shape and characterize an author’s writing making each work unique as different points of view are expressed within a writing’s words and sentences. This is the case, for example, of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” and Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” Both poems focus on the same theme of death, but while Poe’s poem reflects that death is an atrocious event because of the suffering and struggle that it provokes, Dickinson’s poem reflects that death is humane and that it should not be feared as it is inevitable. The two poems have both similarities and differences, and the themes and characteristics of each poem can be explained by the author’s influences and lives.

In humanity, one chooses to spend the most amount of time doing what they love in order to result in a satisfying and happily lived existence. Richard Wilbur expresses his appreciation and value of life throughout the poem, “A Late Aubade”. This poem is influenced and based off of Wilbur’s strong relationship with his devoted wife. It emphasizes throughout detailed imagery how one must enjoy the moments they have and can share with their loved one. The existence of an individual is not about wasting time by being out and completing unnecessary jobs, it’s about spending time doing what one loves to do. Wilbur is convincing his wife to not go about on her “womanly” daily activities; he wants her to stay and to take advantage of the few valuable moments life offers for them to be together. Throughout “A Late Aubade”, Wilbur stresses by applying descriptive language that in life, one must not waste any precious time and should rather focus on what they are passionate about.

The author Richard Wilbur wrote the poem "The Beautiful Changes" in 1947. He relates changes in nature to those in a person. He was inspired by exploring botony and nature. I will explain to you why the author intentionally created the rhythm to go up and down with a grammatical structure making it difficult for the reader to grasp. According to The Norton Literature book the poem is a lyric verse form. The poem has a rhyme scheme of abcacdc which tells you that the second and the fifth lines of each stanza do not rhyme. Between are full and vowel ending in rhymes with the use of enjambment to help tighten and make it memorable. In this poem there is a mix of meter iambic feet which goes throughout most of the lines making it go up and down in a steady rhythm. The syntax makes it hard for the reader to get the right tempo. Although some may say that the poem "The Beautiful Changes" by Richard Wilbur is only about change and some may say it is all about enjoying life.

Unlike other forms of literature, poetry can be so complex that everyone who reads it may see something different. Two poets who are world renowned for their ability to transform reader’s perceptions with the mere use of words, are TS Eliot and Walt Whitman. “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” by TS Eliot, tells the story of a man who is in love and contemplating confessing his emotions, but his debilitating fear of rejection stops him from going through with it. This poem skews the reader’s expectations of a love song and takes a critical perspective of love while showing all the damaging emotions that come with it. “Song of myself”, by Walt Whitman provokes a different emotion, one of joy and self-discovery. This poem focuses more on the soul and how it relates to the body. “Song of myself” and “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” both explore the common theme of how the different perceptions of the soul and body can affect the way the speaker views themselves, others, and the world around them.

In Dickinson’s poem, “Because I could not stop for Death,” there is much impression in the tone, in symbols, and in the use of imagery that exudes creativity. One might undoubtedly agree to an eerie, haunting, if not frightening, tone in Dickinson’s poem. Dickinson uses controlling adjectives—“slowly” and “passed”—to create a tone that seems rather placid. For example, “We slowly drove—He knew no haste / …We passed the School … / We passed the Setting Sun—,” sets a slow, quiet, calm, and dreamy atmosphere (5, 9, 11,

Emily Dickinson’s poem, “After great pain, a formal feeling comes-“is a profound portrayal of the debilitating process of grief human beings undergo when confronted with a horrific tragedy. The response to that ultimate pain is the predominance of numbness, “After great pain, a formal feeling comes-/The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs-“(1-2). This is a poem that must be read slowly to become saturated in the melancholy, the dehumanization of suffering as it affects each aspect of the body without reference to the chaotic emotionality of it. The abundance of metaphors within Dickinson’s poem provides the means to empathize the necessity of numbness. It is also through the use of punctuation and capitalization, depicting the presence of a

Though the war and “all its deeds of carnage, must in time be / utterly lost” (2), in this present moment, “a man as divine as [oneself] is dead” (6), “white faced and still”(7), washed of his sins by “the hands of the sisters Death and Night” (4) along with the rest of “this soil’d world”. Whitman presents one with this image of hopelessness, the world is in such bad shape that only death can cure it. So much of the story is left ambiguous; nowhere does Whitman tell us what war he is referring to, why he considers this man his enemy, or the cause of his enemy’s death. This lack of detail is so profound that one could barely consider Reconciliation a story, but rather a moment frozen for all time in poetry. Such is Whitman’s talent in writing. Though he conforms to no ideas of what poetry should be, a revolutionary idea for his time, and presents the reader with no rhyme scheme, no particular meter, and in some ways a complete lack of order in his poetry, he manages to convey an image of a dead man being “touched lightly with [the] lips” (9) of his enemy in a way that seems almost sacred in only ten lines. The reader will never know how he died or what he died for, but it matters little. The only thing that matters is that one moment of beauty amongst a world of chaos and

"Out, Out," by Robert Frost is a gruesomely graphic and emotional poem about the tragic end of a young boy's life. It is a powerful expression about the fragility of life and the fact that death can come at any time. Death is always devastating, but it is even more so when the victim is just a young boy. The fact that the boy's death came right before he could " Call it a day" (750) leads one to think the tragedy might have been avoided and there by forces the reader to think, "What if." This poem brings the question of mortality to the reader's attention and shows that death has no age limit.

Life was a prominent subject in nineteenth century literature. Poems, books, and even everyday conversations contemplated the topic. From exploring its meaning, its purpose, and its impact, individuals were obsessed with it. Two such pundits were Philip Freneau and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. They accepted the challenge and broached the subject of life in their poetry. Their perspectives, however, were anything but concurrent. By focusing on Freneau’s “The Wild Honey Suckle” and Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life” the authors’ contrasting views become exceptionally clear. While one valued humility and acknowledgment of human fragility, the other sought to spark ambition and enliven a sense of dutiful perseverance. Paying close attention to the time frame in which each author wrote is also significant in identifying the reason behind such differing perspectives. Not only does the era play a part, but also each writer’s personal beliefs and values. Freneau was extremely realistic and literal; Longfellow was optimistic and indicative. Taking an in-depth look at each author respectively and analyzing their contrasting opinions as well as their reasoning facilitates a deeper understanding of not only the writers but the works themselves. If one thing is agreed upon, it’s that life truly is short; however, its purpose is entirely subject to opinion.