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Sea Rose Poem Analysis

Decent Essays

Poetic analysis: Sea Rose & Brook’s Paradox The poem titled Sea Rose by Hilda Doolittle tells about a rose, but not just a rose like any other. The poem instantly begins by going against the common connotation of a rose, the reader is given this passage “Rose, harsh rose,” (line 1). When the thought of a rose comes to mind the last word used to describe the soft petals and beautiful color would be harsh. H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) wants us to think about this rose as not an ordinary or normal rose but to see it as something more or something less. She goes on to say, “marred and with stint of petals” (line 2). To mar something is to disfigure or impair the quality/appearance of something, in this case a rose. Stint means to have an ungenerous amount; by this line we can understand that H.D. has begun to take a rose something commonly associated with beauty and love and twist into a disfigured and battered depiction of what it once was. The rest of the stanza goes on to say, “meagre flower, thin, sparse of leaf,”. A rose is meant to be a strong symbol of love and beauty, yet the depiction of the rose H.D. is giving the reader goes against the preconceived notions of what a rose should be. H.D.’s language and perception of the rose challenges to the reader to think of the rose as something more.
In Cleanth Brooks piece “Language of Paradox” he talks about how the deconstruction of a subject through connotative and denotative meanings creates paradox. Brooks defines paradox in his text saying “We may permit it in epigram a special sub-variety of poetry and satire, which though useful, we are hardly willing to allow to be poetry at all. Our prejudices force us to regard paradox as intellectual rather than emotional, cleaver rather than profound, rational rather than divinely irrational “ (pg.28, 1947). Brooks is saying he wants the reader to understand and recognize their knowledge and conceived notions, and to encourage a new perspective.
The next stanza gives the reader a value statement as H.D. says “more precious, than a wet rose, single on a stem—you are caught in the drift” (stanza 2). In doing so she gives the reader a sense of how she perceives this battered and sparse rose, not as something that has lost

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