What Does Thou Blind Man's Mark Mean

In the poem “Thou Blind Man’s Mark” by Sir Philip Sidney, the speaker is struggling with his desire for someone or something. They are fighting this feeling for control over his thoughts and mind. It is shown that both the speaker and desire are constantly fighting, with neither fully able to take control. This fact is evident through Sidney’s use of violent diction, personification of desire, and oxymorons.

The poem is formed of eight stanzas, each one is six lines long except for the fifth stanza which is an octet. The stanzas are formed of sets of three rhyming couplets in the

Besides using certain rhythmic devices to create the fragrant timeline of the poem, James Wright also uses other rhythmic devices for different purposes. These details finally established a subtle rhyme scheme. For example, the only use of alliteration in the poem is third line’s “spare his suffering”, where the “suffering” seems to be really spared by its initial consonant sounds. In the thirteenth line, “flesh” and “flayed” connect the two sentences, enabling a much more smooth tone of the last sentence with a feeling of a tragedy ending. Some consonances are also interesting. Besides what have already been mentioned before, “victim beaten” in ninth line uses the “en” sound to imitate the stuffy voice of beating someone. Assonance is also used in the twelfth line “ when I remembered bread my flesh had eaten”; “ bread” here is used as a metaphor of Jesus, so along with this assonance, a relation ship between “bread” and “flesh” is clearly shown. When talking about rhymes, what James Wright did also adds more subtlety to the poem. Usually in a sonnet a nice formatted rhyme is already enough; however, James Wright tried to add counterpoint relationship to end-rhymes, making the whole poem more complex

The poem also uses end rhyme to add a certain rhythm to the poem as a whole. And the scheme he employs: aabbc, aabd, aabbad. End rhyme, in this poem, serves to effectively pull the reader through to the end of the poem. By pairing it with lines restricted to eight syllables. The narrator creates an almost nursery-rhyme like rhythm. In his third stanza however, his last line, cutting short of eight syllables, stands with an emphatic four syllables. Again, in the last stanza, he utilizes the same technique for the last line of the poem. The narrator’s awareness of rhyme and syllable structure provides the perfect bone structure for his poem’s rhythm.

The clever use of vocabulary to describe the digger assists the audience in visualising the digger, for example, “his body ached from the marching,” “the old digger then climbed to his feet” and the repeated use of the term “old digger”. The striking use of the words “ached” and “climbed” emphasize his age. The repeated use of the word hero, emphasises the theme of the poem. Hamilton also uses simple, but very effective language. The words and phrases are carefully chosen in this poem, making the poem easier to comprehend. Punctuation enhances the flow of the poem, such as the use of dashes after phrases for pauses. The use of direct speech throughout the poem offers depth to the poem, it immerses the audience into the moment and the conversation as though they were

The poem's structure consists of four stanzas. The first, second, and third stanza follow an abcc rhyme scheme, and the last stanza follows an aabb rhyme scheme. A the reader progresses through each stanza, it is seen that the narrator's dissatisfaction of her confinement

She also presents a slight rhythm to the reading that allows for smooth reading. In keeping with her open form, there is no set scheme to the rhyme pattern. However, there is a single ending sound constantly repeated without a set pattern throughout the work. She also connects pairs of lines at random just for the sake of making connections to make that particular stanza flow. At the same time, she chose blatantly not to rhyme in certain parts to catch the reader’s attention.

If a blind person walked into the room, I would expect to see someone who looked feeble, wore dark glasses, used a cane, and potentially had a guide dog. The narrator of this story had similar preconceptions about the blind. Some of these preconceptions were that “the blind move slowly and never laugh”, “sometimes [the blind are] led by seeing-eye dogs”, the blind man’s life and marriage were unfulfilling because he was unable not see, and others that had to do with physical appearance and mannerisms. This blind man though breaks these stereotypes and much more. Conventional ideas about the blind are broken because of the way he was portrayed and helped to teach the narrator a lesson.

With a few exceptions, the poem primarily follows the form of accentual-syllabic verse. The majority of lines are composed of three syllables, most often two unstressed and one stressed. Using a combination of structural technique and descriptive language, Williams emphasizes the action of visual perception.

Alliteration was also evident throughout the poem in the first line of the first stanza when he said “ south of the bridge on seventeenth”(Stafford, page 805, stanza 1). The alliteration is “south” and “seventeenth” because both words start with an “S”.

The last stanza however, gives a sense of peace and rest, as the elder finally ‘descends into the dreaming.’ Jonathan Hill uses many poetic devices and techniques to help achieve the images and meanings that are conveyed. The alliteration used in the poem give a sense of the growing grief and loss, as well as movement. The use of alliteration in the last stanza, conveys a sense of sinking and resting at peace. The poem itself maintains a rhyming pattern throughout the six stanza’s, with the exception of the 4th and last stanza.

The concept of human want and desire has been present in folklore, mythology, and religious texts for thousands of years. The story of Adam and Eve in the Old Testament depicts desire as an uncontrollable urge, a force strong enough to drive Eve to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, resulting in original sin. This idea of blinding desire causing deplorable behavior is a motif through many pieces of literature. In his sonnet, Thou Blind Man’s Mark, Sir Philip Sidney develops the speaker’s complex attitude of pessimism and scrutiny toward desire, because desire is what humans think they want but at the same time clouds an individual’s judgement.

Similarly to Aylmer in “The Birth-Mark,” the narrator does not ask these obvious questions, questions that might crack him open, but instead remarks, when interrupted while listening to a taped correspondence from the blind man, “I’d heard all I wanted to” (Carver 515). Unlike Aylmer, however, the narrator, after imbibing Scotch and smoking pot, does open up to the blind man after watching a documentary on television about cathedrals. The blind man asks him to describe a cathedral to him. When this task proves difficult, the blind man suggests they draw one together. As the drawing progresses, the blind man asks him to close his eyes and draw. “His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now.” The narrator experienced an epiphany. The tone changes from sarcasm to childlike awe. This ending combines an appeal to pathos and ethos; there is an emotional shift combined with credence gained

The poem is separated into two parts, each with sixteen lines, and is loosely based on an iambic pentameter metre. The rhyme scheme is ABAB throughout the poem, with the noticeable exception of the last four lines of part II, in which it changes to

The poem talks about a man- an anonymous “he”- a perfectionist whose poetry was understandable and who, himself, understood “human folly” and the human psyche like “the back of his hand”. He was