Also, in “The Washwoman,” the author reveals a loss of a faithful and persevering servant and friend. Furthermore, “The Last Leaf” by O. Henry displays the most unexpected, yet saddening, dissolution of Old Behrman: a character that seems little, but is actually a hero. Regarding all this short stories, the authors of each of these tales provided a strong, yet different moral teachings through the loss of each character. In Le Guin’s “Gwilan’s Harp,” Le Guin wrote Gwilan as a talented harpist who gets tried by the world, and through her trials, she learns of certain things she ignored during her lifetime. Her trials started when her harp crashed during her expedition with a man named Torm.
Sharon Olds is a contemporary poet and is known for writing intensely personal, emotional and political poems. “Sex Without Love” is an erotic poem that captures the beauty of having meaningless sex without love or pleasure. Sharon Olds shows the reader that the sex described in the poem is a cold and lonely act by effectively using imagery and theme, but she also puts an emotional and personal feeling in the poem. In the beginning of the poem, the imagery created seemed like the poet was not criticizing having sex without love, but rather supporting it. The tone that was build up in the beginning was formal and made it seem like having sex without any pleasure is a beautiful act because the poet uses images like “beautiful dancers” and “ice skaters” who “glide”.
He begins to say this woman does not smell good or look good (10-15). Collins does an excellent job by truly capturing the whole picture of love, even the bitter parts. Love is a definite characteristic of life that can be seen in Collins poems. Billy Collins is an excellent writer that is easy to read, yet is relatable. Billy Collins poems have an insightful look on life is a reoccurring theme.
The first thing that struck me about Bishops poetry was her microscopic eye for detail and her gifted ability to zoom into images and details that I wouldn't have even been able to imagine. Her poetry is a reflection of her life a, depressing but interesting one that saw a troubled childhood, Alcoholism and the death of her lover. Her celebrations of the ordinary are an unusual, yet original quality, and her poetry has a unique style, with a fine combination of vivid imagery and concrete intense language. The poems that I have had an honour to study are "The Fish", "Filling Station", The Prodigal", "First Death In Nova Scotia" and "Armadillo". In the poem "The Fish" Bishop's microscopic eye for detail, complemented with precise use of language magnifies as the poem progresses and painted a vivid image for me.
Even though Lady Macbeth has ambition like her husband she fears Macbeth’s nature “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be what thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full o' th' milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great, art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it” (15-20). After reading the letter from her husband which recounts the witches' prophesy, Lady Macbeth's thoughts immediately turn to murder. The problem with that is Macbeth has ambition, but he doesn’t have the nerve to see it through.
Exploring the unknown can be dangerous and being curious is more often punished than rewarded, and “that one is better off safely contained within one’s own domestic sphere.” Cohen suggests that the monsters keep us from stepping outside boundaries. Cohen continues to note that the monster prevents geographical, sexual and intellectual mobility, and that by challenging the limits you risking being attacked by monsters, or even becoming a monster yourself. These words seem to act as symbols against the limits of society and culture. The fear felt for monsters and ultimately connected to desire. Jeffery Cohen has a clear opinion of this.
The establishment’s slightly confused liking for Smith can be reflected in Beer’s tribute in The Estuary: “A heroine is someone who does what you cannot do/ For yourself and so is the poet. She discovered/ Marvels; a cat that sings, a corpse that comes in/ Out of the rain. She struck compassion/In strange places”(Beer 114).Smith becomes a professional and personal inspiration for Jeni Couzyn as she describes: “Whenever I doubt my own identity as a poet and as a human being , I am able to find in her work , in all its nakedness and pain, the humor and courage that reaffirms for me the validity of poetry. Although in a sense she is dead, Stevie Smith is for me the most accurate, relevant and poignant woman alive” (Couzyn
She only can do this after she feels she has gotten rid of her female attributes. This can be attributed to the constraints of society at this time. Also, it can be attributed to the way that she feels about being not fearless enough to kill. She says, “Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty” (1.5.47-50). Lady Macbeth is calling to the spirits to assist her murderous ideations and to do that make her less of a women and more like man which will then fill her with deadly cruelty.
Ms. Sylvia Plath, an acknowledged poet and the English lecturer at Smith College, has been an inspiration to the youth in poetic realm. The varied assortment ranging from “Pursuit”, to “Mad Girl’s Love Song”, to “Spinster” has given the poetic foundation a varying aspect of confessionalism. Although of providing a new paradigm for poetry, Ms. Plath’s course is so indulged in expression that is making poetry excessively subjective. The use of poetry as a form to express personal emotions is recognized, but lack of reason and overwhelming depression with gender bias is hurtful for all. Subjectivism is an integral portion of poetry to express human emotions.
The collective body of Sylvia Plath 's poetry demonstrates definitively her mastery of her craft. Plath has been criticized for her overtly autobiographical work and her suicidal pessimism, however, close study reveals that her poetry transcends categorization and has a voice uniquely her own. As Katha Pollit concluded in a 1982 Nation review, "by the time she came to write her last seventy or eighty poems, there was no other voice like hers on earth" (Wagner 1). In works such as "Lady Lazarus," "Daddy," and "Morning Song," Plath relates her own painfully experiences in the form of dramatic monologues using a persona who eventually triumphs over adversity by regaining the self that had been lost before the struggle of the poem. According to Plath, the narrator of "Lady Lazarus" has "the great and terrible gift of being reborn .