The focus of this essay is to critically discuss the issues and possible solutions which are highlighted in the poems The Second Coming and The Tyger. It is important to note that, according to the structure of a poem, the first stanzas are predominantly about pointing out the problem that the poet is confronted with and the last stanzas are about the resolution or what the poet suggests must be done in order to solve the problem identified.
In contextualising the two poems, The Second Coming was written by WB Yeats and The Tyger was written by William Blake. Notably, both these poets were intrigued by something which led to the writing of these poems. “By the accident of the date of his birth, however, Yeats lived into the modern age, which
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In the Yeats poem, there are two stanzas. He used enjambments in the poem like in line 12 whereby there is no any form punctuation throughout the line until line 13 where there is a semi-colon. Contrarily, Blake’s poem has six stanzas with four lines in each stanza. There are also similarities between the two poems. Moreover, Blake and Yeats used repetition. There is a repetition in line 9 to 10 of words in the The Second Coming poem “Surely…” and “…at hand”. Likewise, there is a repetition in The Tyger. Blake repeated the word “Tyger” both in the first stanza as well as in the last stanza. Notably, the use of repetition plays a crucial role in the poem as it is for emphasis. In the The Tyger, one can argue that Blake was trying to emphasise the strength and courage that people have when engaging in evil acts like killing each other just like the ability of a tiger to kill its …show more content…
The diction that Blake used in The Tyger poem portrays an important aspect of the poem. Handley (1992, p.44) add to this, “with the first verse having the word ‘could’- the ability of the divine creator to fashion such a beast-which in the final verse becomes ‘dare’- a mixture of wonder and terror at the achievement of such power which touches on religious awe”. These two words, therefore, in the beginning and final part of the poem were placed there on purpose. One is to show uncertainty whereas the other is for certainty or courage to do
There are many poems with repetition in it including “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. The repetition shows how important something is there are many examples of this in the poem. One of many examples is the repetition of,” Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them..” This shows how they were surrounded and had no chance. Another example of this is,”Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell.”
A repetition that occurs in the poem is the reference to nature all throughout the poem. Though there is not any specific words that are repeated, the poem does refer to "her" a lot; her being
When analyzing the two pieces of literature, “First They Came,” written by Pastor Martin Niemoller, and the short story “Terrible Things,” by Eve Bunting, there is noticeable connections but there are also many differences. To begin, one is a short story and one is a poem, which is already divergent on its own. There is also other examples such as the diction that the authors use, the syntax, and the use of symbols. Though unalike in various ways, they are also very analogous in the way of common theme. Pastor Martin Niemoller’s work of literature is titled “First They Came.”
Most lines of the poem are different lengths. There are no sentence fragments but, there are sentences made of only two or three words opposed to the few sentences that make up several lines. This use of compressed language is significant because it is allowing the author to say something great or profound without having to use lots of words. By doing this, it gives the reader room to analyze what the author is trying to say and come up with their interpretation. The first short phrase is “A marvel.”
In this poem the author E. E. Cummings also uses things like repetition, punctuation, and word order to convey certain messages to the reader. Cummings uses repetition to instill an enormous importance upon nature. Four aspect of nature (Sun, moon, stars, rain) are repeated three different times. The four seasons (spring summer autumn winter) are also repeated three different times, with each time the order being changed. This is done to place great importance on nature and also create an effect of time passing throughout the poem.
Both authors make use of personification and metaphor or simile. For example, Keats describes night with a "starr'd face" and compares his life works to, "high-piled books, in charactery, [holding] like rich garners the full ripened grain." Additionally, Longfellow describes his passions as "restless" and "not [to] be stilled" and similarly to Keats, compares his life works to a lofty tower, a parapet. However, through the use of imagery, it is revealed to the reader the different views Keats and Longfellow hold on their lives. While Keats fears for what his future holds, Longfellow focuses more on his past and regret.
In both Blake’s poem To Tirzah, found in his Songs of Experience, and Baudelaire’s poem Obsession, found in The Flowers of Evil, there is a recurring theme of redemption portrayed through religious imagery. In To Tirzah, the speaker addresses a woman, most probably named Tirzah, talking about sin and relating this to the contrast between his mortality and religiosity. In Obsession, the speaker addresses nature, speaking to the woods, the ocean, and the night, comparing them to the divine. Therefore, both Blake’s and Baudelaire’s poems juxtapose the mortal and spiritual through alluding to religious imagery and texts. Despite this, they reach vastly different conclusions concerning redemption.
Besides the author and the reader, there is the ‘I’ of the lyrical hero or of the fictitious storyteller and the ‘you’ or ‘thou’ of the alleged addressee of dramatic monologues, supplications and epistles. Empson said that: „The machinations of ambiguity are among the very roots of poetry”(Surdulescu, Stefanescu, 30). The ambiguous intellectual attitude deconstructs both the heroic commitement to a cause in tragedy and the didactic confinement to a class in comedy; its unstable allegiance permits Keats’s exemplary poet (the „camelion poet”, more of an ideal projection than a description of Keats actual practice) to derive equal delight conceiving a lago or an Imogen. This perplexing situation is achieved through a histrionic strategy of „showing how”, rather than „telling about it” (Stefanescu, 173 ).
(7-8 Yeats). This was written around the time of World War I, which was the war that was thought to end all wars. This is a parallel to the final battle between good and evil described when Christ is prophesied to return. The Second Coming helps highlights this conflict by alluding to the
This example of repetition is carried throughout the poem for emphasis, and the reader’s recognition of the truth behind the words. There is also parallelism that plays a significant role within
In this poem Henry Longfellow describes a seaside scene in which dawn overcomes darkness, thus relating to the rising of society after the hardships of battle. The reader can also see feelings, emotions, and imagination take priority over logic and facts. Bridging the Romantic Era and the Realism Era is the Transcendental Era. This era is unusual due to it’s overlapping of both the Romantic and Realism Era. Due to its coexistence in two eras, this division serves as a platform for authors to attempt to establish a new literary culture aside from the rest of the world.
They are repeated because the words are important to express what is happening. The passage of time is in the fall in Eden. The characters aren't really obvious at first.
By hiding the moon, which can be used to mark the passage of time with its cyclical phases, time itself becomes as equally amorphous as the cloud. Moreover, Yeats himself understood, in “The Symbolism of Poetry”, the moon to carry “memories” mixed with “her ancient names and meanings” (380). Thus, in hiding the moon, erotic love plunges the speaker and his lover into a world where histories, bearing the moon’s “ancient names and meanings”, are obscured, situating them in a world of their own. In the poem itself, time passes ambiguously. The poem is written largely in the past tense, with the title “[m]emory of [y]outh” indicating the speaker is aged and reflecting on the erotic love, as “moments passed” during his youth.
The whole poem is a single stanza of four, cross rhymed quatrains, ABAB. Furthermore every line has iambic pentameter; ten syllables complimented with five stressed and unstressed beats. This creates a steady and calm rhythm. Contrary to the poem’s topic of war. In only one line does he not use this; “And went outside and slashed with fury with it” this helps the reader understand his hatred towards war; the “nettles”.
In his works he makes use of Celtic and Irish Landscape, names and music. He was the bridge between Romanticism and Modernism and used to put his own self in poetry. He writes on the themes of love, sex, confusion, religious life, politics, morality, aging, morbidity. It was after meeting Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, Yeats turned to