“Pretty” Commentary ‘Pretty’ by Katie Makkai is a poem written in first person, targeted mainly at female adults, that leaves a meaningful message with great impact. It is a poem about Makkai’s opinion on women that are obsessed with appearance, and about her belief that they should not care so much about being ‘pretty’ and instead on the more meaningful things in life. A lasting impression is left, and this was done by the literary devices Makkai used in her writing; repetition, foreshadowing, imagery, personification, figurative language, and pun, in addition to the diction and other techniques she utilized. The use of these devices consequently evokes sensorial, emotional and intellectual reactions from the readers, giving the text a deeper meaning. A point that stands out in the poem ‘Pretty’ is the connection Makkai made with the famous song by Doris Day called Que Sera Sera.
Reading Response #5 As Cynthia Ozick says in her essay “She: Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body”, “an essayist must be an artist”. In this essay she explains the importance of writers when it comes to essays. Each essay has a different content, but they each embody their writer. Their words are taken from the warm body that they come from and are translated onto the page. At the conclusion of her essay, Ozick personifies the essay as “she”, giving us a better idea of what an essay would look like or would do if it were a “she”.
In the poem ‘Maude Clare’ Rossetti has used the theme of empowered women and relationships. Throughout the poem there is a clear love triangle between Thomas, Nell and Maude Clare. It is obvious to the reader that Maude Clare is important to the poem as her name is the title. This may already symbolise that she is the protagonist in the poem to which Rossetti has based her poem. The readers begin to see the importance of Maude Clare as her name frequently appears throughout the poem.
The concept of the artists’ imagination as a separate entity, able to transcend the physical is a rather Romantic one. However Harwood does not limit the idea to only artists or poets in particular; she extends the creative drive to mean individual, spiritual passion. This allows the poem to appeal to a wider audience, as the reader is enticed with the idea of possessing a passionate self. The ‘space between love and sleep” is an intangible time between two definite states of universal human experience. The phrase incites the reader to reflect on such moments in their own life, and to consider “space” with renewed significance.
Whereas the rhyme is used in 'To His Coy Mistress' to create a comic edged persuasion, the rhyme found in Ghazal is linked to the poetic form. The Ghazal is an ancient form of Arabic love poetry which follows a strict pattern that includes the rhyme detailed above. Khalvati's use of this ancient form of poem suggests that the love felt by the speaker is both timeless and unending. Like 'To His Coy Mistress', the narrator seeks sexual gratification from their lover, but rather than use humour to persuade they are using an ancient poetic form which suggests their love is timeless.This is a direct contrast to the desperate lack of time felt by the narrator in 'To His Coy Mistress', who laments that there
The poet has made it into a type of descriptive catalog of women, in which he examines women of all kinds and from all backgrounds through objectification. He looks to women for counsel, motherly affection, and as a lover when needed. For Homer’s character Odysseus, he finds these feminine portraits of the women in his life to be objective and
In “The Author To Her Book” by Anne Bradstreet, the speaker who takes on the role of an author, displays her insecurities for a piece of literature she has written. Through the extended series of comparisons between the speaker’s poems and her children and the vivid personification, the poet expresses the strong and intimate bond she develops for her work and her ambivalent feelings towards it. Also, Bradstreet’s self-deprecating poem explores the idea of perfection in literature. Firstly, the title reveals the relationship between the author and her book. The tone of the title is set apart from the rest of the poem.
Annabel Lee is possibly a pseudonym for Poe’s late wife. The poem begins with an introduction of Annabel Lee and the obsession of her lover. "That a maiden there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee; and this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me" (line 5). She is the apple of the narrator’s eye. It seems as though the narrator is infatuated with this person because he believes she has no other
“To the fair Clarinda, who made Love to me, imagin'd more than Woman” Aphra Behn Aphra Behn’s ‘To the fair Clarinda’ is a love poem with surprisingly modern insight. In this candidly erotic piece, the supposedly female speaker addresses her lover Clarinda, who may be biologically female yet plays both masculine and feminine roles in the poem. Though the speaker insinuates that in any sexual relationship there are definite masculine and feminine roles to fulfill, she overturns the notion that these are necessarily related to anatomy. “ To the fair Clarinda” seems to be a poem that celebrates the exotic delights of being with a hermaphrodite. However, Clarinda’s anatomy is very ambiguous within the poem.
Both poets have a woman who is their muse for writing the sonnets. Their love for the woman is the driving force for writing the poetry. The poets, Edmund Spencer and Sir Phillip Sidney, bestow their poems in different ways. Spencer’s sonnet 65 from Amoretti and Sidney’s sonnet 107 from Astrophil and Stella use different sound devices. Edmond Spenser uses alliteration in sonnet 65 from Amoretti.