The Anne Carson’s translation of Sappho’s untitled piece is both fragmented and abstract. The spacing, brackets, and choices of words all create ambiguity in Carson’s translation. Her first line, “I simply want to be dead” (Carson 185), is not concise due to the word “simply”. In my adaptation of Carson’s work, I decided to change “simply” to “frankly”. “Simply” is not a powerful enough word and because it suggests that the narrator finds it easy to deal with the pain of wishing death upon herself.
These two poems are so similar, in fact, it begs the question as to whether or not Dickinson wrote her poem in response to Dryden. Their situations and settings were indeed similar, in that they were losing their lovers and feeling the agony of the moment. In both poems the speaker is anguished at the prospect: “I can die with her, but not live without her.” (Dryden, Line 4)The speaker then comes to the conclusion that the only way to avoid the issue is a solution unfavored by all: “I cannot live with you-it would be life. . .”, “I could not die-with you.
Literary criticism theories such as Marxism, feminism, new historicist and many more, helps the reader to interpret and understand the text. New Historic theory is used to look at the history of the poet and the critic itself to understand the meaning behind the poem. Tragic love is the theme of the poem, and it shows the reader that love was not fulfilled between the two people. One did not accept the love of another. One can consider that “She was too kind” is the greatest poem ever because when one understand the history of the poem between the poet and Eliza, it can be determined that the poet used imagery, repetition and alliteration to convey the tragic love between Miss Savage and the poet himself.
Confusion and doubt is strongly felt in the poems, and is expressed by the use of contradicting phrases that indicate emotions of deception and sadness. Clare and Hardy also present the idea of romantic love with deeper messages relating to loss and grief. Both “First Love” and “The Voice” use language features to enhance the meaning of the poem. In “First Love”, we can see that the love was “so sudden”, which gives the sense that an arrow “struck” the lover like Cupid’s arrow. However, Clare finished line 2 with “so sudden and so sweet” and the effect of the repetition of ‘s’ sounds smoothed the tone.
13. Choose a poem which explores the pain of love or the pleasure of love or the power of love. Show how the poet’s exploration deepens your understanding of the pain or the pleasure or the power of love. "Valentine" is a poem written by Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. The speaker explores the pain of love through word choice, tone, contrast and structure.
“Wanting to Die” by Anne Sexton “Wanting to Die” is one of Anne Sexton’s third collection of poems in her Pulitzer Prize book titled “Live or Die.” The ‘theme’, which seems to stand out the most in this poem, is the choice that Sexton must make between life and death. Consequently she insists to die because of her painful life and hopeless state of mind. Sexton famously said, "Poetry led me by the hand out of madness." She also argued against this perception in her interviews. In an interview with Patricia Marx, Sexton denies that writing "cured her": "I don’t think [that writing cured my mental illness] particularly.
The grief she suffers is what leads to her derangement, and in turn, her own death. Ophelia’s despair causes her to be distraught and even suffer from paranoia. She seems to be extremely absentminded as a result of her father (Polonius’) death, and acts oddly peculiar. She speaks of “tricks i’th’ world”, which reflects how she may be paranoid as the effect of her grief. Others are worried for her and feel as though “Her mood will needs be pitied”.
Ideal love carries the seeds of despair Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ written in the mid 1840’s and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ in 1925, both reflect varying components of ideal love carrying the seeds of despair. Ideal love refers to loving for the sake of love and not for what you may get in return, for example; money, status and marriage. It refers to a selfless love. Browning’s sonnets take the reader through her journey of heartache, self-doubt, fragility, devotion, joy, apprehension and mortality. On the other hand ‘The Great Gatsby’ depicts a story from the eyes of a young man named Nick Carraway, narrating a story of love, lust, adultery and murder.
In the second stanza, last line, “share in its shame” represents the foolishness the speaker feels for loving that woman. In the third stanza, the speaker does not like hearing the lover’s name after their separation. He compares hearing her name to the sound of a “knell” which means a bell usually used in funerals or deaths. By this word choice, the speaker tells the reader just how deep his sorrow is, comparing hearing her name to hearing death bells each and every time. It causes him to question why he ever loved his ex-lover.
Her marriage has wounded her to an intolerable degree and she just wants to escape it, but is slow to admit this to herself. The next line describes the sobs are arriving with a "sharp surprise" (line four). This diction suggests that she refuses to confront herself with the fact that she hates her marriage. Given the period in which Meredith composed this poem (1862, during the Victorian Age), convention probably forced both husband and wife into a union