This supports the idea of April, a month of new life, becoming a time of death and less beautiful than first thought. The former World War 1 battlefields of France had a bloom of “lilacs” in 1919-20. The land had literally been fertilised with men who had died during the war, hence out of the “dead land”. This could be Eliot
The playwright described the opening as “A melody is heard, played upon a flute. It is small and fine, telling of grass and trees and the horizon. ” (1402). I think Miller used excessive details about that opening melody to foreshadow the moral depression of the family; of course the flute produces the sad melody. The time is the night time when Willy returned home, tired from the unsuccessful sales trip.
First, in the opening quatrain, the speaker compares himself to a tree in winter, a tree whose “yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang / Upon those boughs which shake against the cold” (lines 2–3). Beginning this poem on a somber note, this complex metaphor goes beyond the traditional association between winter and old age to create the image of an elderly person whose thin arms and legs (boughs, or limbs) shake in the cold. The metaphor suggests that death is natural. Next, in the second quatrain, the speaker compares himself to the twilight of the day, that time of day just before dark, “after sunset fadeth in the west” (6). This metaphor suggests that the speaker is very near the end of his life because “by and by black night” (7) will take away all remaining light.
Age is something that none of us can stop. It is something that we as people need to live with. Many people have different views on age and what will happen when they start to wrinkle away. Three of these people are Shakespeare and Paul McCartney and John Lennon. They have expressed their views on aging in two different pieces, Shakespeare with Sonnet 2 and McCartney/Lennon in When I’m 64.
She uses the ‘waning of the moon’ and the ‘ebbing tide’ to show the retreating nature. Millay soon introduces direct references to love itself into the poem, ‘a man’s desire is hushed so soon’. She finds that her love was diminished too early – the sun had set too soon. She then takes a different tone in the third quatrain. The tone is much more angry, rather than sad as it had been in the past quatrains.
Essay on Persuasion Discuss the way in which Austen explores the effect of time in her final novel, Persuasion. The novel Persuasion by Jane Austen gives us an account of what time can perform: time can destroy, renew, heal… And even when it alienates or hurts, it always brings the future. The opening pages of this novel bring straight before the reader the passing of time. In Persuasion, the characters’ behaviour and temperament vary according to the seasons. At the beginning of the novel, Anne Elliot is a saddened character, lacking in self-confidence, and whose bloom has vanished: she is faded and autumnal.
From this one can assert that unlike the swans he depicts, Yeats feels burdened by his life and concerned with the vitality he loses with his growing age. The tone of Yeats’s melancholic reflection further demonstrates Yeats’s negative perspective of aging, “all’s changed” whilst showing Yeats’s sharp awareness of human transience, as seen is stanza three. The recurring symbol of the swans throughout the poem as images of beauty, vitality and grace further demonstrates the fluidity of life while offering a contrast between the human existence and nature.
Shakespeare provides a visionary image of how true love really is. In this sonnet, Shakespeare compares himself to a grove of trees in early winter, "When yellow leaves or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold," These lines seem to refer to an aging, barren man who in a sense, is referring to the time in our lives when we become more vulnerable and our bodies have become depilated and we can longer be the strong, effervescent person we once were. He regards his body as a temple, "Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.” But it is a body now going to decay. He emulates the coming to the end of his life, when he talks of "twilight", “after the sun fadeth in the west,” “Which by and by black night doth take away.” For him, death is coming twice. He uses the words, “black night” which represent the aging process and “Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest,” which represents the final sleep you take when you are shut in your casket.
‘Death of a Naturalist’ – Seamus Heaney Commentary “Then one hot day” To the reader, the title immediately appears almost oxymoronic, contrasting the darkness and foreboding feelings of ‘death’ with the energetic purity of ‘naturalist’. The title suggests that during this poem an important event will undoubtedly take place, one that perhaps causes an epiphany of sorts which could, sadly, result in the loss of innocence of the speaker. It is most likely an older man who takes on the role of speaker in this poem, reflecting on his childhood days before and after the moment of realisation which obviously altered his view on life. Ultimately, it is this idea of a loss of innocence which weaves its way through the poem, coming to a head midway through the second part of the verse. Heaney structures his poem into almost one long verse, with the break in the verse occurring as the poem takes on a more ominous feeling, symbolizing that the moment of realisation, the climax, is drawing near.
The theme of time and the inevitability of ageing was a subject that interested Shakespeare greatly. This is most clearly seen in Sonnet 12 where Shakespeare grapples with the impermanent of time and mortality. Here he explores how times transience effects all things. The most interesting thing about the poem to me is his use of nature to describe the passing of time.He uses nature both metaphorically and literally, to describe both the effects of time on nature and to draw barrels from these effects and apply them to human experience. One of the most interesting uses of this is when he recounts how the 'lofty trees' when 'barren of leaves' cannot serve their purpose in shading the livestock.