The Power of Friendship

Mother To Son.

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps.
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now—
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Poet background

Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and columnist. Hughes is known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance. While in grammar school in Lincoln, Illinois, he was designated class poet. During high school in Cleveland, Ohio, he wrote for the school newspaper, edited the yearbook, and began to write his first short stories, poetry, and dramatic plays. His first piece of jazz poetry, When Sue Wears Red, was written while he was still in high school. It was during this time that he discovered his love of books. Hughes received a B.A. degree from Lincoln University in 1929 and a Litt.D. in 1943 from Lincoln. A second honorary doctorate would be awarded to him in 1963 by Howard University. On May 22, 1967, Hughes died from complications after abdominal surgery, related to prostate cancer, at the age of 65.

His main concern was the uplift of his people who he judged himself the adequate appreciator of and whose strengths, resiliency, courage, and humor he wanted to record as part of the general American experience. Thus, his poetry and fiction centered generally on insightful views of the working class lives of blacks in America, lives he portrayed as full of struggle, joy, laughter, and music. Permeating his work is pride in the African American identity and its diverse culture.


Mother to Son Analysis


Langston Hughes' moving poem "Mother to Son" empowers not only the son, but also the reader with precious words of wisdom. Through the skillful use of literary devices such as informal language, symbolism, metaphors, repetition, as well as clever use of format, Hughes manages to assemble up the image of a mother lovingly, yet firmly, talking to her son about life. This poem is an advice from a mother to son about life that will be challenging and do not think about giving it up.

The theme that this poet conveyed in the poem is determination to live without ever thinking giving up although the obstacles are harsh. Besides, it also emphasize regarding the struggle for life that the one will experience but still have the strength to face it day by day. It also shows about affection and as motivation of a mother to son that takes care of his son and gives advice so that the son will somehow be prepared to face the life.

Langston Hughes’ poem, “Mother to Son” resemble to the well-known expression “let’s have a father to son chat”. However, in this case, the saying is altered to “mother to son”. Poetic devices such as informal language, symbolisms, metaphors and repetition were used in this poem. This poem is written from the mother’s point of view in the advice form so the audience could feels the warmth and approachability of southern dialect. Readers will immediately have an impression of a middle-aged women battered by life’s struggles, with no formal education but plenty of life experiences to share with the son.

Informal language is cleverly used to visually portray a truthful motherly figure that has valuable advice to offer. The persona of the poem is an African-American showed by the dialect used with the missing ‘g’ such as in “climbin’, turning’ ” etceteras. It also use the word “ain’t” which is often used by the African-American.

In addition, symbols like “tacks” is used to illustrate the sharpness and discomfort of life’s obstacle. Splinters represent the inflammatory pain and the difficulties in removing and overcoming this pain in life. Even the metaphor of life being compared to stairs symbolizes the exhaustive uphill climb in life. In contrast, the crystal stair represents clarity and perfection, a life that the mother makes obvious was not given to her. In this poem, Hughes develops a sort of negative extended metaphor by having the speaker compare her life to a staircase that “ain’t been no crystal clear”. In other words, she develops the metaphor b describing what it isn’t rather than what it is.

Moreover, repetition adds to the imagery of the poem and helps support the theme. "Tell", "ain't", "crystal stair", "tacks", "splinters", "torn", "places", "carpet", "time", "peace", "climb", "corners", "steps": the constant repetition of p's, t's,and s's render the reader completely breathless imitating the exhaustive uphill climb of stairs. Even the repeated use of specific words adds to the effect of repetition. Using the word "and" repeatedly creates a constant feeling of never-ending continuation, consequently reinforcing the theme of courage and determination, both vital factors necessary to continue the "stair climbing."

In conclusion, Langston Hughes' moving poem "Mother to Son" empowers not only the son, but also the reader with precious words of wisdom. Through the skillful use of literary devices such as informal language, symbolism, metaphors, and repetition, Hughes manages to create the image of a mother lovingly, yet firmly, talking to her son about life. The advice is simple but pertinent to the poetic theme: in order to overcome the hurdles of life, a person must possess courage and determination.

Do Not Go Gentle Into The Goodnight.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas
1914-1953

Dylan Thomas was born in Wales in 1914. He was a neurotic, sickly child who shied away from school and preferred reading on his own; he read all of D.H. Lawrence's poetry, impressed by Lawrence's descriptions of a vivid natural world. Fascinated by language, he excelled in English and reading, but neglected other subjects and dropped out of school at sixteen. His first book, Eighteen Poems, was published to great acclaim when he was twenty. Thomas did not sympathize with T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden's thematic concerns with social and intellectual issues, and his writing, with its intense lyricism and highly charged emotion, has more in common with the Romantic tradition. Thomas first visited America in January 1950, at the age of thirty-five. His reading tours of the United States, which did much to popularize the poetry reading as new medium for the art, are famous and notorious, for Thomas was the archetypal Romantic poet of the popular American imagination: he was flamboyantly theatrical, a heavy drinker, engaged in roaring disputes in public, and read his work aloud with tremendous depth of feeling.

In the spring of 1936, Dylan Thomas met Caitlin MacNara, a dancer. They met in the Wheatsheaf public house, in Fitzrovia the area of London's West End. They were introduced by Augustus John, who was MacNamara’s lover at the time (there were rumors that she continued her relationship with John after she married Thomas). A drunken Thomas proposed marriage on the spot, and the two began a courtship. On 11 July 1937, Thomas married MacNamara at Penzenceregistry office in Cornwall. In 1938, the couple rented a cottage in the place Thomas was to help make famous, the village of Laurghen, in Carmathenshire, West Wales. Their first child was born on 30 January 1939, a boy whom they named Llewelyn Edouard (died in 2000). He was followed on 3 March 1943 by a daughter, Aerowy. A second son, Colm Garan Hart, was born on 24 July 1949. The marriage was tempestuous, with rumors of affairs on both sides. In 2004, Thomas's passionate love letters to MacNamara were auctioned.

Lastly, he became a legendary figure, both for his work and the boisterousness of his life. Tragically, he died from alcoholism at the age of 39 after a particularly long drinking bout in New York City in 1953.

Analysis

Thomas watched his father, formerly in the Army; grow weak and frail with old age. Thus, the speaker in his poem tries to convince his father to fight against imminent death. The speaker addresses his father using wise men, good men, wild men, or serious, somber men as examples to illustrate the same message: that no matter how they have lived their lives or what they feel at the end they should die fighting. However, we are subtly reminded throughout the poem that their rage will be futile in the face of death. It is one of Thomas' most popular, most easily accessible poems, and implies that one should not die without fighting for one's life.

Another explication is that the speaker admits that death is unavoidable, but encourages all men to fight death. This is not for their own sake, but to give closure and hope to the kin that they will leave behind. To support this, he gives examples of wise men, good men, wild men, and grave men to his father, who was dying at the time this poem was written. There is little textual evidence for this interpretation, however, except the words "curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray." Also, it has been historically stated that Thomas never showed this poem to his father; if so, it would seem that Thomas composed it more for his own benefit than his father's.
A third reading of the poem observes the possibility that the speaker's listing of various reactions of men in their final hours is a self-addressed rationalization of his father's scolding catharsis before passing on. The line "Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray," might then suggest a negative interaction between the two generations, and because historical evidence leads readers to believe that the poet never in fact showed this poem to his father, it would not be ridiculous to think that Thomas wrote the poem knowing that his father was not the designated audience at all. He cites all of human beings' rage, regardless of disposition, against death, and perhaps attempts to write off this negative interaction as a natural byproduct of death's impending arrival.

Another reading of this poem shows the author's own fear of death. He seems to fear having little separation between life and death such as in John Donne's poem "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", where:
"As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

It shows the author's fear that there is very little that separates life from death. As such he feels the need for a strong indication of the difference between the two. It does not even matter whether he is being blessed or cursed; he wants to see a reaction. The poem could be written as well in the hope that the speaker would be able to see his dying father. He gives the impression that since wise men, good men, wild men and grave men all regret leaving this world his father as well should not want to leave this world without a fight. It seems to be a wild hope, that he will be able to see his father before he passes; that each will be able to say those last words to each other - whether curses or blessings.

On a more spiritual reading, "Father" may refer to God, and that is why He is on that Sad Height, knowing that His Creations are mortal and will die, and that the only interaction thereafter would be on Judgment Day, when either the soul will be blessed or cursed, but even then the Judge would shed tears for the soul being cursed, for such is the Infinite Mercy of the Almighty. If such an interpretation is accepted, then the entire poem becomes a man's interaction with His God, a personal as well as universal dialogue, not merely in respect of one's own death, but also that of the passing of Great Religions, but in a more strident and glorious manner than Matthew Arnold's Greek standing on a far northern strand, gazing upon a fallen Runic stone, for both were faiths and both were gone, where the Greek represents a religion and lifestyle that Time has passed by, just as the Druids and the Runes.

Literary devices:

The form on the poem is a villanelle, with a rime scheme alternating “night” and “day.” “Good night” is a metaphor and a pun. “Dying of the light” is a metaphor. “Old age should burn and rave” in line two is a combination of metonymy and personification. “Close of day” is a metaphor. “Burn” in that same line is used metaphorically, as is “dark” in line four. In line five “their words had forked no lightning” is metaphorical. Line eight “Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay” employs personification and metaphor. Line ten “Wild men who sang the sun in flight” is exaggeration and metaphor. Line 11 “they grieved it on its way” is also exaggeration and metaphor. Line 13 “Grave” is a pun; “blinding sight” is an oxymoron. Line 14 “Blind eyes could blaze like meteors” is a simile. Line 17 “Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray” is a paradox.
Commentary:
A villanelle is a French poetic form that originally served as a vehicle for pastoral, simple, and light verse. That Thomas would employ that form for the subject of death enhances the irony of beseeching a dying person to rage. No doubt the poet also chose this form because of the repetition of the important lines, “Do not go gentle into that good night” and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” and because of the tight formal structure of the form. The subject matter which is the command to the father not to accept death so easily lends itself to the dichotomy of “day” and “night” which become somewhat symbolic for “life” and “death” in the poem.
Each of the six stanzas has uniformity and a specific purpose:

Stanza 1: The first line is a command, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Paraphrased, “Don’t give up easily.” The second line offers the speaker’s belief that even when old and infirm, the man should stay energetic and complain if necessary as long as he does not give in to death easily. Then line three again is a command, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”: Fight, complain, rail against the oncoming of death.

Stanzas 2, 3, 4, and 5 each try to persuade the father to “rage against the dying of the light” by offering evidence of what wise, good, wild, and grave men have done. For example and to paraphrase stanza 2: Even though wise men know that they cannot keep death away forever and especially if they have not accomplished their goals in life, they don’t accept death easily; they “Do not go gentle . . . .” Similarly, in stanza 3, good men exclaim what might have been, their “frail deed” might have shone like the sun reflecting off the waters of a “green bay,” and they, therefore, “Rage, rage” against the oncoming of death. Likewise, in stanza 4, wild men whose antics seemed to shine as brightly as the sun and who thought they were so optimistic, but later realized they spent much of their life in grief, still they “Do not go gentle . . . .” And in stanza 5, grave men whose eyes are fading fast can still flash life’s happiness, as they “Rage, rage . . . . ”

Stanza 6: The speaker addresses his father. Paraphrased, “And so my father you are nearing death—yell at me, scream at me, cry out; to see you do that would be a blessing for me and I beg you to show me that militant man you once were: “Do not go gentle . . . . ”

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) - 1st Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Freshwater


English author often regarded as the chief representative of the Victorian age in poetry. Tennyson succeeded William Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in 1850; he was appointed by Queen Victoria and served 42 years. Tennyson's works were melancholic, and reflected the moral and intellectual values of his time, which has made them especially vulnerable for later critic.
"Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, And slips into the bosom of the lake. So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip Into my bosom and be lost in me." (from 'The Princess')


Alfred, Lord Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, the fourth of twelve children. His father, George Clayton Tennyson, was a clergyman and rector, who was notoriously absentminded and suffered from depression. His dark moods often overshadowed the family. Alfred began to write poetry at an early age in the style of Lord Byron. His first drama in blank verse Tennyson wrote at fourteen. After four unhappy school years at Louth, where he was bullied by his big boys and masters, he was tutored at home. Tennyson then studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, but he did not aim at academic excellence. He joined the literary club 'The Apostles', where he met Arthur Hallam who became his closest friend. The undergraduate society discussed contemporary social, religious, scientific, and literary issues. Encouraged by 'The Apostles', Tennyson published POEMS, CHIEFLY LYRICAL (1830), which included the popular 'Mariana'. He travelled with Hallam on the Continent. By 1830, Hallam had become engaged to Tennyson's sister Emily. After his father's death in 1831 Tennyson returned to Somersby without a degree.


Tennyson's next book, POEMS (1833), received unfavorable reviews, and he ceased to publish for nearly ten years. Hallam died suddenly on the same year in Vienna. It was a heavy blow to Tennyson. He began to write 'Im Memorian' for his lost friend – the work took seventeen years to finish. A revised volume of Poems, which included the 'The Lady of Shalott' and 'The Lotus-eaters'. 'Morte d'Arthur' and 'Ulysses' appeared in the two-volume POEMS (1842), and established his reputation as a writer. In 'Ulysses Tennyson portrayed the Greek after his travels, longing past days: "How dull it is to pause, to make an end, / To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!"


After marrying in 1850 During his later years Tennyson produced some of his best poems., whom Tennyson had already met in 1830 and who had been the object of his affection for a long time, the couple settled in 1853 in Farringford, a house in Freshwater on the Isle of Wright. From there the family moved in 1869 to Aldworth, Surrey. Tennyson's life was then uneventful. In London he was a regular guest of the literary and artistic salon of Mrs Prinsep at Little Holland House. Tennyson's mother died in 1865. On the funeral day he wrote in his diary: "We all of us hate the pompous funeral we have to join in, black plumes, black coaches and nonsense. We should like all to go in white and gold rather, but convention is against us."


Among Tennyson's major poetic achievements is the elegy mourning the death of his friend Arthur Hallam, In Memoriam (1850). The personal sorrow led the poet to explore his thoughts on faith, immortality, and the meaning of loss: "O life as futile, then, as frail! / O for thy voice to soothe and bless! / What hope of answer, or redress? / Behind the veil, behind the veil." Among its other passages is a symbolic voyage ending in a vision of Hallam as the poet's muse. Some critics have seen in the work ideas, that anticipated Darwin's theory of natural selection. "Who trusted God was love indeed / And love Creation's final law - / Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw / With ravine, shriek'd against his creed – ", Tennyson wrote. He was born in the same year as Darwin, but his view about natural history, however, was based on catastrophe theory, not evolution.
"Into the jaws of death, Into the mouth of hell Rode the six hundred." (from 'The Charge of the Light Brigade')


The patriotic poem 'Charge of the Light Brigade', published in MAUD (1855), is one of Tennyson's best known works, although at first Maud was found obscure or morbid by critics ranging from George Eliot to Gladstone. Later the poem about the Light Brigade inspired Michael Curtiz's film from 1936, starring Errol Flynn. Historically the fight during the Crimean war brough to light the incompetent organization of the English army. However, the stupid mistake described in the poem honored the soldier's courage and heroic action.


During his later years Tennyson produced some of his best poems. ENOCH ARDEN (1864) was based on a true story of a sailor, thought to be drowned at sea but who returned home after several years obly to find that his wife had remarried. In the poem Enoch Arden, Philip Ray and Annie Lee grow up together. Enoch wins her hand. He sails abroad and is shipwrecked for 10 years on a deserted island. Meanwhile Annie has been reduced to poverty. Philip asks her to marry him. Enoch returns and witnesses their happiness, but hides that he is alive and sacrifices his happiness for theirs. An Enoch Arden has come to mean a person who truly loves someone better than himself. The poem ends simply with the lines, "So past the strong heoic soul away. / And when they buried him, the little port / Had seldom seen a costlier funeral." IDYLLS OF THE KING (1859-1885) dealt with the Arthurian legeds, which had fascinated Tennyson since his youth, and THE ANCIENT SAGE (1885) and AKBAR'S DREAM (1892) testified the poet's faith in the redemption offered by love. Despite Tennyson pessimism about the human condition, he believed in God.


In the 1870s Tennyson wrote several plays, among them poetic dramas QUEEN MARY (1875) and HAROLD (1876). In 1884 he was created a baron. Tennyson died at Aldwort on October 6, 1892, and was buried in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. Soon he became the favorite target of attacks of many English and American poets who saw him as a representative of narrow patriotism and sentimentality. Later critics have praised again Tennyson. T.S. Eliot has called him "the great master of metric as well as of melancholia" and that he possessed the finest ear of any English poet since Milton.


POEM SUMMARY:

This poem is very short but full of meaning. Every verse consists of eight syllables with an alternating stress pattern of weak, strong, weak, and strong. The eight syllables can be divided into four feet. The first syllable of each foot is weak and the second is strong. Poems with eight-syllable verses and a weak-strong stress pattern are in iambic tetrameter.


The poem has regular rhyme. The first three verses all rhyme as well as the final three. Thus, the rhyme scheme is a,a,a,b,b,b.


The first verse of the poem exemplifies personification. Though the eagle has claws, Tennyson uses the word "hands". In the second verse, Tennyson makes it clear that the eagle is very high in the sky when he says it is close to the sun. The phrase "lonely lands" expresses the eagle's solitude. It is also an example of alliteration because "lonely" and "lands" both start with the letter "l".


In the third verse, Tennyson expresses the eagle's connection to the sky. The sky is described as an azure world which completely encircles the eagle. The word "stands", not a word that is usually associated with the eagle, is another example of personification.


The final three verses of the poem mark a shift in the direction of the poem because they describe the ocean, the eagle's home of mountain walls, and finally, his descent to the world below. The sea has the appearance of being wrinkled and it merely crawls. This is in contrast to the swift motion of the eagle through the sky. It is also important to note that the eagle is so high in the sky that everything seems slow and distant. When the eagle watches from his mountain walls, one senses that the eagle has a good view of all below and also that the moment the eagle spots prey, it will be attacked. This is emphasized in the final line which compares the eagle to a thunderbolt. The reader senses the speed of the eagle as it flies from high in the sky to the world below. This comparison with "like" is an excellent example of a simile.


Tennyson's poem "The Eagle", though short, has regular rhyme and other poetic devices such as iambic tetrameter, alliteration, personification and simile. The first three verses are rather different from the final three. The first three stanzas focus on the eagle but the final three focus on the eagle's world and nature. The literary devices of the poem and the powerful imagery combine to make it a classic in the world of English poetry.

Sonnet XVIII: Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR; WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, in 1564. This was the sixth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He was christened on April 26 of that year. The day of his birth is unknown. It has long been celebrated on April 23, the feast of St. George.

William was the third child and oldest son of John and Mary Arden Shakespeare. Two sisters, Joan and Margaret, died before he was born. The other children were Gilbert, a second Joan, Anne, Richard, and Edmund. Only the second Joan outlived William.

Shakespeare's father was a tanner and glovemaker. He was an alderman of Stratford for years. He also served a term as high bailiff, or mayor. Toward the end of his life John Shakespeare lost most of his money. When he died in 1601, he left William only a little real estate. Not much is known about Mary Shakespeare, except that she came from a wealthier family than her husband.

Stratford-upon-Avon is in Warwickshire, called the heart of England. In Shakespeare's day it was well farmed and heavily wooded. The town itself was prosperous and progressive (see Stratford-upon-Avon). The town was proud of its grammar school. Young Shakespeare went to it, although when or for how long is not known. He may have been a pupil there between his 7th and 13th years. His studies must have been mainly in Latin. The schooling was probably good. All four schoolmasters at the school during Shakespeare's boyhood were graduates of Oxford University.

Nothing definite is known about his boyhood. From the content of his plays, he must have learned early about the woods and fields, about birds, insects, and small animals, about trades and outdoor sports, and about the country people he later portrayed with such good humor. Then and later he must have picked up an amazing stock of facts about hunting, hawking, fishing, dances, music, and other arts and sports. Among other subjects, he also must have learned about alchemy, astrology, folklore, medicine, and law. As good writers do, he must have collected information both from books and from daily observation of the world around him.

POEM SUMMARY.

William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is part of a group of 126 sonnets. Shakespeare wrote that are addressed to a young man of great beauty and promise.

In this group of sonnets, the speaker urges the young man to marry and perpetuate his virtues through children, and warns him about the destructive power of time, age, and moral weakness.

Sonnet 18 focuses on the beauty of the young man, and how beauty fades, but his beauty will not because it will be remembered by Shakespeare starts the poem with a metaphoric question in line one asking if he should compare the man to a summer’s day.

This asks if he should compare the beauty of a summer’s day to the beauty of the young man about whom Shakespeare is writing. Line two of this poem states “Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
This poem that Shakespeare wrote, in the octave, describes how all beauty fades except for the man about whom Shakespeare is writing.

Lines thirteen and fourteen say that as long as this poem is read, the man’s beauty will never go away, because every time someone reads the poem they will be reminded of his beauty. Shakespeare uses “the eye of heaven” as a metaphor in this line to describe the sun.

Line three, “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,” tells why the man’s beauty is greater than that of a summer’s day.

Shakespeare makes use of much symbolism and many other figurative devices in this poem that contribute and emphasize to the overall theme of the poem.

In the sestet, the poem tells about how the man’s beauty stays alive and out lives all other beauty.

Line five states another imperfection of the summer.

In lines seven and eight the speaker ends the complication by describing how nature is never perfect.

“Eternal summer” in line nine is referring back to the man’s eternal beauty, using summer to symbolize beauty, and saying that the man’s beauty will never fail like the summer’s beauty.

This emphasizes the man’s beauty and how the man is viewed by the speaker.

Line nine starts the resolution of the poem by using the conjunction “but”.

The octave also tells of how great the man’s beauty is compared to everything else that is beautiful.

In line two the speaker is describing the man as more lovely and more moderate than a summer’s day.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags,
we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep.
Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Analysation

This poem was written by British soldier-cum-poet, Wilfred Owen during the World War 1.
This poem portrayed horrifying images and condemnation of war. This poem was narrated by Owen itself based on his experience during the war.

IntRodUctIOn

Welcome to our blog!

This blog is specially created for our literary creative presentation.

We have chosen five poems to analyze. The poems are The Eagle, Do Not Go Gentle Into The

Good Night, Mother to Son, Dulce Et Decorum Est, Sonnet XVIII: Shall Compare Thee To A

Summer’s Day.

Here we will provide you the poem itself and the analysis of the poem.

So, feel free to view our blog!