Poetry
Alliteration is a repetition of speech sounds in a sequence of nearby words, there are examples from these poems. For instance, In the poem ‘The Raven’, in the first stanza, is the use of alliteration as a poetry device in the line ‘…While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping…’. The use of allusion in the poem ‘Daddy’ is used in the fourth stanza in the line ‘…In the German tongue, in the polish town…’. Allusion is passing a reference without a specific identification.
The poet in the poem tries to distinguish whether the raven had been sent by God. The poet writes in the poem, ‘…the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer, Swung by angels whose faint footfalls tinkled on the turfed floor. “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee-by these angels he hath sent thee…’. The poet believes that the bird was there to give him a message that God is no longer on his side.
Caesura is a strong phrasal pause that falls within a line. For instance, in the poem ‘The Raven’, the poet writes, in the second last stanza, ‘…Leave my loneliness unbroken! – quit the bust above my door!…’ Figurative language is a conspicuous language from what users of a language apprehend as the standard meaning of words. For example, metaphors and similes. For instance, in the poem ‘The Raven’, the writer uses simile when he says, ‘…Leave no black perfume as a token of that lie thy soul; hath spoken…’
Figurative language includes similes, metaphors and symbols, to describe something to compare it with something else. For instance in the poem “My Papa’s Waltz”, the writer shows how much alcohol Papa takes and the writer says, “… but I hung on like death…”.
The combination of words, whose sounds seem to denote its meaning, is called Onomatopoeia. This is used in the poem ‘The Raven’ where the poet writes ‘… Wretch,” I cried, ‘thy God hath lent thee-by these angels he hath sent thee…’
Personification has been used in the poem “The Raven” ; the speaker is giving the raven a human character. The writer describes the raven as a person where they are able to communicate. For instance the writer, says, “… But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only that one word, as if his soul in that one word he did pour…”. However, the speaker calls the bird a prophet, which had been sent to deliver a message.
The use of these devices while reading the poems helps one to get a rhythm for the poems, which becomes more interesting and gives the reader the ability to tell the mood of the poems, and the inner meaning of the poem.
In Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for death”, the poet uses the excessive dashes to show continuation or persistence on what she does, showing the idea of not stopping. The characterization of the mirror in the poem is accurate since the mirror gives an exact view of the object that comes before it. The mirror gives a reflection of anything.
According to the writer of the poem “The Raven”, he believes the visitation of the bird in his house at night was symbolic in one way or another. The writer actually says that the bird would be God’s agent or the devil’s agent that had been sent to him as a sign of things likely to happen in the future. However, in the same poem the writer talks about where the bird had gone to branch itself was about a statue that was above his chamber door. The writer says, “… still sitting on the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door…”. In the poem ‘Mirror’, the poet uses the mirror as a persona of the poem and uses the mirror to symbolize certain issues.
The poet tries to distinguish whether the raven had been sent by God. He writes in the poem, ‘…the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer, Swung by angels whose faint footfalls tinkled on the turfed floor. “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee-by these angels he hath sent thee…’. The poet believes that the bird was there to give him a message that God is no longer on his side.
The speaker, later on in the poem decides to get close to the bird and looked at it, thinking what was strange about the bird. ‘…Straight I wheeled my seat in front of bird and bust and door…thinking what this ominous bid of yore’. The tone of the poem also shows loneliness. The speaker looks at the bird as he reflects on his life, what mischief can happen to his life more than losing loved ones.
There are some settings in the poem that seem supernatural, for instance, when the poet shows that he was surrounded by angels. However, they are settings in the poem that have a rational explanation, for instance, when the poet shows how depressed on can be after losing someone you love.