Poetry Essay

For this essay I plan to compare “Do not go Gentle into that Good Night” to “Those Winter Sundays.” Both poems are told by speakers looking back on their childhoods and their relationships with their fathers. Each speaker has feelings of resentment towards their father, one in the past and one in the present. While one poem speaks of a father providing for his family during difficult times, the other speaks of the father’s final days. I plan to show how both speakers take their fathers for granted and seem naive about their father’s situations. I will also show how tension is prevalent in these poems. In “Do not go Gentle into that Good Night” the speaker’s expectations of his father seem both harsh and unrealistic. The speaker expects his father to be the man he was when he was healthy, which is not possible as he lies on his death bed. I will focus on why the speaker wants so desperately for his father to continue fighting for his life. In “Those Winter Sundays” the child doesn’t appreciate the battle his father faces every day to provide for his family. This is typical of a father-child relationship during a child’s adolescents. A parent’s love is often overlooked by children of this age, and I feel this poem brings this to light. I will point out various details in both of these poems in order to show the parent-child relationships presented by the speaker.

Theme- "Porphyria's Lover"

"Porphyria's Lover" written by Robert Browning is a very misleading poem when you first engage in the poem. It is portrayed to be a love story. "She put her arm about her waist, And made her smooth white shoulder bare, And all her yellow hair displaced, And stooping, made my cheek lie there, And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair, Murmuring how she loved me". (16-21 Browning) Those lines make you think they are in love. As you read on in the poem it takes on a dramatic change. Her lover was selfish and cold hearted. "Porphyria worshipped me; surprise Made my heart swellm and still it grew, While I debated what to do". (33-35 Browning) You can tell there just from that statement he was very controlling and he is planning something when he states "while I debated what to do". "A thing to do, and all her hair. In one long yellow string I wound three times her little throat around, And strangled her. No pain she felt; I am quite sure she felt no pain." (38-42 Browning) He was selfish enough to murder his lover for the intent he would have her forever. Her spirit will never forgive him but in his mind she was the only one to have her and he wanted to keep it that way. "And thus we sit together now, And all night long we have not stirred, And yet God has not said a word! (58-60 Browning) Now that he is killed her and they sit there together not exchanging words while his lover is emotionless and her spirit has left her. God hasn't sent any signs that she is ok. God will never forgive him for killing his lover.

Topic Proposal "Porphyria's Lover" and "My Last Duchess"

The poems; "Porphyria's Lover" and "My Last Duchess" were both written by Robert Browning. These two poems are interesting and could be used for the Poetry essay with the subject of; the twisted underlying motives behind the supposed theme of love. Both of these poems use the term understatement, as well as the use of dramatic monologue, and situational irony. Also, when reading these two poems, as a reader, you have to see the strange way Browning displays the twistedness of the speakers. He sets up the tone as a real subtle melodramatic type tone, to then use (for the most part) the similarly subtle tone to show the ugliness and perverse nature of the two main characters in the poems. Although, a difference being that in "My Last Duchess" the tone seems to get more enraged and is less sublte than "Porphyria's Lover".

Theme "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

"Porphyria's Lover" Theme

In the poem “Porphyria’s Lover” by Robert Browning, the theme of the poem was about a guy who killed his lover for selfish reasons. At first the speaker made it look like a love story between two people by using choice words that made readers think it was a love story. “She put my arm about her waist” (16) and it talks about her bare shoulder showing, her long yellow hair and her “Murmuring how she loved me.” (21) As the poem progresses, you can clearly see that this guy is not right in the head. He states how she worshipped him. He strangles her with her hair. He believes that she felt no pain and this is what she wanted. This was definitely not a love story. In his mind he thought by killing her, she would be his forever. My thoughts on the theme, it was a good poem with a nice twist to the end. He murdered his lover so that she will be with him forever.

Tone in "To Coy His Mistress"

Being that this poem is about a man trying to convince the listener to go to bed with them and "seize the day", many would expect it to have a vulgar or swoozing tone. The tone in this poem is far from. This specific poem tends to have a very lighthearted tone. He seems to be more sincere than you would expect him to be. It seems as though all he wants is you to go to bed with him, but he does it in a very softhearted way. You aren't immediately disgusted as you would expect to be when one is convincing you to do such a thing. The line that speaks "Two hundred to adore each breast"(line 15 Marvell) makes you wonder the man's real intentions. He is giving off hints of him actually adoring the listener but when in all actuality he is a con.

"Macho Man"

"Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy is a poem about how much pressure is on teenage girls to be societies standards of "perfect". The girl in this poem "was healthy and tested intelligent" (line 7) however "everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs" (line 11). Teenage boys are just as pressured as girls. Just like the girl in this poem, a young man may be intelligent but society values beauty more. In today's world a teenage boy looks up to men with muscular and lean bodies. They feel as though they need to keep up with the hairstyles that are "in" as well as the clothing styles. Teenage boys are under extra pressure when it comes to the topic of sex. They compare how many girls they have had sex with and feel like they need to excel more then the other boys. There's a sterotype that to be a "man" you need to have the perfect body and get a lot of women. The girl in the poem was "advised to play coy" (line 12). Young men get advice to be successful in sports. The girl was also told to "exercise, diet, smile, and weedle" (line 14). Boys are often told to hit the gym to build the "perfect" body and often are pressured to take enhancement drugs. The pressure on teenage boys is just as stressful as it is for teenage girls if not worse.

Poetry Essay

In my essay I am going to compare the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas and "Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year" by Raymond Carver. Both stories are written by men for their fathers. One possibly just passed and the other is in the act of dying. Thomas writes of a man persuading his father to die with the dignity that all men should have, that even if he set out in this world to accomplish everything but in reality accomplished nothing, he is still a father and that is an awesome responsiblity. Carver is looking at a picture of his father where is he is trying to seem important and bold, but really is drinking a beer (and possibly very drunk at the time) holding some little perch. But again still he is a father and his son thinks he is amazing. Carver is realizing that parents are perfect, but once you have walked a mile as a parent you understand their actions better than you could ever as a child.

Theme of "To His Coy Mistress"

The theme in this poem is all about sex. It is written by a man for another man to woo a woman into his bed. He tells her how much he loves her and how long he will. She is resistant to give up her virginity so easily so he tells her he will love her"ten years before the Flood," (783). He compares his love to a garden that will grow "Vaster than empires, and more slow." Everything a woman wants to hear from a man she is willing to give up the one thing she can never get back and is a passing from girl to woman. He tells her that they don't have forever, that if she doesn't give her virginity to him, then she when she dies the worms will have their way with her body. That the grave they put her in, will be cold and hard whereas his arms are warm and comfortable. The poem ends with his still trying very hard to persuade.

Tone of "To His Coy Mistress

The tone of the first stanza of Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” seems to be one of flirtatiousness. As the title would indicate, she is not going to be an easy catch, and the young man must use all of his wits to entice her to give in to him. Marvell uses hyperbole throughout the first part of the poem to express the speakers desire to be with the young lady. The young man exaggerates time by indicating that his love for her is eternal by saying “I would/Love you ten years before the Flood,/And you should, if you please, refuse/Till the conversion of the Jews” (lines7-10). He continues by telling her he would spend 100 years just looking at her eyes and forehead (13-14), and “Two hundred to adore each breast” (15). The speaker would seem to say anything to make the young lady believe he is completely enamored with her.

The second stanza becomes much darker in tone, to one of sadness over the passage of time. The young man changes his approach from one of loving compliments to describing what will happen to them in death. He wants her to know that “Time’s winged chariot hurrying near” (22) will steal her beauty and put her in her grave (25-26). The speaker uses images of death and decomposition to try to get to the young lady’s vanity, and perhaps change her mind. He is saying to her that life is short, and she should keep that in mind while she is pushing him away.

In the last stanza, the tone changes again to one that is passionate. The young man finally appeals to the young lady’s sexual desires, invoking images of her “every pore with instant fires” (36) and “amorous birds of prey” (38). He pleads with her to “roll all our strength and all/Our sweetness up into one ball/And tear our pleasures with rough strife” (41-43). He hopes that at this point he has awakened her senses and convinced her to give in to him.

Looking at this poem as a whole, the tone is one of insincerity. The young man never proves his case by flirting with the young lady, scaring her about losing her good looks in death, or turning on her desire for him. The type of behavior exhibited by the young man in this poem could have been written in 1681 or in 2009. Time marches on, but things between men and women never really change.

"Porphyria's Lover"

In Robert Browning’s poem “Porphyria’s Lover,” he uses dramatic irony to tell us how she loves and worships him and then he kills her. In actuality Porphyria does not have an interest in him. He makes himself believe that she loves and worships him. Then he proceeds to kill her to make her his forever. In the first few stanzas of the poem Browning sets the mood as gloomy, stormy and dismal, this reflects how he is feeling. He wants Porphyria to be his lover and she does not feel the same, describing the setting is like describing his feelings. The line, “I listened with heart fit to break,” (719) meant that he wanted her so much he was ready to have his heart broken for a chance with her, which is ironic since he actually kills her in the end not to have his heart broken. If he can’t have her no one else could have her either as the following line states, “That moment she was mine, mine, fair, Perfectly pure and good.” (720) The diction used in this poem is formal and creates a solemn, serious mood.

Irony in Porphyria's Lover

Irony can manipulate a reader's emotions but the writer does not want the readers to be confused by what is said and by what is meant. This kind of irony is displayed in "Porphyria's Lover" by Robert Browning. In the poem the speaker said that Porphyria "listened with a heart fir to break" (719) and the writer doesn't actually mean the heart could break while she is listening but that the heart is a weak heart and it could be hurt while she is listening. The next line says Porphyria "glided" (719) but of course someone can't glide somewhere but instead they walk. Then, she also "shut the cold out and the storm" (719) which a person can't shut a storm out because it does not have a door to shut, but instead she may have just ignored the cold and the storm to keep warm. These are only a few examples of irony in this poem but any type of irony can confuse a reader or they may think the meaning is different than the writer wanted it to be interpreted but the good thing about the use of irony is that it gets the reader to analyze a poem for themselves.

"Ozymandias"

The poem "Ozymandias" by Percy Shelley demonstrates the theme nothing lasts forever. One of the speakers tells a story that was heard from a traveler. The traveler said he saw "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" (line 2). They were "a shattered visage..." (line 4). The expression on the face part of the stone was a "wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command" (line 5). The statue was suppose to represent the amount of power the king held. On the statue it states how mighty and strong the ruler is. What is ironic is the statue is laying in pieces. This represents how no matter how strong something may appear, nothing lasts forever. The sculptor put all his passion into this piece of work. The emotions were all that survived the wreck. They are shown through the details of the work as well as the powerful words carved into it. The gloom of the desert can be felt when reading this poem. It is easy to imagine the endless miles of sand surrounding the ruins of what once was. It lets the imagination run wild thinking about what forces caused the downfall of the king's statue and possibly the civilization. There must have been great dissapointment from the creator of the statue.

My essay on poems

Blog Essay
The two poems I will be comparing are about love. These two poems will be Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess. These two poems are both written by the same author Robert Browning. The two poems are both considered a Dramatic monologue because it includes a listener and speaker as well. These stories are both told or spoken by males about their woman. The similarities of these two poems are a man and woman are involved, in both something has happened to the woman, and in both poems the woman symbolizes possession. The major difference is that in one there is a death and in one there is murder. These men each talk about physical appearances as they look at their woman and both thought that they should only be for them. These men seem to have the same personal issues such as: jealousy, selfish, self esteem, and some insecurity. The poems imagery is different as they are in different places with different things happening at that time. In Porphyria’s lover, “The rain set early in to-night.” (Browning 719) In My Last Duchess, “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall.” (Browning 702) Christina Montag

My Poem Essay

I am planning on writing my essay as a comparison between the poems “Do not go gentle into that good night” and “Those Winter Sundays”. Both of these stories are about a son’s relationship with his father. In the poem “Do not go gentle into that good night” the son is pleading with his father to not die. In the poem “Those Winter Sundays” the son wishes he had realized everything his father had done for him sooner in life. He doesn’t realize this until is he older. In both stories there is a bond between the fathers and the sons. One that seems to not be realized until it is too late. In “Those Winter Sundays” the son seems to be thinking back and realizing he never told his father that he appreciated what he did for him. It is almost as if he wishes he could. Both stories show the bond between father and son that isn’t realized until it is too late. In my essay I want to focus on the father/son bond and how sometimes it is only realized how much your father has done for you when it is too late. In both poems the speaker was realizing what their father meant to them. The speaker in “Those Winter Sundays” realized it when he could never tell his father how much he appreciated it and the speaker in “Do not go gentle into that good night” realizes this as his father is on his death bed and he doesn’t want him to die.

My Last Duchess

"My Last Duchess" Written by Robert Browning. This is a poem about a man who is a duke. This poem is about a man who is entitled to him self and does not seem to have any respect for the fact that he has a wife. After his wife dies he is already on the prowl to marry again. The man that this poem is about is not only a jealous man but also possessive and looks at his wife not as a person but rather a possession and easily replaceable. "At starting, is my object. Nay we'll go". (54) When the duke talks about the Duchess in this poem you will see that he doesn't really care about the fact the she is dead but he also keeps her hidden behind a curtain. "The curtain I have drawn for you". (10). This man is most likely a powerful man who has certain expectations of a woman. If you look at the way he says things in this poem you can truly see he has no true value for his wife other than thinking of her as an abject. "My Favor at her breast" (25).

Theme of To His Coy Mistress

The theme in "To His Coy Mistress", by Andrew Marvell is one of lust and a hidden desire to be with this mistress. The male lover within this poem is clearly obsessed with her and wants nothing more than to spend his every minute and breath with this mistress. It also seems as though maybe this man is older than this women and he feels his time is running out. "That long preserved virginity, And your quaint honor turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust." (Marvell, pg 783). Overall, the theme here is this man feels his time to be with this mistress is running out and he ultimately has a wish of being with her.

Porphyria's Lover-Theme

The man in the poem "Porphyria's Lover" by Robert Browning, is a very possessive man who wants his lady to love him forever. When he realizes that she does in fact love him, he decides in that moment that the only thing to do is to kill her by strangling her with her own hair. "A thing to do, and all her hair in one long yellow string I wound three times her little throat around, and strangled her." (Lines 38, 39, 40, and 41, Browning) In his head it was the only way he could imagine that she would love him forever. The speaker makes clear that he is a very selfish man who does not want this lady to have any opportunity to love another man again. He also thinks that he is giving her what she wants and that is to be able to be with him forever. When he says "Porphyria's love: she guessed not how her darling one wish would be heard," (Lines 56 and 57, Browning) he meant that she wanted to be with him forever but she was unaware of how her dream would actually come about being true.

Barbie Doll

If I had to rewrite this poem to interlace the same struggles that young men go through in a very demanding society detailing perfection, strength, and dexterity; I would title this poem, "GQ doll". I would present images of masculinity; from six pack abs to an indescribable sense of strength. Some of the social norms that would be represented would be the ability not to show weakness or buckle under pressure. I would also include the sense of being indestructible; a common misconception that young men often times are led to believe. I also think it would be important to show the power of scrutiny among other individuals in comparison with, "Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs" (Piercy, 991). For young men though; often times it is not being able to compete or perform at a level comparable to their other counterparts.

Ozymandias

Throughout the poem, "Ozymandias" the reader is pulled into the theme of power, withstanding, and everlasting. There is a sense of desolation through the imagery described by the speaker. "The lone and level sands stretch far away" (Shelley, pg 721). The only reinforcing imagery that I can see is the withstanding of this kings pedestal, which I find intriguing because what does any of that matter when all of the rest of this kings work is gone. It is clear that this king's pedestal outlasts everything he built which was probably more important in his eyes because it represented a sense of accomplishment within his lifetime. It is also clear that this king felt his legacy would live on with the two lines within the poem, "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" (pg 721). It also goes to show that nothing in this world is truly everlasting.