Analysis Of The Poem 'One Art' By Elizabeth Bishop

Following the loss of her father and mother just months after her birth, Elizabeth Bishop stumbled into more loss, eventually coming across her calling as a poet, as she withdrew into a world of poetry and fairy tales (“Elizabeth Bishop”). The villanelle, “One Art” was written by Bishop during the 20th century as a poem about her past experiences with loss and a fear of death as the final, but greatest loss. The speaker of the poem is Bishop herself since references to her past are made. Bishop’s use of autobiographical references, a villanelle style of poetry, and situational irony, allowed her to distinguish and emphasize her fear of losing people dear to her. Each stanza introduces more autobiographical references. Bishop does this because this poem was written to cope with the thought of losing Methfessel, a loss towering over her past losses in severity at the time that the poem was written. In “One Art,” Bishop makes references to her past, losing “places”, “names”, her “mother’s watch”, “three loved houses”,”two cities”,”two rivers”,”a continent”, and “you”(Bishop lines 7, 10-11, 13-14, 16). In the line with “I lost my mother’s watch” she references when she lost both of her parents. Her father died eight months after her birth

Despite having overcome losing her father and mother, moving to various new homes around the world, leaving behind acquaintances with each move, and having to continue correspondence with certain friends through letters, there was still the daunting fear of death. Death would strip her of everything she had ever gained in her life. She successfully expressed this fear in “One Art” through the order she presented each of her personal losses, writing it as a villanelle, and using irony, all to emphasize the last stanza and the loss of “you”, meaning everyone she’s met, and in particular Alice Methfessel and Lota de Macedo