ipl-logo

Diction In The Mower's Song

806 Words4 Pages

Phillips Madison
Mrs.Houck
AP Literature
11 February 2023
“The Mower's Song”: A Lover Leading to Loss
The effects of a past loved one hurting one's mind may cause contradicting stages of a mental state; the idea is shown in “The Mower's Song” by Andrew Marvell. The speaker has multiple shifts in tone throughout many lines in every stanza yet, the effects that the speaker's past lover has on the speaker are greatly emphasized. In the metaphysical poem, Marvell uses a conceit, imagery, contradicting diction, and the use of a refrain to convey the speaker's shift of attitude from nostalgic to bitter to vengeful.
In the first two stanzas of Marvell’s metaphysical poem, Marvell establishes the speaker's nostalgic tone for longing towards the …show more content…

The speaker in the beginning lines deeming the meadows to be “unthankful” and questions how the meadows would allow a “fellowship so true” to be so unaffected by the speaker's negative state of mind. The bitterness of the speaker is shown through the negative diction that Marvel uses, conveying the speaker’s bitterness towards the “unthankful” flourishing meadow. Furthermore, towards the end of the third stanza, the speaker highlights the meadow's flashy “May-games'' while Marvell establishes the speaker “lay trodden under feet.” The image of the meadows “May- games” and the use of negative diction “trodden” further emphasizes the deep hate and bitterness the speaker now has toward the meadows still flourishing …show more content…

While the speaker's mind becomes more dismissed as time progresses, Marvell creates the speaker becoming increasingly more agitated as the meadow grows. The speaker in the first lines now wanting “revenge” towards the meadow and wanting together for “ruin [to] fall” The images and descriptions Marvell conveys create the vengefulness inside of the speaker's attitude towards the fields. Continuing, into the final stanza the speaker remembers of the “companions'' and when the speakers ‘thoughts [were] greener.” Marvell once again mentions the speaker's a once positive and content mental state through the comparison of the meadow. The imagery highlights the speaker's new vengeful attitude through the speaker's disapproval of the growing meadow. The closing lines of the stanza create a sense of death when the speaker will “adorn [in the speaker's] tomb.” Marvell conveys that the vengeful attitude the speaker contains through the speaker's revenge ultimately leads to his death. Finally, the last couplet of the stanza emphasizes what “Juliana” has done to the speaker's mind but, in the end, “Juliana comes,” Marvell closing the poem with one word changed in the author's refrain “comes” creates the negative effects that “Juliana” had on the speaker's mind, ultimately causes the speaker to be vengeful and causing his

Show More
Related

Analysis Of At Mornington By Gwen Harwood

722 Words | 3 Pages

In the first stanza’s, the narrator’s voice and perspective is more collective and unreliable, as in “they told me”, but nonetheless the references to the “sea’s edge” and “sea-wet shell” remain constant. Later on the poem, this voice matures, as the “cadence of the trees” and the “quick of autumn grasses” symbolize the continuum of life and death, highlighting to the reader the inevitable cycle of time. The relationship that Harwood has between the landscape and her memories allows for her to delve deeper into her own life and access these thoughts, describing the singular moments of human activity and our cultural values that imbue themselves into landscapes. In the poem’s final stanza, the link back to the narrator lying “secure in her father’s arms” similar to the initial memory gives the poem a similar cyclical structure, as Harwood in her moment of death finds comfort in these memories of nature. The water motif reemerges in the poem’s final lines, as “peace of this day will shine/like light on the face of the waters.”

Read More

Gospel By Philip Levine Summary

1004 Words | 5 Pages

In lines eight through twelve of the poem, the speaker states “I don’t ask myself what I’m looking for. I didn’t come for answers to a place like this, I came to walk on the earth, still cold, still silent.” The speaker says that the earth is cold and silent, illustrating how he or she sees the world as dead and cold. As readers go through the poem they can tell how the speaker was expecting life to turn out the way it did. By the speaker stating in lines thirteen through eight-teen “Still unforgiving, I’ve said to myself, although it greets me with last year’s dead thistles and this year’s hard spines, early blooming wild onions, the curling remains of spider’s cloth” it shows how he views the world as a bad place that never produces anything good.

Read More

Analysis Of Sister By Haunani Kay Trask

1062 Words | 5 Pages

Trask’s first stanza is beautifully written, it includes an image of purity with the use of the dove, a common symbol of pureness, and a description of the still undisturbed waters. She then goes on to retell memories of collecting shells and hunting jellyfish creating an image of childhood fun for the reader to connect with. All in all the first stanza is pleasant to image of happiness and innocence, while the next stanza takes a turn for the worse. In stanza two the environment darkness as a storm rolls into the previously calm bay, all light is clouded and the smell of decaying life is detected. This dark image is a crucial turning point in the poem.

Read More

Time Capsule Found On The Dead Planet Summary

994 Words | 4 Pages

In the first stanza, the earth is described as a wonderful place and is somewhere where many things grow. “A million fish in the seas and a million birds in the sky” demonstrates the liveliness of this place and how the earth should be. Atwood has illustrated the way things should be in the world and what it looked like when humans hadn’t begun to destroy it. In contrast, at the end of the piece, we are told of a barren environment with no life of any form. This is exemplified by the fact that “nothing grew [in the cities]” which can convey how our society has been fully to blame for the change in this world and should be ashamed of it.

Read More

Roaring 20's Tone

689 Words | 3 Pages

For example, he describes its gloominess as a “fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat,” which demonstrates a dismal feel in an ironic fashion through the contrasting imagery associated with growth and freshness. This tone is further expressed by the “ashes grow[ing] like wheat into ridges… and grotesque gardens,” which adds to the dreariness of

Read More

Marge Piercy's The Barbie Doll

707 Words | 3 Pages

The end of the poem you see her in a casket with a new nose and makeup and essentially she looks like a doll. Everyone who is there to see her comments on how pretty she. She is said to now have a happy ending. This poem talks about how this girl was just an innocent girl who didn't have any issues with herself till she reached a certain age.

Read More

Mistakes Revealed In Carl Sandburg's Grass

570 Words | 3 Pages

The visual imagery poignantly appears in the first stanza, “shovel them under and let me work- I am the grass, I cover all.” This imagery produces a visual mind-picture that shows what people do with “them”- the dead bodies. People simply let the grass cover up the brutality of battles. It’s almost as if the grass, when personified, is indifferent to the terrible mistakes of humans.

Read More

Essay On Gas Warfare

1650 Words | 7 Pages

Gas warfare was first introduced in World War I and continued to be used throughout World War II. It was most commonly used in the front lines, and was feared by many. Gas warfare was a very effective war tactic. The effects of gases were unbearable, which is what caused them to be so heavily feared. Luckily, by the time that World War II came about protective masks called, gas masks had been invented.

Read More

A Song In The Front Yard Poem Analysis

658 Words | 3 Pages

It is the celebration of “the Negro”. In this stanza the narrator lists the wonderful fun of the other. This stanza also references the “wonderful things” that the backyard people do. The reader realizes that the narrators mother represents the Victorian, white ideals. The mother sneers at those from the backyard.

Read More

The Great Gatsby Questions And Answers

376 Words | 2 Pages

Second, the poem parallels the description of the Valley of Ashes as a “desolate area of land” (35), just as the hollow men live in “the dead land” (line 39). Third, in lines 22-23, “There, the eyes are sunlight on a broken column.” Just as a broken column symbolizes decay, Doctor T.J. Eckleburg’s eyes look down on the Valley of Ashes, which symbolizes God looking down on the moral decline of the 1920s. Fourth, in lines 27-28, the poem illustrates a dream “more distant and

Read More

Literary Analysis Of Damon The Mower

1543 Words | 7 Pages

In the last three stanzas, we can notice Marvell 's unique ability to use conceits, as the speaker explains in lines 77-8, that Damon wound his ankle in a moment of carelessness. This conceit compares between the mower to the grass he cuts, hence, at this point, the speaker strengthens the connection he had made earlier between the mower to Nature. In addition, in line 80 the speaker uses a magnificent alliteration with the words "Mower mown" to illustrate Damon 's great pain. Later, in the last stanza, the speaker ends the poem in a lamenting tone by using a conceit to compare between the mower to the angel of death. In the poem Marvell demonstrates his abound poetic devices: from the use of two voices, through the tight rhyming scheme, the intricate use of conceits, and finally the tone playing, all weaved together masterfully to convey the exact desired notion.

Read More

Mower Against Gardens Poem Analysis

859 Words | 4 Pages

Poetic meters in combination with repeated ideas, words, and rhymes are all used in Marvell 's poem, The Mower Against Gardens. The poem explores humanities ungratefulness and abuse to nature with the use of sexual imagery. The poem resonates with the audience because it flows smoothly and is easy to read. The use of repetition is pronounced in the poem and the integrated tail rhymes enhance and join together associated couplets. The rhythmical nature of the poem alongside the "Da-Duh" poetic meters are key to Marvell 's writing.

Read More

The Gun Poem Analysis

857 Words | 4 Pages

She ends the stanza with a rhetorical question, ‘Does her survival mean a thing to him?’ suggesting how the fire provokes the persona to question this along with a literal awakening from a fever dream. Feaver also conveys culpability in the next stanzas after an escalation of the situation, ‘Your hands reek of gun oil and entrails’ a grotesque imagery which is also a allusion to Lady Mcbeth to suggest connections to readers. She continues to reveal that throughout the poem she was exploring sexuality with violence. ‘Theres a spring in your step; your eyes gleam like

Read More

A Comparison Of Blackberry Picking And The Early Purges

794 Words | 4 Pages

The poem expresses the childish excitement the two young boys face whilst picking the blackberries and later, the disappointment faced when their harvest fails. However, a larger issue is explored; the loss of

Read More

His Coy Mistress

661 Words | 3 Pages

Andrew Marvell’s poem To His Coy Mistress falls under the genre of carpe diem because the speaker bases his reasoning for his need to sleep with her on their mortality. The speaker appeals to his mistress’s sense of devoutness by exploiting religious connotations of the words he chooses while simultaneously associating them with their limited time. The speaker takes advantage of religious phrasing to persuade his audience, his lover, to sleep with him. The narrator constructs an antediluvian timeframe to illustrate and exaggerate his devotion to his mistress.

Read More

More about Diction In The Mower's Song

Related Topics

Open Document