Invictus, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night By Emily Lee

Poetry is a unique language that relates the observations and experiences of life to portray an underlying meaning. Poetry is a form of expression and allows authors to express thoughts and feelings while trying to connect with an audience and help us find meaning in our own experiences. In this essay, four poems will be explored and compared around a central thematic theme. The poems being analyzed will be “Success is Counted Sweetest” by Emily Dickinson, “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas and “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou. Each one of these poems helps express the idea of power and never settling for less using language structure and technique. Overall, these poems

In “Success Is Counted Sweetest” by Emily Dickinson uses a metaphor to help symbolize success by comparing the word “Nectar” in the first stanza to a sweet victory. This poem also used imagery to show that in the middle of war although success is important to some, success means life or death. Whereas “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou used personification to humanize the words she used such as changing the bird's pronoun from “it’s” to “his.” This helped bring the poem to literal life and build a human factor. This poem also used a metaphor when using two birds to represent the difference between white people and black people. Showing the free bird to be the white people who have freedom and the caged bird to be the black people with nothing. This helped show how important freedom was for black people. Both poems used a number of literary techniques to help portray their overall

In the earlier paragraph, there was an analysis of both “Why The Caged Bird Sings” and “Success is counted sweetest.” Which were both great poems with a lot of incentive for power and strength. Whereas, the poems “invictus” by William Ernest Henley and “So Not Go Gentle Into That Night” by Dylan Thomas focus more on the decisions making and control. “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley uses similes and imagery to conquer the idea that nobody should be afraid of challenges. In the second line it states “Black as the pit from pole to pole” which is comparing the darkness of the night with his dreadful soul. In this poem, William Ernest Henley also used imagery in the line “beyond the place of wrath and tears” which helps the audience to feel the pain the character is going through and watch him develop courage to overcome his miserable life. In the poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”, Dylan Thomas also used alliteration and symbolism to let the reader know that change is desired and control over your own self. Alliteration is used in the four stanzas with the words “rage,rage”. This gives the reader emphasis on this line because the poem is about not giving in and having control of yourself. The author is trying to give up on the desire to not give up when approaching the light.” The author uses light as a symbol of willingness to fight for life and not give