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Keats And Longfellow Comparison

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Sonnet Comparison and Contrast: “When I Have Fears” and “Mezzo Cammin”
In the sonnet, "When I Have Fears" by John Keats, the opening line "When I have fears that I may cease to be," represents the contemplation both Keats and Longfellow are undertaking as they reflect on their life. While Keats recognizes that he may not accomplish everything he wants to in this life, he is hopeful for the future and all it may hold. On the other hand, Longfellow reflects more on his life, which he views as uneventful and lacking meaning, and instead of looking toward the future, he swamps himself in dreading the inaction of his past. Through the use of diction, imagery, and tone, Keats and Longfellow illustrate the fleeting nature of life.
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Both authors make use of personification and metaphor or simile. For example, Keats describes night with a "starr'd face" and compares his life works to, "high-piled books, in charactery, [holding] like rich garners the full ripened grain." Additionally, Longfellow describes his passions as "restless" and "not [to] be stilled" and similarly to Keats, compares his life works to a lofty tower, a parapet. However, through the use of imagery, it is revealed to the reader the different views Keats and Longfellow hold on their lives. While Keats fears for what his future holds, Longfellow focuses more on his past and regret. Seen in the line "before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain," Keats has a fear of dying before being able to build up his literary works. He also has a fear of dying before finding love: "never relish in the faery power of unreflecting love." Not only do both images portray his desires for the future, but also what he wants to accomplish. However, Longfellow has a more solemn outlook on the remainder of his life. In the line "the years slip from me and have not fulfilled the aspiration of my youth", it shows that he sees his inaction as missed opportunities. Shifting toward a darker note, "And hear above me on the Autumnal blast / and the cataract of Death far thundering from the heights." This line is more sudden and forceful than the more thoughtful

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Edgar Lee Master’s poem “George Gray” uses figurative language to show that regret induces sorrow. Master’s use of personification and an extended metaphor proves that regret induces sorrow. Throughout the poem the narrator explains to us, the reader, his regret of not taking chances that was once proposed to him in his life. In the poem it states, “Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid.” This negative connotation is an example of personification.

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The authors in both

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Everything is silent, then all of a sudden the ground shakes, you look outside and there he is, Paul Revere galloping on the dusty roads, he rode for miles and miles until he told every town that the British were coming. There are many similarities and differences between the Historical Account and the poem that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote. Both the Historical Account and the poem said that the people in North Church tower had to use lanterns as a signal to the people on horseback to tell if the British were coming from land or by sea. According to the author, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote a wonderful poem that explains the ride of Paul Revere, according to Longfellow, Revere was the only person that told the towns that the British

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499 Words | 2 Pages

He says that “the grave is not the goal… But to act that each tomorrow Find us farther than today.” While he states this, he is saying that people should not live to look forward to death, that people should value their life, and that they should live it to the fullest. Longfellow states that “Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime,” meaning that no matter what we do, we always have people to look up to in hard times, and while we get through our hard times, he say “leave behind us Footprints on the sand on time… that perhaps another… Seeing, shall take heart again.”

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828 Words | 4 Pages

Two examples of Romantic poets are Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson, whose writing exemplifies the Romantic theme of individuality, or the divergence from traditional societal norms and beliefs. The poems “A Dream Within A Dream,” by Edgar Allan Poe, and “Much Madness is Divinest Sense,” by Emily Dickinson perfectly display this theme of individuality. Within these poems, one can see both the similarities and differences regarding the theme, numerous elements of Romanticism such as individualism, imagination, and insight, the impact the theme has on societal norms, and the timelessness of the theme by being incorporated into modern day culture. To begin, there are many similarities to be found within “A Dream Within A Dream” and “Much Madness Is Divinest Sense”. The most prevalent similarity between the two is the theme.

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593 Words | 3 Pages

The poems, “When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be” and “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” written by John Keats and Dylan Thomas respectively, feature a similar theme of entropy, differ in the poets attitudes towards death and decline, and reflect the emotional perspective of the authors. We can gain insight in to the experiences that lead the authors to compose each of these works by comparing them. Thomas writes from a defiant place while Keats writes with acceptance. The authors have painted a picture of the entropic world as they saw it using different strokes and colours, the result, being these wonderful poems.

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520 Words | 3 Pages

Analyzing these few lines was a task that had to be done very thoroughly. Here, it is mentioned that the speakers past, their memories, always look the same, no matter how much time passes by. Or it might even just be a reminded to the reader that time really does seem to fly passed us. What I pulled from this was that the speakers feels as if he is nothing but a shell of what he once was, fading from his own grasp. He is trying to recognize, to understand, himself again so he will no longer be a shell.

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613 Words | 3 Pages

Ever since the beginning of time, man has always pondered a question: what is the meaning of life? In two of his works, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow attempted to describe what one should do with one’s life. Longfellow wrote “A Psalm of Life” early in his life; in this poem, Longfellow wants to encourage the reader to make a worthwhile contribution to the world. In the later stages of his life he wrote another poem called “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” in which the speaker focuses more on accepting death than living in the moment. Both poems have several similarities; at the same time, each poem has a different outlook on what one should do with his/her time on earth.

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John Keats: The Man Who Had Love But Could Not Keep It John Keats was a man who almost was able to conquer fate. He is remembered as one of, if not the most profound and influential poets of the Romantic Era. However, he was dealt a horrible pair of cards before he even antied into the game. Keats knew that he was going to die young. He was orphaned at age 14 when his mother died of tuberculosis.

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John Keats was born on October 31, 1795, during the Romantic era (“Academy of American Poets para. 1). During the romantic era, there was an intense focus on nature and emotion. While writing a wide range of poems in different forms, he still had nature-based poetry (Poetry Foundation para. 1).

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“Love is my religion. I could die for that. I could die for you.” - John Keats John Keats was a romantic poet who published only 54 poems in his lifetime. Keats was born in the City of London on October 31st, 1795.

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William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin, Ireland on June 13, 1865. His parents were John Butler Yeats and Susan Mary Pollexfen. Yeats’ dad, John, trained as a lawyer but dropped that career soon after his son's birth to pursue the study of art. (Mead) William had formal schooling but also received teachings from his dad (notablebiographies.com). After his formal schooling, Yeats went to the Metropolitan school of Art in Dublin, where he later dropped out (Mead).

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John Keats was one of the greatest Eng1ish Romantic poets. Besides Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley he is the main representative of the second generation romantic poets. He was born in 1795 on October 3l. There is no proper evidence of his exact birthplace but he was born in London. His poetry did not gain much recognition during his lifetime but it received many critics after his death and he became one of the most 1ovable poets by the end of nineteenth century.

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1170 Words | 5 Pages

Ambiguity in John Keats poems Applied to the poems To Autumn and La Belle Dame Sans Merci The following essay treats the problem of ambiguity in John Keats poems To Autumn and La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Ambiguity is treated by the structuralism school and is presented as an intrinsic, inalienable character of any self-focused message, briefly a corollary feature of poetry. Not only the message itself but also its addresser and addressee become ambiguous.

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A Bird’s Eye View Emily Dickinson opens up her poem with the famous line, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words,’’. Paul Laurence Dunbar ends his poem with the line “I know why the caged bird sings!”. These two lines from the poets form the theme of the two poems. The poem “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson, and “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar both present a theme that suffering makes you appreciate hope much more. It seems that hope and pain are almost a dynamic duo.

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