Iambic Tetrameter The poem is written in what is called iambic tetrameter. An iamb is a poetic foot in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable. (A foot, in English poetic meter, consists of two or three syllables, either one strongly stressed syllable and one lightly stressed syllable, or one strong stress…
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I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud – Themes
Nature Perhaps the key term in the poem is ‘‘lonely,’’ which describes the poet’s state of mind as he walks in nature. He does not say merely that he was alone. He refers to a specific lack of a sense of community, or connectedness. He is isolated, and in the poem he uses the image…
I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud – Summary – Meaning
Stanza 1 In ‘‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’’ the speaker describes what he saw one spring day when he was walking in the English countryside. The first two lines state that he was alone as he walked, and he compares himself to a solitary cloud high in the sky. Then suddenly he comes upon…
The Hollow Men: Poem Analysis
Eliot was born into a family that was influential in the Unitarian Church. His grandfather was the founder of the Unitarian sect in St. Louis, Missouri, and his uncle founded the Unitarian Church in Portland, Oregon. Yet, as Eliot matured, he rejected his family’s beliefs. For much of his early adulthood, Eliot lived without regard…
The Hollow Men: Themes
Death Death pervades ‘‘The Hollow Men’’ from beginning to end. The artificial men are empty yet full. They reference a holiday centered on the tradition of burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes, an act in which death is implicit. A second implication of death is also part of this metaphor. Indeed, the hollow men of…
The Hollow Men: Poem Summary
I In a ten-line verse, the speakers claim to be empty yet full, evoking references to the straw men burned in effigy in England on Guy Fawkes Day (a holiday that commemorates the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy to blow up the British Parliament and King James 1st on November 5, 1605). Made of…
Fully Empowered by Pablo Neruda – Analysis – Essay
When Neruda published ‘‘Fully Empowered’’ in 1962 he was no longer a young man. At the age of fifty-eight, he was entering what has been described as his ‘‘autumnal period,’’ often dated from about 1958 to 1970. According to Christopher Perriam, who uses this term in his book The Late Poetry of Pablo Neruda, the…
Fully Empowered by Pablo Neruda: Poem Summary
Stanza 1 ‘‘Fully Empowered’’ is a poem about how the poet writes, how he mines the material for his work. It is also a celebration of the entire range of his life as a human being. The poem must be understood metaphorically, since there is no literal meaning to many of the phrases he uses….
Elena by Pat Mora: Analysis
Pat Mora’s poem ‘‘Elena’’ is a work in which the narrator expresses her sense of isolation from her children. Elena pinpoints language as the source of this growing divide, faulting her Spanish as insufficient, and demonstrating the problems in understanding that the English language generates in her household. Her children speak English well; she does…
Elena by Pat Mora: Themes
Language and Languages Mora’s poem ‘‘Elena’’ is concerned with the narrator’s native language of Spanish and the English language of her adoptive country, the United States. For Elena, these two languages are symbolic of the conflict between the familiarity of her native land and the challenges posed by relocating to a new country. The Spanish…