Dover Beach

"Dover Beach"
Matthew Arnold

This poem had a unique structure with four stanzas of differing lengths.  The first stanza discusses the sights and sounds of Dover Beach on the English Channel, which goes from positive to negative aspects.  "Grating roar" (Arnold, line 9) marks the shift in the first stanza and the speaker's opinion of the water and life in general.  I think that he sees the beauty of the beach but then the truth comes out when one hears the sounds which portray it in a negative light.  The second stanza is much shorter than the first and depicts the Aegean Sea and includes a reference to Sophocles who brings a common factor.  Humans have felt the same even thousands of years ago, and human nature does not change.  The third stanza offers a metaphorical body of water, The Sea of Faith, which is in stark contrast to the other two bodies of water mentioned earlier in the poem.  This sea is diminishing and degrading as time goes on, while the other two were full and prosperous.  Most people would expect a solution to re-attaining the faith that has been lost, but Arnold chooses instead to offer a means of dealing with the problem.  The last stanza explains simply that people need to stick together and find others to love and survive life with.        Kind of depressing, actually...

I taste a liquor never brewed

"I taste a liquor never brewed"
Emily Dickinson

This just cracked me up!

I completely missed the point of this poem the first couple times I read it and did not understand the whole nature aspect before I came to class yesterday.  Now that I know that she means nature as her liquor, I can begin to really analyze her diction and other rhetorical devices.  Most noticeable is probably her use of words such as "liquor" (Dickinson, line 1), "tankards" (line 2) and "alcohol" (line 4).  This diction usually speaks of intoxication, but here it is used to describe her feelings and experiences with nature.  This piece is an extended metaphor for her intoxication after being around nature.  Words such as "pearl," "summer," and "blue" disprove any ideas that she is really drinking liquor, but describe instead what she experiences outdoors.  Also notable is the random capitalization because it highlights some of the more important terms in the poem.  Dickinson's piece also has dashes at the end of many lines which break apart the sentences but also lead right into the next line.  The poem has a specific structure and follows a set rhyme scheme--the second and third lines rhyme throughout each stanza.  The exact nature of the poem consisting of four stanzas contrasts with the craziness of nature.

The Convergence of the Twain

"The Convergence of the Twain"
Thomas Hardy

Couldn't help myself...

When I first read this poem I immediately noticed that there are eleven stanzas.  I looked up the time the Titanic sank, and numerous sources claimed it was at 11:40, which would give significance to the number of stanzas in the poem.  The physical structure of the poem actually looks like either the ship itself or possibly the iceberg.  Like a real ship or iceberg, the largest part is at the bottom, and the top is rather smaller.
      The poem is very beautiful, regardless of the fact that it covers a gruesome topic which caused much suffering and many deaths.  It is very interesting that the narrator does not even touch on that aspect of the sinking of the Titanic, since it touched so many lives.  He instead chooses to focus on the physical appearance of the ship and claims that the "vaingloriousness" (Hardy, line 15) should not be so, and vanity will not help any situation.  77777IT is also kind of creepy that he insinuates that God, or even nature, created a mate for the titanic, even though it was so vain.  However, I think that he is just over-exaggerating here-- he claims vanity meets its downfall (the iceberg).  "No mortal eye"(line 27) also suggests that God or a higher being created the iceberg as vanity's downfall, and humans are unaware or unable to see it.

Sorting Laundry

"Sorting Laundry"
Elisavietta Ritchie

This poem is an extended metaphor as the items in the laundry symbolize her presumable relationship with a man.  She begins in the first stanza with "folding you into my life" (Ritchie, lines 2-3), meaning that she has taken him in and made him an important aspect of her life.  She includes "king-sized sheets" (line 4) which further emphasizes their closeness, as a couple would have a bigger bed than a single person.  She acknowledges that their relationship has had some problems, but they have made it through the struggle and survived as a couple.  The towels demonstrate their relationship's more wild side and unwillingness to compromise its individuality.  That is one of the reasons they have lasted so long as a couple, and the narrator further explains their love as she wonders what would happen if they split up.  She explains that "a mountain of unsorted wash could not fill the empty side of the bed" (lines 46-48), which is a hyperbole that explains her feelings.  She would be deeply saddened if he left, and she could only fold her own laundry.
      The overall structure of the poem follows a pattern as the narrator first folds large items (sheets) and ends with going through the pockets of clothes.  This resembles how people analyze the circumstances, even when the situation is good.