Poetry Analysis: Love, Loss, and Legacy
Spenser’s Amoretti, Sonnet 75
#1 Spenser Amoretti “Sonnet 75”: This sonnet explores the author’s attempts to immortalize his beloved. He writes his love’s name in the sand at the beach, but the ocean’s waves wash it away, mirroring how time will destroy all man-made things. She argues that the man’s attempts were in vain, asserting that no mortal being can be immortalized due to the cruelty of time. The final couplet summarizes the poem’s theme, contrasting the eternal nature of love and death with the brevity of life and humanity. The rhyme scheme is ABAB BCBC CDCD EE.
Spenser’s Amoretti, Sonnet VIII
“Sonnet VIII” (More Than Most Fair, Full of the Living Fire): This sonnet, also from Spenser’s Amoretti, follows an ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme. The beloved woman is the inspiration for the poem, representing the only way the speaker can express his love for her. The fire symbolizes the intensity of the speaker’s love and his desire to make her beauty universally recognized.
Ezra Pound’s “A Girl”
#2 Ezra Pound “A Girl”: This poem presents a clear division into two parts. The first five-line stanza appears to be narrated by Daphne, detailing her transformation and the sensation of the tree entering her hands and growing within her breast. The second half of the poem is written from a third-person perspective, likely Apollo’s.
This poem is notable for being one of the first poems about Apollo and Daphne to give voice to Daphne.
The poem’s conclusion is narrated from the perspective of what he observes, expressing his disdain for Daphne’s choice to transform.
The poem’s ultimate meaning remains open to interpretation, leaving readers to ponder whether it is solely about mythology, contains a personal message, or offers a societal critique.
Ezra Pound’s “With Usura”
“With Usura”:
First, it’s important to define *Usura*: it refers to the practice of lending money with extremely high interest rates.
Pound argues that “with usura,” quality homes are not built because the absurdity of usury undermines common sense. Carpenters are discouraged from working diligently when others profit from doing nothing.
The practice of usury prioritizes money above all else.
Beautiful music and paintings would not be created if the old world valued money as much as the new one. He calls usury a “sin against nature” and states that our bread will never be fresh in a world with usura (a Biblical reference). He suggests that before usury, lives were organized along clear lines. He then discusses what usury ruins in the modern world. The rest of the stanza lists things Pound believes would not have been made in the modern, money-driven world. Usury also prevents young men from “courting” women, as they are presumably more focused on making money than on love. Pound lists the wonderful things the world possessed in classical times, such as great art and great political leaders.
Ezra Pound’s “The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter”
“The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter”: Pound translated this poem from the original Chinese. He structured his translation in free verse, organized around the chronological life events of the river merchant and his wife. The free verse lends authenticity to the letter, making it feel like a genuine correspondence from a wife to her husband. The absence of a prescribed meter allows Pound to convey the rawness of the wife’s emotions, drawing readers directly into her loneliness without the barrier of an overly structured presentation.
The poem’s setting shifts from spring to autumn. Spring typically represents abundance and new growth, coinciding with the blossoming of the couple’s love. In autumn, growth and greenery gradually wither, leaves fall, and the air grows colder. The husband is away, and his wife longs for his return. She notes that the moss has grown thicker, symbolizing the passage of time. As she ages, the changing seasons reflect her emotional development.
As the poem progresses, time seems to slow down. The first paragraph summarizes her childhood, while subsequent paragraphs focus on specific ages, from 14 to 16.
Rivers are also a significant symbol in this poem. They constantly flow and change, mirroring the evolution of the relationship between the wife and her husband. A river forms the physical barrier between them, as the husband traveled along it to another village. At the poem’s end, the wife wonders if another river will reunite them.
T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets: East Coker”
#3 T.S. Eliot: “Four Quartets: East Coker”: Each of the *Four Quartets* explores spiritual existence, consciousness, and the relationship between the present and the past. Each quartet focuses on a specific place with unique significance to human history, using that location as a starting point to propose ideas about spirituality and meaningful experience. Each quartet is divided into five sections; Eliot used these divisions and transitions to create an effect he likened to the musical form of the sonata. The main theme is the profound misery left by war. The poem reveals a dark and pessimistic perspective, reflecting on a past that seemed better, now replaced by decay and death. It is dramatic, pessimistic, and religious.
In the second strophe, the main theme is the disturbance of the seasons, and Eliot reflects on his earlier poems. He expresses a feeling of lost time and rejects the pursuit of knowledge, suggesting that humility is the only concept humans should aspire to. The past described at the beginning has vanished due to the war.
The third section is the darkest, depicting death. The fourth section focuses on the hospital and the dying. The fifth strophe returns to Eliot’s sense of failure as a poet.
Seamus Heaney’s “Digging”
#4 Seamus Heaney “Digging”: This is a nostalgic poem. The poet reminisces about his childhood with his father, a farmer like his grandfather. The poem begins and ends with the lines, “Between my finger and my thumb.” The writer describes how his father and grandfather worked, expressing admiration and valuing their labor. The last stanza concludes with, *“I’ll dig with it.”* Heaney emphasizes the importance of the writer’s profession and craft, revitalizing the cliché “the pen is mightier than the sword.” Heaney affirms his decision to choose his own career path as a writer.
Seamus Heaney’s “Punishment”
“Punishment”: Seamus Heaney’s poem “Punishment” was inspired by the discovery of the body of a young girl believed to have been killed for adultery. Heaney connects this ancient brutality to modern forms of brutality. “Bog” serves as the central metaphor, symbolizing inhumanity, cruelty, and the killing of innocent people throughout history. In the first, second, and third stanzas, the poet imagines how the girl was punished. In the fifth and seventh stanzas, he beautifies the body and attempts to create a mental image of the girl when she was alive. In the sixth stanza, he clarifies that she was killed for adultery, but argues that this adultery, committed for love, is not a crime. In the eighth stanza, he expresses love for the girl but also his helplessness in saving her. In the final two stanzas, he maintains the role of a passive observer, linking past and present.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet LV
#5 Shakespeare “Sonnet LV”: In this poem, Shakespeare seeks to immortalize his friend through his writing. Time passes, and people are forgotten. Immortalization is a common theme in poetry, but Shakespeare goes further, stating at the poem’s end that he will also live in the eyes of lovers. He also mentions “Judgment Day,” a religious term for the end of days, implying that he will live on in this poem until that time.
Philip Sidney’s “Astrophil and Stella”
#6 Philip Sidney: “Astrophil and Stella”: The author describes the gradual progression of love into his life. Love did not arrive quickly or at first sight. Instead, his love for Stella began slowly, infiltrating his heart before he realized it. He initially viewed her platonically, then began to appreciate her more, and finally fell in love. At first, he lamented his loss of liberty to love, but now his emotions are too deep to allow even that small complaint. He praises his enslavement and tries to conceal the truth of his situation.
Analyzing the poem’s structure, it can be divided into two parts based on tense. The first stanza uses the past tense to explain the process of falling in love, while the second paragraph uses the present tense to describe his current state of being in love and his loss of freedom. The rhyme scheme is ABBA ABBA CDCD EE.
William Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality”
#7 William Wordsworth: “Intimations of Immortality”: The poem, fully titled “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,” expresses Wordsworth’s belief that life on earth is a dim reflection of an earlier, purer existence, faintly remembered in childhood and then forgotten during the process of growing up.
Wordsworth intentionally contrasts his speaker’s mindset with the joyous atmosphere of nature surrounding him, a departure from his usual unity with nature. Recognizing that his grief stems from his inability to experience the May morning as he would have in childhood, the speaker attempts to enter a state of cheerfulness. However, he finds true happiness only when he realizes that “the philosophic mind” has given him the ability to understand nature in deeper, more human terms—as a source of metaphor and guidance for human life.