An Anthology Of Poems English Literature Essay

The word “love” is a verb; however “love” cannot be described in a one lined, word or phrased definition. Love is the aesthetic feeling that expresses affection, honesty and etc. Love is also represented in different ways – a bouquet of flowers, the amount of time spent between one another and much more. In the Modern Society, love is often expressed with communicated words orally. However love can also be transferred from one’s pounding heart to another’s by a communication of Writing or in other words also known as Poetry. I will therefore for my Poetry Anthology Assignment have my thematic link as of as poems that express love.

My search for poems that express love was not exactly full of problems or epiphanies, instead in my perspective I did the search of the poems dexterously and was eventually prosperous for finding my poems. There was only one minor problem that I had encountered when searching my poems. This predicament was that during the beginning of my search I kept searching for poems that expressed love as in a powerful relationship, un- realizing the fact that my whole theme was Love so; I could have also picked lack of love or unrequited love. So, realizing this at a later stage I was unable to find good poems at the beginning however, I was able to make this up when I realized that fact at a later stage. Other challenges did not give me a problem- for example writing a Commentary and three Personal Reflections within the word limit was an easy task to do. In General my search for the poems was successful except for the minor problem that I had encountered.

This experience has helped me to widen my understanding and knowledge for Poem’s in General. Before doing this Assignment, I knew what Poems were but I did not know how to analyze the themes based on their literary devices, and then use the analyzed information into Commentaries. I also did not know that there was something called a ” Commentary” that shared almost the same layout as a Formal 5 Paragraph Essay. This assignment has also given me the strength to analyze poems and quickly understand what Poets such as Edgar Allan Poe have concealed and compressed with their Poem’s information, themes, and literary devices. It has clearly changed my definition of Love as well, by seeing how Poets represent Love in various different ways throughout the Poem, I now know more about Love and Poetry.

The compiling of this anthology had moments of despair, frustration, and disappointment and as well as joy, understanding, and exhilaration. I have felt fluctuating results in my emotions and moods from time to time as I was doing the assignment. I love this assignment because of all the ways I have benefited from it. Even though it fluctuated my mood, the gain of knowledge is incomparable with my mood so, therefore I love this assignment.

“Heart! We will forget him” By Emily Dickinson

Heart! We will forget him!

You and I-tonight!

You may forget the warmth he gave-

I will forget the light!

When you have done, pray tell me

That I may straight begin!

Haste! lest while you’re lagging

I remember him! 

*Dickinson, Emily, “Heart! We Will Forget Him” and Thomas Herbert. Johnson. Final Harvest: Emily Dickinson’s Poems.Boston: Little, Brown, 1961. Print.

Personal Response to ” Heart! We Will Forget Him” by Emily Dickinson

I chose “Heart! We Will Forget Him” by Emily Dickinson because of its simplicity and childish- liked poem that is not so hard to analyze and understand. The poet, Emily Dickinson keeps the poem fairly very simple without any as such concealed use of language and imagination that is hard to understand. This poem speaks to me because I myself personally have experienced many of the experiences of what as well Emily Dickinson is trying to represent in her poem. For instance, I always want to forget someone for good and never want any feelings for them even if it was someone that I had used to love passionately like my mom, I always want to instruct my heart to just do what I think I want to abruptly with everything. Similarly, Emily Dickinson wants to represent the fact of unrequited love and trying desperately to forget a lover by in every stanza mentioning “Heart…..” Emily Dickinson represents a poem about “lost love” and how one tries to forget another loved one by instructing the heart instantly.

Love and Friendship by Emily Jane Bronte *

Love is like the wild rose-briar,

Friendship like the holly-tree-

The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms

But which will bloom most constantly?

The wild rose-briar is sweet in spring,

Its summer blossoms scent the air;

Yet wait till winter comes again

And who will call the wild-briar fair?

Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now

And deck thee with the holly’s sheen,

That when December blights thy brow

He still may leave thy garland green.

* Brontë, Emily, and C. W. Hatfield. “Love and Friendship” The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë. New York: Columbia UP, 1941. Print.

Personal Response to “Love and Friendship” by Emily Bronte

I chose “Love and Friendship” by Emily Jane Bronte because of Bronte’s interesting perception to connect both Love and Friendship, similar but distinct ideas together. Bronte, in her poem is trying to say about all the things that a friend would do to someone that cares and how friendship really works by summarizing its definition into her poem and that when someone would be in trouble, scared or alone there would be always like the Friend from where one can get the love and comfort. Emily Bronte’s poem also is trying to say that the love of a person can be simply gone, but only the love of a true real friend will always stay. This poem speaks to me because I’ve always had the same perception of what Emily Bronte is trying to make in her poem as well. I have always believed that a friend is someone who helps instead of a person who talks, chats and has lunch with you but eventually doesn’t help you out at the end. The moral and theme of this poem is clearly in depth described as in her title, Emily Bronte very clearly states out her fact without compressing it in her poem and giving no clue of what the poem is about at the title.

“What makes you beautiful” by One Direction *

You’re insecure

Don’t know what for

You’re turning heads when you walk through the door

Don’t need make up

To cover up

Being the way that you are is enough

Everyone else in the room can see it

Everyone else but you

[Chorus]

Baby you light up my world like nobody else

The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed

But when you smile at the ground it aint hard to tell

You don’t know

Oh Oh

You don’t know you’re beautiful

If only you saw what I can see

You’ll understand why I want you so desperately

Right now I’m looking at you and I can’t believe

You don’t know

Oh oh

You don’t know you’re beautiful

Oh oh

That what makes you beautiful

So c-come on

You got it wrong

To prove I’m right I put it in a song

I don’t know why

You’re being shy

And turn away when I look into your eyes

Everyone else in the room can see it

Everyone else but you

* “One Direction – What Makes You Beautiful Lyrics.” Lyrics. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Oct. 2012. <http://www.directlyrics.com/one-direction-what-makes-you-beautiful-lyrics.html>.

Personal Response to ” What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction { Lyrics of a Song }

I chose “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction. One direction is a musical band of group of people who came up with the song “What Makes You Beautiful “. I chose this song because it is a good song that relates to my theme. The song is about loving a girl doesn’t need any special things such as makeup or fake beauty on her body it is instead all about what she has in the inside and that you look already beautiful and don’t need to change in the way that you want to be. This lyric for the song speaks to me because in my perspective I think and judge a person really by his/ her interior and what one’s heart really is rather than whether or one is a good looking person at the exterior. “One direction” creates the perfect love song that mentions a true element of love within their poem.

“A Dream Within A Dream” By Edgar Allan Poe*

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream? 

“A Dream Within A Dream”, Poe, Edgar Allan, Louis Untermeyer, and Hugo Steiner-Prag. Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe,. New York: Heritage, 1943. Print.

A Poetry Commentary on “A Dream Within A Dream”

By: Edgar Allen Poe

“A Dream Within A Dream “by Edgar Allen Poe is a poem about the loss of love , the heartbreaking sadness that one faces and the ephemeral nature of time and fleeting of existence. The poem is well known due to Poe’s various poetic techniques that have been used to represent the excruciating context that Poe expresses in his poem. The main theme of the poem is the loss or lack of love that one faces. Poe presents a poem that dramatizes confusion in watching the important things that slips away in life in two disparate views, he presents how his loved one vanishes from his life yet he also realizes that he cannot hold onto even one grain of sand. Poe’s use of concealed tone, structure, imagery, alliteration and other various poetic literary techniques and devices portrays his perception for the lack of love that he faces.

One can easily notice that Poe wrote this Poem after he has lost someone of his love ; Poe writes the poem as a reflection to his misery on the horrible event, therefore the poem holds his misery for the loss of love , burden and as well the hopelessness and lament towards life. Poe uses a very depressing tone in his poem to express his love for his loved one in the poem; Poe creates two stanzas that are disparate but however ultimately linked. Poe makes both the stanzas describe that life slips away from us like a long lost lover or also a fistful of “golden sand “creeping through fingers. Gradually life slips away like sand, Here Poe uses the perception of an hourglass. Poe is secretly trying to tell us by the two stanzas that life is precious but sometimes death can come like a wave from a surf tormented shore and take your loved one away. Poe makes the structure of the poem ordinary and typical to ending in only couplets or triplets however the theme of “loss of love” is often periodically rephrased in some way in each of the stanza’s. Throughout the Poem, Poe also exclaims with sorrow and angers many rhetorical questions that are predominantly asked to only utter his importance and outburst rather than an answer. An example of his exclaimed rhetorical questions would be when in the last stanza Poe makes all the last lines expressed in questions rather than answers.

In the First Stanza, Poe starts the Poem with a formal good bye to his loved one (line 1 and 2) “Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you know” these two lines express Poe’s affection and anguish as he loses his loved one. Poe also gives the reader the image of a kiss on a brow and a parting which indirectly means that he and his loved one are parting ways in the very beginning of the poem. This event that Poe uses the image of could symbolize that it is the end of a relationship, time or even life. It is putative how Poe’s loved one claims that life is only a dream, now that Poe accedes that fact as his loved one has been extinct from his life, Poe therefore mentions “Yet if hope has flown away …. The less gone? (Line 6 and 9) put across Poe’s hopelessness when it comes to hope. Poe also repeated the word “in” two times in two lines (line 7 and 8) to accentuate how hope is fragile and can be destroyed abruptly at any moment that no one knows. Poe concludes the first stanza by mentioning that “All what we see or seem….. a dream within a dream “. Here, Poe uses alliteration within the terms “see” and “seem” to delineate the reader the fact that nothing that one see’s, feel’s or even notices is any more real than a dream.

In the second Stanza, Poe uses a disparate environment to express the situation ” loss of love” ; the excruciating context in the Poem. Poe introduces the reader to his lack of love or impotence in other words through the imagery of himself grasping grains of ” golden sand” that “creep”. This image that Poe represents in his Poem is a significant idea in Poe’s Poem due to it being ultimately Poe’s central argument that Poe seems to keep on rephrasing on each of his stanzas In the poem. First, Poe’s image of “golden sand ” falling delineates the readers of an hour glass which then symbolizes time passing by. The narrator, Poe grabs sand that trickles between his finger , which then reminds him of the meaninglessness of life, and that nothing is more real than a dream. The third piece of imagery that Poe introduces the reader to is the powerful image of the “surf – tormented shore “and put’s himself standing among the roars of waves. By placing himself among the tormented roars of waves, Poe creates a metaphor that is used to express Poe’s torments from the loss of his loved one, and how the waves and roars are powering him and at the same time drowning in his own misery. The poem continues and is basically all about the narrator’s struggles and pain that he feels for his loved one. All of these metaphors have meanings close to the ephemeral nature of time, which leads Poe to the conclusion that life almost seems to have no meaning and no purpose with the lack of love , as life passes by so fast. The sand and the surf tormented shore or waves are an example that Poe uses to symbolize slow and gradual decay of life and love. The waves keep hitting the shore, until slowly the shore gets depleted by the everlasting waves. All of these symbols lead back to these images which also ultimately lead back to Poe’s theme of ” Is it therefore the less gone? and the lack of love that one faces. ” While I weep- while I weep!” (Line 7). Here, Poe gives the reader the notice that how his weep as his misery overwhelms his defenses, as he pains for the loss of his love. As Poe explains his misery, weep and pain he implores God for help. Poe emphasizes his pain as Poe wants to save one that has already passed away by placing a metaphor of ” saving one from the pitiless wave” , Poe continuously uses the phrase ” O God ” to express his feelings and emotions towards his loved one. Then to conclude, and finish with the theme Poe uses two questions at the end of his poem “Is it all we see…. A dream within a dream”, to rephrase once again that everything was a dream and that of the ephemeral nature of time no one can surmount life and that everything will be simply just a dream.

In Conclusion, ” A Dream Within A Dream ” by Edgar Allen Poe, is a poem that has use of many poetic techniques and ways to express such an excruciating idea where loss, love, anger and the ephemeral nature of time all take place is overall very effective as Poe manages to do so in such a short poem with only two stanzas. The poem displays some very important aspects of life such as death, the ephemeral nature of time and hope in some cases as well within the theme of “loss of love” and just one who loses their love. Despite this poem, ” A Dream Within A Dream” will still be remembered by myself on how Poe’s perception that everything around us now is just a dream and nothing’s as real as we know it.

Ditty*

O! love to me is but a season –

Seldom does it overstay, 

And tho’ I pain to seek a reason, 

Like the dream, it fades away

To leave me once again in awe

Of how the heart can render raw

In loss of love; but then to soar

Atop anew! – and hail adieu! 

To her who fled from chance I gave

To see us wed: Then on, 

To court another fairer face –

And lose again in end of chase! 

I curse the seasons evermore –

They tease me thro’ their metaphor: 

Starting fresh, their vigour young, 

Yet oversoon, the ditty sung.

*Slaughter, Mark R. “”Ditty” by Mark R Slaughter.” Poem Hunter, n.d. Web. 3 Oct. 2012. <http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ditty-7/>.

“Annabel Lee” By Edgar Allan Poe *

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of ANNABEL LEE;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea;

But we loved with a love that was more than love-

I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsman came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,

Went envying her and me-

Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we-

Of many far wiser than we-

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,

In the sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea. 

“Annabel Lee”, Poe, Edgar Allan, Louis Untermeyer, and Hugo Steiner-Prag. Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe,. New York: Heritage, 1943. Print.

“That I did always love” by Emily Dickinson*

That I did always love

I bring thee Proof

That till I loved

I never lived-Enough-

That I shall love alway-

I argue thee

That love is life-

And life hath Immortality-

This-dost thou doubt-Sweet-

Then have I

Nothing to show

But Calvary- 

“That I Did Always Love – A Poem by Emily Dickinson – American Poems.” That I Did Always Love – A Poem by Emily Dickinson – American Poems. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Oct. 2012. <http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/emilydickinson/10501>.