The Temperature of Poetry

In The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton emphasizes on the weather description to lead the readers to foreshadow approaching events. "Ain't you about to freeze to death, Pony?" (Hinton, 47) It was a frigid fall night, the boys were desolate in the local park. Once an author establishes coldness and loneliness, the mood drops to death. According to literary symbolism, in winter, death roams the land, the literary use for the season is generally based on death and deterioration.

|Spend about 1 hour on this section. Think carefully about the poems before you write your answer. |

Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (“Poem for the Dead Californios”), is a commentary on what happened to the original inhabitants of California when California was still Mexico, and an address to the speaker's dead ancestors. Utilizing a unique dynamic, consistently alternating between Spanish and English, Cervantes accurately represents the fear, hatred, and humility experienced by the “Californios” through rhythm, arrangement, tone, and most importantly, through use of language.

Starting with hyperboles, which she uses in lines six and seven, she exaggerates to show how much of an opposite she is. She also talks about how she’s “freezing” when she’s really not. Then, as well as hyperbole, she uses personification talking about how the temperature is “trying to pass fifty-five” when the temperature can’t have human qualities. This helps the imagery to explain how you would feel if you were there. It helps the theme by showing how cold it is and what each of the two lovers would do, which are opposites. Overall, the figurative language is the poem helps Blossom to make a point on the

Writers have their own “special touch” as to how they will sway peoples’ emotions and thoughts with every work they release. In the poem “Those Winter Sundays,” poet Robert Hayden takes advantage of different types of imagery to display deeper levels of emotion. The imagery changes from being cool in nature to warm in nature as the poem’s growth changes. The reader will find, with the use of visual and auditory imagery, that Hayden may understand the force behind his father’s actions, but the father has not and will not be forgiven in the end. With the use of specifically visual and auditory imagery, Hayden is able to effectively display his emotions from

Metaphoric language is used in both works to establish tone, but the approaches differ. In Cold Mountain, Frazier uses similes to bring emphasis on different aspects of nature. For instance, the author describes the heron's legs and wings as "black as the river." This is to continue the smooth, even tone of the passage and establish that there is a continuous circle, spawning from nature and leading right back to nature. Relating the heron to another awe-inspiring aspect of nature simply elevates its divinity. Personification is also used in this passage to give the paragraphs an ironic tone. When Frazier describes the heron as "look[ing] high as a man in the slant light with its long shadow blown out across the water", he establishes a tone of irony. The heron is mocking mankind, who stands in front of nature (and supposedly above it) and allow themselves to consume it entirely. The irony continues as the heron looks as if it does not know where to step next, lost in its own conceit. This ironic tone is a laugh at mankind for being so selfish. However, in the poem, Oliver speaks in the first person narrative, as if mankind is attached to nature and can comprehend what is happening. This gives the poem a cynical tone, full of anticipated destruction and isolation. Metaphoric language adds to tone immensely.

In a piece of literary work weather is never just weather. Rain, snow, storms, and even rainbows all have their distinct meanings and in most cases usually symbolize something much deeper. Weather can change the entire mood of a novel and this is important because at times authors use weather to symbolize what is going on emotionally with a character. Two works of literature that use weather accordingly and symbolically are Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and The Odyssey by Homer.

Symbolism is a strong leading force in a piece of literature and in a majority of this text symbolism is used. For example Gatsby is focused on keeping the good of the past around so he can live his present life happy. An important example shown in the text, with the help of foreshadowing Jordan talks to Daisy about the season change and tells Daisy not to be morbid because “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” (118) This is symbolism because fall is used as a time, and according to Jordan time starts over when fall comes. The negative connotation of fall usually is that it is cold, dark, and it leads to the sad and depressing winter.

This paper will define imagery, metaphors, rhyme and structure and will also discuss the importance of figurative language in poetry and how it communicates to the reader.

The theme of the poem is loss. The seasons changing and turning impure are signs of that. Personification is used to express those words better in the poem. Personification is used on the word nature to help describe

Hayden utilizes diction to set a dark and solemn tone throughout the poem. Like the various examples of imagery, there is also a strong use of underlying symbolism. In the first stanza, the words “cold” (1. 2) and “fires blaze” (1. 5) are used, which introduces a conflict. This is emphasized in the second stanza when the word “cold” (2. 1) is used again, later followed by the word “warm” (2. 2). In the last stanza, the father eventually “had driven out the cold” (3. 2). Yet the father had not ridden the house of the cold air until the end of the poem, which symbolizes how it took his son several years later to recognize the behaviors in which his father conveyed his love for him.

Symbolism plays a large role in most poems. "A pure-white doe in an emerald glade/Appeared to me, with two antlers of gold" (Petrarch lines 1-2) is a perfect example of symbolism is poetry. Petrarch is not actually talking about a white deer with golden antlers, he's talking about a beautiful woman with golden hair. Wyatt also uses

Poems are like snowflakes. While no two are the same, they all have common structures and themes. One prevalent theme in poetry is that of death, which is present in both “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. Dickinson perceives death as a gentleman, while Frost perceives death as loneliness, which provides insight on how the time periods of the poems, the genders of the authors, and the authors’ personal experiences influence literature.

Poetry is literary work in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by the use of distinctive style and rhythm, poems collectively or as a genre of literature. It is also a quality of beauty and intensity of emotion regarded as characteristic of poems. Poetry (poem) is something that follows a particular flow of rhythm and meter. Compare to prose, where there is no such restriction, and the content of the piece flows according to the story, a poem may or may not have a story, but definitely has structured method of writing.

Some of the poems and essays I have read during this class were relatable to me. Being away from college, I have struggled with not being at home. I have become a different person when I am at school, but when I am home, I feel like I am my normal self again. Some of these authors of the poems and essays that I have read throughout this class has struggled with being somewhere where they don’t belong and that they are someone else when they are not home. Unlike the other poems and essays we have read throughout the course. I enjoyed reading the ones about “home” because I actually understood what they are going through and that I can relate. Some of these poems and essays include “Going Home” by Maurice Kenny, Postcard from Kashmir”, by Agha Shahid Ali, “Returning” by Elias Miguel Munoz and “Hometown” by Luis Cabalquinto. All of these poems deal with duality.