Essay Analysis of She Walks in Beauty Poem

She Walks in Beauty is one of the poems written by George Gordon Byron. This poem is quite unique in terms of the choice and arrangements of the words and the implicit meaning in it. Many people think of this as a love poem, even when the speaker never once mentions being in love. If we have read the whole poem, we can feel how strong Byron’s admiration of the woman was. The use of soft and simple languages rather than heavy, intellectual words is also significant, as it demonstrates the pure, easily noticeable beauty of the woman. The woman portrayed in this poem must have been truly beautiful to catch Byron’s attention at once, and make him write such a vivid poem. So we can simply see that it is actually love poem that is created by Byron for the one he loves. 

On the other hand, the speaker mostly talking about the beauty of a woman. According to dictionary.com, beauty is the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, colour, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest). Yet, beauty in this poem is not only talking about the external appearance of the woman, but extends the internal aspect of woman.  The speaker seems to admire that woman by simply celebrating the beauty. In addition, the speaker or the speaker, really wants to emphasize the beauty of the woman with the use of a word “night” instead of “day” as she doesn’t really seem too bright to the other woman. However, she seems beautiful in a different way, just the way she is.

Analysis of Soliloquy I and II Poems

Soliloquy I and Soliloquy II are poems written by Richard Aldington. Both poems tell us about a dead man in a world war. However, we can see in those two poems that he wants to make a contrasting view about a dead man mentioned in the first poem and a dead man mentioned in the second poem. As we can see in his second poem (Soliloquy II), Richard was trying to deny his own opinion that he stated in the first poem (Soliloquy I).

In the first poem (Soliloquy I), the poet tells us that a dead man should not be like “carrion” that is wobbling roped upon a cart that can make everyone who see it feel sick about that (line 10-13). He argues in his first poem that a dead man should be dead naturally and beautifully in a peace (line 11-12). Yet, as what I have stated before, in his second poem (Soliloquy II), he tries to deny his own argument. If we see in his biography, the opinion that makes him denies his own opinion in Soliloquy I is because he has entered the army field. There he can feel that someone who died in the war is more beautiful than anything that cannot be compared to any other work of famous people (Francis Goya and Michael Angelo).

Paraphrase of Dreamtime Poem

In this homeland, Australia the invaders had arrived and take the place, the Aborigines that has become a stranger now, come to their spirit Ancestors with sorrow in their heart.

The Bora Ring (sacred place) and The Corroborees (Rituals ceremony) that once was Aborigines’ have all destroyed and gone.

The Aborigines ask their previous spirit Ancestors to listen to their complaint about their grievances and suffering.

They come not to disturb the rest of their Ancestors, but they come to grieve their Ancestors’ death.

The Ancestors that has been sacrificed for the life of their race (Aborigines) when the invaders split their blood (Aborigines’ blood)

Now, the present generation of Aborigines is seeking the strength and the wisdom that their Ancestors have in the past.

One legend told that when their race dies, their land also dies.

The Aborigines ask their spirit Ancestors to go with them from the land that has been taken away from them.

The Aborigines also ask their spirit Ancestors wake from their sleeping and lead them to the happy life that they can feel in the past before the invaders come.

Finally, the Aborigines only ask their spirit Ancestors to listen to their cries. They have felt desperate and giving up to their fate.

Dreamtime Poem Analysis

Dreamtime is a poem written by Odgeroo Noonucal (Kath Walker). Kath Walker is well known as an Australian poet. She uses her work to convey the aspects of Australian experience. Her poems usually focus on her own perspective of the culture and beliefs of both the Indigenous people and white Australians, the racial discrimination that the Aborigines suffered and the Indigenous people’s spirituality. This poem was firstly published in 1972 when some Australian volunteers busy fighting for the rights of the Aborigines in Australia. Even there was the Aboriginal Tent Embassy who is set up on the lawn outside Parliament House in Canberra, highlighting that Aboriginal people feel like 'foreigners in their own country so long as they have no legal freehold title to any part of Australia'. In this situation, Kath Walker also wants to express her feeling about what the Aborigines feel throughout her poem. In order to create a closer relationship to the reader, instead of using many figurative language or connotations, Kath Walker chooses quite familiar words, allowing the reader to relate the text into the condition that happen in the time she wrote the poem itself.

In this poem, Kath Walker selects quite simple title which is Dreamtime. When the reader first read the title of this poem, they may think that this poem will talk about the dream or expectation of particular people. Yet, when they have read the whole poem and frame out the history that lies behind it about the Aborigines, they will find out that the term “Dreamtime” here is different with what they had thought earlier. Since the poem was related to the Aborigines, we relate the title of the poem with the Aborigines. According to crystallink.com, Dreamtime has a lot of meaning for Aboriginal people. It is like an Aboriginal beliefs. There are actually many versions of Dreamtime stories in Australia since there were many different clans of Aboriginal people. Big Black Dog Communications (2008) stated the Dreamtime stories in the following statements. "In most stories of the Dreaming, the Ancestor Spirits of Aboriginal people came to the earth in human form and as they moved through the land, they created the animals, plants, rocks and other forms of the land that we know today. They also created the relationships between groups and individuals to the land, the animals and other people." Thus, Dreamtime here is about the relations tied among human, plants, animals, and other natural things. Based on that term, Aboriginal people believe that all aspects of the Earth are from their ancestors. Their land, their plants, their animals, their cultures is all their relatives, their life and their identity

The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm Poem

The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm is a poem written by Wallace Steven. Wallace Steven is one of America's most respected poets. Besides, he was also a philosopher of aesthetics, vigorously exploring the notion of poetry as the supreme fusion of the creative imagination and objective reality. Because of the extreme technical and thematic complexity of his study, Steven was sometimes considered a willfully difficult poet. But he also acknowledged as an eminent abstractionist and a provocative thinker, and that reputation has continued since his death. According to the English.illinois.edu, “Steven had been actually well known as an extraordinary poet who likes to write or create his in the form of extended meditative sequences, quasi-philosophical in their ruminative wanderings, but marked always by a vivid sense of the absurd and a darting, whirling inventiveness that took delight in peculiar anecdotal examples.” He prefers to choose the simple and well-known of words in his poem. However, using his creativity, he constructed those simple words into very deep meaning poems depicted some image, sense, feeling, and situation which is sometimes quite mystical and mysterious that can posses into the reader’s feeling when he/she read the poems felt just what Steven expected.

In this poem, as usual, Steven creates the title of this poem using familiar words such as house, world, quiet, and calm. Yet, when it has been constructed into the title of his poem, it may have very deep meaning in the particular sense that we can feel even when we read the title at the first time. when the reader reads the title of this poem “The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm” we can directly feel attracted towards the sense of quietness and calmness delivered by it. We can sense using our logical that when the house was quiet, there was no noise at all that we can hear. It perhaps can happen if the house was really empty or if it was night so that the surrounding environment that creates the sense of its quietness. Then, it was added with the words “the world was calm”. When the world can be that calm? That question may lead to reveal the literal meaning of this poem’s title. In the very busy country, just like in the capital city of a certain place, we may find it hard to find the time when the world should show its calmness. However, when it is not a very busy country, we may find that the night time is the appropriate time when we can say that the world was calm since every person started to go to their own rest place after a long day of work. Therefore, if we combine the title “The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm” and relate it to the literal analysis portrayed by its words, we can find out that this poem may talk about something which may happen in the night time when there is no loud noise are made out. 

“We Real Cool” Short Analysis

We real cool is one of the unique poems written by Gwendolyn Brooks. If we see the structure of this poem, it mostly uses subject “we” in all of its stanza. Thus, the emphasize of  this poem could be “we” the seven pool players. It emphasizes the unity, togetherness and the identity of the group instead of an individual group.

This poem seems to use the up and down tone. Most of the reader of this poem may think that what this group do is kind of dangerous thing. Even, what they do is not a crime, but it can harm themselves. Yet, in my opinion, this group may think that all they do is cool instead of the dangerous thing.