Short Comments on Some Poems
*. This is not an analysis of the mentioned poems.
"Dulce et Decorum Est"
Speaker: A soldier.
Setting: world War I.
Wilfred Owen, the poet, died fighting for
"The Man He Killed"
Speaker: A soldier.
Setting: world War I.
This poem is by Thomas Harley. In this poem the poet wants to show that war is a terrible event in which ordinary people kill each other without knowing each other whereas if they meet each other outside war they may like and help one another.
"Is My Team Ploughing"
Speaker: Dead man and his living friends.
This poem is by A.E.Housman. This poem is a dialogue between a dead man and his friend. The dead man is worried about his property, his hobbies, and his girlfriend. After his conversation, he realizes that his death has not changed anything and the world is going on he also finds out that his closest friend and even his love have not remained faithful to him and they are leading their own lives.
"Mirror"
Speaker: A mirror
This poem is written by "Sylvia Plath". It has two stanzas that show two different stages of a woman's life. In the 1st stage, she is innocent and naïve. She is compared to a mirror that is "exact", with "no preconceptions", no cruelty, and full of truthfulness. Here, she is only an observer. She doesn't know much about the world and its dark side but at the end of this stanza she learns about the "faces" (= the nature of other people) and "darkness" (= the ugly side of life).
In the 2nd stanza the mirror is compared to a lake because the world of the woman is not quiet and peaceful but her world is full of waves and confusion. Here, she is searching for her reality. However, "she turns to those liars" who praise her untruthfully. Therefore, she is deceived and comes back" with tears". But this time she is not a young innocent, naïve girl but she is an old experienced woman.
"Sonnet 138"
Speaker: A Lover.
This is a sonnet by Shakespeare. The speaker of this love poem is an old man who is happy that his beloved thinks him a young inexperienced man and lies to him. According to him, this situation is satisfactory because although the girl lies about her love for him, the fact that she considers him young is a lie that is considered an advantage for the old man. He accepts a lying beloved because he takes sensual profit from her.
"Richard Cory"
Speaker: A worker
This is a narrative poem by Edwin A. Robinson. The speaker of the poem is a poor worker. It is the story of a man named Richard Cory. His name which is a combination of "Rich" and "Coral" together with words like "Sole" and "Crown" suggest that he is very very rich. In the eyes of the workers, he seems to be at the apex of happiness but at the end of the poem, after he commits suicide, it becomes clear that he was at the bottom of disaster. The poem ends with a bitter irony that suggests we should not judge a man by his clothes.
"The Road Not Taken"
This lyric poem is by Robert Frost. The setting is a jungle in autumn ("a yellow wood"). The speaker is a person who is at a crossroad. He should choose between two paths, both of them similar, except that the 1st one is more trodden than the other. And he chooses the 2nd road. We must interpret his choice of a road as a symbol for any choice in life between alternatives that appear almost equally attractive but will result through the years in a large difference in the kind of experience one knows.
"To Autumn"
This poem is by Keats. It is a lyric poem. The speaker is the poet himself. The setting is autumn. The poet is describing the beauty of autumn by using different images. In the 1st stanza, that points to different fruits, gustatory (taste) imagery; in the 2nd stanza, that points to different scenes, visual imagery; and in the 3rd stanza, that points to different sounds, olfactory imagery are dominant.
"To His Coy Mistress"
This is a love poem by Andrew Marvell. The speaker is a man who is inviting his shy girlfriend to have sex with him. He is Epicurean and believes that life is short and we have to take as much pleasure as possible before Death and Time kill us. In the 1st stanza, the poet tells what he could do if they didn't ever die. In the 2nd stanza, he tells what will happen to them really and how they will die. In the last stanza, he concludes that they should therefore make love now because life is short and time is little and they can not stop time.
"Meeting At Night"
It is by Robert Browning. The setting is a house at beach in a moonlit night. The speaker of the poem is a young man who is going to meet his beloved secretly.
