Comprehensive Analysis of English Literature Poems and Literary Works

This essay presents an analysis of several English literature poems, including works by T.S. Eliot and Earle Birney. Part A examines poems for their use of literary devices like formal patterning, rhyming couplets, alliteration, assonance, and symbolism, with a focus on how these techniques convey meaning and emotion. The analysis covers themes of modern life, innocence, and the relationship between man and nature. Part B delves into Earle Birney's poem "Bushed," exploring the interaction of man with nature, the theme of isolation, and the portrayal of insanity. The essay also discusses the poem's technical aspects, such as its prose-like style and the pervasive use of fear and paranoia. The analysis draws from various critical sources, offering a comprehensive understanding of the poems' themes, techniques, and cultural contexts.

Running Head: ENGLISH LITERATURE
English Literature
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ENGLISH LITERATURE
PART A:
The first stanza of Eliot’s “Preludes” resembles that of the metaphysical songs admired by
him. There is a use of formal patterning on the border between the regular meter and the free
verse. These patterns might have been use by Eliot to make it sound like a song. Through this
pattern and the tone, Eliot tried paint a disturbed portrait of the modern life. He also tried to
drive the sense of disturbance home setting up a predictable pattern.
In Theodore Roethke’s “ Prayer”, the three different types of tightly rhymed poems such as
rhyming couplets, masculine rhyme and feminine rhymes. The rhyming couplet takes place
when there are two lines which rhyme in a row as per the patterns AA, BB,CC ANS others.
Taken for example, it can be seen that there is abundance of masculine rhyme or the perfect
rhymes. This rhyme pattern is used to connote that the prayer should not be taken seriously.
The primary symbol in “Forms of Innocence” is considered to be the black swan that
represents the innocence of the girl. The black swans are rarely found in nature and the case
of the girl’s innocence is also similar. The flying swam represents the virginity loss of the
girl. It is the final step of losing the innocence she once had.
The “Epithalamium is a powerful example of alliteration with abundant use of alliteration
such as “here is my hand that will not harm you”. The softer sounds are used in this poem.
Another example is “there were others; their bodies were a preparation” which is also an
example of assonance. The existence of consonance is evident in the line “the terrible charity
of marriage”. It is harder to conclude with the harder sounds for conveying the message. In
the poem, the wife with hard sounds ends the attack with the soft sounds.
In the poem of Ezra pound, there are plants and the vegetations which are used to convey a
message regarding the love the wife has for the husband. Since the beginning, there is an

2ENGLISH LITERATURE
image of a girl pulling flowers. The flowers are the symbol of a growing relationship between
the boy and the girl. Later, vegetation has a completely different meaning. Taken for
example, “The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind’ is a powerful representation of the
husband-wife relationship. The relationship that is much distanced.
PART B:
The poem “Bushed” by Earle Birney is all about the interaction of man with nature. It
is about moving from the initial position of belief that nature can be controlled by man.
Earle Birney invented a rainbow to the final position that showed that nature is about to kill
man. The title conveys a dual meaning. It clarifies that the poem is regarding the experience
of being in the wilderness or the bush and secondly, it is about feeling bushed or defeated by
this particular experience. The whole poem is a metaphor that can be taken as a short story
on a man who is stranded on a beach. A man learns how to survive having eaten porcupine
bellies and preserving the quills as a prize of the survival skills. When the poem is taken on
the metaphorical level, it is regarding a man who has established a perfect life for himself.
Suddenly, some catastrophe destroys his perfect life and shatters it into pieces. The speaker
of the poem refers to the lake lap as the most peaceful place for him.
The tone of the poem is changed in the last stanza. It begins from the happy survival
to the security loss. The people around the man begin to change gradually and the life he was
leading began to show its own colour. The new life which he considered to be his rainbow
now started to destroy his rainbow. The only option left for him was to wait and see his
dreams shatter one after another. It can only be concluded that it is a particular cycle that man
will have to endure. The poem can also be seen as a technical piece of writing because the
tone gives a feeling of a poem instead of the fact that it is written in prose style. In his own
poem, Earle Birney makes use of such a character that is alone in the wilderness and portrays

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insanity as the natural development of few human traits. It suggests that insanity can initiate
from the mixture isolation and fear along with the suitable environment where the feelings
can grow properly.
Poem is a type of work that has the ability to explore the extremities of the world. In
the poem of Earle Birney, the extremities are well elaborated associated with one another.
The poem clearly shows that isolation is responsible for enhancing the depression, fear and
insanity in the human mind. In this manner, the poet conveys the insanity to a different level
and suggests that insanity is nothing but the combination of isolation and fear. Throughout
the entire piece of work, there is fear and paranoia completely pervasive. Since the beginning,
the scene of rainbow is stuck by the image of lightening and the entire poem follows this
pattern. The fourth stanza makes it clear that the prime character is suffering from the pain of
impalpable “boil of the sunset”.

4ENGLISH LITERATURE
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