Detailed Analysis of Selected Poems: Preludes, Epithalamium, etc.

This assignment provides a detailed analysis of several poems, exploring various aspects of literary techniques and themes. The analysis begins with T.S. Eliot's "Preludes," examining its structure and introduction to modern life. It then delves into Theodore Roethke's "Prayer," focusing on its rhymes and introspective nature. The analysis continues with Lorna Crozier's "Forms of Innocence," interpreting its symbolism and themes of innocence and sexuality. Louise Gluck's "Epithalamium" is explored for its innovative voice and use of literary devices like alliteration, consonance, and assonance. Finally, the assignment covers Ezra Pound's adaptation of "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter," discussing its imagery, themes of love, and the changing relationship between the husband and wife.

Answer to Question One
“Preludes” is an early creation of Eliot that might be considered as an introduction to his
later and lengthier works such as “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, “Rhapsody on a Windy
Night”. The poem also can be regarded as a curtain that is raised and the picture of modern life
comes into life. T. S. Eliot in his poem “Preludes” uses various forms and meters in order to
experiment with the rhyming scheme of the poem.
“The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days (Hongmei, 2008).”
In the first four lines, the syllables can be counted as eight, and can be broken down into
feet of four. By using iamb that consists of one unstressed syllable and one stressed syllable. It
forms to be iambic tetrameter because it consists of four iambs.
Answer to Question Two
The poetry of Theodore Roethke is extremely enriching but difficult and complex at the
same time. It requires the reader’s attention and knowledge of a strict chronology. This however
does not state that the poems cannot or do not standalone as a piece of text in themselves. He
extremely introspective as a poet and that is clearly reflected in his poems. “preserve-serve”,
“lose-choose”, and “dead-head” are the end rhymes in the poem “Prayer” written by Theodore
Roethke (Roethke, 2011). One of the main messages that is delivered by the poem is a notion
that the light that is present in holiness also conveys a essence that is of immense greatness to the

human being. The rhymes produce an effect that eases off the pain and graveness in the poem
while reverting the focus away from the sense of sarcasm to the metrical rhyming words.
Answer to Question Three
The chief symbol in “Forms of Innocence” by Lorna Crozier is the “black swan”. The
black swan represents the innocence of the girl- “A strange shape for innocence when you think
of Leda but the girl insists it was a swan, black not white as you might expect”. Just like a black
swan is a very rare occurrence, similarly to it is a girl’s innocence. The representation of the
protagonist in the poem losing her virginity is evident in the lines- “took flight, how it soared
from the window beating its wings high above the stubble field”. There was a sense of allusion to
another of Lorna’s other poetry “Leda and the Swan” where the images of Zeus who in disguise
of a swan, rapes a woman. The poem also talks about how the liberation of the female takes
place in the expression of sexuality. The contradiction lies in the black sawn which is usually a
sign of evil or darkness.
Answer to Question Four
Gluck’s voice is extremely innovative in terms of American Literature as it contains a
sense of unity that seems to be a states of perpetual meditation who is making attempts to wake
from dream state. There is a shift in theme in “Epithalamium” from the sense of previously
expressed grandeur to a sense of abstraction in terms of colloquial irony. “Here is my hand that
will not harm you” is an example of alliteration in the poem “Epithalamium” where the poet uses
the sounds that are very soft. “the terrible charity of marriage (Glück, 2015)” is an example of
consonance, where the poet puts much harsher sounds in order to get the message across to his
readers. The example of assonance in the poem is-“There were others; their bodies were a
preparation” where again the poet uses much harsher tones for conveying the message.

Answer to Question Five
A dramatic monologue that has been delivered by a young girl who is only sixteen years
old. The adaptation by Pound has been by Li Bo, who was an eighth Chinese poet. Open verse is
written in the format of a letter. The poem portrays a sense of urgency and continuation. “The
River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” by Ezra Pound contains the imageries of plants and vegetation
that portray an act of communication. The shift takes place as the memory changes from “I” to
“You”. It consists of a message of love that the wife has for her husband. “pulling flowers” is
the image of a young girl, where the flowers symbolize the initial stages of relationship that is
growing between the little boy and the young girl. At the end, the imageries mature in “you
dragged your feet when you went out. By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses
(Pound, 1998)”, portraying the decaying relation between the husband and the wife as the former
goes to be more distant.