Analyze the poetic devices lowell uses in "for the union dead." give examples.
Answers
The poem opens with the poet observing the deserted South Boston Aquarium, which he had visited as a child. The ruined building is symbolic both of his lost childhoood and of the decay of Boston, undergoing massive urban renewal, which disturbs such landmarks as the Statehouse and the statue of Colonel Shaw.
The statue causes the poet to think of Shaw, an abolitionist’s son and leader of the first black regiment in the Civil War. Shaw died in the war, and his statue is a monument to the heroic ideals of New England life, which are jeopardized in the present just as the statue itself is shaken by urban renewal.
Images of black children entering segregated schools reveal how the ideals for which Shaw and his men died were neglected after the Civil War. The poem’s final stanzas return to the aquarium. The poet pictures Shaw riding on a fish’s air bubble, breaking free to the surface, but in fact, the aquarium is abandoned and the only fish are fin-tailed cars.
This poem is a brilliant example of Lowell’s ability to link private turmoil to public disturbances. The loss of childhood in the early section of the poem expands to the loss of America’s early ideals, and both are brought together in the last lines to give the poem a public and private intensity.
The poem is organized into unrhymed quatrains of uneven length, allowing a measure of flexibility within a formal structure. This style reflects the poem’s...
(The entire section is 406 words.)
Answer:
In the poem ‘For the Union Dead,’ Lowell utilizes some devices such as simile, Personification, Alliteration, Allusion, and Enjambment to make his desired effect.
Explanation:
For the Union, Dead exists a book of poems by Robert Lowell that existed published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 1964. It existed in Lowell's sixth book. Notable poems from the collection contain "Beyond the Alps", "Water," "The Old Flame," "The Public Garden" and the title poem, which stands as one of Lowell's best-known poems.
Literary Devices help to improve a poem’s purpose or intensify the mood or feeling of the poet and reader. In the poem ‘For the Union Dead,’ Lowell utilizes some devices such as simile, Personification, Alliteration, Allusion, and Enjambment to make his desired effect.
Similes
Similes in the poem existed mostly compared to things that stand simple and potent. One comparison that the poet creates exists with the fishbone where he says “The monument sticks like a fishbone in the city’s throat”. Here, the poet deals with the plight of the monuments/memorials of the Civil War, which are regaled by the people like a fishbone that is noticed and forgotten once its presence exists removed. He tries to insist via the similes, on their importance of them, and how one should remember it forever. Some of the similes utilized in the poem: “my nose crawled like a snail on the glass,” “Parking lots luxuriate like civic sand piles in the heart of Boston,” “giant finned cars nose forward like fish,” and “the drained faces of Negro school-children rise like balloons,” make a picture of the city then and now as the poet depicts it.
Imagery
Imagery in the poem even stands to deal with the loss of attention on these important monuments and their significance. The image portrayed in the line, “Behind their cage, yellow dinosaur steam shovels existed grunting as they cropped up tons of mush and grass to gouge their underworld garage” illustrates how these monuments symbolize tough work, freedom, and history. The images utilized in “the bubbles, drifting from the noses of the cowed, compliant fish,” “He includes an angry wrenlike vigilance,/ a greyhound’s gentle tautness; he seems to wince at happiness and suffocate for privacy,” and “Colonel Shaw is riding on his bubble” depict the richness of the historical past.
Alliteration
Alliteration utilized in a poetic line emphasizes the poet’s opinion or theme and also helps the readers to remember. The alliteration utilized in the phrases, “A savage servility slides by on grease,” and “frayed flags” use to develop the theme. They reiterate the idea of a union. As articulated, the black men, freed from slavery stand willing to fight alongside the white Union soldiers.
Allusion
The poem alludes to three important incidents from the past. First, it refers to Shaw’s death observed by an anonymous burial. Second, it discusses the Boston Memorial devoted to Shaw and others who died for the Union. Finally, it negotiates violent resistance to school integration in the contemporary United States.
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