Question

In at least 200 words, analyze the poetic devices Lowell uses in "For the Union Dead." Give examples.

Answer 1

Answer:

"The old South Boston Aquarium stands

in a Sahara of snow now."

This metaphor comes off a little oddly; there is no reason for the narrator to specifically name the desert he is comparing the snow to. This choice seems to be based on sound. By pushing two polar opposites together in a metaphor, however, Lowell readies the reader for the other sharp contrasts in this poem.

Similes

"Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass;"

This simile is appropriate given the context of the aquarium, and it breaks the reader out of the rather joyless pattern of the first stanza.

"Their monument sticks like a fishbone

in the city's throat."

This simile is significant because it indicates how, in the present day, the monument is a piece of history that cannot easily be digested, but that the city and its people might rather forget. The fishbone also recalls the Aquarium.