What does the poet describe as betrayal
"The Art of Losing?
in the
poem
Answers
Explanation:
Elizabeth Bishop's poem One Art is in the form of a villanelle, a traditional, repetitive kind of poem of nineteen lines. In it she meditates on the art of losing, building up a small catalogue of losses which includes house keys and a mother's watch, before climaxing in the loss of houses, land and a loved one.
It is a part-autobiographical poem and mirrors the actual losses Elizabeth Bishop experienced during her lifetime.
Her father, for instance, died when she was a baby, and her mother suffered a nervous breakdown some years later. The young poet had to live with her relatives and never saw her mother again. In her mature years she lost her partner to suicide.
One Art carefully if casually records these events, beginning innocently enough with an ironic play on 'the art', before moving on to more serious losses. It culminates in the personal loss of a loved one, and the admission that, yes, this may look like a disaster.