One Art By Sylvia Plath Critical Analysis - 1446 Words

Loss is a universal human emotion. From the small losses of a missing sock to the often overwhelming loss of the death of a loved one, loss comes to everyone in various forms. The nature of loss, however, makes it a rich topic for poetic endeavors. In both â€Å"One Art† by Elizabeth Bishop and â€Å"Lady Lazarus† by Sylvia Plath, the poets write to conceptualize and understand their losses, ultimately applying radically opposing solutions to the same emotional struggle. Elizabeth Bishop was a high-caliber poet known for her excellent use of form and technical genius. Suffering tragedy at a young age when â€Å"her father died, and shortly thereafter, her mother was committed to a mental asylum,† it is somewhat surprising that the majority of Bishop’s†¦show more content†¦This stanza works to normalize the loss of small things, thus treating them like stepping stones to bigger losses. The refrain of this stanza is the first line of the first stanz a, which immediately reasserts Bishop’s idea that loss â€Å"isn’t hard to master† (Bishop, â€Å"One Art† 6). In stanza three, Bishop encourages the reader to become even more comfortable with loss. She presents conceptual losses in this stanza, represented by names, places, and â€Å"where it was you meant / to travel† (Bishop, â€Å"One Art† 8-9). These are lost ideas rather than tangible objects and, as implied by the use of the word meant, ideas that were potential instead of realized; as such, letting these concepts go is a feasible next step in the process of accepting loss. The refrain of this stanza is simply the word â€Å"disaster,† the last word of the third line in the first stanza (Bishop, â€Å"One Art† 9). The use of one word for the refrain gives Bishop greater flexibility to place it more easily into a new context. The fourth stanza transitions from conceptual losses to sentimental losses, which is, again, another step in the process of gradually accepting the bigger losses in life. These sentimental losses are represented by her â€Å"mother’s watch† and â€Å"three loved houses† (Bishop, â€Å"One Art† 10-11). Since Bishop lost her mother at a young age, it’s easy to infer that, if she is referencingShow MoreRelatedHow Sylvia Plaths Life is Reflected in the Poems Daddy, Morning Song, and Lady Lazarus2237 Words   |  9 PagesHow Sylvia Plaths Life is Reflected in the Poems Daddy, Morning Song, and Lady Lazarus Sylvia Plath has had an exciting life, if I can use this word. Her father died from an undiagnosed diabetes when she was eight. At the same time, a short couplet that she wrote was published in the Boston Sunday Herald. Later, she won scholarships to study in Smith, Harvard, and finally Cambridge. There, Plath married Ted Hughes, who was a good poet, too. What amazes me in her lifeRead MoreContemporary American Poetry and Its Public Worlds Essay8159 Words   |  33 Pages But who has the will to concern himself with such dangerous maybes? For that, one really has to to wait for the advent of a new species of philosophers, such as somehow another and converse taste and propensity from those we have known so far--philosophers of the dangerous maybe in every sense. (Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, sec 2.) This will not be one more lament for the sad state of contemporary American poetry. Yet to define some of the basic strengths of new work I have