Comparative Analysis Essay
- Submitted by: jcstockw
- Views: 148
- Category: English: Poetic Works
- Date Submitted: 09/07/2015 06:23 PM
- Pages: 6
- Report this Essay
Joshua Stockwell
ENG-106
Ms. Dashiell
November 3, 2014
Comparative Analysis Essay
Many poems are written the same way but can have different meanings. Comparing the poems “My Shoes” by Charles Simic and “The Wind” by James Stephens will contribute to my discussion on whether or not these poems are similar or different by defining and looking further into some figures of speech used in the two poems and how the literary terms personification, apostrophe, paradox and metaphors are used to effect the way the reader reads the poem and what they make the reader feel after reading it.
Both poems use figures of speech such as, personification, apostrophe, paradox and the use of metaphors. Personification is a figure of speech in which a thing, an animal, or an abstract term is made human. Apostrophe is a way of addressing someone or something invisible or not ordinarily spoken to. Paradox occurs in a statement that at first strikes us as self-contradictory but that on reflection makes some sense. A metaphor is a statement that one thing is something else, which in a literal sense, it is not.
The poem “My Shoes” is about what is thought be a story about the author and how he refers to his shoes as a part of his life and what they mean to him. He directly calls them the “secret face of my inner life” and his “brother and sister who died at birth”, which is his use of personification and then he goes on to say “with you as the altar”, which is demonstrating his use of metaphors as well.
“The Wind” is about the author giving wind characteristics of a human by saying “the wind stood up and gave a shout”, also showing the use of personification; giving the wind is acting, speaking and is built like a human and is given a specific “gender”: the wind is a he. The whole poem is really just personification, basically describing a storm and giving it those human-like ways.
The two poems are very different in length, “My Shoes” is in five quatrains in no...
ENG-106
Ms. Dashiell
November 3, 2014
Comparative Analysis Essay
Many poems are written the same way but can have different meanings. Comparing the poems “My Shoes” by Charles Simic and “The Wind” by James Stephens will contribute to my discussion on whether or not these poems are similar or different by defining and looking further into some figures of speech used in the two poems and how the literary terms personification, apostrophe, paradox and metaphors are used to effect the way the reader reads the poem and what they make the reader feel after reading it.
Both poems use figures of speech such as, personification, apostrophe, paradox and the use of metaphors. Personification is a figure of speech in which a thing, an animal, or an abstract term is made human. Apostrophe is a way of addressing someone or something invisible or not ordinarily spoken to. Paradox occurs in a statement that at first strikes us as self-contradictory but that on reflection makes some sense. A metaphor is a statement that one thing is something else, which in a literal sense, it is not.
The poem “My Shoes” is about what is thought be a story about the author and how he refers to his shoes as a part of his life and what they mean to him. He directly calls them the “secret face of my inner life” and his “brother and sister who died at birth”, which is his use of personification and then he goes on to say “with you as the altar”, which is demonstrating his use of metaphors as well.
“The Wind” is about the author giving wind characteristics of a human by saying “the wind stood up and gave a shout”, also showing the use of personification; giving the wind is acting, speaking and is built like a human and is given a specific “gender”: the wind is a he. The whole poem is really just personification, basically describing a storm and giving it those human-like ways.
The two poems are very different in length, “My Shoes” is in five quatrains in no...