Elizabeth Bishop
Emily Diaz
Professor Bury
English 111-Poetry essay
October 10, 2017
The poem “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop is in the form of a villanelle poem, which means that it’s a nineteen-line poem that has two repeating rhymes and two refrains. The first and third line of the opening tercet, which is a set of three lines of the verse rhyming, are repeated in the last lines of the stanzas. Elizabeth Bishop approaches loss is an indirect way, meaning the poem does not directly explain what it means to lose something. She gives examples of losing things, like keys and her mother’s watch, before she mentions the bigger things like losing a home, or a loved one. Although she starts off with the smaller things, she does end up mentioning losses that do feel like a “disaster.” Throughout the poem, you’ll realize that there are a ton of rhymes in every stanza such as master/disaster/vaster/faster, intent/continent/evident, etc. In the first stanza, the speaker tries to persuade the reader that some things are just meant to be lost and when they do get lost it’s not a big deal because it was going to get lost regardless. The second …show more content…
paragraph follows the first one in the sense that, it’s telling you losing something isn’t a big deal since it was going to happen anyways. The speaker is comparing keys to time, they’re the same because they’re always getting lost. And, although it may not be considered that big of a deal, you’re allowed to get upset or “flustered.” Next, in the third stanza, the speaker is telling you to practice losing something, places, names but saying that in the end, we can handle it. Irony begins to show in this stanza, because losing name or place, can have make a person a little upset. Moving on to the fourth stanza, she begins to move on to something that would be considered more important, her mother’s watch.
Here she mentions “the art of losing isn’t hard to master,” which means losing something really is easy, almost everything can get lost. The fifth stanza the speaker mentions not only losing two cities but losing an entire continent. Shes beginning to lose bigger things, from losing a set a keys to now losing a continent seems pretty dramatic although she says it wasn’t a disaster. In the sixth and final stanza, she mentions losing a person but still continues to say that although it may feel like a disaster, it still is not. There is always a possibility of something being lost, no matter what. But, life teaches us that even though what we may lose may be something serious, we should not consider it to be a
disaster.
Professor Bury
English 111-Poetry essay
October 10, 2017
The poem “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop is in the form of a villanelle poem, which means that it’s a nineteen-line poem that has two repeating rhymes and two refrains. The first and third line of the opening tercet, which is a set of three lines of the verse rhyming, are repeated in the last lines of the stanzas. Elizabeth Bishop approaches loss is an indirect way, meaning the poem does not directly explain what it means to lose something. She gives examples of losing things, like keys and her mother’s watch, before she mentions the bigger things like losing a home, or a loved one. Although she starts off with the smaller things, she does end up mentioning losses that do feel like a “disaster.” Throughout the poem, you’ll realize that there are a ton of rhymes in every stanza such as master/disaster/vaster/faster, intent/continent/evident, etc. In the first stanza, the speaker tries to persuade the reader that some things are just meant to be lost and when they do get lost it’s not a big deal because it was going to get lost regardless. The second …show more content…
paragraph follows the first one in the sense that, it’s telling you losing something isn’t a big deal since it was going to happen anyways. The speaker is comparing keys to time, they’re the same because they’re always getting lost. And, although it may not be considered that big of a deal, you’re allowed to get upset or “flustered.” Next, in the third stanza, the speaker is telling you to practice losing something, places, names but saying that in the end, we can handle it. Irony begins to show in this stanza, because losing name or place, can have make a person a little upset. Moving on to the fourth stanza, she begins to move on to something that would be considered more important, her mother’s watch.
Here she mentions “the art of losing isn’t hard to master,” which means losing something really is easy, almost everything can get lost. The fifth stanza the speaker mentions not only losing two cities but losing an entire continent. Shes beginning to lose bigger things, from losing a set a keys to now losing a continent seems pretty dramatic although she says it wasn’t a disaster. In the sixth and final stanza, she mentions losing a person but still continues to say that although it may feel like a disaster, it still is not. There is always a possibility of something being lost, no matter what. But, life teaches us that even though what we may lose may be something serious, we should not consider it to be a
disaster.